CoD4 Radiant: update

I've discovered some new tools for working with terrain patches as well as some good recommendations. The first is the advanced patch editor, which I found a well done tutorial for on a CoD2 mapping board.1 It works the same in CoD4 Radiant. So rather than manually adjusting the height at each vertex of the patch or manually selecting a row this tool allows me to easily manipulate and smooth terrain without any of that manual work. Once you use it you'll get the idea. I also came accross a thread on how many alpha patches to take into consideration for performance.2



I still have a bit more tidying up to do, meaning fixing the terrain patched and adding the missing ones. Now that I know from other peoples experience that the performance cost for the size of map I'm making shouldn't matter, should make the job easier.
Progress is coming along, I've still been concentrating on terrain and alpha textures and am nearly ready to move on. I was having a difficult time adjusting patches to the curved and banked road that I implemented, especially because it's off any of the simple grids (adjusting stuff in grid ~0.5 is a pain).
As for new stuff, I've added some brushes as templates for my structures. I still need to work out the design issues for the map. I've gotten some portions of the map worked out as of now but I'm still lacking other the other parts of the layout. So as soon as I work out the design kinks and get all the templates on, I'll begin prefabbing my structures using the templates as models.

1. CoD4 Radiant: advanced patch editor tutorial
2. CoD4 Radiant: performance constraints of detailed terrain

CoD4 Radiant: MP_MidEastUrbanNeighborhoodOhNoh

It's not the final title, but it does the best job generalizing. Although I'm a little apprehensive since about half of the the stock maps for CoD4 are the same environment, but I don't think that should matter as long as the map ends up looking nice and flows well.
Here's a pic I'm using as inspiration.


In other news I've been spending lots of time playing on a modded server that has on rotation many of the better looking custom maps that have been posted on the ModsOnline and InfinityWard mapping forums. Most of them look pretty good and are a lot of fun, so that would explain why I keep on playing on it.
Here's what i got so far, a main road that I'm elevating over the ground level similar to mp_ambush, but this won't be the main dividing feature. That's what I intend the wash to do. Spent most of my time tonight aligning terrain patches along the road because of some changes I made, alot of my work falls off a standard 4 unit grid so I have to do a bunch of switching between grid sizes, not that its too hard, but I'd highly recommend sticking to as large a grid as possible to make your life easier. Another tip, "Crtl + g" is useful for aligning what you have selected to the grid size you are working on.

CoD4 Radiant: texturing

To make up for lost time I will be posting every couple of hours. Hah!
Actually the pics I put up last were from Saturdays work, and well, since I have a bit more done tonight I thought I'd show off the sad results of my texturing. Although I don't really believe results have feelings.
As you may have already known (Ryan!) texturing your map is a big deal, it means the difference between having a map that looks like a lego playset vs. something so damn realistic that you lose yourself in the action. Actually I take that knock on legos back... check this out
So despite my weak analogy, hopefully you get what I'm saying. Back to mapping!
I mainly focused on the walls of the wash, with the goal of blending the concrete, brick, and plaster primary textures together. The big problem of the night was making the blends appear less repetitive and finding the right decals to do the job.

Note: I think Ill make another run through the CoD4 single player with a more cautious eye towards map detail.

CoD4 Radiant: Still mp_unknown

So it's been a few days since my last post, but I've still been working in Radiant, continuing to play with more ideas I’ve had for a multiplayer level. So far I've got one potential feature down, which is a wash in an urban setting. I'm used to seeing these around and thought would be a fun environment to battle in. I began with an idea built around the wash, but after texturing and adding to this small part a few other ideas are starting to creep up. So it’s back to the drawing board.
In another note, I figured out what the problem was when I play tested my maps and rather than having the body of a Marine or OpFor, I was floating red text (FX). Turns out I didn't update my zone file "correctly," meaning I didn't do a thing.
If you're having this problem, it's an easy fix. When you update, you have to manually copy and paste what’s in the "Missing Assets CSV" column over to the other and finish with a save. That's all there is to it! Well hopefully I've helped you or I’m embarrassed for not knowing something that was ohh so clear in the first place. :-)

CoD4 Radiant: MP_???

Radiant's fun now, so I decided to try putting some of my own ideas into perspective and see how they played. The first challenge I had coming into this was scaling the map. Luckily the IW wiki contains a very useful resource with Radiant measurements for common objects, such as roads, prone cover, or ceiling height.1 Also very useful to this process is adding the model "mw_scale_soldier" as a reference piece, it's surrounded by two circles that are indicative of submachinegun and rifle range. Yet in spite of having the odds in my favor, the scale I finally decided on was too small. The map played fine but ended up being a better size for 4v4 than the 16v16 TDMs I'd like to accommodate.
In addition to that problem, I ended up with rainbow colored hands because forgot to add a light grid, but I did find an explanation on how to do that.2 You might also notice I added a bridge with an arched passage way, woohoo a new tool!3 The tool I used to make the triangle on the other hand was something I accidentally figured out. So here's my explanation... Step 1: make a brush. Step 2: Hold ctrl and RMB click outside of the brush. Step 3: Keep holding ctrl bring the mouse to the other side of the brush and RMB click. Step 4: Let go. Step 5: You should see a preview of your work. Step 5: press Enter and say bye bye to that useless piece you just cut off! Hope that helped.

1 COD4 Radiant: Gameplay standards
2 CoD4 Radiant: Creating a grid file
3 CoD4 Radiant: Making arches

Note: Here's a short vid that helped me understand the mapping process.

CoD4 Radiant: test run

I got the test map from yesterday running as a team deathmatch. As far as adding stuff, I extended the terrain away from the road to experiment with hills and ditches. I also made an open room at the end of the road for a structure. I attempted making something complex but I'd recommend planning out your building before randomly making something, I had to delete that mess. To finish it up, I had to place some spawnpoints for team deathmatch, make a skybox, and add reflection probes.1

1 CoD2 Radiant: Making a basic map - although it's for CoD2, I still found it very useful.
CoD4 Radiant: Reflection Probes

CoD4 Radiant: Terrain Patches and Models

So far so good, I created this outdoorsy section of road following the tutorials on the Infinity Ward wiki. I started familiarizing myself with Terrain Patches, which in other words, consists of molding terrain and blending textures on its surface to give it that look of authenticity. I made a ridiculous road that zigzags every few feet, added some nice grooves for tire tracks, and inclined the ground flanking my mud road. I basically followed the wiki word for word.1

With that done, I started to add some objects, meaning grass and pine trees by following the tutorial.2 So I'll leave it at that.
I feel accomplished and am glad I took time out of this lovely evening getting to know the beautiful and mysterious Radiant.

1 CoD4 Radiant: Making a terrain patch, CoD4 Radiant: Editing terrain tutorial
2 CoD4 Radiant: Model tutorial

Infinity Ward CoD4 MP Mapping Contest

Hmmm...
It would be a shame not to take advantage of this opportunity. So we'll be diverting our attention away from the Crysis single player map for the time being.

My goals now are to follow this competition and to begin developing our own multiplayer map. By the end of this week I should become pretty familiar with Radiant, by reading up on the wiki, 1 forums, 2 and studying the source maps provided with the CoD4 mod tools. So that by the weekend I'll have a simple map in which I can play with different ideas in mp map design.

1 CoD4 Mod Tools Wiki
2 CoD4 (PC) Mapping forum

Time to decide a single player platform.

Between the two games I've been playing, Crysis and Call of Duty 4, I've come to the decision of using Crysis to . In my review of the Radiant (Call of Duty 4) and Sandbox 2 (Crysis) editors, I found Sandbox 2 to be easier to use. Although it still lacks the SDK, I should be busy enough figuring out the inner workings of the sandbox until then, and not to mention all the possibilities I can conjure up using a jungle environment, North Koreans, aliens, the US Army... and maybe even a giant chicken? 1
With that decision made, I spent most of today messing around in Sandbox, reading the CryMod message boards, and watching some video tutorials. 2

1 ModsOnline - very useful tutorials and forums (Crysis 101 Mapping)
2 official Crysis Mod forum

Welcome

to the Seeing Red blog!
Our purpose is to document the process of creating new experiences for popular first person shooters on the PC using development tools provided by the developers of our favorite games, such as Crysis and Call of Duty 4.
So far our knowledge is minimal, but through our initial learning experience we hope to provide a useful resource for beginners at this time. Thank you for your interest.

So begins the story of bringing to life the worlds we so desperately desire...