Watkin Mountains, Island

[dr_eyeball 16]

Very nice terrain. Love the shear cliffs and its ruggedness preventing you from simply driving from point A to B.

Some very widely scattered and isolated spruce/pine trees would look good. Eg: image 1, image 2, image 3.

Don't think it needs anything else. Wouldn't bother with roads unless it naturally fits the terrain. Even scattered buildings/huts are easy enough to add by mission maker.

Would love to see this in a desert or even grassed version eventually, simply because it's too beautiful to conduct war here the way it is.

Good work.

Edit: Are those wind sounds at 500m+ ASL (while walking) part of ArmA, or did you add them in?

Ceiling Height:

when I tryed to take off in the little bird on the 1700 altitude Mountain it couldn't even take off it was so high!

Why is that happening? Not only can you not take off, if you're already flying a chopper, you will be slowly forced to the ground for any height above roughly 1530m ASL.

Is there a terrain ceiling height setting that needs to be set or is that an ArmA limitation?

[bugkill 7]

I found a dry spot and made a quickie outpost:

This is an example of what I meant about dry spots.

[layne_suhr 0]

WHere did you get that pavelow bugkill???

All helicopters (and planes) have a ceiling height... Helicopters shouldn't be able to fly higher than a mountain (especially when they don't have doors like MH-6.

[dale0404 5]

I got in a chopper last night to have a look round this Island everyone is effusing about, and rightly so, its beautiful!

So rugged and unfriendly, you really get a sense of being alone and left to your own devices. This Island has so many possibilities its unbelieveable. Only thing I would add as someone has already said is a few trees here and there.

Don't put any buildings on there, leave that upto the mission makers, it needs to stay the way it is, apart from the trees of course!

Absolutely awesome map and something so far removed from the ordinary. Excellent.

[Rg 0]

Truly awesome island. I LOVE the terrain layout.

I haven't done any serious play testing on it yet, but the large, open, bumpy, height layered terrain seems like it will be great for gameplay.

I would love to see the heightmap (terrain.png) of this bad boy, but since I don't think that will happen , what did you do to make the terrain? Was it all custom made by you in PS, wilbur, or something else? How did you get those nice bumps all over the place (the smaller "detail" bumps on the ground? Was it noise>blur in photoshop, some other way, or even one by one ?

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2 things to help your island other then objects/bases like what was already mentioned...

- One small thing that you might want to adjust is the ground terrain layer color. It has a slight bluish tint to it making it look like ice when the terrain all around you looks like white snow. Obviously making the ground layer white would make more sense then redoing the whole sat map to have a blueish tint.

- Change the movement sounds to snow. I don't exactly know how right now since I don't know much about map making currently, but it's surely possible. Basically open the character.pbo/config and look at the "class SoundEnvironExt".

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">class CfgVehicles {

class Land; // External class reference

class Man : Land {

class ViewPilot; // External class reference

};

class CAManBase : Man {

class SoundEnvironExt {

snow[] = {{"\ca\characters\data\sound\snow\run1", db-65, 1}, ect.....

};

};

Those are the sounds you want to be using. You can listen to them in this folder "\characters\data\sound", but you need to convert the wss to wav. I can't remember where I got those converters. Anyway, I assume you just need to assign the "snow" array to the texture you are using. Someone that has made a map can probably tell you how to do this easily.

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Anyways, keep up the good work!

[bugkill 7]

WHere did you get that pavelow bugkill???

All helicopters (and planes) have a ceiling height... Helicopters shouldn't be able to fly higher than a mountain (especially when they don't have doors like MH-6.

You can in VBS2 and in real life (did it in Afghanistan), mate  

[spirit 0]

Hey nice pic above:)

The sounds have been changed all. This means no longer cricket sounds but wind sounds, at higher altitude you get hard wind sounds. More environment sounds gonna change. But i found out that less is better. The sounds of almost nothing and a few birds and your footsteps fit here.

Sounds for walking on textures has been changed. Snow=snow and rock= rock. Life can be simple.

As i read above i see exactly where i am in doubt. Isnt this environment enough as it is or should it add more. Trees, well they dont fit here but i gues at some part of the island a few should be well doable.

Flatland. The island is huge, its always bigger then you think. Like in real life snow environment its hard to estimate distance. The snow parts are the most flat area's because if it isnt, there is a reason for it (it fell off ). Zoom in to the map and go stand at some locations. You will find huge flat area's. Just not super flat.

Call for help:

I need snowtracks. As blizz gave the example models for their roads it would be very cool if somebody could make the CES moddel a snowtrack. Anybody able to do it? I can myself i gues but its from zero experience to what i need...

Btw: I use 6thsense mod (ofcourse since i play there) and i can fly nicely with my choppers in heigh altitude. At least i can fly there, if its the mod i dont even know:)

Anyway, tx all for the nice feedback. Its appriciated!

[spirit 0]

I found a dry spot and made a quickie outpost:

This is an example of what I meant about dry spots.

lol that will be not so a dry spot on next update. its a lake. its the only real sattelite problem i had to fix:) But i might turn it into rocks for the reason to build stuff for ppl. No sweat:)

Anyway, snow wont hurt mate, its just a texture

[bugkill 7]

I found a dry spot and made a quickie outpost:

This is an example of what I meant about dry spots.

lol that will be not so a dry spot on next update. its a lake. its the only real sattelite problem i had to fix:) But i might turn it into rocks for the reason to build stuff for ppl. No sweat:)

Anyway, snow wont hurt mate, its just a texture

I know, but we have to factor in global warming

[Sigma-6 29]

If you're going to add roads or a permanent settlement, then I'd recommend only adding one, and it probably should resemble a typical high-arctic settlement, like Resolute Bay:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=....18&z=14

Notice that the settlement is small, and the roads only run a few hundred metres outside of town, because everything is flown in via the airfield. The map would thus be road free, where the only roads are in the settlement, used to get from point a to point b within it.

These Google maps images were not taken during the winter, obviously, so you can see the open tundra, but in the winter, this place is (killer) cold and snowy. There is no such thing as a 'dry spot'. Construction is done in the summer, but people live there all year round.

Buildings are built on stilts, raised off the surface, because the settlements up north are built on permafrost, and conventional buildings would melt the surface, cracking, destroying, and jacking their own foundations, causing them to sink and rise in different places, unpredictably.

google images search for permafrost buildings

Anyway, if this is the sort of thing you're going for (high arctic), then don't add any trees at all. This would be north of the treeline. Basically, you get smaller and sparser spruce, until you get none at all. Also, it's dark 24-hours a day from basically November to March (even April), and it'll hit +15c in the summer.

[orson 0]

Sig that snow crawler looks way high poly (jk)

My dad was with a team building a BAS arctic research centre this year .. that was pretty cold by accounts

got lots of shots of the building work and site if they might be of use .. oh and penguins .. lots of them

[Sigma-6 29]

Quote[/b] ].. oh and penguins .. lots of them

Wouldn't that be an *antarctic* research center?

Quote[/b] ]high poly

Well, the CF-23 was basically a metal box on treads, after all. . .

[ocramweb 0]

nice relief,

but one thing nobody noticed:

With watkins island installed, is that all other islands made with visitor will loose there grass and clutters...

funny thing is that config seems to be ok do ?

[spirit 0]

nice relief,

but one thing nobody noticed:

With watkins island installed, is that all other islands made with visitor will loose there grass and clutters...

funny thing is that config seems to be ok do ?

Havent noticed that on our server but i go check if i goofed up mate. If its problematic just dont use it as its just an alpha release for fun. Stable and finalized version coming later. In the alpha release i didnt actualy bother looking into clutter and/or sounds so i might have easily goofed up there. I check when back from work:)

[ocramweb 0]

no troubles.

I just take your pbo out when i want to use other island like

schmalfelden, HDT_island,or others island that I made myself

all of those have the automatic clutters from ground textures disapearing, when your pbo is in arma.

I tweaked your config.cpp all the way I knew it was possible, but nothing to do...everything seems to be correct.

I just don't get it. ... for now...  

[spirit 0]

Yep i screwed up there. Next version it will be all fine. It conflicts with other stuff. Sorry for that people.

Couple of choices now:

- Update the config according to the info given by Sickboy at

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....1272273

- Move watkins pbo to addons if ya want goof around with it. (And move away when using something else).

- Delete Watkins and simple wait for the final version.

Icemotoboy has been showing his awesome units and they tag along the Watkins delivery.

Check out

USEC Snow Units

Some work in progress pics from goofing around with the super radar.pbo files. Not sure if this is i wanna go use it(after permission). Just goofing around here a bit. Harbor and oilreferiny. All work in progress.

Except from building more stuff on it, Watkins Mountains seems bug free on the current version.

Cheers and tx for reading.

[Callsign 128]

Heya  great island so far

just a few suggestions that might help.

I'd get rid of the walls and have fences, and use larger buildings in the centre of the site for a headquarters or something like that, rather than a few little buildings, Hangers would be pointless as well, they'd just fill up with snow! try having a normal ground surface with patches of snow if possible, rubbish littered about. People wouldnt want to spend much time outside if it subzero. Fences or barriers could protect against avalanches. The site needs to be dominated by the landscape not the other way round.  something like this maybe

Do those kind of oil derricks work in the severe cold? just a thought

At the moment it looks too clean and static, it needs life! :P

Amazing work anyway, keep it up :P

[Sigma-6 29]

Quote[/b] ]Hangers would be pointless as well, they'd just fill up with snow!

Plenty of arctic (or even just wintry) places (like the city I live in) have hangars.  Hangars have doors, and anywhere reasonably equipped for cold weather has an ace-in-the-hole: Snow clearing equipment.  It's not all that bad.

I'm not keen on seeing a site like this at all, on that map, personally (and not only because those buildings would be destroyed by permafrost subsidence in a few seasons).  I'm much more interested in seeing smaller, more realistic sites, like the Resolute Bay map I posted on the last page of this thread.  

Resolute Bay

You'll note, incidentally, looking at that map, that Resolute does, in fact, have hangars at the airfield.  In fact, the CF arctic survival school is there.

Also, another cool thing worth pointing out is that since it's so remote (and this is typical of arctic settlements), and everything is either flown in or out, a lot of the settlement is littered with piles of old vehicles and industrial equipment--basically caryards--dating back to when the settlement was founded.  BTW. . . when the US moved out of the Canadian Arctic after the Cold War, they characteristically left our Northlands littered with junk they didn't care to dispose of, so piles of old military junk are not uncommon either, near settlements.

[Callsign 128]

lol yer should have said that i meant about those hangers specifically, but i definetly agree that big sites shouldnt be used or if they are they should feel under attack from the elements.

[spirit 0]

Tx for the feedback guys. I do agree it looked to clean. I decided to do a re-over and it feels better this.

Check out. Comments welcome. Needs more shit but this is more like it i gues.

I do like to add the oil theme, sort of a theme for war. If they truly work in the artic, who knows i aint an expert but it looks cool:D

[NoRailgunner 0]

Those hangars look imho a bit wrong in very close distance to the oil buildings/refinery. Is this a new oil discovery or an abandoned one were some good/bad guys can establish hidden base with some (weird?) research facilities? If you place an airfield AI should be able to land and start with planes.

[Callsign 128]

@spirit,

Thats much better, see how you suddenly feel more in the environment your making :P

A suggestion I would make is a concrete platform of some description, say for a helicopter, something to bring in supplies to the workers. For a headquarters building/ accomodation building, I think it should be quite small, the buildings amounting to about the size of a large oil rig, but on land (if that makes sense).

Incredibly this is very eerily like a mod I've been thinking of making since Flashpoint, but mine was UK/ Europe based rather than Polar. I havent worked on it for ages but might resurrect it

Here is a very old pic of a fishing village I was making. Buildings are small to keep the heat and hug the shoreline, and have wood stores outside for the winter.

And the larger "town", with oil tanks. More commercial, but with historic church.

Hope this provides some inspiration!

- sorry but cant remember the addons used in these pics

[spirit 0]

Tx mate, i can go make use of information like that. I need a lot of more inspiration:)

Some progress pic. We got snowtracks active. Awesome work by Garlay here at 6thsense.

Also started to customize some trees (next week final version will be made by a friend of mine, since the current result is my own crap result, but it needs work technicaly first right:).

Coast area south will be having fully snowed trees, rock, some broken ships and some ruined isolated locations.

With that we kinda leave the full artic but as said, its all work in progress here:) But then we have another 15 x 15 km untouched area:)

Anyway, pics are better then words. Ere is one:

[malick 0]

This island looks excellent. Gives a completely new scenery which can then inspire mission maker for new kind of mission.

Keep up !

Malick

[spirit 0]

Cheers Malick. I hope some mission makers can pick it up like you said, this terrain requires indeed different approuch and for that i hope different missions.

At the moment i am busy with putting snow texture on all objects used so watkins will ship with.

wtk_snow_plants.pbo

wtk_snow_objects.pbo

wtk_snow_rocks.pbo

wtk_snow_buildings.pbo

Any object used is currently being retextured in a way it wont conflict with the current existing ones. That will take a while. Can use some help with that:)

Some work in progress pic ere:

And a second one. Still busy with the trees as i am not fully in love with the result yet:)

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218....MG]

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145....MG]