Calthazar 10 Posted February 16, 2011 (edited) After some searching and testing I moved my Testmap2 folder directly into the P:\ drive, and it worked. I'm still confused as to why, its not mentioned in the tutorial and most tuts I've read say your projects should go in a folder inside the P:\ drive so things dont get too cluttered. So will this cause complications later? I just copied the whole folder there. ------- Well alot of fudging around later I've managed to get my testmap into the game, without any objects (intentionally), but I still get a popup about clutter from the config when I load it in the editor, but its playable. So I'm considering beginning work on my first actual map! Some questions remain though: Where to get textures. I'm interested in how to make new textures/where to get a wider variety. My map has some unique terrain features and I'm wondering where you guys get your terrain textures. I'm also very confused as to what these files are: _detail_co.paa, _detail_mco.paa, and a _detail_nohq.paa Why does each texture need 3 files? Also can we use the textures from L3DT or are those not allowed ingame? Currently my Sat map for my test map is using them. I have no idea how to make a proper config.cpp; for my testmap I used a premade one but I dont know how to modify one or customize it (which I'm going to need for my new project. Hope someone can answer my questions about textures and help me with config and proper P:\ drive set up. Edited February 17, 2011 by Calthazar Progress updates Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dougboy101 0 Posted February 17, 2011 http://sites.google.com/site/bushlurker/Resources download his source materials. that will help you immensely. Alternatively, you can download my map and unpbo/derapify the configs. http://www.qdrive.net/folder/m103828/0af25...05e6fefed28f5af Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calthazar 10 Posted February 17, 2011 I also have some questions more specific to my new project. I'm making LV-426 (also known as Acheron) the planet from the first two Alien movies. Its described as a cold dark world with lots of storms and fog. The region featured in Alien with the derelict ship is in the Ilium Range, so it can be assumed the terraforming plant and colony of Hadleys Hope are somewhere within a few miles of this region. So my question is what size it should be. While this map is scifi themed, I certainly want it to be usable for "regular" Arma 2 scenarios and I dont want it to be too small! Secondly, I have alot of custom objects and buildings in mind, and I'm not sure what to do about that, should I make due with whats currently available (can u even use current OA rocks?) or make them myself (or get help). I've been gathering alot of concept art and sketches to help me, heres a few to help you guys kinda get a picture of what I'm working for: A 3D render of the Colony based on the original layout Some 3D Art of Hadley's Hope Some Concept Art of the region The Derelict Ship from Alien As you can tell much of it will be infantry only though I've planned a road system and landing pads. The main thing is I'm going to need a variety of rock models since there will be no trees (I might accept some undergrowth if I can make something suitable [probably some seaweed or lichen like plants]) but of course most of that will be a little later when I'm done with the heightmap and finally find some satisfyingly appropriate textures. I would really like some input from you guys, particularly you experienced map makers. I know this project will take alot of time, and I'm down with that, I'm a methodical and slow paced person anyways and I've always enjoyed making maps for the games I play (though most have simpler tools). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted February 17, 2011 Sounds like an interesting project! I'd aim for a standard medium size 10km x 10km island... it's a proven size as far as tools, etc are concerned, and it won't take forever to make... Assuming the Hadley's Hope area is a km or two square max it gives you a good sized bit of surrounding terrain for some decent mountain ranges or something... Icebreakrs well-known islands are 10x10km... it's bigger than you'd think... Ground textures are going to be important... reading Betons Ground Textures Tutorial from the link above is a good place to start... that explains what the different files are for and how to make them... essentially, each individual surface has a visible texture, a "bump map" and a "middle texture" that you see at "middle distance" - they're all coordinated by a matching .rvmat file, so each surface you define will be a set of 4 files... you can define as many surfaces as you like, but you can only have 4 within close proximity of each other - how close depends on a number of factors to do with island/cell size... Good luck! B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calthazar 10 Posted February 18, 2011 (edited) @doughboy Thanks for the links @Bushlurker Thanks for the resources from your site! I took your 10km x 10km suggestion, working on the heightmap now. I'm really not looking forward to making a Sat Map, my last map had alot of funny looking texture errors on one side, I should post some pictures, the ground looked like it was made of that rippling glass stuff. I'm curious how to make textures Seamless, I have a potential source of great ground textures (I have to see if I can get them) but I dont know how to make them seamless. Its not mentioned in the Bretons tut beyond a step telling you to do so if you like. Edit: Also I have a question about the infinite land that generates, is there a way to make that smooth out or should I just surround it with water? That makes it infinite water right? Edited February 18, 2011 by Calthazar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dougboy101 0 Posted February 18, 2011 if your using a map less than a 4k heightmap, there is a config setting to assign the outer terrain, similar to the outside of takistan, it still has hills etc for a while, and a flat texture as opposed to the garish ones that occur here is the code from takistan "I think" { class Sea { name = "$STR_DN_SEA"; sound[] = {"\ca\Sounds_E\sfx\lake_1",0.01,1}; soundNight[] = {"\ca\Sounds_E\sfx\lake_3",0.177828,1}; volume = "sea"; }; }; class OutsideTerrain { satellite = "ca\takistan\data\s_satout_co.paa"; enableTerrainSynth = 1; class Layers { class Layer0 { nopx = "ca\takistan\data\tk_polopoust_nopx.paa"; texture = "ca\takistan\data\tk_polopoust_co.paa"; }; }; }; Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted February 19, 2011 (edited) I'm curious how to make textures Seamless Theres a bunch of different programs which will basically tile a texture - as well as doing other things... CrazyBump seems to be popular, though if I were paying I'd be buying PixPlant2... These programs will make bumpmaps too - which is cool... However You can do all this stuff for free easily enough tho... Beton's tutorial covers the use of the free bumpmap plugin for The Gimp - if you have Photoshop you can get a great free plugin from Nvidia which will do much the same thing... For the seamless bit all you need is Photoshop, tho I'm quite sure the exact same options are available in The Gimp too... Since I'm still currently AWOL from my project until I finally figure out that OA.exe loading thing, I've put together a quick demo texture and a few pics... First, I dug out a big texture of a "cobble" pebble beach I downloaded a while back... this was a good one - about 3500x2048 pixels or something... That 2048 height was handy, so I simply cropped the canvas to lose an appropriate chunk off the side to get a nice 2048x2048 texture... Here's a reduced size pic... Looks good but tiles badly... so... Load file into Photoshop, look under "Filters/Other/Offset and you'll get a popup window like this... This is a 2048x2048 texture, so we offset in both directions by 1024... The result looks like this... Now it tiles perfectly, but looks like crap in the middle... This is the patience bit - get going with a suitably sized clone stamp and fake those seams untill it looks like this... (or preferably better than this...) ... and you're done! It's that easy.... though some surfaces are trickier to fake than others... With a quick bumpmap made using the Nvidia plugin, an "mco" made exactly like Beton's instructions and a matching .rvmat you're ready to run them thru TexView and get the new surface into Visitor... I had a pic for that, but I think four is the limit... (or is that per segment? :p) I'll continue into the next post for an In-Visitor shot and a wee download... B Edited February 19, 2011 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted February 19, 2011 ... and here we are with the final texture in Visitor... I just dropped it in where my usual beach texture goes... looks pretty good... Making textures is straightforward, but the final results are down to finding good material to start with... Anyhow... here's a small download with the ready-to-use textures plus the original file if anyone wants to play around with them and have a go... Bush Cobblebeach #1 B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Calthazar 10 Posted February 20, 2011 Thanks alot for the mini tut Bushlurker, it helped alot! Unfortunately I've hit the brick wall at full speed now, learning how to use O2 & 3ds Max to make the custom objects I need is tedious work.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oktyabr 12 Posted February 20, 2011 Yeah, I can confirm that GIMP has a couple of "one click" filters to make a texture seemless/tileable. Good stuff! I just used them myself today before following the rest of the steps in Beton's excellent surfaces tutorials. On a tangent, anyone have any good shots of black basalt/lava rock looking stuff they wouldn't mind sharing? I've spent a couple hours now picking through google results and still don't have the look I'm going after. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
