Just wondering what the largest map any of you have seen, for any of the CoD series has been... in MB (50mb, 100mb etc)?

Im asking because I just realized that my single building is already sitting at 20mb with the .ff file. and Im nowhere close to done and not sure what I need to do to try and cut back on size.

Im using a lot of custom textures... so I would assume this is why its so large. Not sure if there are any steps I can take when creating the texture to cut back on size?? I basically just did what the tuts said.

Are there any steps in Photoshop to save on size... before making it a dds? Bit depth etc etc? A single custom texture was 56kb and after making it dds it was 341kb.. eeeeek.

I feel like I need to go back to the drawing board... again.

iirc I once saw something like ~70 mb in cod2. the map had a lot of textures and the server was using a paintball mod. But you say one of your buildings alone is 20 mb. I think this is weird :/

Weird? lol

I dont know... I was originally planning a lot of things, including making 3 more copys of this building and a ton of other things... but now Im kinda like "duh". At this rate 4 (not even furnished) buildings would be like 80mb and not counting any terrain either.

Im a detail whore and I have the white trim on the inside and outside of every door and window... this wouldnt increase file size that much would it?? Or would it?? lol

What exactly is in the .ff ? I was originally thinking the custom textures but then thats what the iwd file and images folder is all about. So now Im really baffled as to why my .ff is so large already.

quite simply the FF is everything the game needs to play your level.

if the CSV is a wishlist for presents, the FF is Santa's giftbag.

when you have a small empty map, small gift bag.

Full sp/mp map with nodes and helicopters, tanks, chickens, and prancing unicorns, the gift bag gets monstrous.

this is how i visualize it anyways.

hope that helped

edited on May. 10, 2011 10:59 pm by 9837265498

ps... if your detail pieces are "Detail" that is good. if they are still "Structural" then that would make your compiler mutiny

Well I understand what ya mean by the 'gift bag size'... I am just kinda dumb founded that with a single incomplete building with custom textures and working doors could have already put me at 20MB lol.

Best is to keep size [mb] around 50 or so...

Lot of people don,t like bigger size...

Do you have custom sound file in there....,this is what my problem

was with tankhunt had a custom sound that turned out to be 22

mb the ff was around 74.. with out the

sound 54mb

edited on May. 11, 2011 08:39 am by dundy

HarryNutz writes...

Maps are allways starting with 20MB fast file, your map can be very big and fastfile size will be just 26mb. No idea what is automatically added to map's fast file...

I believe limit is 100mb for a .ff map but to be honest past 55mb and no linux already.... Some custom MP maps are above this but dont work in Linux Server :(

I think that it adds a lot of soundaliases and basic xmodels into the map, therefor it is 20M from scratch. Every new addon makes only kilobyte changes. Except custom textures and prefabs. Those can add tens or hundreds of kilobytes at once. But the biggest of them all are WAVs. Those addons make the biggest filesize change.
I think that adding WAVs to a map has a limit, i made once (if i remember correctly) a FF with 8 WAVs included, the 9th dropped the filesize of the FF dramatically and i knew, something went wrong. Changed that to an MP3, put into the IWD and all okay. Format and everything was correct thou, no idea what caused the error..
You have to try and see for yourself to get a feeling on what you can or cannot do :) every advise is good, but experimenting is better ;)