COD2gen - Random map generator for Call of Duty 2

"prag" (CoD4Gen) released

2008-04-16T20:59:00.002-04:00

Hey, all! Good news for CoD4 players, I've released "prag" for anybody to download. See my other blog to get it:

http://pragfps.blogspot.com

This time I waited until I had a simple GUI front-end before releasing it. Another feature of interest for mappers/modders is that it can be used to generate terrains and skyboxes (and nothing else). For people that want a full map with roads, buildings, and random entities, it can do that also.

prag = cod4gen

2008-02-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

So, I've begun work on a tool to create maps for Call of Duty 4. Check it out on the blog I've just set up for it: prag - procedural random arena generator. I'm focusing on Cod4 for now, but hope to be able to use the same code for future games.

COD4 Is Out

2007-11-22T00:26:00.000-05:00

So, goodbye COD2. Hello, COD4! I'm starting from scratch on a COD4Gen program -- not that I can make too much progress, though, since the modding tools are not yet available. For now I'm making it output COD2 maps and just looking at them in Radiant.

New Version 0.99

2007-05-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

After quite some time off, here is an updated version: cod2gen 0.99
Notable changes in this version:

Made 3rd story towers on buildings be supported by 4 legs instead of solid walls. This makes climbing the ladder to the top more dangerous, and improves visibility across a map with a lot of towers
Made the default configuration xml file consist of only the "building" region type. This should be more playable than the old default file, which was more to show you what all the different types are.

Some XML files and future plans

2007-02-26T10:56:00.000-05:00

As you can tell, I haven't been doing much lately with COD2Gen. We still use it to generate a new map to play every day where I work, but most of what we want can be accommodated by tweaking the xml files instead of messing with the program itself.

Here are two xml files that seem to produce fairly playable maps:

I've been thinking lately about making a whole new generator program. I'd start from scratch, and would do some things differently:

A "holistic" approach to planning the map:

Decide where roads / unencumbered paths should go
Fill in the areas between between paths with different things based on their size and shape
Pick good locations for headquarters (instead of purely random) and flags (instead of always in the exact same spots)

Use an extensible library of prefabs to allow for more "polished" and interesting levels.

Get rid of the wavy terrain and settle for maps that are basically flat. From a technical point of view the wavy terrain was very cool, but it really tied my hands so that I couldn't use prefabs because they might have had ugly effects like the terrain jutting up through their floors. And after a LOT of play-testing :) it doesn't seem like the hilly terrain added as much to gameplay as I'd hoped. Roadways might still be hilly, but the areas between paths would be flat so we could stick anything on them with a flat bottom. We could also still have hilly tree and rock areas, but these have turned out to be less fun to play than the more urban settings.

I don't know if I'll do this for COD2 or wait for the rumored PC COD4. If anybody has thoughts, feel free to leave comments.

New version after a little break

2006-08-23T00:50:00.000-04:00

So after a little break, I've released version 0.98 . Here are the new features:

Made the teams that are used based on the config file
Supported game types are configureable
Also added windows to buildings.
Included a "russia.xml" config file to show some different options.

Here's a picture of a map generated with the new Russian motif:

GUI for COD2gen

2006-07-31T22:26:00.000-04:00

The new version has a graphical user interface, made by Marcp22, that makes using the program much easier. This replaces my lame .bat file that was released in an earlier version.

Contest

2006-07-28T16:47:00.000-04:00

I would like to have a contest that involves using the random map generator. I have two ideas:

Find a random seed that results in the coolest (looks cool, good playability) map.
Have people create their own maps derived from a common starting point.

The folks at modsonline have expressed interest in hosting the contest, but we need to see if there is any interest in it. Please let your opinions be known on the modsonline board:
http://www.modsonline.com/Forums-top-23505.html

I'd love to see what kind of maps people can make, for my own interest, because I am personally not a mapper really, I'm really more of a programmer that likes playing COD2. I think if we could see some of the cool maps that people make, that would give me some ideas of what other sorts of things the random map generator might do, and what sorts of cool touches would just be impossible to produce with a program.

Version 0.96 - trenches and mounds working

2006-07-25T03:08:00.000-04:00

The trenches and mounds are now in and working for Version 0.96. I did spend several hours tonight banging my head against a problem with the ground of the trenches not being perfectly level - sometimes it juts up or down by a unit, and I just can't figure out why. I'll probably fix it by changing the ground in the trench to be a mesh instead of a bunch of brushes.

I do feel bad for the guy that is working on the GUI for this... I keep changing the XML file to accomodate new features, and his GUI is supposed to write that XML file.

Trenches and mounds

2006-07-21T00:35:00.000-04:00

Did anybody ever play Evereux for COD1? We called it "whack-a-mole" where I work. I wanted to get some of that flavor into the random maps, so last night I started working on trenches. What I got turned out to be more like large mounds of dirt. So, I'm keeping the mounds, and I'm trying a different approach for the trenches. I expect to have a new version Monday night.

Doors on buildings now

2006-07-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

Version 0.95 is now available! The buildings have been altered so that there are doorways and internal stairways to get up to the second story/roof. Portals are created on all the openings to help with rendering speed. See these pics from inside Radiant:

Outside view - the bluish things are "portals", which are the doorways and the top of the stairwell.

Inside a building - yellow things are the "portal_nodraw" texture. As you can see, the decor is a bit Spartan.

Fixed problem with rocky regions

2006-07-14T23:40:00.000-04:00

Version 0.94 fixes a problem with rocky regions sometimes having illegal values that made it so Radiant couldn't even load some maps. For some reason, the rocky regions sometimes had zero width or height, and then later on I divided by that... long story short it should be fixed now.

Buildings without terrain inside of them

2006-07-14T02:45:00.000-04:00

Version 0.93 has these additions:

Made terrain not show up inside of buildings. For modders this should be helpful. People that just compile the map and play it will not notice any change, because the buildings have no entrances (yet). This has been one of the hardest parts of the entire project.

Made tree scaling use a normal distribution and added attributes to the "forest" region node in the XML config file, height_percent_mean="0.7" and height_percent_stdev="0.3" for tweaking this.

Added pretty boring graveyard region type that is set to not happen very often by default.

To the right is a picture from inside Radiant showing an area where two buildings are close together, with an alley between them. Some of the terrain patches are selected to show the change that I'm talking about. There is no terrain inside of either building.

Next thing on my todo list is to start adding doors, windows, interior walls, furniture, stairways, basements... to the buildings.

Building collisions fixed

2006-07-03T23:36:00.000-04:00

Version 0.92 is now available - these are the changes:

Building collisions have been fixed. They sometimes would run into eachother, which had some neat effects, but would have been inconvenient when I get around to actually opening up the buildings and putting stuff inside them.

Before:

After:

The method of generating seeds from map names has been changed. This is because I noticed two maps mp_063006 and mp_070206 were exactly the same. So I've revamped this to lessen the possibility of this. It also displays the seed that was used so you can tell for sure if you have found a duplicate.

Fixes for spawn points, models, etc

2006-07-01T18:03:00.000-04:00

Version 0.91 fixes some problems:

Models inside rocks. Since these were mostly grasses it didn't make sense for them to be on top of the rocks either.
Flags sometimes being inside of rocks
Spawn points and headquarters locations sometimes hanging around in mid air. Spawn points were automatically dropped down by COD2, but the headquarters had an unpleasant tendency to hover in midair in devilishly difficult (or impossible) to capture locations.

Version 0.9 Available

2006-06-27T23:01:00.000-04:00

Get the new version here.

There are some big changes to the COD2gen map generating program - you can now customize many things that were previously hard-coded, including

textures
models
relative liklihood of different region types, or to have no regions made at all (terrain only)
number of regions per map
map size
building and ladder dimensions

Probably not that many people will be too keen on editing the XML configuration file by hand, but there is a GUI in the works.

This images shows off a randomly chosen sky image different than the original:

Fixed some bugs

2006-06-22T23:27:00.000-04:00

I fixed a bug that caused COD2 to sometimes fail with a "Bad Command Byte". I've been getting some good response on the forums at http://www.iwnation.com/Forums/index.php?showtopic=24264
And some good suggestions regarding customization with an XML file.

The new version (0.81) is available here.

COD2gen released into the wild

2006-06-20T21:12:00.000-04:00

This program came about because my coworkers and I play Call of Duty 2 after hours, and are tired of playing the same old maps all the time (with the exception of the two Tunisian boards which are timeless...) Sure, there are plenty of people out there mapping for COD2, but we'd have to continually search out new maps. So we've made this program that will generate a COD2 map file for us, randomly. Every day I run codgen and make a "mp_dujour" and we all play it. Hopefully other COD2 mappers and modders will find this useful.

Download the current version here. The program is for Win 2k/Me/XP. Just unzip the file and run the executable program "codgen.exe" from the command prompt (cmd). Instructions are provided in "cod2gen.txt". You may redistribute the zip file.

Here's some screenshots from inside Radiant of actual randomly generated maps: