[Hoth] - General Map Discussion

ok, people this is where planning and progress reports on the overall Hoth map should be made. (Spawn points, map layout, models needed, etc)
Create other topics for more detailed stuff, such as Medical Bay - Criticisms, etc.
This is ingame map of the original Hoth map for refs.
The mtns in the background of the screen are a texture, hopefully we will use real mountains.



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JUST FOR REFERENCE, HERE IS THE CONVERSATION WE HAD IN A .TXT DOCUMENT ON DROPBOX:

This document was entitled: 'level update (Hoth)'

Do you guys think the hallways are a bit too big?
Btw, the stone texture is just to test for now. We need a proper ice\snow texture



SharkY: The hallways are actually too small because they are rounded.Don't know if you are able to make them square shaped.
Maybe it will be better if I make the parts for the corridors and they will blend with the rounded shape only where there are doors.
Where the corridors are you will just make bigger holes so the terrain don't go trough the corridors.We will have to figure it out if we put bridges like in BF2.

The ones where the snow has collapsed.

Oh and great work on the level .I will look for snow texture.
Also what is supposed to be this back area of the map.Is it where the rebel transport ships should be landed along with the Ion Cannon?


Luke: There were two entrances to the base: the north and the south. Now i dunno which is which excatly, but the front entrance (where the models are), is the one where the falcon escaped from in the film. the stormies entered through some side entrance i believe. the back is as you said, where the transport ships where.
yeah its better if you make corridor models. Voxel sculpting doesn't lend itself to finesse. ugh.


Sharky: Actually i just saw the BF2 map and there the corridors weren't like the main hangar walls,but instead they are just like voxel sclupted.Tho they are detailed a lot and not sure if you can make it that way.
I'm puzzled what would be the best looking.The corridors like in the movie or like in BF2


Luke: like in the movie of course About the corridors, did you check the in the level editor or in game? I don't think they are voxel scuplted, cause the edges where the walls touch the floor are too angled.


SharkY: Well of course they are not voxel sculpted.I don't think such technology was available then
So they will be squared shaped more like in the SW: Jedi Academy game?


Luke: Well I watched the Hoth scenes again yesterday, and there were two types of corridors. natural ice looking ones carved out of the ice and flat walled ones like the main hanger. Unfortunately I've never played Jedi Academy (or any of the jedi games)


Yeah, the flat walled ones(second type), exactly like that pic.

SharkY; Ok then, its decided.I will make them more like the ones in the force unleashed with icicles above and snow that is not so flat for the floor.
I will look for some videos with gameplay because i actually don't have any of these games either.I just stumbled upon these images while looking for pictures of Hoth ;D


Luke: Well I have TFU and TFU2, but those levels arent in the actual main story, they're kind of alternate universe where you kill Luke and Han and shit, so id didn't play them :S.
Corridors look awesome in the pic. Tmrw I will test them myself and send you a pic of the natural looking type as well from the film.
Good job on the corridors, but they're a bit too high and wide IMO.


Sharky: I will update them when the weekend comes, because I started this week my first year in university and I was too busy than I expected
It will be more accurate if you can tell me like how much should i shrink it in meters or in %.


Luke: yeah I understand man, I'm in my last year at Uni right now, a ton of assignments + thesis. Gl and focus on study. Resizing in Sb3 to fit, I think 68% should be good. Thanks for your patience in adjusting all the time, must be driving you crazy. heh.


Sharky: Well I'm fine when i have to resize things.Well maybe I will not be feeling good if i have to do it like 50 times in a day... but that's normal .It's all about perfection
This last thing most of the famous companies like EA have forgotten long time ago.I am not talking only about the 3d stuff but in general. ;]


Luke: yeah I know. After ME3 I swore to buy no more EA GAmes.


Sharky: I never got to play it although i have played the first 2.Guess i won't miss a lot.Maybe some day I will just from curiosity to see how bad it could be


Luke: Lol yeah. The first 90% of the game wasn't bad (though it missing a ton of content and still feels rushed). Story is solid until last ten minutes, but you start getting bad vibes from the beginning, when the wincon is mentioned. felt kinda...stufed in. You know how it goes, I guess? Oh btw, sorry about this, but could you widen the mai n gate a tiny bit more, i think like 15% to 20%. I plan on making the falcon fly out. ^^


Sharky: Oh you are right.It's not wide enough.Now it's 21 meters when the gates are opened fully.I will make it arround 30.Good eye ;d
Then cave entrance seem to be also not wide enough.


Luke: There is a cylinder in the level approxiamtely the size of the falcon. use it to calculate sizes. move it around, if it fits somehow, then all's good (han's a good pilot after all, heh). I will check the cave entrance, I may have resized it by mistake.


Sharky: Actually I calculate the size in 3ds max , not in the editor.The cylinder is not the best way to see it's size but atm it almost go trough the entrance.Also you have made the cave very well so the cylinder can fit but the walls and the gates take additional space.


Luke: Awesome. Now all we need are some floor (just floor, walls and ceiling can be left as the voxel) and doorframe models.


Sharky: I feel like i should also make part of the walls also because they have the same effect as the others I made.At least for the right side(not the side where you go to the control room).


Luke: Ok its up to you


Sharky: Roger roger ;D.
Ok then, I will have to finish the corridors first anyway.You may noticed that some textures are missing and not all cables are made for the left turns(the right turn is inverted left turn so its basicly the same).
Also a corridor part with a T shape and one with a door also will be usefull.I plan on making some extra rooms like where Luke(from the movie) was shown to sleep and the medical bay
But these parts of the map are just for showing the beauty of star wars and used for hiding spots so atm they are not essential and not a first priority


Luke: Yeah, great ideas . The idea of expanding the base beyond the default game area also came to me (if we make SP campaign (which I wish very much), it will be useful). Also they can be awesome secret passages or like you said.


Ben2356: Hey guys, I loaded up the map to start working on it but I don't have any of the textures. Do you guys have a texture folder or something that I can download to work with?


Sharky: Well we haven't decided what textures should we use for the snow. We are still searching a good one for terrain use.


Ben2356: ok well I got some textures we can use. I found a site that will also benefit the texture artist of the team, its called CGTextures. The license is free for even commercial use so I recommend checking it out. I will work on some textures for you guys too and post them up when finished.


Sharky: Good, i found it also today but didn't know if the license was free.


Ben2356: Yeah it was cause I had the same question when I was searching for textures for my game. I can check again but in the meantime I uploaded some sample textures, I'll work on them in photoshop and see if I can get them better


Sharky: This is another site for textures and most of them are quite high resolution.But i think on CGtextures are better when used for terrain.These here are good maybe for texturing idividual models.
http://texturelib.com/#!/category/?path=/Textures/water/ice%20and%20snow


Ben2356: I'll check it out! Also what is the license for those textures on texturelib?


Sharky: They are also free for use. But theres limit for downloaded high res textures per day ;D


Ben2356: Awesome! Downloaded one, and will see if they tile nicely. Also if you guys need any texture tileable or whatnot I can do that. I got Photoshop CS6 and some experience


rocknroll237: I know textures are being looked at for Hoth, but I was wondering how the interior shaping/sculpting is coming along.


Atombomb: I also have CS6 and have taken a class or two on making tileable textures. If the need arises I can help out there as well.


Ben2356: Any help is appreciated for the textures even if its once in while. I'm gonna take a closer look at the coding part of Cryengine for a bit. Also rocknroll237, I'm testing the textures and am working on designing a hoth map (planning stage on graph paper), I figured that you want a awesome, detailed map so I will do my best and show you the map plan when its finished if its okay with you


rocknroll237: Just so you know, we already have a Hoth map. It's WIP. There's a folder here called SWBF2_Hoth.


Ben2356: Yeah, I just was wondering if I can try to work on the general map design (I love to plan out my maps really carefully and put a lot of though into them before production)


Lephenix: i would love to see it full of life like in the movie, i have already talked about that with Sharky .


rocknroll237: Cool, do you mean like moving objects or life as in animals?


Lephenix: droids, props, wires, i would love animated prop with units models too like engineers, pilots etc... really ambitious though


Ande: Well, moving droids could work. But for the actual gameplay moving characters might appear a bit weird. We definitely can add many animated props like doors, maybe some physics stuff like swinging
pipes and cloth.


Lephenix: yeah, moving characters won't do it, and that would require lot of work.


Ben2356: I was thinking that we could add some destructable objects, just like in Battlefield, to add to the map environment and gameplay


Lephenix: Definetly, but before destructable, we need to make the objects


Ande: Yes, maybe like in the movies you can shoot the controls of a door which will block it. If anyone wants to get through he has to destroy the door with a grenade or some other explosive.


Ben2356: That would add some awesome and memorable gameplay. I also think that we should have some random indigenous animals for each map such as on hoth there are tantauns that you can ride that roam and wampas that are hostile to all players


sceluk: I was thinking of having wampas locked up in cages, then you can shoot the doors\open the cages and let them roam, or try to leasd to the enemy, all sorts of fun. tauntans available for riding, but that's a vehicle. also possible to open the other doors and stuff, should be easy enough.


Ben2356: How big do we want the level to be? Also are we going to use the ion cannon to shoot at capital ships like in elite squadron? I think we should make another text document describing the game mechanics that way we are able to utilize new concepts in the hoth map. That wampa idea would be amazing too!


sceluk: I am making a GDD (Game Design Document) to detail more of what we need to do. esp to plan things
I also put a BRAINSTORM file where you can put your ideas: 1) to remind me of what we are going to do so i can put in the design document and 2) for ideas.


Lephenix: Nice idea Sceluk

Here's a series of tutorial to make amazing mountains, rocks, and landscapes for CryEngine3: https://www.youtube.com/user/wenda111287/videos?flow=grid&view=0

Suggestions for the layout:

• More tunnels, SWBF had pretty much one tunnel which went from the first bunker to the hangar. We should add some more to have a bit of close quarter battle in the tunnels and vehicle battle in the open.
  
• Let the Empire have 2 control points/spawn bases at same place the Empire CP was in SWBF and at the second entrance at the back (where the transporters were). The first one with vehicles and the second one only for infantry? Then we could better 'simulate' the movie.
  

These are probably the best tutorials for terrain in cryengine 3 but they are made using World Machine and the free version has very low texture size but i can provide some help where World Machine comes into play.

Ande, do you mean something like the layout from the reference picture of echo base ( the higher res one with all the floors and inside rooms) because i think the first floor that is shown is quite enough

By the second entrance do you mean the other entrance into Echo Base where the rebel ships where, because if this is the case it will be not balanced at all because the Rebels won't have a safe spot where to rest ;P. Maybe we can make the first CP behind the hill like you said and the second one with the vehicles way back than the first CP of the empire that shouldn't be so visible by the rebels. Something like an outpost for the Empire troopers with hover tanks, ammo, AT-ATs, AT-STs and so on...

PS: Don't forget that the Empire will have superior vehicles and for them to have also an infantry advantage will not turn quite well for the Rebels who will not have the advantage of nice defend spots if that is the case.

I referred to sceluk's screenshot of the SWBFII map. I played SWBF in a league with 5on5 matches and there the rebels were incredibly overpowered on Hoth. They would take out the 2 AT-STs in a few seconds with rockets and/or mines, one or two snowspeeders took out the AT-ATs with their tow cables and all Infantry was killed by another (or 2) snowspeeders. Then the imperials were just spawnkilled. If just one of your darktroopers got into the tunnels you were happy. And then the trooper had to fight against at least 1 rebel who put up mines before the darktrooper arrived.
That's why I think we should definitely have an easy way for the Empire to get into the tunnels.
Maybe like you suggested, the empire have one control point close to the rebels where only infantry can spawn. They should be able to get into the tunnels without too many problems. Then they have another CP further back with AT-ATs and AT-STs (and TIE fighters?).

Wow who will play 5 vs 5 on a map that is not entirely made for infantry and not symmetrical considering the weapons available on both sides. Maybe the scenario which i gave may be only used in Objective/Defend map with objectives for the Empire to destroy the Generators and the Rebel transport ships.

And yes, having fighters on the empire side is a good thing since if one good pilot enters a snowspeeder he can easily take both AT-ATs. and rain death from above. At least that was the case i know from SWBF.

Another option for easy access to the tunnels of Echo Base is a tunnel connecting them with the CP of the Empire that is closest to the frontline from the beggining ( the CP behind the hill). I know there's a long way to Echo Base from there but that may be the cost for the easy access ?

Yeah, we need to balance the map. Hoth is a bit one sided. The rebels have the main entrance spawn point as a safe place (the hanger with the snowspeeders).
Or maybe we could have Orbital Bombardment as soon as the Empire brings down the planetary shield. Would make for some interesting gameplay, making each side different, with different ways to get there. not just capturing more points and kills.
The Empire's main strengths on the map are Walker and Blitz. Walkers need to have a ton of health and better AA (they shot down fighters pretty easy in the movie)+ fast trooper deployment on speeder bikes to get inside.
rebels have lots of static defense and bunkers.

I'd like to stay close to the movie as possible, within balance limits.

The main problems with the walkers in SWBF were the slow projectiles. The shots did a lot of damage but it was hard to hit anything moving fast. We shouldn't make them too strong against flyers though...
The empire definitely should have to fight to get near the hangar.
The orbital bombardment is an interesting idea. Then it would actually be useful to destroy the generator. Do you have random bombardment or more like some focused shots like the SWBF recon droids secondary in mind?

The projectiles are easy enough, make them faster. Then its up to the player to track and lead the target correctly.
Also, dont forget, the AT-AT's have two sets of blasters, the heavy 'chin' ones and the 'lighter' side ones. The head should also have pretty fast swiveling\movement, it was quite fast in the film.
About the bombardment. More like a COD (or some other game..BF3? RF:G? i dunno) mode. Where you have an onscreen circle thing to highlight the area you want to blast. confirm and boom time. obviously you'd have a cooldown and friendly fire is a must as well. (sure it can lead to trolling, but). Maybe the Orbital Bombardment can be only called down from the forward command center of the Imps, back at their spawn point, you can have a console there or something.
We could also have the Rebels delay\increase the cooldown of the Orbital Bombarment by activating the ion cannon.
So to recap: Imperials: Blow up shield. Call in strikes. Destroy the console for the ion Cannon (if you can)\ stop rebels from activating it.
Rebels: Defend shield. if that fails, defend\repair ion cannon console. activate it to increase cooldown for enemy bombard.
That way both sides would have counters to each other.

Sounds cool.
About the bombardment: Theoretically we could place a turret somewhere in the air (maybe attached to a star destroyer) which is usable from a console at the empire's base. For the cooldown we could just do a long reload time or something. Then the gunner has maybe 5 shots he can shoot independently.
So many ideas...

Layout:
Just did a quick drawing of how the layouts of SWBF and our current map look like.

Maybe too small... Well, I think the basic layout of SWBF I and II's map is good. But we need more tunnels and maybe a few more mountains so the AT-ATs have to walk a bit to get to the generator. The idea of a front bunker through which the imperials can enter is a good idea (CP 3 in sceluks image). As indicated in the drawing we should extend the tunnels a bit. Then we can add the medical bay somewhere, maybe a room with damaged snowspeeders or something, a control center, armory, whatever. Just so that we have some rooms and tunnels for close quarter battles. I dunno about the tunnel and bunker at the bottom of the map. We could focus the gameplay more on the tunnels and echobase and remove the bottom tunnel + bunker or just let it stay there as an alternative way to get to the generator(and maybe to the echobase via the hangar).
I added a tunnel which ends just over the hill of the first Imperial CP. If we do this we should make it difficult to enter (maybe they have to blow it up to get in).
I dunno if we should have the second hangar with the freighters. If we add it in like in my drawing it's not really a place where the heat of the battle will be...
Well, now it's your turn.

Ande, the image isn't being displayed.

I copied the image url and it came up with a 403 error: https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Star%20Wars%20Battlefrond%20mod/Concepts/Hoth/layout.png?w=5bf58eea

This stuff is weird. I seemingly can't link to our own dropbox. It's in concepts/hoth.

Regarding so many ideas. the more the better. Most of them are easy to implement for a quick test, and that's what beta testing is there for. does this work? does it add to the gameplay. is it annoying\fun?
You guys ever worked in the games industry before? (not indie or mods, the 'real' thing, heh :S)

Can we have a clear drawing layout please? It is pretty hard to tell what is what at the moment.

In the drop box someone posted a whole lot of hoth references. Don't know if you would like those uploaded to here?

Lephenix wrote:

Can we have a clear drawing layout please? It is pretty hard to tell what is what at the moment.

Yeah, the drawing's a bit sketchy!

That was not meant as actual layout. Just some sort of indicator of how I would extend the tunnels. The tunnels and rooms I have drawn are only there to give you a sense of the space the tunnels would take up. The actual layout of the tunnels should be made by the environment artist. He best knows how he can use the assets to create a good looking map. We still can discuss the layout and to songs degree decide on one layout.

411Remnant wrote:

In the drop box someone posted a whole lot of hoth references. Don't know if you would like those uploaded to here?

Yes i created the reference folder for that too, check the echobase.jpg img specially, there's the entire layout of the echo base in it, that's great to look at if you zoom in.

A key thing that I think we need to do in the map design is make the CPs an important piece of the gameplay (rather than adding a more forward point to spawn) so that controlling them is much more rewarding. I was thinking that certain CPs would offer vehicles to the controlling faction as an example to emphasize the need for them to be captured.

Yes. In SWBf the hangar doesn't spawn any snowspeeders if the Empire captured it and the Imperial outpost doesn't spawn any AT-STs if the Alliance captured it.
Especially the snowspeeders were very important for the Alliance. Without them the chance of winning was pretty small.

Are we going to add some expanded universe vehicles on Hoth that were present in the battle but not shown in the movies?

I was thinking that for the empire we could have some speeder bikes also to make transportation a little easier.

Well about CP's importance. there is already the CP controlling the orbital strikes, so that's one. yeah, controlling hangar CP will stop snowspeeder spawns, same for rear Imperial point (obv this two points should be extremely hard to capture).
Also, maybe capturung the shield generator points gives you damage buff to shield generaotr (bringing it down quicker), vice versa, rebels can repair it faster\repair it only if they have the deflector CP.
other CP could have static defenses automatically switching to the controlling side.

I like that idea Sceluk! Although I think there should be a few (only a few) CPs that are good for just spawning to assault areas. I was thinking that there should be landing pad CPs for launching fighters and gunships on the ground

Ben2356 wrote:

I like that idea Sceluk! Although I think there should be a few (only a few) CPs that are good for just spawning to assault areas. I was thinking that there should be landing pad CPs for launching fighters and gunships on the ground

Do you mean something like repair station? Despite the space where all vehicles are parked because for example on hoth all flight vehicles for the rebels are in echo base and that's where the fighters are launched from. If there's a repair station it might be on the back side of echo base. That's a good place since it's not so open to enemy vehicles and we can put some turrets there.

I think that having more vehicles can be tested later on so we can decide better how it works. I think testing it might come when we have hoth completed.
Also the more the better but not always is that way I am thinking that we should give the empire some fighters but the speedbikes might come in hand when trying to get in echo base the fast way. I don't see the speedbikes so useful for other things because on Hoth most of the terrain is open an it will be really easy to kill someone in a speedbike. And yet this has to be tested. All this is just on theory

Nice ideas sceluk but won't the turrets be available to both sides , not matter who is controlling the CP or they are gonna be like the ones guarding the ship's bridge in SWBF2

Of course, there is also the main CP, cannot be captured, until all the rest have been.

My idea is to have a set of AI-controlled auto turrets (or human controlled) that are linked to a CP. Controlling the CP makes the turrets friendly (for AI controlled)\usable (for human) to your team. Lore wise take it as getting the access codes from the CP.

We could have freestanding turrets as well (like the antenna dish guns).