Raap

Because... Why not? It was literally as you say - two V2's slapped together (and re-rigged, etc.). It's not a serious vehicle and most likely you won't even see it in the map. Nonetheless I'll probably finish the model with a camouflaged SAM Site texture and call it a day. At least then a basic "placeholder-ish" model will exist for dedicated Soviet Anti-air, to go along with the Allied Mobile A A Gun, which was also a glue job. Also in case you're wondering why I didn't use another vehicle as a base - The Soviets didn't have a truck of any sort of their own, unlike the Allies which can use the Gap truck. A single V2 was too small, so I merged two to make it truck-sized. Sometimes re-using assets makes a lot of sense both in terms of resources but also in a realistic way, since in the real world, people mount all sorts of things on top of trucks... And in times of war, anything that works, counts. It makes no sense to produce entirely new vehicles for a single weapon system, when you can modify existing ones to use them on. Edit: But don't put more thought into this. This isn't really part of Siege.

I had a moment to check out the new CanyonRiver. Great work Choppy, here are a few thoughts: The tunnels got visible terrain seams - this is not your fault, this is a W3D issue that I also battle a lot. But you can remedy it by adding a mesh around the caves to act as a "wrapper", this will also make the caves a bit darker as it blocks more light. If you ever get this issue with buildings, flag the biggest elements as 2-sided to remedy those cases for the most part (2-sided materials on meshes also happens to combat camera clip exploiting). I thought the ladders attached to the cliffs were a neat idea! 3-way material locations such as tunnel exits can get covered up with rocks more easily by making the transition blend area smaller and more manageable to cover up. (3/4-way blending is still on my long W3D engine wishlist, but that's not likely to ever become a reality, so we're stuck with... "creative" solutions.) The cave sunlight effect was cute. I was experimenting with such effects for a CanyonRiver update that was never finished, although my cave was very different (uglier and unfinished), as far as my memory goes. Lots of trees, I'm wondering how the engine even deals with it, since the design of the map isn't very VIS friendly (you can see from base to base). Perhaps I can review your VIS implementation so I can apply it similarly to Siege? Such a pretty map, but you had to ruin it by using my old, ugly, Bonsai wooden bridge model? Why. Some tight tunnel and cliff spaces such as the one near the fuel barrel behind the Soviet base, are recipes for latency based frustration. Consider applying collision meshes in such spots to smooth out player movement to avoid incidental falling or rubber banding. W3D netcode is just too unreliable. Plenty of off-map routes ensure this canyon isn't a box canyon, so good thinking there. Above the Allied base, on the top road, there are some black 'twigs' sticking out of the ground. Seems like a proxy gone bad. Scripted weather makes me wish we had dynamic day/night cycles in W3D that ensures each map players differently based on real world times... Unfortunately, W3D's (terrain-) lighting isn't capable of anything like this. Lots of unused space in terms of gameplay. I'm much in favor of map-specific gameplay elements to fill up such spaces with a purpose. The flowers near the graves were a nice touch. A suggestion, but each time you make a new piece of foliage or a rock, consider dumping them into a shared assets file so other maps can use them as well. It means that other maps can get time assigned for new props rather than re-creating environmental elements time and time again. It's easy enough to swap a material when a model and unwrap are already done. Lastly, running around in CanyonRiver only really helps to support my line of thinking, that time should be spent more on updating existing maps in terms of visuals and gameplay, rather than pumping out new maps all the time. Despite Delta's raising of the bar, notable inconsistencies remain between the various existing maps. Improving commonly used assets, like base buildings or civilian props, should be part of this. It's best to start with this sort of thing soon, and not when you got 50 different levels to update. If time allows, I could assist with this after my 3rd and final map contribution is completed.

Man-made terrain or large structures requires a significant amount of time. The castle walls on Siege uses 15 different textures, and that's just the stone, and not counting the wooden rampart segments and props/foliage... For a WALL. Imagine an entire city? This is why few games have very significant urban environments, and if they do, then it often involves a lot of re-used assets all over the place. Level design/environment development is one of the most time consuming tasks in game development, and the least re-usable. You make a vehicle or character model once and you can easily re-use it across your project, but you're not going to be re-using significant level segments. APB Delta has reached a point where, in my opinion, focus should be less on new maps, but more on improved assets for all maps, in order to improve the gameplay within the existing content. New base buildings have been on a wishlist for a long time, for example. If I had more time, I would have been happy to make new buildings (I've already had to do so for HW), especially since creating buildings and interiors is quite a fun task.

I needed to take my mind of some real life matters, and I found myself with a glue kit, and ended up with... (UPDATE: This unit is NOT part of Siege!) A Mobile SAM, because we already have a Mobile AA Gun so I figured, why not... Since dual turrets were not achievable, the rear one is "disabled". I'm not sure if this vehicle will be present in the map, though.

It was going to be, but the patch got delayed, and now my RL schedule is full. I got no further ETA for now, but know that the level is nearly finished. It's VIS implementation that I may no longer have the time for, however, and since no one else can do that, I cannot give an ETA.

I miss ClassicFjord (I think that was the name). Good fun. A successor to that map remains my 3rd and final planned contribution to APB. But it will not be a direct remake.

It's always good to see another classic map remade. I think we still got a few left that haven't been remade yet, but that list is getting shorter now.

Well, as you know, I've implemented a mini side-feature to Siege which hasn't really been done before. If it proves to be a fun addition to the general gameplay of APB, it'll open the door for more of these mini-additions to various maps. Once that happens, anything becomes possible.

Okay.

I could always bring blue hell back as a map feature. I really could. I'm not sure if I really should.

This might have a lot to do with half the users here being non-Americans, and don't live that close to home of the subject. I speak for myself here, but in my country I have learned to take "politics" with a grain of salt. At the fundamental level, it's 90% talk, 10% compromised action. What you vote for will rarely actually happen, due to various factors I can appropriately phrase as "cock blocking by opposing parties". I have never voted in my life for this reason, and if I did decide to vote, I might be able to relate to some portion of the Trump voters - Voting on an extreme, to try and break the system and cause reformations. But truth be told, breaking any system is a big risk.

I'll avoid answering that due to not being very up to date on the state of the economy in the UK. I do know that my country, as a traditional trade based country, has expressed concerns about the Brexit. But the bottom line is, people need to trade, and people will always be trading, so I personally doubt any country will want to limit that. What you instead could be looking at is higher import taxes for goods from Asia.

This circus show had me face-palm through it every time I read about it. The result cannot be good for what we currently still know as "the west", and I do believe some significant break-ups in various levels will occur over the next four years. I do feel for the American citizens right now however, because the truth is, they had to make a vote between a pile of horse shit and a bucket of urine. Having two "bad" choices would probably have left a lot of people with a mentality similar to just saying "Fuck it, let's vote Trump and see how bad shit can really get". Political parties in my country have already expressed concerns, and will be "holding back" more in terms of relations with America, should Trump indeed show signs of commitment to his campaign outings. Some are of course happy with the result, including The Netherland's very own version of Trump; Geert Wilders. The - what we call "extreme right" - are seemingly gaining momentum in countries such as America, France, and my own. And I just keep asking myself, why do people support these parties, when in general the state of our economy hasn't been as good as it is now compared to recent years? It all comes down to one single subject; Immigration, or as some call it, the invasion of Muslims under the guise of "refugees", and America has South America on top of that as well. The fact that individual nations in Europe and States in America have little so say in these matters, also plays a big role in this, and ties to that isolationist mentality of "regaining control". These are strange times. What we need is leaders who see people's concerns, share them, and act swiftly on them (Muslim immigration for example), while still keeping a cool head regarding other, less vocal subjects. For reasons unknown, this seems to be a political gap nearly everywhere, either extreme left "everyone is welcome", or extreme right "shut every door" policies run the show. The middle ground does not exist.

In my mind I somehow read this as 20 years of APB. Sometimes it feels that long...

General life signs update: Progress continues, and a previously scrapped feature is implemented (you'll have to discover what that is). This is a "proof of concept" feature and if people enjoy it, you might see more of them. I'm down to a final short list of things to do, mostly straight forward things, although a little time consuming. The map might see a release sooner rather than later, but I'll avoid posting any more previews from now on. Update 11/11/2016: We're looking at a delay, due to APB patching delays.

That would explain the differences.

I thought I did but I added a collision mesh later which didn't have it, so I'll re-verify later... Doesn't change the fact it works fine for tile presets but not 'simple' ones, though.

Quick headsup, but the Prelit=true flag does not work equally well on non-tile presets. If you flag a 3DS object with it and set it up as for example a simple object in LevelEdit, the vertex solve still affects it somehow, darkening it. Noticed this while doing battle with a specific map mechanic for Siege. It caused me to use tiles instead (and since these were animated objects, exporting as terrain wasn't an option).

The combined 3DS filesizes (including the files for various map assets) is 170MB, textures NOT included, of course. This should be of no relevance. The performance is slow in Delta maps as well (Pushwall handed me 2-3 map files when I started out on Hostile Waters), but on Siege it is worse due to the scale of the project. I'm on Windows10, which 3DS Max 8 doesn't support properly as you can imagine given the age of the software. Crashes and bad performance aren't the only problem, right-clicking in viewport space to open the options dialog permanently leaves that area of my screen "frozen" in time, and using a program like GIMP while 3DS is up causes various issues in GIMP in relation to drop down menus. But removing all forms of wireframe solves the performance issues... But that's all. As for too much map detail, heh, I haven't even started with trees and bushes yet. I'm already preparing for disaster. The problem is simply in 3DS Max 8 being too old. Unfortunately upgrading to a newer 3DS is impossible due to the license cost (which they now charge you MONTHLY for instead of a one time payment!), as well as a non-functional W3D plugin. If I had to speak my mind, I'd say that any programming staff members should consider prioritizing writing an alternative W3D asset conversion tool which allows input from a wider range of 3D formats including newer software (not just crazy expensive 3DS Max). As time goes on, these old development tools will become harder and harder to work with for more and more people.

I use layers, and am often in wireframe mode but that's not always an option especially when your level has several depth layers, and I focus my display on only what I need to work on. I also use 4 different files that split up the level. Wireframe mode, for the record, has almost no impact on the dire performance. Alt+W does not make a difference (tested to be sure), to explain why; 3DS does not actively render the inactive viewports (but you can set an option so that it does render all viewports, for whatever reason one might want to do that). I switch between the displays a lot as well, notably top-down view, also to eliminate as much of the performance issues as possible. The performance issues aren't just with viewport camera rotation or movement, it is also affecting the entire 3DS GUI. It's absolutely a software issue, as my hardware surpasses the 3DS Max 8-era recommended specs by years. It's simply a case of the software just being too old, and probably not playing nice with modern drivers and operating systems. Edit: I forgot to mention, but the only solution that improves my performance in 3DS substantially, is to remove the wireframes entirely. But as one can suspect, that would make the mesh unworkable.

I have no idea how this conjuration magic 3D printing stuff works, I've never had the [staff of Divine Supremacy] budget for just testing gimmicks like that. Looks great though!

Progress is going slowly due to 3DS Max 8 fighting me at every turn, and generally performing really poorly. If you ever tried playing a shooter with 3 FPS then you can roughly draw a comparison how working with 3DS Max 8 is on a level for APB Delta (too many polygons, objects, and materials in a single scene - even when the level is split up into 4 different files). Throw in a few crashes and you get little work done... But despite the setbacks I've managed to fix a number of items on my to-do list, and the beach route is halfway finished. Due to performance concerns, the courtyard will only be filled with trees for cover. I'd love to provide more detailed cover variation but with the development tools already screaming at me as it is (I'm screaming right back at the tools, also), I'm going to have to keep it fairly empty. Once Siege is done, it marks the end for me when it comes to large scaled APB maps, so Siege will be the last of it's kind. Smaller maps are much less of a burden to work on.

Currently finished the ramparts and balcony. Still need to polish up; Courtyard, beach route, bases, map background. (Edit: the caves were finished a while ago.) Still on target for mid november QA testing (without VIS), trying to aim for Friday 11th delivery, but potentially I might require another week.

Mostly that, yes. I ended up added a 2nd wood part (the top/bottom) because unwrapping a shape like the wood of the barrel in 3DS Max 8 would take 3 years and some eye stabbing. Do note though that all the types of pieces you see from each barrel, is in fact a single draw call due to being a merged mesh, so in total these barrels are only 3 objects throughout that area. The crate was simple to unwrap because in essence, it is a plane with a few titled angles that even 3DS Max 8 could easily flatten. In a perfect world I'd unwrap everything. But in a perfect world I'd have access to the latest development tools as well. I don't have an income large enough to live in that world. Also, something you don't see is that these barrels have a collision mesh to avoid getting stuck on the metal edges. A lot of parts in Siege actually uses a collision mesh instead of physical collision settings on the actual mesh for this reason - Stack of crates? Collision mesh. Support beams? Collision mesh. Aesthetic hole in terrain? Collision mesh. Bridge with uneven distribution of planks? You get the idea. This adds a bit of extra development time to everything I make, but it ensures optimal gameplay due to removing stuck issues and minimizes the impact of network latency issues. Edit: Perhaps some people may notice it, but I put some effort into ensuring all the different types of wood have different colors. This adds a contrast of color to the otherwise very bleak level, and breaks pattern repetition.

As a small update to the previous post, two additional map props have been added (3-object wooden barrel, unwrapped single object crate with custom texture). A few more new map props will be added over time, but as with the custom textures, there is only so many I can include within a single map project, but they are all re-usable for future maps. I'm currently trying to work at least two hours per day on Siege, which means progress is slow, but steady.