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smiley nick

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Posts posted by smiley nick

  7. Posted

    Bottom line, if a new landscape had higher and better detail, buildings built from ground up that AI understood and used effectively in a new manner, perhaps even zoned landscape giving AI varying behaviors based on grid - nowTHIS would be exciting imo.

    Couldn't agree more.

    And what do you think is BIS' focus for this terrain?

    I hope it's some more focus on combined arms/weapon systems and logistics (landing crafts and helo carriers pls :( ).

    edit: nvm i read again your post before this one. i think BI has enough of dayz to worry about survival elements, i don't think they have any interest in doing the same thing in arma too.

    Its hard to say, the first question is to figure out why they are doing this. To reward us with new playgrounds, or to promote their tech even further? - I don't think they are short of cash with the sales of Dayz... This is good for us, as we have a company who I assume are financially secure and can take risks and big R&D investments. My gut tells me that its game-play over location and that could be anything - although I do suspect it could be part of a wider "theme" pack with possibly new units and additional campaigns/content. Speaking from experience, custom terrains take a long time to make, so they must be monetising this platform with future releases I'm sure.

  8. Posted

    I politely disagree.

    One of the main reasons Altis is so good is because it's based off a real terrain, which also means there is a very high amount of detail and precision to it.

    Reverting to an "artificial" map would be a big step back compared to what we have now in my opinion.

    I wouldn't underestimate "artificial" maps. These have the advantage of being designed for a particular purpose from the ground up. Don't get me wrong, I love geo-specific terrains and they naturally give you a good spectrum of game play styles, but BIS may want to focus on something in particular (like they experimented with Proving grounds) now that we have Altis/Stratis to be content with.

  9. Posted

    Part of me thinks the island ties more in with gameplay than just location. Altis/Stratis are huge and serve the combined arms game-play well. I think we will be exposed to the more "daring" side of BIS - as Altis/Stratis proved to be a difficult time for the company and staff and i don't expect they want to touch geo-specific 1:1 terrains any time soon.

    I hope they let their hair down and offer us good assets for future community terrains and focus on exploring guerrilla style game-play or survivalist elements.

  10. Posted

    Part of me thinks the island ties more in with gameplay than just location. Altis/Stratis are huge and serve the combined arms game-play well. I think we will be exposed to the more "daring" side of BIS - as Altis/Stratis proved to be a difficult time for the company and staff and i don't expect they want to touch geo-specific 1:1 terrains any time soon.

    I hope they let their hair down and offer us good assets for future community terrains and focus on exploring guerrilla style game-play or survivalist elements.

  12. Posted

    Looking great :yay:
    Awesome stuff, Nick!

    Thanks both. I want to add a lot more - as this is going to be the only large'ish forest out of the whole 5 islands. My goal is to achieve something like this (Cryengine) but of course AI & Arma friendly. I will be experimenting with more clutter variations as well as attempting to make some low level shrubbery/green leaves to act as general coverage.

    I have also partnered up with a friend (STG Gunner) who has taken on the task of creating more UK style objects - mainly custom houses for St.Mary (the large town) which should provide some really interesting house to house fighting scenarios.

    Its taking a long time, but I really want to deliver something new and refreshing :¬)

    More pics soon.

  14. Posted · Edited by Smiley Nick

    Hi all,

    I hit a rather important milestone today. I managed to successfully integrate St.Agnes into the rest of the archipelago. It means I can now work off a single version, and push updates per island or section. I'm hoping to do this a lot and get vital feedback as I go - allowing you to follow the journey and be part of the development.

    I'm still holding off an alpha release until I tidy up a few more things. In the mean time, I've been working on making the most of the underwater features that Arma3 presents and hoping to accurately place real life locations of ship wrecks and caves that are littered around the coastline.

    underwater_low.jpg

    highres

  15. Posted · Edited by Smiley Nick

    Thanks for the kind comments all. I am working on the sea at the moment, updates later today.

    Edit

    The Isles of Scilly has a very low water level (25 meters or so) and The Scillonian is the only passenger ship from the main land capable of navigating through these waters due to its flat bottom design.

    I have been testing all the Arma3 community ships and have modified the topography of the ocean floor to support most current and future ships. I have a feeling that ships might be used quite extensively for missions, so its important to have good game-play in the oceans too! The islands do have variations of depth, meaning that there is a level of planning required to pilot through these waters - or you could find yourself stuck!

    Nothing very exciting, but here's an example of the height differences and "channels" that are open for the larger vessels. The light blue areas will feature a detailed selection of coral and rocks for scuba diving.

    ship_lanes_low.jpg

    Highres

    - please ignore sat image. Still needs editing and removal of objects.

  16. Posted

    I agree, but most maps are created by one person, and you really have to be an environment / prop artist to bring any new location to life - This takes a hell of a lot of time! I would like to start, or, see people come together and work on shared asset packs - designed for the current or upcoming terrains. For example my UK buildings could be repurposed for other European settings.

    You will never get 1:1 - unless your in a mod team, but I do think there are ways to work in collaboration, rather than making do with defualt arma assets or using semi useful objects from other addon releases.

  18. Posted

    If you have L3DT, you can go into the "3D" mode - allowing you to edit the terrain with a more advanced brush tool. You can set height, flatten and much more. I would recommend you do this first and make smaller edits in TB.

    For example, I am lowering my sea floor In L3DT, as it would be impractical to do in TB. I will then export my edited height map as an ASCII. Easy :)

  20. Posted

    16_low.jpg

    High res

    Hi all,

    Nothing too exciting, but I thought I would upload a very early version of the Isles of Scilly Archipelago. You won't be able to do much on it, other that fly around a bit - and maybe try to land at the airport. What this should give you is a nice idea of whats coming.

    I need to export over standalone St.Agnes to the main group (In progress) and work on the clutter/surface mask. There is still a long way to go, but at least its something to play around in while you wait. My next imminent update will be a tidied up version of this - fixing the clutter, sat mask and lowering the sea bed on the outside areas - along with a complete St.Agnes. I will then just work on her as much as I can.

    I would be keen to hear feedback on any performance related issues, and general thoughts overall - e.g: is it worth doing? I'm hoping to improve the satellite texture, as the quality is lower than I would like - I just need to wrestle with Terrain Builder.

    Download

    WeTransfer

    My Site

    Cheers,

    Nick.

  25. Posted

    Detailed St.Agnes with unfinished island chain (which can be fleshed out over time) is the better option. Smaller (detailed) A-O is often fine as long as you have space/terrain around it to enter/exit from/to.

    Latest shots look fantastic.

    I do have the Arma2 frigate off-shore for mission starts but I do agree. An runway or secondary land mass is always useful.

    The small island is awesome. Flesh out what you have. I am actually working to get my dynamic mission to work and be enjoyable on an island as small as this.

    Great, cant wait to try it!

    Go for the unfinished island chain.( some unfinished islands surrounding the detailed one)

    I would rather have the other islands too, as long as they are at least covered in a nice looking grass layer its good enough, maybe throw in a few rocks.

    But seriously, as long as they have some nice grass on there so it doesnt look like really blocky 3d terrain crap, then they will be quite usable for missions. (i would be very excited :) )

    Consider it done!

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