Spec's Work (in progress)

**Spec** Sat May 07, 2011 7:15 pm

As promised, I registered on the site. I do have a couple of maps laying around here, but none yet usable fully, so I'll not demand being taken into the guild at this point. Right now, I'm going to work on and finish this work posted below; after that, I'll go back to one of my previous works and edit it to suit either Battle or Siege mode. But to bring some life into this forum, I'll just create my thread already, and put the WIP pictures of my current map in here:

This is what I'm working on:
http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/113779984-4.jpg

As you can see, the basic town layout has been finished: http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/113779915-4.jpg
I will add a village outside town, some fields, a mill or two, a few roads, a high bridge over the main river, and, on the other side of the river, a forest, with perhaps a little cave system, remote village, bandit camp et cetera.

Right now however, I'm going to continue working on the town itself. The blank, basic town layout may be done, but I'm currently adding detail to gardens and backyards. After that I'll create the interior of the few enterable buildings, decorate the roads and business parts of town, put stuff into partly open houses, decorate the market places, add a graveyard around the church/temple-thingie near town center (and possibly a larger one outside the town) and so on.

Example of a few gardens: http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/113780023-4.jpg (Those are the backsides of a few houses near the main business road from the harbour to the town gate)
Example of a backyard: http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/113780047-4.jpg (This specific backyard is between the harbour and 'craftman's quarter'; more details specific to the important houses will be added later (barrels etc. near taverns, craft-specific items near related buildings, fishing-related objects near the harbour area etc.)

If anyone has any suggestions, bring 'em on. I want this to look like a realistic, functional, medieval town.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 07, 2011 7:20 pm

Wow that not only looks amazing and fun but it looks almost complete! When you feel you are ready for it to be called "finished" let me know and I will add you as an associate.

I love how you layed out the streets, looks pretty chaotic but at the same time you see clear lanes and roads. Very authentic looking.

**Spec** Sat May 07, 2011 7:34 pm

At my current pace, I reckon it'll take another week or two for it to be "finished" (although I'll probably keep adding details after that, whatever comes to my mind).

Right now, about 10% of the gardens and backyards are finished, 0% of the "point of interest"-buildings have their detail added to them (I plan on doing around 15-30 of those), 1% of the outside area is done (only a small inn by the towpath on the other side of the river offering rest for servants and animals who carried the ships upstream) and the castle, guard garrison, trade office and large warehouse as enterable buildings aren't done yet either, except for the buildings themselves. Still a long way to go Smile

That's assuming I won't get the bug again where plants disappear when I place too many of them. Perhaps someone here knows what's the matter with that and if it's possible to avoid that. If I'm doing a forest outside, that means hundreds of trees and just as many rocks, bushes, sticks, logs, buddy plants etc.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 07, 2011 7:37 pm

When you designed the terrain code for the map, did you make sure to slide the vegetation slider all the way to the left for no vegetation? If you seed vegetation using the terrain tool and then alter the terrain the seed regenerates the locations of the plants and you get trees growing out of houses, etc. Always make sure the slider is fully to the left when you are making the terrain.

Also, what game mode do you intend to have this map play on? Looks like a great TDM/Battle map. For siege it could work but its rather large, I guess it would depend whre you place the flag and spawn points. just keep in mind that if you put a defender spawn too far from the flag it becomes "neutral" and attackers can spawn in them.

**Spec** Sat May 07, 2011 7:49 pm

Yes, I made sure there's no plants in the terrain by default.
Perhaps Warband can simply only handle so many trees until it bends in and gives up.

As for game modes; no idea. My actual submission will probably be a different, smaller map. With this one I'm testing the engine limitations. I'll probably make it a battle map with only a small area of the actual town being accessible or the town gates closed. I just want to see what the engine can handle, this'll probably never run on any server. Don't worry though, I got less... extreme maps as well, as I've mainly mapped for a duel server I know how to optimize stuff.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 07, 2011 9:31 pm

Sounds great! I never encountered a tree limitation that is odd. I would have to see just how many trees you placed though because I have placed a LOT of trees on some of my maps but never encountered that error.

**Spec** Sat May 07, 2011 9:55 pm

http://de.xfire.com/video/37333f/

This one here for instance had about half of its vegetation (not really trees, mostly bushes etc.) disappear whenever someone (anyone) else hosted it.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 07, 2011 10:37 pm

Holy crap yeah! I see now what you mean. I don't think I have ever seen that many trees on one map ever. Perhaps there is a hard coded limitation.. I will ask our script writer about that maybe he will know. Must have sucked to worked that hard on that only to see it not work once you tested it online :\

By the way that is a really cool looking map I love some of the details you put in it.

MrX Sun May 08, 2011 12:15 am

Damn that's detailed, I doubt I'd ever have the patience to create something like that.

Tomu-Pc Thu May 12, 2011 1:21 pm

Congratulations for all this work thorough and detailed. Keep it up.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Thu May 12, 2011 3:35 pm

You are welcome to use one of our private servers (GK clan) for testing if you would like once your map is ready, just hit me up in a PM.

**Spec** Thu May 12, 2011 4:07 pm

Much appreciated Smile

It'll take a while however; exams are keeping me busy at the moment, along with clan related stuff.

**Spec** Fri May 27, 2011 6:34 pm

Just to let you know I'm still alive.

Despite being very busy at the moment, I continued working on it. Finished the basic layout of two streets now, although they still need some polish; I designed them too broad, I'll have to make them seem smaller somehow.

http://de.xfire.com/video/476fe8/

**Deaf Blind Dave** Fri May 27, 2011 7:09 pm

Wow dude just watched the whole thing, that map is hyoooooge! I love the detail in the little stores and all the crop areas around the city. Was funny how you entered edit mode to fix that one wagon cheers

I can see you are putting a lot of work into the map Smile

**Eidridin** Fri May 27, 2011 7:58 pm

Damn, as much as I like detailing maps, I don't think I can accomplish something that would take this long to finish! Congrats! What do you plan to do with this map as soon as your finished?

Also I can't see your work in Xfire. For some odd reason I can't watch Xfire videos.

**Spec** Sat May 28, 2011 3:38 am

I have no idea to be honest. I'm mostly mapping for the sake of testing what the engine can handle, right now. If it gets too laggy, it'll probably not be usable at all. If not... I dunno. Certainly not regular battles/sieges, it's just way too big and hardware hungry for that.

**Eidridin** Sat May 28, 2011 11:40 am

Building it for the same reasons you would build Legos? lol

**Spec** Sat May 28, 2011 1:19 pm

If you want to put it that way :p

I'm bored of small, arena-like maps. I want something that looks... real.

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 28, 2011 3:33 pm

You can always possibly use it for a siege event. My map Citadel Avitus was massive, 3 walls full city. You can see it in the pics I posted. I could send you the SCO file so you can check it out first hand, it even has a fully functioning jousting arena.

**Spec** Sat May 28, 2011 4:15 pm

The pictures of that map indeed look quite impressive Smile

Might be nice to take a closer look at it, indeed Smile

**Deaf Blind Dave** Sat May 28, 2011 7:52 pm

Spec wrote:The pictures of that map indeed look quite impressive

Might be nice to take a closer look at it, indeed

PM me your email, I will send you the file and terrain code.

**Spec** Mon May 30, 2011 3:08 pm

Thanks for the PM Smile

Very nice work indeed, very creative use of objects and some very unique places! Great inspiration, the map's got a very nice feel to it, very town-ish, probably due to the smaller streets, I kinda made mine too large, but that'll not be changable anymore now.

But, of course, your map is much more optimized/playable. I'm at 700 KB right now and haven't even finished half of the town, let alone the outside area.

**Eidridin** Mon May 30, 2011 4:31 pm

holy crap, 2mb map? lol

**Deaf Blind Dave** Mon May 30, 2011 5:37 pm

Thanks for the feedback. As mentioned in the email it still has a lot of fleshing out to do, lots of detailing I want to add. I will show you the final product if I ever get to it.