Nimitz 1.1 map

[toaster]

Here's a new map. No way I could get it done in time for the contest.

It's an aircraft carrier, Nimitz class, with a Seawolf escort. Also an S-3 Viking on final approach to the carrier deck with tailhook and gear down. (Don't trip on the arresting cables!) There are a couple of CH-47 Chinook helo's loitering, an F/A-18 Hornet on catapult 2, and a pair of F/A-18's on an overhead pass.

I played a few tricks in here. Good luck finding them all. Lots of teles, and there's not a place on the map you can't get to if you try hard enough.

Everything is upscaled just a bit, to make your tank feel kind of, but not completely, human-sized. Also, I took some editorial liberties. A real Nimitz has about 8 decks. I left out the 3rd deck, the 02 deck, and the Gallery 2 deck, and hundreds of bulkheads.

Elevators are all at half-mast to allow jumping between the hangar deck and the flight deck, past the Gallery. There are only 2 screws and turbines, not 4. Weapons elevators are really just openings to the Gallery. Some obstacles are purposely drive-through, to give the equivalent of OO without falling to the ocean bottom.

The Nimitz is floating in water, in a pretty shallow ocean. The only part of the Seawolf above water is the conning tower.

All CIWS platforms are accessible. Fore and aft teles are used to replace the ladders. Creative sorts will also find the teles of some use against gms.

Grumbler, if you want to bring it up on galkire, feel free. Might be fun to have lots of folks in it.

Enjoy!

[trepan]

Wow.
There are a couple of minor flickering
zones and what not, but all-in-all, wow.
(artisticly at least)

P.S. Love the sub's wake, nice touch

[toaster]

Thanks. I wondered how many people might notice that wake. I started on a larger wake for the Nimitz, but decided it was too many obstacles just now.

I haven't figured out how to reduce the flicker and still build the shapes I want. I tried bzmapper on it, and it cut the file size way down, but all the labels went away and I couldn't figure out what was what anymore. I do a lot of this by hand, bzedit for some placement, viewing, etc. Need an exit-without-save option in the editor. Also, need the ability to build things as a group and then move them around as a single object. This thing was really tough. Also found that bzedit drops labels on links once you've put them in. Can't wait for a few advances in an editor.

I compare the alignment issues to some of those you have, trepan, but i don't have a way to easily calculate all the angles in 3 space because there are just too many. It's overwhelming to do it by hand. I started that way, gave up before I laid the bottom deck plates completely. Can't imagine what it would be like now.

Also, I'd like to have smooth curve options. The Seawolf deserves a curved hull, but to make a better hull would require about 30 extra boxes, just that much more to map and reduce playability.

I'd like to have the ability to make a hole through an object. The flight deck has a lot of extra pieces just so that I could leave the openings for the weapons elevators. Similarly, it was a real pain to do the sides of the hull where the elevators rest. I did the ship herself on a 45 so that i could use symmetry in some of the design and keep space around her for other objects. It did allow some things to lay out better, but I'd never consider rotating it now!

[Grumbler]

ok, give me some time today, and i will put it up......err, i am going to run bzmapper on it first if there are a bunch of overlaps that clean up easy without destroying the map.....??.....is that ok?

bzedit shouldnt lose the tele names, what version are you running?


(oh yeah, if you have the nimitz saved off as a separate file, bzmapper can rotate it anyway you like......very swank)

[toaster]

I think there are probably a few overlaps in the F-18s that can be cleaned up. Fuselage overlaps with engines, and gear struts, perhaps. I didn't get too excited about them. The other overlaps are generally because of odd-shaped holes to fill with rectangular boxes, or because i got lazy in a couple of places on deck plates. My guess, less than 10 that make a diff. Feel free to do whatever you want with it. There are some special drivethrough and shootthrough objects.

I'm still running bzedit 1.6.2 because that fix you posted was missing some dll, and i never got around to trying to resolve it.

Didn't realize you could rotate with bzmapper. Still need my labels, though. There are lots of objects that I labelled so I could track them.

bzmapper and bzedit both remove the comment lines, too, which I was using to isolate things and group, so I finally gave up on comment lines. Is there a way to prevent label and comment loss in bzmapper? Guess I'd better find the docs, huh?

I think I'm going to have to develop the rest of the carrier group in seperate files, I think, and then just merge them.

[Grumbler]

docs, we dont need no stinkin docs.........ask trepan.


very simply, bzmapper handles complex objects, as a single object....ie grouping. so you can create a single Warthog, and then duplicate to your hearts content all over the map at random(and yes there is a random algo) all over the map.

it can also handle transporters, creating patterns.......as far as capabilities, it is far in advanced. depending on how long purple_cow takes with his new version of bzedit(multi-platform), i was considering embedding bzmapper in bzedit.........or someone else can if they have time.

trepan has several tutorials for the tool, and they begin to make sense as you get more familar with it.

i have used the tool with the Eggs and dragon maps, i did some time ago. I created small parts and then used bzmapper to place and create the transporter links.

if you are doing complex maps like this, i would suggest taking the time to look at it since it can simplify placing.

anyhow, enough of my infomercial.

[trepan]

Toaster, of all the map makers i've seen, i'd definitely
suggest you take 15 minutes to learn to use bzmapper
a little. It does groupings (with sizing, rotation, position),
and holes, and a bunch of other stuff that you might
find handy (like paths for smooth curves, a la Coliseum).
It does do labelling for groups, but maintains that
information in the 'name' labels. It does not keep the
comments (as you've mentionned).

If nothing else, you could use it to do some file merging
for ya. As an example, put an F18 in a file (centered at
0,0,0) and then do this in a bzmapper file:

define F18 # defines a group
# include the file, you could also
# just put you objects here
include "F18_file.bzw"
end

group F18 F18_1
pos 1 2 3
size 2 2 2
rot 30
end

group F18 F18_2
pos 3 2 1
size 1 1 1
rot (atan(23/3)) # ah, fancy trig functions
end

* Note that you don't have to have the F18_1
and F18_2 labels, it will automatically number
groups for you if you just leave that part out.
They will get names like /F18/0 and /F18/1
(although they'll show up in bzedit like <|F18|0>
and <F18|1> because of tool inconsistencies).

Still think your map is mighty cool,
trepan.

[trepan]

Grumbler, your $15 check for marketting is in the mail

[Grumbler]

Grumbler, your $15 check for marketting is in the mail

whoohoo, do i get the Ronco Bottle Cutter with that, or the George Forman Grill?

[toaster]

Trepan,

Thanks for the pointers and the compliments. I've been looking through the bzmapper samples in your latest dist. It looks nice. I should have taken the time before, you and Grumbler are absolutely right. Didn't realize it could do that much. Looks like it does many of the things I was hoping for, and I never realized it. I'm puzzling now over the "hole" creation sample.

Grumber mentioned tutorials for bzmapper? I haven't found them yet, just the samples.

I'm going to start breaking Nimitz up so that I can rebuild it with bzmapper. I have plans for another version, the entire carrier group.

[Grumbler]

i considered the samples, tutorials.....sry, if i mis-typed.

[trepan]

Just look for the tutorial.bzg file
in the worlds/ directory. It's 44K
worth or reading goodness.

P.S. Hope you've got the bzmapper
v2.0 version. It's got much better
hole creation facilities then any of
the earlier ones.

[toaster]

I got the 2.0 dist you just placed on bzbb. For some bizarre reason, I had not yet noticed the file named tutorial. I'm going over it now. I already started ripping out items from the map. I want a way to take something that's already defined and just move it to 0 0 0. Haven't figured that out yet. The CH-47s aren't hard to do that, but the FA-18 requires a bit more finesse.

This is definitely a cool tool. I can't believe that I didn't realize it did all this before. I started trying it out the other day, after weeks of evenings on nimitz, but just to see if it cleaned up overlaps ('cause I keep seeing Grumbler talking about it). I remember you discussing it way back, but couldn't figure out where to get it, until you published it again. Too stupid to find it under the right heading in the bzbb archives, obviously.

If I can get this thing broken down tonight, I'm going to start on the rest of the carrier group immediately.

Thanks for all the help. And the tool!

[trepan]

Attached is an example of how to do the transformation
on the F-18's. The problem you're probably encountering
is the transformation order.

Heh, apparently BZG isn't an allowed extension on BZBB

[trepan]

Another P.S.

In my defense, when building groups, it is usually
better to do the rotation and resizing before the
translation. It's just a bit ackwards for reverse
transformations.

And a P.P.S.

When I first looked at the Nimitz map, I took a
close look to see if you had used bzmapper
because the F18's and helicopters looked so
similar. I could tell that you hadn't, but was
impressed to see that you took the time to do
each one individually. How long did that thing
take you to make?

[toaster]

LOL. No defense needed. I was building this thing from scratch, without group capabilities, by hand and with bzedit. I would have used bzmapper first if I knew about it before hand, and the transformations would have been fine. My bad.

As far as the aircraft, they are all designed by hand, with movement and lots of careful alignment with bzedit. For the "extra" copies, such as the F-18s in flight, I copied / pasted text, recalced by hand, and edited the text, removed the gear, etc.. Same with the CH-47s. Copied/pasted, reversed coordinates x/y, then moved around by manipulating x/y/z coords. All by hand, but a lot of the math I could do in my head as I was moving through it.

I started on it the same day I posted beehive 1.0, which was two months ago. I've been working on it a couple of evenings a week minimum ever since. bzedit is the handiest tool I was using, because I could move it around, view it from many angles, zoom, etc.. Way easier than observer mode in bzflag.

To make the F-18s into a group, I was going to translate them to center first, then use bzmapper to rotate to normal 360 alignment. Moving them to center requires me to determine where the center of space is, then edit all the coordinates by hand. I was trying to avoid that, is all. After getting this far, I'm getting lazy.

[toaster]

Cool. I got the F-18 moved around and centered and such. I used the double translation. Then I realized that my a/c was slightly off once I got it on the ordinal axes, and I spent time cleaning that up.

I was originally afraid to translate it to the origin because I was guessing that bzmapper would always treat it as a larger object, including its offset. I suppose it probably does if you have something else defined out in that empty space. I'm glad it doesn't, though. Worked like a charm.

Saved me LOTS of work.

A cg (center of gravity) option would have been handy for that, although I don't think it is worth the trouble to code. The rotation part was easy, because I had defined the angle to begin with. CG would center x/y the object to 0 0 , and rest the object at z 0.

That way, I could define a group, say perhaps a flight of F-18s in a classical 4-plane diamond:

define Thunderbirds
cg
group FA18_gear_up FlightLeader
pos 0 0 5
end
group FA18_gear_up LeftWingman
pos -20 -20 5
end
group FA18_gear_up RightWingman
pos 20 -20 2.5
end
group FA18_gear_up Trail
pos -40 0 0
end
end

That cg option means that I don't have to try to center the diamond, it does it itself based on all the objects. Then, if I want a low-field pass at center field along runway 35, altitude 100, I use:

group Thunderbirds
pos 0 0 100
rot 350
end

Just a thought, anyway.

Thanks again!

[Grumbler]

man, the next you'll want is to be able to fly them into bzedit with your mouse.


the map is up, i ran bzmapper 2.0 with the overlap and merge switches. I think the teleporters may not be right, but i havent had the time to check.

[trepan]

oh ya:
trepan: joining as a F15E

[toaster]

Trepan, I will build you a simple Strike Eagle (F-15E) if you'd like. That's USAF, though, and you don't generally see them in carrier groups 'cause they're USN/USMC.

Grumbler, I'm going to build you a Warthog )Thunderbolt II, A-10. They're USAF, too, but what the heck.

And yes, I want the feature for controlling my electronic coffee maker. Dang right!

[Burned Account -CNG-]

Toaster, awsome map it makes my map of kr's ship look bad.(i havent finished kr's ship yet)

[toaster]

Carnage, can't wait to see your map.

ty.

[Burned Account -CNG-]

i stop working on it. like most of my maps when making them i run out of ideas for 1 map but i get some for a new map, so none of my maps really ever get completed..

[rob1n]

Trepan, I will build you a simple Strike Eagle (F-15E) if you'd like. That's USAF, though, and you don't generally see them in carrier groups 'cause they're USN/USMC.

Grumbler, I'm going to build you a Warthog )Thunderbolt II, A-10. They're USAF, too, but what the heck.

And yes, I want the feature for controlling my electronic coffee maker. Dang right!

build him an S-3 Viking or an A-6 Intruder, although the Intruder is out of service, you could do a EA-6 Prowler...

[toaster]

Already have simple S-3s in the Nimitz map. The EA-6 would be a B, not that you'll be able to tell in the map, because that's the appropriate version to build. I was already working on one of them for the map, so no big deal.

The A-10 is a neat option, but would never be located near a carrier. The F-15E is close (in general configuration only to the unitiatied) to the F-14 models, which I'm also building. We'll see what all I work out.

till then, ciao!