The following is straight from FallenChamp himself, he asked me to post what he had wrote up from his experiences at Ubisoft Massive Studio in Sweden. It was email forwarded to me at 12:00am, Nov.20th(in Sweden)on the dot. You're getting the info much earlier than waiting until he is home from work and able to post it himself,

so I hope you enjoy!

(If he where to post it from work, the formatting would be very bugged and there'd be no photos as the browser there is a bit limited and iffy)



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IGE Article / News





While at the Ub i Massive Studio in Malmo Sweden on the 8th / 9th Nov 4 of us were lucky enough to test drive the map editor on PC - I also had a brief exclusive on the Xbox 360 thanks to Vextor.



We met

Håkan who is in the picture below, he helped us with a lot of stuff and explained the changes we now have - For starters here is a list of the Choices we now get.





Thematics



Utilities

Furniture



Static Vehicles

Nature

Rocks

Gameplay

Validation

Environment

Global Modes

A.I.

EDIT:- Last Night Ian from Platform32 placed weapons in his map and it passed Validation - so it seems that we can now place weapons in our MP Maps.

End Of Match Movies

Water Layers

WATERFALLS

LADDERS

TERRAIN HOLE

Foliage

Grid S quare

R otate I tems B y D egrees

Search B y I tem

Wilderness Generator

Performance Meter & Item Limit (Consoles)



Occlusion Blocks

Playable Zone

Sounds while in the editor?

Lightning at night with the weather cranked up

Explosives



Lighting

A.I Pt-2

Final Thoughts

Town 87Temple 118Airport 25Village 47Mines 49Radio Tower 54Native 47WW2 31Chinese Tomb 51Accessories 144Construction 44Debris 105Fire Camps 6Pipes 17Roads 9Towers 15Bridges 35Corpses 14Decorations 99Household 117Posts 8Signs 63Walls 51Cages 13Crates 42Fences 65Industrial 59Quays 14Tents 5Barrels 9Doors 30Beds 14Chairs 29Storage + Tables 49Miscellaneous 29Land 5Sea 24Air 14Trees 39Plants 11Vegetation 79Coastal 65Jungle 42Grass Land 33Caverns 31Coral 16WATERFALLS 67Lighting 45Decals 31Explosives 10Ladders 24Weapons 33Vehicles 23Hostile Mercenaries 34Allied Mercenaries 8Wildlife 67Aquatic Wildlife 15Terrain BumpTerrain Raise / LowerTerrain FlattenTerrain Set To HeightTerrain SmoothTerrain RaiseTerrain RampTerrain NoiseTerrain ErosionTerrain HoleTexture PainterWater LayersObjectsCollection SystemRoadsMap LimitsTDMDOMINATIONFIRESTORMTRANSMISSIONA.I elements can be placed to create a map for yourself, or for recording a cool movie with fraps etc.A.I. is for playing around and having fun on your own, you can not place A.I. in multiplayer mapsand it is not designed as a single player mission creator either, basically you can put Vehicles, Animals, A.I. in the map area when editingonce you place these in the map you break the validation so the map can be saved but not published for multiplayer.When going from edit mode to in map modethe A.I. comes alive and pirates attack each other, animals do the same - you can drive the vehicles- Basically you could make a map with all this stuff and save it but you will not pass multiplayer validation - however it is unclear if you can put the saved file onto a USB flash drive / memory stick and email it to a friend as an attachment, maybe it might open up on their console and work - or it could be locked to the console's unique ID - until we try we won't know. On PC it should be possible to swap raw files between each other and exchange creations made using A.I. - So that is how A.I. works.We can choose from 67 Wildlife / 15 Aquatic wildlife / 34 Hostile Mercenaries / 8 Allied Mercenaries - That is the A.I.23 Vehicles to use - it is a lot of fun to play around with and watch what they do when they come into contact with each other, crazy stuff.Right this for map makers could be an even better experience then you actually thought it would be – the End Of Match Movie.We get an icon in the editor which we place in the map area (inside the playable zone)So when the match ends and the winner gets to select punish or mercy the actual area in the background will be your map.You can even make a special eye candy set especially for this feature to make it that little bit special, and as you unlock new movies by playing the game this will be even more fun.This is something which people have always wanted on the Far Cry games – Water at Multiple Different HeightsSo basically you just select the size of the cursor and the height and press the key / button and that’s it done – easy as that.Then you need to make it all look natural like it should be seen at different height – You can raise the water from 0-255 in height.Another really welcomed addition is that we can change the color of the water – I am unsure of the exact number of choices, but you can have dark / light / murky / blood etcPeople have wanted these in their maps since back on Instincts 2005 –Now we have 67 choices under waterfall, these range from different sizes to some having rocks attached around them – you can even use the rocks to walk down and through the waterfall – There is some selections that show blood instead of water and we also have some choices of Ground Splash that are like a particle effect – think rain splashing on water, that kind of thing.These work differently from those in FC2 - Now we no longer have to press a key / button to attach to them, simply go straight up / down.You can not jump off while on the ladder - you have to exit at the top or bottom, Don't expect to be glitching through things with the ladders anymore I don't think it will work - we also have vines which we can climb - I noticed pipes in with the laddersWe get 24 things to choose in that folder. They look a lot better - Unfortunately I am unsure if you can tilt them like in FC2 or if they only come as straight.This is huge for us map makers - Basically we can punch a hole in terrain, it is not actually a cave tool but it can so easily be used to create caves, access to underground complexes, all kinds of stuff - I will try to explain if I can.So Terrain Hole has a square which is what you place on the terrain anywhere you want - simply tap a key / button and it takes out that section of terrain.In the pic above think that the red squares have been removed and that the block is terrain - now imagine building together pieces to link up the doorways - it would be possible to drop into the map or have stairs or even a ladder and a way to exit at the bottom or onto another raised area.Imagine you have to enter through the bottom red square then linking up to the upper doorway would allow you access over the raised terrain - if that were the only way.So you follow the arrows and you actually walk inside / underneath the terrain above - It is one big open space under terrain so you have to add in pieces and make it all connect up and feel natural and believable - This is a cool tool to have and will allow us to make all kinds of stuff - No need to use ladders to glitch through terrain any more - Now we create our own entry / exit points and decorate around them.Looking at the images above from SUBPEN and using those as an example, we can now place vines / plants / creepers onto whatever we want, They look really good and will make a big difference to a lot of maps, The bottom picture in the middle shows lily pads - we also get those and coral and things for making water on top and underneath look more natural and believable.The image above was from some leaked footage of the FC3 map editor a couple of months ago, basically on the PC they have 3 different choices with the grid square, Large / Medium Small (Don't quote me on all this stuff - I am just making a lot up from what we got to see)The picture above shows the small grid - The advantages is to be able to maintain even spacing between objects and estimating distances/angles (some smaller maps benefit from this). Also when you play-test your map you can quickly see how long it takes to run a certain distance.It is not known if this feature is on the consoles - If it makes the transition then this along with the other new features will be decried in better detail once the game releases and some of us can put some tutorials together.This is another feature which we noticed on the PC but again at this time I am unsure if it made it to the console, simply enter the degrees you want and click the mouse and the piece will then turn to that angle / degree.This is included on all versions, you can type in the name of an item and if the item is there it will show up and you can select it - This will help out a lot when looking for things and not been able to find them.The Wilderness Generator is back - this is a quick way to make a map, it auto generates and you simply work with what you get, you can keep trying new designs until you get one that resembles what you want or you can opt out and start with a new map with everything flat - as default in FC2.There are 2 choices in the Wilderness Generator.This won't apply to PC - on consoles with FC2 we had a limit of 40000 to our disposal, unfortunately we also had a cap on how much of that we could use in any one grid squareThat rule has now changed with the FC3 Editor - The limit is global, not regional, so basically you can place items where you want and the only thing you have to worry about is the performance meter and going over your budget which is quite high.(The image above is demonstrating on Far Cry 2 how we were capped at 10000 in any one grid square, so what we would do is build the map over the joining grids which allowed us to then make detailed areas all in a small space - No more of that now with FC3Some people used these to their advantage and others loathed them in FC2 - I am on the fence, found them frustrating to be honest and caused a lot more checking of maps - Well no matter what we think OCC are gone from selection in the FC3 editor, the items that need them have them built in.This appears to be the same as in Far Cry 2 - speaking with the editor guy he said that touching the outer edge of the map will issue the warning and you have 10 seconds to get back into the zone - On FC2 touching this edge of the map would kill us instantly so that is something I will have to check and confirm just to be sure. But it looks the same on selection.That was annoying in FC2 I am unsure at this stage if there are any bird noises or things like that while editing - I can't remember any but then I wasn't wearing the headphones which would explain why it seemed quiet.When I was looking at the Xbox 360 Editor with Vextor he cranked up the weather so it was at maximum with clouds and we switched it to night time, it was raining and every now and then I could see a flash of lightning, this is a new addition - As far as I am aware the map will lock the weather chosen for multiplayer so if you pick sunlight and fog that is how it would be seen when playing, I think the day and night cycle while playing MP stays the samebut this can be confirmed later.On Xbox 360 it appeared to be the same type of set up with the editor so my guess is console gamers will quickly feel at home again, there is not a huge learning curve going from the FC2 to the FC3 editor, the controls and the screen look very similar if not the same - with the exception of a few things (I didn't get very long with the 360 as it was in an area where they had to grant permission for me to see it and the other guys were in a different area while I was shown - I got to see the A.I. working and some of the menu and selections - and I asked about Water at different height - Waterfalls and Terrain Hole and they were all on consoles.I am unsure of what might be on PC and won't be on console but we will find out as time goes on I am sure.These looked similar as those in FC2 - There was the thin propane tank that flies when shot, I think the one that is round which rolls was among the choices and some others - also 2 barrels like in the picture below.I remember seeing a light on a tripod and what could have been a type of hand held oil burning light - there were a few to choose from - 45 to be exact.Above - I imagine you could so easily re-create that type of look, the signs which some are graffiti based and the color palette allow for that amazing look.The Temple setting had some amazing items to choose from, I am going to have a blast with this.A container full of corpses - we can litter our creations with bodies now if we wish to do thatUsing the Terrain Hole and placing rocks / terrain around the area we should now be able to create that believable look which emulates a cave with entrance & exit.I did not play around too much with this but placing various animals into an area and jumping straight in had them running while the predators took them down then they turned on each other, after that a bear came running at me all wounded and covered in blood.Clover_field. next to me was laughing and I looked at his screen again to see a manta ray going across the land - he was having a crazy time with the A.I. - Later that day Mark said that he placed around 30 deer in a small area and jumped into the map right in the middle of them, at first it didn't seem a problem but once he fired a shot off they all scarpered in different directions.Short term this is a lot of fun just throwing random things in and watching what happens, long term will it become boring - well I think it could depend on what can be done and how far things can be pushed - If it is possible to share the saved files then there is no reason why you could not make a map full of pitfalls and traps or even an Escape type map with A.I. included, this would unfortunately only work while playing in the editor and for only one person but lets see how far we can take it.I am sure there are also people already thinking that they will play around and see if they can mod the game to see if they can bypass the validation to see if they can get vehicles and A.I. into their actual MP maps, but then again this time around we have Ubi Massive showing a presence within the community, if they find any maps with offensive material then they will no doubt be pulling them from their servers - how this would work if any maps were modded to include extra things - only they could answer that one.I am sorry that I don't have any images or tutorials from the game, I will list every single answer and do some pictures with grouped items - maybe throw a few basic tutorials together showing how the new stuff works.Well I struggled a lot with the mouse and keyboard controls and instead of making a map I spent some time looking through some of the items we get and writing down the selections at the start of this post.I remember a couple of different helicopters and also a crashed one, and Clover_field. on the PC next to me had this big plane but it appeared to be solid / closed - I didn't check to see if there was one which we could get on-board.The thing that impressed me a lot was the Temple selection and also Walls - there were some big sheets that are kind of terrain walls which could also be used to work as a ceiling or floor and should blend in very well with the right terrain paint selection. Also the signs - these were really jazzy with bold graffiti that will look superb on walls, those of you that commented on the cannabis plants will get to make their own drug fueled hideouts as we get2 different weed plants and 2pallets of coke all wrapped up, so I am sure there will be some crazy maps made in this game.Terrain Paint was a lot better on the eyes and had better choices, the same goes for the roads - Everything IMO seems so much better now with the selections, you guys are going to love the new editor.