searching for cooperation building a new a3-map

[Mentallo and the Fixer 0]

hi a3-freaks ;-)

hope this thread is here a the right place. if not: sorry.

a short introdcution: we are a small group of (very) old a3-freaks. after years of a2 and a3 (dayz, wasteland and exile) we got bored of chernarus, altis and tanoa. so we searched for a new one. and yes there are several very nice maps of course. but none of them gave us the final kick. because some are to small. most of them are not very good for missions at different places.

thats why we decided to try to create our own map. so we watched "all" of the tuts in the inet and fetched L3DT-Pro and the other stuff which is needed. and after some hours we can say: thats no witchcraft, but you need a lot of skill and TIME. thats not new for the most of you I think. :-) and now we can value highly the work of the mappers.

thats what we need/what we are able to do:

we are able to work with L3DT, TB and X-Cam. We have a lot of ideas and I think we know what is possible and not. One prob atm are the gdt and textures in L3DT (because we like more than 3 or different ones, like in the tuts). but the main prob is the time. you know what we mean, if you have a fulltimejob and family aswell. ;-)

and a nice map (island) with about 20 x 20 will take some time. so we need someone with skills and experience to help us. and of course this help/cooperation is not for free (not like most of the stuff in the inet ;-)). we are not sure how to manage this cooperation and how to make a fair price. so if you have any idea or if you can make an offer let us know.

to be clear: you dont have to creat the whole map. we will create towns, trees and so on by our own. the help is needed mainly for the terrain!

and yes, english is not our native language (sorry for the mistakes) ;-)

[pvt. partz 248]

I might as well begin with a blunt and unwelcome reply in that it is doubtful you will find someone to fit the bill of what you're asking even if it does involve money. I may be wrong and you may get lucky and someone may pop up and help you but the basic consensus about terrain building is that everyone will tell you that you should learn it on your own. I think for the most part as you mentioned earlier "Time" or lack thereof is the culprit. The urge to create something can be overwhelming especially when you have piddled around the edges and learn some of the basics that are needed to make a great looking terrain. I too thought many many times about creating a Terrain and in fact had one nicely started but came up against a wall or two and was never able to proceed further. The brain was just never capable, and like you said, making a terrain is no easy task, not to mention a great looking one. I'm an old geezer to (58), and I marvel at some of the abilities that these guys have and how easy it seems to come for them. Finally, all I can suggest at this point is go on Discord and maybe ask around a little bit there and if you don't get what you have originally asked for someone may be able to steer you to your ultimate success.

You also stated that you were getting bored of some of the terrains that you listed, but have you tried Cambodia by Bludski, it's truly incredible.

[Mentallo and the Fixer 0]

hi partz many thanks for your reply. and yes you might be right with your words. but if you dont ask, you never get an answer. ;-) that what I learned with my 51 years.

and yes I saw many of those comments "do it yourself or you dont learn it". thats what I always tell my 2 boys. thats true and makes sense. And so I learned a lot about L3DT, TB, X-cam, config.cpp, gdt, layers and so on in the last 6 month. I think more than 100 hours. I think I understood most of the stuff. and yes this is heavy stuff especially if english is not your native language. nearly all tuts and threads are english.

So "learning" or "understanding" is not my/our prob. but if I would do it on my/our own, the map will be ready when I am a pensioner. ;-) thats would be senseless! In this case I will drop this idea.

But what I learned over the years in my job is "division of labor" is always the key for success. especially for such large projects. thats why I am talking about a cooperation.

and what I learned aswell in the years, good work earns a good payment. I like what the community is doing here and at other places for free. and if its only an answer or a tipp its ok thats its free in my opinion.

But I am not searching for an answer or just a tipp. Thats why I am not talking about 50 or 100 euros (like others offered for a "hole" map). because of my own work with this very complex stuff if know the "value" of this work/help.

I/we will see. some of heros are on patreon, so "money for work" couldnt be "the" prob. and there are some maps and a lot of mods and a lot help in this and other forum with large "value". and the helpers/mappers "earn" nothing. for me its a shame.

maybe because of my age. ;-) I would like pay for such things 5 or 10 euros. the companies get such payment for their dlcs aswell. and donation is something different (for me).

but what I read is that steam is changing these things in the future. this would be good for all of this heros and helpinghands.

 

and yes "Suonkomar Sahav" and "Prei Khmaoch Luong" by bludclot/bludski are very nice maps. but for us to small (for Exile) and we like islands.

[humansteak 3]

so, I am only a 45 year old in comparrasion, and I find my self kind of bored with most of the maps around as well ..I am wondering what exactly you are looking for type of terrain, what kind of topography, climate and so on? If you for instance point your browser to for example https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov and imagine your self an area of 40.96 km² with the left bottom corner @ approximately 59° 06' 42.7601''N ; 4° 48' 53.0043''E ..cut away all the mainland but keep all the islands and try to see an early fall kind of setting. what kind of thoughts would you make about something like that?

[Mentallo and the Fixer 0]

hi humansteak,

thx for your post. altough you dont offered a cooperation. ;-)

Its really not easy to tell want we want exactly . of course the map should have all the good things we found on several maps we looked in the last months/years. meanwhile we looked at nearly all available map in the inet. thats why have a lot of good ideas in our minds (tunnels, undergroundbases, caves, canyons, rivers and so on). aswell we searched on googlemaps for the right island or some inspirations. and there are several maps that are based on RL terrain. such as Diego Garcia https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=385314016. a really good map. but to small for Exile. :( and there are some nice islands (like the Maldives or in the Mediterranean Sea or like the islands in scandinavia; your coordinates?!). main prob with such islands is, that in RL the topography mountains(s) are in the middle. but that causes always probs for good positions for the missions. and we want a lot missions at different places. not only at the same places. variety is important. thats why the map has to be a fictional one. there serveal maps (especially the islands made by IcebreakR) which are very nice. but not large enough for our plans. :) and it has to be an islands (or some islands) because its important to use boats and it must be possible to dive. otherwise you couldnt use all the good stuff BI gave to us. and in our opinion there has to be an "end" for the map. infinitely "ground" is strange somehow.

take a look at Saint Kapaulio https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=939686262 . thats the map we are using atm. all kind of terrain. Rivers. and its big enough for a lot of missions. great map but unfortunately its not perfect. this one with the small islands around (like Tanoa) could be perfect.

So now you and all the other postreaders should have an idea whats in our minds.

for all who are interested in principle but to shy to repost here. send me a PM. ;-)

 

[RoF 240]

Some of that stuff you just cant do through, stuff like caves and underground bases. Yeah you could make caves out of rocks, but that can get laggy.

 

I also don't see why having hills in the middle is bad? Exile missions let you set safe positions for missions, so you could just use that.

 

As for people helping make it... I don't think people are going to do that tbh. Everyone is here, as they want to make "their" dream map.

 

A big map takes a couple of years to do, you could be making it now and learning / fixing sat map as you go. The sat and surfaces can be fixed anytime. An starting with a big map is a bad idea when you first start! Time you get a quarter round it, you would have learned something / changed style so would have to go back and fixed what you made. Think of Arma 3 as a big tutorial, time you learned the major stuff, DayZ standalone will most likely be open to modders. Then you can start a map for that, as you have been learning using Arma! I'm guessing you will jump to DayZ once the mods start?

 

So just jump in, the map isnt going to make itself! As for time, just build when you get chance. Sometimes I don't build anything for weeks

[humansteak 3]

well, I have been working on Askøy since mars-april last year (been waiting for and now recovering from a very succesfull L5-S1 fusion surgery ^^) ..trying to learn the ins and outs of Arma terrain building in waiting for the DayZ mod tools to be released sometime in the (hopfully this year) near future ^^ ..so far as that I have amongst many things learned how to setup the perhaps, elusive P: drive and render my terrain propperly.

 

the last some 3 months I have (in and out that is. it is truly a tremendous task!) been finetuning my layers. I haven't even began to think about placing structures yet ..well, I am kind of trying to find a way how to utulise the geodata I have with buildings type, north roof ridge and direction in order to learn a perhaps swift way to place building objects...

anyway, I am so far into Karmøy that if anything, I simply have to see it to the end!

 

now, about your points about the topograhpy. Karmøy it self is a fearly flat surface with an avarge at about +40 MSL, with a peak at 130 meters. the largest sister island (Bokn) peaks at +290 MSL. Looking at how Karmøy is a stratgeicly important island of my country (..I somehow did give my self away, didn't I ^^), naturaly there has to be a underwater cave into a submarine base on the main island!

 

Karmøy is also very important for the norwegian oilindustry, why there has to be active military installations to protect the refineries and industrial compounds from terrorist attacks for instance. also, since I got into this from the apocalyptic arma zombie world, the islands natural topography has to have been altered in some cataclysimc nuclear event, why it is presenting a climatic diversity beond what one could describe as typical norwegian weather.

 

now, to address your perhaps main point. I was hoping to perhaps intrigue you to help me finnish what I have started =) (it is a humongous undertaking to create and place objects into a terrain of this size!) however, I can see how our goals might be to far apart. should you feel that perhaps there could be potential in what I am doing, please let me know. perhaps your view could be altered in my favor with a visit on the islands?

Edited January 24, 2018 by humansteak
slleping error

[Mentallo and the Fixer 0]

Hi RoF,

thx for your post. yes, caves, undergroundbases and sewerages/sewers are not easy to make. but I tried it on a smaller map and it worked fine. Of course there are always probs with the "things" above (especially streets) this undergoundparts, but rocks and other parts are doing a good job. ;-) and there are several maps with good working tunnels and undergroundstuff (like Kerama islands).

but these things are the finishing touch. are things are more important of course.

and starting with a small map is may be a good may to learn the things. but its not that easy to larger the map after you a ready with the small one. So I my opinion is better so start with a larger one. it should be large enough to put new islands on the map after you finished the mainisland. that will prevent to start again from the beginning and losing all the stuff you made till that point. may be I am wrong. so the plan is to create a map with 20x20 (or may be 25x25) with a mainisland with only about 5x5 (or 8x8).

I think the mainprob is, that you should have a good plan at the beginning. a later changing  is not that easy I think. So just geting started would be prob. We saw a lot of maps with later inserted rivers and so on (with street under water).

and yes such a large map is not done in week or months. probaly years. especially if you want to have a good result.

and thats the reason why we asked here for cooperation at the beginning of the project. its totally nonsence to start something like that and invest 100s of hours with no good result. and if nobody wants to cooperate its fine for us. then another project will be a dream for ever.

but projects like Taunus shows me thats it is possible to bundle up resources and skill for such large projects. so hope will die last. ;-)

 

and yes my arma-life started with the DayZ-mod too. and I bought the standalone in the first weeks after alpha-release. and I still sometimes take a look a what alpha-stage this game has. :D but meanwhile I am got totaly bored of Zs. I am only watching them on tv or movies. but surving like Exile is a good gamestyle. So I will not wait for any mod for the DayZ-standalone. I still believe in arma3. and there is much more stuff (10.000s of builings and parts) to be creativ.

 

 

[Mentallo and the Fixer 0]

Hi humansteak,

thx for your second post. I can imagine what you mean with "finetuning my layers". That the point we are standing now. watched all the tuts a created a small map with 4 different gdts. ;-) that shows the bloody beginners thats all not that simple. :D

creating a map with L3DT is easy without textures. Its just taking time. "finetuning" of the ground is the great prob. placing buildings and trees is not that prob after using X-cam for a while. if you have the right ideas for the places of course. and for this you have to know how the gameplay should be on the map. the best map is useless if you can´t use it for the gameplay. thats why I am not sure if realterrain is the best choice. 

But let me/us take a look a your map. maybe it fits. write me a PM to get in touch on steam to speak talk about it.