.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

I'm not quite sure where I want to go with this, so I'm going to ramble a bit ...


Where I'm Coming From

I was originally a Wolfenstein player until I got MohAA. I liked Wolf, but the wonderful variety of environment styles in MohAA really impressed me. (If you've ever looked at Wolf's textures they are uniformly dark no matter what the enviroment). I mostly just play TDM for MohAA online. I used to play objective, but with the introduction of Wolf: Enemy Territory, I don't think any other Multiplayer game holds a candle to the team work required for that game and the unique objectives you can accomplish. I was quite happy to divide my time between the two.

When COD came out, it had it's moments. But I never really bothered to play it online. I always stuck with MohAA. I've only made one map (or half a map really) for MohAA. It was a good learning experience. Everyone here was (and IS still) a big help teaching me how to do this. Now my second map is taking a lot longer because I keep rebuilding and re-texturing things over and over to improve them. But a part of me wonders if I am wasting my time.


Enter COD UO

I picked up COD UO a few months ago and I'm finding it hard to go back to MohAA. It's not because of the gameplay. I do like the variety of gametypes available. And the vehicles are a nice improvement, but I think Battlefield 1942 is a better game for that.

What impresses me about the game is how much better everything looks. Obviously they have a lot of addtional shader support that can't be adapted to MohAA. But I've been going through the pak files. All the textures for COD UO are compressed DDS files with built in Mip Maps and almost all of them are 512 x 512 resolution or higher. Obviously that pushes older systems more than they can handle, but I think that is the most logical decision if you want your game and your levels to be competitive and enjoyable in future markets where Doom3 and Half-life 2 engine mods and games are going to dominate. (It should be noted that I have both of those games but rarely play them online because I think their Multiplayer options stink)

Anyway. After playing so much CODUO, I find it nearly impossible to go back to MohAA. I am really sick and tired of seeing maps, stock or otherwise, with those same old (to the point of ugly) textures... And with my recent upgrade, I can run everything at Max settings and it still doesn't impress me.

Enter "THE NAIL"

A few days ago, our server admin posted screenshots of a COD UO version of MohAA's "The Bridge". There may be others, but this one is astonishing in how beautiful it looks. It is also faithful to the original map without a bunch of custom addons. It's not a conversion. It was built from scratch. I'll find out who made it later.
If the COD UO guys keep replicating the MohAA maps with such accuracty and competency, there really won't be a need for MohAA anymore.

Another thing about COD that I LOVE is the ability to download the maps directly from the server. Our clan doens't put custom maps on our MohAAserver (not even my own) because too many people get kicked when a custom is in the rotation and they don't bother to download it and come back. Unfortunately, the only way around this is to make the maps so damn good that noone will mind the hassle.


Enter "THE HAMMER"

While making my first map, I spent months working out problems with low FPS - trying to optimize my map so people with low-end systems could play it. This was time well spent. Half of the problem was caused by all the static models I used (I probably used most of them). The other half of the problem was all the custom textures I used... and how many of them were drawing on screen at once. In the end, I was able to get a workable vis that kept my frame rate in the 50-90 fps range on a mid level computer. But everyone in my clan that played it could adjust their settings in a way that allowed them acceptable FPS even on low-end systems.

But with today's hardware, I think part of the problem is that we are holding ourselves back too much. Obviously, I think everyone should still be diligent in maximizing their vis and framerate. But I think that relying on MohAA to provide our textures, or using custom textures that are small to keep your pk3 file size down is going to put an end to the game's popularity.

The latest reviews by MJ support this. I have only looked at the screens but 2 of those maps look a lot alike. In fact, since we are all too familiar with the textures in MohAA. How can anyone look at a custom map and think we have NOT seen it before? Wolf: ET is even worse in this regard since few maps pull from any sources other than the ET pk3 files which are VERY limited in textures.


Breaking the Mold
I haven't played any custom maps online in a very long time. So I've finally started taking the time to check out some of the latest works to help me improve my own.

I think that it has been universally agreed that Flying Sheep's "Opera" is one of the best maps out there. I looked at it when it was first released about a year ago. It looked fantastic, but the FPS was a little low for my system. Today I think he was on the right track. He made a beautiful map that unfortunately, many people couldn't play. But I bet when I load it up on my current system, my FPS will hit the roof.

Panterra's Rockbound is fantastic for other reasons. Gameplay is obvious. And while he used primarily stock textures, he uses his custom one's to replace otherwise inferior versions. His theme (As MJ says) is dead on. His terrain has lots of variety and his structure is highly detailed. (I'm still trying to get this on our server)

Tom's Train to Hell is probably the most unique Idea I've seen in Mohaa. His textures are SOOOO stock, but the implementation is fantastic. I just wish the old red and blue wallpapered interior textures would be lost forever. I would love to see this map with COD UO or custom textures.

And Tom's Armageddon map (forgot the name) goes above and beyond with all the Jedi Knight textures. That's a really unique experience that wouldn't necessarily appeal to everyone, and the file size is quite large (over 20 mb). But think of how ugly that map would have been with stock Mohaa Textures. I thought this was really cool.

I know there are more, but Its hard to find servers to play customs on. I detest downloading maps from gamespy. It is a lot easier to download from the server host's website if they offer them.


Put up or Shut up
So, I've been rambling quite a bit right now. If you've managed to make it this far, you have more patience than me. I'm sure a lot of people think "Jeez, he is pretty opinionated for someone who has only made half a map". I guess seeing that new "Bridge" map hit a nerve. COD UO uses virtually the same engine MohAA uses. With MohAA now 3 (or is it 4) years old, We should not let the mapping standards of 2002 dictate how we build our maps today.

About 6 months ago, I began a map that is intended for Wolf: ET. That's what my friends and I play at lunch at work on our Linux machines. Learning how to map for ET opened up a whole new can of worms for me. So I decided to build the structures in MohAA radient while I learn the in's and out's of ET's GTK Radient. I've been studying other peoples maps (tutorial or otherwise) for inspiration and ideas that I can incorporate with my own. I'm learning more about scripting and especially Terrain Generation since I can't use LOD terrain in ET. However, I liked the map design so much that I wanted to release a version for MohAA as well.

About 3 months ago, I had about 75% of the map construction complete, but I was not particularly happy with the problems involved with working at angles not on the grid. So I begain re-orienting my map 45 degrees one bulding at a time. The end result is that I rebuilt each one from scratch after rotating it in order to get the best structure possible.

About 2 months ago, I got COD UO and was blown away by the textures. I also realized how much texture work was going to be involved when porting my map over to Wolf: ET. Because of this, I completely scrapped all my textures - stock and custom - and began redoing them from scratch using the best textures MohAA (ie 512 resolution) and COD UO have to offer. Many of them I am using as is. Others I am using as a foundation for custom textures for my map --- for that theme MJ loves so much.

I downloaded Nvidia's texture tools so that I can read and write my own DDS format textures. In order to faciltate the multi-platform level, I am not accessing ANY textures in the MohAA library except for Caulk, NoDraw, etc. That way I am not dependent on either game's pak files to texture my map. Obviously, to get the best results, you will need to have texture compression turned on. I DO have low quality Jpeg versions of the DDS textures, but at 512 resolution, they tend to be larger than a DDS file. So I may just replace them with simple color textures for people who absolutely can't run texture compression. (I'll have to test this out)

Unfortunately, my texture revision has required the 3rd reconstruction of my entire map to get it right. So for now, I guess I'm at 25% completion.


Where I'm Heading

It's pretty sad that my own clan will probably never host my new map on their server. I'm surprised they still have a MohAA server because it is always empty. I KNOW the ET version will get played by my friends and I at work. And I am hoping that all my texture improvements will make a big difference in that platform as well. Because of this, I am beginning to feel that I've come into the MohAA map making community a little too late. There is nothing worse than seeing months of hard work go to waste. So this will probably be the last map I make for MohAA -- (and the ONLY one for ET)


But you guys have been an amazing help to me for more than a year as I struggle to pick up the basics. Because of this, even though the primary platform for the level is ET, I fully intend to finish the MohAA map first. Not for my clanmates, not for our server, but for you guys in the mapping community.

At the very least, I expect some great Deathmatch fun in Mohaa. Hopefully, I'll even have Mefy's Freeze tag/CTF mods implemented as well. But as I consider more and more the objectives I want to make for the ET version, I'm convinced more than ever that this map MUST be Objective in MohAA as well --- If I can pull that off.

Will it work?

The reality is, that I don't know. I want to make a map that is so inviting, that you will get your head blown off because you were too busy "admiring the view". But the gameplay has got to be rock solid if I'm going to implement an Objective mode. I'm not sure yet if my design is up to that challenge. I'm not even sure yet how it will affect FPS. Probably some people will not be able to play it. But hopefully, if you can play COD UO you will be able to play my map in MohAA.

I have two major structures that still need the texture and modeling revisions. I will probably have that done by this weekend or next weekend at the latest. At that time, I'll post some screens as a W. I. P. so you guys can point your middle fingers at me and say "You Suck, Diego". I'll probably put some some of the older screens as well so you can see how much has changed in the last two months.

But even if I DO suck, and this map fails miserably, I hope to have stirred the pot a little around here. And perhaps another Mapping Jedi will follow me to the Dark Side one day.


Darth Diego

Well, I tried both CoD's and i wasted my money, Didnt play either one more than 2 weeks.
Still love MOHAA, Servers are still by the thousands

MY opionion of all the WW2 games out there:

MoHAA is a classic. period, nothing to it. The looks are 3 years old. Think of what other 3 year old games looked like, it's not that bad. It had good graphics for it's time. It's gameplay and sound are great and imo it's best played classically with FF. no-realism, no ladder mods, nothing. just play it, let the admins sort them out.

CoD and UO are best in their SP right from my view. their online is a little too killhappy and hard for my taste, but their SP is beyond excellent. their looks are great, even though they use the same engine, they accessed more from it and raised the bar on gamer computers. People answered.

I jsut got BiA today, and let me tell you, this will blow your head off. It has the best graphics, sound, gameplay, tactics, replayability, history, and drama in a game. Sounds liek a lot, but play it through. you'll see it's SP has the best, hands down, no substitute, best ever play.
Of course with HL2, D3, and BiA raising the gamer comp performace even higher, some people won't be able to play it.
too bad for them, they need a better system.

in short: MoHAA:classic.
CoD/UO: good graphics and gameplay with SP.
BiA: best game ever.

very nice descriptions Diego, i enjoyed reading your thoughts and ideas!

my quick imput as well:

Mohaa/SH: great game...i play Spearhead tho, and it is by far the best game i have played out there as far as multiplayer goes...i was never really impressed with any of the singleplayer missions anyways...the graphics are great for its time like Lizardkid said, and it is still a fairly popular game...

COD/UO: i bought COD and loved the singleplayer...but hated the multiplayer becuase it seems like the creators are trying to hard to make the best multi environment out there and they really should have stuck too the MOHAA movements and such....i havent played UO, but i have heard that the graphics are nice, that singleplayer is great, and that multiplayer is ok....

Wolfstein:ET:Played it a couple times, and it seems like a great game, but as Diego said, it is rather dark in most aspects....i like it still tho..

Battlefield:DC:2: I have a Spearhead clan, an within the last month we have sorta migrated over to BF 1942 Desert Combat and we are having an absolute blast playing that game....only becuase of the weapons and vehicles that are readily available to fly, destroy, screw around in, etc....plus we are getting ready for the arrival of BF 2...but we will still be loyal to Spearhead as well....BF is a great game!

BIA: Bought it, played, marveled at its beauty, and couldnt put it down....by far the best game out there for real life singleplayer action and the option to order a squad....absolutely great game...as for the multiplayer tho, wtf is up with that..only 4 players....hmmm....hands down to the creators tho, they did a great job!!!

Final Thoughts:

All the games bring everyone some sort of happiness and utter dissappointment at the same time...but it seems that the companies are trying to hard to out due the other companies or previous games that have been produced as well...if EA Games were to go back and redo Mohaa and fix all the problems that have been noticed over these last few years, enable Punkbuster, enable the option to download maps as you enter a server, and so on down the list, it seems that they could really increase their sales and liven up the gaming community for Mohaa once again....i could be wrong, but too each his own! I really dont play any of the other games that often, so no final thoughts on those!

That was great to ead, Diego. And I must say, I agree completely... The only reason I map at the moment is experimentation - I am currently investing my time in a high-FPS high density grass (its working reasonably well) and things like fog effects and all that. I would move to HL2, or CoD UO, but I'm really lazy and I'm not sure I'd like the change of skills needed to handle the different engines... But may as well check it out - When I get a good PC and the games...

I love custom textures; although I suck at making them myself

Keep it up Diego, I'm looking forward to this map

The Hammer (Hl2) editor is just like Rad, but with no scripting. Tehre's no scripts in Hammer. UO uses the (almost) same Rad as MOH does.

MOHAA is forgotten by teh devs. even if they were to do such a thing, it wouldnt attract any more players.

You have entered the realm of "The Modders Dilemma". Let me explain what I mean.

What a modder may view as a great engine to mod for the player community may view differently. In cases where the engine may be very friendly to mods the player community may not support modders by playing their mods.

How does a modder know what game to mod for? What game will be supported by the devs and by the community? Will I start modding for a game too late? All important questions that have no black and white answers.

The key engine is one that has solid gameplay, dev support, and decent mod tools. Modders tend to look too much at graphics. The graphics end of an engine is a trap. If the tech is too high end you limit the people that can play the game. If the tech to too low end you tend to be the only modder around while others move on to other titles. This can make TC team modding very hard if your team lacks members.

Dev relationship with the community I think is key also. For example I used to support CoD with its release. It was the next logical step from MOH. A dev that I will not name in the post that came from the community was not happy with my "style" of free support and made it very clear to me. It put such a bad taste in my mouth that regardless of how "great" a title might be they will never see my support again.

So several, several things to look at as to why a modder mods for a title. As far as CoD vs MOH, MOH will always come out on top as CoD was modeled after MOH. There is a reason you model your WW2 FPS after MOH and that?s due to sales. It leads the WW2 sales overall not due to dev support (HAHA), not due to tech, and not due to mod support. Its solid gameplay keeps you coming back years later. If you have a title that can do that with that many "negative" features you better pay attention to it.

General Death wrote: A dev that I will not name in the post that came from the community was not happy with my "style" of free support and made it very clear to me. It put such a bad taste in my mouth that regardless of how "great" a title might be they will never see my support again.

I remember that, and who it was ... plus IW / Activision aren't great at supporting their community.. STILL

devs may have made it, made it look good, and made it last, but after it's off those shelves chances are they're not going to lift a finger about it. after the game is a month old, it's open to modders and nobody should care what the devs think, unless they're helping mod.

I bought cod+UO a couple months back, I dont bother with the single player games im really into multiplayer, cod took a good while to get used to, I cant use the sniper still but I am really loving the game right now, I play base assault which seems to me to be a clone of SH TOW, I like it a LOT.

I still play SH TOW but I play COD a lot more now, it looks great, the vehicles are very cool all in all I prefer it, theres nothing like taking out a tank with a rocket

About the dev support. Surely you know Wolfenstein Enemy Territory? The amount of support for the community from its creators, Splash Damage, is just amazing... Just look at their forums. Not only do they provide the source of the game and the tools but also help people resolve their problems.

Rookie One.pl {sfx} wrote:About the dev support. Surely you know Wolfenstein Enemy Territory? The amount of support for the community from its creators, Splash Damage, is just amazing... Just look at their forums. Not only do they provide the source of the game and the tools but also help people resolve their problems.

These guys blew me away be releasing a big patch recently for ET. That's a lot of work for them to fix a game that is free. Their forums are a great resource for tutorials and they actually have a very nice development guide that covers all kinds of ET related scripting. I think these guys started out in the modding community so they know how to support the players.


--- On a side note. I've got all my major buildings into one map now. Its looking really good. I guess I'm up to 30% now. LOL.

But I think I'll get some terrain in there before posting any screens. So I'll be practicing my EasyGen skills this week.

On that EasyGen note - if its the one that creates terrain out of brush, remember to Ctrl + G each, otherwise random patches will tend to black out or dissapear

MOH:AA is dead... nails in the coffin etc...

This is from an american perspective... (I think thier are more oversees servers by far now)

WHen sorting MOHAA servers by <200 ping - no ckr - with players on them....

I get about 10 in the mornings when i get off work... maybe as much as 30-40 later on. HOwever, about 60-70% of these servers are realism, and most people wont bother to list realism in thier titles. another 15-20% are ummm modded... to put it politely(honestly, no gravity super everything, isnt really modding imho, its stupid and they should all go play tribes) SO whats wrong with realism? MOH:AA was not designed in a realistic manner... so realism on guns completely modifies the game in completely unsubtle and almost silly ways(speaking mostly of tdm). When someone spawns 5 feet behind you with an smg... there is little or nothing to do... which is a consequence of the circular map design. Im not sure why so many realism servers these days... but my guess is that the newer and inexperienced players find it easier to get going quickly. A new player with an smg vs me and my mauser actualy has very little chance alone... except on realism where they can blindly spray and I can do nothing... which btw isnt very realistic if youve ever seen anyone trying yo MOVE and SPRAY an automatic weapon with accuracy. SO basicaly, in north american servers, these are your options aside from primetime. THis is such a huge contrast fro ma year ago it cant even be properly described.

Someone mentioned SH as being a great game... personaly ive never seen that... I hate the stock maps... and the player movements got worse from MOHAA not better. AA already had eye v. reality discrepencies when people jump or crouch, with the odd movements in SH it is easily twice as bad. With no lag, when you see a good shot miss on someone because of thier odd jumping animation, that is not good, and in SH I thought this was a constant problem.

MOH has not had a great game follow it. BT is kinda fun, but i think id much rather play BT maps on the AA engine. And I hear PA sucks, tho I cant even play it with this vid card. Thus for a long long time, AA remained the king of MOH games, because its successors failed to capture the smoothness of its play. Perhaps now BT is stealing more, I dunno i dont have it currently so cant see what servers are available, but BT was definately better in many ways then SH.

/end pointless ramble

sorry... anyhow I almost bought COD last week, and next time I see it I certainly will buy it now. MOH servers due to the inability to diversify, are jsut trying to appeal to the most possible people, and compete for the ever shrinking player base. I dont want to play aginst 30 smg's in a pillbox sized map, nor do I want to fly around stalingrad without gravity... and in non peak hours, these are basicaly the options. I doubt COD will play as smooth as MOH:AA... NOTHING ever has, dunno perhaps nothing ever will... but it is much more likely that I can find a game there that meets my liking, because for me, MOHAA has degenerated into the gutter.

from a mapping perspective... after a while, and a few maps... it becomes a bit of a spirit sapper to know this map you are spending countless hours on will likely never have the chance to see that many hours played on it total... If you are a mapper and you have had 8+ people in a rouding game on your maps, you know there is no thrill like it, pure enjoyment... but you also know in the classic moh games, that distributing the map for people to play is almost as epic a chore(if not moreso) as actualy crafting it. All I can say on that front, is I hope you are in a large clan(or have excellent contacts with several)...

it becomes a bit of a spirit sapper to know this map you are spending countless hours on will likely never have the chance to see that many hours played on it total... If you are a mapper and you have had 8+ people in a rouding game on your maps, you know there is no thrill like it, pure enjoyment...

Amen.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm onto making my last map for MOH. Little playerbase, even smaller custom map enthusiasm

Although I enjoy making maps alot ('m hooked, infact), to be totally honest, what I look forward to, and dread, is seeing others reactions. There is nothing better than getting a 'Well done, this looks great', and nothing as bad as a complete blanking. I almost died of pleasure when i saw my map on a server, without my putting it there. And then got angry when I saw people preffered a re-make of a CoD map to a new original MoH map which I had just created (looking back, I can see why, however).

When no one is playing, no one really cares. And when no one cares, we don't get the praise we want, and need, really.

But even if I DO suck, and this map fails miserably, I hope to have stirred the pot a little around here. And perhaps another Mapping Jedi will follow me to the Dark Side one day.

Darth Diego

You have caused revolution! - I think I need some hardcore dark side powers, to be honest. Living in MoH, was rewarding indeed, but - I want more. I want people to look at my maps and think 'Wow, Mj made a map! Call the clan, guys, lets give this baby a spin.' - But with MoH? I know, no matter how good a map I make, it'll never be really played. Never. And that makes me sad.

I'm going now... To the dark side CoD:UO perhaps... or CoD 2

Darth Mj