World tools 1.0 released

[shezan74]

Hi there, as requested some time ago by Snake man i'm here to inform you all that i've released another software, that includes and extend old Fence Generator tool.

These are the main features:
- include a complete Fence Generator system for placing fences, walls and a lot of other kind of object.
- new scripting language for creating macros. Macros can be used to automatically generate farms, houses with gardens, compounds, castles and every other thing you will need.
- new forest generator tool, with support up to 256 mask colors, multiple different object placement on the same color with user customizable probabilty of placement (useful for bush, rocks, different tree types on the same area).
- a complete manual (available on about-help menu) with scripting samples, complete program logic and usage explanations and a full help for scripting language.

There is a planned bugfix / new features update in 1-2 days

Hope this could be useful for someone

Download here: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=10508

Regards
Shezan74

[Snake Man]

Terrain making is getting more enjoyable day by day

Keep up the good work.

[shezan74]

Thank you Snake Man

New version (1.1) is on it's way to Armaholic and already available for direct download there:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=10508

[Snake Man]

I have created PMC Editing Wiki: World Tools page. When I learn how to use it, I'll try to add some more information like examples there.

[Snake Man]

Do you have any suggestions how to create large city areas with those macro building placements?

Basically I'm trying to learn if you can just setup maybe 5 or so building types with decoration, then just automatically place them in large area. Or do you have to always manually click each macro into a map?

[Gnat]

If OA does auto villages (havent tested myself yet) then maybe use a script like at the end of this thread;
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=94373
and "rip" the buildings location, direction, type etc to clipboard or file.
Then use this data to import "templates" into visitor.

If that was the question .....

[shezan74]

Basically World Tools (at least at this stage) doesn't place "automatically" objects for you.
What you can do is having complex object structures placed on the map as a single click.

I'll make an example. If you want to create a powerlines you need 2 objects: sloup_vn and sloup_vn_drat.
Those objects represents electrical pylons and cables.
When you place a pylon you must manually place cables attached to them, facing the right direction. At the end of the cable you must place another pylon and so on.

Placing a 10 km powerline took some hours in my experience.

You know in World Tools you can place fences one attached to other in the needed direction, with a simple click.
Using scripting you can create a complex object, made by a pylon attached to his cables and you can place this "composed" object like a single object in the map. At every "click" on the directions panel you will place a pylon and a cable, in the required direction. next click, in the required direction, will place another pylon and cable, attached to the previous, facing the new direction.

a cable is 100 meters long. 10 km means 100 click on the "drawing" map of World Tools. It took 10 minutes.

Another useful way to use world tools scripting is to make templates. Yes, you can copy/paste objects from map but you must rotate those objects to fit, in bulldozer.
Scripting is allowing you to do this in a faster way, by creating complex objects.

I will post soon a small script that allow you to create a complete house fence with gate and house placed in the middle.

I'm announcing there i'm working on the next release of world tools, focused on forest generation.
The new version will include a remap feature to allow updating existing islands. With this feature you can EXPORT from your island the actual forest (or part of it), import it on world tools and REMAP objects.
Visitor3 already have a object replace function that will replace a single object with another type of object.
With world tools you can replace an export file (composed with everything you like) with a new set of object selected randomly on your preferences.

I'm using this feature for remapping Spritz Island vegetation without need to re-check every road for trees on it, by using the same placement of previous objects. The remap is made to replace forest with african vegetation (is an experiment). Remap was made flawlessy in 10 minutes (time to import objects again on V3) and without troubles related to object placements.

best
-[TdC]-Shezan.it

[Snake Man]

What you can do is having complex object structures placed on the map as a single click.

Okay, I was hoping there is automated way to place object structures according to mask image.

I will post soon a small script that allow you to create a complete house fence with gate and house placed in the middle.

Great, cant wait

[shezan74]

placing random buildings in a predefined area should be not so difficult...
the main problem is that OA auto placing feature will place objects completely random in the area. In many maps you must take care of existing roads...

[Snake Man]

OA town generator... but can you use that with World Tools? Can you extract the generated town automatically?

[shezan74]

Code: Select all

begin
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (1)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (1)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (1)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (1)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;90;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (2)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (3)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (3)
InsertObject(f308a014-3ef5-47c2-8613-0c7ae05aa284;0;0;1;Red) //ca\structures\wall\wall_gate_wood1 (4)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (5)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (5)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;90;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (6)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (7)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (7)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (7)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;90;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (8)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (9)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (9)
InsertObject(f308a014-3ef5-47c2-8613-0c7ae05aa284;0;0;1;Green) //ca\structures\wall\wall_gate_wood1 (10)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (11)
InsertObject(7cdfa000-e788-4a03-8da9-10b51c967b05;0;0;5;White) //ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5 (11)

MoveCursor(-10;-13)
InsertObject(cca6ec31-8476-473a-a5e5-f337fd54daf2;0;0;10;Lime) //ca\structures\house\housev\housev_3i2
MoveCursor(0;4)
InsertObject(ee7e036c-684e-464f-b2df-b683e1d98d0e;0;0;0;White) //ca\misc\seno_balik

make sure you have
ca\structures\wall\wall_wood2_5
ca\misc\seno_balik
ca\structures\wall\wall_gate_wood1
ca\structures\house\housev\housev_3i2

loaded on your map.
This script (that appears complicated but it's really simple if you understand how it works) will
1) place 4 wood fences (orientated in the direction you click on Directions form).
2) Then will TURN RIGHT 90° placing another fence,
3) will place 2 more fences...
4) insert a gate
5) add 2 more fences (same direction)
6) then a fence rotated by 90° again
7) followed by 3 fences
8) right turn with another fence
9) followed by 2 fences
10) a gate
11) and the 2 final fences on the side.

Box is so created with 2 sides with 4 fences (and a gate) and 2 sides with 3 fences. The box will be (5x5)+1 by (4x5) meters

Then i've moved my cursor by X = -10, Y = -13:
from the last direction of the object placed.

Assuming you're started pointing to north, the last direction is WEST (North -> East -> South -> West fence placement order)
So -10, -13 will move your cursor to the center of the box, placing a house

Then i've moved again the cursor and placed a ball of grass
// X > 0 move the cursor to relative east
// X < 0 move the cursor to relative west
// Y > 0 move the cursor to relative north
// Y < 0 move the cursor to relative south

[Snake Man]

Good tutorial, thank you

Is there limit of how complex macro/scripts you can do, for example your example was 1 house + decorations, can you create a block of houses by copy pasting that macro around (4 houses)?

Can you copy paste the house BLOCK around to create whole city sections?

[shezan74]

i've never reached limit of the macro.
You can of course create block of houses, by copy-paste them but more probably it's better to create one single block and place it many times by clicking on the map. In this way you can also give a small rotation following roads or simply "moving" your scenario.
The best way imho is to create many "templates" and use them in a mixed mode, keeping an eye on the map. If you place all objects with a single script you "draw" a line of houses but you cannot follow existing roads if those roads make a turn (except for specific wrote macros)

If you copy-paste houseblocks place between them a MOVE command to the following fence start point, if you need to keep those blocks separated.

[shezan74]

World Tools 1.4 has been released at http://www.pisto.it/worldtools/worldtools1_4.zip.
Release on ArmaHolic and armedassault in progress

Change log:
Version 1.4

- New function: Remap vegetation objects from existing islandprojects: use the full power of World Tools also in your old projects.
- Support for ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead objects (not included by default yet)
- New support site for World Tools at Dev Heaven.
- Updated template image management. Template size on disk reduced by 90%.
- New values on item classification list.
- Included Berghoff objects for user convenience.
- Some enhancements on the object selection list for Forest Generator.

Bug and requests: http://dev-heaven.net/projects/world-tools

[Snake Man]

New release, excellent! Thank you for your hard work on terrain utilities!

I was just last night trying to learn the macro script object placement, very nice to see new version out today.

How is the install procedure since it must be installed to the dir, how do I upgrade into v1.4 correctly?

Edit: I installed it over the old version and got a crash, I reported the crash into your DH issue tracker.

[shezan74]

Crash was due to an incorrect uninstall of the previous release (the program is unable to install over, and report to uninstall the previous release before proceeding with the next).
I'm checking for the causes, but uninstall old release is a pre-requisite that is managed by the setup software.

[Snake Man]

hi shezan74, I just checked your fallujah v1.2 release and wow it looks great, good job creating that terrain! I was amazed to see how much variation and "lifelike feel" you have put into it. My viewdistance was 5km and while there was noticeable slowdown looking at the horizon (didn't have FPS counter on so I don't know the numbers), it was still fully playable which is great.

As my interests are very much in terrain development and the tools, I have few questions for you if you don't mind

Satellite map is from Google Earth, right? How did you download and make the satellite image?

For the object placement, did you look for any other references except satellite map?

What elevation data did you use?

How did you place roads, World Tools, visitor3 road placer thingy or perhaps Homer Johnston's Road Painter?

Would you share your World Tools scripts (to automate object placement etc) so others can learn to use it better?

Did you edit the ArmA building models/textures or are they originals?

Not every building is surrounded with fence or decorations, how did you choose the design which / how many houses have these?

How many different house + decoration script templates you used?

Was the highway created one lane at the time + fence/lightpoles, or how did you do it?

[shezan74]

hi shezan74, I just checked your fallujah v1.2 release and wow it looks great, good job creating that terrain! I was amazed to see how much variation and "lifelike feel" you have put into it. My viewdistance was 5km and while there was noticeable slowdown looking at the horizon (didn't have FPS counter on so I don't know the numbers), it was still fully playable which is great.

Thanks

As my interests are very much in terrain development and the tools, I have few questions for you if you don't mind
Satellite map is from Google Earth, right? How did you download and make the satellite image?

I've used GoogleOzi (search googleozi on google)

For the object placement, did you look for any other references except satellite map?

No, i've placed images as background on V3 for manual placements and road

What elevation data did you use?

Custom elevation data was created, to make small terrain enhancements. I've used L3DT for that.

How did you place roads, World Tools, visitor3 road placer thingy or perhaps Homer Johnston's Road Painter?

All roads has been hand placed, since i've had a lot of roads to be set i've used a lot the copy-paste with small variations for parallel roads into quarter blocks.

Would you share your World Tools scripts (to automate object placement etc) so others can learn to use it better?

World tools has been used only for vegetations and for creating fence templates. I've copied-pasted all fences from an "archive" of fences of various size placed in the middle of the desert. fence openings has been made in place, once set around the houses

Did you edit the ArmA building models/textures or are they originals?

Only for moving folders to ca\buildings to fallujah_hou for textures in fallujah_hou.pbo.
Small changes has been made on A1 houses to add support for takistan spawn points (alice module, in release 1.2)

Not every building is surrounded with fence or decorations, how did you choose the design which / how many houses have these?

Buildings has placed one by one, as like fences. World tools scripting doesn't allow this kind of variation in object placement, mainly for object placement in relation to obstructions and roads. So every house and fence has been hand placed (some copy paste of standard buildings, but very few).

How many different house + decoration script templates you used?

only powerlines has been set as script with world tools.

Was the highway created one lane at the time + fence/lightpoles, or how did you do it?

yes, one lane at the time. Fences and lightpoles has been placed with Visitor3 scripts (avenue) with small modifications (road fences rotation by 90°, since the original model is not compatible with avenue script (will be placed rotated by 90° instead of aligned with the road

Best
Shezan74