Terrain 6, 40km with 3.8 million objects

[Snake Man 407]

Terrain 6, 40km with 3.8 million objects

Technology demonstration terrain. Not a "real" terrain addon, randomly placed objects.

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Large terrain of 4096 grid size, 10m cell size (comes to 40km x 40km) with 20480 x 20480 resolution satellite texture and 3.8 million objects (yes 3,800,000 objects).

Requirements: ArmA 2 Combined Operations, no addons needed.

Readme:

Tutorial Terrain 6 - 40km

ArmA 2 Combined Operations (arma2 + operation arrowhead).

4096 grid, 10m cell size, 20480 resolution satellite, 3.8 million objects. Terrain size is 40km x 40km.

This is technology demonstration terrain showcasing that you can indeed have large and detailed terrain with many objects. Vegetation is randomly placed, the few cities are placed semi randomly too. This is pure random generated terrain and no human manual work has been done to the object placement at all (this is just a tech demo).

Development and test machine is AMD FX-4170 Quad-Core 4.2Ghz, 16gb ram, nVidia GeForce GTX560. Framerates are full / normal. In map view (M) you detect slight sluggishness and this is because the terrain is so rough with many elevation changes in short distances. Map view sluggishness could be avoided by making smoother terrain, but since this uses 10m cell size for details, it was nice to pump in some roughness.

If you have any questions regarding editing, terrains especially, visit:

http://tactical.nekromantix.com/

http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/

July 27th, 2012.

Snake Man, PMC.

Official PMC Tactical Forums Release Topic.

I'm happy to answer questions about developing this and other large terrains. You might also check PMC Editing Wiki terrain editing area for tutorials and info.

Download tut_terrain6_4096_10m.7z - 257mb

Torrent: Gameupdates.org.

Mirror 1: Armaholic.com.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Snake Man

[gossamersolid 155]

This sort of looks neat, I'll have to download it and give it a shot. Could be a good map for some aerial combat or just a large battleground.

[teilx 4]

how it works on normal computers? I worry about my maschine.^^

[chrisb 196]

A few screenshots below.

I had a drive from the south straight north upto city 2, don’t really think the cities are needed to be honest. It’s a great terrain so far and would have been nicer with hunting huts or whatever here and there rather than the type placed. However it is a nice terrain for any type of conflict really, its spacious enough for tanks, although not sure how the ai cope yet, but great open light woodland, pos hidden terrorist training camps etc, maybe.

Lots to think about.

Anyhow the screenshots,' lake just southwest of city 2': click to open these then click again for full size and to see the fps counter:

@2000vd http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/arma2oa2012072716192948.png/

@3000vd http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/36/arma2oa2012072716185737.png/

@4000vd http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/arma2oa2012072716185277.png/

Different direction to show the fps reaction:

@2000vd http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/204/arma2oa2012072716205968.png/

So it is a high performance terrain.

One thing however, I put on the summer vegetation and got rid of ground clutter via lowering the object details to ‘Low’ settings, everything else is pretty much on very high other than aa in-game on ‘Low’ but FXAA on Sharp Filter ‘High’ settings, so as not to take anything from the tree’s also AToC = 6.

Edit: Forgot to say thanks for a great terrain.. just did a flight over averaging 38-40fps at 10000, so not bad. I never really use 10000 apart from sightseeing..:)

Edit & added: Few more aerial shots, the two highest having fps counter to give an idea of frame rate, which is pretty good for me so far..

These following two have everything on very high other than the aa as above..

@ 10000 http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/arma2oa2012072717380482.png/

@ 10000 http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/213/arma2oa2012072717411631.png/

Just messing around

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/arma2oa2012072717572947.png/

Edited July 28, 2012 by ChrisB
Few more screenshots..

[griffz 1]

ahma , clutter is too dense. optimize it a little bit .

[Fogu 10]

Nice demo :)

[Guest]

Thank you very much for posting the release on our forums :cool:

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Tutorial Terrain 6 - 40km



Arma 2

[dissaifer 10]

Truly cool. So, how'd you do it? Did you make a program external to create the map (admittedly ignorant)?

[Li0n 10]

I don`t understand what does mean "techology" here? Are you rewritten BIS engine with another method of rendering terrain? Or you demonstrating us BIS technology, but that is kinda weird, because you are not dev and all of us already experienced all published arma techs. Technology of what?

[igneous01 19]

the technology here being its randomly generated/procedural terrain with clutter. Consider the amount of objects (3.8 million) and the satellite resolution, as well as cell size (which is 1/5 the cell size BIS maps use (5 times more detailed)) and the fact that its 40x40km (chernarus is 20x20km). The fact that he fly on this map with those settings and not get hogged down performance sounds like a tech demo to me.

[Dwarden 1125]

nice to You back on the maps Snake :), keep it up

[Li0n 10]

as well as cell size (which is 1/5 the cell size BIS maps use (5 times more detailed)

Chernarus uses 8 m cell size.

Maximum grid size is 8192.

Performance good due to test machine specs.

[SavageCDN 231]

Well yeah it's a decent test machine but really not that powerful.. I've had a better GPU for the last year or so... and CPU as well.

Thanks for releasing this SnakeMan.

[Clintcom 10]

This map run's really good Snake man , nice work. :) I would love to see a desert version. ;)

[chrisb 196]

This map run's really good Snake man , nice work. :) I would love to see a desert version. ;)

He does have a few desert terrains, I have 3 or 4 pos more, most not altogether finished, but very usable and massive fps. The 51km desert terrain has one great city as well (city 32 or 34 can’t remember, will look it out, its up the north there). It’s a very nicely set out city, possibly one of the best for arma 2, plan wise. Great fps for city combat, he may put it here or a link to it, not sure but I may have got it on here a year or two back, myself, wasn't a member then, but been playing for around a decade, so have loads of terrains/island/maps, for ofp, vbs2 lite (only the two it came with), arma and arma2 plus the arma ones that have been re-done to run with arma2. :) , not sure this one I'm mentioning may have been for arma originally, can't remember, get to my age your lucky to remember how to switch the pc on.:j:..

[bushlurker 46]

Hi SnakeMan!

Good to see you back indeed! I can start pointing people at some of the useful PMC Editing Wiki pages again now! :)

An interesting experiment indeed! and informative... There's never really been a definitive "maximum objects" test before to my knowledge... people usually start to get edgy and worried once they hit the million mark, so to see over 3 million in-game and functional is good news - specially for the larger terrain guys, where you can easily hit these sort of figures with a few huge forests!

Another interesting experiment might have been cramming the same number of objects into a more usual sized 20x20km terrain - to see if the increased object density, more of which would be in view at any one time, would have any significant negative effect... Then again, the sheer increase in ground cells in this 4096 terrain - 4 times as many as a 2048 terrain, is usually a significant factor in itself - so all-in-all I guess we could take this as a good illustration of the fact that 3,000,000+ objects isn't necessarily a performance disaster! - that's welcome news for terrain makers!

Well done! and thanks for taking the time to try this!

While I'm here I might as well correct a couple of wrong impressions... ;)

the technology here being its randomly generated/procedural terrain with clutter.

Well, not quite...

It's a regular terrain in the main area, the procedural stuff is "OutsideTerrain" technology - outwith the main limits of the map...

Consider the amount of objects (3.8 million) and the satellite resolution, as well as cell size (which is 1/5 the cell size BIS maps use (5 times more detailed))

Again, not quite...

a 10 meter groundcell size is the "classic Arma 1" size - Sahrani, for example, or some of the earlier quality user-made Arma 2 terrains - Panthera, Fallujah, etc (these being 1024x1024 grids, of course - giving 10kmx10km terrains)...

Sahrani, for example, was a 2048x2048 cell heightmap, with a 10m cell size, giving a 20x20km terrain (BI's biggest Arma series terrain to date, by the way)...

This map is essentially therefore the size of FOUR Sahrani's in a 2x2 square... that's a LOT of groundcells, whatever size they are... that in itself has implications, as SnakeMan mentioned, so thats another part of the "experiment" alongside the silly number of trees...

(As most terrainmakers will know, there's a "bug" in our terraintools which causes some problems with the 4096 size), plus... all those groundcells in a 4096x4096! Especially when they're actually being used in a quite rough and varied terrain...

It's interesting to note that BI themselves have avoided the 4096x4096 terrain size in all their terrains to date...

(chernarus is 20x20km).

Chernarus uses 8 m cell size.

Maximum grid size is 8192.

Chernarus is actually a 2048x2048 grid terrain, but with 7.5 meter groundcells, for a slightly more "hi-res ground features" look - giving a terrain size of 15.36km x 15.36km

Takistan is smaller, but higher-res still - a 2048x2048 grid terrain with 6.3 meter cells producing a 12.9kmx12.9km terrain...

As a final point it's interesting to wonder what BI are planning for the forthcoming Arma 3 Limnos terrain.... reputedly 30x30km+, and I bet they're using at least as detailed a cell size as Takistan's 6.3m... I wonder how they've implemented a terrain of that size???

Anyhow... welcome back again SM! and thanks for the interesting experiment!

B

[BasileyOne 10]

basically high-resolution/scale islands/terrain in Arma2 are EXTREMELY memory-hungry, so imprving them considerably without 64-bit binaries whouldn't be option anymore(from Arma1 times if not earlier) :(

[Dwarden 1125]

you do realize that 64bit means double actual memory used, basically need increase of memory size on clients too :)

so 32bit with LAA which already can do 4GB directly and as (read our older devblog) we can do N indirectly via systems file cache

[dissaifer 10]

@Dwarden - I'm really impressed that BIS is still getting up to 4 gigs worth of memory on the 32 + the system cache (but you take an I/O hit). Just curious when the 64-bit versions of Arma are coming... 3? 4? Just messing with you, I'm sure it's in the pipe somewhere.

@Bushlurker - I would actually be more interested in the tightly compacted objects on the map as well.

[Robster 11]

Hello everyone!

Has this terrain solved that problem aforementioned by Bushlurker regarding null zones where objects can't be placed into 4096 grid format? If it did... kudos on the release and please tell us all how to deal with it

[BasileyOne 10]

you do realize that 64bit means double actual memory used, basically need increase of memory size on clients too :)

so 32bit with LAA which already can do 4GB directly and as (read our older devblog) we can do N indirectly via systems file cache

i did realise it didn't.

some difference[but far from 2x] in footprint happen, but it insignificantly low[for presently used/sold systems/PC]and extremely beneficiary proofited from, compared.

4Gb ? LAA on x64 OS ? it won't too, sadly. never SAW it using it.

"indirectly via system cache" didn't work. sometimes didn't work at all, sometimes didn't work fast/reliable enough. and btw it was done not thru messing with fs cache. So its not option for using ingame by gamedev software developers.

side-note: such attempts appear like trying doing eye surgery thru ass. p.s. sorry for my French[lang].

@Dwarden - I'm really impressed that BIS is still getting up to 4 gigs worth of memory on the 32 + the system cache (but you take an I/O hit). Just curious when the 64-bit versions of Arma are coming... 3? 4? Just messing with you, I'm sure it's in the pipe somewhere.

@Bushlurker - I would actually be more interested in the tightly compacted objects on the map as well.

we're do have "compacted" content in OFP:R times, ie 4bpp and 8 bpp 128x128 and below textures and even in OFP:R times players/modders frequently hitting 2Gb barrier.

so basically footprint was grown about/more than 10x times, at quite optimisticall look/settings/setup.

p.s.

put 8km viewdistance on HUGE island with 1m[or more precise] grid and high-poly/geometry objects w/lot of 4096x4096 textures, and necesarrily footprint spike to hundreds of Gb of RAM.

Edited July 29, 2012 by BasileyOne

[Dwarden 1125]

@Dwarden - I'm really impressed that BIS is still getting up to 4 gigs worth of memory on the 32 + the system cache (but you take an I/O hit). Just curious when the 64-bit versions of Arma are coming... 3? 4? Just messing with you, I'm sure it's in the pipe somewhere.

@Bushlurker - I would actually be more interested in the tightly compacted objects on the map as well.

you misunderstood probably, it means 32bit application on 64bit OS can address 4GB, ofcourse not on 32bit OS, that's still 2GB

and the devblog is here : http://www.bistudio.com/index.php/english/company/developers-blog/85-breaking-the-32-bit-barrier

[BasileyOne 10]

today, four year ago, there already no CPU's on market w/o 64-bit mode compatibility/support and majority of OS meaningful installbase are x64 too.

so basically "not enough people use a 64b OS" ie, lack of funding/budget is ONLY reasons for lagging 64-bit binaries in developement, aside some other, bogus/personal reasons/issues.

but that where are both iNtel and overseas military interests/investments could be handy, cuz this can make BIS products WAY more suitable/handy for them.

[bushlurker 46]

Has this terrain solved that problem aforementioned by Bushlurker regarding null zones where objects can't be placed into 4096 grid format?

Sadly not Robster... :(

As far as I can tell, the "4096 objects problem" we get with Visitor 3PE is some sort of bug in the program... the same problem doesn't seem to occur with, for example, the Visitor 3 VBS2 version...

That's sort of good in a way, since it means that it's not some kind of fundamental limitation... 4096's ARE possible - though, like I said before - BI themselves seem to deliberately avoid using 4096x4096...

If it's only a bug, it might even get fixed one day! We can but hope...

Meantime, if you're prepared to mess around a little with "external projects" and a little scripting maybe, then there are ways around our current object placement hassles on 4096's.... it's a BIG fuss to do though! - you'd really need to want a 4096 terrain badly...

No point in labouring thru the Big Explanation here.... catch me on the usual Skype terrain channel sometime and I'll explain the whole idea in detail....

B

[Dwarden 1125]

today, four year ago, there already no CPU's on market w/o 64-bit mode compatibility/support and majority of OS meaningful installbase are x64 too.

so basically "not enough people use a 64b OS" ie, lack of funding/budget is ONLY reasons for lagging 64-bit binaries in developement, aside some other, bogus/personal reasons/issues.

but that where are both iNtel and overseas military interests/investments could be handy, cuz this can make BIS products WAY more suitable/handy for them.

guess you don't get the point,

usually flopping program from 32b into 64b means that the needed basic usage usually rise 50 to 100% (double)

thus where you need now 2GB, you will need 4GB ... etc.

and rewriting 32b app into 64b isn't just clap your hand task either ...

so until it's worth it and needed, it will not happen ...