Ultimate Theater Tutorial

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-13 09:31:00

Ultimate Theater Tutorial
http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/docs/theater_tutorial.php

Post all your extra questions here and we will try to find answers for you.

Enjoy

PMC TFW
Snake Man

codec · Post by **codec** » 2002-04-13 18:52:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Ultimate Theater Tutorial

Excellent work!

Julian.

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-13 18:58:00

quote:Originally posted by codec:
"How to make Falcon 4 terrain in 23 hours with two computers and one pizza"!

One Pizza?

Can you really live on one single pizza for 23 hours?

Just one?

Not even a couple of extra beers?

Man, that must be one BIG pizza...

Or maybe it's just me feeling hungry...

twaelti · Post by **twaelti** » 2002-04-15 10:14:00

quote:Originally posted by Snake Man:
Ultimate Theater Tutorial
http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/docs/theater_tutorial.php
Enjoy

Wow! Great stuff indeed - Thanks a lot!
-Tom

87th_striker · Post by **87th_striker** » 2002-04-15 16:10:00

It seems that you left out the bit on how to join several sets of data from Globe in the terrain tutorial. Something was posted just recently on that subject. Suggest you include it. Now.....where was that post

?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-16 00:17:00

True I left that out. However it was not used in 64 segment (or neither in euro 128) theater.

I also left out the details for PAK map creation. But these will follow soon, hopefully even tonight who knows.

I'll try to include the DEM merger too.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-16 12:21:00

PAK Map tutorial added. Thanks for Codec for technical data & tips and Widowmaker for proof reading.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-16 14:13:00

Okay added some bits to texture tutorial also.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

foundre · Post by **foundre** » 2002-04-16 18:39:00

I noticed something missing...

Not in your excellent tutorial however...It was actually at the DCW site. In all ConUS maps they left out Political/Ocean (Point). I figure I can guess why they did...but isn't that information necessary? If so how was the Nevada campaign started?

I noticed that when your data is compiled it threw in Political/Ocean (Network) Is that it?
Thanks in advance, No Clue

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-18 21:24:00

Hey Snakeman, what about Auto Object Placement? You mention something about a "Village" program, but that's it.

Do you give this program by email only? Is there a Windows version, or will I have to hit my Linux-obsessed pal on the head and drag him over here to run it?

Seriously, if you have such an utility, even just an "alpha" version of it, I'd love to "test" it.

). It's the very least I can do for you...

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-18 22:20:00

New version of Village Util should be available this weekend. Its windows version and works pretty nicely at least on my computer.

Remind me if that does not show up on the tut/download page soon.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Widowmaker · Post by **Widowmaker** » 2002-04-19 10:53:00

It hasn't shown up yet.....

Widmak

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-19 12:41:00

http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/docs/village.php

My apologies for the limited documentation - for now check out the readme in the zip.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-20 08:32:00

Hey, cool!

I'll let you know how it works for me.

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-21 19:07:00

Well, "Village" works! Quite well, too. Good work Snake Man.

All it needs now, is a nice name, like "COPE" ("Configurable Object Placement Enhancer") or something...

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-21 20:50:00

OK, here's my first bone to pick with Village.

It seems that the ownership of the units created with it, regardless of the number of the owner team set in "village.cfg", always stays as "2" (blue, for "ROK").

I change both numbers to the same value, and have tried different values, but the units imported are always blue, ownership value "2".

I don't suppose this is something worng with TacEdit... seems more like Village doesn't read correctly the ownership data set in "village.cfg".

Any ideas?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-22 00:28:00

Ok I made some fixes, dunno if these work... if you want to test it out, email me to nospam and I'll send it to you.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-22 09:13:00

All right SM, mail sent, waiting for your reply.

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-22 16:50:00

All right, first, I dunno if we should move this discussion to another thread.

Anyway, I tested Village v0.2b. We're definitely getting there... but not yet.

The "Control" value for the objects is still fixed at "2" for "ROK", while the "Owner" value seems to be set OK. So the "Control" setting needs to be fixed as well.

Also, the random factory objects are still both "owned" and "controlled" by team 2 "ROK".

Actually, I'd also like to see an option for switching this random object placement on & off. One may like having random objects, while another may want to place the exact objects related to an area. On the other hand, perhaps more objects could also be added to the "random objects" list, for the extra-lazy among us.

Oh, and another new idea: how could we also process "city" TDF values? Is that possible, considering the format of TDF "city" files?

Oh, and BTW, how did you get the .exe size from 184KB to 48KB? That's some serious optimising!

Anyway, it would be great if we could come up with a good working version of this program too. Especially since object placememt is a much more difficult task than tiling... and now that CATE seems to have reached a feature freeze, let's put some energy here!

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-22 17:02:00

Ok you had some good bug reports and points there.

Also I was thinking of making the airbase types selectable too, but... at this point in time I'm not ready to add new features (you'll find out why soon) so its just the fixes.

Program size went to smaller because the first one was debug exe and this is release exe (hey I'm 3lit3 k0d3r) heh.

Anyways new version sent to your email.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-22 22:09:00

Got it, tried it.

Ownership & control values now show correct.

Random factories are still stuck at team "2".

Let's have the next one, eh mIst3r kod3r?

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-23 02:05:00

Village Util v0.2ß4
Another fix - another version.. Same junk...

Ok now I even bothered to check the results and indeed ownership and control will get changed according to the village.cfg file.

Let me know how it runs at your environment.

As we have CATE now so tiling is no problem, we have Tacedit so PAK creation is few mouse clicks... we have village util so basic object placement is no problem... but village util only creates those default real life data objectives.

Any ideas how could we make it to populate falcon world with "realistic" objectives with the data we can feed him now (airport/label)?

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-27 07:01:00

Hey, I'll be testing v0.2i4 today... I would have done it sooner, but I've been busy... working on sone config files for Cougar #2010...

MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE - MINE!
FINALLY!!!!

(sorry...)

Quicksilver · Post by **Quicksilver** » 2002-04-28 17:19:00

All right, I worked with v0.2i4 today, and I'm pleased to say that all problems noted by now have been fixed, and Village works exactly as it should now. Well done SnakeMan!

T_Rex · Post by **T_Rex** » 2002-04-29 15:10:00

Hmmm...now that its a release candidate, how about:
Automatic Village Object Utility (AVOU) [kinda a French feel to it]

Village Objects Data Extraction and Placement (VODEP)

Village Automated Data Extraction and Replacement (VADER - my favorite).

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-29 16:51:00

Ultimate Theater tutorial have been updated as we have new great dem converter.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

sdinwiddie · Post by **sdinwiddie** » 2002-04-30 18:01:00

I was hoping to get some input on a problem I'm having with new maps showing up...

I've been following the tutorial and trying to get Europe to work, but I can't seem to get the new maps to show up. My test is to go to tac engage and the Korean maps pop right up. (Note: I haven't finished all the campaign mods from the tutorial, but I commented out the terrain & campaign lines of the .tdf. I saw my modified terrain when I tried to fly, so something is working.)

I'm running Falcon SP2 under WinXP. Other specifics:

My art directory (as listed in europe.tdf) is "artdir arteurope"
Directory structure: e:\Program Files\falcon4\arteurope\resource (intel, main & campmap files here)

(I also tried arteurope\art\, as listed in the tutorial, but this locks up my machine.)

No matter what I enter in the .tdf to try to point to the new maps, it seems to be referencing the original Korean maps: I tried putting the original Korean files in the arteurope directory and replacing the campmap files under art/resource with modified ones and then the new maps showed up--although the color palette was kinda screwy.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-04-30 22:36:00

quote:Originally posted by Weasel:
tac engage and the Korean maps pop right up.

This is then campmap.rsc/.idx problem. But it can also be related to the art<theater> dir also.

quote:I commented out the terrain & campaign lines of the .tdf.

Hmm terrain and campaign... well it then should load default korean terrain + IA/TE/Campaign files since you aren't giving it the new europe ones.

quote:Directory structure: e:\Program Files\falcon4\arteurope\resource (intel, main & campmap files here)

No no no NO spaces in the pathname unless you specificly want to be non standard and are looking for trouble

And it should be arteurope\art\resource dir.

quote:(I also tried arteurope\art\, as listed in the tutorial, but this locks up my machine.)

Difficult to say what causes that, never seen it before myself.

quote:then the new maps showed up--although the color palette was kinda screwy.

Another one I haven't seen before.

Ok to sum it all up, I'd say you need to follow the tutorial accurately to make things work.

Of course it might be that I've made a mistake writing the tutorial, but so far I've created... uh "many" theaters using that method and so far nobody else has reported anything wrong with it

PMC TFW
Snake Man

John D · Post by **John D** » 2002-05-01 03:27:00

Where can I find the SPTinstall.exe?
There is a reference to this file just before part 3 in the Ultimate Theater Tutorial...

JJ

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-01 03:41:00

quote:Originally posted by JJ:
Where can I find the SPTinstall.exe?

http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/downloads/SPTinstall.zip

quote:There is a reference to this file just before part 3 in the Ultimate Theater Tutorial...

Thanks for letting me know, link has been added there now.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

John D · Post by **John D** » 2002-05-01 04:00:00

Thanks,

now one more question...I don't know if it's part of this thread, but maybe you can give me a clue. I am at part three...I kinda went past the whole CATE thing

and tried to use terrainview on my new theater, but it turns up all fuzzy, is this because I haven't applied the tiles in the CATE program yet? I'm just learning this stuff, so....

Thanks for you help,

JJ

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-01 04:03:00

quote:Originally posted by JJ:
I kinda went past the whole CATE thing and tried to use terrainview on my new theater

CATE only makes the terrain look good, it does not make it "work" any better than default dem2terrain produced L2 file.

quote:but it turns up all fuzzy

What do you mean fuzzy?

Do you have a screenshot?

If you do, make it jpg and send it directly to nospam email address so I can see

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-04 13:29:00

New Village Util v0.3b1 is ready for testing.

This is actually the v0.2b5 which I already sended to JJ but here it is. If someone would be kind enough to test it and confirm everything is ok, I'll add it to the downloads as v0.3 final

http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/downloads ... v0.3b1.zip

PMC TFW
Snake Man

krfrge · Post by **krfrge** » 2002-05-04 14:06:00

Sanke,,,the mod to the util program has worked. Thanks KRFRGE

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-06 04:19:00

Thats nice, now if someone else would confirm this too then it would be time to add this to the public downloads.

PMC TFW
Snake Man

John D · Post by **John D** » 2002-05-06 06:05:00

I can confirm it...they worked for me.

Thanks,
JJ

cihat · Post by **cihat** » 2002-05-06 12:35:00

hi everybody,
your great tools couraged/enabled me to prepare a new theater. i have already made a progress. but i have a problem for the UI production stage. although procidx1.pl and irc2res.pl works on creating new main.* set and intel.* set, the campmap.* set is not successful. when i tried to enter the TE or campaign F4 locks as soon as i press the commit button.
i tried F4 both on W2000 and -xp, the same result occured.
i produced the campmap set with original korean BIG_MAP_ID.tga and replaced with the original campmap set. F4 locked again.

any idea/help would be appreciated.

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-07 07:31:00

New Village Util v0.3 has been added to the downloads page.

The Village Util page or tutorial if you can call it that has been also improved some. You'll find the link here http://www.pmctactical.org/f4/docs/village.php

Hopefully everything works fine

PMC TFW
Snake Man

Crazy · Post by **Crazy** » 2002-05-30 23:43:00

Hello. I follow your Ultimate THeater Tutorial and I've got some problem when comes the part 4 : Campaign. First, with TACEDIT I'm not able to have the right occupation map and I'm not even able to create the PAK map... Also, in the MAP VIEW I don't have any background map. Any cues?

Thanks

Crazy

Post by **Snake Man** » 2002-05-31 10:52:00

quote:Originally posted by Crazy:
part 4 : Campaign. First, with TACEDIT I'm not able to have the right occupation map and I'm not even able to create the PAK map...

Have you created THR file with PathMaker? Occupation map painter/creator reads this file, PAK map cannot be created if occupation map is not completed I think.

quote:in the MAP VIEW I don't have any background map.

Load background bitmap.

PMC TFW
Snake Man