fs17 revisited

[Illinois Farmer]

Medium size to small. With have an 8335r, 8130, 7800, 6520, 6105r, 6130, 336g skid loader, and an s660 combine with a 6 row head, a 12 row planter, pull behind chopper and sprayer, 30 ft disc and drag, 30ft high speed disc, 13.5 ft chisel plow, 5150 liquid tank, 3 544 gravity wagons, 600 bushel grain cart, solid manure spreader, 2 big chopper wagons, and some other odds and ends.

[BulletBill]

If ur looking, you sir absolutely nailed the feel of the uk. Was so happy then gutted when i saw the western shore and then realised its not on console

Thank you... even if GIANTS were accepting Fs17 maps on console still they wouldn't allow it as it exceeds the maximum MB size for maps.

If I felt I could achieve the same or better visual results with Fs19 I would be making maps for it.

[1992Tadej1992]

I dunno how profitable is for giants that they are spending resources for consoles and phones.

[pingu]

I dunno how profitable is for giants that they are spending resources for consoles and phones.

Highly profitable, I would guess. Looking around here, hardly any kid/teen game on 'PC' anymore (they don't even care about having one - to them, the iPad is 'the computer'). They game on console at home and on the (i)phone when they are on the move.

[Patrick73]

The biggest waste of resources has to be FSL

[SJ_Sathanas]

Also what happened to the horizon in 19? In TWS, where the map boundry meets the static background, it's almost seamless but in most 19 maps it's there, plain to see.

[Patrick73]

^^^ looks REALLY bad on some maps,completely ruins TVTOF. It can be done,just look at Oxygen David’s maps for instance they look amazing

[BulletBill]

Also what happened to the horizon in 19? In TWS, where the map boundry meets the static background, it's almost seamless but in most 19 maps it's there, plain to see.

Obviously it's up to the individual map maker how he wants to make a map, but I have noticed a backwards step with 19 maps that less mappers bother to make decent map borders.

This could be a result of not knowing how to do them any better, but in many cases the map is made by experience map makers, so maybe it's a case of not wanting to spend the time on it, or maybe they don't view it as important enough. Perhaps they are too quick to rush a mod out for the modhub reward money and don't bother to take the time to do it properly.

Whatever the reasons or motives its a shame as a good map border makes a map feel so much better.

[Mobias]

Whatever the reasons or motives its a shame as a good map border makes a map feel so much better.

Its the number one most important thing I look for in a map. How immersive is it and does it make me feel like I'm in a living breathing world and part of larger area? It does seem like I'm in the minority there though. There's so many maps I've seen people rave about for FS-19, and they are good maps with tons of attention to detail but the map borders are terrible. As far as I can see pretty much everyone uses those default blobby mountains that Giants made for the base game maps. Either that or they just leave everything flat and have the wall of trees approach.

One thing I noticed with Lone Oak and Oakfield, both of which looked fantastic and had amazing seamless borders on FS-17, the FS-19 lighting really looks terrible with flat 2D textures. With both of those maps the seamless borders don't look as nice. Then again as we've said none of the environment looks as nice in FS-19.

Mucking about with borders has become a bit of a hobby of mine on maps now. You can really change the look and feel of a map by customising it to suit yourself. Once you've learned how to do it. I've improved a few maps, to my tastes anyway by altering the borders a bit. That Greenwich Valley map was really well done but the borders were a bit of a let down for me so I swapped them out and its now a really great map I want to spend some time in.

[blue_painted]

I must be an oddity, as I don't notice the borders for more than few seconds. I think is because I play in-cab as much as possible, so I'm either watching where I'm driving, or watching the implement.

But there is something about maps, Oxy's for example, that feel real to me: I think it's because there's a real-life shape to them, there are gateways where I'd expect them, farms are laid out to make sense, in many places the buildings feel "grown" rather than "plonked". The same was almost true of Greenwich, but to my mind the fields all had too few entrances and gateways and there were a couple of places where any farmer I know would have made life easier for themselves.

It just goes to show ... there's a lot goes into map making, which to my mind means that the placable build-your-own-farm is always going to fall short: Think of those 1070s/80s Lego houses, when Lego was mostly about building houses, with perfectly white walls and perfectly red roofs, built on a perfectly flat base that was perfectly square.

[BulletBill]

For myself the default map is so small without any border it feels like your farming on a table top.

A basic map border is ok, but tends to look a bit fake, it's just there to hide the edge.

A border that has more depth or layers starts to make you feel like your part of a bigger world.

Add to that seamless map edges that then blend into distance scenery it makes the map feel like it goes on much further than it does.

Oxygendavid has currently found a way to get 3D terrain and scenery from Google Earth into Blender which he then turns into ultra realistic 3D map borders.

However this will not likely be seen on any Modhub map, as GIANTS place such a low restriction on the map MB size and the realistic border will need a number of 4k textures.

Euro maps have a huge advantage as they can use the default map assets for there maps which don't add any MB to the map size.
But for UK maps we have to have all our models in the mod map folder which increases the MB size massively. It's a huge disadvantage.

The MB size restriction is there because of current gen consoles limited memory capacity.

The issue is if you want a map that has a decent amount of detail, without duplicating the same model too much (which instantly makes a map feel boring and repetitive) and you want the models to have decent looking textures is it's going to be far more than the current Modhub MB size restrictions.

What is so frustrating is this game could look so much better, but it seems that GIANTS current plan is to primarily cater for the console market which is there biggest income currently.

[Lexie]

Euro maps have a huge advantage as they can use the default map assets for there maps which don't add any MB to the map size.
But for UK maps we have to have all our models in the mod map folder which increases the MB size massively. It's a huge disadvantage.

The MB size restriction is there because of current gen consoles limited memory capacity.

The issue is if you want a map that has a decent amount of detail, without duplicating the same model too much (which instantly makes a map feel boring and repetitive) and you want the models to have decent looking textures is it's going to be far more than the current Modhub MB size restrictions.

The map borders on 17 where ok, also on the Giants maps. The default borders on FS19 are ugly, on both Giants maps.
What has changed that consoles are the problem right now, your maps for FS17 are nice and having good borders.
I understand the limitations on consoles but why are borders such a big problem on FS19? Is it also the old engine which is causing this problem?

[BulletBill]

The map borders on 17 where ok, also on the Giants maps. The default borders on FS19 are ugly, on both Giants maps.
What has changed that consoles are the problem right now, your maps for FS17 are nice and having good borders.
I understand the limitations on consoles but why are borders such a big problem on FS19? Is it also the old engine which is causing this problem?

Personally I don't think the Fs17 borders are good enough still, not for me anyway.

2D distance borders don't really work with Fs19 lighting at all, so going forward the border needs to be a 3D model.
2D borders don't interact great with the light and sky at certain times of day anyway.

So ideally maps need bespoke 3D models with high-res textures otherwise it just looks a bit naff.

Your not allowed to have 4k textures on Modhub maps.

The compromise is do you have fewer/larger 3D models with 4k textures, or do you have more/smaller 3D models with 2k textures.

Either way a decent map border takes a lot of work, and it seems Fs19 map makers are either incapable or just can't be bothered.

But then I see that trend of cutting corners more and more in maps. Detail is haphazard across the map rather than everywhere. It's noticeable where the map maker has rushed parts of the map.

There is the issue that the bar of quality has been raised higher now as well as the expectation, so it's harder and takes longer to make a mod map compared to previous FS versions. A lot of mappers either don't have the time, skill or sadly in some cases are just plain lazy so start releasing half finished maps, or worse just start copying and pasting other peoples maps, sometimes even nicking the DEM terrain and rotating it 90° to try and hide the fact.

It seems some, not all, but some modders are only releasing stuff to get attention, rather than modding because they have a passion for creating stuff.

[Lexie]

Personally I don't think the Fs17 borders are good enough still, not for me anyway.

I'm playing on console and from a distance it looks nice on a TV, but If I'm close to TV then everything looks ugly also the borders (FS17). So if you play on pc with a monitor close, I can imagine the texture quality is way to low to look clear and crisp.
In FS19 everything close to player looks ok texture wise, but everything further away looks terrible and flat (trees, fields, mountains and so on).
So for the whole picture I prefer FS17, also sounds are way better and makes the came come alive.

For me as console player FS19 does not offer what I want, and I doubt future versions will, also not on next gen consoles.
FS17 still rocks, and with people like you, making this "old" game still better and look so nice, I'm thinking about buying a pc instead of a next gen console, so I can play The Western Shore.

[Mobias]

Either way a decent map border takes a lot of work, and it seems Fs19 map makers are either incapable or just can't be bothered.

I've sometimes wondered what tools Giants could provide to help make decent map borders. For example could they add something into the Giants editor to make bespoke border hills you could apply you're own textures too? It does seem curious that they don't provide anything to help solve the problem except the default hills you can use from the base game maps.

I wonder how much will change moving into the next console generation. I guess Giants will have to bite the bullet and allow 4K textures at some point. I saw OxygenDavid make a post on Facebook about making his most realistic map yet for FS-19 and its using 4K textures. Presumably this won't be coming to mod hub then.