[WIP] Rhodesia Bush War

[RhodesianScout 189]

Looking at the feedback so far it looks like we are heading for smaller maps for the mod.......... which is most likely the most sensible way to go.

 

10 x 10 is too small for what I have planned so the size is more than likely to be 20 x 20 

[RhodesianScout 189]

Guys: I love this project so here are a few tips that might help you:

 

1. Re-use where possible: as Xeres pointed out there are already assets out there which could you use. This would save you time and might even win you some help (modders are usually incredibly proud of their work). Although it's A2 here's a mod that comes closest to reproducing Africa's bush wars of the 60 and 70s: Dimitri_Harkov's Guerra do Ultramar & associated missions (Operation Mar Verde, Angola 1972, Strela, Operation Trident). Regarding the Alouette, almost a year ago Dimitri_Harkov wrote:

 

 

 

2. Get help from vets: this community harbours some old salts who have years experience creating maps, units & missions. Rather than bash your head against a wall, maybe you could learn a few tricks from them. For islands I can recommend cifordayzserver (leader of CUP_Terrains), IceBreaker (Lingor, Duala & Panthera), drifter (Korengal & FATA) & Auss (Australia in 40x40km). For missions there's a group calling themselves RWO or Real World Operations who I think could best help. In fact last year they published a mission based in Rhodesia. I think that its author, mathias_eichinger might be able to help.

 

3. Start small: I've lost count of the number of well-intentioned modders who grind themselves into the dirt because of conflicts with RL commitments. So perhaps start smaller than you planned (10x10 map + existing units + 1-2 missions). We all dream of giant maps with COOP campaigns and voice-overs, but Rome wasn't built in a day ;)

 

Best of luck and I look forward to exploring the dusty scrubs like a roofie

 

 

 

Thanks Domokun....... much appreciated and I will have a look at what you have suggested..

 

When I was planning the mod in the initial stages I happened across this youtube video below called  Sons of Misfortune which is a Rhodesian mission using the N'Ziwasogo map........ a pretty good video which pretty much got me determined to get this mod going using a new map .

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

I am also planning to do updates on youtube with video showing progress work on the mod .... will post the links here when the first video is out.

[RhodesianScout 189]

I only had a few hours today to work on the mod but I managed to go through working out how to add objects to the mod. Started out with trees and shrubs to see what was involved with saving these objects to the map and saving them. This map is only a test map I am using for the next 2 days.

 

After that I will have picked a new location for the first map for the mod and can start creating that on friday night Sydney time.

 

Below are two pictures showing slightly different views of the vegetation added to the map

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JerkinMerkin 62]

Looking at the feedback so far it looks like we are heading for smaller maps for the mod.......... which is most likely the most sensible way to go.

 

10 x 10 is too small for what I have planned so the size is more than likely to be 20 x 20

A bunch of 20x20 maps sounds perfect, so I'm going to go ahead and say no to the super big map. Screens look great, keep up the good work!

[serjames 357]

Taking a tiled approach.. i.e. individual 10x10 or 20x20 that you can stitch together would be cool.... But do it in bite-sized chunks or you'll burn out !!!

[RhodesianScout 189]

With the mod now more than likely being made up of a number of small maps I have done some prep work this morning.

 

1. Selected a 10 square km of Rhodesia for the first mission to be in . This is about 25 km north west of Hartley and takes place after ZANU guerrillas come over from the border from Zambia, attack a farm near Hartley and kill the farmer and his wife. The Rhodesian security forces arrive in the area with the task of tracking down the ZANU guerrillas before they can escape back over the border to Zambia.

 

2. The map has being built using Google Earth Pro in HD texture and added to Arma 3

 

3. Started work on adding objects to the 10 x 10 square km map

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

Some screenshots taken from work on new map

 

 

 

[Xerxes-AUS 3]

Thanks Domokun....... much appreciated and I will have a look at what you have suggested..

 

When I was planning the mod in the initial stages I happened across this youtube video below called  Sons of Misfortune which is a Rhodesian mission using the N'Ziwasogo map........ a pretty good video which pretty much got me determined to get this mod going using a new map .

 

 

Haha, it's a small world. That's actually my mission in that video. I used HLC SLR's, I think it was STI MAG's, FSF Uniforms and HAFM Land Rovers...even inlcuded a John Edmund song.

 

It was actually titled "Soldiers of Misfortune", but Lyndi stuffed it up when he uploaded his video. That was part 1, based on the Altena Farm raid. I had a part 2, which focused on Fireforce. I used Huey's as a stand in for Alouettes. I even attached an AGS-17 to the side of a Huey to simulate a K-Car. I figured the 40mm grenades were the closest I'd get to replicating the K-Car's 20mm canon.

The idea was to have an entire campaign that spanned maybe 4-6 missions - but my clan ended up slimming down it's mod repo and I had to shelve it for the time being.

[domokun 515]

Haha, it's a small world. That's actually my mission in that video. I used HLC SLR's, I think it was STI MAG's, FSF Uniforms and HAFM Land Rovers...even inlcuded a John Edmund song.

 

It was actually titled "Soldiers of Misfortune", but Lyndi stuffed it up when he uploaded his video. That was part 1, based on the Altena Farm raid. I had a part 2, which focused on Fireforce. I used Huey's as a stand in for Alouettes. I even attached an AGS-17 to the side of a Huey to simulate a K-Car. I figured the 40mm grenades were the closest I'd get to replicating the K-Car's 20mm canon.

The idea was to have an entire campaign that spanned maybe 4-6 missions - but my clan ended up slimming down it's mod repo and I had to shelve it for the time being.

Impressive. Any chance that you might release it publicly? I think that the idea of a campaign is awesome as many players appreciate context and continuity (rather than just "kill 'em all" missions). Particularly if the editor manages to take into account actions of previous missions (loss of men, equipment, movement of supplies).

 

Personally I think that this period of 60s-70s is much better suited to Arma's engine than modern or, worse still, near-future conflicts due to several aspects:

* lack of GPS/drones

* scarcity of scopes/body armour/NVGs/CAS (Arma's relatively small maps are too restrictive for most modern fighters, interceptors and bombers)

* simplicity of anti-armour/radio comms

 

In terms of African-based campaigns, I think that Frederick Forsyth's novel the Dogs of War, offers an excellent setting for COOP missions (small group of mercs try to over-thrown small African state). Plus it turns out that he really knew his stuff because he worked for and had his novels review by some of the best...

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

@Xerxes-AUS: can you tell me what mod you were using for the flares ? Thx !! 

 

@RhodesianScout: I can't wait to play on your future map !! This type of terrain is not available enough in Arma maps...

[Xerxes-AUS 3]

Impressive. Any chance that you might release it publicly?

I still have all the original files and scripts I used, but they are really outdated now. It was built around an older incarnation of the OCB mission frame work, based on Patrol Ops 2, made by Roy86 especially for our mission makers. That frame work is long since gone, and myself and all the OCB members have since left to form a new Aus/NZ community.

It's also built using redundant and outdated mods - at the time we were using a custom version of AGM. And to top it off, it was my very first mission. Ever. It worked as intended, but I've learned alot since then.

To use this mission, you need to completely strip out just about everything except the map markers and briefing.

To be honest, you'd be better off just remaking it from scratch. A lot of the missions I make are for my communtiy, and often rely on some Zeus intervention on the fly to help with balancing or unforseen bugs (No level of testing can prepare you for 50 players all joining and synching to the server at once). If you're still interested, send me a PM, and I can see about uploading what I have to dropbox.

 

@Xerxes-AUS: can you tell me what mod you were using for the flares ? Thx !!

 

It was a heavily customised, in house version of AGM, called 'Arma Extended'. One of our guys had contributed some work to AGM, and he customised a version for our own use. One of the customisations he made was editing the flare rounds to stay in the air longer.

[rhodesianscout2 0]

Hi guys   I will be back on as soon as the forum lets me sign back in again. I logged off yesterday under my usual username and the forum will not let me back on again. Had to create a  temporary login name to report the issue 

 

 

Now fixed.

[RhodesianScout 189]

I am back on the forum again. Still had some issues logging in after seeing others posting in the last hour. I have always logged in using my username and password but apparently I need to login using my email address and password. Not sure if chrome autosaved the wrong field. oh well.

 

Ok.....down to business. Yesterday while waiting for the read only flag to be lifted on the forum so I could post again I was having a think about where I would like to take this mod..... and a really big idea came to mind which I then looked at to see if it was possible. 

 

As far as I could see this is entirely possible and what it means is that I spent most of the day yesterday learning how to create objects for Arma 3 using Blender and the Arma Toolbox for Blender.

 

I then created the texture maps for 19 objects I want to create for the mod this week to start off with. If it works then I will hopefully have another 20 objects created and added to the mod by wednesday ...... and the sky is the limit I may have 200 or more new objects created by the time version 1 of this mod comes out.

 

Sometimes humans come up with a really good idea and if this works the way I expect it to this will add a lot more to my mod. I have to do a test build with Blender and export a test object to the mod and see the results first but I have found a video on youtube which shows me it can be done.

 

But since it is just after 1am Friday morning I will not start testing that yet... too tired.

 

 

 

oh wait..... I have not mentioned what my idea is.

 

Well I am thinking if I can build this first object the way I think I can this afternoon and it works then I am thinking that this object will actually better be revealed in my first youtube video.... nothing like building up the suspense.

 

Stay tuned and I will announce later if the entire idea failed or that there will be indeed be a a video made for youtube to reveal the big surprise. 

 

And if this works this means a second big idea I have will also be possible...... stay tuned !

[RhodesianScout 189]

Haha, it's a small world. That's actually my mission in that video. I used HLC SLR's, I think it was STI MAG's, FSF Uniforms and HAFM Land Rovers...even inlcuded a John Edmund song.

 

It was actually titled "Soldiers of Misfortune", but Lyndi stuffed it up when he uploaded his video. That was part 1, based on the Altena Farm raid. I had a part 2, which focused on Fireforce. I used Huey's as a stand in for Alouettes. I even attached an AGS-17 to the side of a Huey to simulate a K-Car. I figured the 40mm grenades were the closest I'd get to replicating the K-Car's 20mm canon.

The idea was to have an entire campaign that spanned maybe 4-6 missions - but my clan ended up slimming down it's mod repo and I had to shelve it for the time being.

 

John Edmund songs... Those bring back memories. The one I most remember is the song called  "Blue Job"..... as well as his Jock of the Bushveld song and Sweet Banana    I am thinking of including Sweet Banana in my mod ... sung by the  Rhodesian African Rifles... you can find it on youtube by searching for  "Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) "Sweet Banana"

 

Might have this one being sung by some of the soldiers in the background before we head out for a mission. Brings back memories.

 

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

@Xerxes-AUS: can you tell me what mod you were using for the flares ? Thx !! 

 

@RhodesianScout: I can't wait to play on your future map !! This type of terrain is not available enough in Arma maps...

 

 

Thanks 1212PDMCDMPPM.......... I am hoping that my first youtube video will be out over the next few days or early next week so I can show you some of the sounds I have in the map which make it feel like you are actually in the african bush.

[old_painless 182]

RhodesianScout, since you are now placing assets on your terrain, I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of this tool which should help with such work:

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/180164-x-cam-10-for-arma-3-released/

[giallustio 770]

Honestly i prefer Map Builder:

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/177323-map-builder-ingame-3d-editor-for-terrain-creation/

 

Good luck with the project!

[RhodesianScout 189]

Both x-cam and Map Builder have their good points and still choosing between them after initial testing of both.

 

I do have to say with Map Builder it would be great if there were much longer videos available on youtube to go through the builder.It seems a pity that the 13 videos I found are very short in length and do not take you through the steps in a little more detail. But saying that Map Builder is still in alpha so I am sure these videos will eventually happen.

 

I am still uncertain which of the two I will end up using and my decision will be based on which of them allows me to create my map with ease as well as which of them has a much needed feature I can't do without that the other one does not have.

[giallustio 770]

MB doesn't have a lot of videos because it's really really simple to use, but I think that Neo is working on it!

[RhodesianScout 189]

Following up on my post #39 on page 2  I have created another 15 texture skins for this project in the last couple of hours which are now ready for me to create the custom objects in Blender. As mentioned in post #39 this is going to work or it is not going to work and depends greatly on whether my testing today will prove that both Blender and the export to Arma 3 does what I think it will do. If it does, I will create 3 of these custom objects , test them and then start work on a youtube video to announce what will be added to the mod. For that I will need to create the environment on the map, place the object that I will be revealing in the video , create a script , find a virtual Rhodesian soldier to take a walk through the bush for oh say 20 minutes  and film what happens.

 

Sadly it is just after 9am and I need to go out and do some real life work ....so I will start some testing in about 8 hours time and hopefully start work on the video shortly after that.

[RhodesianScout 189]

Taking a while to go through learning Blender but pretty confident I will have created first object in next 24 hours. After that it should be a lot quicker to do these objects once I know what I am doing.

 

I am following a tutorial on youtube however right from the start the tutorial shows a different screen to what I have. I am now installing Blender version 2.74 to hopefully synch my screen with the tutorial.

 

I have being going through videos on youtube getting information on type of trees , bushes etc to add to the map...... how much spacing between trees......   etc      some pretty useful information in just one video that was uploaded by someone in the last month. Actually it is a bit heart breaking to see the country as it is these days...... very sad.

 

I do have some work on during the weekend but I am planning on spending 75% of my free time on this mod over the next few days.

[[evo] dan 79]

Taking a while to go through learning Blender but pretty confident I will have created first object in next 24 hours. After that it should be a lot quicker to do these objects once I know what I am doing.

 

I am following a tutorial on youtube however right from the start the tutorial shows a different screen to what I have. I am now installing Blender version 2.74 to hopefully synch my screen with the tutorial.

 

I have being going through videos on youtube getting information on type of trees , bushes etc to add to the map...... how much spacing between trees......   etc      some pretty useful information in just one video that was uploaded by someone in the last month. Actually it is a bit heart breaking to see the country as it is these days...... very sad.

 

I do have some work on during the weekend but I am planning on spending 75% of my free time on this mod over the next few days.

 

Have a look at Burnes Tutorials on youtube, very good they are.

[RhodesianScout 189]

Have a look at Burnes Tutorials on youtube, very good they are.

 

Thanks for the tip....... I think I found him. His tutorial has him called Burnes Armories however his link is GameDev Byrne...... confusing.

I will go through the videos when I get back from work in about 9 hours........

 

I was going through various videos yesterday but as per norm what the videos showed did not happen on my desktop...... slowing down the progress of my project. But once I have the first object done the others should be a lot quicker to get out.

[RhodesianScout 189]

Real life got in my way with a customer ringing me up wanting me to do more work......so I did not get to do any more work last night..... but I did start again at 3 this morning after some sleep.

 

At this stage I have found the youtube tutorial for blender showing me exactly what I needed to create the object to be exported into Arma 3...or was it imported?

 

The Burnes tutorial is good but does not really cover what I needed with Blender and for some reason his tutorial ended up looking different from what I saw on my screen.

 

The tutorial I have found is 100% what i needed and shows me a shortcut using an addon which cuts out a lot of steps with creating the object.

 

 

So at this stage I have the object I have built for blender..... it should be simply a matter of adding it to Arma 3 and see if I have the scale right....... it will either be a gigantic object, a very tiny object or it will be the perfect size.

 

Then if all works out then I can do the video, add it to youtube and reveal what I am adding to my mod....the BIG reveal     :)

 

 

 

The p3d file has been created

Now creating the config.cpp file with data needed

created the pbo file for the object

Added the object to arma 3