CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

AGS/CAT Afghanistan terrain

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Snake Man
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CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by Snake Man » 2009-07-14 16:22:46

CAT Afghanistan (AGS Afghanistan) port by PMC.

This is Afghanistan terrain and objects addon from Operation Flashpoint ported into Armed Assault. Its a advanced port, several modeling errors were fixed, textures merged and models optimized as well as config tweaked. No content have been added (except terrain has no ocean now, ie this is a terrain, not an island) or removed. There are no soldiers or vehicles in this addon.

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Read online manual: CAT Afghanistan.

Visit PMC Tactical and PMC Tactical forums as well as PMC Editing Wiki which contains tutorials how to edit OFP, ArmA, ArmA 2 and Falcon 4.

Download CAT_Afghanistan_v1.2.rar - 135mb.
Mirror 1: Armaholic.com.
Mirror 2: Armedassault.info.
All mirrors are very much appreciated, thank you.
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WGL.Q
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Re: CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by WGL.Q » 2009-07-14 18:04:08

Congrats mate :!:

You have put huge efforts in it. Will test it in the next couple of days with my vehicle DM.
I was a bit surprised about the size at first. Yet the PBO as actually more of an object pack. :D

So again what about a wiki page that lists all models with screenshots to help world designers
and mission makers.

Something like that? ArmA2 Object class library

Snake Man
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Re: CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by Snake Man » 2009-07-14 18:52:06

WGL.Q wrote:Congrats mate
Thanks.
I was a bit surprised about the size at first.
Yeah I think the earlier version was like... 25mb, now its one-hundred-and-35 megs :)

Reason for this is simple; merged textures with normal maps (not specular ones as there was no need for them).

Every model (well ok 99% of the models) now has its own "big" texture. In one model I have merged all the small OFP textures into one _CO.paa texture using the known texture merge method (I used the pantool method), then created the normal map. Only a very few models have the merged texture with optimum texture space, meaning the model earlier had for example two 256 x 256 textures which I now merged into one 256 x 512 texture where there is no unused space. Rest of the times the textures had bit, to a huge amounts of unused texture space. Most offending cases were 2048 x 2048 texture which only maybe 128 x 128 texture using the "other halve" if you know what I mean. Meaning it was one texture too much to fit it on 1024 x 1024 texture, so therefore one tiny annoying texture caused this model to use 2048 x 2048 texture instead. Yes I know this could have been retextured immediately, but my goal so far has been merging textures, not retexturing (as I dont know how to UV unwrap).

Aaanyways. So you see that when we merged the textures, there was "always" unused texture space, this space was black... so dunno if it takes file size space much if at all, I just don't know. And then... when the _CO texture is done, we make completely brand new texture, the normal map _NOHQ out of it, plus the small text format rvmat file.

So that is the main reason why the file size of this addon ballooned from 25 to 135mb.
Yet the PBO as actually more of an object pack.
Yeah, in a way its like 95% objects and 5% terrain, hehe sort of :)
So again what about a wiki page that lists all models with screenshots to help world designers and mission makers.
I have now already done the class names as you requested on AGS addons, however making the screenshots of the objects and linking them into the class names is completely out of the question.

I am way too lazy/busy (take your pick) to do such "huge" task. I mean the hoped result or gain from this big task would be minimal if not completely nil. We never ever would know how many people would enjoy and find the images useful as nobody posts any feedback anyways. Sure if everyone and their mother would cry out in the forums requesting such things then yeah I might have to do them. But just to be super user friendly like that without absolutely no visible results, hehe never. Way way too much work to screenshot, prepare the images, link them into the class names, upload them into the web, prepare the page for them... uh my head hurts even thinking about that task. I already hated every minute of doing the presskit and those 4 screenshots for the (forum) release :)

BTW

Bugs; I already found out one quite nasty bug, there is one rubbish/trash pile model which should have transparent texture but instead it is white, it looks horrible was there is like this white square on the ground with piles of trash on it. Oh well, something to fix for v1.3 :)
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WGL.Q
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Re: CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by WGL.Q » 2009-07-14 19:00:39

Hehe. The goal and solution is to automate these tasks. :D

Btw just realized that it says ArmA not ArmA II - any reason for that?

Snake Man
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Re: CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by Snake Man » 2009-07-14 20:49:37

Well uh.. "not really", eh. I mean this would work on ArmA 2 just by removing the requiredVersion 1.15 and come to think of it, there is bunch of Sara stuff also in requiredAddons. Anyways.

Not really a any good sold reason, I'm just finishing up my ArmA projects now before I fully dive into ArmA 2 world without looking back. I don't want to leave my ArmA projects done half way through, at least that the last versions would be knowingly made to be "last ArmA version". Kind of like VTE v0.4 was for OFP, a farewell version.

No panic, CAT Afghanistan will be for ArmA 2 as soon as... well I don't know actually :)

BTW if you have some automated way to make classnames + screenshots, feel free to open new topic for it or PM me.
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"ALPHA BLACK TO PAPA BEAR. ALL RUSSIANS ARE TOAST. OVER."

WGL.Q
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Re: CAT Afghanistan v1.2 released!

Post by WGL.Q » 2009-07-15 18:47:18

Thanks SM!

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