Finally the Topography is finished.

[DubiousKB]

No joy for the GV's on this map

 


yikes...

Bustr must have a forehead vein as big as an elephent's trunk to spend time and energy into helping the community to get a response like this.




Keep fighting the good fight Bustr! Oink away man, oink away....

[Max]

No joy for the GV's on this map

[bustr]

Greebo,

There is an order of tasks for laying down cosmetic only roads\rivers or AI resupply. First get all your topography squared away, then lay in all objects like fields\strats\ports and so forth. I'm going to install the GV spawn paths before thinking about roads but, I will have to lay down rivers becasue I need bridges. So I'll have to create some quick local blueprint maps for paths at each field or come up with a standard repeatable arrangement. 

When you setup a river or road that is only cosmetic, lay them down, tweak them until they are what you want. Only save them if you have to walk away, don't be tempted to build to look at them offline. When they are tweeked into place, save and run the mask. When it's done check to see that it removed trees and bushes. Then run build to check it out offline.

After that if everything is how you want it, do the create all for roads and tracks to lay in the resupply system. Same thing, tweak them all into place and only save if you have to walk away. Then when you think it's all in place, run mask, then build. Yes Hitech...irritating....


Here is a test today from my micro hill test terrain. This area is 6 mile diameter wich is the average for all fields, inside of which I applied a micro hill texture for tank combat. I will be applying things like this around feilds with GV spawns now to make tank combat more interesting.








Those dark blobs on the ground under the road to the left where it curves to the right across the hill was where trees stuck up through the road before I ran the mask. What tank ace in this game in his right mind is going to drive around out in the open on an exposed road. Buttttt.....waaa we want cosmetic anything and everything...waaaaa.....

[Groth]

 Outstanding.

[bustr]

The more I stare at this working out the GV spawn paths this zoomed in, the more I'm convinced I'll just put one CV task group per country. Unless Hitech wants to make a cruiser task group modeled on the BB task group. This is just too tight to have BB running around with 22 mile range guns.

[Dundee]

Hey I just stated my opinion........ The  subscribers will pass judgment as always

[bustr]

You got caught with your foot in the shark's mouth on pismo beach.

[filmbob67]

No joy for the GV's on this map

Maybe add a GV island in the middle so us flyboys can bomb them =)

[bustr]

Then feel free to build a terrain if it's as easy as telling me to just throw things into the project. I guess you and dundee are at pismo beach together with the shark. Just don't cross any state lines with that fish. They might get you on something similar to immortal porpoises rap......

Poor shark.....

[1stpar3]

Then feel free to build a terrain if it's as easy as telling me to just throw things into the project. I guess you and dundee are at pismo beach together with the shark. Just don't cross any state lines with that fish. They might get you on something similar to immortal porpoises rap......

Poor shark.....

WOW! That brought back some laughs! If memory serves...it included Gulls, an Stayed Lion and Immortal Porpoises?  Looks GREAT Bustr, 

[Greebo]

I've had the basic topography and field and SP placement on my next map pretty much done since the AH3 beta Bustr. I changed the terrain set to Med recently. All I have done since the roads update though is use the create all button to make all the straight roads and play around with the editing tools a bit, been too busy with skinning since then. When I read your post saying 5 mile roads I thought there might have been some HTC MA map edict to that effect, although thinking about it I now recall HT saying that strat road length no longer matters as roads can each have more than one convoy running at a time in AH3. I still have to do all the spawn-to-target terrain editing, having the roads makes that a lot more interesting to do. So I may do a bit more on my map in a week or two after I do a few more skins.

I kind of like the idea of roads creating tree-less areas as it creates good ambush points for defenders. My current thinking is winding non-strat roads laid between SPs and the target objects that are sometimes bisected by a crossing strat road or by a bridge crossing a stream. These would make for some nice choke points and open areas for ambushes. One thing I am a little unsure about is what killing a truck convoy actually does to rebuild times in AH3. If it is a powerful effect I wouldn't route strat roads so close to attacking GVs that the field was permanently down.

[SlipKnt]

Wow, Bustr!!!

Thank you so much for the time and effort you are pouring into this.  One day, when I get another PC, I want to learn this fine art.

Very excited!!!

 

[Slade]

Nice! 

[bustr]

I've had the basic topography and field and SP placement on my next map pretty much done since the AH3 beta Bustr. I changed the terrain set to Med recently. All I have done since the roads update though is use the create all button to make all the straight roads and play around with the editing tools a bit, been too busy with skinning since then. When I read your post saying 5 mile roads I thought there might have been some HTC MA map edict to that effect, although thinking about it I now recall HT saying that strat road length no longer matters as roads can each have more than one convoy running at a time in AH3. I still have to do all the spawn-to-target terrain editing, having the roads makes that a lot more interesting to do. So I may do a bit more on my map in a week or two after I do a few more skins.

I kind of like the idea of roads creating tree-less areas as it creates good ambush points for defenders. My current thinking is winding non-strat roads laid between SPs and the target objects that are sometimes bisected by a crossing strat road or by a bridge crossing a stream. These would make for some nice choke points and open areas for ambushes. One thing I am a little unsure about is what killing a truck convoy actually does to rebuild times in AH3. If it is a powerful effect I wouldn't route strat roads so close to attacking GVs that the field was permanently down.

When you implement create all roads, the road starts on the east edge of the field and runs east in a straight line. Same for tracks. I forgot to ask Hitech if I can skip that and manually lay down a resupply road if I follow the placement rules. I started seeing problems between spawns and tank combat areas with where the supply road would run. Guess I have some testing to do on my terrain I'm testing micro hills for tank combat. There were some AH2 spawn battle areas next to feilds that always seemed counter intuitive to why the supply road ran in curves up the center of the combat area. I watched guys lay up in hiding places and wipe out the convoy all night while a few feilds over the GV spawn was in a bowl with no cover feeding 100 kills a night to players. douH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...... 

I'll let you know since I just had an idea about running a resupply road with none resupply feeders for cosmetic appeal. And how I'm going to stuff my tracks into that 8 mile diameter strat complex in each country. I'm taking the properties GUI for the paths at face value for what condition spawns trucks and trains, and what condition makes it inert eye candy. I'll get up close to one of the default resupply roads and see what the short separation distance is between the road end and the edge of the field object. Knowing Hitech it's critical to know the width of that tiny gap. We do have a new tool to check for paths running across objects......

[bustr]

I'm amazed you gents never ask questions like how do you go about setting up all the fields and spawn paths. Generally it's, throw in what "I" want so there on you or, it's gonna crash and burn just becausssssss..........


Some of you know the skinners like Greebo build those incredible skins with up to 70+ layers in an art program. I make the terrain editor create a 2048x2048 1:1 map of the workspace and use that as the background layer for a multi layer art file. Then I have a layer for field\strat locations which is how I early on transfer the locations onto the physical terrain as those tan place holder squares. That is how they so perfectly fit into the topography. I pull the universe around the ship, not the ship through space.

Then when the topography is finished I produce a new map, add the field\strat layer to it, and begin adding layers for first the field numbers, then GV spawn arrows. And becasue the map is a 1:1 8pixel = 1mile in the arena. I can draw spawn arrows on the art file to where I will place them on the terrain. And I can spitball topographically a good idea of where I will run my resupply roads and rail tracks to cut down on surprises. With respect to Hitech who has thrown me some last minute surprises for my terrains......


Country-1 numbered and feild types identified. The red rings and lines are two different layers to help me number inside of one country at a time and follow a left-right then back right-left path up to the strats as I number. Now I have to do the spawn path layer, and it's amazing how combat will either flow well thorough a country or grind to a clunker by how you setup vBases and vehicle spawns.