Author Topic: [Map] Colleville Draw  (Read 18390 times)

Offline Nissi

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[Map] Colleville Draw
« on: 27-03-2011, 18:03:52 »
Hi all

For about 2 weeks I've been working on my second undertaking which will showcast one of the most important beaches of the Omaha codenamed beachzone. My aim is to cover as many realistic details as possible while not all neglecting the fun of the gameplay. My sketch, the terrain and the general texturing... flag position etc. has been done but after some successfull alpha-testing I like to enrich the map to a level which will be ready for my second test.

What I'm looking for are close-up details of the defense systems. I got several nice sources which have some statics in common. They are already positioned and form the core of the Widerstandsnest 62. While I know where I have to (and want for the gameplay) place barbewires and many obstacles as the famous watertrench (which costed me quite some nerves) I really want to know which object on the following picture are what type of object. Unfortunately I can not read the signs and I found the picture a dozen time... but it's never readable.



I hope someone can tell me what type of bunker, trench, weapon where on the corresponding numbers. This image seems to be the most reliable on I found.

My current list:

1.) MG Position or simply Colleville sur Mer?
2.) Villa (Name?)
3.) Infantry barracks?
4.) ?
5.) Radio?
6.) Tobruk with Mortar
7.) Tobruk with MG34, gun aiming directly on the beach
8.) H669 Bunker with 70mm guns of Czech production
9.) ?
10.) ?
11.) ?
12.) ?
13.) ?
14.) ?
15.) Pak 40 entrenchment (without bunker coverage?)
16.) MG Position, Type?
17.) MG Position, Type?
18.) Sandbag (???) with MG34 or MG 42?
19.)
20.) Trenchelines in zigzag
21.) Tobruk with Mortar or MG Position (Type?)
22.) ?
23.) Barbedwire
24.) Barbedwire
26.) Anti-Tank trench filled with a bit of water, 2 flamethrowers according to a few sources (confirm?)
27.) ?
28.) ?
29.) ?
30.) ?

Some other variants of the Colleville Draw defense line:

Still some differences...



The last one is my source for the terrain. But it's missing existing buildings and trenchlines... to sad.


Hope you can help me with that problem so that I can fill the list up as good as possible.  :)

cheers
Nissi

Offline Seth_Soldier

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #1 on: 27-03-2011, 19:03:46 »


hre the link that might interrest you:
http://omahabeach.vierville.free.fr/703-WN62.htm

and here a higher resolution for this panel :
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/9052/wn62b.jpg
« Last Edit: 27-03-2011, 19:03:19 by Seth_Soldier »

Offline Nissi

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #2 on: 27-03-2011, 19:03:49 »
Merci beaucoup! C'est vraiment parfait.  :D

The high res info is clearly readable ah what a gift to work with. Great.  :)

Offline LHeureux

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #3 on: 30-03-2011, 18:03:17 »
So Nissi you are french? I can read it if you're not and make the traduction  ;)
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Offline RAnDOOm

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #4 on: 30-03-2011, 19:03:30 »
Good looking layout Nissi.

GL for the project.  8)

Offline Nissi

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #5 on: 30-03-2011, 20:03:17 »
No I'm not French, I'm Swiss... so I have to luck to speak a bit French as well.  :)
But thank you.

Well the layout is quite challenging cause I like to keep it as real as possible. I have to find a good balance between realistic distances and a fun gameplay while ensuring that some beach map gameplay-feelings are included. We'll see..  8)

So far I'm quite happy with the achieved things, but still alot of work needed to place all the stuff that is needed for the gameplay before I can go to the first real tests.


« Last Edit: 30-03-2011, 22:03:32 by Nissi »

Offline Ajs47951

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #6 on: 31-03-2011, 03:03:06 »
looks good so far! keep it up ;D   


Offline VonMudra

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #7 on: 01-04-2011, 03:04:12 »
Beach should be longer.  That anti-tank ditch was pretty far away from the coast, and remember, they landed at LOW tide.

Also, something to ALWAYS remember, do NOT place trenches just where they look good from air.  Get down there, and look at what the actual VIEW from the trench is.  More often than not, trenches in FH2 serve no purpose at all for combat, as they can't actually see anything.  The trenches should all have firing steps and MG positions that allow full view of the beach, and anyone maneuvering on it.

Offline Nissi

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #8 on: 01-04-2011, 07:04:30 »
Hey :)

Thank you for the input.

-----

To the point 1: the beach is not really visibile on the image. It goes a out to the sea slightly behind the yellow markers in the sea. The beach is too flat for the editor to distinguish between water and land.
I got to work now (whaaa I'm diparted from the editor   :-[ ) and hope to be able to send you a closeup by pm.
Hope you can judge it then again and give me again feedback.  :)

----

To the point 2: This is really a key element, but honestly it will fail if I want to use the "right" scales. The terrain is almost too flat and the distances are high. Meaning you can see the sea and the longest part of the beach (but not the shore (hmmm I mean the very end of the beach)) when using tripods with the zoom factor.

For example: the Tobruk which was right behind the shore can see almost everything. Fine as it was.
The MG nest at the first trenches are not high enough to shoot properly on the beach. But they are placed where they were.

I already tried to balance it out by pushing them up a bit but I will test it this evening quite intensly. The second trenchline which was around 30-40meters above the sea level and already around 450m behind the beach will give me anyway some headache as the viewdistance in the game should be reduced to ensure a good performance. That's quite challenging but as well fun to find a balance between "reality", gameplay and ambiance.

cheers,
Nissi

Offline [130.Pz]S.Lainer

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #9 on: 01-04-2011, 08:04:28 »

-----

To the point 1: the beach is not really visibile on the image. It goes a out to the sea slightly behind the yellow markers in the sea. The beach is too flat for the editor to distinguish between water and land.
I got to work now (whaaa I'm diparted from the editor   :-[ ) and hope to be able to send you a closeup by pm.
Hope you can judge it then again and give me again feedback.  :)

----


Yeah the editor gets a bit funky with the water level.  You probably already know this but be sure to take the water level down 1 meter before you snap your minimap shot.  Be kinda interesting to see how this turns out as I want to try a beech map for my 3rd POS map.  Best of luck and it looks nifty so far.
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Offline Nissi

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #10 on: 25-05-2011, 13:05:52 »
Time for an update. It's quite a while since I posted here but hey - I wasn't lazy at all. ;D

Yesterday was a milestone for my map which I like to share with you. From the beginning it was clear to me that I don't want to make a historic relief just to show how the real Colleville Draw looked like. My aim was to generate a map that is primarly focused on a tough but funny gameplay. So I invested very much time with testing, balancing out objects and distances. To coming to the point: almost all primary gameplay objects are on the map and they work - giving both sides some tough but funny fighting.

What is done so far:
- terrain, fences (ahh it could be named fencemap), walls, bunkers, trenches (hmm maybe there are as many trenches as fences? ok not really but almost)
- flags, pushmode, spawnpoints (normal, team & time event), objectspawners (paks, all mg positions, mortars).

What is still to be implemented: commander artillery & pick up kits.

After playing the map for hours during the different testings a made a lot of fine tuning and now I think as the gameplay is defined I'm moving on the art work.

Meaning adding bomb craters, placing little stuff like amo boxes, place the over- & overgrowth, making the terraincolor once again. I'm looking especially forward to make the new terraicolor as I've learnt somewhat to work with terragen as a nice starting point. It's quite funny and I hope with the second terraincolor it will look better than the first (trial) one.

To close this little update I like to show you 2 pics. 1 ingame, 1 from the editor with some remarks. Please not the groundcolor and texture is only preliminary and contains some errors from the trials & road tool which will disappear when I'm redoing the ground work.

Some mortar testing:


Some beach view:

Please note that I know that the tide was much lower at the beginning of the landing. I decided to not play the first hours of the battle but set the map around the turning point when the american where finally able to get some foothold on the map. The tide was coming in so the beach is now just about 100m deep. I chose this setting even more because otherwise it had been impossible to balance the gameplay for both sides. A one sided slaughter is not what I consider as fun - so I set up of course a still very hard landing (believe me it's hard but achieveable for the allieds), but giving the allieds a much shorter distance to be able to hide at the beach shore.

A little note for the reality lovers:
- the distances of the WN 62 are quite close to reality. Objects are placed where they were (and are).
- Adjustments for the gameplay were done without taking respect of the reality desire. Meaning: you'll find barbed wires where there were none sometimes, on the other hand you'll find wholes in the barbedwires which will alow sneaking through.
- the terrain is as almost as flat as it is in reality. Some might think: Ohhh that's not Omaha... and I simply say: well then, but it's just a part of 8km long beach. It's amazing how flat it was there in reality. ;)
- some distances are intentionally "wrong" scaled. Not for the WN62 itself but for the distance to the WN61. Bringing it quite closer a managed to reduce the map size effectively while giving the allieds another attack point - which was in reality as well the breakthrough point as well (you can guess what this means for the actual gameplay).

Whish you a nice day,
Nissi

Offline Flippy Warbear

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #11 on: 25-05-2011, 15:05:10 »
Keep it up, looks nice thus far.

Offline Nissi

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #12 on: 26-05-2011, 21:05:35 »
A short summary from today's first alphatesting with my old gaming friend Da_Freak...

was awesome.  8)

The gameplay was funny tough the missing minimap was quite a challenge.  ;D
On the other hand the art work must be really the next step as it is hindering the athmosphere to develop fully.

A screen to share with you - taken from the "Heinrich Severloh" position:


I wish I could test the map soon with the improved texture & under- and overgrowth and much more important with more people. It would be intersting to see how people react on the map and - if the gameplay works as thought.

cheers,
Nissi

Offline Flippy Warbear

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #13 on: 26-05-2011, 21:05:22 »
Beast of Omaha!

Offline [130.Pz]S.Lainer

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Re: [Map] Colleville Draw
« Reply #14 on: 26-05-2011, 21:05:42 »


I wish I could test the map soon with the improved texture & under- and overgrowth and much more important with more people. It would be intersting to see how people react on the map and - if the gameplay works as thought.

cheers,
Nissi

Get it polished up a bit more and talk to the guys at WaW.  Last I knew we had a couple of Heavy cruisers/battleships that worked with the spotter camera so you could get some distant arty support for the Americans.  In the middle of a campaign right now so testing would be a long ways off but they might be able to scrape together a special Friday event or something and include it.
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