Community base and player made maps/battles

[zellek]

I am really enjoying ToW 2, definately my kind of game. Big improvement over ToW 1 imo.

I was really surprised to check the forums to find there are only about 3-4 post a day when the game is this new. Is the player base really that small? I looked at the repository and found that even ToW 1, after a full year plus, has very few files.

If ToW 1 is any indication, I really don't see to many battles/maps coming for ToW2 (unless I'm looking in the wrong place?). I know it's early on in the games life but that is usually when the forum/community is most active.

I own all the combat missions and as most know, there are tons of mods and scenarios. ToW 2 seems like too good of a game for the little attention it receives.

[Oudy]

Zellek

Work is being done on several user made maps as well as a tutorial for creating maps. The problem is that since the game is in 3d it is much more involved to create maps, but with free SRTM digital elevation data you can recreate any battlefield. I wish more 3d modelers would get interested in adding units to the game. It's a shame because TOW can be modded to an almost unlimited degree but it takes a lot of work and effort. I agree that the game is too good for the attention it receives. I've tried to figure out why but don't have any easy answers. TOW seems to have a larger following in Europe than in the US. But if you want the most realistic company level tactical simulation TOW is it.

We need people who can create maps, people who can create 3d models and people who can create new battles, but the skill set for each of these is different. And currently there doesn't seem to be many people who are willing or able to add new content. Some people seem to be more interested in complaining about this or that little piece of minutia rather than add to the overall content and thus extending the life of the game.

Anyway, I hope that some more battles and maps will be forthcoming in the near future.

Oudy

[zellek]

Oudy,

Thanks a lot for the response. Sheds much light on the situation! Patience it is!

[Knokke]

I believe that there are not that many new maps done at the moment, because most ToW1 and 2 users have not enough knowledge of the workings of the game to be able to create fully new maps. As is, ToW2 map editor looks to most users only a tool for modifying existing maps. This is far from being true, some peoples in the community have knowledge enough to create completely new maps and missions/campaign. I'm thinking about Oudy, Tartari, Gnasher, and probably a few others. I myself have a knowledge too limited at the moment to be able to achieve what i'm aiming for (a european map for ToW2) - I need to understand a few things more before i'm ready to release anything. But right now, it is possible to create any north-african map we desire. Once the tutorials in the making have been released, I think more peoples will be able to learn the skills needed to create new maps easily, and I do hope that we'll see more peoples involved in map making.

The most difficult thing right now is adding new 3D models to the game. There are still a lot of things for me to learn in this area. I've succeeded in adding a few new models to ToW1, and now to ToW2, so I've a fairly good understanding of the way to do it, but I've to admit this is a process of one step forward, two steps backward. I don't really know if the problems I have comes from the tool I'm using (the only one at our disposal: MshConverter), or from me still having not enough knowledge of the inner workings of ToW to succeed in my imports every time. At the moment, it seems to me that we don't have the right tools to convert 3DS files to Msh files. So I really hope that the developpers will release a tool that would allow us to create new 3D models for ToW2.

Besides, it seems I'm the only person trying to add completly new 3D models to the game; this make it even more difficult for me, as there is none to share the discoveries made on this rough an uneven path of creating new 3D units. I do believe what is needed is more tutorials than the ones released for ToW1 a long time ago; maybe it could bring interest in more peoples to create brand new 3D units for the game.

So, I could try to make a tutorial about the process of creating new 3D models for ToW (but I don't know how far this could get, if there is none interested to create new units except me). Besides, as I don't succeed every time to import my models, what would be the use of a tutorial to create models that wont appear in game?

An other way would be for 1C to handle for us the converting of the models to have them working in ToW.

I seems to remember that when ToW1 was released, there was such a proposal made by the development team, but it seems nobody answered the call. For ToW2, the same offer as not been made, so I don't know what 1C policy is about this subject. Such a thing would have been done by 1C developers in their free time, on a voluntary basis, which means it depends solely on their good will, and we can't ask too much of them, as they're probably over-burdened already with other projects.

Anyway, I'll start working on a basic tutorial to create 3D models for ToW, in the hope that it could sparkle more interest in ToW community to mod the game and add new content to it. Don't expect too much of it anyway, the road is still a steep one.

I see it as a two part tutorial: one part dealing with creating models to try to import them in game with MshConverter; a second part dealing with creating models and hier.mcn files so that they could be imported in game by 1C.

ToW2 needs to have a bigger fan base; the game as so much potential that it deserve much more attention that it receives right now: almost anything could be modded with a better understanding of the workings of the game.

[amandus]

Battlefront / 1C provided us with the Battle Generator. With it we can easily create at least some 'simple' attack and defend missions. Even longer campaigns are possible if we link these battles together.

Unfortunately however only a few fans among us have the courage and dedication to share their missions and/or campaigns with the community.

- Ok, the game is out for almost 2 months now and it takes some time to go thru the campaigns but all ‘TOW-veterans’ have certainly created a lot of their own single player missions – only a few can be found in the repository - it would be additional fun to download these and to play them, as we do not know the setup unless we open the mission with the Mission Campaign Editor.

I know that creating even these simple missions usually takes a lot of time and without getting into the ‘trigger-business’ it becomes a little boring after some time.

I like this game so much that by now I decided to overcome my resistance against this ‘trigger stuff’ and with the help of Webwings video tutorials for TOW

(http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=79593)

which ‘opened the door’ providing me with the basic idea how to read triggers and how to write my own triggers. I wrote my first mission from scratch yesterday – (it still doesn’t work the way I intend it to be, but it works) – At least I know how to create minefields, reinforcements and some other basic stuff.

After all it took me almost 2 days to understand the basics with the help of Webwing’s tutorials and the Mission Campaign Editor Manual.

Now I am looking forward to continue my 10 Missions Italian Campaign project with more ambition. But it still needs lots of time as I have to test every single mission for several times and in context with the campaign itself.

Maybe ‘Tsche’ will finish his ‘Centauro Project Mod’ first which will introduce Italian armored vehicles to the game and add other Brithish tanks.

In the meantime please share Your single Player Missions with the community! Thank You!

[zellek]

That would be awesome, please do share whatever you have! Everyone!

[imported_TREAD_HEAD]

I really appreciate what you guys are doing to learn the map and battle editors. I have done my time writing code, so I have a good sense for what it takes to learn it.

I would like to see the community take off as well... But I honestly think the learning curve for the editors will keep most players out.

I really wish 1C would look at polishing the editors up, so that we would not have to do so much work to build good battles. CMSF is a good model in my mind. Players can build very complex scenarios, right from a unified UI. The result is a very large set of user created scenarios.

[Knokke]

Well, i've been beaten by the release of the mod tools and documentation in the ToW mega mod pack . I had already written a 50 pages documentation about creating new models for ToW and was about to release the first draft. It now seems like i'll have to heavily amend it. Well done 1C and Battlefront! you couldn't make me more happy!! now, quick the converter and documentation are waiting for me !!!

[Sneaksie]

Wow:) Knokke, i hope you will continue working on your manual and eventually release it, 50 pages is a lot of work!

[Knokke]

Well, I put quite a lot of images in my document, so it wasn't so difficult to reach page 50

[amandus]

Hi folks!

Just wantet to announce that I have uploaded an italian scenario for a singleplayer mission. Whoever likes to download it will soon find it in the repository.

This fictional scenario models an attack of an Italian infantry platoon on a British artillery position in a 'find and destroy' mission. The platoon is supported by a section of German Armored cars. You have only limited time to accoplish this mission.

This mission is actually the 4th mission (and untill now, the last) of my planned 10 missions Italian campaign.

Hope You have fun playing it!

[Knokke]

Thanks for sharing it with us

[amandus]

Hi folks, it's me again!

For all of You, who liked my first installment - here comes the 2nd!

It should be in the repostitory soon.

Hope You didn't have to much trouble downloading and installing it.

What's new? - More units - more fun? House - to house fighting - and mayby a pizzaparty afterwards (no time-limit this time!)

Hope You enjoy it!

If you liked the first one and You wish to carry over Your surviving troops You can already link this two battles to a 2 missions campaign.

[Bobomite]

Hi,

I am editing map 002 to re-use for single player scenarios, and I have smoothed out some of the hills in the upper right corner of the map, so they don't block movement. Terrian brush, pathfinding, all working fine. However the sides of these hills (which were originally very dark gray because they were impassable) cannot be re-colored.

I read that the MainTex brush is not supported, but I also cannot open the TGA file in Photoshop or GIMP.

The MainTex brush sort of works, but it doesn't display a brushstroke until I alt-tab out of the map editor and back in.

Is there any way that anyone knows how to edit maintex.tga? The changes I need to do are so simple it will take 5 minutes, but I just can't get at it.

Someone mentioned in another post that they were able to open the maintex (in Photoshop) after the Map Editor saved it one time... but this is not the case for me.

[Oudy]

Bobomite

You need to get Dr. Jones IMFViewer. It can be found here:

http://www.allaircraftarcade.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6819&highlight=imfviewer+exe

For some reason it hasn't been uploaded to the repository. You may need to register to download it, I'm not sure. You can open the .tga file and resave it. Then you can open it up in Photoshop.

Hope this helps

Oudy

[Bobomite]

Thanks a bunch, that tool works perfectly!

[Knokke]

By the way, it would have been nice to have an utility to compress the file back to the original format after editing the farmaintex.tga and MainTex.tga, as it would save a lot of space. Anyone one knows of a way of doing this? IMFviewer can only convert the file to TGA, but not the opposite.

[rammer4250]

I am getting so frustrated. I can't even edit existing maps with color. I have tried to follow the above using IMF viewer and then paintshop but every time I try, the background turns blue when saving. Also I would like to try and make maps from scratch. Anybody have any tutorials? I know there is a clear map in the repository but how was even that map made?

Any help from the experts would be much appreciated.

Ron

[prlugo]

The most difficult thing right now is adding new 3D models to the game. There are still a lot of things for me to learn in this area. I've succeeded in adding a few new models to ToW1, and now to ToW2, so I've a fairly good understanding of the way to do it, but I've to admit this is a process of one step forward, two steps backward. I don't really know if the problems I have comes from the tool I'm using (the only one at our disposal: MshConverter), or from me still having not enough knowledge of the inner workings of ToW to succeed in my imports every time. At the moment, it seems to me that we don't have the right tools to convert 3DS files to Msh files. So I really hope that the developpers will release a tool that would allow us to create new 3D models for ToW2.

I can confirm this is quite a problem. I made a few new infantry models and i can't completely convert 3ds/obj files to msh. In the process i loose hooks and collisions ( expert mode on :eek:) . Another problem for me is the skin-maker job. I don't understand how it works(The gap between a 2d picture and a 3d model). A tutorial would be appreciated.

[Knokke]

For hooks and collision, the meshtools will not understand some of the names of collisions and hooks in the game (all collisions have to be named like collision?_x0y0_dam0). The input for the "real" name needed by the game engine has to be done in the *.mcn file.

Most of the hooks have to be added afterward manually in the *.msh (this is just a line with the number of the hook and its coordinates).

For tutorials about UV mapping, there are a lot of them on the internet. Even 3DSmax help files should be enough to get started.

[Broadsword]

Oudy wrote:

>You need to get Dr. Jones IMFViewer. It can be found here:

>http://www.allaircraftarcade.com/for...=imfviewer+exe

>For some reason it hasn't been uploaded to the repository. You may need to register to >download it, I'm not sure. You can open the .tga file and resave it. Then you can open >it up in Photoshop.

I've been trying and looking all over for the IMF viewer, but none of the download links I've found work. It also used to be on CMMODS, but that site is now extinct. Does anyone have the viewer/converter program or know where one can now get it?

My El Guettar map for TOW2 is coming along well, but I'm getting stuck without access to a way to open and edit the maintext.tga and fartext.tga files in my photo editing program.