Dude i love the mpa, make the hills slightly higher and put player and vehicle clips at the top of them so you dont' get jeeps flying, lol unless you want that kinda thing, (imagining a jeep flying over a hill as you're buildng a ref)
There should already be playerclips,vehicleclips,nocommbuild and noengybuild textures and entities on those hills. I have no idea how i can improve those. It was already compiled with full vrad, yet the foliage doesn't receive shadows eventhough the entitie's option 'disable receiving shadows' has been put to 'no'.
I'm thinking about giving this map to someone who wants to continue working on it. The middle 'jungle' is doable cpu-wise, but it looks like shit. Shadows are all weird or not present, and when you move all the model LODs will jump in and out continuously. The best thing to do is go back to the alpha version and maybe put a crossroads/arid like building in the middle section, instead of a jungle. But i don't feel like spending lots of time on all 10 areas to make it look good. If someone who CAN map really WANTS to improve it, and is sure he CAN do it, just pm me and i'll give you everything you need.
Use loads of cubemaps in the middle and also BUILD THEM IN GAME. Should fix weird shadows at least some extend.
No one interested? If i have to finish it myself i will not make big changes like adding that jungle. I'd problably only add a construction in center, improve textures here and there and add a little detail to each area. I don't even feel like making a 3d skybox for it. Edit: ok, i'll make some changes then ...
you dont even need to bother with jungle and stuff this map felt like final release to me when i played it, and it was fucking awsome. I had so much fun playing this map, thank you sir.
Are there any pub servers currently running this map? I'd really love to have a round or two on it...
z4g had this map in the loop for a while, not sure if that's still the case. Maybe MAD has it? I divided the work i'm doing in 4 stages: 1) Improving textures + adding elevation (cover) on none build areas + adding extra cover on places that have too few 2) Adding a bit foliage that has no practical use but looks good 3) Make a center construction (à la crossroads) 4) Ingame testing + fixing small problems like shadows/refs/minimap/... Currently i'm at stage 1, and i've done 5 out of 9 areas. In a few weeks it should be done if no new problems pop up.
I merged step 2 and 3 (limiting details to the constructions) This brings me directly to step 4 Question: I used some models from the folder gm_forest. Now there are over 120 files in the materials folder from gm_forest, how can i know which ones are being used by the models i used, so that i can add those and those alone?
Intrigued by this question I just spent about half an hour messing with model viewer, hammer model browser, and VMT files to see if you could find out what model they are related to. Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible without individually decompiling the models and checking their QC files to see what materials they incorporate! I suggest the easiest way to find out would be to remove the materials folder and load the map, It should tell you in the console which materials are missing
HA! That could work actually ... nice thinking I'll try that, thanks. btw, the work itself is done, which means that i'll have to spend a lot of time fixing stuff from now on Some screens below The middle and middle south area have stuff added. All areas (all 10) now use more textures and have improved elevation. Only the last screen shows one of the other areas, all others are from middle or midle south. http://users.telenet.be/samhannes/mapping/emp_bush/rc1/ Oh, this is without (tree) shadows, but they will be there when i do a full compile. Also there's no hdr, and when i do the final compile i plan to increase brightness a bit. Also some stuff like lightmap scales have not been done yet. I consider all of this as 'testing'.
I just tested vehicletraining with the OB version of empires. Some effects don't show, and the textures look weird for some reason. Conclusion: i'll have to redo my maps and recompile them as well. I'm gonna try to map and compile emp_bush_rc1 for the OB version. If the tree shadow problem is fixed there i will not make the map for 2.12 anymore. Unless the OB version happens to work for 2.12 as well, but i don't think so.
