WINTER MAP

[Shuffler]

Word to the wise.... on winter sets do not set wingman to WHITE. Del was my wingman in a scenario and as soon as we met the enemy, he lost sight of me. I ended up on the deck with a gaggle of 109s and 190s. He was up at alt going... where's Shuff? LOL

We had some laughs over the years about that one.

[Trev95]

I would love to see a winter MA map, take what victories we can get!   GV battles would get wild with winter skins, you wouldn't see my M18 until its to late.     Anyone know what Hitech drinks, we gotta bribe this man!

+1 Winter MA

[Easyscor]

I would love to see a winter MA map, take what victories we can get!   GV battles would get wild with winter skins, you wouldn't see my M18 until its to late.     Anyone know what Hitech drinks, we gotta bribe this man!

+1 Winter MA

It's the link in his sig

[Greebo]

I guess I didn't understand what Hitech was saying. We already have a winter terrset in the game, and I thought he was saying that someone would need to compile (legal?) winter skins and send them in to be included directly into the (existing winter?) terrset.

I thought he meant it would be the official method instead of a builder adding them to a single use terrain, but it seems I'm the only one thinking that. If I'm right, it begs the question of which skins, and if both vehicles AND planes are required. I can see the need for winter skins on all GVs, the C47 and Fi156, and maybe the Stuka, but after that...?

Re-reading what HT said perhaps you are right. I wasn't aware skins could be incorporated into a terrain set, but I guess a skin is just another texture as far as the game is concerned. My thought at the time was HT was just responding to my previous concerns about how uniformly white the winter tile set was and wanting some dark rock or patchy snow tiles. If a new or modded winter tile set was to be designed it would also be good if some of the ground clutter could be removed or changed. I seem to recall thinking at the time it was a bit odd to be driving through deep snow with fresh non-snow covered vegetation sprouting through it everywhere. I also wonder if some of the newer MA objects like bridges are snow covered in the current winter tile set. I'd be up for helping with such a project but I wouldn't be able to do it all by myself.

[Oldman731]

I wasn't aware skins could be incorporated into a terrain set

The Finn who made the old FinnRus map for the AvA...I'm embarrassed I can't recall his name...had appropriate skins linked into that map.  Only time I can remember having seen it.

- oldman

[Mister Fork]

The Finn who made the old FinnRus map for the AvA...I'm embarrassed I can't recall his name...had appropriate skins linked into that map.  Only time I can remember having seen it.

- oldman

...wasn't it Panzzer?

[USBP1969]

I suspect that I am not understanding very much about map making, but the WINTERMA seems OK except that the towns are not the same, but that could just be "variety." 

[Oldman731]

...wasn't it Panzzer?

  My recollection is that the name began with a "K".

- oldman

[ccvi]

  My recollection is that the name began with a "K".

Kantori?

[Easyscor]

Greebo, I've always preferred Ghostdancer's tiles on the winter terrset for the game because it's a less deep winter white. I wonder if that's what Hitech was talking about.

Load avaetow into a custom arena and take a look at the combination. I think it is the best possible, except for my white-washed GVs not being up to HTC standards. Still, they work very well and show what an MA might look like.
If Hitech is referring to the a desire to use those terrset textures, I don't think Ghostdancer wouldn't object and they were used in-game for a couple of SEA terrains as well as avaetow.

avaetow has the default eto summer diffuse textures swapped out, and then the whole package, _E, _D etc, in the terrset/texsrc folder is installed into the terrset04 set. The GVs were installed into the normal texsrc folder. That gives it all the winter trees, clutter, and pre-built winter bases etc. + the GVs.

If I understand Hitech correctly, including the GVs in the default package for the current 04 winter and any proposed winter terrain (05?) would be a best possible solution.

See what you think.

Edit: opps, forgot to mention I had to swap out the winter .swa files to put the trees in the same place. Simple enough to change the names of each summer tree type to the appropriate winter tree type. I must say, it wasn't an exact name for name work, there were gaps in the winter tree set. All of the work I did is available for the asking. If the files weren't so large, I'd already have posted them.

[Mister Fork]

Kantori?

Thanks ccvi - That's him. Kantorri built the FinRus original map. I haven't seen him around for a while.

[Greebo]

Thanks for the suggestion Easyscor, before I do any more work on Bearpit/WinterMA I will check out avaetow. From what you say I think I probably could make my own terrset05 winter tile set with the winter skins included but if I did so I think I'd also want to change some of the clutter from terrset04. From long experience I'll also need to make absolutely sure that what I want to do is allowed for an MA terrain before spending any time on this.

[Greebo]

I suspect that I am not understanding very much about map making, but the WINTERMA seems OK except that the towns are not the same, but that could just be "variety." 

WinterMA as it was uploaded does not have a proper road and rail system which means it would not be allowed as an MA terrain. Since then I have added the roads and railways, done some work on adjusting firing arcs for shore batteries. Also some detail work on some of the spawn to base routes, adding bridges, checking terrain slopes and changing ground textures to create clear firing areas and ambush spots. However all this work was done with the Med terrain set, if I changed back to a winter tile set I'd have to redo most of this for the new ground textures. Even if I kept the Med tile set there is still a lot more of this detail work to do.

Designing an MA terrain consists of a small amount of interesting work like laying out the fields and designing the topography followed by a large amount of tedious micro management and bug checking. For this terrain I've done most of the former and not much of the latter, so it's a question of getting motivated to do all the nitty gritty stuff that still needs to be done. Assuming we read HT correctly and creating a winter tile set with winter skins is allowed then that might give me an incentive to finish the terrain. However it would also depend on whether doing stuff like changing ground clutter in the tile set is allowed and my past experience has been that doing anything remotely interesting usually isn't for an MA terrain. To be honest I'm not in the mood to work on terrains at the moment but when I am, have got time and know more about what I want to do I'll bug HT with some questions.

[ccvi]

Why does a winter-terrain need to be a separate terrain? Wouldn't it be sufficient if for every terrset X there's a corresponding terrset Xw, which is... white? All trees at the same spots, except covered in snow instead of leaves?

[Easyscor]

I'll also need to make absolutely sure that what I want to do is allowed for an MA terrain before spending any time on this.

Absolutely! Yes.