Various problems with A3 terrain making

[egilsandfeld 7]

Hi guys :)

______________________________________

In the thread below I post various questions to the great community in order to succeed making my first terrain. Scroll through the post and maybe you can learn a thing or two as well :)

______________________________________

I'm creating a map of a small island in Denmark, Tunø and so far I got heightmap, mask, sat and trees+bushes imported just fine, so it currently looks like this:

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/A3-noClutter.png (2913 kB)

How ever I got some problems. First of all I can't seem to get the clutter in. In my tunoe.log (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/tunoe.log) I get some "Bad Version 58" with my objects, including the clutter files but also trees and bushes. So it's funny that I can get the trees and bushes in, but not clutter. Well the problem could then be in my config.cpp file where I have both the classes CfgSurfaces and CfgClutter: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/config.cpp

Don't really know what to make of it, or where to look anymore. Tried having Mikebart vegetation instead of any A3 clutter, but that didn't work either. Error log actually reported something with "repack data" for every single type of Mikebart vege I tried to use.

Can someone help me?

If/when I get to the bottom of this problem I got some other good stuff for you ;)

Edited December 24, 2013 by EgilSandfeld

[m1lkm8n 410]

Ok first thing I see is under cfgsurfaces for the smgreengrass file="" inside that should be the name of your ground texture.

Also inside the class clutter you should give tags to your clutter so for instance class grassgreen you could make class sm_grassgreen. Keep in mind you'll have to change the names inside cfgsurfaces to match. If grassgreen is the default arma3 name it may be why it's not showing up. You need to have different names or it can cause these conflicts.

Also in class clutter you have the class greengrass but in cfgsurfaces you have it named as greengrassgroup. It must be the same as in cfg clutter.

M1lkm8n

[egilsandfeld 7]

Hi Milkman :)

Okay I changed CfgSurfaces and CfgSurfaceCharacters to this:

class CfgSurfaces

{

class Default {};

class Water{};

class TUsandSurface : Default

{

access = 2;

files = "tu_sand_*";

rough = 0.1;

dust = 0.3;

maxSpeedCoef = 0.8;

lucidity = 2;

soundEnviron = "sand";

character = "EMPTY";

soundHit = "soft_ground";

};

class TUsoilSurface : Default

{

access = 2;

files = "tu_soil_*";

rough = 0.1;

dust = 0.4;

maxSpeedCoef = 0.8;

lucidity = 2;

soundEnviron = "dirt";

character = "EMPTY";

soundHit = "soft_ground";

};

class TUGreenGrass: Default

{

access = 2;

files = "tu_grass_*";

character = "TUGreenGrassClutter";

soundEnviron = "grass";

soundHit = "soft_ground";

rough = 0.08;

maxSpeedCoef = 0.9;

dust = 0.15;

lucidity = 4;

grassCover = 0.05;

};

};

class CfgSurfaceCharacters

{

class TUGreenGrassClutter

{

probability[] = {0.95,0.02,0.02,0.01};

names[] = {"tu_GrassGreen","tu_ThornGreenSmall","tu_ThornGreenBig","tu_PlantGreenShrub"};

};

};

Also in Clutter class I've changed it to:

class clutter{

class tu_GrassGreen: DefaultClutter

{

model = "a3\plants_f\Clutter\c_StrGrassGreen_group.p3d";

affectedByWind = 0.6;

swLighting = "true";

scaleMin = 0.7;

scaleMax = 1.0;

};

class tu_ThornGreenSmall: DefaultClutter

{

model = "a3\plants_f\Clutter\c_StrThornGreen.p3d";

affectedByWind = 0.05;

swLighting = "false";

scaleMin = 0.3;

scaleMax = 0.5;

};

class tu_ThornGreenBig: DefaultClutter

{

model = "a3\plants_f\Clutter\c_StrThornGreen.p3d";

affectedByWind = 0.05;

swLighting = "false";

scaleMin = 0.7;

scaleMax = 0.9;

};

class tu_PlantGreenShrub: DefaultClutter

{

model = "a3\plants_f\Clutter\c_StrPlantGreenShrub.p3d";

affectedByWind = 0.5;

swLighting = "true";

scaleMin = 0.6;

scaleMax = 1.1;

};

};

I have this as my folder structure:

It still doesn't work. I don't have any clutter ingame, only the trees+bushes import via WT->visitor. Log and config.cpp links in my original post have been updated, to reflect what I have now.

Do you see anything wrong here?

* My list of files to copy directly within BinPBO are: "*.pac;*.paa;*.rtm;*.sqf;*.sqs;*.bikb;*.fsm;*.wss;*.ogg;*.wav;*.fxy;*.csv;*.html;*.lip;*.txt;*.bisurf; *.sqm; *.ext; *.cfg;"

[m1lkm8n 410]

Well first since you changed all the names I would go to wherever your bin_temp folder is and delete everything inside and rebinarize. Then see if that fixes it.

[bushlurker 45]

Not sure if it'll help with the clutter, but at an initial Fast Glance....

In your Layers.cfg - you're correctly pointing the surface classes to the "mco" and the "rvmat" for each surface - that's correct!

But - in the actual .rvmat itself you're pointing the two paths to - the "nopx" = correct, and... the "mco" again = wrong.... make that second path point to your "CO" texture...

Otherwise - things look OK, now you've implemented M1lkm8n's suggestions... It's a common mistake when starting out just to copy those clutter classes directly - and this DOES cause the "disappearance" of clutter - either on the terrain you copied the definitions from, or on your own...

M1lkm8n's other suggestion - clear out "bin_temp" is also a good one - BinPbo tries to be clever and save time on packing by reusing stuff that "hasn't changed" since your last packing run, and sometimes it can get confused and skip new changes that have been implemented - deleting the entire contents of that folder means your next packing run will be slow, but "clean"...

Finally - I'm not sure which guides or tutorials you've been following - you seem to be doing exceptionally well so far!, but one step you'll often see mentioned which is worth doublechecking...

When you import your sat & mask in Visitor, you'll be asked if you want to make the resulting .rvmats binarised, or as text... If you choose "binarized" then - that's them done! and so - when you get to the binPbo stage you don't want to be binarizing them again, and so you'd make sure that "*.rvmat" is INCLUDED in that "list of files to copy directly" within BinPBO.

If on the other hand, you chose the (more usual, in case you want to mess with them later) "text" option at the Import Sat & Mask stage, then you WILL want to binarize them at the binPBO stage, so "*.rvmat" should NOT BE on that "list of files to just copy directly" - I see that it isn't on your list, so am I right in thinking that you chose "text" back at that import stage?...

Binarising them twice, or not at all, by mixing up these options can lead to occasionally unpredictable results with ground surfaces, so it's worth being sure... It's a "set once then just follow the same procedure" situation though, so once you're sure you're correct you can just follow the same choices every time....

B

[egilsandfeld 7]

...delete everything inside and rebinarize. Then see if that fixes it.

I'm already doing that every time to make sure nothing gets mixed up with earlier binarizations :)

@Bushlurker: Yes I'm importing sat & mask as text in that stage and then have them binarized with binPbo. About the grass.rvmat, I changed it so that the second now points to the co.paa instead.

BUT the clutter still doesn't appear :( I'm still out of ideas, so any good ideas to pointing me in the right direction is much appreciated.

I've uploaded my "P:\Tunoe" folder as a rar file here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/Tunoe.rar in case anyone have the time to take a look?

Btw. clutter in my Altis and Stratis is still there, so I haven't screwed up with my A3 core I guess :)

[bushlurker 45]

Hi again!

It's the weekend!! :) - so I actually had time to take a look!

OK - I dumped your source files to P:\ - binarized, loaded into the Game and the first thing I hit was this....

This is a very, very common error that turns up all the time... It tends to panic beginners a little, and you'll see the Tutorial threads littered with errors like this...

In almost every case, it can be cured simply by reimporting the Sat and Mask layers - so that's immediately what I did, and it went away as expected...

So no problems there, and I mention it purely in case you see the same error yourself and think it's something serious - it isn't! - Reimport Sat & Mask and it - should - go away...

So - then I binarized again, and - sure enough - no clutter!

Now - lets think theory for a minute....

You don't actually see clutter at the Buldozer/Visitor stage... that's because it's purely a "runtime" thing... It's specified and controlled by the config, and the config likewise plays no part in the proceedings until the final binarize/runtime stage. So if there's a problem with clutter - it MUST lie somewhere POST-Visitor... That means, the config entries themselves, or the Binarizing stage.

Since the rest of your terrain seems fine in-game to me (apart from the clutter), and seemed fine for you too, I'm guessing by now that the Binarizing procedure you - and I - followed was also OK... That leaves the config, so time for a proper look at that...

Sure enough, after actually looking closely, I found this section...

		clutterGrid = 10;
	clutterDist = 1;
	noDetailDist = 40;
	fullDetailDist = 30;

Here's the problem right here.... these numbers are Waaay off...

I substituted some "safe" values....

		clutterGrid = 1.5;
	clutterDist = 125;
	noDetailDist = 65;
	fullDetailDist = 15;

and....

Lets look at these numbers and what they mean....

    [color="#FF0000"]//this is the size of the "clutter grid", lower numbers will create higher density clutter, but may affect performance[/color]
   clutterGrid = 1.5;

  [color="#FF0000"] //this is the radius around the player that will be filled with clutter[/color]
   clutterDist = 125; 

 [color="#FF0000"]  //this is the distance from the player at which detailed ground textures begin to fade to sat layer[/color]
   fullDetailDist = 15; [color="#FF0000"]//should always be BIGGER than the heightmap cell size[/color]

 [color="#FF0000"]  //this is the distance at which the detailed ground textures disappear completely and the satellite layer takes over[/color]
   noDetailDist = 65;

Not sure where you got your original figures from but they were seriously out of the ballpark... Try substituting the values above and you should be good to go!

Otherwise - Damned Fine Effort All Round!!!

It's looking Very nice, and is a terrific first attempt! - Looking forward to seeing you take things further when the tools arrive!!!

B

Edited November 9, 2013 by Bushlurker

[[aps]gnat 28]

We BL, not my project, but I have to applaud that post.

You are one of the best "helpers" here, no doubt!

[egilsandfeld 7]

Wow Bush, that fixed my problem! :D Jihaaaa now it looks Ã… w e s o m e! Thanks so much for looking into it, and thanks for your kind words. Much appreciated! Think my clutterGrid should be at about 1.2 then. It's really amazing how much the clutter gives to the overall impression of the map. It's kind of the glue in world that holds everything together.

Well now I have tasted blood, I might as well just bring my second issue :)

Trying to get roads on the map as well. But again I cannot get it in to the world. There are some areas where the problem might be. First of all in my config.cpp I have

newRoadsShape = "\Tunoe\data\roads\roads.shp";

at the class Tunoe: CAWorld.

In P:\Tunoe\Data\roads I have 5 files: roads.dbf;.prj;shp;shx and the RoadsLib.cfg:

class RoadTypesLibrary

{

class Road0001

{

width = 14;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_highway_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_highway_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_highway.rvmat";

map = "main road";

AIpathOffset = 2;

};

class Road0002

{

width = 10;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_main_road_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_main_road_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadtarmac_main_road.rvmat";

map = "road";

AIpathOffset = 1.5;

};

class Road0003

{

width = 10;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_road_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_road_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_road.rvmat";

map = "track";

AIpathOffset = 0.5;

};

class Road0004

{

width = 10;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadconcrete_city_road_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadconcrete_city_road_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roadconcrete_city_road.rvmat";

map = "track";

AIpathOffset = 0.5;

};

class Road0005

{

width = 7;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_path_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_path_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_path.rvmat";

map = "track";

AIpathOffset = 0;

};

class Road0006

{

width = 10;

mainStrTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_trans_ca.paa"; // lowercase!

mainTerTex = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_trans_end_ca.paa";

mainMat = "a3\roads_f\roads_ae\data\surf_roaddirt_trans.rvmat";

map = "road";

AIpathOffset = 1.5;

};

};

As I follow ZGM's tut on how to get roads into A3, I have this for every single line in my roads.shp:

Each line has its own unique "__ID" starting from 1001-1042ish

So the road lines are on top of my sat image of the island, which I've imported to ZGM's "roads20480.png" file and is located bottom left. When I export I deselect the other layers that is not the roads.shp layer. I then go file -> Export -> Export Vector Format, select shapefile format, Export Lines and save it as roads.shp in P:\Tunoe\Data\roads\. I don't select/deselect anything else in that export window.

I then binarize with BinPBO (have no *.shp in the list of files to copy directly) , go ingame and have no roads. Do we still have to georectify like you did previously, to get the roads of your new island on top of Stratis roads?

Anyway I got a .rar file of my roads files here, in case anyone wants to take a look: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/roads.rar

Help! :bounce3:

[m1lkm8n 410]

I thought I remembered one of your pictures showing your binpbo list of files to copy directly (maybe you changed pictures). Anyway I saw .cfg in there but you also need .shx, .shp , .prj

Also don't know if this is just the way it looks in this forum but the underscore id and underscore layer is just one underscore.

So it's _Layer and _ID

Not __Layer and __ID

[egilsandfeld 7]

Okay, I changed all road lines to have just one _ instead of two at _LAYER and _ID. rar file "roads.rar" updated in post above to reflect that.

My line in BinPBO is now: *.pac;*.paa;*.rtm;*.sqf;*.sqs;*.bikb;*.fsm;*.wss;*.ogg;*.wav;*.fxy;*.csv;*.html;*.lip;*.txt;*.bisurf;*.sqm;*.ext;*.cfg;*.shx;*.shp;*.prj; (also tried including *.dbf)

No change in result :/

I guess it's not something to do with texture as the "shape" of the roads don't even show up on the map:

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/A3-RoadsMap.png (397 kB)

But what the problem then is idk.

[m1lkm8n 410]

The quickest way to tell if your roads are actually in the right spot are to open stratis and your roads at the same time. If your roads are on top of theirs it's in the 'right' area so it's something else your doing wrong. I'll take a look when I get home if no one else has

[bushlurker 45]

Glad you got it working!

Yeah! - there's nothing quite like standing on your very own first terrain, looking around and thinking "Holy S**t! I MADE this!!!"

You're one of US now - and you'll never be free (or have any free time ever again) ;)

... a little more on clutter since I have time...

Think my clutterGrid should be at about 1.2 then.

Well - be careful! I'm not sure of the exact range of that particular parameter, but it's pretty "narrow"... The values I quoted above were taken directly from Stratis, since I assumed they'd "balance" with the A3 clutter reasonably well.

The "default value" for VBS is "4", and their terrain clutters are so "thin" they're almost non-existent.

What you don't want is to overdo it to the point where people turn clutter off as a matter of course, because it's "too dense" or "affects performance significantly" or "can't see a damned thing when I'm prone", cause then people are running around on the "bald" terrain you had before which looked just so..... bald...

One trick I use quite a lot is to initially copy BI "density" - a "1.5" value or something, but then - in the actual clutter model definitions themselves, I drop the "size" slightly...

In the individual definitions, where you see something like this for each specific clutter model...

scaleMin = 0.8;

scaleMax = 1.2;

I'll change things to...

scaleMin = 0.6;

scaleMax = 1.0;

Still the same range of randomised sizes, but just that little bit smaller on average. If necessary you can then crank the density microscopically, maybe to 1.4/3/2?...

The goal being so that when people try out the terrain at first they think "wow! - looks Great" - then they go prone and think "Hey! Looks great AND I can still almost see when I'm prone! - I'll leave clutter on for my multiplayer mission!"

... a little advanced for your current stage, but something to think about and experiment a little with when you get to that "final polishing" stage...

Finally, I really haven't messed with any of the current "temporary tricks" for A3 terrains, in particular, the "Roads" stuff, so I'll let some of the more informed guys take over for that aspect of things...

Well done so far, again! and Good Luck!

B

[egilsandfeld 7]

Good points, Bush. I'll definitely consider doing that later on.

About roads. Tried overlaying stratis roads.shp, and it does appear to the west of the "roads20480.png" and my own roads.shp. It's about 750km off. But still nothing appears in game if I overlay my roads.shp on top of Stratis and include both those roads and my own in the export and then binarizing it. Hmm wierd that the original "roads20480.png" is off? Could it be that I have set my GM to UTM projection, Zone 32N, WGS84 and METERS?

Also in config.cpp I got this:

longitude = 10.38;
latitude = -55.97;
landgrid = 100;
newRoadsShape = "\Tunoe\Data\roads\roads.shp";

[m1lkm8n 410]

Zerogs thing isn't off. I've tried it before. Something probably went screwy along the way. How did you actuality make the shape file. Did you rectify your island or map of the island to zerogs rectified image?

I'll grab both your terrain and shape file and take a look.

Oh can you upload the newest version (the fixed clutter one) this way I can grab the newest one.

[egilsandfeld 7]

Newest version here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9959158/Tunoe.rar

The original road lines are from a Danish GIS company, so they're already rectified (I think?). What I did was loading ZGM workspace, loaded my roads.shp, then my roads.shp appeared way to the north of ZGM image (looked like the correct distance between Denmark and Greece). Then I think I moved my roads.shp lines down to overlay on top of ZGM image in the bottom left.

[m1lkm8n 410]

heres the new roads files. I used quantumgis to rectify them to your islands satmap

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ofohxvouihsm701/New%20folder%20%2811%29.7z

btw..very nice start so far!! keep it up!

Edit- oh also you are correct you need the .dbf, in the list of files to copy directly, as well

Edited November 10, 2013 by M1lkm8n

[bushlurker 45]

very nice start so far!!

That's two people so far have taken a look and said that! - you must be doing something right! ;)

B

[james2464 176]

Nice work Egil! Well done and keep it up. :D

[meshcarver 12]

Yeah! - there's nothing quite like standing on your very own first terrain, looking around and thinking "Holy S**t! I MADE this!!!"

You're one of US now - and you'll never be free (or have any free time ever again) ;)

Excellent stuff here.

And, heed this mans "warning" lol..! ;)

[egilsandfeld 7]

heres the new roads files. I used quantumgis to rectify them to your islands satmap

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ofohxvouihsm701/New%20folder%20%2811%29.7z

btw..very nice start so far!! keep it up!

Edit- oh also you are correct you need the .dbf, in the list of files to copy directly, as well

As I still cannot get roads in game, let's break it totally down:

- In my list of files to copy directly is currently: "*.pac;*.paa;*.rtm;*.sqf;*.sqs;*.bikb;*.fsm;*.wss;*.ogg;*.wav;*.fxy;*.csv;*.html;*.lip;*.txt;*.bisurf;*.sqm;*.ext;*.cfg;*.prj;*.shx;*.shp;*.dbf;" (tried with qpj as well)

- If I just overwrite my files in the P:\Tunoe\Data\roads with yours from that 7zip file no roads appear.

- After BinPBO I extract content of Tunoe.pbo, and it correctly shows a folder at Tunoe\Data\roads with all 6 files needed. Also the path is correct inside config.cpp to be: newRoadsShape = "\Tunoe\Data\roads\roads.shp";

- If I open your tunoe roads shp on top of your Qgis project (from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?156592-M1lkm8ns-roadpainting-source-files-for-quantum-gis) it displays it totally correct on top of my island. So no issues there.

- roads.shp in P:\Tunoe\Data\roads does contain something. It's 13Kb so there definitely roads shape lines in there.

BÃ¥m... where it's that damned error? WGS84 + UTM 31N, UTF-8 as encoding, longitude = 10.38; latitude = -55.97; ...

I see this as a challenge and I want to succeed with this!

[m1lkm8n 410]

Strange as I did exactly what you just did and was standing on your island with roads. When I get home ill upload your entire island folder with the roads.

Edit- did you copy the whole roads folder over and also again try deleting your bin_temp folder and then binarize

If you go to option under binpbo it'll show you where your current temp folder is. Delete all contents in there. Barring that seriously the only other thing I can think of is to run the arma tool installer and *only* select binarize tools. Sometimes that fixes these weird issues.

Edited November 11, 2013 by M1lkm8n

[egilsandfeld 7]

did you copy the whole roads folder over and also again try deleting your bin_temp folder and then binarize

Yes already done that 10 times at least :)

If you go to option under binpbo it'll show you where your current temp folder is. Delete all contents in there.

Already deleted files in my P:\bin_temp.

Barring that seriously the only other thing I can think of is to run the arma tool installer and *only* select binarize tools. Sometimes that fixes these weird issues.

Not following here? What should I do?

[m1lkm8n 410]

What I mean is run the bi tool 2.5.1 installer .exe and select only the option for binarize tools then click install. Sometimes that fixes these weird errors where things refuse to work properly.

Literally all I did to your terrain was rectify an image of your sat map to the correct location for a3 then placed your roads overtop the image lining them up correctly. Then I saved the roads shape file and placed it into your terrain road folder. Then binarized and in a few minutes I was standing and flying over your island with roads.

[m1lkm8n 410]

ok heres a link to dropbox with a pbo'd and the un-pbod version of ur terrain.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yn853s7xdwpzqc3/42zPLon_72

and a pic to show im not fibbing :)

http://i.imgur.com/GuynO4R.jpg