Smileys Environments "Afghanistan,Kabul"

[smiley nick 51]

Ladies and Gents

As part of the "Smileys Environments" project i am working on, i would like to announce a release of my taster of whats to come.

I present to you, the region of "Kabul" in "Afghanistan".

Pics

Pic 1

Pic2

Pic3

Pic4

Download

My main goals in my project is to try and create a united standard of islands and terran landscapes. There are many good islands released for ofp, but as a personnel preference a lot lack realistic elevation.

I would like to try and change that with he help of others. Landscapes in my eyes are the most important part of ofp, and with the release of Arm A a lot of island makers will be in heaven, with the released information regarding the options we now have.

I wanted to make a updated afghan map, as the only one available is starting to show its age.

The island is 1024x1024, and will run on any ranges pc, providing you dont over max your settings.

The island is a "naked" version, as i would like to allow a "open source" preference. Allowing any mapper who wishes to work on a good base, in terms of elevation, as it can be very hard to get decent looking terrain elevations with the tools at hand for ofp.

I used digital elevation models to create the landscape and you will notice a large difference when you see it in game.

 View distance can sit at 5k quite happily, with normal terrain detail. DO NOT exceed normal terrain detail in your settings, doing so will result in the crashing of ofp to desktop.

Check the readme for more details, but my main projects now lie in the hands Arm A, and have many good projects up my sleeve.

Thanks for taking the interest in the post and i hope you get as much or as little satisfaction out of it as you need.

Smiley

A big big thankyou to ofp info for hosting the file and pics.

[Fork122 0]

Wow, I just flew around the island a bit in OFP, it looks very nice.

Now do you plan to add objects to the map or keep it as is?

[smiley nick 51]

Hi Fork 122

I wont be making any populated versions for ofp res, but i do plan to make naked and populated versions of the terrain environments i make, but really Arm A will allow this to reach is full potential.

Smiley

[450R 1]

Very well done! This may be just the thing to kick-start me into modeling some assets for the region

Thanks

[igor drukov 0]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... or is it ?

Truly fantastic work.

[COBRA EATER 0]

looks great to me

down loading now thanks

[gunterlund 0]

Great job on this map mate. I just had a mini battle with CoC UA 1.1 and it just wasnt fair with all that open terrain. Now can you do a Normandy map with terrain data from the Beach to the Orne River? That would be great.

[.kju 3241]

cheers

tank battles - air skirmishes all the way

[kubi 0]

Hi,

Very good job! Using DEMs makes islands much better, I think. The only problem is the limitation of OFP with the water level (must be zero), but I hope it will change soon

What elevation data did you use?

For my island I used this one:

ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/srtm/version1/Eurasia/

Some other thing may be found here:

http://sas2.elte.hu/tg/gislinks_en.htm

BR,

Kubi

[smiley nick 51]

Hi,

Very good job! Using DEMs makes islands much better, I think. The only problem is the limitation of OFP with the water level (must be zero), but I hope it will change soon

What elevation data did you use?

For my island I used this one:

ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/srtm/version1/Eurasia/

Some other thing may be found here:

http://sas2.elte.hu/tg/gislinks_en.htm

BR,

Kubi

Hi Kubi

Yes your right, the water level in ofp plays extreme difficulty when important dems. I spent about 6 hours editing the raw data to allow the water and elevations to sit together in peace. I also hope this will be fixed in Arm A

As for the elevation data i used STRM data, from a place called "Mapmart", i have some contacts there and i am able to place and order of custom sized areas of what i require for ofp. I tried the free websites and download areas, but i find that most of them are lacking detail. Mapmart is the only place i know with good enough detailed dems, for ofp needs, we would have to get in touch with n.a.s.a and spend lots of cash to get 1m dems ect

Im glad to see the response, and i hope it gives some people a insentient to perhaps start learning or modeling or mapping, that is the best reward in my eyes.

Kubi if you have any more specific questions, pop me a PM, i know very few island makers who like to use dems, due to the fact its a hassle to get them and then get them into game

Smiley

[Daniel 0]

Looking good Smiley. How accurate do you reckon you've got the scale?

[VladAlex 0]

You want a Normandy Wrp ?

Go to my website : Projet Cartographie

[nephilim 0]

very nice stuff smiley!

i assume these are based on real locations?

check me on msn

havent done wrp for a looong time

[buliwyf 4]

icon="\SMY_Afgan-kabul\Afghan.paa";

...not found!

[lilwillie 47]

Wow, very impressive and I like your idea of "naked" islands that people can adjust or build to their liking.

I'll keep an eye on your work and if one falls into the style I am trying to use for my island I may transfer or convert what I've done to yours....if you don't mind

Great work.

[smiley nick 51]

To answer a few questions

@ [CAS] Daniel

The scale is about 100m to real life elevations, this is more than ok for ofp related engines, but as we advance into Arm A, i can imagine it getting smaller and more detailed, providing the cell areas are less than 100m in visitor. More detail, better elevations such as cover, ditches ect.

@ ValdAlex

Nice work, i have a normandy dem covering the d day landings and stretching into Normandy, it is going to be used in the new D-Day 1944 game by frantic games, if you would like it for reference give me a shout.

@Jenny

Thanks Jen, Yeh the map is the area of Kabul province and surroundings, if you check the map the large flat central area at the north is Kabul, and down from that are the flats, and then the mountainous terrain in the south, west, north and east. Which have no specific name, but hold plenty of taliban fighters i expect. Check google earth and you will see it

Here you go

Clicky

@Buliwvy

Yeh thats a small error in the config, not a large problem, any island maker will now how to correct that, or put their own icon down, remember its open source so anything goes

@ Lilwille

Thanks for the kind words, i hope it kicks off. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a PM, i am always willing to help anyone who wishes to try island making And yes you are free to convert or transfer anything you like, dont have to ask, just check the readme for more details.

Smiley

[Heatseeker 0]

Very inspirational work Nick, if i were a modeler/artist i would try to make you some acurate Afghan buildings and objects to populate this environment .

[wheres my rabbit ? 10]

blank island !! you lazy bastard

[sniperuk02 0]

So this is where you disapeared too.

Island looks good, will try it out tonight.

[gunterlund 0]

smiley just trying to get my bearings straight. Your map is of the Kabul area. Does is include the valley to the east of Kabul where Nangerhar is located. I am looking at your image on Imageshack you posted earlier. I think I have the general idea but cant define the scale.

Wait a minute it looks like its the same area in red on your imageshack pic correct? Wow that valley is bigger than I thought. What is the scale of the squares in the editor. Is this a 25x25 km map?

[wolfsatar 0]

got some funny error messages when set the view distance to 5000 ^^

"Createvertexbuffer (static, separate) failed "memory adress) - out of memory ?"

amd x2 3800@2500 mhz with 1 gb ram.

[smiley nick 51]

Just to answer some questions

@ Heatseeker

Thanks for the offer, lets hope one day you give it a bash, who knows you might be good at it

@Rabbit

Har har :P, na your right tho mate

@Sniperuk

Cheers mate, model me some cool buildings

@Grunterlund

The pic you see is in fact a tiny bit smaller than the actual dem and map in game, if you check the game map far east of the central flat area you should see a valley, and if you head to the top right you will see a lovely collection of those mountains. Yes the valley is huge, the scale is as close to real life as i could make it, of course there are some limitations, but overall we are looking at about 100m definitions, so every 100m will have elevation data/change. This is a limit of ofp in a way, and the dem, as its hard to get global dems of higher detail of lets say 30m or 10m. Only American dems have that kind of detail so far.

The map is 1024x1024, so if my maths is correct i belive its a 25x25 scale, ideally this is a small gimpse of what Arm A could have as "standard" with 5k view distances or more with populated terrain with no lag (i hope)

If you have google earth enter in the lon/lat details displayed on the imageshack image top right and you can get a idea of the scale/size and locations, along with many important reference features.

@wolfsatar

Yeh if you over max your terrain detail settings in your options you will crash to desktop, don't go above "normal" due to the size of the map, ofp cant seem to handle the memory no matter what pc you have.

Just a quick note, if anyone wishes to see another part of Afghan created, or plans to order something from "mapmart" let me know as i would be more than happy to tell you what pre requisites you need to get it working into ofp, as its a complex process and i don't want anyone wasting any money

Smiley

[sniperuk02 0]

@Sniperuk

Cheers mate, model me some cool buildings

No chance.

[Jason78666 0]

awww...i'm unable to download map. ANyone have another link??? I'd love to try this one out even without objects on it.

[bushlurker 45]

Hi Smiley!

Just wanted 2 say absof***inlutely well done actually gettin DEM data 2 work properly!

I had a go a while back with a partial DEM of Cyprus using ASTER satellite data from NASA - it went into my GIS system no problem for the archaeology work I was doin @ the time but I couldn't get it 2 work in OFP - sea level was the problem as has been mentioned.

I'm kinda out the GIS and OFP loop @ the moment since RL issues demand I actually work for a living though I'm lookin forward to AA but here's where I used to get my DEM data from

http://edcimswww.cr.usgs.gov/pub/imswelcome/

it used to all be free but I'm not sure if that's true anymore but it's worth a look

If ur lookin for votes - try an unpopulated Cyprus - it was a north/south warzone n when we worked there a few years back we had an Argentinian UN escort in case we wandered into minefields - AND it actually is an island

anyway - bloody good work mate!

Bushlurker