Karlovka 2:

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Le0

did you try by going into terrain mode and then select your heightmap in the export panel, then clicking insert in current and only heightmap?

Anyway, I often feel that laying out your terrain by hand is more efficient

Well the last time I did level editing was with the UnrealEd, and things are slightly different in the UDK.

And the video tutorials I kept finding were either using a different program (yet noted as being UDK) or the process shown just didn't work.

I tried to use the Terrain mode and selected the heightmap, which was a properly sized 16-bit grayscale RAW file, it added it, but my terrain remained flat as if nothing was imported.

But now it has all the hills & the river, and the basic layout is all done now.... I might have to nudge a few things around, but it's pretty well done now. Texture and land details are next.

Originally Posted by Xendance

You have to convert the heightmap into the G16 format first.
I think you can use this program to do it.
http://www.lilchips.com/hmesbeta.asp

Ah, so making the file in Photoshop doesn't cut it?

Originally Posted by Devil_Inside

Hey mate, that's great news.
I started playing RO from ROOST, so I've never played this map, but damn, I miss that kind of open terrain maps in RO2.
Wish you luck and enough patience to finish it.

With lots of total conversion mods and mod teams, it seems that there are no level designers left in the community that might work on maps for RO2. So I'm really glad that there are still people working on something. It's also great that you keep posting updates on your progress. Keep up the good work!

Thanks.... most times when I start something, I often don't get far and never finish it due to one reason or another, but if what I start begins to unfold as I expected and I see some good progress, I usually see it through and finish it.

As mentioned before, I was going to start working on a mod, but there are a number of things I liked in previous RO's that I'd like to bring back into RO2, such as maps.

Right now, although the terrain is basically finished, it needs to scale up a lot more than what I have now. When I test out the terrain, my character is way too big.

Once I scale this out to the size I'm looking for, the map should be 2-3 times larger than the original Karlovka, so there will be piles of places to move around and with 64 players, should be pretty interesting.

Tonight, once I get the textures on the terrain, I'll make some screen shots of what I have done so far..... you should certainly see a resemblance to the original Karlovka.

[PsYcHo126]

Why are you guys disliking his posts?
I don't understand this...
However, looks great! I hope we'll see more soon

[TrOOper]

Originally Posted by PsYcHo126

Why are you guys disliking his posts?
I don't understand this...
However, looks great! I hope we'll see more soon

there are a lot of butt hurt gloom and doomers still a round.. they just cant stand that anybody could like RO2.....

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by TrOOper

there are a lot of butt hurt gloom and doomers still a round.. they just cant stand that anybody could like RO2.....

That and it would appear a few members in here have it out for me specifically..... mostly because my personal opinion and how I post doesn't match up perfectly to what they expect of me.

..... must have been something I said.

[Xendance]

Originally Posted by Cpt-Praxius

Ah, so making the file in Photoshop doesn't cut it?

No as far as I know, G16 is an unreal engine specific format and you can't save as it with photoshop.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Update:

I used the TerreSculptor program and imported my height map, made some tweaks, and this is what I get:



I think it's actually turned out better than my manually drawn out terrain.

The flat areas on the outer corners will be blocked off by trees so they're impassable and also so that players won't see the edge of the map, but everything else within will be accessible by players for sniping, MG's, AT's, riflemen, etc.

Once I add the trees and more detail to the terrain, it should start looking pretty good.

[SolitarioSoldat]

Hey Praxius awesome to see people like you being motivated and having map modding as a hobby.

You guys do a big favor to the community.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by SolitarioSoldat

Hey Praxius awesome to see people like you being motivated and having map modding as a hobby.

You guys do a big favor to the community.

Thanks, it's a hobby I kind of drifted away from for a few years, so I'm a little rusty.... but with any luck, my education in Animation/3D Modeling from college way back will come back to me

I've always wanted to be in Animation/3D Modeling/Game Development, but there wasn't much work for that where I lived and I ended up getting into Photography/Graphic Design/Advertisement instead.

It's still an enjoyable field, but not exactly what I was looking for in life.... this brings me back to what I used to enjoy.

[PermenentMarker]

Originally Posted by SolitarioSoldat

Hey Praxius awesome to see people like you being motivated and having map modding as a hobby.

You guys do a big favor to the community.

+1

You are doing an amazing job.
I can't for the life of me understand who and why anyone downvoted many of your posts on the first page... at least if they would post constructive criticism as of why... it blows my mind away because that's quite a bit of hard work you are pulling off here.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Just another update:

I refined the map better than what is shown above. I brought it into UDK and started smoothing out the terrain more. The German spawn area (Where they spawned in the original map) has been refined so that the hills are easier to walk on and around and stretched out the side hills for riflemen and marksmen to access. I'll probably spend much of the weekend working on the terrain. Once I test it all out by doing a little stroll across the map and can get up and around all the areas I'd like to, I'll then move forward with textures and other details for the terrain.



Oh yeah.... and the map is frick'n huge..... just slightly larger than the original Karlovka.

Speaking of which, I'm going to re-install the mod on my system so I can play around in the original Karlovka map in order to keep my reference fresh.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Update:



The Terrain is now smoothed out and prepped to my satisfaction. Players can now access just about every aspect of this map. Edges of the map will be blocked off by tree lines and rocks, etc.

Above is the layout of where objectives, buildings and bridges will be located. Green boxes are buildings, red X's are road blocks, gray squares are bridges, red zones are the cap objectives..... the green lines show the general approach the Germans would take as the offensive team.

Oh and the red squares are the ammo caches.

I also forgot to note the buildings at the german spawn.

[Hobitt]

Awsome work! cant wait to play on this map!!!

[{Core}Steven]

Keep the updates flowing
I suspect the first wave of maps will have high community interest.

[Hobitt]

And what about static mg emplacments will they be added?

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Hobitt

And what about static mg emplacments will they be added?

I'll do my best to make sure this map has every element RO2 can muster... not only do I want it to be a full combined arms map, but also have every other element in RO2, including MG placements, many things to use for cover....

Oh, and when I was testing the map by having a little stroll, just about every hill on the map has great long distance views. From the German Hill by their first spawn, you can see all the way to where the train station will be.

Of course, trees and other objects will be blocking some of the view, but people who have been wanting some long distance combat should be pleased.

[6S.Maraz]

Very nice project, thanks!
Is it known at this stage how large will this map be? Compared to size of bridges (assuming bridge width about 10m), seems to be a rather small map.

Maraz

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by 6S.Maraz

Very nice project, thanks!
Is it known at this stage how large will this map be? Compared to size of bridges (assuming bridge width about 10m), seems to be a rather small map.

Maraz

When I was walking around and as I was originally planning, the bridges will be more or less the same size as the original bridges. The river is also a lot deeper.... and wider at Bridge 2, thus a larger bridge will be there.

Below are two screenshots:



^ This is the view from standing at the bottom of the river, looking up at where Bridge 1 would be placed. (West)



^ Bridge 2 (East)

They'll be roughly the same size, but I plan to make them wider than the originals... and along the sides, there will be debris and other forms of cover for troops and anti tank classes, but the centre will be clear for tanks and HT's to get through after the roadblocks are blasted.

If things do seem small, then I'll do some scaling before I get too far.

[Xendance]

You edit without terrain tessellation? Or did you just disable the LOD in order to show the terrain?

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Xendance

You edit without terrain tessellation? Or did you just disable the LOD in order to show the terrain?

At the time of the images, I imported the height map as it was, made manual modification on many elements of the terrain for accessibility, and made the wireframe visible while testing the map. I haven't touched anything with tessellation or the level of detail..... chances are, I'll be reducing the level of polys on the terrain before I get too crazy with other things, as I doubt it'll need to be that detailed. What you're seeing is done with the UDK's default settings.

No textures have been applied yet, as I can't seem to find any snow textures in the UDK, thus I'll have to make them from scratch, which isn't an issue, I just have to find something that tells me what's a decent size for a texture file in UDK.

I worked on getting the look and feel right before I started scaling or modifying the size or amount of polys.

Not sure if that answers your question...... as mentioned before, I'm pretty well re-learning how to do things sine the last time I did any of this was in 2004 and in UnrealEd.

Originally Posted by plex

i hope we get a beta version of the map to try out and play with before its totally completed! i just want to try a new map asap.. sick of the vanilla maps =/

Praxius, do you think you could help or teach me to make my own map? im interested in making some basic even sided maps (symmetrical) that would be good for competitive play.

i sent you a PM.

Well most of my experience is with using Maya and out dated information with UnrealEd..... I'm learning UDK as I go with this map.... I'm not too sure how much I could help or offer.

In regards to Maya, I did make a tutorial for how to model a StugIII back before RO1 was released in the old RO forums, but I can't find those forums anymore (think they were shut down)

[radix]

Nice work Praxius.

+1 from me.