Graviteam

First try to put in the game a building :D
Well, to say the true - there's no difference at all, if we compare building vs bunker(DOT). Place a several turrets vs MG+RPZ and we'll have a tank(bulding) in the town ;) (same as hangar)
 Building model made by Donken.

(http://xmages.net/storage/10/1/0/0/0/thumb/thumb_742ee71e.jpg) (http://xmages.net/view.php/94583)    (http://xmages.net/storage/10/1/0/6/a/thumb/thumb_f310eddb.jpg) (http://xmages.net/view.php/94584)

Good work!  How does the AI react to it? Does it block their sightlines and wayfinding?  I see the troops have made a nice home in the building!

This is one thing we are going to investigate. Hopefully its gonna work fine. Hold your thumbs :D

And this building complex is made of 2800 vertices and 2300 polys. I can probably make it alot less. But that is also something thats need investigating. To find out the limit of poly count (without slowing it down to much) on the map and stuff like that. This is just a very big experiment.

What about roads and paving? I imagine that SF engine couldnt manage that with the terrain mesh so would instead have to be a low, flat object itself...and would tanks drive over it?

There are two ways to make roads, either make a road with meshes wich im gonna experiment with or if that fails just make a road on the terrain. Making road segments with meshes shouldnt be a problem. They can be made of just 8 vertices and 6 polys each (think a textured flat box) should be the same as making a bridge, they work to drive over. But same there. Maybe the vertice count on the whole map gets to big so making road segments can be impossible. One other solution is to model the whole road for the whole city as one low poly segment.

The next step - place infantry inside building(crew~10 soldiers). The size of building should be decreased twice, imho. Suppose, we need to create a new damage box, i.e. p_dmg01, which will be responsible only for the fire appearing.

Anyone who wants to check AI behavior in urban areas i suggest to fire up the "Baranovice" Mission in the Barbarossa campaign.
I think AI does a good job there in a area with 130+ buildings. I placed a lot of forbidden areas around the buildings. Roads are wide enough for tank moving. The few houses that were destroyed by overrunning tanks are the ones without forbidden areas.
And i don´t think AI see and fire through buildings but i´m not sure. 

The Ai can't see and shoot through buildings but the AP shells do????While the HE shells will tear the building or hosue down the AP shells will go straight through it and kill whtever is hiding.I have done  it countless times killing tanks or apcs hiding behind a building unseen except for the muzzle flash or smoke and the shell goes straight through without harming the building.Obviously a bug.

Sometimes AP shell also doesn't work when hit APC(sdkfz). I think the problem is that AP shell works only, if armor thickness ~30mm.

AP shells work fine on BT and T-26 and they have 15 mm armor.

T-26 and BT has    armor_str=2200;
It does an additional armor ~30mm. Totally: ~45mm

Armor_str=1500
(http://ximages.net/images/28039738841320281933_thumb.jpg) (http://ximages.net/viewer.php?file=28039738841320281933.jpg)

armor_str=2200 makes the armor equivalent to 20-30% thicker armor with armor_str=2000.
I.e.  60 mm with 2200 = 80 mm with 2000. 15 mm with 2200 = 20 mm with 2000.

Wow, that's a big building! Any reasons for starting so big?

These would be good too:

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-KPHF7lAKdrE/T0YDRSfEAKI/AAAAAAAABkA/6n37NABdgdo/s800/villersbocage.jpg)

MIstwalker are you saying that the arm_str values for both BT and T-26 should be set at 1500?

I didn't have such info and as I told before: sometimes it works, sometimes not. According to my experience: the thinner armor  - the bigger chance that AT doesn't work. A classic sample when AP goes through building and sdkfz.

Some time in the distant past, I did a short write-up on how to add in new buildings (lovely and in-scale) to the game:

Donken's Barn, the easy-learning series. (http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=9671.0)

Well, the question is how to place a soldiers ;)

Well, first i want to test real "city battles", Imagine the last month in ww2 when they where fighting in Berlin. Kind of like that is what i want to test first. So the buildings i have atm are mostly "Berlin" buildings. Thats why it is so big :D

We need a church too! Imagine shooting out the bell tower... :D

Sacrilege! Destroying Berlin?Fighting from a church????You are both being banned by Punkbuster!Stated reason" You displeased Frinik" ;D

This made my night.

But its only to get rid of that pesky Amerikanische sniper!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgHRj2-vvs8

(flashforward 50 years) The SPG doesn't get authorization from the German high command to fire on a religious structure, lest it piss off the population. Eventually, the sniper uses up all the ammo at his disposal and falls to his death on the way down. (Que obvious correlation to the Iraq conflict) :)

haha anyways, I am really looking forward to this. Is there a way to garrison infantry in buildings?

Whukid: Yes it is, both as passengers and crew, Me and lockie is gonna cheat a little and dont make the buildings as "buildings". We are gonna use the same technique as on the Bunkers (DOT:s).
That way its making this alot less complicated. Downside is you cant destroy the buildings (only kill the "crew" in them). But i have a few ideas about that also im gonna test with.

And also good news, I have done a little counting in 3dsmax and with an ol' good calculator and with LoDs and if i attach buildings to eachother in max and make 6 buildings to 1 element and with lods we can probably fill a whole map with buildings. Atleast cover it by 1x1km. of course im gonna test with a 2x2km also!
Exemple:

Building1 - lod1 = 360vertices and 660 polys
               lod2 = 130vertices and 180 polys
               lod3 = 26vertices and 31 polys

And that is one of the more "advanced" buildings. The least advanced one have 12 vertices and 15 polys at lod3. So placing like 100 of them on a map shouldnt slow down the simulation at all.
Compared to tank igm: Panther A are made of 34000 vertices and 39000 polys.

Just a thought,
If there were some way to make the buildings' hit-boxes enclose a hollow area, you could have infantry, guns and vehicles located within, and have them recognized as building objects instead of tanks,

What do you mean Kyth? I dont understand :D

I think Kyth means to say that currently the buildings present in the game only have hit boxes for the outside since nothing is allowed to go inside as for all intent and purposes the buildings are collapsible but cannot be accessed by the infantry.

Yes, I guess I wasn't very clear ;D

The buildings in the game are set up as solid blocks, so you can't place anyone inside.
What if they were hollow, like the real things? With openings for doors and windows, and multiple storeys.
That might be a better solution, instead of having tanks masquerading as buildings.

In fact, in the game all buildings-tanks(there're only DOT's) identifies by AI as "MG point" and it's quite clear, coz DOT's means exactly MG. "Tank" means a specific way how to place a building in the game.

Yes I understand the point you're making.

Just wondering of there's any better way, to put infantry in buildings. It's worth considering, I think,

There are some disadvantages to the current method:

- The 'crew-places' for the buildings will be fixed. i.e. MG will always be at Window A, Infantry always at Balcony B, ATgun at Doorway C, etc. etc. which would eliminate the 'element of surprise' in city fighting.

- The tactical map will display these buildings as 'tanks', with the little diamond symbols, which is rather distracting and misleading.

I haven't experimented on this, so maybe this is actually the only possible way to do it?

It's not a problem, coz i.e. tanks also has fixed MGs and guns.

Nope.

You missed the 2nd part of my point: The lack of randomness.


As you may have noticed, tanks have some mobility, and they can turn up at different places, different times. I don't think buildings have that option  :)

I'm proposing an alternative, i.e. new buildings with internal rooms, where various units can be deployed, with some random probability of appearance.

It's worth considering, unless we know for sure that it's impossible in the game, 

Maybe random crews in buildings can be fixed anyway. Is it possible to make dummys appear random under randoms() in the xxx.engcfg files? That way the "crews" inside the buildings appear random by default if it works.

I like Kyth's suggestion.Randomness defintely sounds more appealing than the predictable. It would also make urban battles more exciting and  dangerous for the tanks.Imagine putting panzerschreck teams with a random probability of appearance. :)

There're some teasers from master Donken ;)
(http://xmages.net/storage/10/1/0/d/a/thumb/thumb_78504b0a.jpg) (http://xmages.net/view.php/95076)   (http://xmages.net/storage/10/1/0/a/f/thumb/thumb_337e7d70.jpg) (http://xmages.net/view.php/95077)   (http://xmages.net/storage/10/1/0/d/e/thumb/thumb_e84fdcea.jpg) (http://xmages.net/view.php/95078)

I have also thought about this, but i havent figured it out yet to make it totally random.
But if i understand you correct Kyth you mean like this, that if i make the house hollow it is possible to order infantry by script? to go into that hollow space and fire from there?
I have no knowledge or experiance with the mission editor so i have no idea how ai vehicles/infantry behave or what they can do with scripts and triggers and all for me unknown names. So all your help is most welcomed :D

A few questions to map makers: Is it possible to make the game choose a tank or platoon random in a countour? If yes one thing i can do is to make different sets of the same building but with different crews inside. and with each different battle there is a random house. That way we dont know if and what troops there are inside.
Or is it possible to make a tank/bunker/field gun neutral and then order a platoon to mount that item and use it? Thats another possibility to make stuff appear random.

And Kyth, you have experiance to import buildings and make them work. Do you know the limitations of sizes of the buildings, and is it a must to have them destroyable. Im not shure just yet what technique is the best to use for the buildings. There are limitations in so many ways.
I need to think about polycount (so not so many parts or small parts if destroyable) and the total polycount. The limit for techniques for each side on the map (130 pieces of equipment i think lockie mentioned) So because of that i need to attach 5 or more houses to eachother to make them as one piece.

But all ideas or thoughts everyone have is most welcome. The more the merrier :D

On the third picture i took in lockies thread above this, the square with buildings consist of 12 pieces (its easy to make them 4 pieces if the game engine can handle it) and they cover a 300x300m square, According to that it should be very much doable to cover a whole map with buildings and still only have a low piece count.

Yes.

Easy money. U can set up tank with a chance from 0 to 100% of appearing on the map.

It's possible and goes without saying, but with a random appearing there's always a chance that building wont appear at all.

Theoretically it's possible, but we need to investigate more.

Well, it is a must that the buildings must appear 100% of the time. But i meant just about the crew, if you can make them appear random in a tank. And also by making it random in a countour, same there, i meant not random if it appear or not, just random between two different techniques, but one of them is always there to 100%. only wich one of them must be random :P

Nope, according to my experience it's impossible. Tank crew always has a file description: tank_places.engcfg

Nope, it's impossible to do such thing, of course, according to my experience.

Whew a lot of questions, some replies,

It sounds logical.
I figure that the game has some kind of collision-detection for all the buildings. But if you configure some empty spaces and openings (doors, I mean  :)) which aren't covered by 'collision-boxes', the infantry could enter and position themselves there.

If you notice, they don't have any problem moving between and around trees,


Yes its possible to have a random tank appear in a contour. There's a "randoms()" section in the common-units file that you could set up the random tanks in a platoon.


The destruction model can be simplified down to just one or two fragments, if you wish. I find that if they're assigned the "stone" material, they're quite tough and durable.

Yes, it's possible to have one "tank" always be a Panzer IV, for instance, and combine it with a second tank that could be something else, say a Panzer III, or Panzer 38(t) etc. etc. with a random probability.

I'm guessing what you want is a 50 : 50 chance of either vehicle A or vehicle B appearing at a particular spot?

Yes, thats exactly what i wanted. That way i can make 1 "building" without crew and 1 "building" with crew. And have them at 50/50 random at that spot if i understood correct. That should fix the problem and give us surprises when rolling down a street :D

Or, you could consider the other method, where one building(a real one), can have any type of unit housed within,

I reanimated the project "Building in town", coz I got a very positive result. Finally, we have a "Housemodule" in the game and it works near perfect:
- no more invisible walls
- no more drowning of the tanks into asphalt  ;D
Of course, the problem was in "reset x-form", again  :D
Some screens.
(http://s5.postimg.org/cvjhwx5ar/0002.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/cvjhwx5ar/)   (http://s5.postimg.org/41slftic3/0003.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/41slftic3/)   (http://s5.postimg.org/r4j4ezjtf/0004.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/r4j4ezjtf/)
So, now we need a couple `building_tanks` with a random members of the crew. Then place `building_tanks` in the town and be prepared to defend the Fatherland (Part II) ;)

This looks fantastic :)  Great work!!

Of course, I knew Lockie would succeed because he just loves shooting bricks... ;D

Good work Lockie! Looking forward to it because now we can try some urban warfare scenarios in SF missions.

Meanwhile the defence of the Fatherland was strengthened by the newly designed pillbox!
(http://s5.postimg.org/ofoboyec3/pilbox01.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/ofoboyec3/)   (http://s5.postimg.org/pjd1enocz/pollbox02.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/pjd1enocz/)
Thanks to Maleshkin for the pictures!

Do you think it would possible for Maleshkin to modify these lovely pillboxes to remove the top part( the roof) so we could put AT or artillery guns inside? In other words create a more realistic and effective anti tank/artillery positions so the guns are not so exposed? That would allow to make tougher, more challenging defensive missions against the heavy tanks and spgs....

Stug's missions against "The Stalin Line" would be cool!

I'd prefer the `Brumbauer`!

PS
Project becomes bigger. Railroad station is about to receive a train!  8) :o
(http://s5.postimg.org/mgcbba9eb/BR52.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/mgcbba9eb/)
Thanks to Maleshkin for the picture!

Soldiers, machine guns and atgs can't occupy buildings correct?

There will be a trick. A housemodule will be made as unmovable tank with a 10 members of the crew(may be more. I'm planning 2 rpg, 2-3MG, sniper, MP38, grenademan etc). There will be 3-4 such `build-tanks` where tankmen will take the different places from one unit to other. In the mission at the every start each `build-tank` will take randomly a pre-defined positions(contours). Thus, user`s tank will have a chance to see unpredictable `hello` from the different windows :D
We'll think will it be possible to give the new unit a special category. This project has a long history and I hope it'll see the light finally ;)

 ;D