PMC finishing ArmA projects, read TODO here

[Snake Man]

PMC near future TODO list

This is list of projects in my mind right now, I want to accomplish my goals by editing and releasing the following final ArmA releases:

DONE! & Released AGS Buildings - shiny textures fixed

DONE! & Released AGS Industrial - shiny textures fixed

DONE! & Released AGS Port - shiny textures fixed

DONE! & Released CAT Afghanistan - satellite texture / replace 50m forests with individual trees

DONE! & Released PMC 51km Desert - any fixes that can be done

DONE! & Released PMC AEC - satellite texture / replace 50m forests with individual trees

DONE! & Released PMC Apache - tweaked loadout

DONE! & Released PMC Cmp1 - real name and final version

DONE! & Released PMC First Fight - final version

DONE! & Released PMC Rattler - satellite texture

DONE! & Released PMC Rugen - satellite texture / replace 50m forests with individual trees

DONE! & Released PMC Somalia - better terrain (if possible, its very rough now)

DONE! & Released VTE - as many tweaks in as possible

<add here any project I forgot hehe. if you have some favorite PMC project you not see in this list, please post it here>

As everyone knows ArmA 2 has arrived and it is the future. The step from ArmA to ArmA 2 is much less than it was from OFP to ArmA, it means that its sort of stupid to edit anything for ArmA anymore as anyone in their right mind is moving to ArmA 2 and no new players will buy ArmA anymore. Its only matter of time until ArmA dies away. Even BIS has started to hammer nails into the coffin labeled ArmA with their ArmA 2 tools release policy which just simply gestapo style overwrites old ArmA tools.

Reference read: PMC ArmA 2 modding statement.

I want to finish up my ArmA projects so I can feel good about myself, the ArmA legacy of PMC and then move into ArmA 2 without looking back anymore. In many ways you could say that why bother with ArmA anymore, just move on... but no, it would haunt me always if I left the projects unfinished. I really want to make nice final releases so there is no second quessing in the future. I feel very good about OFP VTE v0.4 release which was done fully aware that it will be the last one for OFP, now I'm so happy and proud that I did that, I want to accomplish the same for ArmA.


This list is NO promise!

Yes, I don't want to give the impression that this list of projects will absolutely be accomplished... all I'm saying is that it is my wish to accomplish these, maybe I don't accomplish any of them... I don't want anyone to get false hopes and start waiting for some of these releases. Just take it easy and time will tell what happens. One more time; this is no promise of releases of any kind.


Want to help?

Well this is even more useless to say but naturally if someone is willing to help me with any of these projects, they are more than welcome. I would especially need help with texture editing as I need to tweak the existing shiny textures (SMDI files) and also bug reporting is important, I need to know what bugs are the most critical / annoying ones so I can focus to try to fix them first.

As usual nobody offers to help, but hey, welcome to my life...

And now... time to roll up my sleeves, fire up the editing tools and get to work. Sight... the amount of work I have ahead of me is demoralizing... just the way I like it!YEAH!

[Snake Man]

Small update for this topic.

Two days ago when I was working on the first project which was CAT Afghanistan satellite texture, my photoshop was chucking away swapping 5gb so I added another drives to the scratch space list. Well doing some more editing on the huge PSB image, one of my hard drives (the newer one) started to make noises.

Soon after it just went offline...

Uh oh

In this drive there are basically all my game editing stuff, the source files. By ironic miracle I had just moved hundreds of text file notes I have in that drive, into my local wiki (not the same as PMC Editing Wiki!) where I got all my notes under one search command and indexed etc.

But still, my hdd was breaking where all my editing sources were for OFP, ArmA, ArmA 2 and Falcon 4.

If I would loose this hard drive, then the loss for my development status would be quite insane.

So I started to work on the drive, few resets and cold boots got the drive back up but it just kept making noises and dropped offline few more times.

I went out and bought some dvd-r discs and started to backup the essential stuff. I had already moved first batch of the stuff to my other working drive, but as there was about 10gb free, it was pretty useless. I bought 10 discs so about 40+gb capacity.

I have now backupped hmm lets say all essential OFP, ArmA and ArmA 2 stuff, Falcon 4 essentials like CATE + Tactedit TCL files, NSIS installer files, DEM sources etc are saved. There is still bunch of stuff, a lot actually, in my F4 Theater dirs so if the drive would absolutely just DIE now, there would be significant loss of data, however nothing life theatening.

So what does this mean?

Well we had a close call, but now all the essential PMC editing source files + documentation is safe, no need to worry.

However I've lost two full days now for this emergency backup work, perhaps just maybe tomorrow I get back to editing the CAT Afghanistan satellite texture again.

BTW as some of you regular PMC Tactical readers remember, there was close call on my fried video card in last year, however this time even as the situation was really grim, I didn't immediately run to the forums to cry wolf hehe. Good choice as we now see that I got out of this jam by miracle. Sure it sucks to have 50% less hdd capacity now and most of my editing stuff backupped to dvd-r (very difficult to reach), but hey... at least we didn't lose any data.

Anyways, just a small update

[Snake Man]

I have added DONE! tags for the first post to show which projects are already completed. So far I only released the CAT Afghanistan v1.3 beta version quietly, but soon I'll continue releasing the stuff that's done now.

There is still tons of stuff to do, but so far I'm happy with the progress. Sounds nuts but I'm really looking forward of doing the PMC Rugen/Rattler satellite texture/mask images now.

Stay tuned for more updated when development proceeds.

[Snake Man]

Anyone paying attention (which I know there is none, hoho) must have noticed the Ia Drang, 14 th of november topic in our VTE ArmA 2 forum area which announces that we have decided to release first VTE version at nov 14th 2009.

Now you might think that this causes problems for the ArmA projects finishing schedule... well I sure hope not. I'm devoted to finish up the remaining projects which include VTE also so it sort of falls into same category, we inter-mix (is that a word?) the developments on ArmA and ArmA 2 VTE files, so everyone benefits.

About the ArmA projects more closely, right now if you see the first post list of projects, there is PMC Rattler terrain which has gotten the satellite texture/mask upgrade, it is ready and just waiting in the rar to be shipped to the news sites. I'm currently working on PMC Rugen where the satellite MASK is done and texture is WIP, I'd say its about 15% done which is not much though.

One area which I'm little bit scared of is the PMC Somalia, I have not done any work for it since the technicals and AK47 long time ago, the whole terrain WRP will have to be redone for satellite texture/mask and it means objects also. I already spend long time to build the current object placement (roads), so I really don't know how long it will take to reach same level road wise and of course the buildings would need to be somewhat nicely laid out. We'll just have to see when I get around to work on the files.

Then lastly in my schedule is the final VTE release, that will be big sucker to edit and I don't even dream of estimating how many weeks it takes to edit. The terrains alone take really long time to do as there is freaking 26 of them, making satellite texture/mask's for those is... damn I don't even want to think about it

However its all going to be great. I have already exceeded my wildest dreams about keeping up schedule and the level of quality in these addons I've released so far... I'm very much looking forward to the last push of this project. Its going to be so great when its finally all done and we can move to ArmA 2 for good.

Anyways a short update; VTE nov 14th release will not delay ArmA projects finishing too much. Its all good

[WGL.Q]

Respect SM!

Your list of project is even bigger than mine.

[Snake Man]

The recent release of PMC Rugen makes our list of projects quite complete. There are three interesting projects left;

PMC 51km Desert - I'm not really sure what I can upgrade here, I guess just finishing touches and stuff, it should be technically OK right now.
PMC Somalia - This is bad, very bad. I mean it is complete rework for the terrain and it will take some painful days to edit the roads and buildings back in.
VTE - Ahh this one I love to start editing, in fact I cant wait.

However right now there is small change in plans, don't panic I wont quit and disappear... quite the opposite, I'm shifting my focus on the VTE ArmA 2 "Battle of Ia Drang Nov 14th" release.

While this means halt for the current projects TODO, it just one of those things that happened (blame it all on granQ and wld427 hehe) that the VTE ArmA 2 took off like this.

After the Nov 14th VTE release is out, I'm coming back to the last three projects in this list, I can't say for sure but I already took a brief look on the PMC Somalia so most likely I'll continue that (as its the hardest and nastiest).

Just wanted to give an update for this topic. I'd think this topic will be quiet for the next month now.

[Snake Man]

First post updated with the latest projects.

Now only two projects remain, PMC Somalia and VTE.

The end is getting near...

[Snake Man]

Almost forgot to finalize this topic. VTE was done and released. PMC has stopped ArmA addon development

Thank you for watching