Pointe du Hoc - Mapping Project

(KeMoN) #81

Download location
I came across this map when I was checking other RtCW or ET maps for different ideas or features. This map has some sort of realistic grass. I never came across that feature in any other RtCW or W:ET map before. It is an unique but really awesome feature. I already contacted Pazur. Maybe he wants to post a little tutorial here or just releasing the used shaders and files so we can use them for our projects. It would be a shame to bury that thing again. Have a look at it, it is surely worth it!

(Cambodunum) #82

http://www.pazurmapping.com/index.htm

(.Chris.) #83

He’s semi active on these forums.

Anyway I downloaded the map and that grass looks terrible, no offense Pazur. Best to use RayBan’s foliage in my opinion.

(KeMoN) #84
(Mateos) #85

Through shaders maybe, even it has a limited distance from players it looks nice:
http://wiki.splashdamage.com/index.php/Foliage_Technology

I use it on my map with RayBan’s waving grass retextured by Avoc. As it is compiled with the map is has no major impact on performances.

(KeMoN) #86

You guys don’t see my point. If you want to have grass covering all of your area you need tons of models. Normally you use only randomly and low amount of grass-bushes. The grass in natterbase isn’t a model. You can cover the whole area with that grass without getting performance issues. When you want to cover the whole area with those models (also if you do it via shader) it will kill you. Besides that with some fine-tuning this might become a really eye-candy feature.

I attached 4 screenshots from the grass in natterbase with an example of the grass-bush models you were talking about lately. I hope my point becomes clearer then. I will have a look at the shaders and textures in the pk3. Like I said I already found the textures and maybe I can pimp the style of the grass a bit, let’s see.

EDIT:
I copied the regarding shaders and textures which I think are used for that. Hopefully those are the right files…
Download the textures here. //EDIT: DOWNLOAD REMOVED

textures/natter/grass_ml03cmp_decal
{
	qer_editorimage textures/natter/qer_grass_decal.tga
	surfaceparm nolightmap
	polygonOffset
	entityMergable
	surfaceparm nomarks
	surfaceparm grasssteps
	{
		map textures/natter/grass_ml03cmp_decal.tga
		alphaFunc GE128
		depthWrite
        rgbGen vertex
	}
}

textures/natter/grass
{
	qer_editorimage textures/natter/grass.tga
	q3map_notjunc
	q3map_nonplanar
	q3map_bounceScale 0.0
	q3map_fur 6 2 0.15
	q3map_forcesunlight
	q3map_globaltexture

	surfaceparm trans
	surfaceparm nonsolid
	surfaceparm noimpact
	surfaceparm nomarks
	nomipmaps
	sort 7
	surfaceparm nolightmap

	{
		map textures/natter/grass.tga
		blendFunc GL_SRC_ALPHA GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA
		rgbGen vertex
		alphaGen vertex
	}
}
(.Chris.) #87

Ah, thought as much, ‘fur’, I don’t think you’ll get it looking very nice with that method and it will have an impact on FPS if you use this all over your map. You’re better of leaving grass alone full stop in my opinion, the map is really large as it is and you’ll be probably hitting limits sooner or later, adding fancy grass wont help matters.

(KeMoN) #88

I know that we have to be very careful with stuff like that and we also should finish the map before going into details like that. I just wanted to present that to all of you as a second opportunity besides the current way of adding grass. Would be too sad if we couldn’t get it a bit prettier. Sure that way of grass will also have affects on the FPS but it will never reach the affects which would the same amount of foliage models cause.
Well doesn’t matter I need to concentrate more on real mapping part again so we get that one finished.

Maybe someone wants to play around with that grass and keep us up to date? Would be cool.

(stealth6) #89

Just tried it out and did some googling since it looked like a cool effect.

First thing you could do is increase the resolution of the grass image, but keep the grass blades 1px (visible in the alpha channel) Then in radiant use surface inspector and change vertical and horizontal stretch to 0.25 or 0.125 then the blades of grass will be a LOT finer.

After that you can only really play around with the q3map_fur offset and layer. Increasing the layer gives it less of a dotted effect, but decreases FPS. decreasing the offset makes the layers closer together so again giving it less of a dotted effect, but then your grass looks like it was just cut :smiley: (since the grass is then a lot shorter)

I didn’t seem to be able to get the fade part working?

Also I don’t think you need that first shader (grass_ml03cmp_decal), well I didn’t seem to be able to find the use for it.
You do need a base texture, something under the grass. At first I was just using a normal tga without a shader, but here: http://www.robotrenegade.com/q3map2/docs/shader_manual/fur.html
it says to use something like this:


textures/natter/grass_base
{
	// points to the fur shader (see below)
	q3map_cloneshader textures/natter/grass
	{
		map $lightmap
	}
	{
		map textures/natter/grass.tga
		blendFunc GL_DST_COLOR GL_ZERO
	}
}
(ailmanki) #90

A Tutorial from Pazur: http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/tramdesign/tutorials/tut_terraingrass.html
IMHO its to fuzzy for grass… for snow maybe it could be very cool.

(DeatH) #91

How is the map progressing? Looking forward to some updates and screenshots :slight_smile:

(FFSturm) #92

Isn’t it posible to make a static model with different stages/levels and fake grass with it? Just alpha tested? you can always apply fur to it lol

I think that this idea will be total confusion… maybe I will show you later what i mean in detail.

(ailmanki) #93

do you mean LOD (level of detail) for the foliage model?

(KeMoN) #94

Sorry to say that there isn’t a big update yet. I was quite busy the past few weeks and haven’t had time for going on with the map.
Still I can say that I just have to do some terrain and a nice end for the cliff-zone then I can go on with the village.

Thank you for the interest, anyway
Regards

(kost3k) #95

Hi KeMoN.
Sorry for refreshing old topic. I hope this project is not abandoned…
I found Pointe du Hoc map for MoHAA. Take a look: http://medalofhonor.filefront.com/file/Pointe_Du_Hoc;29554
I think that cloudy skybox will be better than that which is now. Sorry for my English.
Regards.

(BackSnip3) #96

Hi kost3k. The project is not abandoned, we’re just having other stuff to do and so are quite busy. I haven’t seen KeMoN for a few days but project is not abandoned. Thanks for your interest :slight_smile:

(Mateos) #97

My turn to refresh… Any news or progress?

(KeMoN) #98

Hehe, I was wondering if anyone is still remembering this project. Well it was some time since the last update was posted here. Since then I talked with some guys about that map and received several suggestion for it.
Then I decided to totally restart the whole project. Besides the cliff there are barely some structures left from the old version.

In total, the current version is the third version of this project. Maybe some of you remember the first one which was awfully ugly. The second one can still be found on older pages of this thread.

The goal of the current version is to bring a bit more historical accuracy to this map. Therefor I used this map.
There you can perfectly see all the little things like barbed-wire, mines, trenches and especially where the bunker were located and also the artillery-gun emplacements. For the bunkers I found a terrible-done web-site with great media. (if you have a look at it: click on Bunker, there you get some modelles of german-bunkers in the normandy.

Another feature of the current version will be the terrain. Back$n!p3 will (when he has some spare-time) create totally new 3d-modelled terrain. The advantage will be the vertex-blending (for examples see here: Pic#1; Pic#2 and Pic#3) which is possible in a 3d-program. Another advantage of that is, you get smoother terrain more easily. Our goal is to get a terrain full of craters on top of the cliff due to allied coast-bombardement.

Right now the whole first area is reworked and currently I’m working on the separation between town and cliff. In my opinion works quite well :wink:
There are now already two first axis spawn-points and three allied spawn points located. Axis spawn is in rear-bunkers on the cliff and allied spawn is left/middle/right on the beach. Further arrangement of the objects and spawns are already planned but not yet realized. Due to historical correctness there will be no artillery-guns in the emplacements on the cliff because the axis have moved them into the town before the Allies landed.

I can’t shows you pictures right now because always when I try to light-compile the map. my PC shuts down. (Due to hardware issues with the cooling). Besides that I currently don’t want to show you pictures because I want to work on it a bit more in silence. Worked well until now. The thing with always posting screenshots (like DeatH does) is that you feel yourself under pressure of showing more and more to the community and somewhen you lost the lust to work on it. Which wouldn’t be the best for all of us. Well I felt that way…

Thank you for your interest, but just give me another month or some weeks and I will post some reference of the new version.

Lot’s of regards
KeMoN

(Mateos) #99

Good to know the details, good luck :slight_smile:

(DeatH) #100

Hehe, but I’m proud of my work :smiley: and people love screenshots lol.