RE: Pictorial Map Building

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:00:45 AM

Mad Russian

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Here I've clicked the check box to create the structures to be placed on the map.

The first set of trees I'm going to have MM place in the medium green will be medium sized pine trees. With a density of 800 per kilometer. Once I create the Auto-Gen structure I click on the map in the same color that I've got in the color box.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:02:49 AM

Mad Russian

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The second tree I'm going to put in that area is a medium sized birch. I'll add a density of 1500 of them to the medium green forest area.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:04:26 AM

Mad Russian

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The third tree type I'll put in the forest is a medium sized oak. Again the density will be set at 1500.

As you can see I can put the Auto-Genned structures anywhere on the map where they can be placed in the color associated with the build in the color selection box. They don't have to be side by side or even in the same general area.

Notice in the structure list that Auto-Gen objects are displayed differently on the list.

At the moment we have three tree types being generated by MM for our forested area.

800 Density Medium Pine Trees
1500 Density Medium Birch Trees
1500 Density Medium Oak Trees

That's a total of 3800 density for the three tree types in our area of medium green forest. We'll see just how that turns out on the map.

We click the build button and tell MM to build the map.

As MM builds each map it automatically saves it when the build is complete.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 2:10:30 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:11:44 AM

Mad Russian

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It takes MM awhile to place a density of 3800 trees.

It shows that our 60 hand placed trees are still there.

It shows that it Auto-Genned 84 trees for us.

And it took about another minute and a half to generate those 84 trees.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 2:14:01 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:15:07 AM

Mad Russian

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Telling MM yes to looking at it in SceneEditor, we see what the forest part of our map looks like at the moment.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 2:16:54 AM

Mad Russian

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That's a sad excuse for a forest. We need way more trees than that. Let's try multiplying everything by 5 and see what that does for us.

After each change we click the save check button to save the changes to the Auto-Gen.

That would mean 4000 pine and 7500 each of the birch and oak. Then tell MM to create that map.

These trees are the hi-res trees that will be seen on the outside of the forest. They are also capable of being knocked down under the right circumstances.

The inside of the forest we'll use lo-res trees for to keep the resources for this map down where low end machines can still run it.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 2:28:51 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 3:11:22 AM

Mad Russian

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Here is the build review. This time we have 466 Auto-Genned trees. That should look better than the 84 we had last time.

And the build time went up by not quite double when we increased the trees by just a bit more than 5 times as many.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 3:14:36 AM

Mad Russian

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And what does our forest look like now?

Much better, but still not there. That forest needs to be about 1/2 again that dense to be what I'm looking for. So, we'll up the pine trees from 4000 to 6000 and the others from 7500 to 11000.

Now we should be getting very close to where that forest needs to be.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 4:18:03 PM

Mad Russian

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Using the same types and settings for the LOD trees for the inner part of the forest has us looking like this.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 4:19:33 PM

Mad Russian

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Unless that's okay for the forest to change character we will need to scatter some of the 3D trees in and around the lower LOD area that are the same 3D ones on the outside. The good news is that there only needs to be a few of these.

Good Hunting.

MR

< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 4:42:42 PM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 4:33:52 PM

Jacko

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Interesting stuff, MR. Keep it coming.

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 8:56:12 PM

Mad Russian

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I added still more trees. These are in the LOD area. I added 3000 density of the 3D trees so there wasn't such a noticeable difference between the two areas.

You can see the build results. We have more than 3500 trees on the map at this point.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 8:57:46 PM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 8:58:39 PM

Mad Russian

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This is what those trees look like on the map.

That's good enough. I'll take it. Time to move on to the last set of Auto-Gen area. The light woods over by the village. This is an area I don't expect to see combat in so I'll not make this tree area as dense or use many 3D models in it.

You need to save map resources whenever you can.

This battle takes place in April 1945. There will be no grass on this map. That will allow me to use more of the 3D trees in the area where I think we we will have combat and the graphics display will be more important to the game.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/15/2011 9:01:07 PM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 9:05:10 PM

Mad Russian

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Here you can see that I have 6 different kinds of trees in the Low-Res area of my forest. Most of those are Low-Res and a few Hi-Res to make the two areas look similar.

You can put as many structures in a color as you like. I could add 6 more tree types and even bushes to that black area on the map if I wished. But this is enough for this map.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/15/2011 9:13:19 PM

Mad Russian

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Here you see the 6 tree types in the Low-Res black area on the top. Notice the color box is filled with the black color. That color box tells MM where you want all those cloned trees to go.

The bottom picture shows that we have only 3 tree types in the medium green area. The difference being the model types and the density. Again note the medium green color in the Auto-Gen location color box.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:16:26 AM

Mad Russian

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Here is the light woods over by the town. This shows that we have added 3635 trees to this map.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:19:12 AM

Mad Russian

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Hers is how MM looks with the trees we hand set and the Auto-Genned trees showing the structure symbols on the map.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:20:58 AM

Mad Russian

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The trees around the town were too sparse so I added a few more.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:22:17 AM

Mad Russian

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Now this is what the lighter woods area around the town looks like.

These are mostly Low-res trees to keep the resources lower for the map.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:24:00 AM

Mad Russian

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The last structures we want to put on a map are the buildings. These need to specifically be put on after all trees have been added.

Here we are selecting Middle European houses and not Soviet houses from the structure list since this battle is just east of Berlin.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/18/2011 2:25:45 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:26:10 AM

Mad Russian

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After getting the right structure set we select one of the house structures that looks like what we want.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/18/2011 2:27:26 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:29:42 AM

Mad Russian

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Once we've selected the building of our choice we click on name and it shows us which one we got. Then we select the type of structure drop down menu and decide what kind of building we are going to create. This determines the kind of structure to the degree if it is a light or heavy building, the number of floors the building has in it and the number of squads that can occupy the building.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:33:23 AM

Mad Russian

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Once the structure type has been selected for the building you then click the save check button. Once you save the structure you can place it on the map. You do this by moving the cross to the place you want the building and clicking on that spot.

As you can see the building is now situated on top of the trees. That's exactly what you want to see. Otherwise that part of the map will be considered forest by the game and not a building. The main thing means is vehicles can drive into your buildings.

Unless you want that, and I seldom do, the buildings need to go on last.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:36:03 AM

Mad Russian

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We now have a 1 story house capable of being occupied by a single squad on the map. But what about a bigger house? Let's go get a larger building.

We'll go to the same folder for Middle European buildings and this time pick a larger building.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:38:16 AM

Mad Russian

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Once we select the building we select the name tab to put it in MM. Then we select the structure type. This time we will tell MM that this building is a heavy building 2 stories high and with a capacity of 2 squads.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:39:34 AM

Mad Russian

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We save our selections by selecting the check button and then place the building on the map in the town.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 2:41:13 AM

Mad Russian

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The textures are all on the map, the trees and buildings have been placed, it's time to do a Mega Texture save to see how the map looks in the game.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 4:00:28 AM

Mad Russian

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Time to move down into the last section of the MM. That part in the lower left hand side that deals with the finalizing of the map. Where we add the sky, the lighting, and the terrain features associated with the colors.

First we'll go to the sky box and pick a sky texture.

We'll take skybox 4 since this is April in Northern Germany. We want an overcast sky. We double click the picture of what we want our sky to look like and we've got it.

Good Hunting.

MR

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< Message edited by Mad Russian -- 5/18/2011 4:02:33 AM >

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 4:03:24 AM

Mad Russian

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It displays in the last box in the Skybox row.

Good Hunting.

MR

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RE: Pictorial Map Building - 5/18/2011 4:05:39 AM

Mad Russian

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I then want to reduce the light from a bright summer day to a washed out rainy spring day. So I will reduce the strength of the light down from 200 down to 140.

Good Hunting.

MR