ZGM Mapmaking Tutorial

[tupolov 520]

GM actually were pretty fast in getting me a trial license. Just email support@globalmapper.com and they will send you a 14 day trial license literally within hours.

Thanks again for the tutorial.

[jojimbo 0]

nice tut, but you should include the "need to own" global mapper spoiler

because you need a license :(

however nicely done and the dem data info a great resource

Edited November 16, 2010 by jojimbo

[OChristie 0]

Nice Tutorial, but......

There is data available for the US in extremely high resolution.

National Map Viewer - US Data

Digital Terrain Model - Max Resolution = 3 m/ps (Post Spacing)

NAIP Imagery - Max Resolution = 1 m/px (Pixel)

High Resolution Orth Imagery - Max Resolution = 0.3 m/px (Pixel)

Aswell as Raster Data being available there is also Vector (Shapefiles of Roads, Buildings and Vegetation)

Use World Tools and your laughing...

If you use data from Nevada, Utah, Arizona etc the terrain in certain parts could be matched to Central Afghanistan. With a bit of imagination and Photoshop skill you could create a very realistic Ghan Map.

[tupolov 520]

So after getting a trial license for GM I managed to get the ASTER data exported into XYZ format for an area just outside Qom, Iran. Thought it might make a good map considering the area has a number of military installations, airfield and secret nuclear facility. Its a 161 sq mile map.

I've got that data into Visitor, but am struggling with getting the aerial satellite imagery. It's available on Google etc but of course the Universal Map Downloader doesn't go to enough detail/zoom level. I tried at zoom level 12 with the correct geo co-ordinates but the image just doesn't tally with what's in visitor.

Any ideas of what I should do next?

Top Left Long 50.74526021

Top Left Lat 34.99981516

Bottom Right Long 50.96976139

Bottom Right Lat 34.81539867

Cheers,

Tup

[bushlurker 46]

the image just doesn't tally with what's in visitor.

Georectify the Sat image in GM to match the DEM...

B

[ZeroG 23]

Mmm..14 days GM trial seems fine by me to export lots of maps for next years :-) I.e. until Arma 3 arrives or Visitor 4 comes out for us gamers.

@OChristie: Yes, you are right...but this is just US. Every other part of the world costs a lot of money in that high resolution....far exceeding the cost of GM. Depends on what you want...in my case, I wanted to reproduce my home area...that's not US and I did not want to spend 500€ on 20km² 1m DEM.:p

[tupolov 520]

B,

Cheers for that... here's the results. Looks ok, but my sat pic looks too low res? The DEM data looks exaggerated too? Its raw, I haven't edited the height data.

http://shareimage.org/images/vbqqgumr5vz2ztgj6hhw.png > 100kb

Now going to export the sat pic by cropping it to my shape...

Tup

Edited November 22, 2010 by Zipper5
Image > 100kb

[Depth08 10]

AWESOME, you rock mate!

[tupolov 520]

So, a quick update.

I decided to purchase MySatellite, it's a Mac app that will download and stitch google earth tiles for $10. Has a limit of up to 5000 tiles though in one download.

Still I downloaded an image of the above area with around 1700 tiles creating a 10240x10240 Sat Image. Hoping this is detailed enough.

My XYZ elevation export from Global Mapper was originally 20480x20480... prolly too big for my first map. So, I exported it again and this time scaled it down to 10240... but kept the height scaling at around 0.8 rather than 0.5 (thanks Bushlurker, your posts are most helpful).

I manually created the mask (10240x10240) using GIMP and created a layer for each texture (building up from a base) and used around 6 colours, which are associated with 6 layers in the layer.cfg file. The textures etc are all from takistan except for some ploughed land and sand from Chernarus.

I found with Visitor I had to set up the project parameters before importing my XYZ file, otherwise there's some issues with importing the sat pic. Anyway, here's where I am.

http://shareimage.org/images/chkatj1otty6cjdbz9uv.jpg > 100kb

That's just northwest of Qom, Iran.

Edited November 22, 2010 by Zipper5
Image > 100kb

[tupolov 520]

Ok, thought I would bore you with another update.

I exported my map.wrp, created my self a UI selection pic and icon and ensured all the RVMAT and texture files are in the right place.

I've created a config.cpp file that is based on the Takistan config, in that config.cpp i've #include cfgClutter.hpp and cfgSurfaces.hpp files.

When I attempted to BinPBO my map folder, BinPBO crashed. I believe his maybe because I'm using a couple of p3d's that may already be binarised? These are basically the skybox and horizon from takistan.

Anyway, instead I chose just to Pack the PBO using BinPBO and not binarize. Here's the result.

Weird thing is only my Mountain Clutter is showing and nothing else...

Also, how do I get around the BinPBO issue? Do I just reference these p3d's in their original namespace rather than including in my PBO?

Thanks.

Tup

[tupolov 520]

And one more for those that appreciate the Apache.

http://shareimage.org/images/2xt9458rg2i4b18adj6t.jpg > 100kb

Edited November 22, 2010 by Zipper5
Image > 100kb

[tupolov 520]

I've progressed a little, I removed what must have been pre-binarised p3d's from my map folder and I now "successfully" BinPBO my map. When I say successfully, it loads in Arma 2. No errors about the missing p3d's so looks like my reference to them in their original namespace worked.

However, still no clutter for anything other than my mountain texture...

I get the following errors in the BinPBO exe log.

Warning: Embedded material ca\plants_e\clutter\data\c_grass_bunch_01.rvmat differs - repack data

source used: ca\plants_e\clutter\c_grassdrylong_ep1.p3d

source ignored: ca\plants_e\clutter\c_grassgreen_ep1.p3d

hint: ca\plants_e\clutter\c_grassdrylong_ep1.p3d is older

Bad case in TUP\TUP_Qom\data\qm_middle_mco.paa

W:\c\Poseidon\Lib\txtBank.cpp(377) : Bad case in texture name

EDIT: Fixed the bad case... didn't like a reference to TUP\TUP_Qom and so changed the config.cpp to ensure my MidDistanceTexture path was in lowercase.

g:\bis tools 2\armawork\tup\tup_qom\data\qm_sand_nopx.paa->P:\BIN_TEMP\g:\bis tools 2\armawork\tup\tup_qom\data\qm_sand_nopx.paa

Error (Img saving failed (Cannot open for writing (Unknown error))) g:\bis tools 2\armawork\tup\tup_qom\data\qm_sand_nopx.paa->P:\BIN_TEMP\g:\bis tools 2\armawork\tup\tup_qom\data\qm_sand_nopx.paa

C:\Program Files (x86)\Bohemia Interactive\Tools\BinMake\Pal2PacE\Pal2PacE.exe returned error 1

EDIT: Fixed this issue with the sand, layer files had been constructed in Buldozer using an RVMAT file with the absolute path rather than a relative path. Fixed the RVMAT file and then recreated all layers in Buldozer (import layers.cfg/sat/mask etc).

Any ideas? I will check the sand texture paths as this looks like its wrong. I'm worried about the clutter models though...

Thanks,

Tup

Edited November 22, 2010 by Tupolov

[mankyle 414]

doublech.. no, triplech... no, check the paths a zillion times. Visitor 3 is a PITA regarding the paths.

Just a bad written path can cause you a eternity of pain and suffering.

Regarding the clutter, you are using clutter from operation Arrowhead. For the clutter from OA to work I think that those clutter P3ds must be unbinarised. Otherwise they don't work.

[shezan74 11]

Tupolov,

By the way this thread is named "MAPMAKING tutorial".

So please let it follow his own life and open your own project thread.

Thank you.

[tupolov 520]

Shezan,

Just showing people the steps I followed from this tutorial to create a map.

I'll start another thread then.

Tup

[cool=azroul13 14]

Great tuto !

But :rolleyes: , I have some trouble to found the exact location of my map in google.

I follow the tuto: take the coordinates on the area, and put them in the "Universal Maps Downloader", choose the elevation (12) and start the programm.

When it was finish (without error message) I have a 256*4096 image for a 10240*10240 area ?? :confused:

Aze

[ZeroG 23]

Great tuto !

But :rolleyes: , I have some trouble to found the exact location of my map in google.

I follow the tuto: take the coordinates on the area, and put them in the "Universal Maps Downloader", choose the elevation (12) and start the programm.

When it was finish (without error message) I have a 256*4096 image for a 10240*10240 area ?? :confused:

Aze

Sounds like you made a mistake at the colons somewhere..or you made a rectabgle instead of a square in GM? should always be "a x a" not "a x b". Universal mapper allows you to do rectangles, but for Visitor they are not useful. Better check coords again..

Edited December 6, 2010 by ZeroG

[ZeroG 23]

Hello guys...

I've completed another 13 pages of my tutorial. The second part will show how to convert real life shapefiles to create forest masks. I am absoutely sure you can do even better stuff with this data and make your life easy :)

Basically, the community is able by now to work around a lot of the Visitor 4 features with GM, PS, Shezan's world tools and a little patience. :rolleyes:

I hope to finish the 3rd part by next weekend, 4th and last part maybe in Christmas holidays.

ZGM MAP MAKING TUTORIAL PART 1 & 2

Frontpage also updated....

Edited December 7, 2010 by ZeroG

[bk1276 0]

im getting a HTTP 400 bad request error for this anyone else able to get it

[ZeroG 23]

im getting a HTTP 400 bad request error for this anyone else able to get it

Hopefully fixed :-D

[Guest]

Thanks for informing us about the updated release :cool:

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

ZGM Map making tutorial part I & 2

PS:

Ignore my PM, it seems your personal mirror works, just now and than though ;)

[ZeroG 23]

Its HS database, not mine :D

[Geordie 0]

Nice work, many thanks!

[Kivi 0]

Thank you for a great guide!

I have no experiance at all with these programs and did not even know what a DEM was before starting map editing for ARMA, and this tutorial helped me alot with some of the problems i have been having.

If i had this tutorial when i started i think my map would have been done by now. :D

Also, does anyone know a good place to get shapefiles for north america? The website in the tutorial have none.

[stormridersp 11]

Great Tutorial, thanks for the effort you´d put into it!

I have one question tho; I think I´ve missed something somewhere. On the last part, when you import the .ext from World Tools into Visitor, I can´t find "Import Objects" under Scripts. Is it a custom script or something? Where can I find it?