Razani, North Waziristan Map

[Nicholas Bell 0]

A 10 km x 10 km map featuring a potential real world hotspot - a haven for the Taliban and Al-Queda.  Google Earth or Google Map Razani, Pakistan to get look at the area.

Map sports one of the few paved roads in the FATA and is fairly heavily inhabited with locals living in high-walled compounds called Kots.  These are often situated on hills and ridges, each a small fortress.  I am not a modeler so unless Opteryx or BadBenson are willing to permit use of their structures, I will simply use the standard structures.

Terrain is very mixed, with mountains, hills, plateaus, wide dry river beds, gullies and ravines.

[Nicholas Bell 0]

[Nicholas Bell 0]

This is the unedited raw STRM DEM data as viewed in Leveler, a heightmap editor.  This is not an accurate representation of the terrain - the 90 meter grid misses too much data.

Here is the current edited heightmap I have created which still is not rough enough in many places.

[Casimir 0]

very nice, stunning scenery.

[opteryx 1562]

Looks killer, can't wait.

Quote[/b] ]I am not a modeler so unless Opteryx or BadBenson are willing to permit use of their structures, I will simply use the standard structures.

You're in luck then, I'm uploading Avgani, 1.2 right now. This version is available for mappers to use the objects, although I do apologize for the somewhat poor model quality.

[manzilla 1]

Good to see another N.B. creation. I love this terrain. Takes me back a few years to my mountain excursion days. Thanks, I look forward to this.

[sparks50 0]

Great news Opteryx!

Bell: looks great and very Afghan-ish!(Wouldnt know about Paki though) I love your work!

Have you started using that 3De tool?

Ill grab the opportunity to upload a pic of the great north!

http://i532.photobucket.com/albums....tan.jpg

[PSYCHOSIM 0]

Looking good.

Nice terrain.

[mrcash2009 0]

Alex pulls it out the bag once more, these shots look superb  

First of all that inital screen shot I thought ... "uuugh   , nothing done yet just scenery shots leeched in another forum from photos" ..... LOL ... then I realised it was in-game.

I can imagine some seriously superb sniper missions created on this. Plus putting it through realtime editor to come up with more ideas in the vast hills.

Any chance of some caves to add into some high mountain areas with some shrubs/cover? Can imagine some ariel bombing of suspected dug in enemy etc (for missions). OOh long range bombing target missions with mando scripts .... this is too good.

[Stewy 1]

That, Sir, is one cool looking map!

Thanks for your hard work on it so far!

[icebreakr 3159]

Nicholas Bell: you've come a long way from Bluefields alpha.. and even that rocked =)

[MehMan 0]

OK is the first pic a photo or ingame?

[colligpip 0]

Looks great. we need caves and tunnels :-)

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I'm loving all the map work going on. The best part is that our enjoyment won't end with ArmA 2's advent.

Great stuff Nicholas.

[william1 0]

Looks great. we need caves and tunnels :-)

and some little village here and there

[Kolt 0]

looks nice! keep up the good work!

[Nicholas Bell 0]

Thanks, guys!

All the images are in game.  There isn't any real difference in the terrain between eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, so my thinking was that it would be a good area for both fields of operation.

The terrain works well for AI soldiers (vehicles is another issue - they seem to want to climb up cliffs instead of going around the hill).  I've had long range battles from hilltops and between ridgelines.  At the same time the terrain is rough enough in most places that it is easy to close with the enemy if one side does not have a height advantage.  Even so, the vegetation and rocky terrain provides plenty of cover & concealment without causing any pathfinding problems for the AI.  Makes them look smarter than they really are and provides a good challenge.  I've played up to platoon size engagements without any framerate problems, keeping the view range around 7 km.

There will be plenty of habitations on the map...eventually.  There are towns:

Scattered compounds:

And mountaintop compounds.  These folks take the expression "a man's home is his fortress" literally.

I plan to get most everything done except the buildings and then release this as a beta.  That way everyone can get some use out of it sooner rather than later, and with a real time editor it possible to setup your own compounds.  I will continue adding the towns and compounds and releasing updates as I complete areas.  At least, that's what I'm thinking at the moment.

While recreating the caves of a Tora Bora type complex would be great, it would require modeling skills I truly lack.  I'm behind the power curve on this as it seems many mappers have also taken on creating their own models.  Looks like I may in the future eventually have to break down and go down that road too.  Never enough time to do everything I would like to.

[mrcash2009 0]

Quote[/b] ]I plan to get most everything done except the buildings and then release this as a beta.

Great Idea, like you say with new 3de its opens up for variations. Although popoulated updates are cool. I think an open area beta would be great, just looking at those pics all you need is a quick drop in of tents in places, few duplicated for opfor and you have a blank pallette to do what you like.

Quote[/b] ]While recreating the caves of a Tora Bora type complex would be great, it would require modeling skills I truly lack.

Yes its easy to ask that too make    Maybe someone could help model a cave variation to simply "plant" onto mountain sides? Like a hollowed out large boulder shape that can sit on mountains looking like rock areas, up close its open inside to shelter or something.

Anyway ... cant wait for beta.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Great work, once again, Nicholas!

I also thought the first screenshot was a photo from real-life.

[MarkJ112 0]

Wow great work I'm looking forward to this map

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Yeah, if you want to take any more screens for us, I won't mind.

[Kerry 0]

This is just what ArmA is missing!

Great news, and i cant wait. Lookin good already

Someone just needs to make some ANA units

*EDIT

I dont know if theres farms in this area, but if there is i would suggest using Opteryx's wheat fields from Avgani 1.2, and maybe even some of his buildings!

[mpantel 0]

this map looks amazing, did you randomly place those bushes? or did you painfully match every bush with the SAT texture?

Also if someone was to model a cave in a big rock, to fit the side of a mountain, how would it look, anyone have any good realife photos or diagrams of caves/bunkers ect.

[WingedSerpent1969 0]

didn't colonel well make a cave addon?.....

[manzilla 1]

this map looks amazing, did you randomly place those bushes? or did you painfully match every bush with the SAT texture?

Also if someone was to model a cave in a big rock, to fit the side of a mountain, how would it look, anyone have any good realife photos or diagrams of caves/bunkers ect.

Check out Map_3DE island. There's a small island with a nice rock formation/cave. It's like a pirate hideout. If he checks it out and uses Map 3DE one can be made fairly easily. I believe it was made using 3DE objects and it looks pretty damn nice as well. Bushes, etc. can be easily implemented in visitor as well. At least I think they can.

WingedSerpent1969,

I'm not sure about a generic cave so to speak but I know he made Cheyenne Mountain.

CM: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3404

There's a catacomb object also made by icewind.123

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3211