Modular terrain

[hellfish6 7]

Hi guys

I was just wondering how feasible it would be to create modular terrain. I mean that instead of making new islands all the time, a mission editor can use a set of terrain tiles placed on a flat, featureless map to create a new map.

So one modular tile could be a trench system, another tile could be a small village, another tile could be a stretch of runway, etc. You'd be able to manipulate the tiles to form larger terrain areas. This is kind of like how CBFASI made the Hermes, a series of smaller parts that come together to form a whole.

Is this totally unrealistic?

[sniperuk02 0]

i think that would be a cool idea

[Cpt. FrostBite 0]

sometimes (SOMETIMES!) you have bright moment and come up with a brilliant idea, hellfish

[jakerod 254]

If each piece is a different model then there might be some glitches with it but it still is a good idea. Like you may fall through when you go prone or get your leg stuck in the ground or something.

[waffendennis 0]

It's a verry nice idea:

Just 128x128 square with textures or houses on it and then a island that has no textures so a built your own island ingame kit...

Better idea:

A plain island with only sea and then you can build your own island with the KIT...

Verry nice idea hellfish

I hope all the island makers and addon makers could think aobut this.

*hint hint*

[m21man 0]

You can design building tiles (Like forests), which would be a useful way to quickly create towns.

[ran 0]

reminds me a bit of the steel panthers game series where you could put building tiles and such

[ag_smith 0]

Tiles could be no larger than 64x64 meters if you want to have working GeoLOD, and then there would be lot of problems with aligning and most important of all AI wouldn't move around at all... Even if it sounds very promissing, it's not a good idea. Sorry, but that's the sad reality of OFP engine...

[waffendennis 0]

Tiles could be no larger than 64x64 meters if you want to have working GeoLOD, and then there would be lot of problems with aligning and most important of all AI wouldn't move around at all... Even if it sounds very promissing, it's not a good idea. Sorry, but that's the sad reality of OFP engine...

To deal with the AI:

Create some thing called:

Pathway LOD that will slove the walking problems from the AI

[r1c0cH3T 0]

I've had the same idea. There are some good and bad things to it. One good thing you get out of it is that there can be subway systems and ditches and holes and sewers, etc. Bad things: you can destroy the land, you can target the land, it will take forever to perfect the land without gaps etc. So there are good and bad things to it.

[hellfish6 7]

You can design building tiles (Like forests), which would be a useful way to quickly create towns.

That was the primary purpose I had in mind - to custom design towns. But then I thought it might be interesting to expand it into forests, entrenchments, farm fields - anything. The beauty of it would be that you might only have four tiles that have buildings on them, but if you had 250x250m tiles, you could arrange them in enough ways so that one tile oriented north would look different from an identical tile oriented south.

Maybe there could be different tile sizes? Like the largest could be 1x1km squares for rural areas, 500x500m squares for forests and major terrain features and then 250x250m tiles for the towns and cities.

Just compile all tiles made every other month or so into a master pack that can be downloaded and everyone would have quick and easy access to these terrains, and it would be a totally open-ended system.

I remember when I was a kid I had a box of tiles that allowed you to build railroads and roads piece by piece. You'd start out at a station, build your way to a bridge, then a rail siding, et cetera. It was fun back then, but I didn't pay $2000 for this computer a couple of years ago to play with cardboard.

[ag_smith 0]

Tiles could be no larger than 64x64 meters if you want to have working GeoLOD, and then there would be lot of problems with aligning and most important of all AI wouldn't move around at all... Even if it sounds very promissing, it's not a good idea. Sorry, but that's the sad reality of OFP engine...

To deal with the AI:

Create some thing called:

Pathway LOD that will slove the walking problems from the AI

I see obviously you have never tried to create working (and effective) Paths LOD, otherwise you would know how limited OFP engine is when it comes to AI soldiers walking anywhere above ground level.

I think there's no walkaround for making landscape in Visitor or whatever you use.

[Nagual 0]

That sounds like a very good idea hellfish, the excellent WRPTool would make it very possible.

Also you might want to check out .PSO files in visitor.

Basically, select a group of objects (like an entire town), then in one of the top menus "save object(s)". It saves your selection as a .PSO file, which you can later "load objects" on any point of the map (using the buldozer cursor as center point), perfectly replicating things. The only limit ive seen is only being able to load the PSO in the project file/map it was created in, but there is prolly work arounds.

[walker 0]

Hi Hellfish6

Such a system of tiles would be usefull for creating random maps as well.

You could create a tool in say C++ or VB that feeds in to terran maps that can be imported into visitor or WRP.

There are several publicly available free terain creation tools.

I spoke to BIS 6 or so months back about such a system for a long term project we are working on at the CoC.

It would form part of a very large project we want to use some of the CoC products to create. It is a concept I have been touting as the a long term goal for BIS and Codemasters.

We have discussed this long term project at CoC but the general opinion of the team is that the current version of the OFP Engine is not up to it but the next might be along with some additions from various sources and the help of a productive Community.

Kind Regards Walker