http://img302.imageshack.us/img302/9026/utahpreview2mg.jpg


There's a little preview of things to come...

So far it's comming out to be a very intense map...

lots of terrain, lots of variety, and looks like lots of fun.

the map is large, it takes a night to compile and it's not even past alpha stage...

you could fit donner inside one of the empty areas in this map I have to fill up...

I will keep this thread updated with WIP pictures...

Some zig-zags in those trenches would look nice ;)

that will come when you reach the 88's w/ the MG nests...

:D

From the forum rules:

4. Previews of maps must contain pictures of the map from in-game. Pictures from Hammer or a layout picture drawn with Microsoft Paint or any other drawing programs are not valid.

Yes...GL is right.


Please show us some in game pics of your map. I don't like opening floodgates to hammer shots where people ask "how do you like my map?"

if you have some techincal problem with using hammer that only a screenshot can communicate, then Hammer shots are ok. But in the past we've had people post a screencap of a tree or a wall in hammer and ask "what do you think of my map?" and call that a thread. Those threads do little good. Trust us.

Anyway, we would be very happy to see more pics of your map at runtime.

Oh...if your map is a big green field with a couple walls or trenches, the probable feedback will be:

Um....................................can you post more screens after you've made some real progress? Kthx.

It's not that people don't like you. It's that they want to see more developed maps to give feedback on.

Oh...part 2...there are grey areas to these "guidelines"...final say goes to Mods and Admins. :D

Haha. Good thing I didn't post any of *my* Hammer shots of the map I'm about to release in 2 hours time :p (though, I haven't even compiled it yet... not once... unless you count the dod1.3 compile/releases :p )

Looks like a good start, Poison... keep it up!

Oh... sorry about the hammer thing it's just it takes FOREVER to compile, I guess I could've just cropped the image so it LOOKS like a in-game...

>_>

...

I am making my own concrete texture for this map, because none of the ones they have right now are suitable for bunkers etc. I need to remake the one you see for the bunker because its too light blue...


and here's an ingame...
(the compile inverted the alpha on the textures, so the dirt/grass and sand/rock textures are backwards...)
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8305/dodutah400000ml.jpg

the top left green spot on the map is where the trenches are now..

not much to see yet. :rolleyes:

is that really just one big displacement map?

I'd add some terrain variety - looks to me that it's all of the same 'thickness' for lack of a better word.

It's not just one big displacement map... it has a variety of terrain...

the angle and lighting doesn't show very much, plus the fact that was way far away in order to be able to see the whole map in one image...

Might be a good idea to take some screenshots while running around on the ground so we can get a better idea of the topography and details, stuff like that. Hard to get a clear sense of the gameplay from just one overhead shot like that.

Still, it's pretty clear from that one screenshot there isn't much detail yet.

Are you going to incorporate advancing spanws in this map? Cos im sure there is noone on this earth that would like to run from one end of your map to the other, only to be shot (think original heutau anyone....) :D

just a though:cool:

That actually looks like a pretty realistic remake of Omaha beach. All the maps I've seen have a sheer cliff with bunkers right on the edge, when it was really a pretty gently sloping hill in most spots with the bunkers set far back.

I agree some in game screen shots would be MUCH better.

Give us a side view as well.

Ya, you're right still not much detail, but a lot of work went into getting the terrain to work together :D

there are no rockwall climbing supplies yet so I noclipped over the wall...

the wall is about 200ft tall, and the trails raise you another 50ft in elevation. i still need to work on them.. :D

http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40001.jpg

This picture is showing a vantage points from one of the trails on/from one of the bunkers.
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40002.jpg

This picture is looking back on the beach from a bunker.
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40003.jpg

Here is the trail that leads out the back of the map (it's blocked of), most beach maps fail to show how the Germans got in there.
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40004.jpg

Here's a tidbit of empty space I have to fill up:
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40005.jpg

Here's a look on the trenches I worked on yesterday.
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40006.jpg

A look from the trenches' defending bunker.
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40007.jpg

and from inside a trench...
http://home.comcast.net/~sgtpoisonmiller/dod_utah/dod_utah40008.jpg

(i didnt IMG tag them because the forum thinks there is too many.)

Trenches look VERY tall, and it's going to be hard to populate the landscape to make it feel realistic, mainly because it's so huge. Also, it seems like a sniper fest (especially on the beach)

i purposefully made the trenches headhieght so you can still shoot over them etc...

and I know what I am doing with the land... I already have it mapped out on paper what goes where etc...

and the beach is a sniper/mg/kar fest because that's how it really was...

they key to this is to rush and many of you will get past the snipers... once you hit the rock wall you are moderately safe (besides from any axis who decide to drop a nade down the scaling structures...)

and the trails are going to be a battle all on it's own... but once you get past the trenches, it should be fairly easy to sneak around without getting shot... getting the objectives is going to be pretty hard though...

and no there arn't going to be any advancing spawns...

But from the picture it looks like you can't even see out of the trench

you can.. you can see the top of people's heads from other trenches...

It seems like they shouldn't be as tall, IMHO.

I like the layout, will be interested in how this map turns out. Only prob I can see is the trench height. Lower it a few units and it should be fine.

Originally posted by SgtPoisonMiller
and no there arn't going to be any advancing spawns...

Cant see people wanting to die right by the last flag, then spawn, and spend 5 minutes running aaaaall the way back, but oh well :D

wow, good luck getting good gameplay out of such huge distances.

seems pretty bland, I'd add trees... plants... something.

try mixing up your displacement brush sizes also. It gives more of a variety in terrain structure

No advancing spawns? I like the idea of a huge map and everything but without advancing spawns, it would just be a pain to walk from the beach all the way up to the last flag. Just something that you should consider.

the landscape looks far more like omaha than utah, especially easy and dog sectors. utah, as far as i know was relatively flat, similar to juno. but especially with those paths leading off the beach, this looks very similar to easy sector, just below the american cemetary.


i think you should use other ways of creating routes than just bumps in the displacements though. use hedges or fences around fields, farmhouses, low walls etc. it'd also look a lot more realistic, whereas with how you've got it now, you'll have a hard time detailing all those ditches to look life-like.

Originally posted by TheSurgeon
the landscape looks far more like omaha than utah, especially easy and dog sectors. utah, as far as i know was relatively flat, similar to juno. but especially with those paths leading off the beach, this looks very similar to easy sector, just below the american cemetary.

I guess I could call it dod_easy... this was debated in other forums and I decided to change the name, to what I don't know yet...


Originally posted by TheSurgeon

i think you should use other ways of creating routes than just bumps in the displacements though. use hedges or fences around fields, farmhouses, low walls etc. it'd also look a lot more realistic, whereas with how you've got it now, you'll have a hard time detailing all those ditches to look life-like.

This map is NOWHERE near finished... when all is said and done you will have a complete and professional looking map (although maybe a bit big and expensive for some people's tastes).

When I said the trails leading up to the mainland is going to be a battle in itself, I mean there are going to be plenty of obsticles and cover to supply that battle.

I will use trees sparingly, due to their expense. I will most likely use shrubs and etc to restrict viewpoints and add scenery, and tons of other natural placements.

...


about advancing spawns.. the fact that it IS big makes it so that the opposing force is so spread out that with some skill in manuvering and etc, you can stay alive for a long time... the plan of the map is to make it so that the allies can hold back the axis or keep them away from a certain area long enough to capture the objective... meaning the map enforces team work... a couple guys shooting and one guy capping...

I mean... I MAY decide to put in advancing spawns.. but I want to see how gameplay without it goes first...

Trees and models in general aren't really that expensive with using combinations of min/max veiw distances, occulders, area portals, hint brushs, fog and so on. The map I'm currently making for the mod I work for has very large open areas, nothing like any of the maps released so far for dod source. And I've got well over 600-700 models in the open, I've restricted the long distance veiw to 8000 hammer units using fog and zclip, plus a combo of min/max distances works pretty well. I run an old comp with a gf4 ti4200 128mb gfx card, celeron cpu and a gig of ram and I get 20-70fps all over the map.

Try using the trees, I've got another map I was making for dod source and its got around 50-60 trees in a smallish area and it works pretty good without a major fps loss :)

I'm not good at pretending things have a hope, so this map just makes me cry.

I see not one visible landmark in the map, how will you know where you're going? The map is immense, the geometry is extremely unrealistic, stretched textures galore.

If this is your first map, I'm not suprised, but as you can see it's getting sub-par ratings. If it keeps going on like this, please don't release, it'll just be one of those custom maps that no one wants to play :/

Rule #1 as a mapper
DO NOT RELEASE YOUR FIRST MAP.

Originally posted by TheSurgeon
the landscape looks far more like omaha than utah, especially easy and dog sectors. utah, as far as i know was relatively flat, similar to juno. but especially with those paths leading off the beach, this looks very similar to easy sector, just below the american cemetary.

This is entirely true and I almost felt insulted when I saw this Omaha-remiscent map being called Utah beach. On a trip to Europe this past summer I visited three beaches, two of which being Omaha and Utah, as well as the cemetary atop Omaha beach.

I'm guessing you didn't want to fall into the overwhelming wealth of Omaha maps released, or being made, and decided to make a beach map and just calling it Utah without really looking into what Utah looks like at all.

Some things just make me angry on the internet. >=(

Originally posted by Scooty Puff Senior
I'm not good at pretending things have a hope, so this map just makes me cry.

I see not one visible landmark in the map, how will you know where you're going? The map is immense, the geometry is extremely unrealistic, stretched textures galore.

If this is your first map, I'm not suprised, but as you can see it's getting sub-par ratings. If it keeps going on like this, please don't release, it'll just be one of those custom maps that no one wants to play :/

Rule #1 as a mapper
DO NOT RELEASE YOUR FIRST MAP.

He did say he had a long way to go, so give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

hey man i think you should make the trenches about 48-64 units hight, in fact what i experimented with one time is i made the trench 64-80 units high in the middle, and had stepping blocks all along the side that were like 16 units high so that you were able to step up to shoot, and jump out of the trench, but also be able to back down into the trench for full cover

Originally posted by ajdale
This is entirely true and I almost felt insulted when I saw this Omaha-remiscent map being called Utah beach. On a trip to Europe this past summer I visited three beaches, two of which being Omaha and Utah, as well as the cemetary atop Omaha beach.

I'm guessing you didn't want to fall into the overwhelming wealth of Omaha maps released, or being made, and decided to make a beach map and just calling it Utah without really looking into what Utah looks like at all.

Some things just make me angry on the internet. >=(

In the summer I was in normandy and visited the beaches too, so I totally agree with you. The landscape there is flat, behind the beach there are some open fields, but nearly no houses at all. I also made some pictures, maybe I have some good ones to post here.

Ok I found a good one(Utah beach):
http://x11.putfile.com/12/36311294272.jpg

Originally posted by JohnnyBeverage
He did say he had a long way to go, so give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

ya and I have been mapping for around a year so... :p

in the meantime of the long trip this takes to perfect and finish, I am going to make some smaller, but decent quality maps. Simply because working on one map that huge takes a lot of patience and I don't have that much, so I will make other maps in order to exercise my experiance and have some fun along the way...

my next map I have drawn up is a SMALL map which I don't want to release much info about right yet... I may start working on it tonight...

I have many projects I am working on right now, such as: Designing and creating a working paintball grenade launcher which fires a paint-filled water balloon at least 50 yards, Designing a few new types of paintball landmines, claymores, and other anti-personell/diversion devices, creating these maps, and working on C++ coding.

through all of that I see this map being finished in around 2-4 months... that's if I work on it for around 10 hours a weekend...


Originally posted by ajdale

I'm guessing you didn't want to fall into the overwhelming wealth of Omaha maps released, or being made, and decided to make a beach map and just calling it Utah without really looking into what Utah looks like at all.

Entirely True...