Benzopila Terrain

[Chainsaw]

I have finally made good headway on my first terrain Benzopila (Working Title) and thought I would announce the project.

 

Benzopila is based on real terrain from an area in the east of Ukraine. It is largely a forested area to the west and an open farm land to the east with a relatively low change in terrain height. 

 

Features:

• 5km X 5km Terrain making it 1:1 scale with the real world
• Two towns/villages built faithfully to scale
• Realistic forests representing that found in the area
• Complex system of both sealed and unsealed roads
• Large open areas between key terrain
• Agricultural farm lands
• Swamped areas
   

Possible features:

• Small airfield that currently is not present in the area
• Custom enter-able buildings for greater CQB qualities
• Forest fortifications including trench-lines and emplacements cut into the terrain.

Satellite Map: 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I'm looking for some modeling help should this interest anyone who might like to join the project. The models I'm looking for are log style trench walls, log/concrete bunkers and Ukrainian style housings.
I'd be happy to do texturing should this be an issue.

I will keep you all posted as my work progresses.

Peace.

Edited October 20, 2016 by Chainsaw

[Emerald]

Daaang... That looks pretty good. Looking forward to playing on it.

[Maffa]

Looks sweet!

[Impulse 9]

Can you link a google earth area? With the focus appearing to be only one town, and the majority being being unimproved woodlands, there looks to be very little open areas, other than the southern fields on where the map border would be.

 

Would it make any improvements to cut off the top half of the picture area above, and simply go a bit further south to make more use of some potential open areas? From the image alone it looks like the left/nw 80% of the map is simply all woodland with a small town on the west.

I see a major road in the far n/w near the border of the map. Is there any use of including that sort of feature? The marsh area in the north east look interesting, but from prior experience are hard to get working well in ArmA.

[Maffa]

After looking a good 10 minutes on google maps for an Ukrainian town named Benzopila (Benzophylla? Benzopilliya? Benz*lla?) i discovered that it means chainsaw in russian.

 

Good job me 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Maffa

[Chainsaw]

Can you link a google earth area? With the focus appearing to be only one town, and the majority being being unimproved woodlands, there looks to be very little open areas, other than the southern fields on where the map border would be.

 

Would it make any improvements to cut off the top half of the picture area above, and simply go a bit further south to make more use of some potential open areas? From the image alone it looks like the left/nw 80% of the map is simply all woodland with a small town on the west.

I see a major road in the far n/w near the border of the map. Is there any use of including that sort of feature? The marsh area in the north east look interesting, but from prior experience are hard to get working well in ArmA.

http://tinyurl.com/jnlh5dp - Link to area in google maps.

 

Image indicating map location against surrounding regions. 

 

 

 

 

You do raise a good point Impulse. My intention was to make a small map with higher asset count as apposed to a large map with low asset count. Do you see a better crop than the one I chose?  

 

To include the large town south south east would create a lot more work doubling it to a 10 X 10 km map. 

 

The "major road" is actually a rail line. 

 

I appreciate the input. Cheers

Edited October 20, 2016 by Chainsaw

[Impulse 9]

Looking at the area, what are your views on doing a bit more open field + the river area? Shifting the south and east border to include 3 town areas including Chapajeve (furthest easteast) and Chervoni Kvity (furthest south town), with a buffer flowing about 500m both east and south of these? While eliminating Kalinine & Mushyna Freblia from the playable area.

[Chainsaw]

Looking at the area, what are your views on doing a bit more open field + the river area? Shifting the south and east border to include 3 town areas including Chapajeve (furthest easteast) and Chervoni Kvity (furthest south town), with a buffer flowing about 500m both east and south of these? While eliminating Kalinine & Mushyna Freblia from the playable area.

I'm going to look into it. The 4 hours I spent stitching 140 Ctrl+Alt+Prntscr from Bing maps is my biggest gripe. You make a good point however.

[Chainsaw]

Getting better at my modding. Here is an idea of the kind of fortifications I'd like to place into the terrain. (Model is not mine).

 

Buldozer view of front

 

 

 

Buldozer view of rear

 

 

 

In game with a little grass added to it for effect

 

 

 

 

Obviously the textures are not yet great. Today was about learning the Oxygen to Arma phase for me.  

 

I've also had a crack at my own log walls. This was a half-hour muck around example in blender. Seems promising if I can achieve better detail and textures

Log Trench Wall low energy example

 

  

 

Edited October 21, 2016 by Chainsaw

[Maffa]

Is it possibile to make it an placeable object in the editor?

[Chainsaw]

Is it possibile to make it an placeable object in the editor?

That's how I placed it. Whatever content I do end up creating will be available for editor placement should other community members want it.

Edited October 21, 2016 by Chainsaw

[Maffa]

great thanks!

[Aphex]

I'm going to look into it. The 4 hours I spent stitching 140 Ctrl+Alt+Prntscr from Bing maps is my biggest gripe. You make a good point however.

 

 

Bruh........use this

 

you just select the area you want, what map service to use, and the zoom level and it will download it all for you. Already stitched. 10 minutes of work

[beta]

I'd second some more open area terrain. We don't really have anything like that on temperate terrain. With wheat fields and grass (a la Schwemlitz) and some dense treelines/copses of trees, it could offer some unique play areas.

[Chainsaw]

Bruh........use this

 

you just select the area you want, what map service to use, and the zoom level and it will download it all for you. Already stitched. 10 minutes of work

I'm going into the corner to shoot myself now. This is soooo much easier. Cheers

[Chainsaw]

Had another crack at modelling today. Models are better but the textures are horrible. 
 

More Pics:

 

Makes for some pretty cool trenches if you throw in the CSA38 mod for taste.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2016 by Chainsaw

[Chainsaw]

 

Terrain got off to a wobbly start. Can't thank Aphex enough for weeding out my issues. Thought I'd share just a little bit of my progress. 

Working on having some nice ditch lines on the edges of the roads. A time consuming process when done by hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also begun to learn X-cam in order to try and create some nice compositions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chainsaw out. 

[Reznov]

Looking good, keep up the good work!

[Maffa]

Noice!

[Kevin31]

Looks really good so far Chainsaw, good job.

[Aphex]

Looking really good Chainsaw. Just watch that vegetation density, could cause performance issues later on.

 

What is the cell size and map size your using?

Edited November 6, 2016 by Aphex

[Chainsaw]

 

A little start on my forests to test performance. Seems to work fine on my potato. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking really good Chainsaw. Just watch that vegetation density, could cause performance issues later on.

 

What is the cell size and map size your using?

 

2.0 (m)

 

[TripShot]

As someone who knows jack shit about terrain building, modeling, or creating textures, this looks great! Keep up the good work. On a side note, why aren't there any good US terrains. Obviously not the entire country, but a Red Dawn-esque mission in a small American town would make me a very happy person. 

[Chainsaw]

As someone who knows jack shit about terrain building, modeling, or creating textures, this looks great! Keep up the good work. On a side note, why aren't there any good US terrains. Obviously not the entire country, but a Red Dawn-esque mission in a small American town would make me a very happy person. 

 

Thanks for the props.

 

To turn a short question into a long answer:

 

The amount of work and time put into a terrain doesn't really make me want to create terrains based off one mission idea. I would assume this goes for most Mod makers. One look at the RHS facebook page is enough to turn me off model making forever. The constant requests for things clearly outside of their current scope is truly amazing. "Hey man are you guys going to make a Leopard 1? Me and my community could really use one for our missions" ect. I can't help but feel that well established 3rd party mods are treated like sweatshops for people's small desires. 

 

So in short. If you want it, Build it! 

 

You'll soon learn how much you want a particular mod by way of time spent getting nowhere and breaking things you didn't think you could break.

 

For me I feel a US terrain has limited uses. We have eastern European buildings, plants, fences ect. To create a truly American terrain would require custom models which now makes your work load 10x as big. For me I want something that realistic world scenarios could be played out on, not a (while great) blockbuster movie plot. What you desire here could simply be made in the 3den editor on Desert.

[Chainsaw]

 

Trying the forestation areas with different models. 

Would appreciate some feedback on this vs the last post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers.