.Map :: MoHAA Mapping

G'day all,

This is one of our first serious map attemps and has been released for some time now but I forgot to mention it in here.
Some of you might already have it by now.

It's for Spearhead mainly, there are some commands in the bsp and script that might cause strange behavior if played in AA, but give it a try if you wish.

A bit of a rundown on the maps theme,
It's an open map (snipers love it) it has a large patch mesh terain with a circular river around a central island. On the Island is an old style Mississippi mansion with some hidden surprises, like exploding toilets, a deep central tunnel system that fans out in four directions to allow movement to the other side of the river.
A large usabe paddle steamer, complete with whistles, bells, steam and smoke, rotating paddle wheel and windows to shoot out of.
A player usable hot air balloon that can carry up to four players, it rises and moves to a choice of 9 random locations around the map, the rise height is random as well... and that's not all - there's more! it has a quick eject system in case your under heat from bazooka players, you can eject from the balloon via a large rocket strategicaly stuck between your legs, it will fire you off to random spots and deploy a chute for a safe glide to ground, you can shoot while gliding down to ground on the chute too. Lots of funny sound effects for all this interactivity too.
The script is huge, I spent countless hours on it debugging and perfecting.
Feel free to make use of any routines you might find usefull in the scr, for the serious scripters out there it's a veritable archive of handy routines in it's own right...
What else, a nurse that will fix you up if your injured, a pond with a spring board out the back of the house, a total of 5 elevators all working on three levels, a total of 24 elevator triggers, custom push button panels in the central shaft, windmills, pumps oh! and a split draw bridge that lifts when the boat comes around so it can get through... This map has a lot in it that's not obvious at first glance until you get time to run around and explore.

Gameplay: TOW or FFA
In TOW mode the object is for either team to gain control of the paddle steamer, the script adds points to the players who activate it, the current team in charge of the boat must hold control of it for 3 laps (variable can be changed for lap numbers) It's not as easy as it sounds, good fun watching players chasing after it trying to lob nades through the windows too!
I have the script set so that in any other game mode you can still interact with all these things for some fun, it then becomes a sorta theme park type map. Or change the mode to TOW for more of the same fun but with the objective to meet.
There are alternative ending movies for both teams based on the outcome as well.


For the mappers:
The method we used to make the boat usable with players on it and not take any damage while it's moving was a real breakthrough.
The water brush is a large disc that rotates slowly, the boat is bound to the water brush and all the bits n peices of the boat are also bound to the parent entity of the boat. It was a real pain to do as radiant would spit the dummy sometimes and loose all the links to the parent, forget they where script objects etc etc, the boat had to be rebuilt at least 5 times till we were happy with it.

Anyway that's enough rambling from me, if you have read this far the I thankee sire! The map can be found here http://whcclan.com/modules.php?name=Downloads

Enjoy, I would appreciate some feedback too if you can spare the time.
Cheers Grassy.

I've waited for this one for a while, but I don't have Spearhead .
Anyway, you did a hell of a job, very nice . Ow yea, could you please post some screenshots too?

sounds cool, but how much server script lag does it take? i love the sound of it, liek something i'd do if i cared to make an MP map, but wouldnt shooting and flying, rotating rivers and exploding toilets cause major script lag?

also, i have SH, but the custom maps server i go to doesnt. can you convert to AA? or is there SH-specific in there

At0mic, screenies huh? Ok here are a few. Sorry I made em a little small

Lizardkid, no lag, server copes with it ok. Takes a while to load on slower computers though. I had to optimise a lot of the sounds and times sound events, like localised ambiant sounds frogs, crickets etc boat too and bridge so they all didn't clash. Spearhead is a pain in the ... for custom sounds, add too many and it will crash in mp.

edit ** images have been removed due to site space limits

I have Spearhead, but it is not installed--don't like it much. So, I would also like to see an AA version.

Seems like the Pilot house should be more forward, and not so long. When I think of Mississippi paddlewheelers, they are big--like the one in the movie "Riverworld". There whould also be a cargo boom forward. But, I guess, there were many different types. The one in the movie "Blood Alley" was small.

The ballon looks great!

Aww jeez Tom..

Yeah the boat was the hardest part, had to make enough room in it for players to move about feely though. The balloon is a model I made in with Milkshape, and the boat whistle too.

As for AA, I know next to nothing about mapping and don't how to make it AA compatable. Maybe my mate who did the mapping side will be happy to make the .map available for conversion.
I think the only thing SH specific in the bsp might be a few exploding barrels and triggers with the push value on them to make the spring boards, is that option in AA as well? And with your scripting knowlege you could optimise the scr easily enough.

Grassy

Hello peeps, for those with an interest.

I just double checked the map archive and it does indeed have the .map file in the obj directory. So anyone who would like to modify it for AA feel free to do so. We dont have the older AA radiant and I just tried loading a modified version for dm into AA and it reports wrong version map file.
So I assume our SH version of radiant is no good.

You would have to modify the scr a fair bit too, as it's aimed at TOW mainly.

So AA mappers that's your mission, if you decide to accept it then feel free to do so, just make the new version easily identified from the original one to avoid confusion... enjoy!

Grassy, those pictures sure look pleasant. I'd like to admire the work you guys put into it but could you provide us with a (temporary)download mirror that doesn't require registration? I'm not lazy but I hate having to do that (fill in a form, wait for the confirmation email and activate the account, blah) just to download and check out a map. I understand that it's common for clansites to have to register but somehow it always turns me off. No offense! (I will probably do it anyways since I like what I see so far, lol.)

panTera wrote: I understand that it's common for clansites to have to register but somehow it always turns me off. No offense! (I will probably do it anyways since I like what I see so far, lol.)

LOL yeah I know what you mean mate. Unfortunatly I cant offer an alternative dl site. For what it's worth the new site sends the confirmation email instantly upon application so there shouldn't be any "waiting".
Also you will get a nice surprise as we have some nice maps in there that are not available anywhere else as far as I know. A few of us are mappers (me scripting mainly) and we like to explore new things for some fun.
And hey wer'e a friendly bunch, why not drop a "G'day" message in our forums to let the other members know that our clan is known "world wide" it will make em proud

Grassy

one thing I'd like to mention when seeing the screens: This bridge seems to be moving!? So, how does it? I mean if it was real? No mechanics at all, nothing pushing or pulling the two parts upwards?

Wacko wrote:This bridge seems to be moving!? So, how does it? I mean if it was real?

Hehe "Smoke & Mirrors" ? Um there are hidden hydraulic rams in the ends? I think by the time we got to the bridge my mate had had enough of this map and wanted to move on to another he had an idea for.
I did mention to my mate the same thing you are aluding to Wacko, but he said the fps was begining to suffer because the map is so open and large with a large fareplane. Most maps are compromises of sorts to keep them playable anyway, realisim or accurate reproductions would make a lot of maps unplayable on lesser computers.

mmm. i wasn't thinking of rebuilding every screw, a bunch of 10 brushes would have helped much imho. But it's your choice of course

Looks great! You've exceeded the bandwidth on the download however and it is no longer available.

Viper wrote:Looks great! You've exceeded the bandwidth on the download however and it is no longer available.

Yeah I noticed that.. . Oh well new month tomorow!