Why are we not seeing new A3 maps yet?

[samsamm777 10]

Just out of curiosity, why are there no new maps been released yet by the community? Is it just a case of not enough time to develop them yet?

[Armitxes 36]

Altis Map hopefully is going to be Released soon. I want to launch a RPG Server on it :(

Community Maps take some time ^^ I think we'll see some in 1-2 months when most Bugs have been fixed.

[Harzach 2517]

Time, yes. Also, new tools are a big concern with the terrain-building community. And since we're still in alpha, who knows what the beta/release will bring to the table.

Ultimately, don't expect any shiny new toys until well after release. With that mindset, anything that does get released before then will be a bonus.

[m1lkm8n 411]

As harzach said it takes time to make a map. Depending on the size it can take months to a year or more. And if you want to use just a3 stuff or your own objects the tools are not even out yet. Sure you can get visitor and binpbo to pack a map for a3 but its not exactly complete for a3. There's stuff missing that only hopefully the new tools will bring to the table.

[dmarkwick 261]

It's also possible that new technology & therefore the configuration of those parts will change or be added. As maps require generally more time & work than most other addons it would be prudent to wait for finalised states and possibly new tools :)

[xyberviri 1]

To be honest you have to own a academic copy of visitor along with global mapper and geotiff dem data to really be able to make some awesome maps with speed. very few people are willing to plop down 600.00 for something you can't create commercial content with.

[Beagle 684]

The amount of Mods since OFP have decreased dramatically since 2003 ans neither ArmA nor ArmA II did ever had the same amount of mods, maps or missions. Since the games becom more and more complex (even I as someone with 0 knowlegde was able to make cofig mods for OFP) I won't exspect mods neither soon nor in great numbers for A3. As it shows now even simple port overs are not that easy anymore.

[ZeroG 23]

WTF..avatar infraction! You had the Kamov before!:eek:

[m1lkm8n 411]

To be honest you have to own a academic copy of visitor along with global mapper and geotiff dem data to really be able to make some awesome maps with speed. very few people are willing to plop down 600.00 for something you can't create commercial content with.

There's other options. Quantum gis is pretty good and there's plenty of places to get dem data.

This :

http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/index.html

Which has .75 arc second data which is pretty darn good for free.

But there's a big difference in people who own vbs and those who have the free person edition that's part of the bi tools 2.5.1.

What's awesome though are all the guys who made the community tools to fill in some of the gaps between vbs and the pe edition.

But even with all those tools like you said it's still very time consuming. Plus if you want to give people a new experience, rather than the same, you'll most likey want to make your own objects and such which will add even more time.

Edit-

@zero

Haha before I looked at the name I thought it was you with a different avatar

Edited May 8, 2013 by M1lkm8n

[max power 21]

The amount of Mods since OFP have decreased dramatically since 2003 ans neither ArmA nor ArmA II did ever had the same amount of mods, maps or missions. Since the games becom more and more complex (even I as someone with 0 knowlegde was able to make cofig mods for OFP) I won't exspect mods neither soon nor in great numbers for A3. As it shows now even simple port overs are not that easy anymore.

Yeah, making art for mods is more complex and I think, for whatever reason, mod makers aim higher... but I don't think there was such a quantum leap between armas 1 and 2. But, I don't think islands are things you bang out link nobody's business in the first place. There's a lot that goes into them.

[chortles 263]

I'd say it's a mix of what Beagle, DMarkwick and Max Power said -- maps are already time-consuming projects, there's no A3-specific tools with which to take advantage of RV4-specific features, development of games and mods for them has gotten more and more complex and the engine/the game is way more in flux than RV3/Arma 2, as we've seen from people's experiences with the dev builds and in some cases the stable build (i.e. the removal of certain commands breaking a number of scripts and/or missions).

Considering how WIP RV4/Arma 3 is, I can see why map makers would wait for stability before working on something that has a decent chance of having to be scrapped. Heck, that WIP status is outright part of why DayZ standalone doesn't use RV4...

[Harzach 2517]

I'd say it's a mix of what Beagle, DMarkwick and Max Power said -- maps are already time-consuming projects, there's no A3-specific tools with which to take advantage of RV4-specific features, development of games and mods for them has gotten more and more complex and the engine/the game is way more in flux than RV3/Arma 2, as we've seen from people's experiences with the dev builds and in some cases the stable build (i.e. the removal of certain commands breaking a number of scripts and/or missions).

So...what I said in post #3. :rolleyes:

[chortles 263]

Yep, is that a problem? :p

[james2464 177]

Excuses ;)

Edited May 20, 2013 by James2464

[bushlurker 46]

It's perfectly possible to make terrains with the existing tools which will work in Arma 3...

However, they're not true Arma 3 terrains - there's underlying differences in the technology for Satellite images, ground textures, and a few other areas where we simply don't have the appropriate tools and/or information to proceed... yet.

The other major drawback of course being that it's not yet possible to properly utilise the Arma 3 model assets collection, so it's not possible to start dressing terrains with all those terrific new objects... yet.

The forthcoming new toolkit should solve all these current woes...

Meantime, time spent building basic landscapes like the couple of pictures above shouldn't be time wasted - heightmaps, sat layers & masks are likely to be directly usable, as are custom groundtextures, and the Arma 3 clutter is already usable, so as the buildings and other assets become available with the new tools, I predict a rush of terrains fairly soon afterwards... :)

B

Edited May 19, 2013 by Bushlurker

[chortles 263]

The other major drawback of course being that it's not yet possible to properly utilise the Arma 3 model assets collection, so it's not possible to start dressing terrains with all those terrific new objects... yet.

The forthcoming new toolkit should solve all these current woes...

The best news in this thread yet. :lol:

[granQ 293]

The other major drawback of course being that it's not yet possible to properly utilise the Arma 3 model assets collection

OFP/ArmA community never accepted "not yet possible" right? ;)

While I am not so skillfull as you guys with the textures, infact I am really bad at it.. what I done to get objects in is pretty simple. Take a working arma2 model, save it with arma3 path.

For instance I took a swedish house from our mod and saved it as:

p:\a3\structures_f\households\slum\Slum_House01_F.p3d

Now visitor knows its a house, binarize knows its a house and ingame I get an arma3 house..

so far I got all the slumhouses and two trees working without any problems with position (some of the other trees are floating in the sky)...

the reason why we haven't released any island is simply because we didn't have anything good "in store"..

[m1lkm8n 411]

While id rather just wait for the new tools that's a very ingenious workaround there granQ.

[aaglo 10]

http://imageshack.us/a/img153/462/mayx.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img843/1508/hiren1.png

http://imageshack.us/a/img706/7112/swam.png

Like people said, its fairly easy to do everything up until actually getting the damn thing into arma3. We have very few tools and resources which we know are going to be used throughout the life cycle of arma3, so why bother trying to use these older tools to create decent maps for alpha, when we can hone and tune the data we have to be able to create a great map for the full release. Pics are of a project i'm working on, taken to the full 200km2. Now its months of revision before we hopefully get the Visistor 4 editor? (wink wink ... no?)

[m1lkm8n 411]

Looks awesome! Good luck trying to populate that :)

[fabio_chavez 103]

what about the island lighting and skybox, will there be further doumentation or tools to better be able to adjust the stratis lighting better to other islands like new maps?

[m1lkm8n 411]

what about the island lighting and skybox, will there be further doumentation or tools to better be able to adjust the stratis lighting better to other islands like new maps?

I'm pretty sure the lighting is defined in the islands config

[fabio_chavez 103]

@M1lkm8n: sure it is, but that alone doesnt help you much, many of the parameters are pretty cryptic, and its really cumbersome so apply tweaks and changes.

some more information or dev tools would be really helpfull, especially for mapmakers, since the "theoretical" geographical characteristics of a certain terrain do influence the outcome of the global lighting a lot.

when you run chernarus or takistan etc in arma 3 now, you will notice that the colors of the stratis islandlighting dont add up well, because stratis is meant as a nice blueish mediterranean island and not as eastern european woodland or as dusty afghan mountains.

New mappers will face the same problem.

[jens198 0]

To be honest you have to own a academic copy of visitor along with global mapper and geotiff dem data to really be able to make some awesome maps with speed. very few people are willing to plop down 600.00 for something you can't create commercial content with.

Are you allowed to create comtent for ArmA with a PE license of VBS2? I asked this question some years ago on the VBS2 boards but never got a final answer.

Jens

[chortles 263]

For what it's worth, the confirmation during the August 10th recording and informal Q&A that new mod tools won't be part of the September 12 launch further reinforces why there aren't so many new maps... although Wamako is in Swedish Forces Pack (A3 version).