I'm working on a map based (very loosely...very very) on an island chain in the South Atlantic ocean, the Kerguelen Archipelago. I was able to modify a relief map of the archipelago and use it as my starting heightmap. I have, for obvious reasons, scaled the map down a lot, so its nowhere near the size of the actual archipelago. However, it shares the shape, and looks very glaciery...so I'm happy.

Heres two screens, the first being a map of the Kerguelen Archipelago, the second being my ingame (all objects are hidden ) rendition;

(The map is oriented upside down to clarify the resemblance)




The map is going to be objective heavy, but also very open ended. I will give the player a lot of secondary objectives, none of which absolutely have to be completed (else they would be primary....). If I can get it right with the flowgraph editor (which right now I am very unfamiliar with in terms of node functionality), the completion of a secondary objective may, for instance, allow other secondary objectives to be activated and completed later on in the mission. The player will have a lot of room to explore, I plan to create about 10 places the player can choose to start his mission from, and hopefully I can implement that well by making the plane (C17, right?) he jumps out of actually move across the map, giving the player the choice of where parachute in.

I also plan to (again if the flowgraphing part clicks in) script some random weather changes (and hopefully some corresponding gameplay and AI changes). If all goes as planned, these changes could effect everything from basic AI vision and hearing, the ability of AI to alert each other across the map (if you are spotted and they alert each other, they will remain alert to some degree the remainder of the map) via satellite radio, whether enemy helicopters can chase you down and drop troops, or even the way you are evacuated from the island once the map is complete.

So this map is also going to be very flowgraph intensive, if anyone wants to offer help send me a pm so I know I can come to you when I have specific questions.

Obviously I don't have much to show (at this point I'm posting mostly to keep myself motivated to keep working on the map) right now, but last night I drew up a map of the island on a sketchpad, with plot notes, general object placement, and some important design ideas. So I should be able to whip up the basic map pretty quick since I have a "beta" layout setup already.

Anyways, I'll be updating this frequently with screenshots and news and probably questions. Any suggestions are welcome.

That looks insane. You almost got it complete perfect, the shape!

Uhh...pic is upside down lol.

A/W

Sound great =]

Yeah I had to turn it upside down, I bet no one would've seen any similarity if I hadn't.

I'm working on a KPA Headquarters that will be overlooking a research zone. Having trouble making the helicopters on the pads turn their spotlights on...

wow that is really cool

Here is the next screenshot update:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/9896/37785618ap1.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/5193/38879656fw0.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9665/88154728jn9.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3458/33708543tr3.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7807/19956942ja3.jpg
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9739/82776849bt3.jpg
http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/6268/24988948yn5.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/5560/75530253fj9.jpg
http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/6118/33025174od7.jpg
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1527/90854903mt1.jpg
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2972/55745304gn1.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/2447/75635174ds2.jpg

I am working on texturing/terrain-modelling the map, so entity/gameplay progress is moving slowly. Once I finish the terrain (its going to take a while - all the hills need to be modified so they aren't featureless lumps, and the texturing is going to get more and more in depth as I get further along - ending with me adding decals over layer-textures and possibly entity-reskins.

Anyways, more screens next time I can work on it (probably tomorrow). I'm going on a ski/snowboarding trip friday afternoon and coming back sunday afternoon (but I'm going to a concert as soon as I get home sunday...), so I won't be able to work on it from friday-sunday. Hopefully I can finish up the basic terrain by then (though I doubt it, its a lot of work and I want to go slow and do it right).

Very nice. Looking forward to this. Good luck!

Unfortunately progress is going to slow down to a crawl. I broke my right wrist (mouse hand...) during a recent snowboarding trip. Typing takes twice as long (and after a few sentences my arm starts to ache from the awkward angle I must hold it), and mouse movement is horribly inaccurate and unmanageable.

I can get the conceptual stuff down hard though, so when I am outta this cast I can get right on it.

Looks great, lovely ToD as well

Progress:

I've gotten a lot better with the flow graph editor, and have already scripted in some randomly occurring sequences - when the player does a certain thing, there is a chance another thing will happen, and if it does, there is another set of responses - I have used this so far to emulate human behavior - if the AI hears a (non-combat but unexpected) noise at another AI's location, there is a chance he will investigate, but also a chance he will just be lazy and keep doing what he's doing.

I am still not very far into getting the map done, I am getting close to finishing 2 main areas, I have at least a half-dozen more to go. However, the more fluent I get with the editor, the quicker I will move.

Also, I would absolutely love to reskin the various jungle-camouflaged units (AI and vehicles for the most part), but my skinning abilities are not the greatest. I will get to it before I release the map, but the result will likely be nothing more than desaturation with a few contrast/shadowing tweaks. If anyone out there is willing to do reskins for me, in the arctic/winter theme, I would really appreciate it.

Questions:

Does anyone know how to make the helicopter spotlights turn on? The regular vehicle:lights trigger does not work.

Also, how can I attach two entities to each other? I want to attach a light to an object, but have no idea how. Do I use the child/parent entity flow nodes?

How can I change AI alertness via flowgraph? Like the meter on the hud that goes up as they see/hear you, how can I raise that? The AI:Alertness flow node has no input, only 4 outputs (which I have absolutely no idea how to use). I have a few situations where the AI ineveitably comes across a dead body, and want them to react accordingly (right now they have no reaction!)

Finally, what is required to make AI use grenades? I know they use smoke grenades (the NK nano-suits use them frequently in the campaign) but my AI refuse to. I have a number of units (snipers and tank crew) whom I feel would very likely have smoke-grenades at their disposal for signaling or cover, in real life. None of these morons will throw grenades, ever though.

Screenshots:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/6628/92041541pd3.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/440/untitled23ko4.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2496/untitled22ax9.jpg
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4954/untitled21gu1.jpg
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3229/untitled20hd6.jpg
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/227/untitled19rk7.jpg
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/6718/untitled18sd2.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/5090/untitled17cn2.jpg
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2261/untitled16pc2.jpg
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/8061/untitled14iw6.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7233/untitled13vg3.jpg

What size IS the archipilago irl, though? And what size did you make the terrain? I could see someone feasibly making it at a 1:1 scale with 8kx8k res x2 (so you get 50% quality in the terrain, but a bigger terrain!). You'd need 64-bit, but there shouldn't be a reason to cut back on level sizes anymore .

*edit* HEY, the sp comp alpha submission aint over yet, submit it right now and compete! Hell, it's really late in teh game but you never know, more than likely you'll pick up 3rd place in something at the least!

I'm sure I could've done it 1:1, but to be honest with the general terrain quality (not generated, but final build with textures and decals etc) I'm shooting for, I don't think I have the capacity to stick with a map that large. It would either be totally incomplete or total garbage when I decided I was finished with it.

I forget what the dimensions are in my version (I am not on a computer to check either) but the real life version is 7,215 km^2, according to wikipedia.

I will consider submitting it to the thing, but the amount of work I have ahead of me (and the fact that I want to actually stick it through and do the work - I don't want to have to compromise or even cut for a deadline) means I probably won't submit it.

Anyone got any clues on my above questions? Those are all things I screwed around with for a while in the editor and could not figure out.

New screenshots, Helicopters now have realistic lights (now if I could only get a spotlight to move with the turret...)!

http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/2471/untitled1dv8.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/7336/untitled4ak2.jpg
http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/9833/untitled5ol0.jpg
http://img394.imageshack.us/img394/8691/untitled6hy8.jpg
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/7515/untitled9rq7.jpg
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/5453/untitled10dv2.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/499/untitled11gv9.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/8813/untitled12db7.jpg
http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/1153/untitled13cg4.jpg

I still don't know how to alter AI alertness via flowgraph. I will have to go back through the campaign and see if their are any scripted events (yeah...right) where the AI's alertness level is changed. Why oh why doesn't the AI:Alertness node have inputs to change alertness?

nice. Just be careful on what you apply the frozen material too. Though the vehicles should have it...shooting at anything w/ frozen mat results in insta kill and insta shattering. If you can get over that hurdle, this map could be 1000x bettar! As far as the spotlight goes, look at how the scout works with its spotlight. It happens to move around randomly regardless of where the scout is moving or standing still facing 1 direction.

Cool. Thanks for the pointer on the scout spotlight.

And yeah, unfortunately to do this map right I'm going to have to do a lot of reskinning (which I am not a big fan of). Its a shame the "material layer" settings affect more than just the appearance (you'd think there would be some user input there as to what exactly it did, rather than just checking frozen and having a hollow-unusable car frame that shatters at the slightest contact with anything).

But oh well. I'm on no deadline and I'm learning new stuff each time I open up SandBox2 so I'm not loosing interest in this map at any rate.

And I don't know if I mentioned this, but I have helicopters that patrol at random! Two of three will be circling the map at all times, one will land and subsequently empty its man-crew for piss/smoke/booze/AISmartObjectClass/lazy/walk break, thus giving the well planned player an opportunity at a helicopter. I just had an idea too - if possible, I will make it so that if the player "tags" all three helicopters with his binoculars, he will be given HUD-alerts as to when and where a given helicopter is landing. Dunno if thats possible though, as I don't know of any flow-node related to helo's landing.

Again, the possibilities of CryEngine2...

Edit: I forgot to ask, what do ya'll think of the helo lights? The screens don't do them justice, I admit, but ingame they are absolutely awesome. Especially the blinking tail light. I might take a video next time I have access to my desktop.