What is the limit size for making LOD Terrain or skybox?

[grb]

Hi all,
For whatever reason I cannot make a sky box and then the LOD terrain
larger then 16384 units square.
That is If I make a brush then drag it as far up/down and sideways as it
goes it will not go beyond -8192 bottom left to 8192 top right.

What may I not have set in the Radiant Editor that limits me to this little
area? I looked at the preferences and found nothing that seemed to
allow me to increase total size of map area available.

Thanks for any help.

[wacko]

This is quite big (atleast for MOHAA) and you'll probably will have enough trouble to make a map that big and still nice plus fast.

[m0g]

Another way of seeing it...
In that space you could fit 5 Omaha beach maps + more...
Should be well enough for ya

[grb]

m0g and wacko,
No problem with your responses. I did a calculation, on max size, by dividing 64 units (height for a AI) by 12 inches which yields 5.33 feet.
So since that is not that far off from an average males height in our century, I simply divided 16000 units 64 units which yields 1,333.

So this figure roughly indicates that a map can be 1300 x 1300 feet or
some 440 yards square. Which is fine for concentrated town action etc..

What I hope to have was large non populated fields and hills/tree lines
adjacent to towns etc., that would allow me to have the feeling of a
wide open space, so that I could have distant artilery/tanks firing on
key positions into towns etc., and when I had airplanes flying over head
actually get the feeling that they where flying for some distance, especially when I had them flying high and slow. That is why I asked.
And I got used to being able to build huge maps for Soldier of Fortune DH,
where one could easily attach lets say four 10,000 x 10,000 terrain maps together and really have a large playing field. I had build a large mountainous desert battle field scene for SOF, where I had squads moving for large distances taking out enemy strongholds etc.. So I just
assumed the Radiant Editor modified for MOHAA would also allow for a large map.
End of case, I simply will live with what we got available.

cheers

[Surgeon]

You've got your calculations slightly wrong. Player height is 96 units - which is 6 ft in game. 1 foot = 16 units, so its more like 1000 square feet....

And your never going to get Battlefield 1942/ SoF 2 sized maps, you just have to try and fake most things, such as not showing the actual artillery just having a barrage arrive from "a distance"

[grb]

Thanks for the correction. Just goes to show how misinformation is transmited in forums. I got the "height of AI" = 64 units width = 32,
from this forum. And simply assumed it was factual. Obviously it was not.
And as I indicated, I would live with it the bounds set by the editor and not complain.

cheers.

[Surgeon]

Where'd u get the 64 units height from ?

[grb]

I don't remember the thread. But I wrote down the info on a piece of paper where it showed the following:
Player Dimensions
Min Height = 64 units
Max Width = 32 units
Max Step Height = 16 units
Max Jump Height = 64 units

Perhaps I misread the thread. But the main thing is you corrected me.

Thanks

[wacko]

Min Height = 64 units

the minimum height of 64, a player has in his crouching position, where he ofcourse is not as high as he was standing... So this piece of paper wasn't lying (just in case this information was from me?! )
Don't know though what Max width means: How could he get less wide?

[Serph]

soo for a normal room the height would be 144= 9 feet tall.

well thats the height of rooms here in north america... is that correct for moh? whats standard height for a room, because im using 144 currently.. in my map

[wacko]

As in real life, there's no standard height of rooms. Do it the way it looks best
Some are higher, others are lower: In a hotel for example the entrance area will probably be higher than the upper floors, maybe the basement is even lower... Then, the wealthier the owners of a building are, the higher would be the rooms, and so on: No standard hight!

Nevertheless, most wall textures are 256 units high, so you might want to use a room height of 128 for a standard texture scale of 0.5!

[rOger]

There is the issue of playability to consider as well. If the ceiling is to low, as it is if you use walls 128 units high, there will be very little room left for jumping and doors will be very narrow. I tend to make doors 64 x 128 and then build the surrounding architecture based on that. This has the drawback that most "Statics" look slightly small. This is however something that you will find in most, if not all, of the original maps as well.

This is, I think, more important if it is a multi player map than if it is a single player map, as in single player you tend to move slower and the action being less chaotic.

[grb]

Wacko,
Thanks for pointing out that the player height indicated "minimum", and
as you make clear, that stands for crouch mode. I should have been a
bit more observant in what I read!

............see......it appears that I was the one that misdirected potential readers!

Sorry folks.

[tltrude]

The limit for maps is the grid, but if you make the scale of all the models smaller, the world will seem bigger--and less detailed.

When planneing your map you should make the LOD terrain first and them put your skybox around it because LOD has to be in 512 X 512 sections. However, your world does not have to be rectangular, as you can see in map m4l0 which came with the mohaa editor.

door sizes - The door openings in my house are about 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide. But, a door in the game that is 112 units by 48 units looks too narrow (3 times 16 = 48 ). So, I make my doors 64 units wide. It is a matter of perception, but just try to remember things that look normal in the editor, may look huge in the game.

Good luck.

[grb]

Good points. What we see in the editor windows does not neccessarily
represent what the image will look like in the game. One of the key points
you made should be observed by all. Since I started decompiling the stock maps I have also noticed that many of them contain only squares of
LOD's connected by roads with high banks etc.. So one does not have to
build one huge LOD terrain structure to cover the whole grid area. Obviously using only enough LOD's to creat required regional play areas results in less map compilation time as well as improved performance in
the game. Interesting concept you state about down-scaling the models etc.. I think I shall try this concepts in a future map.

cheers all