Making an Airbase

[Rhino]

The textures aren't actually in v1.0 since nothing uses them yet. They where in v0.98 however as part of PR:F since as that tut states near the top, it uses some of them although not quite in the same way but same textures for the most part.

If you've uninstalled PR:F etc I can possibly look into uploading them later for you.

- Moved your post into the tut topic.

[Rhino]

In fact the textures where uploaded before and where part of the OP
http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/tuts/a ... -06-12.rar

As for there final destination, as per the .rar file which already has the correct folder structure setup in it:
*mod*\objects\staticobjects\pr\textures\airbase\

[Rhino]

Good start but a few things I can see.

First of all, your colour dirt is far too strong in many places, should be a subtle touch otherwise it doesn't look right and you should use the "dirt textures" for the tyre skid marks, oil spills etc, as part of the "Dirt" section of the OP.

Secondly your detail, concrete slab textures need more work aligning with the runway etc. It looks like you've made it to the correct grid, just that right now you've not fully lined up the texture with the Grid. Don't be afraid on this texture to detach some UVs and move different elements about to get them lined up for that bit, and for bits at angles etc. If you look at this screenshot of the Falklands Angled Taxiway from the OP: http://i.imgur.com/n87DF.jpg
You can see that I've rotated the UVs round so the slabs are at the same angle of that bit of taxiway. Although one thing you might need to fix with your model before you do that is that it looks like your angled taxiways, aren't actually the same width as the bits they join onto, they look much tinnier.
Your corners etc you should also try and map the detail texture to them so it looks they are their own block or blocks more or less like this:
http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/ ... ase_51.jpg
http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/ ... ase_17.jpg
http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/promo/ ... ase_53.jpg

Thirdly your markings, your central runway lines look really fat and short to me? Should be thinner and longer? Your end lines also don't look quite right to me? Think their main problem thou is there colour with no dirt on them pretty much? Are you also planning any taxiway lines or dose the one your basing this one off not have any?

Fourthly I take it this is a helicopter runway/airbase? If so then you might want to re-think your hanger etc setup as if the helictoper wheels get removed, then your airbase layout can't work which I know this is a realistic setup for a helictoper airbase with heli runway, but if we have to remove the working wheels from the choppers then they can't spawn in the hangers and taxi out to the runway as they would in r/l. So you may want to think about helipads on the side, with the runway being just for show

Lastly from a realism and gameplay POV, having an antenna tower next to the runway/airbase is both unrealistic and bad for gameplay, for the same reason that its a hazard choppers (or jets if there where any) will crash into
That's unless you've got a clear ref of the real base your making it of that its there but I doubt it


But ye, other than that, good work so far and I'm really glad someone is taking this new system on!

[Rhino]

I always advise posting your stages of development for feedback as otherwise you often find that you've got to what you think was the end or near the end, then you find out you need to do a load of rework which by that time, means you need to do much more work which otherwise would've been simpler to fix before.

[Rhino]

Your images won't load... I suggest uploading them to imgur: the simple image sharer and preferably in .jpg format.

[Rhino]

Looking good other than the obvious UV errors and these bits need to be wider so they are two slabs wide, currently about 1.5 slabs wide which doesn't match the straight bits:


BTW are you going to do taxiway lines/markings for this?

[Rhino]

Looking good providing your not planning on doing any taxiway lines and markings. Did you tweak the central runway lines? Looks like they may be really short still.

[Rhino]

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Rhino;1931242']Thirdly your markings, your central runway lines look really fat and short to me? Should be thinner and longer? Your end lines also don't look quite right to me? Think their main problem thou is there colour with no dirt on them pretty much? Are you also planning any taxiway lines or dose the one your basing this one off not have any?[/quote]

It was part of my initial feedback

[quote="Grober""]it was a good day in work very productive[/quote]

lol

[Rhino]

Well first of all you need to export it to your roads folder, not the staticobjects folder otherwise its not going to work correctly and is going to zfight with the terrain, and why your runway is super shiny right now etc. As per of the OP:

Rhino;1789312']Exporting

-snip-

The only key differences here is that you don't have any lods other than lod0 and your exporting path, for the main runway itself you need to export it to "\roads\staticsnoblend\pr\airbases" and for the dirt part you need to export it to "\roads\statics\pr\airbases". It is critical you export these into the correct folders otherwise they will not work as intended as the shaders are defined by what folder the object is in, not by the mesh itself and these airbases will only work correctly with the correct shaders.
Another key difference I forgot to mention is that when naming your runway object, you need to add a suffix to the lod0 mesh of "__Bundle", so for example for my camp bastion runway mine is "camp_bastion_airbase_pt1__Bundle". Note you don't need to do this for the dirt bits, just the main runway object(s). Your hierarchy should look something like this, note that I have my main runway and helicopter runway as separate objects which is why there are two main runway parts and two dirt parts for Camp Bastion: http://i.imgur.com/Jr7zT.jpg

And also don't call a folder by your name, when ever exporting an object you need to think about the simplest way for it to be found that's going to create the less clutter. We already have enough stuff in PR that's all over the place in random folders etc
As such, assuming "Torgan" is the name of the base your creating I suggest you export the main runway to "\roads\staticsnoblend\pr\airbases\torgan_airbase" and your dirt to "\roads\statics\pr\airbases\torgan_airbase"

Although it won't work correctly ingame yet without the fixed up shaders it will work fine in the editor


As for coding up the supply points, personally I map out the locations in 3DsMax by just making spheres around the place showing the supply radius and then once I've got them sorted out, I just translate those x,y,z cords and its radius into the BF2 code manually although can be a bit tricky if your not working in metric and also the y and z axis are reversed for BF2

One really important thing I've found out since making this tutorial is that the "Supply Radius" on Supply Objects, is NOT actually a true supply radius in meters....

From what I recall its instead instead you need to put in a radius value 3/4s of the radius your looking for.
So for example, if your looking for a 40m Supply Radius, or a 80m Supply Diameter, you need to set the SupplyObject's ObjectTemplate.radius to 30 and you will get a 40m Supply Radius, or a 80m Supply Diameter. It took me some time to work this one as I finding that jets and choppers where supplying in areas I didn't set them too but if you set the radius to 3/4 of what you want, you will get the right result

Going to put this into the OP now I remember it


Also on a side note, your centre runway lines still look short and stumpy to me? Do you have a ref of the runway your trying to make by any chance as that would really help. Also think you might need to bump up your dirt colour a little more and possibly on the texture tone it down a little in some areas where its heavy after toning it all up