tommyboy's Map Making Misadventures and Conundrums

[cmdrkoenig67]

That map is looking so amazing (I especially love your custom Maxed buildings), Tom...Great work!

Dana :thumbup:

[style]

I cant wait to see Spider-man swing through this city!!! :thumbup:

[Symon]

As always when my back is turned...... (all to often these days).

Just stunning Tommyboy!

I read the thread as thoroughly as I could, but doubtless missed stuff.
If I missed it being discussed, forgive me, but it's entirely possible take FF objects and give them the bounding boxes they need so they work in FF3R. (I've done a few such conversions). So any FF objects used should not cause a fatal issue in the FF3R version.

[Conduit]

Great job with this, Tommyboy!  The map just keeps getting better and better.

About the "pop up" or "black curtain" that prevents you from seeing things beyond a certain point: this can be changed.  To change the draw distance, just put ff.CAM_FAR_CLIP=[insert number here] in the script (the default value is 2000).  I did this for one of the levels in the last Matrix Mod.  However, I imagine that the frame rate would be very slow when looking horizontally across the whole map.

[tommyboy]

Great job with this, Tommyboy!  The map just keeps getting better and better.

About the "pop up" or "black curtain" that prevents you from seeing things beyond a certain point: this can be changed.  To change the draw distance, just put ff.CAM_FAR_CLIP=[insert number here] in the script (the default value is 2000).  I did this for one of the levels in the last Matrix Mod.  However, I imagine that the frame rate would be very slow when looking horizontally across the whole map.

A-Ha!
Thanks, I'll give that a try. To be honest, having had the Black Curtain Of Doom popping up and receding on me for several weeks now, I'm accustomed to it, even a little fond of it, as it unveils the geography in the distance.
But, if the option to dispense with it indeed exists, and doesn't scupper my framerate too much, I'll be giving it a go.
Thanks muchly.
Not much progress in the last few days, due to some RL stuff and playing the at-the-moment-not-publicly-released-so-I'm-just-teasing-now 'Crisis on Finite Earths' Mod.
Got Times square a little better looking, and Columbia U. sort of on the map, and am starting a Madison Square Garden model.

[tommyboy]

Thanks to the very knowledgeable and generous Mr. Conduit, we can now enjoy screenshots like these:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I'm still getting the Curtain when looking across the city from one side to the other, even with the value set to 20,000, so there may be an upward limit. I'll push it higher, of course, 'cos thats my thing, test to destruction.
No noticeable slowdown, though, and it looks just fab at ground level to have both the skysphere, and the longer view of the big landmarks.
So thanks again Conduit, this thing really is a team effort, (though of course I'll hog all the glory and credit....)

[tommyboy]

Woop!
Edge to edge, baby, no clipping at all!
[spoiler][/spoiler]

And the ultimate ingame overview:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[style]

This might be THE coolest map ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :blink:

[GogglesPizanno]

Damn impressive....
Im curious if my poor video card will think so when its released  :blink:

[Blkcasanova247]

HOLY CRAP! :blink: WOW.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Good gawd!  That is amazing...To see the whole map like that is just...Mind-boggling.

Dana

[AfghanAnt]

The one thing I keep thinking about when I see these amazing maps is how much will this lag my laptop?

[Symon]

...and this is the game Irrational decided to drop?

Nice one Tommy!

[yell0w_lantern]

Most impressive.

[rmt]

There's a tear in my eye.  You can't see it under my funky fresh enigmatic hood, but it's there.

[tommyboy]

Thank you all kindly.
Well, it took all day pretty much (because I'm slow, not because its hard), but I finally integrated the current version of the map into a Freeroam campaign, and even setup some encounters, using M25's excellent system. Since I also merged in and copied over literally hundreds of characters from my Avengers Mod, there should be a nice choice of foes for me.
Since you can specify where encounters happen, that means I can set up Submariner villains to attack along the riverbanks, FF villains near the baxter bldg, Doom to appear at the Latverian Embassy, and so on.
I should also be able to set up allies to appear and help at certain locations, like when you get within a certain distance of the Avengers Mansion, Baxter Bldg, Daily Bugle, Sanctum Sanctorum, a random number of heroes shows up to help.
I'm hoping I can get a sandbox city to play in, with random encounters, random scripted missions (bank robberies, maybe jailbreaks, alien invasions).
I should state that I am unlikely to release the Big freeroam mod as its probably about 6-9gig or more in size (and I'm lazy), but a cut down version that doesn't necessarily have every single character ever should be relatively easy (for someone)to cobble together.
The Map, when released will have all necessary 'encounter' positionals, markers for multiplayer and rumble room etc. You'll need to rename a few things in the editor to integrate it into a Mod or freeroam, but that shouldnt take too long to do. It's just the 10-30minutes it takes to save the damn thing that slows the process down...
I'm quite excited, which is why I'm still typing at 3:30 am. Time to sleep, I think.

[rmt]

If you can make any use of the modular code in COFE, feel free to steal it.  I'm really looking forward to playing this and/or stealing it for use in my mods.   :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub: :wub:

[detourne_me]

congratulations tommyboy! this is quite a feat!

knowing that it probably won't run on my laptop just strengthens my desire to get a fully loaded pc instead of an xbox 360 or something.

i sure hope that people will take advantage of this map and write ez script comics for it!

[tommyboy]

Heres a shot of Madison Square Garden:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I know, I know, it's a nighttime shot and you can hardly see anything. This is because its taken on the FFX/Freeroam enabled version and ffx lighting is set to night. Whats interesting is that somehow, building shadows are now working correctly, at least on this FFX/Freeroam  enabled version. Don't ask me how, or why, cos I don't know.
I'm going to play with the lighting to get a daytime shot, and see if the shadows work there too.
If it means that shadows work, its another big step forward.
I should mention that behind the scenes and unreported I've been struggling with the water issues created by the river. After some experiments and playtesting, my solution is that the river will not be very deep, so a character standing or moving in it will have their head just above the water, as if swimming. I could have had it deeper so you could see people running around beneath the water, but then nobody except fliers could ever get out again, which i disliked in playtesting.
I'll post some shots of 'swimming' so you can get the idea in the near future.

[tommyboy]

Heres a centurion enjoying a refreshing 'swim' in the east river. Taller characters have more sticking above the water, shorter characters, or those with a slight crouch like Bullet, look like they are snorkelling.


And the shadows thing isn't FFX/freeroam related at all. Turns out the freeroam mission.py I copied into the megamap folser was actually the first ffv3r mission, and the lighting and shadows are setup in there. So what you see in the swimming shot is the city with Cuba's lighting and shadows.
Now, the really odd bit is that the old shadows, (of the entire map), are still in there and visible at certain camera angles, ie close to the ground, when the camera points in a certain direction. When they hove into view you get a hefty framerate hit (which you'd expect with the shadows of every single object in the map visible), but if you raise the camera or spin it, they are gone, and the framerate climbs back up. So the problem is still present for now, and you may well prefer to have shadows off if like me you keep the camera low a lot. I'll see if it can be fixed somehow, but have no clue at the moment.

[tommyboy]

The Garden by day:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Madison Square Garden presents the Fight of the Century!*
[spoiler][/spoiler]

*Last century, but who's counting?
 

[Xenolith]

Amazing, tommyboy!

[style]

That is SUPER FLY! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: But the knicks still suck!

[stumpy]

Excellent! And, I love that cover from the classic tabloid-sized special issue.

[herodad1]

i'm going to need a bigger computer!

[Epimethee]

i'm going to need a bigger computer!

Something like this?

[GogglesPizanno]

Is that Madison Square garden a conversion or created from scratch?

[tommyboy]

Is that Madison Square garden a conversion or created from scratch?

What I've done with a lot of the landmarks is download a google earth version, load that into max, and use it as my reference as I make my own version, (which is usually a lot less detailed, as FF is low poly). For textures I sometimes use those that come with the models (it's a cheat, I know, but they are photos, so I'm not re-using or kitbashing anyone else's hand painted stuff), or do a print screen from google earth, or seek out photos online.
So, to answer the question, it's created from scratch.
Other buildings like my Avengers mansion, Baxter Bldg, Sanctum Sanctorum I've just made from scratch using 2d reference materials.
Had I more time and less of a workload, I'd prefer to sit down and do everything myself, without referencing other models at all. but to my mind referencing a model isn't too different to referencing photos, blueprints or the real thing. You still have to make it, whatever your source is for proportions, details etc.
And whilst I could just import the google earth buildings then re-export them, that would be crossing a line I don't want to cross, and I prefer to know I've made all the geometry myself, even if some of the textures aren't strictly 'mine'.*

*In order to be truly 'mine', I'd have to go to NY, take the photos myself, and get my textures from them, and them only. Not terribly practical at the moment, so i compromise.

[cmdrkoenig67]

It's an amazing undertaking, Tommy....I'm just in awe.

Dana

[cvc]

Its a huge project and have been following along great works as always. :popcorn