Terrain

[Pak40]

I'm not getting this either. Looks fine to me.

He is specifically talking about road/wall/river terrain that is created using linear features:

The bottom line is that the maps don't look natural, and I think this is mostly to do with the way it is created using linear features - roads and rivers in particular.

Having roads, wall, hedgerows that can only be N/S or E/W or 45 degrees increments from that really look horrible especially when your trying to simulate European towns and landscapes. If this were CMMW (Combat Mission Mid-West USA) then these limitations would be fine, but trying to get European towns to look like they're supposed to is a major pain in the ass and in some cases impossible.

[nzgunner]

He is specifically talking about road/wall/river terrain that is created using linear features.

Having roads, wall, hedgerows that can only be N/S or E/W or 45 degrees increments from that really look horrible especially when your trying to simulate European towns and landscapes.

Yes, this is what I was getting at - although horrible might be too strong. I think everyone would agree that PC:O's graphics are a lot worse than CM's - but textures and tree/grass modelling aside, the overall maps can be made to look more realistic (when zoomed right out) because of the flexibility in placing terrain elements.

Michael's observations (below) about creating natural terrain are right on the money for me as well.

I've always loved maps and studied cartography at university - although this was before GIS kicked in. I also like to play around in an application called Fractal Terrains, just to create landscapes etc - so I am sort of the opposite of the miniature painter (I used to have large armies of 5mm ancients where a few blobs of paint can have really impressive results). My ideal screenshot isn't a closeup of a paratrooper tossing a grenade through a window, it is one zoomed out enough to see the broader context.

The other thing to bear in mind with realistic/natural terrain is that it goes hand in hand with the enormous effort put into ballistic modelling. Painstakingly calculating ballistic trajectories and armour angles can be undone a bit by 'encouraging' vehicles into preset angles (eg, always coming down a straight road at 90 or 45 degrees, and taking sharper rather than more gradual turns). I'm not putting this up as something that is broken with CM, just how the 'perfect' game could be made to work.

1. The basic contours of the land are established by tectonic forces. Learn how these work and what they tend to produce. The best way to do this is to spend a lot of time in rural and wilderness areas, hiking around and actually noting how things look. Failing that, there are some books that might help.

2. Once the basic contours have been established, they determine how water will flow through the landscape (hint: it does not flow uphill). This in turn will modify the landscape through erosion and deposition. It will also determine where vegetation will grow most abundantly.

3. Animals, both wild and domesticated, will modify the landscape in various ways, through grazing and path making for instance.

4. Human habitation can and will have an enormous impact on the landscape. But keep in mind that, especially prior to the end of WW II, they nearly always took the easy way. They built near water, both to consume for themselves, their crops, and their livestock, and also as a means of transportation. They did not build roads that go straight up the side of a ridge if there was any way to avoid it, and there nearly always was, including simply not traveling that way.

[Michael Emrys]

I'm surprised - although I don't know what size GPU you have - but I'm running a distinctly "past it" nVidia 260GTX with only 896MB Ram and have had no problems even in a 12000 point battle on a 3x4km map.

Are you on Windows 7-64 ?

I'm on an iMac with an ATI Radeon HD 4670 with only 256 MB and feeling distinctly obsolete.

Michael

[Pak40]

I've always loved maps and studied cartography at university - although this was before GIS kicked in. I also like to play around in an application called Fractal Terrains, just to create landscapes etc - so I am sort of the opposite of the miniature painter (I used to have large armies of 5mm ancients where a few blobs of paint can have really impressive results). My ideal screenshot isn't a closeup of a paratrooper tossing a grenade through a window, it is one zoomed out enough to see the broader context.

I used to play around with a similar program in the early 90s called VistaPro. It's long distinct product but for that day and age it produced stunning quality images. You could import actual real world DEM files into it and recreate stunning landscapes like Yosemite Valley.

[LukeFF]

The only feature I see lacking, without too much expense or redesign of the engine would be bumpmaps and normal maps for the terrain textures and better 3d modelling for trees and bushes.

Edit: ah, a better water shader depiction, too...

Agreed. There's always room for improvements for graphics, and these (along with hit decals for vehicles) are the areas where the series need the most improvement.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

I have only experimented with mapping so far and have discovered a couple of things.

1 It is a difficult job to produce a reallly good looking and plplayable map.

2 I find it easier to place the roads and water first so I can see where I am going when working on contours.

3 To get a really nice looking hill you might need to do more contours with subtle changes in height

Personally I am quite happpy with the graphics as they are though I would like to see things like burning buildinggs, grass fires etc. I would however be interested in seeing the War Movie effects in Gustav ine. My only concern s the effect graphics improvements might place on older video cards.

[Michael Emrys]

I have only experimented with mapping so far and have discovered a couple of things.

1 It is a difficult job to produce a reallly good looking and playable map.

Understood, and my hat is off to anyone who even makes a serious try.

My only concern s the effect graphics improvements might place on older video cards.

That too. Mine is already straining to chug through the current graphics. Any heavier load and it would probably die altogether.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

One thing I was trying to say in my initial post in this thread that may not have come through is that my dissatisfaction with maps was largely due to a lot of the QB maps that shipped with the original release of the game were pretty crude. I had the feeling (which I admit may not have been accurate) that the designers had spent their lives in the city and really didn't know how real terrain is put together. This produced what was for me some real clinkers. As designers have gained more experience, the quality of the maps has improved noticeably. However, it would help if designers would keep a few rules of thumb in mind:

1. The basic contours of the land are established by tectonic forces. Learn how these work and what they tend to produce. The best way to do this is to spend a lot of time in rural and wilderness areas, hiking around and actually noting how things look. Failing that, there are some books that might help.

2. Once the basic contours have been established, they determine how water will flow through the landscape (hint: it does not flow uphill). This in turn will modify the landscape through erosion and deposition. It will also determine where vegetation will grow most abundantly.

3. Animals, both wild and domesticated, will modify the landscape in various ways, through grazing and path making for instance.

4. Human habitation can and will have an enormous impact on the landscape. But keep in mind that, especially prior to the end of WW II, they nearly always took the easy way. They built near water, both to consume for themselves, their crops, and their livestock, and also as a means of transportation. They did not build roads that go straight up the side of a ridge if there was any way to avoid it, and there nearly always was, including simply not traveling that way.

There is a lot more that could get added to this list, but just keeping those four rules in mind should produced better maps, or at least not glaringly unrealistic ones.

Michael

I agree with Michael ....its safer : )

However straight roads and hills/ridges one has to consider the Romans who were generally in favour of straight roads. And a lot of Western Europe inherited straight roads as they tended to run between the important points of the Empire. River crossings, admin hubs etc.

In Gaul alone, no less than 21,000 km of road are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least 4,000 km.[3] The courses, and sometimes the surfaces of many Roman roads survived for millennia. Some are overlaid by modern roads.

Wikipedia

The vast majority of roads are post Roman and adopted a more practical line. And for some areas the Romans were never very interested.

I can highly recommend "Ways of the World" by M G Lay as very interesting and in print. I do however begrudge his using the megametre as a unit of distance and not giving miles in brackets for those of us challenged by megametres. Bizarre considering its published in the US.

As for the original maps published as QB's with V1.00 it was embarrasssing how bad they were. I looked at one recently and it was simply an undulating grass plain with a single clump of buildings. Any similarity to real scenario was absurd.

However the community has been getting together to produce more realistic ones. Though they are hampered by the limited range of road shapes but more particularly rail track which really is shortchanged. Perhaps those in the US do not realise how heavily tracked Europe was in the 1940's and it was a very common tpye of scenery particularly in townscapes.

The other thing is cultural. People who are used to post and rail fence may think they are the norm but this is not the case. I wince when I see a large map with a mix of post and rail, hedges, and stone walls applied almost randomly. The best thing is to look at maps, Google Earth etc , photos taken in an area, to get a feel for the terrain.

Remembering of course to strip out multi-lane roads and post war building sprawl!!!

Here is a town that the Romans took over from the local tribe. AT this height you can see the various roads clearly.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?client=firefox-a&hs=Dfz&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45645796,d.ZWU&biw=1990&bih=1001&q=cassel+france&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x47dce57463aa897d:0x3c6c4591ba7ac9ec,Cassel,+France&gl=uk&sa=X&ei=-jN6UbaNA8irO9SQgSg&ved=0CM0BELYD

Germans attacking 1940

http://ww2images.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/panzers-of-6-panzer-division-advance.html

[Hurrying Heinz]

i wonder if some of you guys are getting the best stuff. some of the recent maps uploaded to the repository are outstanding. complex,detailed and utterly immersive , to me at least.

[dieseltaylor]

Absolutely right Heinz

[nzgunner]

i wonder if some of you guys are getting the best stuff. some of the recent maps uploaded to the repository are outstanding. complex,detailed and utterly immersive , to me at least.

The maps without too many man-made features look good in a lot of the screenshots - but just going from the maps in the demo (in particular Road to Berlin), my gut reaction is that they lean more to abstract wargaming maps on a hexgrid, than simulations of real terrain.

[Hurrying Heinz]

it really is ckalk and cheeze nz if your comparing the demo maps against what is outhere.some of these guys have been doing this for a while now and are getting really good at it. mix in a few mods..............happy days i reckon.

[George MC]

The maps without too many man-made features look good in a lot of the screenshots - but just going from the maps in the demo (in particular Road to Berlin), my gut reaction is that they lean more to abstract wargaming maps on a hexgrid, than simulations of real terrain.

Busting the Bocage is taken from RL terrain in the same area the original action was fought (laos used 1944 aerial maps).

[nzgunner]

it really is ckalk and cheeze nz if your comparing the demo maps against what is outhere.some of these guys have been doing this for a while now and are getting really good at it. mix in a few mods..............happy days i reckon.

will terrain mods work with the demo?

[Hurrying Heinz]

would think so but dont really know. be careful with modding cause once you start you never stop. look man , just buy it , you know you want to ( as they say)

[Michael Emrys]

However straight roads and hills/ridges one has to consider the Romans who were generally in favour of straight roads. And a lot of Western Europe inherited straight roads as they tended to run between the important points of the Empire. River crossings, admin hubs etc.

True enough. The Romans laid out and constructed their roads with an eye to the rapid movement of the Legions to strategically important parts of the Empire. Any other use they served was secondary. And of course, they only went where the Romans wanted to go. Any places the indigines might want to reach they had to build themselves, and on more economical principles.

Michael

[womble]

Any places the indigines might want to reach they had to build themselves, and on more economical principles.

And on gradients their laden beasts of burden could negotiate. "Ceasar's mules" have a better low ratio than "Farmer Giles's Ox". Some of the roads the legions built beeline straight up pretty steep hills.

[dieseltaylor]

From " Notes from Normandy" I note this on the included map:

1 Roads 8 metres wide,metalled or paved

2 Roads 6-8 metres wide ditto

3 Roads 3-5 metres wide ditto

4 Secondary Roads. Other Roads & Tracks

Map is not great but I am having trouble spotting any thing higher than a 4. Here it is modern day with improved roads

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?q=englesqueville+la+Percee&mkt=en&FORM=HDRSC4