l4z0rr0b0tz 46 Posted April 22, 2017 Happy Saturday! I would like to share some pictures of a terrain I've been working on for the last few months. I am planning on releasing it either on Steam or Armaholic very soon! I am using it as a testing ground for some custom winter-themed .p3d objects (which I am new at making). This is my first terrain and my first mod, and if I were to start over again I'd do a lot of things differently, but I want to publish this either way because I think there needs to be more arctic themed-maps. Right now I am more interested in starting a new project than I am developing this one much further, so I would potentially be open to sharing the source files with someone if they wanted to further develop this. Russian Fjords is a top-secret government military zone, where high tech weapons, vehicles, and equipment are developed and manufactured. It is centered around a deepwater bay in the arctic ocean, and there is only one well-guarded road in or out. The terrain design is somewhat experimental, with some underground tunnels and a high resolution heightmap. The map could be used for sabotage, espionage, intelligence gathering, or even some kind of James Bond themed machina. Honestly you can use it for whatever you want, it's just not really designed to be used for traditional mission based gameplay, it's more meant as a decent-looking, immersive, cinematic landscape than anything. Features: - 8x8km Arctic Map with 6 custom ground materials (Thank you to Dmitry Chugai of texturelib.com for the ground textures) -Heightmap, Attributes, and Sat map created using L3DT Pro and MS Paint - Unique modeled and textured .p3d objects (Snowy fir trees, space rocket) using 3ds MAX and GIMP - 10,000+ hand-placed objects - A long road which goes all the way around the map and took foreveeeeer to level out - An industrial port, and a military airbase, and several military research areas - Several road tunnels - No mod dependencies, should be compatible with any other mods Known issues: -The stock arma 3 rocks do not look "Great" since they are not covered with snow. When I started this map I did not know how to do custom objects at all. -I have not tested this map with AI and don't know how they'd behave, especially in caves/on ledges -The caves are questionable and I wouldn't recommend making a map with them the way I did. The rocks do not occlude light as you'd hope. - Because the heightmap resolution is 4m, some areas are sharp and bumpy, and depending on your terrain LOD setting, distant terrain can look kind of bad. On my next terrain I'll be using at least an lower heighmap resolution to prevent this, but I am not planning on going thru the entire map and fixing every bump at this point - The ocean goes from shore to super deep very quickly. I do not plan on fixing this - I have messed with the rain settings in config to try to make the rain look more like snow but maybe some people will think it looks funky now. I think built in snow support in Arma 3 would be sick, but for now you can at least use some snow scripts (http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=29156 is one snow script, but the PPEffect color correction can make it very bright and hard to see anything during the day. tweak the script as necessary) - There may be issues with my custom objects that I'm not aware of, I'm very new to making objects Planned features: -Creating snow-covered clutter, and objects such as bushes and rocks, maybe icebergs, improving the look and functionality of objects -Adding some more docks and smaller decoration-type objects such as fences -Possibly Adding some runway overlays -Properly naming and labeling all locations on the map in Russian/Cyrillic -Possibly moving the zone of the map north so that the days are shorter -Continually improving my understanding of how to write a proper config (snow particle effects for driving in the snow is one thing I have yet to master) Please let me know if anyone would be interested in working with me on this or a future projcet! I am open to working with others! Thank you! 9 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
colonelhartigan 50 Posted April 23, 2017 Excellent work, a lovely surprise indeed! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wsxcgy 1960 Posted April 23, 2017 Looks quite promising, aside from those trees, no offense. They're pretty decent models but they're kind of cartoony, contrasting with everything else. Looking forward to seeing the development of this one. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
l4z0rr0b0tz 46 Posted April 23, 2017 13 minutes ago, wsxcgy said: Looks quite promising, aside from those trees, no offense. They're pretty decent models but they're kind of cartoony, contrasting with everything else. Looking forward to seeing the development of this one. Thank you, yes I know they are not the greatest, they are the first tree models I've ever made, right now they only have one LOD which is a low poly LOD, I still have a lot to learn to make nicer looking models, but it's useful to have a map to be able to test them on! :D 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ineptaphid 6413 Posted April 23, 2017 Looks like a good start! You should speak to @bludski - he is working on the Nord terrain. Many of the environmental themes are similar, and his map contains fjords also. He might be able to give you a few tips. Good luck! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wsxcgy 1960 Posted April 23, 2017 4 hours ago, l4z0rr0b0tz said: Thank you, yes I know they are not the greatest, they are the first tree models I've ever made, right now they only have one LOD which is a low poly LOD, I still have a lot to learn to make nicer looking models, but it's useful to have a map to be able to test them on! :D Yeah, its an excellent start, I doubt I could even do half as good. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
welshstalker 60 Posted April 23, 2017 This looks awesome, good luck with it man! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
l4z0rr0b0tz 46 Posted May 17, 2017 It looks like the Russians may be up to something evil... 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
