WINTER MAP

[USBP1969]

Howdy - I was browsing through AH maps and came across WINTERMA.  Any chance of having that map for on-line use? I am currently residing in South Carolina and have seen snow but once in 21 years, so maybe folks up north are already tired of white, but I am enjoying flying on that map and it would indeed be "refreshing" for the MA.

[Easyscor]

Unless the terrain builder furnished replacement skins for the defaults, there are issues with GVs standing out like a sore thumb against the white background. Even selecting winter skins won't help, because as a player, you can disable seeing skins.

[USBP1969]

That map has snow on all the trees and bushes, so I believe that a GV could still hide as before. I can't test it though since it is currently an off-line map. The GV's would, I believe, stand out while crossing open ground a bit more though, but is still quite a refreshing map.  One could say that it is even a "cool" map.

[Greebo]

When AH3 was under development I started making an MA terrain called Bearpit, partly because I was bored as there were no new skin shapes being made then and partly to help test the beta AH3 terrain editor. In the end I stopped working on it when HTC asked me to update CraterMA to be the new default AH3 terrain. When the new winter tile set was introduced I applied it to Bearpit and renamed it WinterMA.

Not sure why I uploaded this terrain to the host as it was nowhere near finished. Later on I did a bit more work on the Bearpit terrain but with the Med tile set, adding a road system and reworking some of the spawn to base routes with canyons, rivers and bridges as choke points. I reverted to the Med set because the winter tile set seemed just too uniformly white, I'd have liked a few patchy snow tiles or bare rock tiles to break things up a bit. Also the ETO and winter tile sets are too tree-heavy for my taste, the Med set is more open. Then as Easyscor mentioned there is the issue of players turning off player skins in order to gain an advantage. I don't think embedded skins are allowed for an MA terrain and even if I could embed winter skins for just the 3 or 4 main MA GV rides it would bump the terrain file size up considerably.

Having said all that if there is enough demand for a winter MA terrain I might be persuaded to finish this terrain with that tile set once I get bored with skinning P-38s.

[turt21]

LAst winter during Jeager's tank nights he introduced a winter map. If you picked a winter skin for your tank it was very hard to see. So it WILL work. It made the night very interesting and great fun. Kudo's to him!

[Greebo]

If you pick a winter skin on a winter MA map then yes you will be very hard for other players to see. So knowing this what GVers in particular will tend to do is to disable other players' skins at their end. This way whatever winter skin you or any other player has chosen on your PC they will only see default skins. As a keen skinner I am loathe to encourage this sort of behaviour which is why I am ambivalent about making a winter MA terrain. I'd hope that even these win-at-all-costs players would re-enable skins for the rest of the MA terrains but then again some might not bother.

[Easyscor]

Greebo, as you are heavily involved with HTC on the skinning side, you are probably the only one who could insert approved winter skins into an MA winter terrain. I lacked the time and inclination to create historical skins in avaetow so chose to use white-washed skins to mitigate the issue. If Hitech would approve for GVs only, that's 23 skins counting anti-air and LVT's. Not too bad for the download.
hehe, I'm not volunteering you here, but I don't know if anyone else can pull it off for the MA.

 

[Greebo]

My thought was that embedding any skin into an MA terrain would be against HTC's MA map rules. From past experience doing stuff like this is often forbidden for an MA terrain. So I'd need to get clarification from HT on whether it was OK to embed the skins and on how on big the resultant terrain file could be allowed to get before doing any work on this.

Assuming that it is OK then I think it would only be necessary to add winter skins for the most popular MA GVs such as the Panzer IV H, Panther, T34/85 and so on. I suspect that 75% of the GVs used in the MA consist of no more than 6 or 7 types. If just those were supplied with default winter skins then its unlikely most players would bother to disable player skins for the rest. Does anyone have a percentage breakdown of MA GV usage by vehicle type?

I can supply winter skins for any of the German GVs except the flak panzers but for any Allied tanks I'd have to ask other skinners if they would be prepared to contribute their work.

[CptTrips]

My thought was that embedding any skin to an MA terrain would be against HTC's MA map rules. From past experience doing stuff like this is often forbidden for an MA terrain. So I'd need to get clarification from HT on whether it was OK to embed the skins and on how on big the resultant terrain file could be allowed to get before doing any work on this.

I believe you are right, and the reasons are understandable. 

However for winter maps, it seems obvious on why a special waiver would be reasonable.

Hopefully you get that flexibility. It would be a nice change of pace.

 ,
CptTrips
   

[hitech]

No skins in ma terrain. If a big desire for it some one can make a texture set in a terrain and I'll make a new terrset from them.

I would also send the tree textures to be converted.

HiTech

[Greebo]

That's a shame, but not unexpected.

[USBP1969]

I am not obviously checked out on the technicalities or the problems that would be encountered in setting up a winter map for on-line use.

I have been flying for fun on the WINTERMA in the off line maps and I love it! Since it available for off line use I thought that it wouldn't be hard to have it on line. Oh well.

[CptTrips]

I am not obviously checked out on the technicalities or the problems that would be encountered in setting up a winter map for on-line use.

I have been flying for fun on the WINTERMA in the off line maps and I love it! Since it available for off line use I thought that it wouldn't be hard to have it on line. Oh well.

So what I get  is yes, a map could be used with the winter textures but players could use non-winter vehicle and plane textures, which means most would.

So would planes and vehicles on a winter map using non-winter skins be a deal-breaker?  I don't think so.  Not ideal, but not a deal breaker.  It would still be cool to fly over cool winter terrain.

No sense making perfect the enemy of good.

$0.02,
CptTrips

[Greebo]

The problem is not what skins players pick for themselves on a winter map. What bothers me is players turning off the ability to see other players' skins in order to gain a playing advantage and perhaps not turning them back on again when the map moves on. Given how many GVers turned off all ground detail in AH2 to gain an advantage I can see this being a big problem. As a skinner I do not want this to happen, so sorry but if I do take the time in to finish this terrain some day it probably won't be with the winter tile set.

[Easyscor]

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...?