Karlovka 2:

[Britney Federline]

I haven't made a map myself, but it seems like most of the gameplay is determined by terrain, so take your time on this part. It looks like the basic dynamic will be determined by the "multiple bowls" structure of the terrain--long range sharpshooters will run for the hills, and smgers will run around the flat parts. Is that the plan?

I think that if I were designing that terrain, I'd have an overwhelming urge to put a high sniper post behind and above the initial german spawn so that someone picking the german sniper role could waste the entire round trying to make 1km sniper shots while the rest of the players actually were productive.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Britney Federline

I haven't made a map myself, but it seems like most of the gameplay is determined by terrain, so take your time on this part. It looks like the basic dynamic will be determined by the "multiple bowls" structure of the terrain--long range sharpshooters will run for the hills, and smgers will run around the flat parts. Is that the plan?

Indeed, I want to focus the riflemen, marksmen for the hills and windows of the buildings in the village, MG's would be support and either take up a hill looking down at their targets, or in a number of crossfire locations by roads via bushes and other planned debris.

Assaults, Engineers, Commanders, and most of the Riflemen on the German side will probably be taking the roadways behind most of the hills to avoid long rang shots at them, and use trees and bushes for their approach to the Bridges. German MG's would take up the central hill to lay down suppression at either Bridge 1 or 2 when needed, the Commander for the Russians would most likely take up the larger building past bridge 1 for arty support (as well as protection) and the German Commander would take up the central hill between B1 and 2 where I'll have a forward command post with radio and ammo supply so he can do the same for his team.

Tanks and transports would most likely be restricted to the roads, but would still have a wide angle of attack.

Anti Tank Classes would use their own discretion as to whether hills or buildings would be a good vantage point, or if they want to ambush HT's and Tanks as they cross the bridges by hiding around the corner and having a low angle to the armour and being very close for penetration.

If I can figure it out, I'll make sure this map has bot way points and if they're not ordered to do anything, I'll see if it is possible to assign each class to take up certain spots of the map to put up a good fight.....

As an example, I'd probably make the MG, AT and Marksman bots camp hills for support, and have pretty much every other class attack.... though I don't know how you'd make a bot blow up a road block.

I think that if I were designing that terrain, I'd have an overwhelming urge to put a high sniper post behind and above the initial german spawn so that someone picking the german sniper role could waste the entire round trying to make 1km sniper shots while the rest of the players actually were productive.

Well the central hill with the command post is kind of what I was gearing that for. Once the bridges and village are secured, the marksman could remain there and cover a good distance. If you look back on the image in Post #32, the central hill should have a clear view all the way through Village all the way down towards the last road blocks... all the way on the other side of the map, but won't have a very good vantage point of the Farm or the Train Station...... but by that time, they can move up to the hill next to the village which the Germans would occupy and pretty well cover everything.

Plus, if things go as planned, it will be night time and there will be a level of snow fall to reduce visible distance..... but I'll play around with settings so you can still see a good distance and isn't too difficult for marksman and riflemen.

I was thinking of blizzard conditions, but that probably wouldn't be too fun for people wanting to shoot long distances, so it'll probably be just a light flurry.

[Britney Federline]

Sounds good. I hope you have smooth progress on this from here on out.

One thing I just thought of for the decoration: I think that having some easily describable landmarks helps people situate themselves and their movements, and these can be as small as "the clump of three trees," "the mailbox," "the blue fence," "the broken lamppost," etc. It can be hard for me to help coordinate with teammates when too many elements look like each other--I'd rather say "run to the Fire Station" than say "run through the forest for a few seconds then turn right a little and then to that building to the left in front of you."

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Britney Federline

Sounds good. I hope you have smooth progress on this from here on out.

One thing I just thought of for the decoration: I think that having some easily describable landmarks helps people situate themselves and their movements, and these can be as small as "the clump of three trees," "the mailbox," "the blue fence," "the broken lamppost," etc. It can be hard for me to help coordinate with teammates when too many elements look like each other--I'd rather say "run to the Fire Station" than say "run through the forest for a few seconds then turn right a little and then to that building to the left in front of you."

Indeed... Once I get the basics, cap zones, objectives, etc. all taken care of, I'll be adding in the trees, fences, lamp posts, etc., which most will be destroyable by explosions or tanks rolling over, etc.

There will be a few things that won't be destroyable of course, but once the RO2 SDK is available for me to use, I'll know more of what can be done and what will be too much on resources, etc. I could get the beta SDK, but just never got around to it and just waiting for the full version.

My previous map design was with UT2004 and was an interior map & somewhat small.... this is my first time making an environment (outside) map, so there's going to be a few new things I'll be going through.

[Six_Ten]

Originally Posted by Cpt-Praxius

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.

Gumrak and Factory are both winter maps with good snow shaders. Use placeholders until you get the SDK.

[Le0]

Originally Posted by Cpt-Praxius

Indeed... Once I get the basics, cap zones, objectives, etc. all taken care of, I'll be adding in the trees, fences, lamp posts, etc., which most will be destroyable by explosions or tanks rolling over, etc.

There will be a few things that won't be destroyable of course, but once the RO2 SDK is available for me to use, I'll know more of what can be done and what will be too much on resources, etc. I could get the beta SDK, but just never got around to it and just waiting for the full version.

My previous map design was with UT2004 and was an interior map & somewhat small.... this is my first time making an environment (outside) map, so there's going to be a few new things I'll be going through.

I make my own materials all the time, finding textures on the net then making them seamless and creating a normal map using CrazyBump or Xnormal.

Yoshiro had this to recommend regarding texture size in this thread:

Originally Posted by Yoshiro

Normal Maps & Texture Maps

We author most character and world normal maps and texture maps at 2048x2048 resolution. We feel this is a good target for games running on mid-range PC's. Next-generation consoles may require reducing texture resolution by 2X, and low-end PC's up to 4X, depending on texture count and scene complexity.

Anything less than 1024x1024 looks really ugly in game in my opinion, I always use either 1024x1024 or 2048x2048. And as Six Ten mentioned there are already a few snow shaders present in the RO2 SDK.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Le0

I make my own materials all the time, finding textures on the net then making them seamless and creating a normal map using CrazyBump or Xnormal.

Yoshiro had this to recommend regarding texture size in this thread:


Anything less than 1024x1024 looks really ugly in game in my opinion, I always use either 1024x1024 or 2048x2048. And as Six Ten mentioned there are already a few snow shaders present in the RO2 SDK.

Thanks for that, everything else I came across seemed dated or lacked any real details on the size of the textures.... everything was revolved around 512x512 textures, which to me seemed a little small for today's games.

I'll certainly be going no less than 1024x1024.... and until I do get the SDK to get the existing RO2 textures, I'll just whip up some textures of my own. I did create a snow texture a couple of days ago, however it was 512x512.

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by plex

can you post some screenshots as soon as you get some textures down?

im so excited to see how its comming together

Thanks
-plex

Oh I will.... I just PM's a mod requesting access to the Beta SDK so I could use existing details in RO2 now, rather than starting some elements from scratch which might not match up to the "Feel" of an RO2 Atmosphere.... and save me a bit of time.

[Sensemann]

@Cpt-Praxius

Sounds good. I wish you good luck for this project. Karlovka was also one of my favorites and I can pretty-well run around the map in my head

If I had the skill and the time to do a map myself, I would do Jucha for sure. Sad thing I can't.

One question: Are you planning to make the bridges being the capzones or the footholds on the opposite side (on the Russian defensive positions)?

Also, one suggestion: For the bridge on the right side (view from GER side), please consider giving them a higher position to cover the bridge as well. If I remember correctly, in the mod days, Russians could always keep control of the right bridge (their left), because Germans could not hit defenders. A well-placed russian MG could always stop the engineers for too long to blow down the barricades.

Great work so far and I am very much looking forward to it!

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Sensemann

@Cpt-Praxius

Sounds good. I wish you good luck for this project. Karlovka was also one of my favorites and I can pretty-well run around the map in my head

If I had the skill and the time to do a map myself, I would do Jucha for sure. Sad thing I can't.

One question: Are you planning to make the bridges being the capzones or the footholds on the opposite side (on the Russian defensive positions)?

Jucha was pretty and very well done, but I didn't play it often as for some reason that map killed my FPS, while every other map was just fine. *shrugs*

The Bridges will not be cap zones, just pathways to cap zones. I plan to change the original cap setup a bit, where Bridge 1 will just be the road block objective, Bridge 2 will be the two road block objectives, and the cap zone for Bridge 1 will be changed into the "Village Cap Zone" and the Germans must secure/occupy the Village before moving towards the farm...... the farm must be captured before they can take out the train station (ammo cache) and the last road block leading to the last village (russian's last spawn)

Also, one suggestion: For the bridge on the right side (view from GER side), please consider giving them a higher position to cover the bridge as well. If I remember correctly, in the mod days, Russians could always keep control of the right bridge (their left), because Germans could not hit defenders. A well-placed russian MG could always stop the engineers for too long to blow down the barricades.

Indeed, it was pretty difficult for Germans to take out Bridge 2 if the Russians spread their defence out decently.... if there was a Russian MG & AT-Class, they could hold down Bridge 2 against Half-Tracks, Tanks and Infantry due to the lack of available space for the Germans to move around in.

I have greatly expanded the available area players can move in that area and will be including a number of trees, rocks, debris, rubble, etc. for additional cover for the Germans. I will probably include wooden fences near the bridges for the engineers to use for cover...... I'm thinking wooden fences because I want the Germans to have a slightly easier way of getting to the Road Blocks, but not too easy that it's almost impossible for the Russians to pick them off as they approach (Germans could use the fence for cover and to block their approach, but can be shot through if the Russians detect them)

At the same time, I have also expanded the area the Russians can move around on the left side of Bridge 2 (Russian side-Left), which if I remember correctly, was too steep to climb or use in the original.

Great work so far and I am very much looking forward to it!

Thanks.... I've slowed down my development on this project until I can get ahold of the SDK, but will be playing around with the map on and off until it is available.

[Golf33]

Sounding good!

[LegendarySSJ4]

Any updates?

[Polshevik]

There will be updates if the mods will actually decide to give him and other requesting people the SDK...

[Xendance]

Originally Posted by Polshevik

There will be updates if the mods will actually decide to give him and other requesting people the SDK...

Moderators can't give keys, only TWI employees

[Cpt-Praxius]

Yeah, when I get my hands on the SDK I'll continue work again on this map, but until then, it's on hold.... but not forgotten.

[Le0]

Originally Posted by plex

come on TWI please, fix ping issues (first).. that way people can actually play the game!

THEN release SDK (second) as soon as possible so we can get the AMAZING maps poeple are making!

then the game will start to grow and we can live in prosperity happily ever after

meh.. what do i know =/

They are currently working on fixing the issue they are having with client downloading custom stuff. He could probably get a key earlier if he asks any TWI person by private message

[Cpt-Praxius]

Originally Posted by Le0

They are currently working on fixing the issue they are having with client downloading custom stuff. He could probably get a key earlier if he asks any TWI person by private message

Yeah I PM'd a request but I think I requested it from a forum mod instead of a dev.... next chance I get I'll request again, but for now I gotta go eat.

[Le0]

Originally Posted by Cpt-Praxius

Yeah I PM'd a request but I think I requested it from a forum mod instead of a dev.... next chance I get I'll request again, but for now I gotta go eat.

I personally just stalked Yoshiro until I saw that he was online on the forum and directly sent a PM, he answered nearly instantly
Good luck

[Polshevik]

Did you get the SDK yet? There's a huge list of keys in the SDK preview release threat.

[hockeywarrior]

Originally Posted by Cpt-Praxius

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.

This is offtopic, of course, but you should ignore the dislike trolling when it's on posts that don't present any kind of opinion or argument.

I typically don't agree with anything you say regarding RO2's problems and community stuff, but I never downvote you just because I disagree.

I had the same problem you are facing now a few months ago when I was really outspoken against TWI's design decisions with RO2. At the time, that was a very unpopular thing to do, and every post I made got mass downvoted, regardless of its content.