[WIP] Rhodesia Bush War

[Alex150201 894]

Oh really? Release next week?

[RhodesianScout 189]

Some of the missions that will be released along with the map will involve missions where the Rhodesian Infantry or the Selous Scouts are patrolling an area covered with mist in the early morning.

 

For this map I am doing a tonne of research using books written by Rhodesian National Service Officers or by other veterans, even one book I found by Wilbur Smith called "Vicious Circle"........  I was not even 18 when I left Rhodesia so reading stories by people who were in the actual war along with my memories of the location this map is based on will hopefully make this map as true to the bush war as possible.

 

Each and every story I have read talks about morning mist rolling across the Matabele plains clinging to the branches of the taller trees and therefore mist is an important effect I want to have in the map for early morning missions.

 

 

To get the mist effect that I am after I use a reference picture as seen in Picture 1 below to give my results to date as shown in picture 2.

 

 

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

This version of mist in my map is closer to the color I want but needs to be more grey than blue

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

The Rhodesian infantry spots a camp fire in the distant hills and a patrol goes out to check it.......... with this mission there are many things that may randomly happen.

 

1.... ZAPU or ZANU terrorists have set up camp here and will be easy targets to take out.

2.... The camp is abandoned and the terrorists have recently fled

3.... While searching the abandoned camp the Rhodesian infantry come under fire from the surrounding trees cloaked in darkness

4.... The terrorists are found to be holding hostages in the camp.

 

or as in option 2 above there is nothing found in the camp.

 

There is also the possibility something else may randomly happen such as incoming mortar fire.

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

A screenshot taken while using X-cam

 

[Alex150201 894]

This map is really starting to get in shape, it looks very good and I love the fog! I'd surely create missions on this map!

[RhodesianScout 189]

This Christmas I will hopefully finalize the conversion of characters such as the one shown below created in Autodesk Character Generator in high res mode to a low res version for characters customized for my map.

 

Plans are to create 5 different faces for :

 

- ZANLA

 

- ZAPU

 

- Rhodesian Infantry

 

- Locals

 

- Hostages

 

If I have time I will also have made more progress on the uniforms and clothing for each character.

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

Some more pictures of characters I created in autodesk ...these ones specifically representing tourists, civilians or members of the Rhodesian Infantry.

....currently in my queue waiting to be transferred to Arma III

 

 

[bullsh 22]

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/151366-african-conflict-a3/page-7Just a heads up, the latest version of African Conflict by massi now also featured Rhodesian forces! (alas without the characteristical shorts, so there definitely is room for improvement for you :D )

[RhodesianScout 189]

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/151366-african-conflict-a3/page-7Just a heads up, the latest version of African Conflict by massi now also featured Rhodesian forces! (alas without the characteristical shorts, so there definitely is room for improvement for you :D )

 

 

Massi has introduced the 80s style Rhodesian forces and the Rhodesian Light Infantry were banned from wearing shorts from 1977 as  the soldiers' white legs apparently made the soldiers too visible....... Massi's version is after the ban took place.

 

I will have both styles so you can chooses if you want long pants or if you want the shorts version.

[RhodesianScout 189]

I should be back to working on this map with a lot more time on my hands after tomorrow night......

 

[domokun 515]

Really looking forward to this.

Here's an interesting piece of IMINT for you going:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/3x68rr/members_of_the_rhodesian_african_rifles_pose/

[adumb 0]

Had to login just to make a comment, this is such an awesome project!

 

I wish Arma had more maps like this. It would make me buy a new PC just to play around on.

[RhodesianScout 189]

Really looking forward to this.

Here's an interesting piece of IMINT for you going:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/3x68rr/members_of_the_rhodesian_african_rifles_pose/

I thought I would mention here that not only will this map feature the Rhodesian Light Infantry and the Selous Scouts but I am also

Including the RAR.

Over the last couple of weeks I have picked up a tonne of resource material and yesterday I found the official RAR uniform patches.

Horses

..............

Over the Christmas and New Year period I will be looking at whether I can add the Grey Scouts....Rhodesian Mounted Infantry

Called Grey's Scouts

[McLupo 118]

Hi,

I never get tire of saying how great and useful this work is.
Further I cannot repeat this too often how much I appreciate your work
and all your efforts, in particular those related to the constant infos.

 

Thank you for that!

 

I wish you continued success.  :)

 

Greetings
McLupo

[RhodesianScout 189]

On certain missions the Alouette will be required to take you in to areas of the map not reachable by road........ at times you will come under fire.

 

Below is a picture used in Rhodesia for trooping drills which was an early requirement for use of the Alouette III.

 

Obviously not all of the trooping drills will be followed in Arma III but where possible I will  include some aspects of the drill .

 

Depending on the timeframe of the mission, you may be in an Alouette not armed with machine gun...in this case the Alouette will carry 6 soldiers each. With Alouettes armed with machine guns, the soldiers will also be fully armed and the Alouette will be limited to 4 soldiers on board.

 

 

 

Another mission will involve the Rhodesian Infantry searching for a camouflaged SAP Cessna 185 missing somewhere in the map. These aircraft were used for courier duties during the Bush War and the missing SAP Cessna holds valuable information about Mugabe's troop movements in Mozambique and his planned incursion of these forces across the border into Rhodesia.

 

Finding the Cessna will save the lives of many Rhodesians near the Mozambique border and will deal a blow to Robert Mugabe who was leading the ZANU insurgency against Rhodesia from several bases inside Mozambique.

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

In January I will start work on the L1A1 SLR, 7.62x51mm NATO, FNFAL derivative self loading rifle used in the Rhodesian Bush War. I have been able to locate a sound byte for this rifle which sounds great and will use this sound with the rifle.

 

Below is a picture showing early concept art of what the L1A1 SLR may look like in my map.......not intended to be high quality but a shot I created in photoshop to see what the rifle would look like in the map before I start working on it. Simply a source picture I have of the SLR superimposed on a new picture from my map.

 

The background scenery shows scenery from the map with some changes made to the map which is now slightly larger in size.

 

The next step is to find or create a 360 degree view of the rifle including sight view for purpose of creating the model.

 

 

[war_lord 934]

Why not just ask Toadie2k if you can use his L1A1?

[RhodesianScout 189]

From 69 meg to 872

=================

 

 

When I started on my map the map was just 69 megabytes in size........ today the map is just over 872 megabytes in size with a lot more to be added.

 

The map is 40km square in size which should give all Arma 3 wargamers a good arena for fighting.

 

Below is a more detailed view of some of the hills in the map....... the grey spots on the hills are marking where single granite boulders are to be placed or a complete kopje.

 

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

.... from a different view

 

[RhodesianScout 189]

With Arma 3 it is great to see so many people working on new maps and new ideas for Arma 3.

 

However if you are working on a map set in the time period of World War 1 for example, the one issue people will find is that objects for this time era is pretty much limited if existing at all and to give some realism to the map you would have to custom design the WW1 objects yourself such as uniforms, tanks, guns, buildings and so on.

 

To do this a newcomer to mod making needs a good set of tutorials to follow.

 

I thought in this post that I would mention a good set of modding tutorials for Arma 3 by GameDev Byrne whose Blender tutorials I know many people have followed.

For those who have seen the tutorials or those who want to learn how to use Blender for modding, Gamedev Byrne has been adding Remastered tutorials to his youtube channel which are well worth looking at.

 

For example, he uploaded a video 2 days ago titled  "Adding and Baking Detail to Low Poly Models"

 

The picture below is from that video and shows 2 wheels.

The wheel on the right is a high res model of the wheel while the wheel on the left is a low res model with the details baked onto the low res model.

 

I highly recommend everyone look at GameDev Byrne's remastered videos here if you want to learn how to do modding for Arma 3

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqRU_EL4pwOHOJ6L2P5XlpfmNoWqulZqf

 

 

 

ARMA 3 ModMaking Tutorials by Gamedev Byrne

[ornoes99 18]

I have managed to get my Landrover Series 3 to work. What do you think?

 

 

The Rhodesian Army and Police used it in decent numbers. So if Rhodesian Scout is planing to add vehicles to his mod, I think this would be fitting one.

 

[yevgeni89 163]

That is very beautiful 

[RhodesianScout 189]

I was not 100% happy with the color of the scenery in the distance of the map and have done a final tweak of the colors to get a look as shown below.

 

[Alex150201 894]

Looks good as always!