mikebart's Project's

[mikebart 1]

Thanks again for the nice comments guys.

@icebreaker, thanks will check it out, and im already on your skype, you must have a massive contact list :)

I was trying to think where in the world this flora reminded me of... .

Thanks, its not really based on any real world location, i've just made a lot of trees and plants that I like and thrown them all together on one island :)

@Dimitri_Harkov, thanks heaps for the mission Dimitri, I had a good round of it this morning and it was alot of fun,

Link to server key

@Kristian, thanks for posting some pictures, and with a story, awesome :)

@Enad, Kristain, sorry about the bad performance, Ill try and do what I can to optimize things, for me the fps drops mostly around the forest on the NE side of the island, but usually wont drop below 30fps with these settings:

Im running an i7-920 and a GTX275

@Tankcommander They're not the best of quality but you can gather a general profile of each tree, grass etc from the images here:

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/mb-veg

[darkxess 60]

Hey Mikebart, are we allowed to use these on our own maps? cause id really love to use some of this stuff! like i said also, would really love some hedges too! hehe...

Would i need the configs etc for them to be in my map?

[bushlurker 45]

Hi Mikebart!

Just got a chance to take a walk around...

Wow! - it's really all come together well!

The elms have really developed since the original experiments! - looking great now with a good variety of shapes... four varied styles combined with resizing is enough to provide an impressively realistic forest! - presumably you'll be turning your attention to another complementary species or two in the future?

Or matching bushes using the same technique?

I too noticed "momentary slowdowns" beside large groups of trees... performance IS perhaps a little "draggy" in places... not sure what could be causing that...

Clutter...

Fantastic! REALLY nice to see some original clutter happening! I've been trying my hand at that myself, with mixed results so far... these are looking brilliant though...

It's a personal thing really, but - since working on me & Betons "summerplants" thing a while back, I've become a big fan of the Photoshop colour balance and desaturate controls ;)... I've been redoing quite a few of the summer stuff, both for my own project, and for an eventual summerplants update - in almost every case I've been desaturating a bit, followed by a nudge away from blue and towards yellow... everything looks MUCH better as a result... You could maybe try desaturating more than you'd think advisable (things look different in-game... might be those rvmat thingys I don't quite understand), then micronudging every texture just very slightly differently from the next - tiny amounts... might be worth a little experimenting...

Tussocks!

Love these!!!

We have tussocks in Scotland too!... mile after mile of 'em!

... looks like a tussocks 'n small rocks clutter situation! (and the reason for my obsession with the "desaturate" control :))

I think I read you mentioned tussocks as clutter? - it will be interesting to see where you go with that idea!

Rocks!

These are absolutely gorgeous! - best rock texture I've seen!

A particularly nice touch is the areas where you have the bedrock showing as a ground texture - and it matches the rock texture! Most rocks come from "just over there a bit" - unless they've been deliberately positioned, which means that where the bedrock shows locally - it should really be quite obviously the same stuff ...

When/if you come to the point where you're offering a rocks pack to islandmakers - it might be a nice touch to include a matching ground texture - so the rocks look "at home" :)

Obviously, a few more varied rock models would be nice eventually... maybe a "mysterious standing stone" or two?? - just big, suitably shaped, local rocks heaved upright... none of your posh sculpted Stonehenge guys!

Other suggestions for possible future stuff not covered by currently available models...???

Sycamore/Maple/Horse Chestnut trees

Wild flowers

Rhodedendron & Gorse bushes (both flower impressively and grow like wildfire given half a chance)

B

Edited August 7, 2010 by Bushlurker

[stephsen 79]

hey mike, I have just tested your island,and I must say I am really speechless, the soft contours look soooo great,really good work.

I am a little reminiscent of the Normandy map from ofp1 ...as it looks like it would fit well into a ww2 scenario.

[enad 11]

Would love to see some maps with this new vegetation for sure. As long as it doesn't lower FPS as much as it does now.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I love the new grass, it seems a bit too green in places (only because of the contrast with the rocky shores, I'm thinking), but it's great to run around on.

Hope you consider making a larger island in the near future. :)

[mikebart 1]

Hey Mikebart, are we allowed to use these on our own maps? cause id really love to use some of this stuff! like i said also, would really love some hedges too! hehe...

Would i need the configs etc for them to be in my map?

Yep, you're welcome to use them, this was the reason behind seperating everything into smaller packages, eg veg, rocks. Also the mb_veg package is split up into seperate .pbo's, trees, bushes, clutter.

No need for configs, unless you want to place them in the editor. You just need to depbo them the same way you would with BIS's CA\ and put them somewhere in your P:\ drive for Visitor 3 to read.

Hi Mikebart!

Presumably you'll be turning your attention to another complementary species or two in the future?

Or matching bushes using the same technique?

theres still a few more versions of the elms to be made, but thats just a matter of swapping out the textures, and rendering a new distant lod texture, so hopefully ill release more soon.

im pretty keen to have a go at bushes, hedges, and as Darkxess suggests, hedge rows.

I too noticed "momentary slowdowns" beside large groups of trees... performance IS perhaps a little "draggy" in places... not sure what could be causing that...

I think the bad performance could be due to there being too many of the "mb_t_ulmus_large" they're the tall ones with foliage just about all the way up the trunk.

From what i've found its not so much the vertex count of the tree or wether or not it uses a lightmap on a second UV channel that causes slow down, its more the volume of the foliage, which could either be the volume of the view, geo and fire lods or alpha overdraw, not too sure atm.

I know that if I swap out the elms with bis's fagus's (which is what I used to test the elms against) I got roughly the same performance, give or take 1fps or so.

If a forest is mostly made up of the "mb_t_ulmus_forest" and the other 2 elms are used around the edges then I think it could perform ok at a larger scale. But I havent tested them yet on a larger terrain and im not sure what might happen with the blended alphas used for the distant lods, im pretty sure theres a limit to how many blended alphas you can render at one time.

So I think the blended alpha are ok for Mana, cause its small but Ill probably have to release new versions that use the standard tree shader on the distant lod for larger terrain.

Clutter...

Fantastic! REALLY nice to see some original clutter happening! I've been trying my hand at that myself, with mixed results so far... these are looking brilliant though...

It's a personal thing really, but - since working on me & Betons "summerplants" thing a while back, I've become a big fan of the Photoshop colour balance and desaturate controls ;)... I've been redoing quite a few of the summer stuff, both for my own project, and for an eventual summerplants update - in almost every case I've been desaturating a bit, followed by a nudge away from blue and towards yellow... everything looks MUCH better as a result... You could maybe try desaturating more than you'd think advisable (things look different in-game... might be those rvmat thingys I don't quite understand), then micronudging every texture just very slightly differently from the next - tiny amounts... might be worth a little experimenting...

Thanks for the advice, Ill try this out, I've tried to make the east side quite saturated while the west is quite desaturated, but I think this clashes a bit where the two sides meet, Im a big fan of the "movie day filter" in the mission editor though and I've used it extensivly throughout colour correcting for the island, I quite like the idea of a screen filter handling saturation levels rather than force desaturation on the textures themselves, this allows more options for the artist and mission editor, although it doesnt solve the problem im getting at sunset and sunrise.

Tussocks!

Love these!!!

We have tussocks in Scotland too!... mile after mile of 'em!

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Bushlurker/tussocks_skyecopy.jpg

... looks like a tussocks 'n small rocks clutter situation! (and the reason for my obsession with the "desaturate" control :))

I think I read you mentioned tussocks as clutter? - it will be interesting to see where you go with that idea!

yep tussocks are the best :), and I think they offer an interesting and unique battleground, at quite a low performance cost, I had the chance to photograph tussock that grows around the middle of the south island last month and got some great references, so ill definitly develop them further.

Rocks!

These are absolutely gorgeous! - best rock texture I've seen!

A particularly nice touch is the areas where you have the bedrock showing as a ground texture - and it matches the rock texture! Most rocks come from "just over there a bit" - unless they've been deliberately positioned, which means that where the bedrock shows locally - it should really be quite obviously the same stuff ...

When/if you come to the point where you're offering a rocks pack to islandmakers - it might be a nice touch to include a matching ground texture - so the rocks look "at home" :)

Obviously, a few more varied rock models would be nice eventually... maybe a "mysterious standing stone" or two?? - just big, suitably shaped, local rocks heaved upright... none of your posh sculpted Stonehenge guys!

I think a rock and tussock environment would make for a fantastic map, and theres sure to be more variation in the next release, i've been experimenting with modular rock ledges aswell, still in the modelling stage, but im hoping ill be able to use shezans world tools to place them.

edit: for the rock texture, just grab it out of the mb_manaisland_data.pbo, but ill definitly put it in the next release.

heres a little cave that should make it in the next release too

Edited August 8, 2010 by mikebart

[mikebart 1]

Other suggestions for possible future stuff not covered by currently available models...???

Sycamore/Maple/Horse Chestnut trees

Wild flowers

Rhodedendron & Gorse bushes (both flower impressively and grow like wildfire given half a chance)

Some nice suggestions there, ill see how i go :)

I am a little reminiscent of the Normandy map from ofp1 ...as it looks like it would fit well into a ww2 scenario.

I hope the get used for a WW2 map aswell :)

I love the new grass, it seems a bit too green in places (only because of the contrast with the rocky shores, I'm thinking), but it's great to run around on.

Hope you consider making a larger island in the near future.

yeah thanks cameron, ill remove the lush grass from the west coast, its bothering me too.

[darkxess 60]

You just need to depbo them the same way you would with BIS's CA\ and put them somewhere in your P:\ drive for Visitor 3 to read.

Em strange, there in the visitor! but all blocky! there is no textures etc,..

All ive done is depbo them like you said, put them in my P:\CA\ drive with the bis stuff etc, IN THERE OWN folders,

for example how they was from you "mb_trees" and so on...

Is there a certain way they are set to be in the P:\ drive?

Sorry for the troubles! .. :butbut:

[mikebart 1]

oh right, sorry it should be "P:\mikebart\mb_veg\mb_trees\"

[darkxess 60]

oh right, sorry it should be "P:\mikebart\mb_veg\mb_trees\"

Thanks mate! thats got it... though what about the rocks? [they are black]

LoL... and any chance on a hedge or two soon? lol... my island could really do with some hedges! and ill be releasing and update of my island soon with your vegitation pack being used!

Thanks again... will add you to credits too ;)

[mikebart 1]

Thanks mate! thats got it... though what about the rocks? [they are black]

LoL... and any chance on a hedge or two soon? lol... my island could really do with some hedges! and ill be releasing and update of my island soon with your vegitation pack being used!

Thanks again... will add you to credits too ;)

Open the PBOPREFIX's and have a look in there, rocks will be "mikebart\mb_rocks" so that means P:\mikebart\mb_rocks\.

not too sure about the hedges Darkxess, i think i might be fixing bugs for a while, thanks for using the objects :)

[darkxess 60]

Open the PBOPREFIX's and have a look in there, rocks will be "mikebart\mb_rocks" so that means P:\mikebart\mb_rocks\.

not too sure about the hedges Darkxess, i think i might be fixing bugs for a while, thanks for using the objects :)

haha... thanks mate! im really new to all of this, its true what they say "you learn something everyday" :D

I can wait for the hedges! .. no worries! thanks again for the release.

---------- Post added at 08:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:22 AM ----------

Hey mate, just an update on bugs, im getting this when loading it in game

once ive placed items on my map:

Ive looked in the data folder, and seen no "mb_cluttergrass_no.paa"

I take it its something you know? just so I know its something not my side!

Thanks :)

[mikebart 1]

oh ok, dont use "mb_c_grassLush_NM", I was playing around trying to use the NormalMapGrass pixel shader but I never actually got it working, it worked in buldozer but I just ended up with black grass in game, just remove any reference to it from the clutter.hpp and cgfSurfaces.hpp and you should be right.

must have left it in there by mistake.

[darkxess 60]

oh ok, dont use "mb_c_grassLush_NM", I was playing around trying to use the NormalMapGrass pixel shader but I never actually got it working, it worked in buldozer but I just ended up with black grass in game, just remove any reference to it from the clutter.hpp and cgfSurfaces.hpp and you should be right.

must have left it in there by mistake.

Fixed now, just removed what you said and no more errors! :)

Thanks alot for the help, and sorry again for the troubles :o

Edited August 8, 2010 by DarkXess

[Nixo 10]

The island and objects rock :)

[stephsen 79]

createt a little video from this great island thx Mikebart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twmJgI4ln2g

[mikebart 1]

Thanks stephsen, thats great! the building you've placed really fits in there and the posts are a nice touch too, thanks for showing it.

I just updated the front page and added a link to download the "cfgClutter.hpp".

And I added thanks to Homer Johnston for his road painter tool, sorry homer I forgot to give you any credit for it, by the time I got to writing the readme, I was like "I just want to upload the !@#$en thing!", but honestly without that tool, I dont think I ever would have put as much detail into the roads, it was so easy that I simply forgot it ever happened, there you go :)

Edited August 8, 2010 by mikebart

[stephsen 79]

hey Mikebart this island with the new vegi,rocks etc. is the best I've seen to date maps to Arma2 its so beauty very consistent and all.

All placed great and not so cluttered and extremely hilly, like other maps.

Less is sometimes more easily.

I can draw reasonably well and could give you some cool concept arts to get ready,would be something for you?(im realy dump As for what that work with visitor3:rolleyes:)

oh last question the clutter.hpp comes in userconfig ?

best greetz Stephsen

[mikebart 1]

thanks again, yeah i'd love to see some drawings:).

The clutter.hpp goes in the terrain config, its basically a list of all the clutter included in mb_veg.

[Requiem007 10]

Mikebart I felt compelled to inform you on how much I appreciate you creating and publishing Mana Island.

I recently made an amphibious assault mission with loads of troops on the western side of the island and I had the greatest of times playing the quick and simple mission. Once the battle died down and the invading force took the main hill overlooking the beach opposing forces took to the highly vegetated areas and fought like guerrillas, and throughout observing/participating in this battle I was constantly thinking how beautiful of terrain this island has.

So thank you for creating a true work of art and keep up the great work.

[[aps]gnat 28]

[mikebart 1]

Thanks for the kind words guys:), Requiem, please dont hesitate to post a link to the mission if you feel like sharing it. Im gradually optimising the trees so im pretty certain you guys will notice a performance increase on the next release, cheers.

Edited August 11, 2010 by mikebart

[darkxess 60]

Hey mate! just released an update of my map with your stuff included! you might want

to take a look, though still in beta, and wow.. so many trees etc make alot of bad fps! hope for an update soon, thanks again mate :)

Nicosia V4.2

[miller 49]

The clutter.hpp goes in the terrain config, its basically a list of all the clutter included in mb_veg.

Sorry mikebart but I dont find a terrain config in mb_veg. :confused:

And if I use the addons, my game crashed to the desktop. :o