Minihattan Island

Hey guys!

I now release a test version of a map containing my New York inspired buildings.

The reason for the release is to gather info about how it performs and how I should progress with this project.

It contains 15 custom buildings, most of them fully enterable (some have 30+ floors!).

It's still in the middle of the development process, in other words ALOT of unfinished stuff.

The island is extremly simple, there is no decorative objects at all.

Also the buildings are very empty, since furniture decrease performance alot.

So before adding any details like furniture and stuff in the alleys I need to know how it performs in a clean and simple state.

READ THIS BELLOW CAREFULLY!

I ask you to read the "Known bugs list" bellow before posting any bugs.

To help me, focus on answering these questions:

How does it perform?

Should the map be bigger/less decorated or smaller/more decorated?

How do you play the map, against AI or PvP? What should I focus on?

Report other bugs!! And not how empty the buildings are or lame the map is, remember it's released in the middle of development and I need many more months to actually complete it!

All suggestions and ideas are of course appreciated!

The buildings are the main addon, the terrain is just for testing purposes.

Go here to download the map:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=23870

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8291078/Bracers_Minihattan053_A2.zip

I hope to see some missions for it soon and to hear some feedback!

Cheers

/Bracer

0.5.3 - Released

-Improved the exterior of the mall upper floors

-Removed shadows (temporarly until I figure them out)

-Stopped buildings from falling through the ground

-Added few interiors

-Testing destruction on Hotel

-Fixed missing texture

0.5 - Released

-Plenty of new buildings

-Greatly improved visuals

-Changed the sidewalks

-New reflections from the windows

-Reduced the amount of the ugly buildings

-Better config files

-Optimized some buildings and their geoLods

-Added a hidden experimental bonus...

V0.3.1 - Released

-Fixed missing texture

v0.3 - Released

-Optimized buildings

-Better looking LoDs

-Signed all addons

v0.2.2 - Released

-[Performance test]New resolution LoD's for the tallest building

-[Performance test]Middle section of the tallest building can be damaged

v0.2 - Released

-Sharpen edges on skyscrapers to remove blocky look

-Fixed geolod on Hotel1, Mall upper structure, Skyscraper 4, Sky10

-Fixes roadway lod on Hotel 1, Mall upper structure, Row house 1, Skyscraper 4, Sky10

-Fixed the glass in a few buildings

-Added simple bullethole/sound effects when shooting windows

-Fixed bad rotating door

-Fixed holes in some walls

-Fixed missing textures

-Added keypoints

-Added a few interiors

-Edited the terrain

-And more.

v0.1 - Released

-First release

Known bugs:

-Shadows look horrible

-Sidewalks are missing geo-lod, "sticky road" bug (Thanks Zodd)

-Missing ILS in config error when loading map in editor

-Most of the doors are not animated

-Windows are not working, you can either walk through them or not shoot through them Mostly fixed

-LoD switching look horrible

-Buildings have no furniture

-The map has no details

-AI cannot use most of the buildings

-The map lacks variation, the buildings are repetative (Come on dude! I built 15 custom buildings on my free time in 4 months... I have a real job, and it's definitly not 3D modelling.)

-Wrong texture path: bra_omitka_helf_co

-Bugs that you report!

Future plans:

-Fix the roads so they have the same "color"

-Fine tune reflection of the distant LoD's.

-AI can use all buildings

-Build atleast 15 more buildings

-Make it look good

-Add interesting interiors

-Increase performance

-Make an awesome map with detailed alleys and a cool park

-Fix the last of does freaking windows

-Animate all doors

-DESTRUCTION!!

-Ideas that you suggest!

Edited January 9, 2015 by bracer

The city looks awesome so far. Gonna check it out tonight!

Really great to see you have released a test version, pics look great too.

Downloading it now and will look at it shortly, thanks for sharing this.

Thanks!

Hope you enjoy it!

Wow outstanding. Really awesome stuff. That is something surely missing in the Armaverse.

Keep it up bracer have a nice Christmas and a happy new year.

cheers

Thanks guys!

I hope you enjoy it!

I is getting 509 error; can't download. :(

Try here!

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=23871

Looks great Bracer,top notch job.

"Should the map be bigger/less decorated or smaller/more decorated?"

I would say smaller and more decorated.I'm usually a detail freak and imo it adds more immersion instead of randomly putting gazillion buildings to simulate a city.

"How do you play the map, against AI or PvP? What should I focus on?"

Mostly against the AI,I play 30-40% mp and the rest of my playtime goes into sp.Again imo you could focus on AI.

snip

I would say smaller and more decorated. snip

I'm inclined to agree with that in part, although doesn't need to be ultra detailed, but keeping it smaller may work better for performance for players. But its ultimately your decision, so whatever you decide, its a great map anyway.

Not tried with ai yet, but if and when the ai can use the buildings well, it will make for some serious city combat.:D

Hey dudes!

I hope you all had a nice holiday!

I did and I'm back to work on Minihattan.

I appreciate all the feedback I've been getting and that you took the time to try it out.

So expect reports on bugfixes and improvments soon, and hopefully version 0.2 will be up and running sometime during January.

All the best!

/Bracer

Good to hear! Love playing on this island with my urban units (not plugging at all :p )

@Bracer I've really enjoyed wondering your island so far, it's given me something to do since I have no internet right now. It's also inspired me to create an elevator, which I'm almost done with, just am working on the scripting part of it which is giving me some hell. I'm referencing the Nimitz Carrier scripts to help myself a long the way in creation of a working elevator script myself, but it's been pretty difficult too do since I'm without internet at the moment, and only able to feed off WiFi spots here and there doesn't cut it with the amount of research/people I would like to contact to help me with the elevator script.

Hey!

That sounds awesome! Keep me updated, and maybe we can find a solution to add it in some of my buildings!

@Bracer I've created the model and had some fun trying to scale it, I then unpbo some of the .pbo files in your addon to grab textures to use. I then had to manually select each face and create a uv map (I'm using Oxygen 2, that's where I do most if not all my work). After that I fully textured the elevator and animated the elevator doors (the best I could do at the moment). Then I started work on the elevator script which will allow for the elevator to move up and down. I've got the elevator doing that and have been able to move it up 5 meters, but I'm having difficulty with getting the animation to move up slowly instead of right away. I'm also having difficulty in getting the elevator to move me up with it, instead of leaving me on the ground.

---------- Post added at 04:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:17 PM ----------

I'm trying to bend the rules of ArmA scripting like I did with my remote control script, but that almost took me 6 months to do and I finally got some help from a guy named Norrin, but I haven't been able to contact him for some time now. Last I knew I believe he said he joined the army where he lives.

@Brace I have great news, I finished the elevator and it works great, but unfortunately in order for it to work I had to model a so called elevator shaft, and I'll have to create a different elevator per variant of skyscrapers/buildings due to the offsetting of the floors. The offsetting of the floors of the different skyscraper buildings don't follow an universal pattern of like every 3 meters is the next floor. Also you, me or someone is going to have to create areas in each skyscraper to put the elevator(s) and it's shaft inside the building. Another setback is that I'll have to update the shaft for each elevator I model per skyscraper/building variant (i.e. if the skyscraper is 100 meters tall I need to model the shaft to the same height. If I don't the elevator we become invisible/and unable to be interacted with past the point when it passes the shaft.) I haven't tested it on multiplayer, and we are going to need testers once there are elevators for each skyscraper/building variant. I would also like to point out that the elevator gets a little fussy if your playing as a soldier (i.e. soldier may fall through floor, or lag behind the elevator so much that the player may suffer injuries.)

Most of the credit goes to a community member named "rds100" who was working on a "Lift" addon a while ago, who has a thread which he had a download for his work which he was having trouble with. The problem he was having was the same problem I had in the elevator becoming invisible and unable to be interacted with. As far as I know I don't believe he ever fixed the problem, in which I was able to fix after 6 hours of "Trial & Error". Unfortunately the thread was last active some 300 days ago and as far as I know I don't think anyone helped him with this problem. But thanks to his download I was able to study and use the scripts along with the Oxygen 2 model he provide as a resources, in getting my elevator to function. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?145614-Elevator&highlight=elevator

QUESTIONS:

Did you create all the skyscrapers/buildings on your map? If not do you have open sources of them so you can edit them and put the elevators in where needed?

Are you planning on filling up each skyscraper/building with furniture?

What else are you planning to add to the map? (I would love to see a great deal of landscaping around the skyscrapers/buildings, as well as possibly down the center of the streets. I have lots of other ideas if you would like to me to list them. I also have this great vision of an epic RPG mode using your map in time; LOL, I've already picked where I would like my character to live.)

ISSUES:

I've also come across walk through walls in some of the buildings as well as some walls not touching the floor. Some of the stairs in a few variant of buildings don't have a side to them, and I've also come across some areas where there is a gap between the stair and the floor.

I'll keep you notified on if I find anymore Issues, and if I have more Questions to ask. But in the meantime keep up the great job, hopefully you can fix the Issues stated above and continue to add more to your map. I would also like to thank you for creating this map, I always thought that it was possible, but unfortunately I don't know anything about creating maps, so I just kept waiting for someone to create a map like this. Good luck, and if you have any questions of me feel free to ask.

P.M. I am interested in creating furnishings, but I really don't have any knowledge on texturing, and I've never modeled anything that have curves yet. (I've never done curved models before because I fear how difficult it may be, but I'm willing to try.) Just let me know if you would be interested in me creating furnishings.

Edited January 17, 2014 by JSF 82nd Reaper

I just finished uploading a quick video on the elevator, I'll have to work on the exterior elevator and elevator shaft textures, hopefully you like what I've done. I've tested this a little bit in multiplayer and I noticed that at a certain height if you are in the elevator with players everyone looks like they have fallen through, and are no longer in the elevator with you. But in all reality they are still in the elevator on their screen, I guess it's a local thing, not sure how to fix it at the moment.

I re-read your first post in the thread and you already put some of the issues I found, so I re-edited my post and took them out. I also read what you posted about furniture, and I was wondering would the performance increased if you put the furniture in the view cargo, pilot, command lods?

Edited January 17, 2014 by JSF 82nd Reaper

Looking awesome!

Hey Reaper!

It looks really cool!

My buildings variate alot in height, both in total and ceiling height in the different type of structures.

So it would require alot of uniqe models of the elevator shaft then.

My buildings are split into sections, so they are not one big model, but it sounds very possible to add the elevator, atleast to a selected few of the higher buildings.

Currently I spend the small amount of time I have on fixing errors and bugs so I can release v0.2. Hopefully I can upload it this weekend.

Then we can have a discussion about how to incorporate your elevator!

To answer your questions,

Yes, I built all the buildings except the Stadium by Pathetic Berserker, Billboards by Leimboy and Charons Urban pack (stoplights and unenterable buildings which are not in the map atm).

Regarding furniture; there is no cargo, pilot or command lod in my buildings.

I used proxies for the furniture in the first resolution lod and geo/fire-lod.

I will try to build the furniture into the building instead, since I'm afraid that the proxies lods take unecessary space and causes slowdowns.

Cheers!

@Bracer thanks, and that'll be cool if you release the update this weekend. I'll be uploading another video shortly have a quick 8 story building I created with the elevator incorporated in it. Unfortunately nothing is textured, no doors (just doorways) and the scaling is a bit off, it is also a very simple model with no real entrance other than taking out a window to use it as an entry. I have however started to study texturing by myself and am now able to create an actual UV Map, and was also able to set the windows so no one can walk threw them.

ATM I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate elevator panels, to call the elevator, and then setup a better animation effect for the sliding doors for it, as well as syncing the elevator doors to open/close automatically when elevator is moving, and then maybe even add another set of doors for the exterior set of doors that would be on each floor. I've come across an issue in which the only way to interact with the elevator, I have had to set the interact distance to the max height the elevator travels, so the player can interact with it as they travel higher. I've heard that you can sync memory points to travel with a model, but I've been unsuccessful in doing so. I'll also be redoing the UV map the model so it's done correctly and then update the textures.

I do have a few questions in which you may be able to answer.

How do I create a multi-material texture like I've seen you do when I looked through your textures?

What modeling tool did you use to create your buildings?

Will you be updating the skyscrapers to include doors?

And will you be adding more interior walls to the variants which have empty open floors?

Edited January 23, 2014 by JSF 82nd Reaper

To increase performance, dont make EVERY building and EVERY floor enterable.

Even though it sounds cool, going up the stairs until you reach the final floor takes way to long as that it would be useful.

Make only some floors enterable, and make them really interesting and detailed, plus, you may want to have animated windows which you can open (just in case if you cant shoot though it).

Now I've uploaded the Arma 2 version!

I call it v0.2.2 since it includes a few experimental fixes.

Get it here: http://fragtard.net/forum/showthread.php/1733-Minihattan-Island?p=13290#post13290

v0.3 - WIP

v0.2.2

-[Performance test]New resolution LoD's for the tallest building

-[Performance test]Middle section of the tallest building can be damaged

v0.2

-Sharpen edges on skyscrapers to remove blocky look

-Fixed geolod on Hotel1, Mall upper structure, Skyscraper 4, Sky10

-Fixes roadway lod on Hotel 1, Mall upper structure, Row house 1, Skyscraper 4, Sky10

-Fixed the glass in a few buildings

-Added simple bullethole/sound effects when shooting windows

-Fixed bad rotating door

-Fixed holes in some walls

-Fixed missing textures

-Added keypoints

-Added a few interiors

-Edited the terrain

-And more.

Thanks for sending us the updated version :cool:

Updated release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

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There seriously aren't enough urban settings for Arma, so this will be interesting.

I recall back in the days of OFP there was this one island that had a small city with a bar on the outskirts of town which was rather ingeniously done. Many an interesting gunfight was had there.

Depending on how it lends itself, I would really like to try implementing Thompsonb's flashpoint scripts and see how that works out.

This definitely looks promising.

EDIT

Well I would agree with some people saying that not all buildings need to be enterable.

In fact I would honestly maybe make some tall buildings enterable, but only make certain floors accessible, all you really need are a few anyhow. Some honestly could be completely completely inaccessible and that would be fine as well.

Performance wise the map is a mixed bag, looking down some streets the performance is great, however looking down others my frame rate dips into uncomfortably low values.

I have absolutely no problem running any maps for A2, even large urban expanses such as Emita and avgani run perfectly fine.

You're definitely on to something great here though, I would recommend perhaps changing the buildings that are fully accessible so that you can't see everything inside them.

The really tall buildings with transparent glass were the ones that hit performance the hardest. All in all, it looks great, and I would love to see an optimized version.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Pd3

There seriously aren't enough urban settings for Arma, so this will be interesting.

I would say try Sauerland if you haven't already. Its made for Dayz (which I don't play), but it lends itself really well to A2. There are some serious size cities x3 (proper size cities, unlike Cherno's town size), plus the terrain is 25x25km based on a German region and has just about everything needed for good combat urban or open. Also it performs really well.

Don't want to derail the thread but thought I would say.

Minihattan is a godsend for urban, although still very much wip, as is Sauerland. These are much needed terrains for that urban type conflict where you want to roam a little and not leave the city limits too early, as is the problem with Cherno ones (too small).