Tower of Altis Hotel

[SpecOp9 0]

It always upset me that OFP and ArmA never had any unique, large and vibrant buildings to gawk at / go inside of / land helicopters on / see towering in the distance.

So I decided I would remake one of my favorite buildings, the Burj Al Arab.

Plans are to put it somewhere on Altis, where there is a large coastal city. But because the beta isn't out, I'll still release it once the interior is finished so that you can place it anywhere on the current Alpha island.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/SpecOp9/AltisHotel2_zps3a123939.jpg (155 kB)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a361/SpecOp9/AltisHotel3_zps3ea7b734.jpg (126 kB)

What's planned:

• Enter-able building with a Lobby

• An elevator (if arma 3 can do this good)

• At least one hotel room

• Helipad (it's the circular object extending from the apex)

• It will have a bottom platform that you can drive to via a bridge (wont be floating on water)

Depending on performance I'll see about adding more rooms, I really want you to be able to enjoy the interior just as much as the exterior. Right now the polygons are at 1,137 triangles, which is pretty good. But that number will shoot up once an interior is added.

Also, those window textures are terrible and I plan on changing them. Keep my fingers crossed that the collision detection on large buildings are like ToH and not previous ArmA games where there was a limit (if a BIS developer can verify this, that would be encouraging). If this is so, expect the building to be MUCH larger than as depicted.

Edited March 24, 2013 by SpecOp9

[Twin2Win 1]

Well that doesn't stand out at all...lol...Reminds me of Christmas. Keep up the work though should be interesting!

[Kristian 47]

I remember during OFP days there was this pretty damn nice city map, with enterable bank with vaults and ventilation shafts and whatnot, and It was like... the most epic shit ever. I wish

you can achieve something super-epic too. Don't forget vents, they are important :3

[charliemilk 10]

A snipers paradise!

[Sneakers O'Toole 2]

pretty cool!

[Maslofski 10]

now we need a dance floor room and a ingame radio and everything is just party :D

[tremanarch 6]

make it bigger. i want to be able to drive to top on it^^

[SpecOp9 0]

The size of the actual Burj Al Arab is over 1000 feet. It's a massive hotel, nearly 6 or more times the size of what's depicted in the photo.

I had to increase the size of the model to it's actual real-life size because as I began making the interior, I was running out of space (there was literally no room for a hotel room) and the lobby wasn't looking as grand as it is in the photos. (I am using reference to model the interior) - it won't be an exact replica of the inside, but it will look very similar.

[dimitri18 10]

Finally big buildings in Arma!

[jake_krieger 10]

Finally big buildings in Arma!

When looking at your signature picture , it gives me an idea where this is going :D Let´s make a machinima out of it

[Drumheller 19]

PLEASE make this and make it with a lot of interior rooms! <3

[MasterDon 10]

I really didn't see myself liking mods like this so much, but I feel that this building actually fits the coastal environment of Stratis (and possibly Altis). It looks like it would make an awesome vacation spot where you have it situated in that example pic! :cool:

[jefferspang 2]

Don't forget the Burj al-Arab's fleet of Rolls Royce and the mile long buffet on the top floor :D

[SpecOp9 0]

Well, I'm very happy to say that ArmA 3 can render extremely large objects without much glitching.

There are two problems

• Sometimes when camera is tilted a certain way, the object will vanish. Luckily this hasn't happened when looking directly at it, just when it's in the corner of the screen somewhere. Another good thing, it happens pretty rarely.

• Being too far from the object can cause it to *pop* in and out.

Next I am going to setup collision detection and hope to god it works.

The video shows the size the object will be, fairly accurately.

There are no textures because I'm going to "Bake" lighting, ambient occlusion and other fun things into the texture so that it will look extremely detailed in the game.

Still working on the interior, too.

[ProfTournesol 956]

There are two problems

• Sometimes when camera is tilted a certain way, the object will vanish. Luckily this hasn't happened when looking directly at it, just when it's in the corner of the screen somewhere. Another good thing, it happens pretty rarely.

• Being too far from the object can cause it to *pop* in and out.

Yes, those two things are happening since OFP for large objects. I suppose the "pop in and out" depends on view distance.

[SpecOp9 0]

yep, it does. There is no gradual fog fading on any objects it seems. Not really a problem with smaller objects, but very noticeable with big.

[jhoson14 10]

I can already see some nice mission's.

SWAT team entering by helo and trying to free some rich people who are now hostages

With LOT's of room's to clear *-*

[Mr. Charles 22]

Loving it :D

This will be included in a few missions of mine for sure :)

[Predator.v2 10]

Take this and make a pvp mission out of it! oO

[TFM_Callas 1]

Now if someone could make a fairly accurate to scale map of abu dhabi they have one less building to model. Can you imagine 50v50 multiplayer games in all their urban fighting glory or maybe even insurgency in such a vast, beautiful urban yet desert environment.

[Leaulux 2]

It feels me with such pride when I see these custom addons :)

It looks absolutely incredible! I hope that in the future some people make Skyscrapers for American/European cities.

[SpecOp9 0]

Here is a shot of the interior, Front Lobby when you first walk through the doors

Can't stress enough how WIP this is. There is still a lot of detail to be added, a lot of furniture, store shops, hallways, and the materials are temporary just so I can get an idea of how things are coming along as I block out the general shapes.

I'm going to try and make the interior as photo-real as I can and such. Already have some photos I can use to extract the textures out of reference photos.

The lighting is going to be the most important. I'm going attempt to bake as many lights and ambient occlusion into the interior as much as I can. It's one thing OFP / ARMA has always struggled with, good looking interiors. But I think with baked lighting it will look pretty astonishing.

----------------------------

Edit:

Well it appears that ArmA 3 still has the collision size limits, which is rather surprising to me. I was hoping that this would have been removed a long time ago, because I'm not entirely sure why there is one.

I'm going to have to try making a TON of smaller collision boxes. Either that or I should PM a dev and see what I have to do, because Take on Helicopters seemed to handle large skyscrapers just fine..

Edited March 26, 2013 by SpecOp9

[smokedog3para 365]

toh has not many enterable models so the skyscrapers are just boxes in the geo lod simple and easy way but shit if you want to use them for anything other than scenery .

open up the arma sample models will give you a look of how its done.

[loki 1]

i like it... don't forget to put in buildingPositions for ai. :)

[Drumheller 19]

i like it... don't forget to put in buildingPositions for ai. :)

I came to post this. Is this on your list of things to do?