Elite islands to ArmA

ArmA editing, missions, modeling, textures, terrains

Moderators: Lone Wolf, Snake Man

Post Reply
granQ
2nd Lt
Posts: 83
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:18:34

Elite islands to ArmA

Post by granQ » 2007-04-08 21:19:46

Ok, I am not taking the credits or anything here so dont come to me with your questions.

Anyway, me and deanosbeanos have started to see the possiblites to import worlds into ArmA. Without any real change (a new config to add wildlife basicly) we came a bit on the road using the xbox versions island and models.

I also converted the old demo mission that I used for the screens.

http://kpcti.granq.se/images/malden1.jpg
http://kpcti.granq.se/images/malden2.jpg
http://kpcti.granq.se/images/malden3.jpg

Models looks great, however some seems to be 1-4 meter "below ground" and some just looks way much bigger then they should and the textures is all missing. No luck just "putting them there".

We only got it working using the beta patch, not with 1.05. Untested with earlier versions of ArmA.

On the last picture you can see the old coords have been maintained (town names are in place), so importing missions are easy but one thing is out of order, the airport.

I dont know if this just some config part or what this is. Havent looked into it yet.

EDIT. No problem with the airport, was just config stuff...

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-04-09 05:11:56

I took your advice and example config, had no problem getting all PMC 4WVR islands into ArmA ingame. Only problem is the ground textures that are now surface layer thingys.

Image

There is one example of basic terrain, 51km x 51km size NO LAG at all. See the harrier waypoint, 70km :D
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

deanosbeano
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:19:46

progress is nice :)

Post by deanosbeano » 2007-04-09 22:18:46

whoa snakeman now thats what i call some flying distance ;)
you should put a sign there ,you are now leaving Bis air space lol.

on the topic of textures
i have two or 3 ideas i like to throw in the mix.

1 the new layers are wrapped up in the new wrp
2 these bimpas things that are openable with notepad suggest the wrp is talking to them cause i cant find a link fron any bin files , altho it could be hardcoded somewhere i guess.

3 i left a space above cause this is different ,I have found a workaround using a textured addon the size of a cell, i dont think its a new idea ,but it works real sweet , lag factor so far is negligable.

damn thing about it is its a real headache. so lemme here ideas on this :
1 wrp only likes odol
2 in order to make odol from mlod we binarise
3 we binarise with tools we have and arma will spit em out as bad version7
4 ok we can binarise for wrp and put that in c:data for wrp foldersand make the actual one in the addon folder unbinarised.
5 its the only workaround i can think of

textures . we can use the ones from saralite to texture the little cell size 4 sided p3d and place,

there are about 9 different textures i find the ones ending _detail_co work best
anyway until tools come out anyone got anything else ? :)


heres me going for a swim in some afghani hotel ;)
finally pls forgive my noobness i only been involved in islands for 5 daysImage

oh and a little video of that get william from the blog here is why he dissapeared ;)
the vid should be available 10 mins after post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf7l5BVVo4A

Reaper1978
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: 2005-05-03 08:34:07

Post by Reaper1978 » 2007-04-10 19:19:15

That looks great! :shock:

I would love to hear the steps involved in getting even this far with converting OFP islands into ArmA.

I'm dying to start building some ArmA islands, but the wait for the tools is killing me!

:(

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Re: progress is nice :)

Post by Snake Man » 2007-04-10 20:08:31

deanosbeano wrote:heres me going for a swim in some afghani hotel
Was that hotel picture islands ground texture made with the cell sized p3d model placement texturing system?

As ArmA reads the old 4WVR islands but leaves out the textures, one could imagine that we should be able to add the new surface layer texture data into the 4WVR somehow, but what is the correct format...
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

deanosbeano
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:19:46

texture

Post by deanosbeano » 2007-04-10 20:53:38

yeh thats the workaround, smiley nick told me about it , they used to place them in a map in small areas to obtain greater detail. but cause arma so much more efficient i can get quite a size without lag.

i tried something like your suggesting.

old wrp
data\texture

i tried putting a data folder in the island folder = c\mapfolder\data

i tried 3 types of texture

leslist_detail_nohq these are only type that wrp liked

problem is arma dont like reading this on land and gives

w:\c\Poseidon\lib\landSave.cpp(153) : Bad texture ID -1 on landscape (19,447)

that error

i think if i have it right that now i will try a diff approach having read this :
* _CO - color (difuse map), sRGB color space
* _CA - color with alpha (difuse map with alpha), sRGB color space
* _NO - normal map
* _NS - normal map specular (with alpha)
* _NOF - normal map faded (mipmaps fade the texture in distance, usefull for terrain)
* _NOHQ - normal map high quality
* _NOVHQ - normal map high quality
* _DT - detail texture, average color should be 0.5, texture has got fade out filter in mipmaps
* _CDT - colored detail texture, average color should be 0.5 in all R G B channels, texture has got fade out filter in mipmaps
* _SKY - sky texture
* _MC - macro texture, sRGB color space
* _AS - ambient shadow texture
* _SM - specular map
* _SMDI - optimised specular mapa for better bitdepth
* _LCO - layer color map, texture used for satelite and mask textures on the terrain
* _MCO - multiply color map, texture used to multiply with color map (as cdt) without fade out filter, average color should be 0.5 in all R G B channels

so objectName_textureName_textureType.tga

does this mean same for islands or just for the p3d models ?

or will this
afghanistan_sand_CO.tga work ?

will wrp accept tga ?
i will of course be trying
afghanistan_sand_CO.paa << gives error divisor by zero ??


well i can tell i havent tested above but i have tested ,
i renamed some land textures from saralite

mesto_detail_co < gives error zero divisor ?

mesto_mco << same error

surely ,altho it is said not , the enfgine is reading my texture becuase i got that error message ?

the reason the above mentions tga and indeed png9 can be also mentioned , but of course i am using .paa is becaude the info refers too
visitor 3 and not the engine itself

the link below is only source i can find, suma added it i think or someone after smiley nick requested some info early on .


.http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Laye ... esentation

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-18 22:53:31

Now with the help of looking the Smiley_Nick and Solus island releases, I was in contact with Deanosbeano and proceeded to test some of my own.

1024 x 1024 cell island which is 51km works just fine.
2048 x 2048 cell island which is 102km works ok.
4096 x 4096 cell island which is 204km works barely.

I'm somewhat disapointed to see that ArmA afterall does NOT have full streaming terrain data, maybe I misunderstood the news/rumours in the first place but I definitely had the impression that we can have "unlimited" terrain with streaming technology, seems to me that only the objects + textures are streamed now.

When I loaded 102km island with many objects it felt like loading 51km island into OFP. And when I tried out the monster 204km island it felt just like 102km in OFP, which was barely running. Okay perhaps the 204km runs just a bit better in ArmA, but still the loading times are like beyond one minute and it uses memory like hell just for the empty objectless terrain. However in 3d, its running normally but then again as there is no objects, it should be. Its my experience and opinion that 204km islands while they can be done, are not usable on day to day mission making. Sad but true.

Anyways, of course we show you a screenshot of todays activities and proof of the 204km island ingame :)

204km island
Image

I decided NOT to walk :D

Anyways, I want to get little bit more experience with the ground textures and objects before posting more detailed "analysis", however stay tuned for this ArmA Editing forum as it will be filled with detailed information in the next coming days and near future.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

deanosbeano
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:19:46

Post by deanosbeano » 2007-05-19 19:04:09

hey snake ,
found some more things to do with the .rvmat ,it seems the position is being stored inside it when saved in the visitor3 or someone manually puts it there :(. i dont know if this affects the lighting /ambience around the texture but its gonna be a real pain in the ass to get this info into 200,000 .rvmats :(

example.

p_031-032_l02

class TexGen3 {
uvSource = "worldPos";

class uvTransform {
aside[] = {0.001953, 0.0, 0.0};
up[] = {0.0, 0.0, 0.001953};
dir[] = {0.0, -0.001953, 0.0};
pos[] = {-29.0313, 10.0313, 0.0};
---------
};
};
/////////////////////////////////////
p_031-033_l02

class TexGen3 {
uvSource = "worldPos";

class uvTransform {
aside[] = {0.001953, 0.0, 0.0};
up[] = {0.0, 0.0, 0.001953};
dir[] = {0.0, -0.001953, 0.0};
pos[] = {-29.0313, 9.09375, 0.0};
---------
};
};

you notice uv source = "worldpos" and then theres a pos[] its is incremental as to world pos in this case by 1 as it should be . i hope to god this aint significant , i know shit about this stuff ,but it looks like it does matter and i dont know how the hell we gonna tell rvmats where they are on the map lol. ? any ideas or am i just completely worryin over nothing ?

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-21 09:14:01

I promised some news or more info soon, so I have to say something now. Well I spend all day and night yesterday working on the WRP stuff, I mostly did object placement work and eventually ended up making big cities in WrpTool. There is some objects in ArmA that were taken from OFP so the pathname is only thing thats changed, too bad they dont have all the identical objects which were used in PMC islands, then it would have been pretty easy to convert them.

I would want to learn about RVMAT files but havent even started yet, I'm just going with the Solus made SLX_Isl\1.rvmat desert texture which in fact is very nice in my opinion.

Seems like the 102km island works without any "lag" which is great. I actually ended up playing few missions on my randomly created big city, even though it lacks some personal touch, it was very cool and sometimes even claustrophobic city atmosphere.

Finally when I added roads the arma.RPT file it started to give some road object not found errors. I removed roads (just for testing) and the error disappeared but this following remained:

Code: Select all

Object id a0a71fbf (1983) not found in slot 227,261
w:\c\Poseidon\lib\landSave.cpp(1692) : Link cannot be resolved
It just clutters the RPT file, many times in basic mission testing the file gets into more than 10mb in size, one time ArmA crashed on me (with the roads) and the RPT file was filled up and was 20mb in size.

I still havent figured out how to align objects to ground properly, I guess its just trial and error to get the value for the BIS objects, then code a util that sets the objects individually to the right heights. I'm just happy that we have desert ground texture and those basic burned/ruined buildings work ok to create the Afghanistan/Iraq/Mogadishu atmosphere.

Sorry that I dont have anything concrete to offer yet, but hopefully soon I get something together. Stay tuned.

Here is one screenshot showing some crazy object placement, the buildings are setup too close together in this version (didn't take shots from the better placement), but the point is that this city you see is completely "lag" free, its just amazing.

War torn big city in 102km island
Image

All I can say is boy that 102km island is big sucker :shock:
deanosbeano wrote:you notice uv source = "worldpos" and then theres a pos[] its is incremental as to world pos in this case by 1 as it should be
any ideas or am i just completely worryin over nothing ?
I dont know nothing about that, but they seem awfully complicated. So many files and everyone has those configs etc.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

OFman
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2006-06-08 06:23:27

Post by OFman » 2007-05-22 17:10:35

Hi!
Great screens Snake Man :) And something from me:

Image Image
Drago Island (from OFP) :)

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-22 18:19:41

Great looking scenery OFman. Could you tell us how did you do the conversion...

Did you create new rvmat files for textures or used just sara ones?

Did you have to do alot of compromising with OFP -> ArmA object conversion (I think Drago island uses Res objects?) or was it easy?

The texturing and aligning objects to the ground is difficult, as WrpTool is not supporting rvmat and it cannot read the changed ODOL format. Some OFP Res objects can be just changed by editing the pathname, but at least for O\Tree\Akat02S.p3d is the same name and object, but the tree actually is elevated higher in ArmA than it is in OFP (so in ArmA it floats in the air). Those kind of small problems exists.

I think we need to make a list of 1:1 working objects and objects that are the same but with different elevation. Also elevations for the ArmA objects or perhaps we could do a align to ground tool just for ArmA WRPs.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

OFman
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2006-06-08 06:23:27

Post by OFman » 2007-05-22 21:36:18

ok, now I have a problem because my english is not so good :)

I didn't created new rvmat file, I used file from Solus but changed s_005_007_lco.paa (satelite texture). New file is from sara.

Drago Island for OFP uses BRG objects. Firstly I deleted all of nature objects from map. Then I put some bushes objects from Res. Next I replaced this objects with ArmA trees and bushes. So I think it is easy :) Thanks for "Replace Objects" option in WrpTool :)

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-22 21:49:05

Okay thanks for the info. As you see now I created the list of OFP objects available in ArmA to the other topic, there is still alot of stuff in OFP we dont have in ArmA.

How many objects did you have to delete in order to get the OFP island compatible with the ArmA object list? Was it very big compromise?
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

OFman
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: 2006-06-08 06:23:27

Post by OFman » 2007-05-23 16:46:09

I didn't delete any objects (only BRG nature objects), I replaced roads and buildings but now I have little problem: http://www.arma-zone.pl/ejay/Drago/1.jpg Only way is delete flying buildings or replace with some different (bigger or smaller).

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-23 18:02:07

Okay you can always align the ArmA objects to ground manually, but of course you understand what HUGE task that is :)

Here is a rough, ROUGH list of objects that I wanted to use in my desert terrains where I painstakingly got the values by trial and error so they align to ground mostly OK. Please remember that this list is just my dirty notes during development, nothing special I prepared for "community release", for example the terrain elevation is just where I happen to place them at that time... for tutorial purposes it would be best to use some "even" ground value heh. Anyways, you have been warned:

<EDIT>

The important value is the (+meters) to be used in object inspector. If you start to align objects manually and track down more values, it would be highly appreciated if you would post the findings into this topic so others could use them without trying trial and error themselves. Thanks.
Last edited by Snake Man on 2007-05-24 00:01:24, edited 1 time in total.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

deanosbeano
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:19:46

Post by deanosbeano » 2007-05-23 18:49:40

Hey chaps,
a few things i discovered
1 placing objects .
Download lowfly editor update . http://62.72.64.123/tbh/phpkit/include. ... readid=131

with this you can place all your houses plants etc and layout your island exactly as you would like it . then save it
\\\\\\\\ And the beauty is you dont need an addon for your island because it only uses standard bis p3d files///////////
de pbo the addon and in the stringables you have the p3d name of the object.
so aa0018 =xxxxx.p3d

also in the mission is the z,y,z
simply copy this and when you are in wrp and object inspector you can apply exact postioion of x,y,z . again although it is fanntastic for most things roads and objects , for buildings , it needs extra guess.

now a bit of info i need myself. i am making an iraq map
here is my texture for a satelite cell .( i have tired many zooms )
Image
but the engine itself is zooming in on the pic all i can see is a roof top it zooms in that far . anyone know what is tell ing the engine what resolution to show the texture . or is it as i supected before
class Stage0 {
texture = "ca\sara\data\layers\s_029_019_lco.paa";
texGen = 3;
};
////////you see texgen3 or satelite then this///////
class TexGen3 {
uvSource = "worldPos";

class uvTransform {
aside[] = {0.001953, 0.0, 0.0};
up[] = {0.0, 0.0, 0.001953};
dir[] = {0.0, -0.001953, 0.0};
pos[] = {-27.1563, 22.2188, 0.0};
};
};
now we see its telling the engine that this satelite texture is at
pos {-27.1563, 22.2188, 0.0};


texgen3 and 4 are satleite and mask respectively and the rvmat is using a pos , unfortunately i have not been able to hex edit this pos , cause it dosent show up in my editor :(.

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-24 00:00:36

Good tip about the editorupgradeupdateaddon, however when I tried it mostly all objects were aligned to the ground level in the mission.sqm file.

Anyways I did some research trial and error work tonight and here is bit more comprehensive list now (previous list removed for to be clear).

--- align
when ground is 10m, align your objects as following:
ca\plants\palm_01.p3d - 15.7m (+5.7)
ca\plants\palm_02.p3d - 16.9m (+6.9)
ca\plants\palm_03.p3d - 16.9m (+6.9)
ca\plants\palm_04.p3d - 16.9m (+6.9)
ca\plants\palm_08small.p3d - 11.5m (+1.5)
ca\plants\palm_09.p3d - 17.7m (+7.7)
ca\plants\palm_10.p3d - 17.9m (+7.9)
ca\plants\akat02s.p3d - 14.2m (+4.2)
ca\plants\banana_1.p3d - 12.2m (+2.2)
ca\plants\banana_2.p3d - 12.2m (+2.2)
ca\plants\banana_3.p3d - 12.2m (+2.2)
ca\plants\banana_4.p3d - 12.2m (+2.2)
ca\buildings\afdum_mesto2.p3d - 14.7m (+4.7)
ca\buildings\afdum_mesto2l.p3d - 14.7m (+4.7)
ca\buildings\afdum_mesto3.p3d - 15.2m (+5.2)
ca\buildings\afhospoda_mesto.p3d - 15.2m (+5.2)
ca\rocks\skala.p3d - 10.4m (+0.4)
ca\rocks\skala_new.p3d - 14.2m (+4.2 or higher?)
ca\rocks\skala_newk.p3d - 14.2m (+4.2 or higher?)
ca\rocks\skala3_1.p3d - 11.2m (+1.2)
ca\rocks\skala3_2.p3d - 11.2m (+1.2)
ca\rocks\skala3_3.p3d - 11.2m (+1.2)
ca\rocks\skala3_4.p3d - 11.2m (+1.2)
ca\rocks\skala3_5.p3d - 11.2m (+1.2)
ca\buildings\Letistni_hala.p3d - 18.5 (+8.5) <- airport terminal

ca\buildings\dum_istan2_02.p3d - 16m (+6) <- huge big building, modern!
ca\buildings\dum_zboreny.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_zboreny_lidice.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_zboreny_total.p3d - 12.5 (+2.5)

iraq/mog buildings, 10m ground level:
ca\buildings\dum_istan2.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_istan2_04a.p3d - 14 (+4)
ca\buildings\dum_istan2b.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_istan3.p3d - 12.6 (+2.6)
ca\buildings\dum_istan3_hromada.p3d - 13.4 (+3.4)
ca\buildings\dum_istan3_hromada2.p3d - 14.7 (+4.7)
ca\buildings\dum_istan3_pumpa.p3d - 12 (+2)
ca\buildings\dum_istan4.p3d - 17.3 (+7.3)
ca\buildings\dum_istan4_big.p3d - 20.3 (+10.3)
ca\buildings\dum_istan4_detaily1.p3d - 17.3 (+7.3)
ca\buildings\Dum_mesto3_istan.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_olez_istan1.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_olez_istan2.p3d - 11 (+1)
ca\buildings\dum_olez_istan2_maly.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\dum_olez_istan2_maly2.p3d - 12.4 (+2.4)
ca\buildings\hotel.p3d - 18 (+8 )
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

granQ
2nd Lt
Posts: 83
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:18:34

Post by granQ » 2007-05-24 23:39:42

wow, thats some effort snake man.

Now you got me inspired to do a "jungle" (yeah because its cheap easy ;) with like only trees and stuff.

sadly i think we will see alot of half made islands before the tools, same as with OFP.

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-25 00:19:25

Following the footsteps of PMC Rattler 25km desert island, I really want to create large desert island for ArmA. I love the Iraq/Mogadishu look of those buildings listed above, the palm trees also suit some farmland areas at least in Iraq if I'm correct. We do have the same rocks as in OFP (Nogova desert)... however the bad news is that if I'm correct (and I havent done extensive research yet), there is no OFP Nogova desert bushes matching ones in ArmA.

The Nogova desert bushes were:
O\tree\dd_bush01d_s.p3d
O\Tree\DD_bush02_S.p3d
O\Tree\DD_bush03b_S.p3d

And one leafless tree:
O\Tree\Akat02S.p3d

The tree is the same in ArmA (only elevated differently), but the bushes are completely missing. There are of course different kind of bushes and grass even labeled as "desert", but not sure about them as ... I already said, not have done extensive research on this yet.

My point being, while we can do great desert cities with the iraq/mog/burned buildings and palms with desert rocks, there is no bushes to be used so at least I cant do 1:1 port of my PMC Rattler (oh well there is tons of AGS stuff also missing). But I am working on large desert island with war torn / burned city look, but now with the new ArmA buildings I can try to make some Iraq/Mog look also. As I already stated, 51km or even 102km island with huge cities without any "lag" is awesome.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

granQ
2nd Lt
Posts: 83
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:18:34

Post by granQ » 2007-05-25 08:59:16

can't be that hard to make your own, if just need 5 types or something like that, then use the "seize" tool and dir to make it look like more.

Give me 5 types of vegitation and i will see what i can do.

Sgt.Ace
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: 2007-05-24 11:25:36

Post by Sgt.Ace » 2007-05-25 14:58:44

Hi all

Does some one knows something about changing the data3d path to buildings in wrp edit? and does someone got the old wilbur 1.26 tool?

@ snakeman... mcnools made some desert bushes in his dry sara or does arma has desert bushes? then you just need to rename and link them to your res busches.

granQ
2nd Lt
Posts: 83
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:18:34

Post by granQ » 2007-05-26 10:50:29

Sgt.Ace wrote:Hi all

Does some one knows something about changing the data3d path to buildings in wrp edit? and does someone got the old wilbur 1.26 tool?
I guess easiet would be to open the objects.ini and do a "search and replace". (replace data3d\ with lets say SGTACE_Models\)

for your second question, i don't. However I have version 1.32, if that works.

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-05-29 13:20:36

Okay update time!

I have been working relentlessly to learn about the ArmA WRP files and how to work with WrpTool and my other utils to create nice looking island. I already posted about the OFP objects which have match in ArmA objects so we could use those, that list is not complete but still its a good enough to work for now.

Textures for ArmA have been so dramatically changed that it is huge task to create that satellite layer image thingy, altough once done it looks awesome indeed. What I have learned from the texture system, call it rvmat or whatever, I think we still can create same system as with OFP, 512 individual textures with the transition tiles, I dont see why not, its like just creating rvmat files to cover the old OFP textures. Surely one could arque that why make old system textures into ArmA brand new fine satellite layer texture technology, but if we talk about converting old OFP islands and before the visitor has been released, why not. Also if anyone can provide me with 100% ArmA WRP file format it would be great. At the moment when we just use the one texture/rvmat system there is this nasty looking texture change far in the horizon which can be seen when flying even with 1200m viewdistance, no its not totally bad but yes surely you can see it. Again, one of those things we have to live with before we make more progress or get visitor/wrp file formats.

I did not update WrpTool yet, but I made a quick util to "convert" OFP island where the objects are replaced with matching ones from ArmA. Also it aligns the ArmA objects properly to the ground.

I have been preparing a technology demo wrp island pack to show the large islands, but seems to me that I'm chasing my own tail, when I make one step progress to achieve better look for the island I get caught editing more and more to match the rest of the island, uh difficult to explain but the tech demo package has been dragging many days now. I should just cut it out and release, I mean after all its Tech Demo and not supposed to be perfect looking island or anything :)

Anyways there is some CTD bugs in the 102km island which baffles me, island works ok when you fight as infantry soldier on the ground, but lets take upon the skies with AH-6 for example to fly around a city and soon enough you get CTD as the arma.RPT file gets filled with same error over and over again making it for like 20-40mb in size. I have no clue why it doesn't seem to crash (so fast at least?) with playing as soldier on the ground. I tried removing roads... no luck, removing vegetation objects, removing objects on certain parts of the island, no luck... heh must keep debugging.

Also I'm kind of disappointed that ArmA afterall doesnt have real terrain streaming, yes it streams the objects in view (if I'm correct) but it still loads all the terrain + objects into memory, at least island with 750,000 objects loads for like forever... real streamed terrain should not do this. Anyways, I'm still happy of ArmA improvements against OFP, so dont take this the wrong way.
granQ wrote:can't be that hard to make your own, if just need 5 types or something like that, then use the "seize" tool and dir to make it look like more.
Yeah but I think we'll manage with what we got in ArmA now. I noticed that ArmA uses green bush types in the southern sahrani deserts, so I guess we can use them also on our own desert islands.
Sgt.Ace wrote:Does some one knows something about changing the data3d path to buildings in wrp edit?
Well I assume you mean WrpTool, I just mentioned at above that I coded an util which automatically changes/converts the OFP WRP files into using ArmA objects. If you do it in WrpTool you can to the replace objects, but its slow task especially if you need to do it many times.
and does someone got the old wilbur 1.26 tool?
I have it here, why do you need the old version?
mcnools made some desert bushes in his dry sara
I downloaded his dry sara but didn't check it out yet. I think at the end we can live with the default ArmA green bush instead of adding >80mb addon just for one bush type :)
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

deanosbeano
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:19:46

Post by deanosbeano » 2007-05-31 17:28:41

hey snake ,
Glad you have been making some progress of late ,you have obviously been putting some hours in.
I have been doing some work myself and managed to get 4 satelites on a small test using some pos work and spotting centers of textures etc ( 100 workarounds).
now i ran into a few problems .
1 something is making the new islands hazey i think persoanally its the rvmat
2 uknown vertex shader , either when at 10000 vuiew distance or firing alot of ffars at hillsides, again i put down to pos of rvmat vs actual pos inside.
3 some cells have 5 layers on same place . impossible to replicate with wrp

these things in my opinion will make it impossible to make 100% arma island
but there is a positive , then new islands are 1000 times less laggy than official ones :).
good luck with future work and i hope oneday someone will put your name in there read me and say a little thanks.

The lastest release i just looked at is laggy as hell for me and well the layer of the satelite is just a high detailed .paa changed to a mask in the filename . mind you in the read me he apperently did it without any help from the previously released islands , just himself and 2 beta testers so maybe he has a new method. ? its a real shame he has not explained how he made the island maybe he learned something new :(. looks like there is no change from ofp on info sharing huh

Sgt.Ace
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: 2007-05-24 11:25:36

Post by Sgt.Ace » 2007-06-01 01:11:17

I have it here, why do you need the old version?
because this is the only version that works for me to get terragen maps into wrp.... u can send me this 1.26 via mail (Sgt.Ace@web.de) thx.

Snake Man
Commander-In-Chief
Posts: 9338
Joined: 2000-07-31 22:01:01
Gaming Interests: ArmA, ArmA 2, Falcon 4.0 and OFP.
Editing Interests: All, I (try) to edit everything.
Location: PMC
Contact:

Post by Snake Man » 2007-06-01 02:30:56

You can leech it here Wilbur.old.v1.26.rar - 475kb.
PMC Tactical Forum New User Registration please read new info here.

PMC since 1984

Editing knowledge, visit PMC Editing Wiki
The leading, most detailed and comprehensive modification made for the Vietnam War - Vietnam: The Experience homepage
View our videos in PMC Youtube channel

PMC Tactical forum Advanced Search is power.

"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

granQ
2nd Lt
Posts: 83
Joined: 2007-04-08 20:18:34

Post by granQ » 2007-06-02 07:43:26

Snake Man wrote: Anyways there is some CTD bugs in the 102km island which baffles me, island works ok when you fight as infantry soldier on the ground, but lets take upon the skies with AH-6 for example to fly around a city and soon enough you get CTD as the arma.RPT file gets filled with same error over and over again making it for like 20-40mb in size. I have no clue why it doesn't seem to crash (so fast at least?) with playing as soldier on the ground. I tried removing roads... no luck, removing vegetation objects, removing objects on certain parts of the island, no luck... heh must keep debugging.
I had the same problem in OFP for some with "standard" islands. I could use it no problem, sent it to a friend and he put a soldier on it. Worked fine, he put 2 soldiers or a vehicle in = crash.

The reason behind it was that the island was bigger then it said it was in the config, you should check that out. Not sure how arma works.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests