Russian Railroads

     Well, onto the summer RR  templates we march. Those dirty brick textures are so welcome here, even the "dust" spots are rarely needed.

     Yes, I am a sucker for punishment. This RR#2 was one of my masochistic attempts at bending height map element of the editor to my indomitable will. It is amazing what one can do if they set their mind to it. The bridge is actually underground - just brought up by DeltaZ manipulations of its template (clever, aren't I?).

     Sometimes it is really hard to understand why the AI is puzzled. Scripting problems, inadequate PC, etc. But in this case, after examining that sign that the trio of my favorite testers are staring at I realized that Rocco's Papa and Mama would both be proud of him if instead of "4-N-spider-N" he would read that Russian sign as it should be read - "Chizhi".

     Oh, and no gossipping is allowed at that station - "Shhhh"

     The emptiness of this template is menacing. Do you have the same feeling of unease? Something's going to happen there. But what?

     I was making this template when the idea of adding headlights to GAZ-AA trucks came to me.

Russia: Checkpoint

      It all started with me stumbling upon one of the original England random encounter templates called Road/ Roadblock. I looked at it, that template was 32x48, flat, with a road, and a fence, and a machine gun nest and some other minor variations.
     Basically - a little uninspiring. But it gave me an idea to create a larger  template for my Russian summer randoms. The one above is one of the variants of that encounter.

     Then the other variant was produced. Here I tried to experiment with watchtowers staying full height when being on the ground floor level. Ended up placing the whole tower template on -2,-1 and 0 floors. It wasn't the best of decisions but it does the job.

     And yet another variant of that encounter. At that time I created extra pine and birch log textures, the chest with the Red Star instead of the American version and some seamless wooden wall textures using RoboBox as the initial source.

Russia: Izhevsk warehouse

     Armed with the knowledge about where the Russians moved their industrial operations in the first years of WWII one realizes how important it is to tie our plot to this place.

     Rumor has it some Russian engineers are working on new "Avtomat" (smg/ assault rifle) designs... but it gets even better - somewhere in the Urals, in the vicinity of Izhevsk a secret lab has just started its research. Hmm...

Russia: Pine Forest Restricted Areas

     After the pine forest spots and trees were ready it was time for me to throw those together and make several encounters. The one above, for instance, has two variants.

     The variant with the larger building is where the chief of that post resides. He's got everything he needs right there in his room. 

     A small electric substation in the middle of nowhere... What could they be hidding in there?..

Russia: Pine Forest

     Since Silent Storm came only with winter pine scenes and Hammer and Sickle threw even them out, along with desert ones (one can still import them back as the db trees are still intact), I felt it was my duty to make a pine forest setting available.

     I had to go through quite a number of various spot versions until they seemed just right. Some of them are in the screenshot (and a few new "Grass" textures)

German Towns

German Town (continued)

German Town (continued)

  

     The unique architecture of Germany is something I've always been fascinated with. This small town template is just a small tribute to it.

     The funny thing is that when I work on these buildings I always get carried away and create something that I myself would want to live in. Even though many of them will eventually be subjected to rather merciless destruction and physical abuse by the player's party of ruffians... It almost makes me cry.

German RR tracks

  
     When dealing with something like a railroad, a check point, a factory or a prison - it takes very little to imagine the general layout of things since many of them are thematically connected and most of their parts are already present in the editor.

     If one checks the folders with parts of the original  game templates - they'll notice that the developers left a lot of unfinished buildings, settings, etc. Some of them might prove to be useful. Like this building, for example.

    The last one appears a little too dark. I am still unsure what lighting changes to implement. H&S regular "per hour" lighting is too colorful and has backgrounds that are a bit too bright, creating an illusion of floating on a mystical island high in the sky. Besides, unless the background is black any secret underground structures will be immediately revealed. Hmm...

  
     The yellow light does make it look cheeful!

    
     This height map gave me some major headaches. Especially the objects on the bridge (since I use templates for almost everything). After some DeltaZ adjustments everything seems to be fine (the passability, destructability, etc.) 

    
     One of my first templates. I recall going a bit too radical with Hue changes (for the roofs and the window frames) not realizing the necessary reduction in color saturation. It was taken care of later though.

German Forests

    



     The Tilly driver obviously didn't see that pile of logs in the middle of the road. I wonder why?

     A bandit camp is assaulted by the Brits

     While the Brits are attacked by Fritz and his buddies. It is a very complicated part of the plot (not really), so in short - everyone but us dies.

     Yet one more interesting height map solution.

     The original cliff texture for dryer terrain was used here. The Bedford vehicles are driving around the hill.

German Country House

     There is something about those half-timbered houses... something pleasing to the eye.


 












     I remember playing S^2 and its sequels and thinking: "Did any of those Nival guys even bother to look at some European cities pictures?" - since the original textures for Germany (and Britain too) were terrifying and reminiscent more of dirty, faded, uncared for Soviet Russia architecture rather than Central European.

German Fortified Compound

     Another result of height map experiments.

     Initially the terrain was flat and rather boring looking, so I decided to spice things up a notch.

   

     I do like creating outdoors so much better.

Danilov's House

     One the "Booze" missions from my previous mod. I think I'll include it simply out of nostalgic considerations.

A small church

German Farm

Germany: Forest Road

  
     After multiple futile attempts to use the original textures for hills I came to realization that some new textures needed to be added to the mix. And as a result - 4 new Cliff textures were created in a furious artistic explosion.

The Castle

  

    




     After an epic battle with the height map and building a maze of stairs, doors and passages "The Castle" was erected.

    




     It features breathtaking classical art, exquisite wood paneling, an extremely uncomfortable dungeon and the most efficient torture devices found anywhere.

    




     Try it - you'll love it :)

German Inn

     Oh my! The memories!

     Remember that house in the first Sentinels mission where you met Boris (the agent with a terrible Russian accent)...

     Well, that's where I started. And later ended up with an Inn and a gazebo and many other things...

The Bridge Encounter

   
     It might not ring a bell, but this template was built using one of the original Silent Storm's random encounters as its base. Then the height map was modified, the bridge changed, the house added, the spots substituted, the ditch dug and... You get the picture...

     Yeah, that's when I thought of adding some moss to the roof, and then the shingles idea struck me as something that just had to be done no matter what. Although it might need some refinement, don't you think?

Various Bandit Camps

     This is the same template with 4 variants (not counting the countless subtemplate variants for houses, different objects and so forth).

     You might have noticed the occasional birches here and there, the snow covered pines and spruces are now green and available for summer scenes.

     After some deliberation the barbed wire was saved for more official military installations and the  pallisade wall was born out of spruce trunks (with a different texture, of course)

 

    
      Oh, and the ground textures are all spots - I decided against the default "texture" for height map ground painting.

     They just didn't provide enough variety, unfortunately.

Russian Village

     The infamous trio (Fritz, Rocco and Klaus) are testing a new RU template.











     Mossy log houses, sticky mud, terrible roads and vast beautiful countryside...