Fallujah City

[Requiem007 10]

Thank you for your work. It's definitely a really nice map I've enjoyed exploring it so far and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the night. I agree with Fox that OPX buildings would be add to the immersion but what you have right now is really good. I don't want to sound demanding or anything but I believe adding compounds and walled-in buildings in the suburbs would be a nice addition to the map. EDIT: Just found some in the southern suburbs nevermind. Anyways, really good work. I'm "tabbing" back in to Arma 2 now to explore and play your map some more!

Edited October 11, 2010 by Requiem007

[maturin 12]

Wow, kudos for not requiring OA.

How would people say performance compares to Chernogorsk or Qesh Kibrul?

[W0lle 1050]

please leave us alone ' date=' acoustic. Stop posting in my threads, and really just don't reply to us , we dont like you and we really dont care what you have to say, tbh.[/quote']

And you're no moderator in this forum, as long as this thread is open everyone can post in here as long as his posts are not violating any of our rules.

[Fox '09 14]

I shouldn't of posted it here

But in general I wanted him to stop bothering me.

I don't care if he posts here at all :)

---------- Post added at 05:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 AM ----------

Wow, kudos for not requiring OA.

How would people say performance compares to Chernogorsk or Qesh Kibrul?

Well oa objects are kinda specific to afganistan anyway. Some vegetation could of been used, and the mosque would be put to good use..but it's always nice to go back to arma 2 and be able to play it

For men it runs better than anywhere in chernarus . It's really optimized

[miles teg 1]

Thank you for your work. It's definitely a really nice map I've enjoyed exploring it so far and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the night. I agree with Fox that OPX buildings would be add to the immersion but what you have right now is really good. I don't want to sound demanding or anything but I believe adding compounds and walled-in buildings in the suburbs would be a nice addition to the map. EDIT: Just found some in the southern suburbs nevermind. Anyways, really good work. I'm "tabbing" back in to Arma 2 now to explore and play your map some more!

I agree with Requiem. If you look at the OPX Avgani map, you will see how a proper Middle Eastern town looks like. Almost every neighborhood has houses within small compounds. The Avgani map is so realistic I could almost smell the flinty desert air. (BTW I grew up in the Middle East and have travelled around the region so I know what towns in the region look like). So, for what it's worthy, if you copy the lay out of the neighborhoods in Avgani, your map will look MUCH more realistic IMHO. Also I think you can do this just using BI objects so I don't think you'll need to use the OPX objects (although that would make it a little nicer). But so far it's not too bad. Keep up the good work as I know map making is not easy and so far you're doing a good job.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Reimann 10]

And you're no moderator in this forum, as long as this thread is open everyone can post in here as long as his posts are not violating any of our rules.

Wolle always has to put his 2 cents in..

[shezan74 11]

I don't like so much to have requirements related to other map makers work.

Not for pride but to be sure that everything is related to my maps could be used without other island version problems.

This is one of reasons behind the choice to avoid opx buildings for now.

This was a philosophy and performance choice. Flying in a chopper above the city must be a nice experience, not a slow motion simulator, so opx will be addes if meets my needs, elsewhere no :)

About external areas this will be the main work to do for future releases. This map is several times bigger in area than saharani and we've took the choice to release the island in a good state instead waiting for another 2 months. As IceBreaker said, making island is very time expensive. Working on a city of this size is really annoying sometimes...

Future improvements will be more detail on the city itself and over south west area, some improvements on airport area, railway north of fallujah and some other characterizations over some areas.

By the way with new world tools software i'm able to import into island objects placed by clanmates by using the arma2 mission editor, so some areas will be assigned to different junior mapmakers to make island more complex and beautiful :)

[minimalaco 30]

Wohoo!! go to fallujah :yay: :bounce3:

[nettrucker 142]

Outstanding news.

Keep up the great work.

can't wait for this one to be released and to have a go at it.

kind regards

[ArmaholicBR 10]

Really nice map, just came back from some exploring/flying..

I'm with you, if opx buildings would slow things down you've made the right choice, the city is huge and the performance is also good for its size!

Just one suggestion: adding more variations of trees and bushes into the city, it would feel more natural and real, right now the trees looks all the same.

Keep up with the good work! Thx!

[shezan74 11]

Just one suggestion: adding more variations of trees and bushes into the city, it would feel more natural and real, right now the trees looks all the same.

Thank you for your suggestion :)

The original plans was to use Berghoff trees (and this was until 2 days ago), but placing those objects in high density (outside the city) produced a lot of stutter on the map, due the high level of detail of this very nice plant set.

By using the ones i've released the frame rate increased a lot also with 5km visibility, so we decided to use those objects and i've removed berghoff package (at least for now). This also saved another 30mb from download. The drawback is the variation.

I'm doing some experiments on exporting and reworking trees with world tools by mixing palms with salix and betulas that could be a nice addition. Maybe Berghoff work could be used only inside the city... dunno.

Bushes will be added in the city with one of the next releases. Placing bushes with random software will place them also inside houses and in the middle of roads (i've extimated more than 120 km of roads inside the city, and automated scripts will remove also lightpoles and correct placed trees, so it's a manual work) and i'm keeping the long cleaning task for the final refinement.

[katipo66 94]

Well ive played it a bit and what a great map already! awesome work... personally im all for performance, its no use if it looks beautiful and realistic if i cant use it.

[sic-disaster 311]

This is a great map. Really, i am stunned with how big the city is and that it still runs better than Takistan does for me :p

I found this huge hotel near the Euphrates in the North of the city, and i immediately planned a rooftop insertion on it with special forces to clear it out with some good old CQB action. Unfortunately Tophe's House Patrol script doesnt seem to work with the building, and it teleports all the Takistani Militia to other buildings in the vicinity instead of putting them in the hotel and let them walk through it.

It doesnt seem to have any positions coded into that building, which is unfortunate because it is by far the best building to have some good CQB in.

Anyways, the potential for missions on this map is quite big i think. It's awesome, thank you.

[miles teg 1]

Will you add more compounds like on the Avgani map? HOnestly I think this is EXTREMELY important, otherwise it just doesn't feel right as typical building layouts in Middle East towns has all of the buildings packed together next to each other with only a few alley-ways and generally with compound walls around each house (and no walls around commercial buildings for shops). There should be enough good Middle Eastern buildings in Operation Arrowhead to make it fairly realistic...well unless you don't have OA in which case this project will probably never feel quite right. But if you do, the adobe type buildings should be more for small farms outside the city (although I did see a whole neighborhood of such buildings in Alexandria, Egypt).

But as I said earlier, just look at the OPX Avgani city layout to get an idea of what I'm talking about as that layout is PERFECT and even more realistic then the city on the Zargabad map that BI made (although that is good also to examine as it is fairly close as well).

But again, I'm not demanding this. I know it will take a LONG time and I thank you for releasing this beta. But please trust me on this advice otherwise the city will never really "feel" like an authentic Arab city. Also even better...study actual pictures of Fellujah neighborhoods.

Example:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/An%20Edgy%20Calm%20in%20Fallujah.jpg

Notice that there are NO gaps between the buildings. Also if sidewalks can be added to some areas that would be fantastic...but if you can't due to FPS and time issues that is understandable.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/Market%20Street%20Fallujah.jpg

Notice the market tables/stands in front of the buildings.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Fallujah_2004.JPG

The above pic is a typical Fellujah neighboorhood. Notice how almost every house has a little courtyard/compound wall with a metal gate in front of the entrance. This is the most common architecture of your average house in almost any Arab country you go to.

So in summary, if you put the commercial buildings close together (divided by streets only) and add more courtyards or compounds w/gates for residential neighborhoods, you will have a MUCH more realistic looking Fellujah. Yes...the object count will go up unfortunately however but this can be minimized with more fields and open areas in between neighborhoods and commercial areas. With that said, so far you have a very good start and it is definitely a usable map so again, good job so far!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

Edited October 11, 2010 by Miles Teg

[enad 11]

Gotta agree with Miles Teg, the one thing that made Avgani so authentic was the buildings and the building placement, the houses looked so real and he positioned them perfectly. Would love to see something like that on this map.

[acoustic 82]

I shouldn't of posted it here

But in general I wanted him to stop bothering me.

I don't care if he posts here at all :)

In all honesty I was just messing with you, but if I am being a pest.. I will stop posting in your threads.

[shezan74 11]

I love Avgani.

Avgani is, imho, the best urban context ever created on ArmA. Stop. At this stage, Fallujah is not an attempt to overhelm Avgani map or realize an Avgani replacement, even if it's really desiderable :)

We have, unfortunately, some differences:

Avgani is small. 2.5 x 2.5 km map. Fallujah is big. 10x10. This means the city is 16 times bigger, maybe more. This doesn't mean you can't have the same quality, in the future, but it's a very long and time consuming work for a single man like i am. At this time there are near 200 work hours on this beta.

Avgani is fictional. That means roads and objects are placed "where the developer needed them". That means some 90° angle at road corners. And sidewalks are easily placeable. Fallujah roads are painted over satellite maps. This mean there are very little road crossings that forms a 90° angle, and this is a problem for placing sidewalks. And there are 120-130 km of roads...

We're dealing with AI. AI doesn't like so much bottlenecks and long walls, if you plan to have a city wide war with troop movings from far away.

I've watched a lot of Fallujah images, and i've noticed some small differences. Many differences are related to the missing of "noise" around the roads: markets, cars and so on. And this is something we're working on. Buildings are placed on Satellite spot, so there are some differences from Fallujah to Avgani area

Also, after next major releases, i can plan a small area replacement with more enhanced areas.

Commercial areas are on the way. Gates will be a further improvement in the next future, but will require some time. If i will get in contact with Opteryx (that seems unreachable) i will ask him about the possibility to include his objects into the island without needs of Avgani map mounted. This will give us some more possibilities. I'm also in touch with Arremba, a GREAT italian developer that is making a very nice work with Pedagne Mod

to make objects for Fallujah

About compounds i've some friends that are working on this, by producing compounds using ArmA2 mission editor that i can import into the island. If you go to the northern part of Fallujah you can see a military compound. This has been created by a clan mate in ArmA2 mission editor and imported into the island from the SQM. So everyone can contribute, in the future, to improve the project. Maybe the first real "community island" even made :)

Thank for your reports, all will be added to my work list :)

Edited October 11, 2010 by shezan74

[megagoth1702 252]

Absolutely love that city dude, did a few chopper runs, reminds me of good old days in Afghani, haha.

FLIR is buggy at night though. Daytime is ok, night time is... Check it out yourself.

Edited October 11, 2010 by megagoth1702

[hellfire257 3]

I really like this map. Bucket loads of potential, massive area, great frames; it really is a work of art! My only suggestion would be to remove those tin shed garage things with the weird Shadow thing. That is really annoying sadly :S

[soldier2390 0]

hey man map looks great...dont want to say too much or ill end up talking\writing for an hour, so pretty much i back what "Miles Teg" and everyone else says...but you seem like your working on that, so its really too early to coment on things as we dont know what you may have in store:) which so far is beautiful enough!

but yeah my only grips is make it 100% realistic as possible, make sure all FOB\AirBase\Base's are acurate meaning build them using the satmap(and of course like anything else on a map of RL, arma2 dont come with all buildings\objects needed, so of course it wont be too authentic, but most things can be worked around)! also anyway to replace the arma1 defences\bunkers and what not with the arma2 ones..IMHO arma1 bunkers\sandbags look like shit!

well thats all for now. will let you get more done before i grip some more lol!

EDIT: Any chance to expand the map to the west a bit so that we can have the Airport in its actual location..would be better and more realistic and it also gives a player more playing time as it being in the city makes transport by helo unreasonable in some cases..where if its out where it should be then it makes helo rides into the city funner! also please add in the FOB GOld(i believe its just west of the city???)

Dave

Edited October 11, 2010 by soldier2390

[comarsky 0]

The airport location is fake, the real one is far at the west, but for playing needs we put it anyway, and still in WIP. A lot is still in WIP.

We could say this is the initial structure shez wanted to share with you.

About the critics, you got it all right and be sure we will take in consideration all of them.

The avgani is a little jewell, but here we are talking of a Sakakah if you really want to compare at something.

Here we are making an urban environment to get loose in (you can't loose yourself inside avgani, you can't even fly with an heli), no matter if you have a house "nicer" or not.

Sure thing is that we would like the atmosphere recreated, we are aware of that and we will work on the "space caracter" later...

here we needed to place three thousands of buildings, can you imagine how does that takes, how much patience? i say it to you 2-3 weeks of work, and you don't play during those.

Sincerly, for the moment just say him:

GOOD JOB!!! THANKS SHEZ!!! IT'S HUGE

[Nordin 0]

Nice map!

Would be nice with a AI friendly airport, right now the A10 goes straight through the fence.

Also..when destroying a ARMA1 house it just falls to the ground and magically disappear.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Nordin

[acoustic 82]

Good job!!! Thanks shez!!! It's huge

[comarsky 0]

Nice map!

Also..when destroying a ARMA1 house it just falls to the ground and magically disappear.

There should be some ruins on all of them, it doens't work :confused: I tested those...

[Drumheller 19]

Shezan are there any chances of you putting some of the enterable buildings from OA in?

The map is sheer awesome.