Destroyed by explosionFH2 Mapping TipsCreating a good battlefield terrain will allow the players of your map to get a feeling of playing in a real combat terrain, an environment of action.
One easy way to create combat areas is designing craters on the terrain layout. As more details you add in your map layout more interesting it will be using your terrain as 'natural' cover. If you are trying to design a map following historical accuracy standards check first if artillery or planes shelled/bombed the area. This is specially important for bigger areas where you see a lot of craters.
For smaller areas, more focused on details and urban battlefield, you have the option of simulating destruction caused by grenades, tanks or other explosives. This will improve a lot the fighting taking place around the flags, which in most cases have buildings around and which are the most played map areas.
When you are designing your combat areas damaged by explosions, always imagine how it would be for both sides. Check where can attackers/squad leaders hide, check where defenders can take cover. Craters in open battlefield generate new gameplay areas by giving cover for attackers, as result they stay in the holes and shoot&advance from there.
Today I will be giving some tips to design destroyed areas caused by explosives. For this little guide I'll be using Pointe du Hoc and Operation Goodwood maps from FH2. However there are more FH2 maps which are good examples to get inspiration for your mapping designs.
You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them, click again and they you will get the full size 2048*1152 pixels.
You can feel how much money has been wasted by shelling and bombing the area for hours, at the end Allies found out that the weapons were moved away before the rangers arrived. What we can see is:
- brown sandy terrain color
- big rabbish heap all over the place, full of destroyed concrete pieces
- irregular layout, you aren't able to find anything flat
- full of craters, some closer to others
The bombing damaged the ridge and you can see how sand and trash are falling down, if not almost. Probably the crater next to it was responsible for this.
Destroyed bunker parts of concrete around a crater. A bomb destroyed something.
Same than before. You even see here that the bomb landed on the top of the building (or whatever it was) and everything is around in circle. Smoke mapping effects are cool, it looks like it happened recently.
Shapes have all forms. Some craters are very close to each other.
I happy to know I wasn't there that day. This is an extreme situation of mass bombing/shelling, but it is useful to see the position of each crater. Avoid designing them with order.
Brown dirty grass, I guess the vegetation is dead. It's nice to see the little green texture merged with the brown and grey. See also the shape.
Before placing any destroyed static think of what could it destroy? how would it look like?
The area had this green color before being destroyed by artillery or planes. Changing the texture gives the feeling of moved earth, the grass which was there disappeared. Keep in mind that craters don't create mountains or hills (a very little), so in this picture probably there was a small hill before.
Good example of a recent destroyed static, as said before, the smoke effect is a good plus.
One important thing to consider before designing craters is to put yourself as an artillery officer or pilot: 'what's the objective?', 'how would be the bombing?'. If the objective was destroying a specific building, which was occupied by the enemy, then you will try to hit the area. It's never 100% accurate and sometimes there are big mistakes maken.
In this picture you can see a big plane bombing, which left a few bombs falling one after the other. The road was broken, with a destroyed truck on it. No trees, no grass anymore.
Same happens with buildings. Destroyed buildings are caused by explosives. If it's destroyed by artillery or planes, then you will see craters around.
Inside the building there's earth, sand and destroyed furniture.
A very good example of a road destroyed by explosions. You can see even the barbed wire destroyed.
Another example of destroying a road by a random shell. It's nice to see the grey grass, which means that dust has covered the grass around. Also another detail is the electricity post, destroyed next to it.
Not just roads are victims, actually everything can be destroyed. Here we see a destroyed fence with a few remaining pieces of it around.
Heavy destroyed area. See the road, the fence and the electricity post.
Building are the main objectives. It was not common to shell open areas without specific building or objects targets. In that case or are wrong targets or vehicle targets. The church on the picture is a good example for a destroyed city/town. The texture around the building is destroyed trash, and you can even see the old church doors laying on the ground. Note that buildings which surround the objective, if not the area, are also victims of the explosions. Before the shelling there was a truck parked there.
Destroyed bulding in detail. See the texture, the terrain layout and the furniture.
Don't forget displacing objects. Even trees which survived could be lightly inclined.
Destroyed wall. Last three pictures show that the objective was the church because of the craters around.
This texture is very useful for destroyed buildings, then add the papers on the ground. The car placed there gives you also a cover while you attack or defend on the main street. Remember, while you design you have to combine design and gameplay.
This is a very nice crater. The earth covers the street, both wall sides have been destroyed. See also the destroyed buldings around, and don't forget either the crater on the crossroad.
This was everything for today. I'll be writing more mapping tips, which are a continuation of the inspirational guide I've done a while ago. I hope to see nice combat areas in your maps. Keep sharing pictures of your maps
Thanks to Forgotten Hope 2 for these beautiful maps. Hopefully the mappers can give us a few more extra tips.
samnadine
www.forgottenhonor.comMaps by FH2 team.
