Foy

[Squad]

So here's my attempt for the contest. I hope I can finish it in time

Theme

It's set in and around the small village of Foy (Belgium), which was part of the Battle of the Bulge. 

From wikipedia:

Quote

Battle of Foy
Foy was a small village occupied by the Germans in the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge. It is 4 kilometers to the north of Bastogne on the road to Houffalize.

Bois Jacques present-day.
The 101st Airborne Division held the Bois Jacques or Jacques Woods, up a slight rise outside Foy. Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers describes how Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry led the assault to capture the town in January, 1945. The 506th, including Easy Company, initially commanded by First lieutenant Norman Dike, attacked Foy. They lost several men in the initial charge. During the January 1945 assault, which included Easy Company, Dike had ordered a platoon to go on a flanking mission around the rear of the town.

In one account of the attack, Dike ordered the company to take cover after coming under fire. With the unit unable to proceed, his subordinates informed him they were going to get killed because they were sitting ducks. At the same time, Captain Richard Winters, former commander of Easy Company and now the 2nd Battalion's Executive Officer, tried radioing him to tell him to move his men. Having no idea how to control the situation, Dike froze. As Carwood Lipton, at that time the company's first sergeant, later put it: "He fell apart."

In another account, Dike stopped because he had been wounded in the right shoulder, not because he had panicked. Clancy Lyall saw the wound.

Dike was immediately relieved by First lieutenant Ronald C. Speirs under orders from Captain Winters. However, they were still able to take the town despite the losses.

The company captured several German prisoners. A remaining, hidden German sniper killed a few of the men after the assault but was quickly discovered and neutralized. Today, there is a German cemetery west of Foy with graves of at least 6,804 men, some of them in mass graves.

A monument to the American paratroopers was built in 2004 at the edge of the Bois Jacques, south of Foy.

Layout

I have a rough idea of what I want to make, but I'm still in the blocking out phase. The general idea is that the Allies begin their attack from the surrounding forest (Bois-Jaques).

Gameplay will vary between wide-open and door-to-door combat.

 

Not much to show yet, but can't start a topic without at least a single picture

Edited September 28, 2016 by Squad

[will2k]

Being in Belgium, you have access to live reference materials; this is unfair

But seriously though, even with this early WIP pic, I can foresee the map turning into great shape and atmosphere based on this single house. It just feels right to look at it

Best of luck

[Squad]

On 24-9-2016 at 9:49 PM, will2k said:

Being in Belgium, you have access to live reference materials; this is unfair

But seriously though, even with this early WIP pic, I can foresee the map turning into great shape and atmosphere based on this single house. It just feels right to look at it

Best of luck

Thanks, mate

[Squad]

I just had my first victory on the map, which means I have functional gameplay now. Still needs lots of tweaking off course, but it's a small milestone nonetheless

[Daruth505]

This map is looking great! The small suburban town overcome by war!

I really like the dark moody feel the map has currently, with the sun just braking through, a sign of hope it feels.

To me it seems like each building so far is enter-able, i really like this element in WW2 maps. This can also make it harder to balance the map overall, but i know you're very skilled overall. I'm sure you'll perfect this project as you go along. I would love too see some broken elements to the map as a whole. Smoke rising up in the distance. 

 

Anyway, i can't comment on too much at this stage.

Nice one, you got this! - Daruth505

[Squad]

Thanks, Daruth505!

The lighting is still placeholder for now. I was going for a foggy look at the moment the sun is just breaking through. Not sure if I can pull that off, but we will see.

Here's another WIP shot of one of the main streets of the village. Don't pay attention to the lighting errors on some of the buildings please

[Squad]

4 hours ago, zastels said:

Here's a tip, try using the eye dropper tool to sample the skybox colour at the edge where it touches your horizon on top of the buildings, or wherever you see the most horizon. Then use that colour for your fog, and mess around with max density of the fog. Me personally I find with blending disabled, max density .3, no angles used, 400 start 4500 end, that is usually my baseline to start tweaking. 

I know you want a foggy look, and grey is the intuitive colour, but it is more convincing when the colour of the fog blends into the horizon. In real life fog takes on the colour of everything else in the environment due to reflected colours refracting and diffusing into the air.

I didn't pick grey fog because it's intuitive. The current fog color pretty much matches (still have to tweak it a tiny bit) the one of the skybox (see the 2nd pic in this topic). I'm also using far Z Clip Plane, so max density has to be 1

 

[Squad]

1 hour ago, zastels said:

No max density does not need to be 1 for you to use Z Clip Plane, you can see that in Aachen. Aachen has some pretty wild sight lines, and if you explore the map with r_lockpvs you can see it is being effectively implemented. 

Aachen is based in a large city where you have large structures that block visibility, so the Z Clip Plane can be used beyond that. If that is not what you mean, then I don't think I know what you're talking about exactly. Please fill me in  
For your notice, Foy features some large open terrain.

[Squad]

In Belgium, each village, no matter how small, is supposed to have a church and a cafe. So here are some wip shots of their interiors

 

[paranoidMonkey]

Oh man, this is already looking sooo polished! Eager to try it out.

[Squad]

New week, new pictures!

[poLemin]

That last shot looks very moody! Great job!

I like the wizard hat church too :>

[Squad]

Thanks, man!

The church is based on the actual church as a matter of fact

... although I later found out it apparantly was not in such a good condition at the time 

[poLemin]

Oh, I was pretty sure you used reference material for that and didn't just make it up!

[Squad]

I've gone back to the building I showed in the first screenshot and reworked it completely.

Spoiler

For those interested, I was inspired heavily by Ferme Hougoumont (from the battle of Waterloo) for the new look

Don't mind the haystacks btw. They're placeholders until I come up with something better looking.

And a random interior picture from another building in the map

Edited October 28, 2016 by Squad