Grebbeberg - WIP terrain

[jakerod 254]

At the present time it dosen't slow down too bad for me. When I was flying without adjusting my view distance it was pretty choppy. On the ground though it was alright in ditches. When I looked off into the distance it became choppy again. When I turned down the view distance to 2000m flying was fine. Zooming into the distance as infantry slowed it down but I would still consider it playable for me. I would still use it. I probably couldn't do big mechanized engagements with it but then again I don't get the impression it would be good for armor anyway. I do love the higher terrain resolution though and the nice ditches. Very good work! Be careful though because the tide changes and can raise the water to the point where you can't walk across.

[DualJoe 10]

Thanks for testing.

Yeah this will be an infantry-map primarily and 2000 VD is pretty high in that case.

I'm aware of the tide issue, but I don't think it can be turned off. I think I went for the best possible compromise. Most of the time you can wade through the channels but not all the time, so you'll have to watch your step.

Sounds like the choppiness is mostly because of the sat-texture resolution then. Kind of figured 1m/pixel would be too high, but what's the point in testing if you don't push the envelope?

Glad you like the ditches, they take a lot of time effort to create after all.

[jakerod 254]

The other option to avoid the tide issue is to use the pond objects. Not sure if it is worth it though and I haven't done a ton of tests to see how the AI use it. Making a whole river out of it though would probably be a pain in the ass.

[DualJoe 10]

Short answer, pond objects look nice, but don't work for AI at all.

Besides the river actually has a lot off water level differences, look closely and you can see the so called summer-dikes close to the river and winter-dikes further away. Water levels normally reach those winter-dikes quite often flooding the area between them. Unfortunately it's impossible to simulate water interaction like that in Arma2, who knows maybe in future versions.

Although I've modified my terrain to fit the single waterlevel, my workflow allows me to fairly quickly turn it into a more realistic one in the future where waterlevels can be quite a bit above groundlevel. Which would add a whole level of dynamics which it does have in reality and why it was such an important area in past battles.

As long as the RV engine doesn't simulate winter and ice, this area should hold up as planned instead of what happened when Napoleons troops walked all over it.

It's been a while since I've tested AI on this terrain, but with some limitations the AI(commanders) handled it pretty well. Only problem is with things like wedge and line formations, where units will keep their position regardless of surroundings like the middle of the water, losing their gear in the process.

The two solutions I came up with were: Use column-formation (should be your default formation anyway) and make sure that there are wadeable water areas.

Actually because of the tides, the ai pathfinding finds different routes depending on water level, adding another level of unpredictability. One issue with AI is that they psychically know which areas are wadeable, whereas you as a player don't have the same insight.

Still I suspect there will be loads of areas the AI will get stuck and I suspect I'll have to tweak things for a long time after I released. To be honest I was focusing primarily on human players when I started, but made considerable concessions and I'm putting in a lot of extra work for AI on this project.

Edited October 19, 2012 by DualJoe

[larsiano 12]

Ill try the new Beta asap! btw...Train spotted! Hope we can get it to run on this map...

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq141/larsiano/Dutch%20Forces%20Mod/arma2oa2012-10-2004-28-23-79.jpg

[DualJoe 10]

Lol, that could be another thing to add to the ambient editor module which Bushlurker suggested I should make for things like working windmill, boats and such.

Hell why not include the tram-line as well? Who knows maybe the public transport might even work, even though that would be very unlike the real thing.

Once things quiet down around here(Ain't RL a bitch?), I'll start looking into things like Arma-materials and editor-modules and such.

This might take a while because scripting and configs are not what you would call strong-points of mine. Then I'll hopefully be able to finish the windmill for a start with complete materials and a more elegant way to make it function then the current editor init-script workaround.

I may also have a solution for my non-asphalt roads in the works. I'm waiting for my vbs-kit to be shipped, which among other things has a nice customroad-generator I'm told, that spits out road-parts ready for texturing. I'm fairly confident that at that stage I'd be able to make the bridge as well. Mondkalb has assured me that there's really not much to them.

Btw

Look at the dates on the files of my google-drive, I haven't been uploading a new island for every new heightmap. Not only does generating a new island take a lot of time, uploading them takes hours.

Edited October 20, 2012 by DualJoe

[bushlurker 46]

I may also have a solution for my non-asphalt roads in the works. I'm waiting for my vbs-kit to be shipped, which among other things has a nice customroad-generator I'm told, that spits out road-parts ready for texturing.

Often far, far more hassle than it's worth - trust me.....

Roads are easy!

There's like half-a-dozen models and two textures per "roadtype"!, and BI kindly gave us a full set of unlocked & editable mlod road parts - installed by default with the Tools suite...

I did a little set of "cobbled road" parts specially for one town on CWR2 Malden recently - took about an hour to make... added a nice "rustic" effect...

Check out Martin's UK Roads Pack to see how easy it is, it's a great example...

Once you have your custom set it's straightforward enough to add it into Homer's New Road Painter 2, and/or install them in the usual Visitor Road tool, or however you decide to actually lay the roads down.....

Two textures... models readily available..... easy... ;)

PM me if you have any problems.....

B

[DualJoe 10]

Wow thanks Bushlurker, you're a real Horn o'plenty of information.

Will look into it as soon as I can.

[DualJoe 10]

Trying different settings in visitor and different sat-texture-resolutions to figure out a way to optimize performance.

Not doing a good job at it I'm afraid. I've changed something which really causes performance issues, but I don't know what it is.

Either the land-creeping water is starting to become an issue, or I messed up the setting on the base-mesh in meters which I may have altered(wanted to see what it did). Most likely both.

Still it's starting to look nice at 4.5 k viewdistance, if you ignore the dark horizon band which I need to find a fix for soon.

I'm not feeling well at all, so I may have to take a little more rest. Also I've got some time consuming stuff coming up very soon, fingers crossed I'll at least be able to finish the windmill the coming week.

Edited October 21, 2012 by DualJoe

[larsiano 12]

This is starting to look better and better! The train is also making progress and ill be looking for more object that could be used and need a Dutch texture? For clear horizons i was revering to this mod: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?93970-JTD-ClearHorizons this one is ofcource for a finished map but the code in there might give you a clue on what needs to be set in order to get rid of the unnatural horizon line.

If you already have an idea on what object you want i could try and help gather, convert and reskin just let me know what you need! Not sure if the map will have modern or classic appearance but if needed i might ask approval to convert & retex this next: "German Town- and waysigns": http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=9658 by Marseille77. I think most roads here have similar signs. He also has a nice pack of traffic signs if needed and approved for :)

All six available wagons now repainted and almost finished!:

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq141/larsiano/Dutch%20Forces%20Mod/arma2oa2012-10-2123-44-24-73.jpg

[DualJoe 10]

That's one nice looking railway coach, are they enterable as well?

I have made no plans for signs and such, so if you feel like customizing those signs, I'd be much obliged. Provided Marseille77 approves of course. I'm trying to recreate the tactical situation from May 1940, but I'm not going all the way in the details. That would be too much work for one guy.

However if there's a choice between old and modern-look, I'd prefer the old look. That would give it a bit more character and would work in a modern setting just the same.

Should you decide to texture the signs, I'm not sure if you have to add the names as well. Just in case grab google-maps and check the square area between and including Rhenen and Wageningen. There's a couple of villages north and south of the river as well, whose names I have forgotten.

If you'd like a little fun, maybe you could help me with stuff for the "Ouwehand Dierenpark", the zoo on top of the hill. Don't know if I'll be able to, but the escaped zoo animals were part of the scenery during the battle and made the whole situation even more surreal.

Might as well share an interesting anecdote about the zoo. Just before the attack German officers took their families to the zoo and used the occasion (and lookout tower overlooking the area all the way up to Wageningen) to scout out the defensive positions the Dutch army was digging just beside it, which they would be in charge of attacking shortly.

Edited October 21, 2012 by DualJoe

[larsiano 12]

That is a nasty anecdote and one that sends shivers down your spine, i'm afraid there are too many of these from that era in time. The train wagons are non-entreble at this time. I might look around for this possibility & the modern road signs later. But thinking of the masterplan for this map i might do the smart thing and look for classic models etc. We should compile a list of object needed etc. I have no idea how much is needed at this time and if its available in ArmA2 vanilla or on Armaholic. I'll have a look at the zoo but for now i can only do textures.

The train is finished btw: except for some details, but its quite hard to find proper pictures of Dutch trains for some reason:

http://i442.photobucket.com/albums/qq141/larsiano/Dutch%20Forces%20Mod/arma2oa2012-10-2201-58-19-90.jpg

[DualJoe 10]

Judging from your familiarity with a city like Amsterdam I think you can appreciate a bit of old school scenery.

I know from past experience how much work texturing alone can be and I imagine it won't be less work for Arma. But I wouldn't say there's an immediate rush, digging those channels and especially smoothing them is a massive undertaking. Some angles are really awkward on a grid, so to make those look right takes quite a bit of manual coercion. I'm not even close to having half of the channels done yet.

About the trains, now that you mention it, I never even had the urge to photograph a train, so I can imagine it being hard to find references. Maybe there's a detailed train-model catalog on the internet?

I think I may have shot myself in the foot by posting the link with images above. I casually clicked on the Wageningen photos and I noticed that the main street of Wageningen is juuuust outside my current map region. I chose the current region so I'd have the hill central and a bit of room for Rhenen. But now I'm thinking of moving the area a bit to the east so you'd have two old city-centers on either side of the map.

EDIT

Nope, that just won't fit, either Wageningen or Rhenen is out. That or I have to adjust the 1:1 scale just enough so that Wageningen and Rhenen both fit on the map.

Also you're right that I should get "organized". I'll make a google-drive document with a list of things to do and objects to make. Maybe even allow write access to people with good ideas and suggestions, instead of wishful thinkers.

Edited October 22, 2012 by DualJoe

[DualJoe 10]

I discovered the reason for the sudden unexpected loss of performance on this terrain: It's the sea-shader.

To be more precise it's the transparent planes that are created where the landsurface and seasurface intersect, and it looks like the water is creeping on the land (they are visible underwater as well). In the screenshots below you can see them at the edges of the water.

To confirm this theory I raised the terrain above sealevel and got a silky smooth stutter free 60 fps at just below 2.5k VD and hardly any load on the gpu (1 Gig Vram maybe bottlenecking me).

So I tried declaring empty shore-materials, which did indeed disrupt the shore-shader and gave me the same silky smooth framerate, but it didn't produce the effect I'm looking for:

I then tried the simpleWater-shader from the rvmat list on the biki and also copied the rvmat-settings from the ingame pond-object into the ocean-material. All of which do produce results, but not usable ones. For example the pondobject shader only works for about 1km or so and then disappears, it also looks really ugly and unnatural on a big water-surfaces like mine.

Finally I managed to make the sea-foam and shore-planes disappear by using a procedural transparent texture and using a detailmap-shader in the hope that these two combined would at least lighten the workload. So now I've managed to make all those transparent planes invisible, but they still kill framerates, because they are still there (just very transparent).

I've just about run out of ideas and I'm calling it a night. I'd really appreciate it if someone had a solution to these weird shore planes.

Anybody know how to disable part of a shader, like declaring an empty shore-shader class, or a very very high performance invisible shader?

The same rules seem to apply as for RVMATs, so maybe someone figured this out for other objects/projects not necessarily a sea-surface.

[larsiano 12]

The first map i think of that must have had similar problems is Lingor Jungle by Icebreaker. This map also has a tremendous amount of canals and ponds etc., hope he might be able to lend you a hand. Btw I think that sinds all the new Nvida / BIS patching that brought us lots of good progress has also messed up the sea water texture as i have seen problems with it just some dayz ago. The texture seems broken and instead of looking like water is sometimes looks like a billion small black dots. Might have been an accident or my imagination but just thought idd mention it.

I'll start looking into building a classic Dutch Town or at least start gathering suitable objects. Next question would be if the village will look ruined or not or like 50/50. I guess starting with the BIS ArmA2 houses and I44 mod would be a good place to start looking? Or i will look at some classic Fokker planes that we might get permission for to reskin with Dutch textures even tough there probably never flew over the grebbeberg :)

[DualJoe 10]

Lol sounds like you're getting in the mood.

On my map performance increases by a factor (Yes factors not percentages) of 4 or more without the weird water-planes, not what you'd call insignificant. I'd be surprised if Lingor wasn't affected by the same issue as well and judging from the screenshots Icebreaker hasn't been able to solve it. Don't know if anybody was even aware of the issue. I'll try to make a proper bug report on the CIT this evening and cross my fingers that a BiS-dev takes an interest.

I was thinking along similar lines for the buildings. I'm seriously considering adjusting the 1:1 scale so I can fit the old town center of Wageningen. I'm really really tempted to try and recreate something like this before -> after.

For me the texturing part is one of the bigger hurdles with addon making. I'm not that comfortable with 2d-image manipulation. Making the models for Dutch buildings and separate damage-models is not that big of a deal for me. The Cunera tower alone would be similar to modeling half a town worth of buildings, if not more. So if there are licensing issues with i44, I'd be more than willing to divert my attention into providing texturable models for people willing to contribute.

Edited October 23, 2012 by DualJoe

[larsiano 12]

Leave the textures to me :) If you could work up some base house structures i would love to try to make some textures for them. I've been testing the I44 mod in the editor and there is maybe a few usable buildings. Maybe the September '39 mod can offer some extra additions, haven't tried it yet and not sure if its available yet? What someone pointed out to me is an older Armed assault mod called Holland May 1940 maybe this can be converted to recreate history in ArmA2 but we have to get in touch with the owner.

[DualJoe 10]

That mod looks to be for OFP, which probably means that it would be less work to remodel everything from scratch.

Still they seem to have gotten quite a few custom assets running ingame.

I won't have much time the next few days, because I'm doing 1:1 scale remodeling in real life, on my parents house.

When I'm done there I'll look into the buildings.

I had an idea about modular buildings to make producing different looking buildings easier and faster, which I may have mentioned earlier.

I'll need a bit of time to experiment and work out a re-usable solution.

Ideally I'd like some input from various map/addonmakers as to the requirements and wishes for buildings, so I can strike some common ground. Things like dimensions, number of floors and rooms and such, what parts need to be modular and what needs to be universal.

In Blender I already use a similar system when modeling anyway, coincidentally they are also called proxies in Blender. For Arma as a last stage I merge all these proxies into a single model. But since I've been getting a bit more familiar with the proxy system in Arma I thought I might be able to transfer this method to the arma engine itself. This would allow for easy creation of different buildings not just with different textures, but completely different facades by (ex)changing a simple proxy model and little config tweak.

As I said though this would require more effort for me than if I'd simply crank out a number buildings using a similar system inside Blender. In other words I'll only be interested in doing it if there is an interest in something like this in the addon/terrainmaking community here.

Ideally I'd like to have/create a central repository with liberally licensed reusable stuff from which mission and terrainmakers could pick and choose. Not just modular buildings, but also trees, plants, clutter, roads you name it. Sort of like CBA but for models and terrains.

You'd still need to make your own modifications like textures, addon-proxies and configs, but you'd have something to work from.

Little heads up on the enormous amounts of generated shoreline-water-polygons being generated bogging down performance. While I have found a way to make them invisible, I have not been able to decrease their performance impact. Still a few things I haven't tried yet, but I'm fairly confident I won't find a workaround. After I'm certain I've tried everything I'll make a ticket on the CIT.

[DualJoe 10]

Issue added on the CIT, please vote in the hope that we can have nice working water on high detail terrain, with reasonable performance.

The real-life renovations are complete, but spending long days outside exposed to the elements, doesn't seem to be the best remedy for curing a flu and a cold. Meaning I'll probably need a few days to recuperate before I can continue with this project.

[topas 1]

Maybe the September '39 mod can offer some extra additions, haven't tried it yet and not sure if its available yet?

No, we're not out yet; struggling with infantry and weapons atm. As for the structures, we managed to produce some before our architect jumped ship, but they're of no use to this terrain. Too Polish, sorry :( . As mentioned before, though, if anyone decides to make a historical mod utilising this landscape, we stand ready to assist with infantry and weapon assets made so far.

[DualJoe 10]

Well if those screenshots are anything to go by, your modelers for vehicles, infantry and weapons should have no problems at all whipping up a couple of buildings. Also you'd be surprised how easily those buildings can be turned into classic Dutch farmhouses.

If buildings are still an issue my offer for easily customizable buildings from a shared base still stands.

[topas 1]

Well, the idea caught my attention initially and it's a good one in general... The buildings on our screenshots were produced by a member who left us and his work largely unfinished (merely unenterable scenery objects aimed to resemble traditional 19th century cottages)... We have Lecholas* with us now, responsible for our main terrain, capable of making buildings as well, but he's currently heavily engaged by RL issues (marriage - hooray! - and resettlemet due to job jange). The other team members, being me (responsible for textures), Abs (armored vehicles) and recently (not sure yet if team member or just donator) Vilas (weapons!) can hardly work with building models (textures would be what I can do and what would be in line with me interest for architecture)... Anyway, once we get active in that field again; that's what we're aiming for in the end:

http://www.w39a2.fora.pl/budynki-i-objekty-architecture,19/wies-polska-polish-countryside,100.html

or here

http://www.w39a2.fora.pl/budynki-i-objekty-architecture,19/miasteczka-polskie-small-towns-portraits,109.html

Some of it does resemble what I can see here; http://www.bnb-arnhem.nl/open-air-museum.html , so maybe there is some common ground after all ;)

* it'd be best to contact him directly re; structure related issues

Edited October 27, 2012 by topas

[larsiano 12]

Well you've got my vote for the bug! And about the houses: If you give me an example i could give it a try!

[DualJoe 10]

Thanks for the vote.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been busy in a real life, helping renovating my parents house and being sick as a dog at the same time (weather didn't help and made things worse).

Once I'm feeling better I'll start with the buildings. The thing about the buildings, it was more of a question to the addon community in general. Should spent extra time and effort to create a modular approach or just go with the default single purpose buildings?

For the modular approach we'll need to define some kind of shared base onto which everybody can add their modifications. For example a 2, 3 and 4 floor base building, with standard floor-height, door and stair locations (possibly mirrored versions). These base objects then will have working stairs/doors AI-pathways and such, maybe even partial destruction. The uv-map should also be made for easy modification of textures.

For the modular part I was thinking for example for each of these base class buildings, a set of one or more building facades (exterior with different windows, shapes whatever) and roofs, maybe even interior walls and such as proxy objects. I haven't tested this yet, but afaik it should be possible to select or replace proxies with a few lines in the config. Using this approach with minimal modeling work and some texture variations you should be able to produce a multitude of different looking buildings from a small set of base-buildings and modular-components.

The thing is for this to work I need some feedback as to what addon/terrain-makers want to see/have ingame to work out these base buildings and workflow. Also we'll probably need a central repository with these base class objects with permissive licensing and either people add to this base object-pool or add their own (relatively) small modified textures and proxies to their own addon/missions. From what I've seen I suspect it should be possible to even work with modular elements from the mission-editor level.

Hopefully this could work not only for buildings but for all kinds of ingame assets, sort of like a CBA, but for map-objects.

[DualJoe 10]

Just got back from the hospital today where I learned that I have some kind of eye-infection with an impressive name.

On top of my eyesight not being the best currently, the medication I now need to take makes it even worse especially with brightly glowing computer screens.

In short, this means no updates for a while.

I won't be spending much time behind computer screens for at least a week and hopefully by then I won't be prescribed a new batch of the stuff.