Large S.T.A.L.K.E.R. inspired Island "NOVA ZONA"

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Kyle..!

Aye you're right man, maybe with some WIP shots I could start to add in the little visual scale human I have on a poly? That'd probably help when people are checking these things out... Good point. ;)

But to answer, yes, a unit could walk up to the top of the waste mound, crouch, and take shots over the top of the metal sheeting.

Or could lie down and shoot through the cracks if they could stand the flies...

Also, all the jagged edges and gaps make for a solid but broken cover from incoming.

Your constant stream of ideas is excellent as well! :)

I really like the idea of having a competition to come up with the best three signs in broken english, that'd be great!

Also yes Ill be having a cemetery or two in this map, based from Roadside Picnic and the Quarry too.

Anyway man, keep the ideas flowing if you have time, I always read them and will do my best to incorporate them!

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

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You mentioned to me in an earlier PM of being heavily inspired by Cormac McCarthy's brilliant novel The Road.

I'm hoping that you'll be quite literal with bringing in some of the more haunting elements of the novel that were only hinted at in the impressive film adaptation.

I'm sure that due to budgetary constraints, the film production couldn't afford to bury everything that's visible in ankle-deep ash, but on this island, it could be. I'm not talking about burying the whole island in ash, but why not make a sizable portion of it so?

Perhaps this region borders on the Red Forest - which mysteriously segues into it in a subtle fashion. A small clump of ash here. A burnt out grove of trees there.

In my mind, I imagine a corpse-forest of completely charred trees, with clumps of gray ash built up on the top portion of their twisted and frequently stunted limbs. The ash would kamikaze itself into the trees' deepest crevices, much as snow settles on trees during a hard winter. Buildings and ruins in this area of the map would have ash settled on them as well, and the rivers and streams could be of gray mud, with the rotting remains of dead fish along its banks. Perhaps the layer of ash could be handled in a fashion similar to ground foilage, so that when the AI moves through the region, the feet, the lower portion of wheels and tracks would disappear below the surface. An easy-to-use module entitled something like "Ash effects" could be supplied, and anything that moves in this region would generate a lot of gray dust. Perhaps dust clouds of ash could blow off of rooftops. Rounds and explosions would kick up significantly more dust than in default terrain. Movement would not only be slowed a bit (say 15%), but also quieted significantly. If it rains, an element of slipping and sliding in the gray muck could be introduced.

A fancy explanation for the existence of Ashland wouldn't have to be given - it just is, just as many things are on the island that's inspired by the Zone.

Ambient animals would be non-existent here. Mutants would be very hard to come by, as they need to eat, and there aren't many calories to be found in Ashland. That doesn't mean that it's uninhabited. Such a sterile and harsh region, providing far less than a desert, would be an ideal location for dark secrets. Hidden laboratories and smuggler coves could be more plentiful here than elsewhere.

The hairs on my arms are just about standing up imagining such a gray and haunting visage.

Hopefully it can be made into a virtual reality.

---------- Post added at 23:32 ---------- Previous post was at 23:09 ----------

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Looks like you just missed seeing my last post! :)

I could start to add in the little visual scale human I have on a poly? That'd probably help when people are checking these things out... Good point. ;)

I almost wrote a "human scale" request in the posting prior, but held back from doing so due to feeling a bit guilty about submitting all of these detailed concepts your way. I feel like I'm burying you in work, and the worst part of it is, you're working for free, so... :o I have to chuckle though - spirit-wise, our brainwaves are very similar to one another's. :cool:

But to answer, yes, a unit could walk up to the top of the waste mound, crouch, and take shots over the top of the metal sheeting.

Or could lie down and shoot through the cracks if they could stand the flies...

Also, all the jagged edges and gaps make for a solid but broken cover from incoming.

I'm happy to read that what your conceptualizing is what I was seeing, which means that you're very good at communicating your intentions through your creations. I just wanted to make sure that I was interpreting it correctly, and I'm pleased to see that I was. Yeah, those busted containers of rubbish are a great way to flesh out the region's depraved and decaying conditions, while offering a range of tactical opportunities. Smart man - SMART. Not only are assets such as these unique compared to anything else we've seen in the STALKER series, but they're also new to ArmA 2, and since variety is the spice of life...

Making an island deeply inspired by our favorite apocalyptic scenarios has SO many advantages to it, it's challenging to imagine where the emotional, psychological, and tactical advantages end.

A lot of what I'm proposing, and a lot of what you're cooking up, are things that were either totally absent from our lists of apocalyptic favorites, or were barely hinted at in them. By substantiating these "ghosts," this island will provide a much richer and deeper sense of immersion for those that endeavor to try it. In my book, a very VERY good thing.

Anyway man, keep the ideas flowing if you have time, I always read them and will do my best to incorporate them!

Thanks for the warm appraisals, and thank you for the open invitation for my dwelling on, and delivering more detailed concepts your way. :) It's clear from the quality of your work, that you've devoted an enormous quantity of time honing your skills, and your generosity to take on something so large for the community is commendable. If what I do can help you in this worthy endeavor, I'm very happy to contribute! :D

[meshcarver 12]

Holy s*&t man..!

There's some amazing ideas and suggestions in there, some of the furthest reaching ideas yet for me to integrate!

I've got a page full of notes scribbled down already from what you wrote as it's kicked me off again for inspiration, cheers Kyle! :D

I already had visions of forests and entire areas with just burnt trees and burnt settlements long rotted, but your idea of an entire Ash landscape with it blanketing everything- f^&%$£g amazing stuff mate! THAT will have to go in, and I hope I can make it a huge area with substantial repercussions for venturing inside this "Zone Within A Zone".

I reckon a main side effect of venturing into this area would be difficulty to breathe, so some form of respirator/gasmask is essential, but even they start to deteriorate after time, quicker than normal. It means that just by BEING there, you are already starting to lose life supporting systems- the very place itself is deadly.

The idea you put down translates in my head into something like this:

It could be a VAST area, long and stretched out that covers a landmass that sits between two important and frequented areas so in effect it sits between them as a sort of natural barrier, or huge hindrance instead, think: "Do we go around the Ashland or through it..? Who here has the necessary ventilation systems for this trip..?" king of thing... because if you get delayed or caught up in a gunfight with some Bandits/Players, you're gonna be there longer than you planned for...

The scene at the very beginning of Book Of Eli were he's sitting waiting for the rancid moggy, and it's gently raining large ash particles- they'd look great.

At one end, like you suggest would be an ideal location for The Red Forest, and at the other end of this dead wasteland there starts the foothills of a huge mountain range or some forbidding high ranges...

Everything in it is either burnt or burning (Fire anomalies continuously shooting flames up into the air, but not everywhere- it's for the most part dead and lifeless, no movement save the ash on the wind), covered in ash or what about ash drifts, like snow drifts against the side of buildings, or almost entirely covered villages and settlements with just their tops poking through? Think: http://www.wilkinsonsworld.com/wp-content/gallery/photos-for-posts-2/3-kolmanskop.jpg

These drifts could be made as assets, both large and small ones and I could place them as I see fit? Again, your idea for ankle deep collision is a must, especially in conjunction with some sort of emitters at moving objects base for ask dust...

When you enter the area, a filter gradually kicks in to desat the screen somewhat and up the contrast for starker visuals, and also randomly generated ash clouds blow through the entire area. Particle emitters as you say would also be great here, some attached to rooftops and trees etc, placed for dramatic effect and also as a visual barrier, a la' JTD's classic "Fire And Smoke" mod (LOVE that mod...).

Needless to say there's hardly ANY cover here, so a Blowout would be fatal almost every time, so timing would be everything (Enter the area straight after a Blowout to be on the safe side and minimise risk).

Damn I'm wanting to start on this area already lol..! :D

Also, another great idea is to have dead fish..! I've got a list here with sketches of dead dogs/cows/birds etc, but I forgot about fishies..!!! They'd look great strewn across inland polluted river banks and lake, but also on a coastal area and some even floating in the water stone cold.

Alright man, I'll leave it for now but as I say, feel free to keep the suggestions coming please..! ;D

Marc

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

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Marc,

Happy to see that your juices are flowing, and that your hand's cramping up from the flurry of notes that you're burning down - hopefully your pencil doesn't catch fire from the friction, but how fitting even if it does, for you're writing about Ashland! ;)

Remember though, copying/pasting my text into a Grand Collection in Word will save your hand from developing palsy. :)

I've read The Road a few times. From what I gather from your site, you're not a father yet. As powerful a read as it must be as a childless adult, I can't help but read that novel through my eyes as a father, and the emotional triggers it pulls... Most of them are very subtle, and they frequently build up and catch you from unexpected directions, and it was hard for me not to choke up every five-six pages. I also couldn't separate many of the taboo/we-don't-dare-tell-anyone type of war stories my veteran friends told me. War is unimaginable horror, and hell. You will see your best friends do things you'd never imagine they could do, good AND bad, and you'll do things too that you never thought you'd do, good AND bad. Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece touches on these central themes over and over and over again. And then in the midst of it, he places a father's love for his son, an innocent who should not be subjected to such brutalities, and nonetheless, he is.

So, from the very first page of The Road, my artistically-wired head was deeply swimming in the literary visuals that McCarthy was painting. Much of what I described above was my rewording of what Cormac blatantly described, but because of how deeply that book connected with me, I can't get the scorched hell out of my mind, nor out of my heart.

I love your detailing of being dependent on air filters and air tanks (near Ashland's borders, these would be worth a small fortune, and the air tank system would eat up a lot of money and also a lot of inventory space - for a huge host of reasons, I suggest making such features ACE 2 compatible). Perhaps the interiors of still standing structures could act as a momentary reprieve from inhaling the deadly ash (even then, I would establish code that prevents a player/the AI from being able to recover full stamina, at most, maybe 70% of it). Of course, the player wouldn't be the only one seeking momentary respite there...

In regards to the ash-drifts that you mentioned, let me steer you towards the rightfully highly lauded I44 mod, which has a great blizzard option that with a little tweaking from white-snow to slate-gray ash, would work perfectly. This link is to the COWarMod version, which I enjoy more than the default version ( http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=16873 ).

You mentioned that this area wouldn't have a lot of cover, but if you'll indulge me for a bit, maybe I can convince you to consider a different route...

Ashland is mostly Dante's Inferno after the hellfires have died out.

For myself, other than the jutting and twisted remains of charred, ash-laden trees, most of what we'd see would look fairly featureless, in fact, it might look deceptively soft and peaceful. But the slowdown/tripping/slipping effects module that I mentioned earlier was for a number of reasons not explicitly stated. The slowdown is not just because of the "fluff" of the ash, but also due to what's below the ash: layers of compressed/dried out ash-mud over the tops of fallen charred tree limbs, stones and rocks, broken bottles, the animal bones McCarthy mentions, small dips and rises in the terrain, downed parts from buildings and automobiles, and more. One can't see these things directly, but they're still there. In fact, I strongly advise making the true nature of the hidden terrain explicit where mud runoff occurs - along the shores of the rivers and streams, or where depressions are deep enough to pool a sizable quantity of mucky liquid. These shorelines would have the broken and dead nastiness of Ashland exposed in a clumpy-mud fashion. That's why we can see the rotting fish carcasses as well. The more-visible corpses of other animals may be more concentrated along these shorelines, as they died there in their last futile attempts to acquire food and water.

Large rocks, boulders and stumps would still be present, but their appearance may entirely be awash in ash-drift. In fact, one of the key considerations in surviving combat in Ashland is to realize that the edges of these drift-covered objects are almost entirely soft. The soft zones would only provide concealment, not cover. One would need to walk into a "drift" deep enough to feel resistance, before one could have confidence that leaving one's body in THAT spot will certainly provide more protection than being a step or two over, because in spite of the appearance, that portion of the mound is just layers of somewhat hardened ash-mud covered by a lot of fluffy ash - and that does NOT make good cover at all.

So, one's survival skills in Ashland would be constantly challenged in a surrealistically soft, almost featureless environment. One's life would depend on finding the hard spots in that fluff.

I like your placing flame-anomalies in this area, as it reminds me of how frequently McCarthy describes large fires mysteriously burning out of control in the hazy distance.

I also really like your geographical plans for where Ashland would be placed - in-between vital centers for more "normal" activities. Going around its far edges would be quite tempting, but it would require extra time, and extra exposure to the elements, to the sharp fanged critters, to bandits, and to rival faction members. The far-turns around Ashland should be heavily seeded with bandits and traps. Yeah, going through Ashland with two-three air filtration masks, or with a portable oxygen system with spare tanks (regardless of how it encumbers a person) sounds pretty good now, doesn't it?

But I'd seed Ashland with comatose-zombies. Lost creatures so famished from not eating in so long they go into a catatonic state, with just enough energy to detect movement, upon which they situp, and go hunting. These undead would be caked in ash, and would be very hard to distinguish from the environment, even in clear conditions. Imagine having a couple of zombie-crawlers pursuing you in this deep-ash environment!

We could have the temperature vary widely, and in a short amount of time in Ashland. If it's warm enough, ash-mud-raindrops would fall from above, and if it's cold enough, ash-snow would drift down.

Structures mostly made of wood would be mostly gone, and where the base was mostly bare of ash, we'd see the charred and melted remains of melted siding. But for the most part, we'd only encounter their remaining heat-stressed-cracked stone/brick/concrete foundations, with perhaps sets of charred studs indicating where walls used to stand erect.

More hardened structures would still stand, with badly heat-warped windows, and glass slagging around holes that were melted through. This type of look would really set Ashland's structures apart from those found in the surrounding environs.

Now, in regards to towns and villages both inside and outside of Ashland... The STALKER series did a pretty poor job of supplying enough buildings to constitute even a village, let alone a town. It would be nice if we could get building densities up to a quantity that's more believable. The poorest of the villages should include a central water well (obviously important areas to control, as there's no life without water).

Some of my favorite islands for ArmA II are those that provide plenty of enterable, AI-garrisonable structures. As a point of easy reference, I'll list them here:

Icebreakr's Island Panthera

Icebreakr's Lingor Island (and its desert counterpart, Dingor Island)

Jakerod's Zernova

Bracer's Emita City (probably the most realistically setup city I've seen, right down to the power station and main industrial center)

There's more, of course, but these are the ones that immediately jump out at me.

Perhaps another key reason for going into Ashland is that it possesses one or two key power plants for a number of villages/towns both inside and outside of Ashland. Obviously, the power plants still works, their once destroyed lines restored, so these locations are VERY critical and thus very valuable, especially if they're integrated to work with the AEG system ( http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=15178&highlight=POWER%2BPLANT ). Whoever controls them can cutoff the power to wherever it goes (including the secret laboratories that are more dominant in this region than elsewhere, who knows what kind of chaos, or hideous new creation, this could release!)- this is no small strategic advantage! In fact, what would be VERY cool, is that if one decides to follow the restored power lines (which are topped off with a thick layer of ash) one will get to other valuable areas. They could also act as strong clues as to the general locations of secret structures (I'd have the visible power lines terminate at a structure that sort of "points" in the direction of the secret facilities, after this surface-structure is reached, the lines go underground). There'd be a drawback to following the lines too closely, as they're patrolled by ash-covered light vehicles and significantly sized foot patrols (wearing "ash-camo"? Hmm...). Taking them on would be an enormous challenge, but the odds of looting valuable equipment, such as oxygen tank systems, spare tanks of air, consumables, batteries, anomaly detectors, maps, and the like, are much much greater. Make a terrible target tempting enough for others to seriously consider taking on the risk for the reward.

Perhaps the largest (or second largest) city on this island would be at the heart of Ashland. A spooky, ghostly and silent shadow of the splendors of civilization so readily found elsewhere.

The hairs begin to stand on my neck when I imagine trudging through kilometers' worth of ash covered and hazy terrain, walking through warped and pale ghost towns, and then suddenly one comes across a working traffic light.

To be clear, not every structure in a region that has power should have power successfully running to them. But the intact power mains would be a definite highway to valuables that are much more challenging to find elsewhere.

It's hard for me not to look back at all that I have written, and not see that this island, when finished, would be ideal for an open-world, sandbox, SP and Co-Op style of play. When we get closer to that point, I'll be happy to share mission-template ideas that I have that are kept interesting enough that they wouldn't be considered "boring" to do over and over again.

Ah, yes, time to get the wee ones ready for bed. :) It's strange how time flies when one's having fun doing work of this nature, eh? :D

And thanks for the most recent PM. It was nice to receive!

Edited November 15, 2012 by Kyle_K_ski

[grimwald 24]

MeanMachine:

Those are some nice objects you've done. :-)

I'll keep tabs on your development blog.

Thought it might be worth you considering contacting Sled88 and OldBear. They have made a terrain map that appears to be based on Google satellite images of the Chernobyl & Pripyat region. Sled88 released it in his Conpsiracies: Rising Dead 3, and from what I've seen of it has a lot of good details but needs a high-level of polish to make it truly excellent. Objects of the quailty you've been making would certainly provide that polish. I can imagine the old collective farms that dot the area south of CNPP rendered and modelled to you standards would really bring a simulation-ist quality to the experience.

I've long thought it would be fantastic to have a "real Zone" to explore in the STALKER way and for it to have player-controlled (via interface) population levels of STALKERS. It's always felt like the Zone is as popular as a National Park in Summer, there's that many people there. :p

Great works and I look forward to more.

[meshcarver 12]

Hi grimwald..!

Thanks very much for your comments and suggestions, appreciated man..! :)

And thanks for your suggestion of a player controlled amount of population in the world too, good idea.

For now, as its early days, ill keep to my plan of creating the Stalker world ive always wanted to see.

I know sled88 and oldbear have released some amazing things in the past, so i wont interfere with them lol..! Im sure they know exactly what theyre doing!

I hope to have another update soon aswell, like a little sentry guard post thats rusted up and in tatters... One of the many relic structures of times gone by in The Zone...

[grimwald 24]

Google Maps - Satellites and Pictures are invaluable resources. Check'em out if you aren't already.

Regarding Sled88 and OldBear's work, wasn't suggesting any interference - just that their map, if they were okay with you using it, would make a great base for a Zone inspired by the real terrain - but with your modelling and mesh-ing skills. :-)

Whatever the choice on your part I can see it will be visually excellent. 8-)

[meshcarver 12]

Cheers Grimwald,

I'll do that- also, I'll check out their new map and see what you mean.

My plan for this map though, is to create a huge Zone basically, but without the Chernobyl Plant, as something else will be there instead for varieties sake. Something simillar...

As for the towns and villages, I'm going to base them on real world layouts for realisms sake, but tweak them to hell to make them interesting/menacing and of course for gameplay.

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Grimwald wrote:

Google Maps - Satellites and Pictures are invaluable resources.

I don't want to sound like I'm talking explicitly on Marc's behalf here, and Marc, never hesitate to let me know if you feel like I am, but from the PMs that I've had with him, I think it's safe for me to say that this island, while definitely inspired by the STALKER series, will be a beast unto itself.

We've discussed at length some of our favorite novels and films, and aspects of those will be brought into the map. Some of these things are quite unlike anything we've ever seen in the STALKER series. For example, if Marc did an even half-hearted translation of the text/film visuals from The Road, well, that's still a lot of material that can't be found in the STALKER games, nor found in the novel that STALKER is based on, Roadside Picnic.

Note too that a good deal of words have been exchanged just discussing bringing in more content from Roadside Picnic into STALKER. Believe me when I say that if he bent the island more towards Roadside Picnic's contents than the default material found in the games, that the island would be noticeably different than what GSC presented to us. The worlds of Roadside Picnic and STALKER are quite a ways apart. After having read the book, there was a large part of me that wished that GSC's developers would've done more to make the game world more like the book, but they didn't, so...

Having scrutinized Marc's portfolio, and his behind-the-scenes screen captures, I'm totally confident that his hammering together of The Book of Eli, The Road, Roadside Picnic, STALKER, and others, will be as haunting as it will be unforgettable.

[meshcarver 12]

Hey up Kyle..! :D

Aye man, you got it pretty much spot on, especially with referring to The Book Of Eli, The Road, Roadside Picnic and of course STALKER.

I think the main difficulty will be in realising this world that has elements and landscapes from each of these little slices of the Apocalypse and melding them together to make a consistent believable place to explore... and I think there's more than one way to do that, so it should be achievable..!

If I do ref from real world locations, it'll be simply to get a realistic town layout that looks good from a game play point of view, (So in effect I could get a road map of a tiny Russian village, then completely change the houses/roads/structures etc, but retain the actual town plan to a degree) so I maintain believability. I think that's a good way to keep immersion in hopefully.

Obviously there's going to be LOADS of completely made up areas, like Stalker camps that are set up around factories etc and warped and irradiated wasteland/marshland settlements so there will be a mix of layout overall.

And obviously running parallel through ALL of this will be The Zone itself, a more or less walled off gigantic area with the whole map being steeped in Stalker folklore and Russian references- that's to give it a sense of place and remain true to the game.

Anyway guys, keep the suggestions flowing as it all helps..! :D

And also, if anyone sees any inconsistencies with this plan, or I'm just getting something -anything wrong- please let me know as I don't want it to go off on a random tangent lol..!

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

(So in effect I could get a road map of a tiny Russian village, then completely change the houses/roads/structures etc, but retain the actual town plan to a degree) so I maintain believability.

Yeah, that's what I've been "getting" from you, without you having been so explicit in the past. This is a good and solid plan.

As much as I've loved the STALKER series, I was always disappointed with its limitations in regards to village and town sizes. Honestly, I can't recall entering a single region that felt like an entire town, and the villages were oftentimes just 5-6 homes in a cluster. I can remember the first time that I went to Pripyat, I thought, "Finally! I'll be able to do some massive urban combat..." And then lo and behold, nearly every building is a solid block - completely unenterable. This felt all the more shocking because so much of the rest of the game was spent fighting inside/outside of somewhat porous structures. To finally make it to Pripyat, a location that you know is loaded with buildings, only to discover that they're solid? The contrast between the two basic types of urban encounters was far too severe, especially after experiencing so much of the "open" type of structures. There was a part of me that wondered if this wasn't so much a game engine limitation, as it was a game design decision. Honestly, urban combat in ArmA 2's larger urban areas is far more difficult if most of the structures are of the open variety. You have more angles to divide one's focus, and a great deal more of shadowy nooks and crannies for the AI to hide in. By limiting structures to 4-7 units, the player is better able to evaluate his setting, and thus have a better survival rate.

Before I go, I finally got a chance to check out Podagorsk Island. It's beautiful, with the urban centers well laid out, but...far too many of the buildings are unenterable, so I'm not planning on using it for my mission making. See what I mean? STALKER spoiled us in the sense of showing us how terrifying urban combat from inside/outside open structures can be. Those are the kinds of experiences that I want, so the fewer the solid buildings, the better.

Which brings me around to zorilya's latest advancements with his AI coding... He's setting up the doors on buildings to be breachable with explosives. If you go visit his Garrison thread at Armaholic's forums, you'll see a great video he's done illustrating what he's doing, how, and why. It would be great if somewhere down the road, we could have non-door items act as "doors," even though they'd look like common barriers, stuff such as crates, a Jerry-rigged slab barrier, etc., etc. Perhaps a module could be supplied entitled "Barrier Potential in Structures," and what it would do is that buildings would have moveable objects randomly generated inside a building that could be moved by the Player/randomly by the AI. So, let's pretend an AI opponent is inside a structure, and he decides to move a couple of heavy items in front of the doorway, to act as a barrier: certain pieces of equipment, such as shotguns, grenades and strips of C4 could take care of those, moving them aside for more unhindered combat.

There's more that could be said on this topic, but my mind's mush!

[meshcarver 12]

Hello again,

Aye Kyle, something like that barricading would be amazing if it could be well implemented. Imagine barricading yourself in a rickety structure at night from hordes of undead STALKERS... :D

As you mention though, that's a long way off yet lol..!

Oh, and I plan on having as close to 100% of structures enterable if it's possible Engine wise- I don't see why it shouldn't be, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Well, I've finished my little Sentry House now, so here it is, and if you go to my blog link, there's also a brief description of it and about some of the detailing in the mesh:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86890612@N02/8196185534/in/photostream

[iOGC_Broadsword 1]

Hi Marc and all,

When we first discussed this project I remember thinking, thank god something is being developed to make me feel like I am inside the book roadside picnic. As you well know I am a huge fan of the book, the movie and loved the STALKER games, even with their limitations. Also in a small way the Metro 2033 game, some great underground areas.

I have also followed and been inspired by the Zone (currently reading Zona by Geoff Dyer) for many years. I love the bleak abandoned industrial world that Tarkovsky portrayed in the zone, threatening but beautiful. I have also done a fair amount of reading on Pripyat and the Chernobyl tragedy and plan to visit the area in the future before it is completely absorbed by nature.

I have been following your project for some time and love the development shots (thanks for posting up on our site). I can already get the feel for the world you are starting to create and can't wait to put my dusty boots down on the ground. Are you going to be focusing as much attention to the underground areas of your world as the surface areas? perhaps a "meat grinder" tunnel system, damp, dark and foreboding.

Anyway great to see you are still pushing your project along and you know if there is any small way myself or the rest of the guys can help out then you know where to find us.

Cheers,

Martin.

[meshcarver 12]

Hey up Broad..! :D

Damn fine of you to check this out man.

Aye, I'm really wanting to create a LOT of underground areas, and also some pretty substantial areas under there too- the only thing right now is I'm waiting on BI information about underground complexes for ARMA3, then I can asses how much I can start to design with the confidence I won't be wasting my time, as I reckon they'll only be worth doing if they can be done right, otherwise they'll feel a bit kack lol.

If they can be done, then hopefully there'll be a sort of "portal" system for the engine were you can turn off huge chunks of geo off with doglegs and things like that, so as to be able to really cluster large areas of high poly detail with no real loss to fps...

Yes, I to would love to go to the Chernobyl area one day myself, I've got a cracking book about it, like a visual record of the area surrounding it and it sits pride of place on my bookshelf here. You might have already read this thread, but just to let you know my main refs for this map are:

STALKER

Roadside Picnic

The Road

The Book Of Eli

So expect a coherent conglomerate of those subjects and mix it all up in a tainted radiation soaked Zone somewhere in Russia/Ukraine, throw in a desperate fight for survival in the wilderness and there you go..! :D

Again, thanks very much for the offer of help and assistance- I've no doubt at some point I'll be harrassing you for testing and more testing..!

Take it easy man and I will see you soon in Cherno+...

Marc

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Broadsword wrote:

and plan to visit the area in the future before it is completely absorbed by nature

I hope that you get the opportunity to tour Chernobyl before Fukushima takes us all out. I'm not joking about that either. Our never-honest mainstream media is not covering what's really happening over there (which is VERY terrifying), and over us (likewise, very terrifying). A site that I go to at least every other day to try and stay atop of what's happening there is Fukushima Diary ( http://fukushima-diary.com/2012/11/column-what-is-going-to-happen-for-the-next-stage-of-fukushima-accident/ ). My heart goes out to the Japanese people, and to all of the biosphere's being irreversibly poisoned for many thousands of years.

I also consult YouTube postings from my Canadian friends, who have setup a sophisticated network of monitoring the radiation levels that they're receiving. I pay particular attention to what's being metered in Ottawa, as it's at the same longitude as where I live in Michigan (only more eastward, of course). The radiation spikes after rainfalls are mind-numbingly scary - I don't let my children outside in the rain anymore. They're too young to understand right now, but someday... well, how does one go about explaining something so tragic? :(

Marc, I've mentioned a few times in the past, in our PMs, about including material dealing with Fukushima, even if it's only in an indirect way. To me, it seems natural to make a connection between the tragedies of Chernobyl and Fukushima. I mentioned that I have a creature design in my head entitled a "Fukushima Flyer," but even if an avian mutant isn't a tie-in, why not have some kind of hard to find portal, perhaps right at the site of another Monolith, and it gives access to a small portion of territory related to Fukushima? None of it even has to be above-ground. It could all be underground - the lower levels of one of the failed nuclear sites in Japan. Japanese writing could be on the walls, on the radiation warning barriers, and the like. If an above-ground portion could be crafted, to me it would be the most chilling to set it at an abandoned Japanese farm, one that has a lonely view of the Fukushima facilities way in the distance.

If moveable and makeshift barricades could be randomly generated inside of structures (other items that would do are tipped-over desks, curios, china cabinets, etc.), if they're used, there should be a realistic penalty for moving them. The player/AI wouldn't be holding their weapon ready, and there would be a span of time for the mover to finish sliding the object into place. During this time, the mover would be VERY vulnerable to attacks of any nature.

Also, perhaps doors could be quickly barricaded with boards, nails and hammers (if this was tied into ACE's system that would be great).

One visage from The Road that I would love to see featured on the island, are the waterfalls that dump ash-mud. That would be sight to see, wouldn't it?

For that matter, why not include a couple of normal waterfalls elsewhere in the Zone? Perhaps Mondkalb, the author of the stunning MBG Nam map ( http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=12402&highlight=VIETNAM ), would cue us in as to how the Waterfall module was designed for the said map?

I also tried out a waterfall mod for one of the dam's on Chernarus, and to see and hear its powerful roaring waters, it was enough to raise the hair on my forearms.

In the big picture of building this island, I certainly hope that it's possible to include elaborate underground facilities. From what I've read on it in the past, one has to provide a big hole before building anything underground, but the AI tend to perform pretty horribly. Perhaps the Namalsk team has ironed out some additional kinks since I last explored an underground region?

One can hope!

:)

[MrVoase 1]

Wow dude I just looked at the blog, loving the sentry tower, will subscribe to this thread to see any updates man.

[iOGC_Broadsword 1]

I like the Idea of having some crossover from one tragedy to another, almost like a second wave of destruction hitting the place. Maybe this would put a little more focus on moving underground because living above would just be so life threatening. Extended tunnels, stations and maybe a warehouse ( I said warehouse Marc :p ).

[meshcarver 12]

Hi..!

Cheers MrVoase, thanks for taking the time to check my blog out man. :D

Aye Broad, I've been getting a proper hefty load of ideas/suggestions etc from Kyle, and LOADS of great PMs too. One of the ideas he put forth that's a keeper is a to make a substantial area of The Zone completely burnt out and almost utterly uninhabitable, he called it ASHLAND, and along with all his ideas I've added to them and we've mixed it up a bit, and it should become what you're asking about- almost a Zone within a Zone, a second wave of (different) destruction.

[meshcarver 12]

'Sup..!

Here's another WIP shot of a typical wooden cable spool.

I've added a large hole through the center, rather than doing it black as a texture, as you never know, you might get to shoot someone through it one day if you're lucky..! ;)

Also, all the cracks and gaps make it not too safe as cover from incoming rounds...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86890612@N02/8208768230/in/photostream

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

as you never know, you might get to shoot someone through it one day if you're lucky..! ;)

Hah! I love it!

Also, all the cracks and gaps make it not too safe as cover from incoming rounds...

Ahh, I hate to break it to you, but that's where you're wrong my friend. Y'see, just like Capt. Kirk's rigging of the Kobayashi Maru exercise, I'm going to do a bit of data dabbling, and I'm going to code the rounds to be...chubby. Let's see those fat boys get through those cracks now!

;)

Having had Thanksgiving here at my house, my nephew just left , and he was, to say the least, VERY impressed by your portfolio, and what you're generating here. He's a smart kid, but he thinks that Call of Duty's "the bomb," so I'm still working on him about that. ;) He challenged me to play it again, but I told him that before I can do that someone's going to have to buy me a ticket for its rails. Oh yeah, that one stung him a bit.

Great work again Marc!

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Kyle,

Lol, I liked the one about buying a ticket for its rails... ;)

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving..!!!:cool:

Sorry I not yet reply to your other PM, but I have a lot of other work on right now and that's also the reason these objects are slowing down a bit.

I'm taking every available hour to keep this going as much as possible, so it's slow and steady for now-frustrating!!!

Alright man, take it easy and thanks for your comments matey!

[meshcarver 12]

Hello again,

I've been working on this simple house structure when I can grab a few hours here and there, and it's more or less finished.

I'm doing as many things as possible in a modular style, so now I have these tiling textures like the wooden floors, brick walls, wallpaper and plaster etc, I can easily and rapidly create variations on the theme of this structure.

For example a two storey house, a house with the walls almost completely crumbled down or one with many more rooms of different sizes and a flight of stairs. Basically endless variations and blends...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86890612@N02/8246729474/in/photostream/

Also, I'll be doing little "dressings" like aerials, light fixtures and things like that to enhance the detail level and break up the silhouette more.

Worth mentioning is there'll also be quite a few different wallpaper types, floor types etc, so this should bring a bit more variation too.

Let me know what you guys think, and it's also great to have crits if you have them..! :D

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

One of the things that I noticed in a number of the images on your portfolio site is that you featured modular work that was so expertly done, one would have a hard time discerning that the entirety of the structure wasn't custom-made, meaning, that every cm. of it was original, and not copied/pasted and linked together. To pull something like that off already impressed me, but to now read that you're also breaking modularity into textures takes it to a whole new level.

That you'll be able to stack upwards and stamp side-by-side building modules is very impressive because there's no doubt that it'll make your operations more efficient on a multitude of different levels, while also boosting in-game performance.

What I like about the structure that you've presented here is that it truly stands out from other structures we've already seen on other islands, and it looks like the level of geometry is something that the ArmA II engine can handle nicely, and the spots for the AI are numerous, so - that image is packed with a ton of things that I like seeing! GREAT work Marc! :bounce3:

[--Scorpion-- 0]

Amazing work on these models MeanMachine, they're all top quality.

I really like the way this project is heading so far and Kyle have tons of good idea that if implemented right will make this island truly unique. I don't know if you've any experience with making map but if you put as much love as you do with your models, the island will be awesome and one of the best Arma 2.

Keep up the good work

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Scorpion,

Thanks very much for your comments man, it's really appreciated a lot..! :D

Aye, Kyle's been absolutely limitless for ideas and inspiration- there's already so much to go from from his ideas alone, and you haven't seen our PMs either- FULL of more ideas and suggestions..!!! I think he LIVES in The Zone... ;)

I'm trying to make this the Stalker game I always wanted to play, so yes, I'm taking care and putting the time in to create some good solid objects and structures (Working on a standalone Laboratory right now- just a standard one, so then I can make more variations on it later), but I've no experience of creating an island for ARMA, but I more or less understand the process and will get as much background info as possible before I start that side of things- and I'll put in the love too.

Thanks again man..!