Some info about custom maps in TFE

[Steve]

custom maps will be available in TFE, this feature is not available yet.
TFE is different that what we are used to because it uses Unreal Engine 4.
There will at some point be Unreal Engine based dedicated map editor available to make custom maps.

So basically you can reuse terrains and assets from the game, just like old Novalogic games. game starts, players auto download map


Two additional points that stood out in my mind

1, if you want you can pretty much create anything you want, you can import custom assets, custom terrains, whatever you want.
if you have some knowledge of modeling and that kind of stuff then i'm expecting to see some mind blowing stuff.

2, file sizes. with maps that reuse in game assets, the files should be less than 50MB.
If you are making custom stuff, then the files could be any size i suppose.
the maps built into the game are say 700MB with the terrain being about 600MB of that.





i think server hosts will have to think carefully about what they do.
seems like you would have to be hosting a small number of high quality maps.
imagine filling a server full of fully custom maps trying to get a server of 20 people all downloading 1GB of map each round until



RJS_Psycho from the TFE forums mentioned a bit about the terrains:

Our default landscapes have 8km x 8km or 4km x 4km depending on the case. Honestly we're not seeing an advantage as of yet for such big landscapes. We can simulate such view distances using landscape meshes instead of actual landscape, which is way way more lighter.



The above is examples of lower poly landscape meshes which can be put into a scene to make it look huge, but without the cost of performance of having a 8km x 8km actual rendered landscape.

It looks like this:

[Steve]

RJS_Psycho
We antecipate the map maker beta version to be available 1Q2021

[Steve]

someone teased with a jungle setting. so much potential with the UE4 engine.
8x8KM



bigger res: https://i.imgur.com/OkRQfRd.jpg