Sa'hatra, Iraq/Middle Eastern Terrain

[jujurat 767]

Around three months ago I decided that I wanted to pursue something on my bucket list; which is creating a Middle Eastern Terrain that is more urban and Iraq-oriented. I thought there were very many good Afghan-terrains available, but a select few for Iraq; so with guidance from a few people (whom I'll mention later), I started a project that would be one of my most complicated and time-consuming yet. Sa'hatra. I didn't want to make a WIP thread until I felt I had something adequate to show, but now I do, so I figured now was the time.

Sa'hatra is a semi-fictional terrain set somewhere near the Sulaymaniyah region. It features a small river, dense date palm forests, mountainous zones, agricultural areas/farms, and of course a large city with two adjacent wings, and a smaller town. The data was sourced from the Iraq-Iran border; but ultimately the terrain could be purposed as Syrian or somewhere else in the Middle East. However, most of my inspiration here comes from Iraq, and I've been using references from it closely. 

That being said, I'll dump pictures of it now, since I think that's the most important part of the thread.
 

Spoiler

Satellite Image:
 

Spoiler

I've spent the last few months making new GDTs, date palms, street signs, sidewalk objects, and etc to make the city feel unique and distinctive. The terrain is 8km in size and captures all essences of all of my desired traits listed above (city, farmlands, river, etc). It was very important to me for the city to feel like it had real planning and detail behind it, hence why it's taking a bit more time than I'd like. Of course, the rural areas are just as important to me. I'll be posting additional progress in this thread from time to time, I don't have a discord dedicated towards this terrain or my projects, but Opteryx's discord serves as the place where I post most of my progress.

Speaking of that; none of this could have been possible without Opteryx and his assistance in helping me every step of the way with questions and ideas, to technical tips and explanations. For that I'm eternally thankful. I'm also incredibly thankful to M1lkm8n & JBAD for their assistance in allowing me to use their work as well. There's much to do yet, but I'm very excited and hopeful for people to be able to play around and have a good time with this in the future, just like all of my other terrains. Thanks.

TL:DR Stats:
8km
2m Cell Size
Iraq-Oriented Terrain.
Images above.

[tpw 2315]

Can't wait for another one of your fantastic terrains to hit the workshop! Thanks for continuing to put in the effort, the pics look awesome and I'm sure the final result will be too. 

[chops 111]

This looks magnificent! Very much looking forward to trying it out.

[wsxcgy 1960]

I've long hoped for a nice middle eastern urban environment, and from those screenshots you seem to have hit the nail on the head. a few have tried before but honestly they've never been that good. it looks like it should be able to represent many different parts of the middle east rather well too, which I appreciate. very much looking forward to this project.

[jujurat 767]

Been working on crops and etc. Still pretty experimental, getting a feel for how I wanna approach making the objects look good; shadows are tricky and optimization is important, but so far it's looking good. Thanks for the support.

[Harzach 2517]

On 8/1/2022 at 9:45 PM, jujurat said:

I didn't want to make a WIP thread until I felt I had something adequate to show

 

UNDERSTATEMENT.

 

It looks fantastic! And that roundabout...😍

[ZaellixA 383]

Holy f***ing sh*t...!!! This looks absolutely astonishing...!!!

 

I haven't played ArmA 3 for quite some time now but I'll definitely give this map a go when it's ready...!!!

 

And by the way, please go ahead and post WIP stuff next time you decide to do something similar...!!!

[nikiforos 450]

 Looks great, are you going to use Livonia lighting?

[jujurat 767]

3 hours ago, ZaellixA said:

Holy f***ing sh*t...!!! This looks absolutely astonishing...!!!

 

I haven't played ArmA 3 for quite some time now but I'll definitely give this map a go when it's ready...!!!

 

And by the way, please go ahead and post WIP stuff next time you decide to do something similar...!!!

will do!

 

 

2 hours ago, nikiforos said:

 Looks great, are you going to use Livonia lighting?

I heavily tweaked my custom lighting config I've used in previous terrains for this one, so I won't be, no, it will be using my custom lighting

[jujurat 767]

11 hours ago, nikiforos said:

 Looks great, are you going to use Livonia lighting?

Additionally, here's a video of a day cycle for lighting reference
https://i.imgur.com/3o0JIYr.mp4
alt link
https://files.catbox.moe/9w2fj4.mp4

[nikiforos 450]

Link is not working for me. However I'm happy you use your own custom lighting not a fan of Livonia one.

[jujurat 767]

1 minute ago, nikiforos said:

Link is not working for me. However I'm happy you use your own custom lighting not a fan of Livonia one.

Yeah, I agree, Livonia one has issues; I added an alt link
I used a bunch of pics from Iraq and etc to get an idea for lighting

[nikiforos 450]

25 minutes ago, jujurat said:

Yeah, I agree, Livonia one has issues; I added an alt link
I used a bunch of pics from Iraq and etc to get an idea for lighting

Wow love it already, would love to implement the same custom lighting in other terrains as well but not sure if it's possible

[EO 11274]

Stellar work buddy.

[jujurat 767]

Just now, EO said:

Stellar work buddy.

Thanks as always, EO

[JD Wang 352]

Wow this is exactly the sort of map I've been wanting for a while now, similar to Zargabad in that it's focused on a main city, but then so much more.

Thank you for all the work you're putting into this, it looks incredible and I can't wait to start building missions on it ❤️

[jujurat 767]

Mostly some work on agricultural rural areas.

New dirt road textures. (WIP)

Improvements on GDT normals/parallax

[nikiforos 450]

This will probably be the greatest final terrain for Arma 3.

[jujurat 767]

4 hours ago, nikiforos said:

This will probably be the greatest final terrain for Arma 3.

dunno about that, but thanks lol

last night, i spent time tweaking fog colors and re-implementing volumetric clouds into the skybox.

[JD Wang 352]

Are you planning a WIP/preview build or just waiting until it's complete before releasing it on the workshop?

[jujurat 767]

1 hour ago, JD Wang said:

Are you planning a WIP/preview build or just waiting until it's complete before releasing it on the workshop?

I have a wip build that I update now and then. I'd like to keep it to a respectful amount of people, so I won't be posting it here;  but you can find it via Opteryx's discord server or by adding my discord:
jujurat#5458

[chops 111]

Suddenly I'm coming back to these forums a lot more! Really impressive work!

[jujurat 767]

last update until this weekend or the next, probably; i spent the remainder of my weekend crunching and starting work on the eastern wing of the city. I have two videos to show with that, mainly just walking on the ground and etc. These videos also show off the new lighting changes and fog updates, as well as some new assets. Thanks for all of the support thus far.

[JD Wang 352]

Do you have plans to have an airbase on the map, or any sort of pre-constructed FOB?

If so can I please ask that it be right on the edge of the map, away from the city.
The one complaint I have with Zargabad as a map was the airfield being right at the edge of the city. Same with another of my favourite maps, Diyala, it's a great map, but having the airbase right in the middle makes it terrible to base out of.

Honestly I wish I'd never seen this thread, the map looks too good and I don't like having to be patient 🤣
Keep up the amazing work

[jujurat 767]

1 minute ago, JD Wang said:

Do you have plans to have an airbase on the map, or any sort of pre-constructed FOB?

If so can I please ask that it be right on the edge of the map, away from the city.
The one complaint I have with Zargabad as a map was the airfield being right at the edge of the city. Same with another of my favourite maps, Diyala, it's a great map, but having the airbase right in the middle makes it terrible to base out of.

Honestly I wish I'd never seen this thread, the map looks too good and I don't like having to be patient 🤣
Keep up the amazing work

It's been asked about several times, and while it's something I've considered, it's not something I think I intend on doing. The main reason is because everyone has a different idea of how their FOB should be constructed. Someone has contacted me about making EDEN compositions to accompany the map that would orient around FOBs and the likes. I don't have any real intentions for making an airbase on this terrain. The geography doesn't support it, simply enough; but if it's requested enough in the comments or something like that, or on this thread or personally, it's something I could consider adding in the northeast or northwest of the terrain where it's very desolate.

Thanks for the support.