NOTE to mappers
 

Work out your overall theme, bases and geographical issues in the beginning. I've been playing FH steady since its release and 1 thing I've really noticed is that airfield seem to be an afterthought on several maps. Both the Battles of Orel and Valirisk (however its spelled) barely provide enough room for take off. Especially in the Russian planes.

This is the part where someone says "They're reworking flight dynamics for .6, hopefully it won't be a problem then". In any case future maps should keep everything in mind during conception.

FH prides itself on detail and realism but too often some FH maps aren't up to the same standards. Will we see patches for any of the Fan maps? 1 for Kaukasus to maybe get the trees on the ground and have better fortifactions for player main base starts. Even a variety of trees would be nice too. Operation Bagration could use 1/3 less open buildings to improve framerate. Other maps look way to Super Mario/Candyland-like, with their nice rounded hills and surreal terrain texturing. If you play the maps and can imagine hearing the mario music then you know what I'm talking about. Battle of Orel is so complex that 3 maps could be made from it. Don't start flaming me over this, just opinions and I love & appreciate all the work involved. I know how it is.
As a mapper you could tweak a map from now until the end of time or death. Every mapper wants their work to be the best it can be all I'm saying is pay attention to detail, put thought into layout and respect that there is variety & reason in nature. Don't go over crazy either, an art teacher once told me if you can leave something out and it doesn't effect the overall piece then it should stay out. Formulate reasons for why structures are where they are and what purpose they fulfill. Sorry everyone for going off. I love gaming but like to see things which are well thought out not giant boxes like in Counter Strikes Dust series or a crater lake like the map Ural foothills.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Don't we all want that..?

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Operation Bagration is a lost cause. A complete rework is required if it's ever gonna be enjoyable.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

and another thing - also goes for FH mappers:

thumbnail.dds and the ingame.dds MUST NOT HAVE MIPMAPS!!!

(same goes for icons)

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Not sure of the reason for this post, did you feel that people needed help that badly? ;)

Not sure of your complaint about Orel being complex either, who said that's a bad thing? ;)

Everybody who maps should keep this in mind, and this only. Gameplay is judged by the players who play on the map, everybody has their own opinion of what makes a good map, there is no one single formula to use. Sometimes you nail it and othertimes you don't. That's why computers have a "delete" option :P

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

You're right, I'll edit it...

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

what he means is its all good and proper for a map to look fan dooperly tastic but lag like a muther of all maps... its not so much pcs cant handle it servers cant, and the less lagg the more fun... also another tip. dont make flat maps place objects then make the terrain around it.. make the terrain first then place some objects.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

The map plays fine on around a 40 person server with no lag for the most part (apart from the normal lag associated with using the internet), that's all it was intended to do really. It's called pushing an engine to it's limits, if you can't run it that's fine, there's others to choose from.

That kinda gives some proof to my point, not everybody will like a map so don't /ever/ take one persons word for it.

About terrain, under no circumstances should your terrain /EVER EVER EVER/ become static. You should be working with the terrain before, during, and after placing objects.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

good point. I get my terrain to about 95% of what I want prior to object placement then adjust to fit certain objects and tweak things to break up uniformity. I never said Orel wasn't a good map. I love it and the scope is huge. When there's a ton of action though my FPS drop like a rock.

Machine (yeah its about 1.5 years old)
Athlon xp 1800
768mg PC2700 ram
7200 rpm HD
128 9600 Radeon

I keep my resolution set medium too.

Desert maps of equal size definitely play smoother because of the lack of statics. That's what I'm meaning by complexity (the industrial area, forest, ruined city).

Still looking forward to whats to come.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

I didnt mean dont change any terrain, i meant dont make the map to fit your objects.. of course you'll need too add cuts in a hill to fit a house etc.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Curious..i've noticed that a ton of people have the same problem and are using Radeons. I have about the same specs as you do (slightly slower processor) and am running a GForceFX5200 (which isn't that much better than a radeon 9600 really). I think that's the main culprit for most people complaining about the lag, most of the system specs posted are Radeons not NVidia cards... it's definately something to think about :P


And there's this also to think about when mapping. Trees kill frame rates, except for the palm trees, they're a bit different. Any other tree (with the big bushy alphas up top) are real frame killers, so go light with those suckers if you can ;)

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Sorry for going a little of topic but where can i find the fan mappack. Didnt d/l it when it was on the "news" on the main site(dunno why lol), have searched almost everywhere but can't find it.
Would be very happy if someone could give me a link or something?

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

I agree in a small part. The detail of some maps are not up to standard. But, dont drop items out just to please people with old machines!! Example the Orel map,my settings are 1600x1200x32 2xAA max settings video and sound (64 channel) it runs between 85-125 fps on servers up to 64 man.

Please don't remove or alter maps just because people fail to upgrade there machines!! The flames will start now about upgrading, cost and etc..., live with your outdated machines or upgrade!! Just stop whining about loss of frame rate.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

its still on the main site forgottenhope.bf1942files.com

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

If you have a Geforce 3 or Radeon 7500, then you don't need to worry about the graphics card.

The main cause of lag has since the BF1942 came out been the sound. Put down the sound quality a bit, and it'll definetely run better. Just put up a coop game with bots, and try comparing the sound off and the sound at it's maximum. You'll notice it'll run perfectly smooth with no sounds, whereas you can't even move forward normally when set to it's maximum.

I told you folks I was right about the trees! They are lag warheads! That's why maps with many trees lag so much. At Valirisk the lag is probably caused by the great amount of vehicles; many vehicles at one location causes lag, although that map has barely been of any trouble to me. I would personally advice to set 32 max players at servers. Any more and you will definetely get lag, even if the map is oh so small.

But you usually divide three kinds of maps; open maps, which are usually about tank battles, where the lag can be reduced because open maps need fighting ground, and great urban streets are not required. Then there are the sea battles. All you need is an Island (or more) and the rest is just one big ocean. The third kind of map is the infantry map. These maps are smaller, so less objects. They don't contain much, or none vehicles, so that also helps reducing the lag.

Basically what I'm saying is that there is most of the time a solution to solve lag. I would always prefer to make maps about specific scenes in a battle. If you would make a Stalingrad map, I would make different scenes, rather than combining them and producing an infantry, tank battle, and airfights map in one. If you split em up, you can reduce the lag almost "automatically".

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

The first poster is right about the airfields though !

FH team wants planes to rearm because they gave them very limited bomb payload, and some planes reload so slow ( mainly mg or cannon ammo) it is even better to land completely. And i like that realism.

Bf1942 aircraft would have been hard to land on such airstrips as metioned, but FH aircraft are very, very hard to land there. I am sure impossible to land for casual players, and unacceptable risk for skilled pilots who need to land there often to rearm or repair.

You don't have to question my pilot skills, i set all bf1942 planes down on a hangar roof intact, including the B17, not mentioning years of playing (combat) flight sims.....now FH planes are far less forgiving and i read will be even less forgiving in future, wich i only enjoy.

But it is very reasonable and nessesary to ask airstrips or airfields are functional, and not only for take off, else they are in fact not built for FH vehicles, so do not meet FH standarts.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

I totally agree with Lt. Havoc when Orel is concerned, lose 2-3 hundred static objects. And Radeons have nothing to do with the frame drops during orel. The problems is that many people like to play BF1942 + FH with the detail set to max, and they can do that for all the maps except Orel because it's just got too much going on in it.

Most people don't want to have to lower their resolutions or sound on account of one map out of 30 or so.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Well changing Orel is out of the question. The maps for people who have really good systems and can play the map at max detail ;)

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

I try to lay out the airfield historically and then I do test flights with a B-17. If the B-17 can take off and land over trees and stuff at the end then anything can.

And as per suggestions I am reducing the numbers of trees and smoothing out he terrain on my Normandie Bocage map.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Well......that is very good ! If only all mappers tested their maps this way, they would be way better.

I think not all airfields have to be long enough to handle a B17, but thy HAVE to be able to handle the plane type that is used in that map, with some safety margin ! And i mean a proper landing, without rediculous tricks like jumping out to stop the plane in time. The aim should be casual players with reasonable flying skills can land safely aswell.

Else that map design is not good !

Right now on maps the content of vehicles will change a lot......so your B17 testing to see if an airfield is good is the way to go.....

Again, FH devs wanted the realism of having to reload a lot, so airfield need room to safely land to rearm or repair. Maps need to be in line with the coding of the vehicles.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

I like the idea of parking aircraft like actual airfields did. I like to use revetments and hangarswhere you have to taxi out, line up and take off. I hvae no problem with the fly by aircraft ammo boxes. Having to fly back and buzz the field to reload is good enough, especially in some maps where you have to fly a bit to get into action.

Only in Western Europe have I seen alot of random parking in fields that they took off from.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

U like the landing thing , in an ideal world it would be perfect but there are problems, I was on the Custom map in the map pack that takes place in the desert (3 control points, one with a canyon) and I had run out of ammo, so I headed back to base, landed the plane easily e.t.c. then, because I am a Joystick flier and so find it damn hard to get a plane to stick in precisely one position, Ive always got SOME throttle one way or another, so I jump out and stand on the wing, In a main base, facing hte WRONG wa, moving about so peeps know im afk, well Id say all that together there was a good many clues to go by that I was simply standing on the wing because I liked the view but no, after I had been waiting for maybe 20 secs or something, SOme n00b spawns, I was checking my siz cos I knew this might happen but he still came up behind me, So he gets in my plane, obviously I aint 2 chuffed having spent the olast 20 secs to a min twiddling me thumbs waiitng for the plane to reload, so I enter in team chat, hey thats my plane, waiting to re load, e.t.c. no luck, in the end I ended up putting 4 expacks on his wing, calmly walking away, blowing him 2 fuck then grabbing the plane when it respawned, it kinda sounds like a "hey thats my plane asshole, does it have ur name on it, no but im gonna h8 u for grabbing it and TK u anyway" situation but I hope ull appractiate the difference, now im not asking FH to come up with some cpmpletely smacktard proof system, it cant be done, but maybe some other place 2 relaod or something, cos landing at the airfield is just plane suicide a lot of the time, A u have got to land in the place where u are the target of every raping lamer on the map and B: if u are gonna have 2 get out, be it to repair or 2 get more amoo, theres a very hi chacne some n00b will walk off with your plane, I reckon some alternative airports or at least something subtle so we can rearm away from where the rapers go, its not as if peeps who do that kinda thing are gonna have the intelligence 2 find u if u go away so u should b fairly safe.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

The only thing that bothers me about Orel is that the train station seems so seperate from the rest of the map. A few people tend to stick to station while others fight in the city. Another tank spawn at the center flag of the station might make people more interested in it.

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

That's the point, lots of people who play EVERY map at max detail have lag issues with Orel. Just look at the chat that goes on when people are playing it.

<orel, lagg plzzz>
<h8 ths map>
<be back in 5 min>

Bf1942 has a really crappy engine for hogging resources. The fact that it has no lighting effects or any of the more advanced things that were standard in Quake III years ago is a testament to that. But in Orel do those extra 50 chairs and other purely cosmetic things have to me there? Look at Berlin and Stalingrad they run mint because they have a crapload of objects, but a really small map. Orel has a crapload of objects on a freaking huge map.

The best ingame quote I've heard in Orel sums it up pretty good.

"<was this a test to see what happens when every single object avaliable is put in a map?>"

Re: NOTE to mappers
 

Gj on Orel, Pierce, i love it. At least i love certain parts of it, like the forest in the east and the trainstation looks wonderful as well.
But there's some things that really should be considered improving. I think you need to create more chokepoints for the map and remove some of the static objects and you have one of the best maps ever created for BF or any of its mods.

Imho you should remove 2 flags from the town. That wold result in 3 equally important areas and create more action for the flags. Then remove some of the bridges. I think there should only be one bridge for each side to get into town, that should create more action as well. And if you remove some houses from the town to increase framerate even on the lower-end systems (although i doubt you have a perfect framerate when diving towards the town in a stuka f.e.) i think the map could be even more successful then it is now.