--COMMUNITY MAP PROJECT II --RELEASED !! DC hotfix

[NeCoHo]

I love (UK equiv. of A Level I suppose) AP Classes.... They are as much fun as bashing your head against a concrete wall. Map Editor, DC, SoaSE, and HoI2 all need my attention, yet European history and US Government and Politics keep on happening. Sorry I'm letting you guys down. I was able to play test the map though. Feels great.

[Ira Aduro]

I played through a game last night and didn't notice anything. Btw - now would be a good time to get some nice screenshots to post on DoWfiles along with the map. We can have up to 6 IIRC. One should be a top-down view of the map which I can supply.

[Wargrim]

While DoWfiles may only need 6 shots, there is no reason to leave it at 6 shots here at the forums, so bring on the nice screenys.

[Ira Aduro]

hmm...good point.

[fuggles]

I posted up some screenies in my recent news post on dowfiles, perhaps their lack of attractiveness explains why only 1 person has shown enough interest to write anything.

Bad news - tidied the map but am getting SCAR errors. Working... might cause take a considerable length of time to fix given my schedule.

I'll need a link to your loading screen Ira.

JL - any chance of a soulstorm version of the installer background?

[Nerdsturm]

To be honest I think that we can come up with some better screens than those, as none of those have very much action or give off a large enough picture to give a good idea of what the map is like as a whole.

Plus, fog is nice for ambiance.

[Ira Aduro]

A way you can get epic screens without spending epic time building an army is by placing down units controlled by player 1 in the ME. Then place down units controlled by a player on another team (say player 4). Save the map and load it in DC. You get epic battles right away, great for screenshots. Also, for screenshot purposes I pulled the fog back some to reveal more terrain.

EDIT: here is the final loading screen.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...TSs1R01LSkE9PQ

[Jaguar-Lord]

JL - any chance of a soulstorm version of the installer background?

i'll do it asap.

@Nerdsturm :

I think that we can come up with some better screens than those, as none of those have very much action or give off a large enough picture to give a good idea of what the map is like as a whole.

thinking is mandatory but doing is better...As far has i'm concerned, if i compare Ira loading screen with your own production there's no doubt Ira ones if far better.

[Ira Aduro]

hey now, be nice.

[Nerdsturm]

thinking is mandatory but doing is better...As far has i'm concerned, if i compare Ira loading screen with your own production there's no doubt Ira ones if far better.

I agree with both statements(the second depends on taste I guess) but I cannot really see how they relate... after all I did do a loading screen so I think that counts as going beyond thinking

Plus its not as if screenshots take much work to do anyways, and I never said I was not going to work on making some myself.

[Ira Aduro]

Ok, here are some possible images to use on DoWFiles, and to tease those reading this thread. Note, if you guys want I can put our cmp2 logo in the upper right-hand corner of each screenshot. I've done it for these.

First off an aerial view:


Now to the good stuff:

[Jaguar-Lord]

Good job with the picture Ira, i'm sure we are goning to have a ton of questions like "how can you have two monolith on the map?".....dumb..

@Nerdsturm:

after all I did do a loading screen

oh !? we absolutly have to see this awesomeness, any link?

[IronmanII]

Ive been monitoring this for quite some time and id like to say well bloody done you guys deserve some serious praise and thanks from the community and i would like to start that trend
THANK YOU

[Jaguar-Lord]

thank you Iron Man, it's good to have that feedback.
EDIT/

OK NEW SCHEDULE AND ASSIGNEMENT/

Ira Aduro : loading screens, one for DC and One for SS, delay : asap.

Jaguar-Lord : redo map areas that need to be redone:
meaning:
1) texture under righthand thruster on chaos area.
2)raise ground and decal on Nerdsturm area.
3)change the footfal from "water" to "ground" on IG-Eldar bridge
4)...

do instaler background for SS instaler, find some good soundloop and make sure everything is in battle order.

Fuggles : final packaging and instalers, please pay attention to the different file path and file names. The last beta2 instaler was for DC and specified SS path and dc file name mixed together, it was uterly messy.


EDIT :
@Fuggles:

Bad news - tidied the map but am getting SCAR errors. Working... might cause take a considerable length of time to fix given my schedule

what map version is it ? SS or DC ? what scar errors....you can send me a pm if you got time.
anyway scar if far more important than anygraphical enhancement or icon, so you are now assigned to scar debugging (did you tried to change anything ? hmmmm....to "optimize" the code.... )

if your are ok with the above please say it, if you are not pleased say it too , ok?

JL

[Akranadas]

Make sure you tell DoWFiles that this is 1 map made by a whole bunch of mappers, save you guys the trouble the last group went through with those guys.

Btw. Looks awesome.

[Ira Aduro]

Thanks Iron Man and Akranadas!

JL - slight problem. I don't have SS. :/ However, if someone can get a few screenshots of the map in SS I can make the loading screen.

[Jaguar-Lord]

ok, i'll see to that.

[fuggles]

Pretty sure the SCAR errors on both maps. I honestly don't know when I will have time to look at it properly, maybe as late as Sunday. In the meantime, I don't think there are any more map issues to fix and I'll package (tidily) the final beta.

[Jaguar-Lord]

tell me more about the scar error and send me the scar error -dev log i'll se what i can do if you do not have the time to fix it.

[fuggles]

I think I've fixed it

If I told you what triggered the SCAR error then it also suggests that not enough testing has been done by any of us.

I'll test a bit more then repackage and send at some point in the near future.

[Ira Aduro]

\o/

Anyone have time to get SS screenshots?

[fuggles]

I can do, but you've seen my screenies. There's still time anyway as the map will not be released this week and with the patch next week the rest of the world will be busy anyway.

EDIT - map's now 100% done. I'm getting that irritating texture stamp corruption again, but at least we're done...

I've also edited the minimap to show the gates, as always feedback appreciated - this will be in the next beta.

*phew*

Can we clarify - is it literally myself, JL and Ira who are playing/testing this thing? I speak for the purposes of scar as obviously it will never be balanced because of my area (sorry!). The last error was caused by something embarrassingly simple that no-one reported... it worries me as I don't want to let you all down with SCAR errors after release.

[Jaguar-Lord]

Can we clarify - is it literally myself, JL and Ira who are playing/testing this thing?

looks like...people can be lazy, they like doing the fun part of the job but obviously the painfull part is always left for the dedicated.....or idiot ...to do. i mean : us.

@Fuggles : cool that you found this error and corected it. good job man !

map's now 100% done

errHH...does that mean that you did it...i did it also so we now have two different versions of the map.
It would be good to send me ALL the definitive files if that so.

about testing: i spend a whole afternoon testing the map, the beacon trigering on the decal is a pain to work but i think we don't have another handy solution to work on ( what about the folowing scar functions could it have been a better choice :

Spoiler

Util_CreateBeaconMarker_Blue( String markerName )
Create an Objective Beacon FX at a marker

Source: [WXPScarUtil.scar (487)]


beaconID Util_CreateBeaconMarker_Red( String markerName )
Create an Objective Beacon FX at a marker

Source: [WXPScarUtil.scar (473)]


beaconID Util_CreateBeaconPosition_Blue( ScarPos position )
Create an Objective Beacon FX at a position

Source: [WXPScarUtil.scar (480)]


beaconID Util_CreateBeaconPosition_Red( ScarPos position )
Create an Objective Beacon FX at a position

Source: [WXPScarUtil.scar (466)]

if so i'm an idiot not to have though about it before, the FX created at the marker wouldn't have blocked movement and would have made the moves on the world map decal far more easy !! assuming these fucntions do not trigger a sync error in multiplayer games of course !!!

anyway i wont ask you to redo the scar (but if you feel like it be my guest )

JL

[Nerdsturm]

Can we clarify - is it literally myself, JL and Ira who are playing/testing this thing? I speak for the purposes of scar as obviously it will never be balanced because of my area (sorry!)

Ive played through it twice now, and it actually seems pretty balanced overall in 2v2v2v2 at least. Although there are some areas that are a lot easier to defend like JL's or the titan area, that's mostly balanced off by the fact that those are both connected to a lot of other players starting positions. Also, since your area is set up between three others, fuggles, I didn't run into it creating that big a problem since it was just a new area to fight in and no one player gets a big advantage in taking it.

However, one player died in about 1:30 minutes in one of my skirmish games(kinda odd since comps don't usually rush) but I didn't see where they started, and I suspect that the person starting in the Eldar themed area might have a bit of a disadvantage though they've never been alive by the time Ive fought my way across the map so I can't really say.

Overall, trying to get a map this big and diverse perfectly balanced isn't going to happen, but I'll try to play another few games once I get the time.

[fuggles]

...

I just don't know. I really just don't know. The util_createbeacon works well for spawning and as you say JL, doesn't obstruct movement, but I just don't know how to despawn it!

WorldFXEvent might succeed on loop, I guess, but I can't get my head around how World_FXEventDestroy( Integer event ) works. Presumably the integer relates to the order in which you queue up events. If so then I need a huge think as to how/if this is possible when beacons are being snuffed out and lit up left, right and centre - my gut instinct says I can't keep track of it.

FX is not an area of SCAR I've ever really gotten into, so I'm treading new ground. I'm frankly really depressed by this whole project now as I can see quite clearly that the map as a whole is going to get critically slated for my coding not being as user friendly as it really needs to be. This is not fair on you guys who have made such a beautiful map, and I can't help but feel that I'm letting the whole team down. For this reason, I'm happy to spend the time recoding it if I can find some way of making it work - but I don't have the time to spend all day hitting my head against SCAR functions that I can't see have ever been used by Relic.

Unless there is some way to despawn beacons then I just don't know.

EDIT - JL, your pm box is full so I can't send you the links to the final(?) files.

[Nerdsturm]

Found another slight impass error

[Kendallv2000]

[IMG]http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/9579/cmp1kb7.jpg[/IMG] Why is the wall not submerged? did someone change it?

[Nagarak]

err....at Fuggles:

The util_createbeacon works well for spawning and as you say JL, doesn't obstruct movement, but I just don't know how to despawn it!

i saw JL yesterday, and tell him about this is first reaction was : then he numbled something about removing beacons.
i searched the scar doc and saw this function:

Void Util_RemoveBeaconMarker( Integer beaconID )


Removes an existing Objective Beacon - colour doesn't matter (*snicker*)
Source: [WXPScarUtil.scar (494)]

does it help?

[fuggles]

EXCELSIOR!

That's weird... I searched via text string for 'beacon' and found nothing. YEAH!!!!

Mood swings...me?

THANK YOU NAGARAK!!!

I need to have a bit of a think as to how this function works and how it can work overall. This could be much better...

I'll change the impass and re-submerge the wall.

Update - The tests...they go well.

Update 2 - The tests...they go very well.

Update 3 - 3 hours and a headache later, the test is done.


Can I get a smilie with I <3 Scotch yet?

Update 4 - It occurs to me that I've massively re-written 2 of the 3 main SCAR functions on this map... you can see where this is going

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zidiWe9yq88

Update 5 - Capital. The occasional FX gets stuck in the air (2 out of 64 aint bad!) and I really have no idea why, but... it's done and is superb. Great intercept by the Jaguar-Lord!

Spoiler

NB - this is from my test map

I shall stop spamming this post now. Maybe.

Update 6 - I lied. I'm totally stoked about this project again, it's now finished as best I can tell and the SCAR is better than ever!! Where's JL with that empty inbox?! I can't spend much time on this next week so could do with a handover.

[Jaguar-Lord]

i knew this fx beacon create function was promising the first ime i saw it and it was some monthes ago when i was coding for my Crimson Spire2.0 scenarzed map, i totaly forgot it until recently while i was digging the scar doc for some usefull bits of code for Frozen Impact. I'm glad it works so fine for the CMPII !! Superb SCARy job done by Fuggles, congratulation man !!

i emptied my pm box and i'm ready to test the new beast....
see you.

JL

[Ira Aduro]

I go away for the weekend and come back to great news! Yippie! Go fuggles.

[fuggles]

It's been sent to JL! Hopefully he will approve of all changes and then pass onto you guys for a bit of rigorous and completely error free testing

Just need that SS installer backdrop now and we might be finished...again (barring any more major SCAR rewrites).

[Ira Aduro]

yes, SS screenshots would be nice. At this point I don't care what they look like. Just take a bunch, zip them up, and send them to me.

[fuggles]

Not from me, I can't take screenshots in vista, the damn thing seems to have locked out write access - plus, without using the ME it's a bit potluck as to whether the AI does anything of interest. I think your DC ones are plenty up to task.

[Nerdsturm]

I agree, I don't really see the importance of getting SS units in screenshots. Plus, it seems like everybody either can't take screenshots in SS or doesn't have the game.

[Ira Aduro]

Ok, as long as you guys are ok with it . . . So, what is left to do?

[fuggles]

New soulstorm install screen is all I could see. I changed the things that you guys identified and I changed the SCAR so that it's a lot smoother. Jaguar-Lord's got it now, so this could be our big release week!!!

[Jaguar-Lord]

RELEASED see first post !!!!!

it is up to you to transmit it to filefront and everywhere you think apropriate. the more mirrors the betters !!



JL

*now to Frozen Impact

[Ira Aduro]

AWESOME!!!
I'll go ahead and post this on DoWfiles. I'll release it under the name "Community Map Project 2".

[Slash]

I've been keeping an eye on this project for quite a while now, and I have to say that this is quality work! Great job!

Also, thanks for uploading this to DoWfiles guys. I've posted both version of the map on to the site.

Cheers!

[Ira Aduro]

Thanks for the quick turn-a-round. I just finished uploading the SS version as well. I give them both 10s!

EDIT: the SS version of the map says:
"The Dark Crusade version of the Community Map Project 2. Nine mappers. One epic experience."

I'm 99% sure I had it say
"The Soul Storm version of the Community Map Project 2. Nine mappers. One epic experience."

Is it possible to change it? Thanks!

[Jaguar-Lord]

too late......
"perfection is reserved to God"

@Slash : thanks a lot for the uploading job, i apreciate as all the team members i think, good addvertising job.
82 downloads in less than 8 hours....noted 9.8/10 that's a sweet ego boost !!
bouncing back the dl pages from Dow Filefront:

Dark Crusade version

Soulstorm version

JL

[Ira Aduro]

That is good, especially considering the map is ~18mb zipped. Awwwwww....our map has grown up and left the roost. *sniff*
btw - funniest first post I've read:

....im the first to say it HOLY F***ING SWEET, I SAW A PIC OF THIS AAAAAAAAAGES AGO AND IVE BEEN WAITING SO F***ING LONG EXCUSE MY LANGUAGE BUT HOLY S*** PRAISE U GUYS! HAIL TO THE 9 BEST MAPPERS IN DOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We should all take that as a big compliment. Great job guys!

[Wargrim]

Congratulations, you did a great job guys in not just building another excellent Community Map, but also evolving beyond the islands of the first one to fully connected and merged areas plus the additional creative use of SCARed wappgates. You have all the right to be proud of your work. This is not just a good thing of its own, but also a very remarkable continuation of the tradition of cooperation in the DoW mapping section of this forum and in this community, that has lead to the 4 Community Mappacks and the first Community Map in the past. I left DoW1 behind after Winter Assault, and it is good to see that the mapping community spirit is still there, and that there are still "newcommers" filling the places left by the mappers that moved on, as it happened in the past.

You should definitely make a big announcement thread in the DoW General Discussion area about the relase, so that people that do not check the mapping forums learn about it ( with links to DoWfiles ofcourse. )

From past experience i know the mods here are very supportive of such endevours.

[Slash]

@Ira Aduro:

Done, just ask again if you want anything changed

[fuggles]

Excellent! Thus far all positive feedback... it's been a pleasure working with all you chaps and we produced something that we can all be proud of, I think.

[badgut]

hello this is a great map i downloaded it
but when i click on the installer it installs the things but ewhen i look in the map list i dont see the map.
so i manually installed it worked fine but when i want to go through a stargate then fatal scar error comes up.
i have done nothing with the scar

[fuggles]

Are you running the right map edition? There is one for DC and one for SS

[etherdragn]

This is Totally Epic! Congrats to all involved.

[Ira Aduro]

Thanks Slash! Much appreciated.

CMP2 members. Do one of you guys want to make a post in DoW GD? If not I'll go ahead. Should help get more mindshare.