jr_walker 10 Posted October 17, 2010 Hello all, I’ve searched the forums and Googled with no luck. I’m trying to import a 40960x40960 sat_lco for a 40960x40960 island. I have good imagery and would really like to have a 1 pixel per meter resolution. The sat_lco is 3.7GB. As soon as I begin the import procedure in Visitor3, Visitor crashes. I am able to import my 20480 version of the sat_lco with no problems (of course, I adjust the project properties for the appropriate sat size). I am running Win 7x64 w 8GB RAM. Is Visitor able to import a 40960x40960 sat_lco? If so, I would appreciate any tips on how I might be able to accomplish that. Thanks very much, Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mir_o 85 Posted October 17, 2010 Hi JR_Walker, Is Visitor able to import a 40960x40960 sat_lco? ..propably not, Visitor 4 is optimized to import such a huge imagery. There is also possibility to import imagery which is cut to lets say 2x2 tiles(20480x20480). I assume you`ve used terrain grid 2048x2048, right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oldbear 390 Posted October 17, 2010 (edited) No Visitor4 stuff here ..., for here is a Visitor3 related question ^^. The issue is probably related to the terrain grid size you want for your terrain. Show us the figures ... Edited October 17, 2010 by Old Bear Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 17, 2010 Here are the setttings Old Bear: Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mir_o 85 Posted October 17, 2010 Have you already tried to get 4096x4096 terrain grid into the game? Make a test with just 20480x20480 satellite image(1pix = 2m) and 4096x4096 terrain grid. Binarization with this terrain grid on some of my tests took 8 hours(whole map was without objects)!!! and after 15 mins of loading ingame I had to kill the application. Arma engine isnt still optimized to run such huge data and as far as I know only VBS engine got this optimalization for engine and packing line. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mugaben 10 Posted October 17, 2010 Is it 8 bit? Otherwise, V3 crashes Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 18, 2010 @Mir_o: Yes I have the terrain in-game with 20480 sat_lco. It runs fine on my computer (about 45 minute to binarize and loads as quickly as any other map): http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=108075 @DampetDK: I'll check that. Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 20, 2010 @DampetDK, Both mask_lco and sat_lco were not 8 bit. I converted both to 8 bit (sat_lco is now only 1.33GB), but Visitor3 still crashes as soon as the import begins. Has anyone been successful with a 40960x40960 sat_lco? Any other tips? Thanks, Walker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prowler.wolf 0 Posted October 20, 2010 Biggest I ever worked with was a 20480 x 20480 sat image and it was a fricken huge headache :( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted October 20, 2010 I managed to import a 28672x28672 Sat & Mask while trying to push the detail on my map higher than 1pix/1m... That was the largest size I could get Photoshop to deal with that was properly in proportion... worked out at about 1pix/0.7m, and a crapload of MB bigger... Photoshop took ages - about half an hour to actually save the file! Visitor spat it out like a bad taste several times - then I managed to finally get it to import by completely fresh-booting my comp - opening visitor and straight to import Sat & Mask... It took about - literally - 5 or 6 hours... a whole evening anyway, for Visitor to import - the whole time it just sat there "Not Responding", but a cunning eye on system monitor showed it had one core pretty much flat out and the other cpu core about 50% - so it definitely was doing something... left alone it finished eventually... I've found Visitor somehow doesn't seem to "tidy up" in memory or something... sometimes it struggles if you import two or three big forest files in a row - like it "runs out of something"... Road Smoothing too... It's no guarantee - but I have found that saving at the point you're at - completely shutting down Visitor and restarting - even rebooting the comp completely - then trying again can occasionally - occasionally - persuade a road to smooth, or a 1.2million tree file to load... No real solution I'm afraid... like prowler.wolf says - I have headaches enough - and a 447MB (and growing) island file! - with 20480x20480... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 21, 2010 Thanks for the comments. I’ve not really had any problems working with the 20480 sat_lco. I have actually done it frequently over the last few weeks, although it does take sometime to save in PS, import and bianarize. Also I’ll note that the island opens and runs absolutely as well as Takistan. I’m hopeful that the 40960 version works similarly. I did find that if I set the texture size to 10x10m, the thing became slide show – so the texture size will remain at 40. Making the 40960 sat_lco was quite a task and if the import is ever successful, I’ll post up the process I used to create and import the thing. I’m going to look at png headers and see if somehow saving the image using 64bit based tools somehow mucks the file for 32bit applications (including Visitor 3). I sure want this to work…don’t know if I can spend two years building up a blurry island (I admit it looks much better since bushlurker gave me an idea on how to solve an alignment problem); on the other hand maybe between now and then tools will be available that breeze though 40960 images… Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prowler.wolf 0 Posted October 21, 2010 I've found Visitor somehow doesn't seem to "tidy up" in memory or something... sometimes it struggles if you import two or three big forest files in a row - like it "runs out of something"... Road Smoothing too... B I feel your pain, I often restart visitor every hour after a big change to make sure its running smoothly before I do something drastic. The main sign that visitor is not working to it's full ability is when you close it and the program hangs before you have to force close it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted October 21, 2010 Yeah - I've found that sometimes when I close Visitor for the evening I get a popup error which causes grief when shutting down the comp - I've learned that when you see that error you have to check in Task Manager/Processes - Visitor will still be running as a process, even though you closed it as an application... @JR Walker (I remember that advert!)... 20480 isn't too shabby - if you have no luck with the headers I'd go with that for now... start to make some progress in other areas - as you say you never know whats round the corner on the tools front... I noticed Maruk slipping out a little official font tool recently, and, even if BIS just update us to Arrowhead level, we're due some roads mlods at some point... I wouldn't be surprised if we're all pleasantly surprised by BIS sometime in the future - after the Freetrack thing a while back I have no doubts whatsoever about their support for the community... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 22, 2010 I made a few more attempts with the 40960 sat_lco, but no success. In an effort to understand the difference between the 20480 and 40960 resolutions, I created a 20480 island using the SW corner of my height map and used the 20480 SW corner of my 40960 sat_lco to get the 1 pixel per meter resolution. The top of the image is the 1 meter per pixel and the lower is the 2 meter per pixel. The 1:1 resolution is clearly superior in my opinion, so if anyone develops, knows or discovers a method to get a 40960 sat_lco in game please post up. In the meantime, doesn’t seem worth another thread, is there a best practice for next steps? Should I texture the entire island before doing anything else? Should I do roads first? Or vegetation? Mix it up? Thanks in advance for any tips or wisdom you might offer. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted October 22, 2010 (edited) Definitely looks better with the 1pix/1m, of course - but 20480 isn't too bad - I've seen beta releases with worse sat layers, and you haven't even started yet!... Assuming you're not planning any major heightmap editing or smoothing - which you should really do before adding lots of objects - purely because reimporting later takes ages, then I'd suggest making a start on roads next... Roads will take you a while, and give you an appreciation of just how big your terrain is - plus you'll be looking at the ground, yard by yard, as you lay them - scouting bits that need smoothed for settlements, all that sort of thing... I'd leave major forestation till later - specially with a big map, Visitor/Buldozer tends to "chug" a bit with lots of trees - not what you need at the early stages when you're zooming around all over planning road networks... Since it's good realworld data, I'd just assume for now you'll be able to derive a quality vegetation mask or two which, with forest tools, should make most of your bulk veg-placing pretty quick - with only "spot fx veg" requiring hand placing... For roads, you need to load up the road tool in Visitor with all the road parts and have a go at using it, even though - nowadays, we have the betas of Homers road tool which should make the bulk of road placement 20x faster than it was before... Visitor tool needs loaded with road parts for that too, so your best bet is to read Aliexx's Roads Tutorial on Visitor roads installing... Also on this topic read thru this thread... That should be all the info you need... Get the roads installed and have a go - see how the keyparts work, etc - spot the "import road network" button you see when you lay a terminator or keypart and doubleclick it? - you'll be using that a lot... Next - read Homers Road Tool Development Thread - well worth reading this from beginning to end - see the discussion about the features and the development of the tool itself happening... theres a video or two and several download links - some of them might be dodgy, so HERE's all the different versions... Remember - it's a beta... it's also still 20x faster than the Visitor tool, so persevere... Reading right thru the thread should give you an idea of how it works... (basically laying keyparts in Visitor like you just tried out ;), then importing Homer-generated roads via that import road network button)... Depending on the terrain and style of map - roads is one of the major stages, so expect that and the assosciated smoothing to take a while... ZeroG's sticky at the top of this Forum section is a good place to check for quick links to threads on quite a few topics... I think theres links to some more roads discussion there - plus lots of other stuff... B Edited October 22, 2010 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oldbear 390 Posted October 22, 2010 (edited) I will suggest to get the terrain you want all textured as you wish. Then test it in-game, and do the needed changes before doing anything else ... and it can be a long process ^^. Then populated it with vegetation, not the whole vegetation cover, but some vegetation in order to get the "feeling" of the map. Even if it looks the thing to do afterwards, do not try building road network on the spot. The process to import/export road a whole network is tedious [unless somebody is having some magic tool]. So after having populated the map with vegetation try to set some towns, villages, buildings, with some parts of roads based on you _Sat. Then if you are truly satisfied with your terrain features, build the road network. Edited October 22, 2010 by Old Bear Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shezan74 11 Posted October 22, 2010 Assuming you're not planning any major heightmap editing or smoothing - which you should really do before adding lots of objects - purely because reimporting later takes ages, By the way there is an XYZ plugin for L3DT (downloadable from L3DT site) that allow you to export elevations in XYZ format. Importing XYZ in V3 will take some seconds on Fallujah with all objects. Doing the same from a png is taking ages. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jr_walker 10 Posted October 22, 2010 Thanks again to all. I don’t know if you realize how valuable your responses and advice are to us noobies (remember when you started?). Don’t know how to thank Bushlurker enough for your consistent, swift and thoughtful responses…they’ve really pushed me along. LOL though, Bush and Old Bear posting at almost exactly the same time, almost exactly opposite advice (at least different). Hehe. I really appreciate the suggested links and will review them. I’ll remember the tip about XYZ exports as well. A few days ago I actually read the Homer’s road tool thread. Really got me excited…hope things are going well for him, he’s been AFK far too long. But between that and the topics on non-ocean water, my stomach’s knotted a bit (A navigable river 20km+ long that drops 400m. is in the plan for Haadur, as is a railroad and caves). So, Gulp, here I go. You’ll undoubtedly be hearing more from me…hope to hear more from you as well. Take care, Walker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted October 22, 2010 LOL though, Bush and Old Bear posting at almost exactly the same time, almost exactly opposite advice (at least different). Hehe. :D Thats exactly what terrain making is like! Apart from some basic minimums we need to stick to to get them working in-game theres no set rules for anything else... its one of the reasons that the best terrains all have a character of their own... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
prowler.wolf 0 Posted October 22, 2010 Thanks again to all. I don’t know if you realize how valuable your responses and advice are to us noobies (remember when you started?). Don’t know how to thank Bushlurker enough for your consistent, swift and thoughtful responses…they’ve really pushed me along. Just be glad you have it so easy ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dougboy101 0 Posted February 2, 2011 Bit of a "bump" im using 24K textures no worries, 711meg Sat PNG The limit is not far from there, Could it be as simple as 1gig PNGs are the limit? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted February 2, 2011 I managed to import a 28672x28672 mask and sat once... took ages, but it worked ok... Biggest single problem was working with it in photoshop... I have a fairly old (but happily legit) version blagged from my Uni computing department, plus I had only 4gb of RAM back then - it took forever to export the file... I was originally aiming for 32768x32768 - just to see if the quality improvement was worth the exponentially huge increase in overall filesize, but I hit a Photoshop limit - 30k... again, that was with 32bit CS2 on a 4gb machine - things may be different with newer and 64bit versions..... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dougboy101 0 Posted February 2, 2011 i got 12gig ram, i could definitely try, but yeah saving the 24k bmp to png take 15mins Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
=kct=blackmamba 44 Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) edit completely misunderstood your post i missed a 0 so it was only 4096 :) such a newbie.. Edited March 17, 2011 by =KCT=BlackMamba Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
=kct=blackmamba 44 Posted February 16, 2012 (edited) @ Bushlurker these days the .png file size limitation of 2gb can be dealt with, i saved a .png of 5gb last night. today i try to import it into visitor, lets see wat happens. fingers crossed. @shezan74 when i reimport my hight map xyz/.png i copy all my objects, delete them, import my hight map, and paste absolute. this is roads/objects/vegetation included, takes abouth 3 minutes on a 20480x20480 terrain. always works. Edited February 16, 2012 by =KCT=BlackMamba Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
