large deadly street dominated by german tank :
- deadly for the infantery
- long distance tank battle
- easiest way to advance if soviet succeed to destroy german tanks
These large deadly road could force the player to use parallel small deadly street (only one tank large), or it could be the next sector after the large street (this way, your gameplay can radically change each sector):
- deadly for tank without infantery
- panzerfaust fest (<- you must be carefull where you place open building and clise building - think about ramelle)
- infantery fight will be the most important.
- narrow street increase the action
- if the street aren't narrow to one tank, then place obstacle so only a tank can maneuver 1 at a time.
The beginning of the map should be relatively easy for the soviet. But the last sector should be a meat grinder.
Soviet get artillery.
German can have a nice mix of poor infantery class (carcano, obsolete stuff) and excellent class (stg44).
The map could be someting like 1st sector = berlin outskirt or openfield garden, 2nd sector = large street, 3rd sector = narrow street
if v_arg1 == BF2Editor
LevelSettings.CustomTextureSuffix "brest"
else
texturemanager.customTextureSuffix "brest"
endIf
The idea about the static Tiger I was to simulate the lack of fuel, the tank to be used could be a different one.
Alright will change the Flak color then.
With your map open in the level editor go to the Editor>General Bar on the right, click on the generate button, to get a very basic minimap.
If you really want a good test, have something playable in time for the opening of the next CMP campaign. We can get you 40-80 players, depending on whether we put it in the scrims or just an opening day event.That would be great for balance related stuff. If you need testing to see if the map works OK when it comes to memory usage, static placement, etc. then just upload it here so we can download it and try it out. For balance you would need a lot of players, for the other stuff not. There would smaller numbers be better actually, because the other players would simply distract too much from the testing.
Where can I get more info about the CMP campaign? I need to speak to someone in charge of getting the maps set for the server and for distribution among the players. I suppose it´s done via Community Updater, right? How can I get to talk with those guys?
It is indeed a good idea, but it is the opposite to what I planned.OK, it's your map ofc, so go ahead :) It's just a bit more ligical that if you fight yourself into a trwon's center, that it becomes more and more an infantry fight and that tanks should play less and less of a role. Think of it as outskirts - suburb - quarter - town center. Most vehicle traffic in peacetime would be in outskirts, and like in peacetime, vehicles have more trouble driving around in town center. So, that's my chain of thoughts, but it's all a matter of opinion of course.
There will be no wrench kit. Once static guns are destroyed there is no coming back to life. Tanks and other vehicles will have a long respawn time. The idea is to have players play smart and not waste the equipment. That´s an important flaw I find in some maps. I will also remove SL spawns. Distances are not long so there will not be too much boring running times, it´s all about playing smart and as a team, that is what I want to encourage.I understand, but most players will not play smart, just take a look at an average public round. Not having a wrench might look like a nice plan, but it will cause frustration: players expect that they can repair static guns, vehicles and what not. Maybe try to encourage smart gameplay in different ways, so that you don't force them.
I wouldn't worry too much about the gameplay and loadout stuff too much right now. Just get your map looking good.Lol, this is exactly what he should not do. Gameplay comes first, and then I don't mean balance, but what you need to place static wise, where the routes to flags are, how many routes to the same flag there are etc. etc. That's first. If that fails, the map will never work, as we can see in various examples on #1.
...but I am definately limiting the wrenches, maybe even just to a few pickups.Limiting stuff is OK if things become too spammy. There are other ways to prevent people to zap-repair things like the Tiger. For example you could make it necessary to keep a number of footsoldiers for capping flags (plaving them inside a courtyard or something, so tanks can't reach them), otherwise the team can't win.
What would be the most correct spawnable russian anti-tank kit here? I´m not fond of spawnable panzerfausts like in Seelow but if it´s historically accurate then I´ll take it.It is. Russians captured shit tons of panzerfausts and used them themelves untill the end of the war.
Why the SVT40?
Awesome!
Now it just needs to be silent since the motor sounds still work.
Next step: the Pantherturm.
What would be the easiest and fastest way to make it? I´m thinking maybe I could immobilize a Panther, the same way the Tiger is. Then I could just bury it and enable Holdobject from the editor. The problem is that in the editor you cannot bury a tank, or at least it doesn´t go under ground visually.
I guess the hard way would be to strip off the whole hull bundle from the Panther, just leaving the turret. What do you recommend?
I don't really get what the problem is.He doesn't want the arty guy to see the edge of the map (usually it looks like something fluorescent green in my experience, it's very ugly).
The problem is not the map edge, it´s the OOB edge.OK, that's a bit less of a problem then: just paint terrain there, don't place any statics if not necessary for the vew of the other 99 players. That way the arty gunner will just know that it is a useless spot he is looking at because he doesn't see the city anymore. I don't think you will get many complaints about that, it is actually helpful :)
howitzers and Katyushas will only lead to mass TK because your shells land anywhere but where you aimed at, leading to frustration of the users and the random victims. Some of the CMP maps suffer from this issue.
About the Panther example, I plan on having 2 different Panther textures, one of them being new (if I have enough time to make it). Same goes for other vehicles.
Same goes for open buildings. Some times I did not intend to place open buildings but some are unique (they don´t come in closed version) so that forces me to close them with wood planks and stuff like that.Try to avoid this as much as possible, because even if you close it off, the textures of the interior will be loaded anyway.
Same goes for open buildings. Some times I did not intend to place open buildings but some are unique (they don´t come in closed version) so that forces me to close them with wood planks and stuff like that.Try to avoid this as much as possible, because even if you close it off, the textures of the interior will be loaded anyway.
I plan on having 2 different Panther textures, one of them being new (if I have enough time to make it). Same goes for other vehicles.
I also want to clone some buildings to have 2 different textures for the same building on the same map. Keep in mind this map is (I think) the biggest city map made for FH2 and it´s hard to make sectors look different since there is a limited number of buildings to choose from.
Same goes for open buildings. Some times I did not intend to place open buildings but some are unique (they don´t come in closed version) so that forces me to close them with wood planks and stuff like that.
I plan on having a KT, 2 Panthers and 1 Jagdpanzer IV L/70 on the map. If you have any interesting pictures with cammo patterns suited for Berlin please let me know.
Does any vehicle or gun in FH2 have a sound that could fit for the manually-traversed turrets from the Pantherturm and Tiger? Or should it be completely silent?Panzer III, dunno if all models, but at least some of them definitely have the hand cranked manually traversed turrets.
Looks promising! Another suggestion, the walls could use some random morale scribbles like "Berlin bleibt deutsch", as seen in the Seelow Heights. And perhaps some bicycles?
I used 2 or 3 from Seelow already and I plan on having at least 1 new one. I might ask for suggestions here when I get to that phase. I also gathered lots of signs from different maps to have them re-textured to "Friseur", "Lebensmittel-Geschäft", "Brauerei", "Apotheke", "Hotel-Pension" etc. The bar will have a Fanta ad.
I´m worried about performance. I don´t know the details about CPU usage limit and stuff like that. In general I try to copy the object saturation from other maps. I´d like to add a ton of details (and I had) but I chose to remove hundreds of objects to have 6000 max in total.
I am kind of measuring the performance with the FPS since my computer is old and it goes up and down considerably depending on the static objects´ saturation. FPS drop at the hospital area so I´m only adding what is 100% necessary.
What parameter should I take into consideration to know if the amount of statics I´m placing is within acceptable limits?
I added a lot more smoke columns everywhere. Do they consume too much memory? Should I be careful with that or is it acceptable to have lots of smoke around all the map?
I´m delighted to have the new ISU-152 and ISU-122 available right in time before finishing the map, I will definately add them.Don't. Just use the ISU-152 with the DShK (a proper variant for the Battle of Berlin) and avoid using too many vehicles of different types for no reason. Those affect map performance.
Don't. Just use the ISU-152 with the DShK (a proper variant for the Battle of Berlin) and avoid using too many vehicles of different types for no reason. Those affect map performance.I agree. Plus the DSHK ISU-152 version will be a perfect addition, both as an assault gun, and a heavy IFV
Almost ready to do the final lightmaps. Next step: textures.
(https://cmp-gaming.com/uploads/monthly_2018_11/screen140.thumb.jpg.23eff5759efba150ed764251bb7f2b78.jpg)
That towable PAK40 became available since the last patch if I remember correctly.
The street layouts are not historically accurate at all. I just made a mix of many reference pictures and tried to create different gameplay possibilities across the different sectors of the map. In short, many areas of the map are "based" on real pictures, the rest are completely fictional.
Copying a real place in a 1:1 scale would have been bad because:
1. Inappropiate statics
2. Limited gameplay possibilities
3. Lack of mapping skills
I think there must be a really good reason to expand the map. That would require even more objects, which I am avoiding. If I were to open it up then I would probably need to shrink/close another sector to reduce the object count.If it played well according to your wishes in terms of gameplay, no expansion is needed.
What is the Pegasus cafe you are talking about? If you can get me a screenshot or the static´s name I´ll have a look.
I think there are 3 types of light posts. I could reduce them to 2.Or one ;)
About that open building you say, yes, it is pretty huge and useless. There has been some action there but I´m not sure if it is worthy. The original design idea was to have panzerfausts there. There are other open buildings which I plan on closing.Sounds like it can be closed without much hesitation.
Thanks for the feedback. I´d like to have another test in january after I fix some of this stuff.I'd like to test it too, but Sunday evening is also regular testing for FH2 as a whole, so if you want FH2 devs and/or testers to join the test, please pick another evening :)
...As I said before, it will never have proper statics simply because nobody is going to make them. My goal is to contribute to this great mod and community by delivering a fun new map to play even though it is not historically accurate.The fact there are not statics for it is one of the main resons we don’t have maps like Berlin or Stalingrad. You need to aim for achievable, you can’t just take content from other mods to finish your map.
I created a thread in the BG42 forum which has less than 10 threads in total. It is the only possibly active place someone could know about the devs. Places where there actually is a conversation about this are from 2008. I will probably never get an answer from someone that ditched the mod.Then don’t use their content, ”ditched” or not, it is still copyrighted material you are not allowed to use.
Mat, I will not wait a hundred years until a savior modeler arrives. I will release the map as soon as it is ready with whatever assets I have available. After all, I won´t make another map, I just wanted to contribute with something nice.BGF assets are not available for you without owners permission. Welcome to the world of modding.
I created a thread in the BG42 forum which has less than 10 threads in total. It is the only possibly active place someone could know about the devs. Places where there actually is a conversation about this are from 2008. I will probably never get an answer from someone that ditched the mod.Then don’t use their content, ”ditched” or not, it is still copyrighted material you are not allowed to use.Mat, I will not wait a hundred years until a savior modeler arrives. I will release the map as soon as it is ready with whatever assets I have available. After all, I won´t make another map, I just wanted to contribute with something nice.BGF assets are not available for you without owners permission. Welcome to the world of modding.
@Jimi I don’t wanna derail this threadSpoilerthat’s all well and good, but fair use doesn’t apply here. There’s no law saying that we can’t use that content. Even the Chinese mods that steal FH2s stuff get no real reprocussion because nobody has the time or patience to follow up on that stuff.
It’s more a question of morality. Those people worked really hard on their models and textures, and there’s no telling if they would’ve really been okay with others using their work for something else. Some (most) of them might not give a fuck, some of them might get legitimately angry that someone is using their work out of context. It’s not our position to say what they would’ve wanted.
Also, if we start just taking content for use in our own projects, it gives us no moral backup when we see others stealing our content.
To top that off, afaik the FH and CMP devs won’t release anything that hasn’t gotten explicit permission from the previous owner to be used. This is just a courtesy to other modders.
Keep working on the map, I’m curious to see how it plays.
Only thing I would change a bit if engine can handle itEngine cant' handle that unfortunately, smoke drastically affects the performance in BF2. View distance can be always limited to help it.
Put more smoke & flames in the streets. Its possible to watch from one end to the other in most streets.
You know open buildings are a large burden on performance, right? Adding more is not only unnecessary, but it will make performance suffer when greater numbers if players will be playing on the map.
- I liked the large number of enter-able buildings, it makes the map into an urban combat zone. It would be better if you can add even more ;).
- There is a tankditch in the SW corner of the map, I think it's a cool feature but it's also a bit useless because you can just drive into teh next street and pass the ditch that way.
- The Hospital building is a bit too big, it's almost a map in itself. I would close a part of it, so people will only go into the relevant parts. Also, the flagzone is a bit too low atm: vehicles can cap from outside
- I also gave some examples of stuff which doesn't seem natural or logical, like a street full of destruction with nice and tidy trees growing in them. I'd replace those trees with burnt treest wherever possible, so the complete picture looks better.
In the testing the Boulevard flag was being defend by one KT and the flanking options were non-existent. Of course this needs to be tested with more people, but keep in mind that it might be too much of a bottleneck, maybe open up some small sidestreets for infantry so they can flank the big cats and faust them.
All in all good job on this map so far, it really feels like a big city, it doesn't really feel like Berlin (yet) but you would need mapspecific statics for that. Maybe you can find some modeler willing to make a Berlin building or two for you, that would be great.
With that being said, I think it is going to be hard for the Russians to capture 2 flags at the same time (especially the hospital) in order to move on the next zone. Why don't you make it so that each flag is not recappable by the German?
In addition, I would love to see more Panzerschreck. I was only able to find one.
On a performance note: I forgot to mention that I had fps between 100 and 200 mostly, average of 140, with some peaks to above 250. That's quite nice considering this map has so many statics.
I put the ditch there to prevent tanks from spamming the german spawnpoints, which are right after the ditch. It has a gameplay purpose and also the germans IRL blocked some streets to bottleneck the russian tanks into traps so it doesn´t look so off to me. If you still think it looks off then I could just replace it with a row of buildings to protect the spawnpoints, let me know what you think about it.OK, fair enough. I didn't know about the spawn protection. It just looks a bit odd that you can simply turn your tank and then drive into the next street, but it's totally fine if you want to keep it like this.
From when were those pictures? The Hetzer one is from Warsaw if I have to believe the url. The one with the ISU seems from after the battle, in a street which didn't see much action. Still, there is a knocked over tree on the left there, probably because tanks drove over it.- I also gave some examples of stuff which doesn't seem natural or logical, like a street full of destruction with nice and tidy trees growing in them. I'd replace those trees with burnt treest wherever possible, so the complete picture looks better.
(http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/nazi_germany/photos/Warsaw_Uprizing_Hetzer_at_a_barricade.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AhxMQpT.jpg)
Does it look so different? There is a lot of trash and rubble though also trees.
(https://i.imgur.com/EJ1be04.jpg)
(https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HdmAAGG.jpg)
There doesn´t seem to be much destruction here either.
(https://i.imgur.com/4LdhblQ.jpg)If it doesn't affect performance all that much, it's a cool feature to keep.
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/cf/7a/f6cf7a4d868dd19876fbd559b6948cac.jpg)
Not the best looking but decent I think.
Keep in mind that the russians have about twice (or more) as many tanks as the germans so a single KT shouldn´t be a match for 4 tanks flanking it. Of couse it is not the same in a 6 vs 6 scenario.Problem is that you couldn't flank the KT properly. From the front it can only be hurt much by the IS2 and the ISU, both vehicles with a much longer reload time than the KT, therefore offering the KT an easy job by 2-shotting the Russians. Let's see, maybe it's not a problem at all with more players, but the KT could now pretty easily pick the tanks one by one and keeping the flag safe.
What building (non generic) do you think could be a good addition for the map?Maybe an Opera House, like Berlin has on Unter den Linden? I'll think about this a little more and if I come up with more options I'll post them.
My plan now is to optimize the map even more, add more destroyed buildings, add more rubble and trash on the streets, fix all textures, lightmaps and little details.Sounds great!
For example: the chateau next to Fueldump and the church next to Square: it is nice to have them open, but performance is not good on this map.
There are much smaller urban type maps such as Brest or Tunis (to a degree) where players are supposed to die a lot because there is constant CQB action. I think what happened in Berlin is that people don´t know the map so they don´t really take precautions about staying alive and that´s why the tickets ran dry so quickly on the first round. Bear in mind there is no artillery on the map for a good reason, which kind of bothers me because the russians had brought a heavy amount of artillery to the battle. I cannot replicate that because it would make the map unplayable.You need to reduce number of vehicles, not knowing the map is an advantage as much as a disadvantage, people don't know the map, so campers don't know the best spots to stop enemy advance either, it works both ways. Forget about artillery, it just doesn't fit the urban maps, IRL every building can give you a shelter, in game you have none, and mortars can completely ruin the gameplay, it's the reason why they were removed from Brest. You also need to apply the stricter grenade limits like it is done on Tunis and Brest, and even Sammatus.
I can remove a few open buildings but I know it won´t make a big difference because I have tested it already.And what about those non-FH2 statics? Are they ABSOLUTELY necessary? Or can they be replaced with a closed FH2 static with a different skin/texture? Replacing those might help a lot, why not make a copy of the map and do it on that just to try it out?
I created a thread in the BG42 forum which has less than 10 threads in total. It is the only possibly active place someone could know about the devs. Places where there actually is a conversation about this are from 2008. I will probably never get an answer from someone that ditched the mod.Then don’t use their content, ”ditched” or not, it is still copyrighted material you are not allowed to use.Mat, I will not wait a hundred years until a savior modeler arrives. I will release the map as soon as it is ready with whatever assets I have available. After all, I won´t make another map, I just wanted to contribute with something nice.BGF assets are not available for you without owners permission. Welcome to the world of modding.
yes, this is a horrible resurrection of a dead thread, my apologies...but I did indeed give my permission for anyone to use any files that I created during my dev life on the BF series. I have been out of the BF loop for some time now, so I don't know if anyone is actively modding for BF2 anymore, but if you can use anything I worked on, please feel free to do so.
And Merry Christmas to you all.
The map is finishedThat's a bold statement ;)
Looks a tad too dark to my taste, but let's see how it plays out. Great work, prepare to do a lot of "afterjobs", though ;)
I think Blander tried to represent as faithful as possible the Berlin day. It was too lighter beforeI don't doubt the good intentions of Blander. But the Berlin day was not that dark ;)
Examples:Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/Cj4S3Hk.jpg)
(https://www.ancienthistorylists.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/battle-of-berlin-world-war-2.jpg)
Different weather/skyboxes in each layers 16/32/64 = Problem solved :-)
No comments on the first picture... but the 2nd one is a scale model diorama, photoshopped over this image:It's a really well done diorama :)
It's a really well done diorama :)
I tested lots of combinations including SU-76M, Jagdpanzer IV L/70 and Ferdinand (I've read there was an Elefant fighting in Berlin).
Just a reminder that you can't put too many vehicles (of different type) on your map (doesn't matter which layer) because it will increase already heavy texture load and will make your map unstable.