SMD_Sara_A2 Full Sahrani Map Port - Initial Release

[cifordayzserver 119]

Constant learning curve is slowing me down quite a bit.

I am getting to know Visitor, I placed the buildings down, but am having problems actually getting them to publish. M1lkm8n gave me some tips that should hopefully sort it out.

I've also started working on another building in order to decompress from the frustration. I went the opposite route this time, and the building is fully configured, but not textured. So I just need to build out the interior with walls, floors, and ceilings, and it will be done.

*Edit

Yay! got it, Thank GOD for Mikero's Dos Toolset!!!!

Edited July 20, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[cifordayzserver 119]

Well, that was interesting, I had a heck of a time getting comfortable editing the buildings on the terrain, and as usual made a bunch of boneheaded mistakes along the way.

All the buildings I did are placed on the terrain now, and adjusted for position, I just have to double check them all in game. However, I did come across some other issues in the models that need to be addressed before I release and update, so not sure on a timeline yet, but hoping for 2 weeks at most.

The Apartment buildings in Corazol add 240 enterable rooms to the city, and that's not counting the dum_olez_istan_maly and maly2, which are really plentiful in Southern Sahrani.

Rahmadi needs one of the buildings that was previous done swapped out, and then it's fully enterable.

Here is a shot of Corazol with all the apartment buildings in view:

and a shot of Paraiso, there are near 20 of the maly's in this picture:

Edited July 23, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[bars91 956]

Now That's some CQB material! Instead of maneuvering around "random cubes" now one can clear and fortify that shit! :cool:

What about framerate? Have you compared performance of the latest build with the previous release?

[cifordayzserver 119]

Yeah, SERIOUSLY. You could make a whole mission out of clearing one or a couple of those 8 story buildings, much less a whole squad fanning out and clearing all 9 ... and the Maly really fleshes out a bunch of the towns in the south, so you can actually do a meaningful house to house in some cities.

I haven't really tested performance very thoroughly yet. The models definately need some cleaning up, and optimization, (we actually found out in the middle of my learning, that ALL the models can be optimized a bit more as well.)

I will test it a bit myself, polish off the last problems with the buildings, and then, I set up a community on G+ a while back for testing our DayZ derivative mod, I posted there and I might be able to get a group together to test performance more thoroughly.

There is also a fairly large server host that's using the terrain for hosting their mix of mods, I might see if they're interested in testing it and providing feedback.

If anyone here has a community that's willing to or interested in testing it let me know by PM or here.

I think I fixed all the major issues with the Maly last night, but there's still a bit more to do, the apartments are pretty good as is, I just need to adjust the stair height and re-add the railing proxy.

[cifordayzserver 119]

REALLY tightened up the Maly, and fixed some of the placements that were not 100pct. Also got the 2 story apartment finalized, you can now access the closets that were previously shut, and you can also now lean off the balcony railings and have a VERY good range of motion. You can see both features in the below vid:

[cifordayzserver 119]

Ok, I've really gotten a LOT done over the past few days, and learned A TON.

I've got all the building placed, and adjusted pretty well. I've cleaned up the models, (the two story one is still pretty bad though honestly it's not hurting performance, but it has way too many sections and really needs cleaning up, I'm going to see how the MP performance tests go and decide from there)

The build is looking pretty tight, and I've provided the patch file DL links to my testing community, and to a server host who PM'd me.

MIGHT have a build out by the end of the weekend, but certainly by next week.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Going to be a week at least before I release anything. Haven't gotten any feedback from outside sources, but I spent a lot of time over the weekend and tonight checking the terrain and buildings. The buildings had a bunch of silly things that needed fixing that I took care of. However there are still a few final bits that need to be done, the glass and door don't break in the maly, and the ladders are not config'd properly in the Panelak buildings which is important.

I also found a BUNCH of placement issues with the Maly building in Paraiso, and a few other spots. Getting there, but certainly not ready for release as is.

[bars91 956]

Slow is smooth - smooth is fast(quality in this context). ;)

[cifordayzserver 119]

Yeah, trying to brute force your way through terrain editing isn't exactly a wise man's venture in Arma.

I couldn't help myself, I went back and fixed all the placement issues I noted and went back and checked them (I managed to miss 2 and have noted them).

I also fixed all the outstanding issues with the buildings besides the distance lods. The Maly has shattering glass, and animated doors/shutters, and the apartments all have their ladders working.

I just need to clean up the textures in the elevator shafts for the 4 and 8 story buildings, and do better view distance lods for them all.

It's getting there.

[AlexeiGuba 12]

Great to see you guy(s) are still working on making the best Sahrani ever. :)

[cifordayzserver 119]

Alright, I've gotten pretty much everything sorted at this point, I also animated all the dumpsters, and the backyard well pumps, so now you get "Open Dumpster" / "Close Dumpster" and "Pump Water" which makes the handle crank 3 times:

I'm a little concerned with the frame rate drop you get in Corazol, but I can't really judge it properly, it's certainly not worse for me than Chernogorsk or Elektro in Chernarus.

I've got to adjust one thing in the geo lod for the 4 story panelak, and then do a final pack, resign everything, and upload the package. Hopefully ready by tomorrow or Saturday.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Welcome to the city folks:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvU2taMERLZ2d6RDQ/edit?usp=sharing

This is the full SMD_Sahrani_A2 package including the assets and units, the lite version is still uploading to Google Drive and Media Fire.

I will also update the buildings standalone release as well.

*Edit:

Google Drive links for:

SMD_Sahrani_A2_1.2.0

SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite_1.2.0

SMD_Buildings_1.2.0

Mediafire links for:

SMD_Sahrani_A2

SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite

SMD_Buildings

Edited August 2, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[Guest]

Thank you very much for informing us of the updated releases :cool:

Updated versions frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

SMD Sara A2 Full Sahrani Map Port v1.2.0

SMD Sara A2 Full Sahrani Map Port - Lite v1.2.0

SMD Buildings Standalone v1.2.0

================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account (NonovUrbizniz) on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

[sonsalt6 105]

New update v1.2 available at withSIX. Download now by clicking:

New update v1.2 available at withSIX. Download now by clicking:

New update v1.2 available at withSIX. Download now by clicking:

[bars91 956]

Getting alot of lag with this version.

8 story red block building has some staircase shadow bug on walls. Also a hole in the roof of house.

[cifordayzserver 119]

How bad?

I'll re-run my tests today I guess, but I get on average 40-50fps in low object areas, 30-40 in most high object areas, and 20-30 in corazol with the new buildings, I used to get 30-40 in Corozol. This is on foot too, in the air the lag isn't as bad.

I also ran the tests in test DayZ MP server where the buildings were all spawning 100's of pieces of loot each, and it again, would hit in a similar fashion to any large city in any dayz mod for me.

It's not as snappy as it was, but I don't think it's a killer at all either. There has to be some trade off when making basically the entire city enterable.

I'm totally open to input though, I've got a few ideas on how to optimize the buildings a bit better, but I'm pretty burnt out on working on them at this point. I'll wait to see what the general response is and go from there.

Please post any metrics you have produced.

On the 8 story, the "hole" is supposed to be a sunlight, I'm going to model a little openable bubble window so you can open it from the roof and lob grenades down to the top floor. The shadow lod I have to fix, I think it's just pulled in too tight, pics of exactly what you're seeing would be great though!

Thanks for the input.

*Edit

Ran some quick comparo's in the A3 editor:

Windowed 1600x900 Fullscreen 5760x1080

FPS FPS Rec FPS FPS Rec

A3_1.1 30 to 58 avg 30 30 to 60 avg 30 13 to 15 avg 14 10 to 18 avg 14

A3_1.2 27 to 54 avg 30 29 to 50 avg 30 13 to 19 avg 16 11 to 18 avg 14

Edited August 3, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[bars91 956]

About 5-10 fps drop in Corazol near the 8-story buildings on foot/in vehicles in 3rd person or commander.

It's about -5 fps while buzzing by in an aircraft.

EDIT:

Also on every floor:

massive lag (20-30 fps drop)

180 degree turn - no lag constant 50+ fps

Edited August 4, 2014 by Bars91

[AlexeiGuba 12]

Can confirm that bad performance near this "Panelak" buildings. From 50 - 60 FPS outside Corazol down to ~20 when in or nearby these things. The 8 story ones are the worst I think.

It's good to have more enterable rooms, but I think now there are just too many. Plus some of the rooms you opened are so small you cant even walk in so they are a waste of performance. Opening only one apartment on every floor would have been enough maybe. Now its too late of course as the work is already done. But maybe you can have two versions of these buildings: One fully enterable and a "classic" one. Then you can mix them when there are many of them in one place - like in Corazol.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Well, the buildings are modular, so I can adjust it fairly easily.

I did not spend a huge amount of time optimizing the individual floors, so I'm sure that's causing a bit of strain. Also from the sounds of the lag spike rounding the corner, mixed with the sunlight on the stairs, I think that portion of the view geometry is not correct. The template floors I used were the ones with porches on the front of the building.. I'll have to have a look.

As far as the smaller rooms, they're actually unchanged apart from opening the doors, the textures/rooms were already there. I Just moved the doors so they were swung open.

This whole Panelak project is sort of an experiment, and was certainly pushing the boundaries of what's reasonably do-able.

I'll take some time to play with them in the A3 diagnostics exe and see if that will help me get them squared away a bit.

To be perfectly honest, the buildings could probably use a thorough do-over, as I had absolutely no clue what I was doing when I first started, and I still have a lot to learn, so I just don't feel like it's worth re-doing them at this point.

Worst case scenario I will create a few new floor models, Left Rooms, Right Rooms, and No Rooms. That way I can mix the building up a bit and reduce some of the strain hopefully.

The funny part is, that the 2 story panelak that I changed the least actually has a MUCH MUCH higher section count than any of the larger ones.

I'll try to spend some time looking at them again, but tbh, I'm really burnt out on those buildings right now, so it will likely be a week or two.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Did some cleaning up of the proxied in floor model, it has a really high section count, I cleaned it up a lot, but it's still really high, I don't really know enough about the subject at all. I will read around a bit, and see what I can figure out.

Meantime I have almost finished another building too (I work on new buildings when I get frustrated with the current building I'm stuck/frustrated with.

http://puu.sh/aEYD7/a8d88d6967.jpg (334 kB)

http://puu.sh/aEYJG/183e1db07d.jpg (324 kB)

I stumbled on it while going through the models, and it was just too easy not to do real quick. Some lods need adjustment, but it works pretty well, and looks alright now.

[bars91 956]

Lag or not - those Panelaks are fun as fvck to clear room by room :cool:

[cifordayzserver 119]

Cleaned the Panelak3 (8 story) up a bit more, not too much. Spent some time trying to clean up so other models too, all of our previously done models have pretty high section counts.

Previously, I worked a bit on making a green version of M1lkm8n's animated door Hanger, I looped back tonight, and both cleaned up the desert version (107 sections down to 44, and subsequent reductions in each view lod), and made a green version based on the cleaned up model.

So, now both hangers are fully animated, the green recolor/hue I did for the door texture isn't the greatest, but it's not terrible either...

I also have almost finished the Budova2 building which is a decent 1 story stucco military barrack building, I'm going to populate the floor with folding chairs/table when I can find the proxies lol.

Here's a quick vid of the new buildings:

---------- Post added at 04:26 ---------- Previous post was at 04:00 ----------

Lag or not - those Panelaks are fun as fvck to clear room by room :cool:

Haha, yeah right? It's a freaking DAUNTING task, I mean throw some ambient civilian life, and randomly placed insurgents, and you've got a 2-3 hr mission AT LEAST, if you have to just clear Corazol. So many angles to watch with 2 porches per floor... you never know where someone could be taking pot shots at you from anymore.

The cleaned up versions were still bottoming out at 40 or so FPS, and I removed all the doors, which I REALLY don't want to do, Thing is though, w/o the buildings at all, you still get bottomed out pretty hard on that side of Corazol, I think the huge number of "containers" at the docks, and the industrial sites doesn't help, and you also have the DMZ wall, and all the tank traps on the beach, it's just a HIGHLY dense area for objects.

There are really only a couple other enterable buildings right there, so, I'll take a look at those section counts, and play with removing some containers, and maybe ALL the tank traps? Not sure. I might also play with how the buildings are placed, and maybe with my previous idea of randomizing the floors with enterable/unenterable floors. Although I'm really leaning towards leaving them in, I really like them being fully enterable, and IMO the lag isn't game breaking at all, it still performs better for me than running through Elektro or Cherno... and it's really only that one NE corner of Corazol that's affected.

Although one of the next things I was going to do was replace all the bombed out buildings with rebuilt/enterable ones....

Major terrain changes/additions/removals are something I'd like to start playing more with.... although I will likely do that as a splinter map.. United Sahrani+ or something like that... Taking the changes from United Sahrani, and then going further, by rebuilding all the destroyed locations, making Pita a major city, modernizing the PITA AF, removing all propaganda signage and statues, no more DMZ, a VERY built up Rahmadi, and the rest of the outlying islands... as well as some modern additions, I want to make geo-thermal, diesel generator, and solar power stations around the island. Sahrani would likely have 7-10 power plants between the 2 big islands alone, and it currently has none, besides the generator sheds that are randomly placed at some military areas (I plan on opening those and making them enterable/repairable as well.)

This is something I've always wanted to do, and was a influencing factor when getting M1lkm8n to create so many animated buildings. The idea was to require the power stations be repaired, fueled etc, in order to supply power to the island, and allow access to the powered buildings.

[cifordayzserver 119]

Went totally nuts, and went through the ENTIRE library of our buildings, and did as much section count reducing as I could. There were some HUGE improvements.

Doing test back to back, you can see a big increase in performance for the Panelak3, but it's still pretty laggy. I'm going to release an update with the green hangers placed down, and all the improved buildings by the weekend.

That should give a better baseline to go from for further refining the 8 story apartments. although I'm not too sure much more can be done.

Once I'm done with placing the green hanger down, I'm going to switch gears and bang out these buildings for @CUP since they're all optimized as much as I can.

*EDIT

So, having optimized all the buildings as much as I feel I can w/o going insane for now, I placed the green hangers down, repacked/signed the build and am uploading v.1.5 now.

I will do a changelog and link the files in the morning.

From here, I will take more input over a few weeks on the buildings and their performance, as this should provide a much better baseline, and I've cleaned up the likely culprit apartment buildings as much as I could quickly... so eventually they will likely get re-done, but for now, I'd like to take a break from them.

I've already started the process of making the building package fully A3 compatible on it's own. Once the buildings are done, I will pack them for @CUP as well, and then loop back.

Edited August 7, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[cifordayzserver 119]

Updated the changelog/frontpage downloads with the google drive links:

v1.5.0

Google Drive

SMD_Sahrani_A2 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTveVNfZGJURWMwYUk/edit?usp=sharing

SMD_Sahrani_A2_lite - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvY2g3WU5ITDV3anM/edit?usp=sharing

Buildings - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvWWJMQWJvdlhsSU0/edit?usp=sharing

Mediafire

SMD_Sahrani_A2 - http://www.mediafire.com/download/xkkao36662c41kc/@smd_sahrani_a2_1.5.0.7z

SMD_Sahrani_A2_lite - http://www.mediafire.com/download/8yyya8ut22v2qf3/@smd_sahrani_a2_1.5.0_Lite.7z

Buildings - http://www.mediafire.com/download/b15avhydua6mmdb/@smd_buildings_1.5.0.7z

Edited August 7, 2014 by CiforDayZServer

[Guest]

Thank you very much for informing us of the updated releases :cool:

Updated versions frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

SMD Sara A2 Full Sahrani Map Port v1.5.0

SMD Sara A2 Full Sahrani Map Port - Lite v1.5.0

SMD Buildings Standalone v1.5.0

================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account (NonovUrbizniz) on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!