NEW Visitor for A3!?

[masonddg87 16]

Go on, get complicated (GIS student).

[m1lkm8n 411]

Oh and grass is concidered clutter which is a very simple model. Usually just poly planes. No geometry or anything. And it's set in your main island config for the distance around the player that it will be generated. (Via your clutter config)

[jakerod 254]

This is my recommendation. Try to do that 113km x 113km terrain. But start it out small. Start with a 4km x 4km or some other small number first. If you start in the lower left corner you can keep expanding it without too much hassle. That is assuming that you want to keep going. Each time you double the width and height the terrain will take 4 times as long to complete. 4km x 4km can be done in one month by a beginner probably. So 4 months for the next size. 8 months for the next. 16 months after that. Now you're at a 64km. 32 months later you'll be at your destination. So add that up there. 1 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 = 61 / 12 = 5.0833333333 etc. 5 years it will take you to make this. I have no problem with you putting that much effort into it. I encourage you to make whatever terrain your heart is set on but please start small. That way you get positive reinforcement and a feeling of accomplishment along the way and we get a new terrain to play on.

Here are your limits (most of which others have stated):

As far as we know now you are limited to how many pixels your heightmap can be. It can be, in pixels, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, 2048x2048, or 4096x4096. This is an engine limitation. No way around it to the best of our knowledge (which includes several people who do this stuff for a living). This isn't a huge issue when you take into account that your cell size can be whatever you want. So you can do:

16 x 16px x 7062.5m

32 x 32px x 3531.3m

64 x 64px x 1765.7m

128 x 128px x 882.9m

256 x 256px x 441.5m

512 x 512px x 220.8m

1024 x 1024px x 110.4m

2048 x 2048px x 55.2m (Operation Flashpoint / ArmA: Cold War Assault(2001) has only a slightly better cell size than this)

4096 x 4096px x 27.6m

You may notice all of those have only one decimal place. That is a limit of the present tool that we use to make terrains.

Now if bigger sizes are possible (which to the best of our knowledge they aren't):

8192 x 8192 x 13.8m (Worse resolution than the original CWR2 terrains for A2)

16384 x 16384 x 6.9m (Only slightly better than Chernarus(A2) and Altis(A3) and worse than Proving Grounds (PMC). Total heightmap vertices: 268,435,456)

5,000,000 object limit. Grass does not count towards this unless it is placed as an object and not clutter.

Satellite map size. Highest anyone has ever been able to do is 40,000px x 40,000px and it took them a year to several years to figure out how to do it. For yours to look good it has to be about 3 times that size in terms of width and height. In area, 9 times that size (area = 14,400,000,000... Interesting Fact: that's almost twice as many pixels as people on the planet).

Edited February 25, 2014 by Jakerod

[Shelestov 270]

Aaand still no info. Not a single word.

[jakerod 254]

Aaand still no info. Not a single word.

"A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else."

-George Savile

[masonddg87 16]

Does anyone know the grid and cell sizes of Altis?

[m1lkm8n 411]

Does anyone know the grid and cell sizes of Altis?

4096x7.5

[masonddg87 16]

Thanks

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

Another, What was the grid and cell size in Arma & Arma 2?

[bravo409 13]

I'm new to this map making thing is there any tutorials you can point me too, and also having hard time finding the tools that I need to make a map.I thought they where coming out with new tools to make map making easier. Am I looking in the wrong place or have they not made them yet? thanks

[m1lkm8n 411]

Thanks

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

Another, What was the grid and cell size in Arma & Arma 2?

Well sahrani was 2048x10=20480

And cherno was I think 2048x8=16384(not 100% sure. I think this is the corrects size tho)

[masonddg87 16]

I'm new to this map making thing is there any tutorials you can point me too, and also having hard time finding the tools that I need to make a map.I thought they where coming out with new tools to make map making easier. Am I looking in the wrong place or have they not made them yet? thanks

At present, the only map making tool is Visitor 3. They are working on releasing Visitor 4 Light as soon as they move through the legalities from transferring the technology from VBS 2/3. So far as for learning to us the app, I find the information about the Visitor app uninformative for those who never structure a map. I would suggest GIS for Dummies to start the basic. Than read the information in the BIS Wiki carefully (at less three times), than start trying to us your skill from there.

[masonddg87 16]

Anyone knows why BI has reduced the cell size from 10 (ArmA) to 8 (ArmA II) to 7.5 (ArmA III). What is the reason for doing this?

[xendance 3]

Anyone knows why BI has reduced the cell size from 10 (ArmA) to 8 (ArmA II) to 7.5 (ArmA III). What is the reason for doing this?

It allows you to have a more higher resolution terrain. The cell size means the distance between each terrain vertice.

[ZeroG 23]

The lower the resoultion, the better you will be able to see small ditches and humps - which makes the terrain look even more realistic. Unluckily, its is very demanding regarding performance. As far as I have gone with the tests, 3m resolution seems to be the maximum that still can be played well...given the heightmap limit of 4096px, 144m² is the maximum island size possible with such a high resoultion, so only a bit more than 1/3 of Altis. Bottom line: if one wants to do an ultra-realistic terrain (like me as I am recreating my home county), you are limited to that map size. Although I think 5m (thus 400km²) would also give some nice trenches..one has to compare (and to acquire that data).

Edited March 6, 2014 by ZeroG

[bushlurker 46]

As far as performance is concerned, both the Size and the Number of "ground cells" are factors.

The "new" 4096-size has always been there really, but due to a bug in the "Visitor 3" tools series, it's never been possible for us to effectively use that size. Presumably, BI have always had that size available, yet they've never actually chosen to use it until now - with Altis.

The two new - and pretty all-round excellent - Arma 3 terrains are great examples... Stratis has a pretty small groundcell size (4m I think), and as everyone knows from playing on it, all those small-scale ups and downs and little dips 'n bumps make for some terrific gameplay!

Altis, on the other hand, uses the full 4096-size heightmap, but with 7.5m groundcell size - comparable with Chernarus, but of course since there's 4096 of those cells instead of 2048 it's effectively the size of 4 Chernarusses in a 2 x 2 grid.

Not quite the same close-up, tight detailed ground features as Stratis, but still pretty good, and with the new - and seemingly pretty playable for most people - 4096 size, it allows for noticably bigger terrains than we've been used to before.

As and when the new community terrain tools arrive, we'll doubtless see a flurry of different sized terrains appear, as the terrain guys go crazy experimenting with all these new scale possibilities... The 4096 option in particular, which we've never really had effective access to, will open the door for some interesting sizes...

eg:

4096x4096 x 12.5m groundcell

(12.5m is probably the upper limit for an infantry-style map. That's the size used, for example, on the CWR2 Arma 2 terrains - you won't be depicting any small scale features like roadside ditches with that resolution, but for something like a "rolling hills / afghan / whatever" style map, it would allow for a fairly huge 51.2km x 51.2km terrain, which I'm guessing would still perform pretty well).

Large-scale map guys will be looking at these sort of scales...

4096x4096 x 2.5m groundcell

(The other end of the scale - this size would yield a 10.2km x 10.2km sized map - a decent "standard" size, but with a previously unattainable and impressively high-res 2.5m ground resolution it's potentially even more detailed than Stratis... you could make a decent attempt at little roadside ditches, etc with this sort of res).

The hyper-detailed terrain brigade will be all over these sort of sizes....

When the tools arrive - watch the map scene explode! ;)

PS.

Meantime, you could have a little peek at my crazy experimental Strange New World terrains for Arma 3.

Don't be misled by the "Star Trek Cover Story" - in actual fact, both of these empty experimental terrains are really, in effect, "pre-tools testers" - experimenting with precisely the sort of thing discussed above.

I deliberately didn't really mention the fact, but they're NOT the same... The first "Taurus II" terrain is basically a very traditional sized 2048x2048 heightmap, with a 5 meter groundcell = 10x10km

The "Rura Penthe" one, on the other hand, is actually a 4096 x 4096 heightmap with 2.5 meter groundcell size! - twice the resolution of the other one - higher res than even Stratis... Yet, it seems to have been the more popular of the two and nobody seems to have noticed any hugely significant drop in performance compared to the 5 meter one!

Interesting!, and bodes well for more fully finished hyper-detailed terrains once we have the tools to dress them properly.....

B

[PenguinInATuxedo 18]

When the new tools do arrive I would like to have a look at map making, hopefully it won't be too brutal on new comers.

[masonddg87 16]

As far as performance is concerned, both the Size and the Number of "ground cells" are factors.

The "new" 4096-size has always been there really, but due to a bug in the "Visitor 3" tools series, it's never been possible for us to effectively use that size. Presumably, BI have always had that size available, yet they've never actually chosen to use it until now - with Altis.

The two new - and pretty all-round excellent - Arma 3 terrains are great examples... Stratis has a pretty small groundcell size (4m I think), and as everyone knows from playing on it, all those small-scale ups and downs and little dips 'n bumps make for some terrific gameplay!

Altis, on the other hand, uses the full 4096-size heightmap, but with 7.5m groundcell size - comparable with Chernarus, but of course since there's 4096 of those cells instead of 2048 it's effectively the size of 4 Chernarusses in a 2 x 2 grid.

Not quite the same close-up, tight detailed ground features as Stratis, but still pretty good, and with the new - and seemingly pretty playable for most people - 4096 size, it allows for noticably bigger terrains than we've been used to before.

As and when the new community terrain tools arrive, we'll doubtless see a flurry of different sized terrains appear, as the terrain guys go crazy experimenting with all these new scale possibilities... The 4096 option in particular, which we've never really had effective access to, will open the door for some interesting sizes...

eg:

4096x4096 x 12.5m groundcell

(12.5m is probably the upper limit for an infantry-style map. That's the size used, for example, on the CWR2 Arma 2 terrains - you won't be depicting any small scale features like roadside ditches with that resolution, but for something like a "rolling hills / afghan / whatever" style map, it would allow for a fairly huge 51.2km x 51.2km terrain, which I'm guessing would still perform pretty well).

Large-scale map guys will be looking at these sort of scales...

4096x4096 x 2.5m groundcell

(The other end of the scale - this size would yield a 10.2km x 10.2km sized map - a decent "standard" size, but with a previously unattainable and impressively high-res 2.5m ground resolution it's potentially even more detailed than Stratis... you could make a decent attempt at little roadside ditches, etc with this sort of res).

The hyper-detailed terrain brigade will be all over these sort of sizes....

When the tools arrive - watch the map scene explode! ;)

PS.

Meantime, you could have a little peek at my crazy experimental Strange New World terrains for Arma 3.

Don't be misled by the "Star Trek Cover Story" - in actual fact, both of these empty experimental terrains are really, in effect, "pre-tools testers" - experimenting with precisely the sort of thing discussed above.

I deliberately didn't really mention the fact, but they're NOT the same... The first "Taurus II" terrain is basically a very traditional sized 2048x2048 heightmap, with a 5 meter groundcell = 10x10km

The "Rura Penthe" one, on the other hand, is actually a 4096 x 4096 heightmap with 2.5 meter groundcell size! - twice the resolution of the other one - higher res than even Stratis... Yet, it seems to have been the more popular of the two and nobody seems to have noticed any hugely significant drop in performance compared to the 5 meter one!

Interesting!, and bodes well for more fully finished hyper-detailed terrains once we have the tools to dress them properly.....

B

=

So will there be a 8192 and/or 16382 Terrain Grid Size for Visitor 4 (ArmA 3). Are well we be limited to the 4096 Terrain Grid Size?

[ZeroG 23]

I assume it will still be 4096, but now there should be no bug (which I have yet to encounter?!)

Although big maps are nice, I fear that the sat textures might be blurry on a 51km map (if its no desert). Furthermore, an image bigger than 25000px is hard to process in PS even with 16gigs of RAM; wonder if V4 will allow the usage of other formats than png.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

New Visitor is called Terrain Builder and will (probably) be relesed this Thursday together with the "WIN"-Campaign: http://dev.arma3.com/sitrep-00048

EDIT: :yay:

Edited March 18, 2014 by NeoArmageddon

[PenguinInATuxedo 18]

Day is made I can start learning map making on the new tools, but I don't see nearly enough dancing bananas in your post.

[aaglo 10]

Well impregnate me sideways. Thats an announcement!

[egilsandfeld 7]

Terrain modders will be glad to hear we can finally release our terrain tool, which we've renamed Terrain Builder (formerly Visitor). This is the version we use internally for the most part. As it's not yet fully tested outside of our office environment, there may be issues with this initial release. It should however be a big step forward for creating custom terrains.

http://dev.arma3.com/sitrep-00048

Outstanding! :D

[Shelestov 270]

cool.

[Greenberet40 136]

ALELUYA¡¡¡¡

[Patrick N 15]

So is this Visitor 4 or something completely different?