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Hello, there!

First, a quick introduction of myself: I am new to the BF modding community, but I guess it's always cool to have new faces around - it keeps the game alive. I have moderate experience with WC3 modding, CivIII modding, and map editing for several games - however, apart from WC3 (which I never mastered), BFII will be the first more complex game that I edit.

Now, on to my first map:

Myrkr: Smuggler's Outpost

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Background

Though situated in the inner rim of the galaxy, Myrkr has remained a planet overlooked by jedi, sith, republic and imperial forces throughout the eras. The reason is simple, yet curious - one of the native animals - Ysalamr, repel the force and render the planet useless for jedi interests. But while no serious colonization efforts were ever made, this made Myrkr the perfect place for smugglers, pirates and mercenaries. The famous information broker Talon Karde once made Myrkr his home base until the Empire of Thrawn decided to take over his base.

This map is situated in a small outpost village run by pirates and mercenaries. In the clone wars era, republic forces are invading the mercenaries for their cooperation with CIS forces. In Galactic Civil War era, Imperial forces had enough with mercenaries wrecking havoc in nearby systems and sends forces to deal once and for all with the problem.

Layout

The layout of this map is inspired by Rhen Var: Harbor map. You have two bases - the mercenary village and the landing of invading forces. They are interconnected with a cavern, and by land. Walkers will be invading from land, while infantry forces will be pushing through the caverns. However, there is also a spot in the middle of the map, perfect for defending against the walkers. Also, as Myrkr is a forest world, the center of the map will resemble an Endor-inspired forest.

Environment

I am using Tatooine assets for the village, Endor assets for the forest, and Sky's assets for the caverns and smaller props. I'm in the process of figuring out how to reskin ODF models, since my reskins of Tatooine buildings do not show in ZeroEditor or in-game. However, the map does blend very well with the ordinary textures as well, and does not look too much like Mos Eisley.

Ground textures are custom-made.

Sides

My first goal is to create a playable map with no custom side modding. However, if I manage to complete this goal, I plan to change the CIS/rebels side to mercenaries, with new units/skins, and maybe even a mission-driven campaign like story. However, MY FIRST goal is to create a playable map, as that is the most important thing.

Progress

I already did the mercenaries village and the caverns, though there is a problem with one of the entrances and I might have to rebuild parts of them. I'll try to fix those until the end of the week and move on with forest/water, and then try to fix the reskinning problem. Then are the planning, vehicles, barriers and boundaries, and I guess the playable map will be done by the end of May.

Progress table (proximate): ~55-60%

Terraining: ~90%
Skinning: ~80%
Objects: ~70%
Planning & Hubs: ~70%
Barriers: ~40%
Conquest: ~40%
Vehicles: ~20%
CTF: 0%
Sides: 0%


Modes
Conquest and 2CTF for beginning. Might add hunt as well, but we'll see.

Screenshots

Check newer posts for more screenshots.
Credits
Sky for his amazing assets.
Fierfek for the good tutorial.
The whole community for keeping the game alive.

Welcome to gametoast man! Btw your map looks really cool and if u have the time custom sides are a GREAT idea, and if u r unsure of how to make custom sides we have plenty of tutorials around here

Thank you! I do plan to add custom sides, but my first I've set several milestones - and the first is to release a playable map. However, if the map is done before end of April, I might go on and create the sides, and release it as a "beta".

More screenies, and some additional info after the break:
First, I'll be glad if somebody can help with the reskinning thingie. I did create a skin, 32-bit, tga, not RLE-compressed, put it in the MSH folder of the world, but the model still shows with its old skin.

Second, for the custom sides:

I plan modifying the gameplay a bit, as I've never been a fan of the over-5-classes thing. It rarely helps the gameplay (for me), and destroys the feeling of uniformity.

My idea is to keep the soldier-sniper-engineer trio, boost the rocketman's damage, but remove all other weapons from him, and swap the special class with the rocketeer (that is, rocketeers become "unlockable" and can take an AT-ST down with 2 rockets, but are vulnerable, while the special class is made perfect for tunnel-based fights - droidekas, grenade launchers, chainguns.

I plan to base the mercenaries on Terra Strife assets models (without the guns, ofcourse), and give them droidekas (as inspired by FoC's Zann Consortium, for those who've played it).

We'll see what I'll be able to achieve. First - a playable map. I'll change the sides later.

From the screenshots, some parts of the map look rather flat. If this is the case, I would suggest adding some cover, such as barrels, crates, ditches, etc. Other than that, it looks quite nice for a first map, so good job so far.

Not bad for a first map, a lot of people don't manage to change that ground texture on their first map so that's a start. :p

Looks like it could be quite interesting in fact. Make sure you add a directional light with specular and shadows enabled, always helps a lot (something I messed up on for my first map).

Thank you all for the kind welcome!

Ok, people, quick color edit of all other textures showed something strange - I am able to edit those:
But I can't skin those:
Basically they are used by tat2_bldg_large and all the billboard buildings, small props, wallstairs, walls, etc.

Help would be appreciated.
Credits WILL be given.

Is it an alpha channel issue? Try looking at this thread if so: http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtop ... 27&t=21268

And the map looks really cool! My first thought upon seeing the images, though, was, "the sky is too bright and saturated." You may want to consider toning it down a bit.

Nice map . (no idea about the building texture problem)

CressAlbane wrote:My first thought upon seeing the images, though, was, "the sky is too bright and saturated." You may want to consider toning it down a bit.

@CressAlbane, I believe he is using the yavin skydome which uses glow controlled by an alpha channel.
@AvalancheMaster, If you want to tone that down edit the tga (explained here under "Explained": LINK)
changing 02 to 00 in the 5th place after ATRB (in the skydomes msh) will eliminate the glow effect.

Nedarb7 wrote:@CressAlbane, I believe he is using the yavin skydome which uses glow controlled by an alpha channel.

Actually, I'm pretty sure vertex colors are the culprit for the glowing parts.

Welcome to Gametoast! That's a great looking first map. I'll be sure to dl when it's released.

Thank you again, guys!

CressAlbane wrote:Is it an alpha channel issue? Try looking at this thread if so: http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtop ... 27&t=21268

And the map looks really cool! My first thought upon seeing the images, though, was, "the sky is too bright and saturated." You may want to consider toning it down a bit.

Cress, I don't think it's an alpha-channel problem; alpha is OK, same as other files, which I'm able to edit. If it was the alpha, buildings won't show up at all (or at least be transparent). They do show up, but with the original texture.

Something witty's going on here.

EDIT: FOUND THE BUGGER!

Those files are duplicated in msh/PC, that's why it was using them. Took me too long to figure that out.

THEWULFMAN wrote:Not bad for a first map, a lot of people don't manage to change that ground texture on their first map so that's a start. :p

Looks like it could be quite interesting in fact. Make sure you add a directional light with specular and shadows enabled, always helps a lot (something I messed up on for my first map).

Agreed. Keep up the good work, man!

A little late but welcome to gametoast! Your map looks pretty cool but I agree with Noobasaurus that there should be something in the wide open space.
Also a tip for taking ingame screenshots: Use Xfire, it takes ingame pics and automatically uploads them so all you have to do is use[img]

Thanks for the advice, guys!

Good news: I didn't felt like mapping today, so I sat down and now I'm almost done with retexturing the Tatooine buildings. Only the billboard ones are left, but they use one texture, that isn't quite complex.

Bad news: I skrewed up the skies. Don't know how, neither which files are responsible for this - I tried backing up or changing with a sky from the assets, but pretty much nothing worked. Now I have a big black dome, and dense grey fog.

Guess I'll have to change this before uploading screenies from the retextures.

re: sky issue, do a manual clean of the sky files - delete the files in data_***/_BUILD/Worlds/***/MUNGED/PC/.


EDIT:

If you want, I can help you through it on Xfire or Steam (Marth8880), or Origin (GT-Marth).

Can you post your .sky file in the modding forum? Also, make sure you have the correct textures in your world1 folder. Also try doing a manual clean and re-munging.

Thank you, guys, managed to fix it! Apparently the munger decided to change my BFII directory to default on its own, which resulted munging the maps in C:/...

However, screenies are coming tomorrow, already too late over here.

EDIT
UPDATE TIME.

Yep, I didn't even start the Rep/Imp side of the map this weekend. However, I did redo the whole middle section of the town (third tunnel exit), add more buildings and walls in the open CIS/reb section, and retexture almost all of the buildings. And I fixed the sky issue.

Here are some screens of the reskin. Yeah, it isn't much different than the default TAT ones (same colour scheme), but it blends much better with the setting. You can compare the old and new texture in some of the screens.
Double posting is against the RULES; please EDIT your post instead -Staff

I noticed that there is a white line going from the bottom to the top of the sky, that can be fixed in the tga just zoom in near the edge and you'll see it.
That re-skin looks great! Nice job. Is the tunnel model stock or custom?

Sorry for double posting, didn't notice.

I'll look into the sky problem, thanks for mentioning! Thanks for the kuddos on the re-skinning.

The tunnels are from Sky's asset, you can find it on filefront. However, I'm not quite sure they blend too well, and I also have some problems getting them to work right (they don't cut the ground too well, and the entrances need to be too high, preventing AI droidekas from entering). I might use Rhen Var's ones.

Today I started work on the imperial side. I'll use some Mygeeto platforms and a lamda-class shuttle for the main CP, and a platform with barricades for the second one. I also tried using some Mygeeto towers to see if they'll blend, but after 3 hours of reskinning, I didn't like how it turned out.

I'll post a screenie nevertheless.
Also

Is there a way for objects on the map to be era-specific? What I'm basically asking for - is there a way to make the main CP spacecraft a lambda-shuttle for GCW, and a dropship for CW?

Yes, it's actually pretty easy. Just place the objects you want to be in GCW in one layer, and the CW ones in another. Then, you need to go into the mode configuration in ZE, delete the MODE conquest, and make two different modes, one with all conquest stuff plus GCW, and one plus CW. For more reference, look at the stock Dagobah map.