[AelrothFr]

Hello everyone!

First of all, i need to apologize for my poor english. it may heart your eyes but i'll try my best!

Let me announce myself, just few words:
I'm actually 26 years old, co-owner of BEDEV, young startup from France and proud dad of 2 young child.
Till my childhood, i played a lot of strategic and tactical games but far from all, the best i have played was close combat series.
I remember the time when my father and I went to his "barrack" (he's actually an officer in French army) where he used to train his soldiers with CC3 (not a joke, he really used this game in order to demonstrate some tactical moves or how to use artillery/armored vehicule etc...)

And we spent a way to much hours playing one versus one on local net!

At this time, i didnt know what i could become later and now, here i am: well trained developper and always interested in games and the way they work.

Finally re installed Close Combat 5 a few month ago and then i asked myself: have you ever wanted to create your own mod?

It's a fact that we have enough mod to actually not get bored by this excellent game. But... it's a goal i want to reach, at least to have the pride to show it to my dad (and maybe snatch some tears from his stern face !)

First, i needed to understand how this game works and how far it can be changed. And i found CCS.net... with full of support and tools to help modding it! Serisouly guys, you rock!

I then begin to work like i'm used to when i create something new: try what i learned, realize that i missed  soooo much tips and restart until it works.

The beginning was to create a map and as far as i am, its not even finished   but it's why i'm coming here. I would be pleased to have your honnest and well informed opinion for all the stuff i will create.

So, there is my plan: creating scenarios, (not from accurate historical context) around random places where all the maps are really "neighbor" No more jumping from one quarter of a big city to one lost meadow, far from this city.
It will not make sense for a lot of you but ... this is what i wanted to see when i was young
Here the first choosen place, as simple as possible so that i can understand how to make a good map (its appearance at least)




And after few hours of Photoshop :



There are few things i want to change soon:
  - trees are simple and have just one occurence -> add more pattern, for their "head" and shadows.
  - find more bushes and stuff that would make forest biome more "intense"
  - rework the end of the road
  - add the rest of the vegetation (buildings will come later
  - add some "tire tracks" near the NE forest (need some layer to do this)

It's a work in progress and you may want to criticize me for not finishing this before posting it. i can understand but we all begin from little things and i want to do it the best i can.

Thanks a lot for reading this long post and hope you'll enjoy my progress in this huge task as much as i will.

See you soon, commanders.

[Bungarra]

Carry on brother....

Great to see your post

CC is the greatest game ever....  

[Pete]

Welcome Aelroth, glad to see a new mapmaker to enter the scene. It is a dying breed...
I like your idea of a 'seamless' battle ground. This has not been done before the way you envision it. The Ortona mod has some maps that link up well or even overlap.
More on mapmaking can be found here: Closecombat.org . Here is a link to Dodam's textures: Dodam's textures .
For scenario making CC5 might not be your best option. You should check out Cross of Iron or CC Modern Tactics. Both don't have a strategic map but allow for more customisation of the battles.

[ke_mechial]

Glad to see new CC modders with passion. By the way, your dad made a good choice using CC3 then.

[AelrothFr]

Thanks a lot for all your replies.

I've just finished the first map (without your texture's pack Pete but i really enjoy it and i will use some for sure ).

I will post a picture tomorrow, because i'm trying to use 5CC in order to understand how this app works.

There is one thing that i have a lot of misscomprehension : LOS (lign of sight?) With all kind of calculation, it doesn't seem correct. A 2 floor house cannot see out from his own cell.

Do you have another option for making a scenario? By the way it will be far enough from my actual work, so i can search a better use of thoose "neighboor" maps.

See you soon, commanders.

[Pete]

If you can not see out of a 2 storey house then the height coding is wrong or you coded an element next to it that has a greater height value .

[Pete]

[AelrothFr]

Hi Pete, thank for your multiple answers!

I will try to adjust the pixel one by one for each house , i think im not accurate enough when i set the element in 5CC.

Should i set the elevation manually for houses? like i did with the shellholes?

Another question: i created a map for CC/CC2/CC3/CC5 etc... when 5CC asked me at the beginning of the "new map creation". Will it work with Longest Day? So that i can try to put a more "malleable" custome campaign?

Here a new picture of my actual work (finished map).



What you guys do you think about it? Any suggestion to make it better?

See you soon, commanders.

[ScnelleMeyer]

Congrats on your first map AelrothFr!  - That is really an accomplishment. - Very well done buddy.
The community really need more mappers and modders.

- I think its really cool that you used GtC terrain textures and buildings for a CC5 map.

When you code the houses with terrain elements, it is auto coded with elevation corresponding to what floor level the element used were.

Maps coded with CC5 elements are good for TLD. No changes needed. Did you use cc5 elements?

[AelrothFr]

Thanks a lot ScnelleMeyer! Glad to see an active community on this old game!

I actually use cc5 elements yes.

Will take a look much deeper at thoose elements and elevation this weekend. Maybe i will be able to give you the map for some free trial evaluation :p

See you soon, commanders.

[GameRat]

hi AelrothFr,
Nice work, really seems to capture the feel of Normandy countryside.
I really like the grass textures done around buildings, roads, and road/field transition, etc. And also like details thoughout the map.

Questions:
1. are textures for this map yours, or from GTC textures?
2. did you custom make roads, stone fence, buildings, etc ... or is it copy and pastes from othere maps?

Comments:
I prefer Normandy trees in CC to be much smaller than compared to real life ... although I like lots of variety of tree types.
The green field crops texture seems to be a bit blurry, and I think it would look better scaled smaller and with sharper detail ... more similar to aerial photo you showed earlier in topic.

[GameRat]

And how did you create the hedges?

[AelrothFr]

Hi GameRat! Thank you for your feedbacks, always pleased to read good advices and propositions!

Most of thoose textures come from original GTC maps. i have done some work on them, for having like "patterns" that i can combine. It's the case for houses too

Shellholes, roads etc are layers that i can just put and "rework".

I've spent most of my hours on transitions between thoose elements, and making all the shadows, in order to get it more realist.

I would like to have more variety of tree too, i will create them more for next maps.

Hedges are from GTC! AS same as my others patterns, i took some pieces from existent maps and made a new layer on Psd, where i can
assemble all of them and work for details. I already have some layers to share if you guys are interested.

See you soon, commanders.

[GameRat]

Good success with your project

[Pete]

I am impressed with your first map  

[AelrothFr]

Sooooo i'm facing some problems when i try to play this map in CC5!

I have an error that occurred when i select the map and launch it. It says : blablabla.txt is corrupted.

Any idea?

In this .txt i saw that all elevations are set to 193 (i choose it), except pixels that i changed manually. For all others pixels that should be automatically modify with elements table , there is no change on this value. So i have 193 almost everywhere.

Another strange fact is that all .btd (for victory locations) from CC5 maps can't be read by any of my apps. (notepad++, sublimeText3 , visual studio...)

But .btd from GtC can be read and modify easily.

Thanks for your help !

[Mafi]

Bonjour AelrothFr,

elevation of 193 might be much to high. Choose "20" as basic medium elevation.

Cheers
Mafi

[Pete]

Hi Aelroth,

CC5 btd's should be edited using mafi's btd editor. You can find it here: BTD Editor
Newer version use text files that can be easily edited but mafi's editor visualizes the position of the vl on the map. It is an invaluable tool.

[AelrothFr]

Hello Mafi and Pete, thank you both for your replies!

Your tools, Mafi, are really awesome! I really enjoy using them.

I used BTD editor to change vl etc and it seems to work on "overview".

But unfortunately, the .txt corrupted doesn't want to stop giving me this error...

I really don't know what's wrong.
Could someone have a look at my files?

It's frustrating to be blocked here, so close from a playable map...

PS: All the elevations are set to 0 right now

[Antony_nz]

Hi, i just want to say how good it is that your learning to make maps and don't give up!
I think effective map makers are lacking and are a obstacle towards making many new mods. Modders really could use a guy like you to make some fresh Vietnam or pacific maps.
I wish you luck.