NEW Visitor for A3!?

[Shelestov 270]

Be good to get some info on what is actually going to be new in vis would be my question ?

I hope that "new" would be that "it will actually work as it supposed to work" for Arma 3 if compared to V3. Also "Region tool" as it was in WRPTool would be nice. Oh! who am i kidding?:(

[mondkalb 1087]

If you use Arma3 as buldozer in Visitor, press "S" until it says "Brush", then use LMB to increase the terrain, and RMB to lower the terrain.

Also you can do the following

Left Alt + M + Mousewheel will change the intensity

Left Alt + B + Mousewheel will change the brush size

Left Alt + N + Mousewheel will change outer brush size only

Left Shift toggles a leveling-mode.

[Polygon 11]

If you use Arma3 as buldozer in Visitor, press "S" until it says "Brush", then use LMB to increase the terrain, and RMB to lower the terrain.

Also you can do the following

Left Alt + M + Mousewheel will change the intensity

Left Alt + B + Mousewheel will change the brush size

Left Alt + N + Mousewheel will change outer brush size only

Left Shift toggles a leveling-mode.

Why not add this (and more, hopefully) to V3 (or else's) documentation so community can benefit? :)

[m1lkm8n 411]

If you use Arma3 as buldozer in Visitor, press "S" until it says "Brush", then use LMB to increase the terrain, and RMB to lower the terrain.

Also you can do the following

Left Alt + M + Mousewheel will change the intensity

Left Alt + B + Mousewheel will change the brush size

Left Alt + N + Mousewheel will change outer brush size only

Left Shift toggles a leveling-mode.

You have no idea how much I love you right now! I've been trying to figure out how to change the brush size since alpha. Thank you!!

[Patrick N 15]

Anyone else starting to lose hope here?

[m1lkm8n 411]

Anyone else starting to lose hope here?

Nope. Come on guys. As they said before it'll be out when they sort the legal issues and other stuff. Everyone needs to sit back, relax, and take a breath.

There's plenty of other things that can be done while you wait.

Such as prepare the sat and layer mask, start getting your road shape files in order, and create any models that need to be either made or ported from the mlods.

[ZeroG 23]

All I can say is: make a nice heightmap with RL data/L3DT/Cryengine, put on a basic texture, use a basic config and place objects with the 3D-editor ingame using the editor addon - until release of V4. Thats what takes most of the time to make the island really beautiful and wont be done in vain, as the classnames are known.

Edited February 15, 2014 by ZeroG

[Sealife 22]

Anyone else starting to lose hope here?

Totally ,

In a way for me it kinda helped me progress onto more challenging tech like fractal ray marching and messing with established biodome using engine like Outerra , I kinda decided the energy of devving a terrain for 12- 18 months using rv3 tech for rv4 was silly In terms of self achievement

Met a few from ofp and arma series too and all so far have no regrets , its the lack of ability for manipulating objects in the 2d visitor ui that ultimately made my decision .

[jakerod 254]

Totally ,

In a way for me it kinda helped me progress onto more challenging tech like fractal ray marching and messing with established biodome using engine like Outerra , I kinda decided the energy of devving a terrain for 12- 18 months using rv3 tech for rv4 was silly In terms of self achievement

Met a few from ofp and arma series too and all so far have no regrets , its the lack of ability for manipulating objects in the 2d visitor ui that ultimately made my decision .

What can't you do with the 2d visitor ui?

[Sealife 22]

What can't you do with the 2d visitor ui?

4096 * 4096 go try manipulate objects in the south western quadrant

[bad benson 1733]

4096 * 4096 go try manipulate objects in the south western quadrant

i think that might be actually the precision thing that people like to bring up about cryengine. i think arma is suffereing from that too. something with distance to the 3d space origin.

[Sealife 22]

i think that might be actually the precision thing that people like to bring up about cryengine. i think arma is suffereing from that too. something with distance to the 3d space origin.

Hmm think you might be talking bout the game floating point accuracy mate ?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point#Accuracy_problems

Iirc that was around [100000000,0,50] back in arma 1when thing went tits up lol. ?

The visitor thing is just an old prog that im sure bis will update one day , vis 3 actually accepts 8192 but again its pointless for now cause its designed for 2048s .

[bushlurker 46]

I think it's slightly different... The floating point precision thing technically gets worse the further you are away from the 0,0 origin - which IS the SW corner...

Arma does suffer from that too, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as the Cryengine issue... It tends to show up at the extreme NE quadrant of very big maps, and even then you only really notice with hyper-precision placed stuff like Sidewalks, etc...

The "4096 bug" seems to affect the "outer edges" of a 4096x4096 map - You can add objects to the list as normal - place, manipulate and rotate, etc - all as normal - in the Middle of the map - but as you stray towards the corners, suddenly there comes a point where you can place objects, but no longer manipulate them...

The same bug seems to affect the VBS2 Visitor 3 "Non-PE Version" as well, but not any of the V4 variants I've tried...

B

[sgtsev3n 12]

I think it's slightly different... The floating point precision thing technically gets worse the further you are away from the 0,0 origin - which IS the SW corner...

Arma does suffer from that too, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad as the Cryengine issue... It tends to show up at the extreme NE quadrant of very big maps, and even then you only really notice with hyper-precision placed stuff like Sidewalks, etc...

The "4096 bug" seems to affect the "outer edges" of a 4096x4096 map - You can add objects to the list as normal - place, manipulate and rotate, etc - all as normal - in the Middle of the map - but as you stray towards the corners, suddenly there comes a point where you can place objects, but no longer manipulate them...

The same bug seems to affect the VBS2 Visitor 3 "Non-PE Version" as well, but not any of the V4 variants I've tried...

B

in.V4 the bug is fixed and remember that altis with over 1 million objects use the 4096*4096 resolution

[GrayFox 11]

I'm wrong I'm sorry that I have is the visitor 3

Edited February 20, 2014 by GrayFox

[Patrick N 15]

I'm wrong I'm sorry that I have is the visitor 3

Huh...?

[GrayFox 11]

i have visitor 3 from arma 2

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA_2_Terrain_Tutorial

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BI_Tools_2

[masonddg87 16]

Hello everyone. My question to the developers and community is, will terrain in ArmA 3 be possible to scale up to 700 km by 700 km (as visitor 3 is capable of doing in VBS 2), but maintain tight visual effects as small terrains like the ones we are playing on now? I ask this due to noticing the extra space when viewing the terrains at present.

[sgtsev3n 12]

Hello everyone. My question to the developers and community is, will terrain in ArmA 3 be possible to scale up to 700 km by 700 km (as visitor 3 is capable of doing in VBS 2), but maintain tight visual effects as small terrains like the ones we are playing on now? I ask this due to noticing the extra space when viewing the terrains at present.

it may be possible in arma 3 but in arma 2 there is a limit with objects (5,000,000 max) so we have to hope that visitor for arma 3 has no limit because with that limit we cant fill 700 by 700 km terrain

[m1lkm8n 411]

Hello everyone. My question to the developers and community is, will terrain in ArmA 3 be possible to scale up to 700 km by 700 km (as visitor 3 is capable of doing in VBS 2), but maintain tight visual effects as small terrains like the ones we are playing on now? I ask this due to noticing the extra space when viewing the terrains at present.

I don't really understand your question. You want to know if you can build a large terrain but want to maintain "tight" visual effects. What is a tight visual effect? Detail in the actual terrain itself?

If that's the case as you increase the cell size of the terrain you loose the ability to have detail in the terrain.

For instance If you heightmap is 4096x5meter cells=20480 meters overall

Now with vbs3 I think it can handle heightmaps up to 8192. So you could essentially do 8192 x2.5 for a total of 20480 giving you the same overall size as the first terrain but a higher detail in the terrain since ever cell is now only 2.5 meter wide.

However increase that cell size to say 50 meters your terrain will start to look like Lego land. As if you need to adjust a cell vertice up or down you can only do so every 50 meters.

As far as a 700km terrain, if your not doing something like that for air battle I don't see the point. It will literally take you years to fill a terrain that size.

[bushlurker 46]

700km x 700km terrains simply aren't possible with current Arma tech - even with Arma 3.

As far as we know, 4096x4096 cell heightmaps are the Limit. Our current Visitor 3 has a bug which prevents effective use of 4096 heightmaps, tho we're hoping that'll change with the new tools. Doubtless BI have had 4096 capability all along, but Altis is the first time they've ever actually used it - probably due to performance concerns up till now.

To make a 700x700km terrain with a single 4096 cell heightmap, each cell would be representing an #170 meter area - that's going to be Very Blocky and crude!

The nearest you're likely to see to that sort of size is Rip31st's enormous WWII map, which I think he's pushed to about 153x153km - at the expense of pretty low detail terrain and some dodgy engine behaviour... It's simply not designed to handle terrains that big...

B

[masonddg87 16]

700km x 700km terrains simply aren't possible with current Arma tech - even with Arma 3.

As far as we know, 4096x4096 cell heightmaps are the Limit. Our current Visitor 3 has a bug which prevents effective use of 4096 heightmaps, tho we're hoping that'll change with the new tools. Doubtless BI have had 4096 capability all along, but Altis is the first time they've ever actually used it - probably due to performance concerns up till now.

To make a 700x700km terrain with a single 4096 cell heightmap, each cell would be representing an #170 meter area - that's going to be Very Blocky and crude!

The nearest you're likely to see to that sort of size is Rip31st's enormous WWII map, which I think he's pushed to about 153x153km - at the expense of pretty low detail terrain and some dodgy engine behaviour... It's simply not designed to handle terrains that big...

B

So, if that is so. How is it done in VBS 2 (being that terrain size is 500 km by 500 km)? Is there a difference in the engine technology between the two? Are is it limited through a governor program?

---------- Post added at 06:17 ---------- Previous post was at 05:54 ----------

Another question. What does it mean by 5,000,000 object limit? Does it mean that you can only have object, such as 5,000,000 blades of grass? Are 5,000,000 object of different types? Please explain.

Edited February 24, 2014 by MasonDDG87

[sgtsev3n 12]

So, if that is so. How is it done in VBS 2 (being that terrain size is 500 km by 500 km)? Is there a difference in the engine technology between the two? Are is it limited through a governor program?

---------- Post added at 06:17 ---------- Previous post was at 05:54 ----------

Another question. What does it mean by 5,000,000 object limit? Does it mean that you can only have object, such as 5,000,000 blades of grass? Are 5,000,000 object of different types? Please explain.

VBS uses a advanced engine. 500 km by 500 km can be done in VBS without issues. you can have a 700 km by 700 km terrain in arma but it will look very low res and is only good for air battle.

there is a 201 km by 201 km map out for arma 2. it is a afghan style map means only desert and hills, no objects. you can download it from armaholic and test the map to see how large terrain looks ( it looks low res but not like lego land)

well im not really sure about 5,000,000 object limit since i know only one person who had a crash after placing 5,000,000 objects. the 5,000,000 object limit means: only max 5,000,000 of trees,buildings etc can be placed into the map but im not sure if its really 5,000,000 because my only source is the one guy who got a crash in visitors after placing 5,000,000. better ask a expert here in terms of terrain about the maximum objects that can be placed into the map. maybe the guy who got the crash did something wrong. ask ZeroG here in the forum. he know much and maybe ge can test it.

[masonddg87 16]

Ok, let say I do a 113 km by 113 km terrain with 30 - 40% ocean. How high of a res will be achievable? And does grass counts as an object? I ask because I wish to cover 70% of the island in grass.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Ok, let say I do a 113 km by 113 km terrain with 30 - 40% ocean. How high of a res will be achievable? And does grass counts as an object? I ask because I wish to cover 70% of the island in grass.

I think your just misunderstanding his the how thing works.

Say you have a height map of 2048x2048 and your go with ten meter cells. That means your entire terrain size is 20480 meters by 20480 meters.

Then you have your satellite map. It is basically a top down image of your island. Now if you make your sat map 20480x20480 pixels in, let's say photoshop, that will give you one pixel per meter coverage of the terrain.

Now you want to make a 113km terrain which essentially is 113000x113000meters.

So to have a satellite image that will give you a 1px per meter coverage that'll mean you'll need an image that's 113000x113000 pixels. Which is just insanely gigantic and probably impossible. Now say you do a image size of smaller like 56500x56500 pixels then you'll be covering 1pixel of sat map for every two meters in game for half the resolution.

You see as the terrain size increases most likely your sat image will decrease otherwise you may find it impossible to work with.

For one thing the max file size of a png file is 30000x30000. Now there are workarounds for that but it gets complicated.