Quick Terrain Builder Tutorial

[m1lkm8n 411]

Yes universal map downloader u may be able to grab a 10000 pixel sat no problem. However if I recall that program still uses google earth for the images and they may ban ur ip for 24hrs is you try to grab to many images at a time.

[jakerod 254]

[...] you would need a image 524,288 pixel squared which is pretty much impossible. [...]

That isn't technically true anymore. He could make 26 sat images at 20,000px each and place them side by side in TB. I highly doubt that is still a feasible number but since no one has tried I guess we cant totally rule it out. At the very least, it would require splitting the files into separate data folders/pbos.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Hehe true. I was trying to keep it reasonable :)

[[aps]gnat 28]

Great kicker for the community thank Jakerod! Well done.

It worked for me, after a couple small hiccups. A couple of your steps seem to be missing/are silent on a couple clicks, but I guessed my way to the next step.

I also dropped the author root folder and ran the project in the root of P (in line with everything I've done past). I also saved all material (like the project file) within the same folder. Seemed to work fine.

I assume everyone else sees the Stratis road network and names overlaid ingame ....?

[jakerod 254]

Gnat;2652163']Great kicker for the community thank Jakerod! Well done.

It worked for me' date=' after a couple small hiccups. A couple of your steps seem to be missing/are silent on a couple clicks, but I guessed my way to the next step.

I also dropped the author root folder and ran the project in the root of P (in line with everything I've done past). I also saved all material (like the project file) within the same folder. Seemed to work fine.

I assume everyone else sees the Stratis road network and names overlaid ingame ....?[/quote']

Yeah I wasn't sure about where to save it. I was thinking I would save it within the Visitor 4 folder in source for now on. Yeah running it in the root should work fine too. I have used a namespace as far back as I can remember and always preferred it that way so I stuck with it. And yes the road network does show up. There is a line in the config I provided (I think) that is commented out for your own roads if you add the files. I mentioned how to do them somewhere in this thread. Additionally, Milkman and perhaps ZeroG both have road tutorials as well. although theirs use QGIS and/or Global Mapper. Now we can do it in Terrain Builder.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Yea now that you can do them in terrain builder I think it's easier there. You can just look at the road tuts for the config part and what each database entry does.

[xendance 3]

I can't get Mikero's pboProject to work. It's missing mfc110.dll which I thought was a visual c++ 2012 dependency. I installed the redistributable but it didn't help. Any pointers?

Edit: It also seems that my P: drive setup is messed up:

=============================
Mapping user side
=============================
Drive already SUBSTed
=============================
Mapping admin side
=============================
Drive already SUBSTed
Could Not Find C:\Users\Joni\AppData\Local\Temp\BIS_getEscalation.vb
A subdirectory or file P:\A3 already exists.
A subdirectory or file P:\Bin already exists.
A subdirectory or file P:\Core already exists.
A subdirectory or file P:\A3\Data_F already exists.
File not found - halfa.paa
0 File(s) copied
A subdirectory or file C:\Users\Joni\AppData\Local\Temp\Bin already exists.
A subdirectory or file C:\Users\Joni\AppData\Local\Temp\Core already exists.
Created C:\Users\Joni\AppData\Local\Temp\Bin\bin
0 File(s) copied
Created C:\Users\Joni\AppData\Local\Temp\Core\core
0 File(s) copied
The system cannot find the path specified.
PS P:\>

The A3\Data_F folder for example is empty. Is this intended or what?

Edited March 25, 2014 by Xendance

[m1lkm8n 411]

Which version did u install the 32bit or 64 bit?

[xendance 3]

Doh, it was the 32-bit one.

The installer should really list all required dependencies...

[captncaps 26]

I really have a problem.

I made a testing map, which worked. Now I wanted to make a map with my files and every time I want to generate layers it either crashes or tells me "default satellite picture is missing".

I don't know why. I check everything! Layers, rvmats, config... I don't find any mistakes :/

[jakerod 254]

I really have a problem.

I made a testing map, which worked. Now I wanted to make a map with my files and every time I want to generate layers it either crashes or tells me "default satellite picture is missing".

I don't know why. I check everything! Layers, rvmats, config... I don't find any mistakes :/

There's kind of two theories on this...

One involves messing with size of the segments. This is on the Mapframe Properties, Samplers Tab, Satellite/Surface (mask) tiles section. If you mess with the size it may help.

The other method is drawing the Mapframe about the right size of your terrain. It doesn't have to be perfect but when it is close it works for me. Make sure you save before doing this though. When you try to do a big terrain it will sometimes crash TB depending on the size.

[m1lkm8n 411]

I have another theory :)

Are you generating your layers in foldername\data\ ?

I was working on my terrain last night an repeatedly got the same error. I tried adding a new mapframe, deleting the others and a few other things and nothing worked. Then I realized I didn't have the export in the data folder but rather at the main folder. As soon as I reset the path to the data folder in my pbo filename it generated the layers folder then all the layer pngs as well.

[xendance 3]

Gah. This editor makes me miss unreal editor goblin that ate holes in the BSP structures...

Now I can seem to generate the layer textures at all. I press generate and the generation progress window quickly flashed and it finished ok. Layers folder stays empty. :(

[captncaps 26]

@M1lkm8n & Jakerod

I set Output under Location in the mapframe settings to "p:/tutorial/data" and I had to set tiles to 1024*1024 for it to work.

Never had problems with 512*512 before. Might be because for my other map I used images bigger than 2048*2048 :/

[xendance 3]

Should the P: drive still be in my computer after a restart? Mine keeps disappearing and I have to re-run the "prepare P: drive" stuff again and again.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Not unless you have it set to run at startup.

[xendance 3]

Not unless you have it set to run at startup.

Cool, I suppose it doesn't overwrite anything then?

[m1lkm8n 411]

Well I don't have that particular program I have my own bat file I made that let's me switch between my a2 work folder and my a3 one. But if it's like mine all it does is just set whichever folder u specify as the virtual drive p:\

[Shelestov 270]

Template randomization doesn't work for me. Did i miss something?

[m1lkm8n 411]

http://i.imgur.com/FmD9Dbm.jpg

Template randomization doesn't work for me. Did i miss something?

Nope. Pretty sure it's broken. There's a ticket for it on the feedback tracker

[xendance 3]

So, does anyone know how to fix the "default satellite file doesn't exist" error?

Would be nice if the debugger printed the path to the file it's trying to look.

http://i.imgur.com/Eu2BeWE.png

[six_ten 208]

Thanks to this thread I have my terrain in game and running. Clutter and surfaces look good, my roads are nice. Now I am ready to add objects like forests and buildings, but cannot figure out how. Any pointers? I created a txt file from World Builder, renamed all the refs to A3 trees, couldn't figure out how to import it. I set up a template library of plants_f, it couldn't generate the thumbnails (failed on creating dds) but when I added some trees, the counter showed that they were added, but I couldn't see anything on my map or in buldozer.

Can someone please give a few pointers for getting objects into my map?

[1para{god-father} 105]

this might help :

http://www.armamapmaking.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2

[six_ten 208]

this might help :

http://www.armamapmaking.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2

From that page:

" To achieve this magic, type at a dos console: DeP3d -58 P:\a3

Naturally and of course, change 'P:\a3' to wherever your p3d's have been extracted to. The above is 'standard'.

To achieve this extraction miracle without pain, use Arma3P."

Using the cmd returns " 'DeP3d is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." MikeRo's tools are installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Mikero\DePboTools\bin

My extracted Pbo's are in P:\ART\a3 is that why it isn't recognizing the program?

I then tried to "achieve this extraction miracle without pain, use Arma3P" just deleted and re-extracted the contents of P:\A3 then tried again in TerrainBuilder to create a library. Still no luck

EDIT:

I now see at http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18068&nbn=3 that it seems no objects from A3 will work in TerrainBuilder yet.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Six_Ten

[egilsandfeld 7]

So, does anyone know how to fix the "default satellite file doesn't exist" error?

Would be nice if the debugger printed the path to the file it's trying to look.

http://i.imgur.com/Eu2BeWE.png

Have you tried:

EDIT: To Everyone, if you get something like "Default Satellite File is Missing" when you press Generate Layers, it seems to be caused by having too big or too small of a mapframe before you resized it. In other words, the size of the mapframe that you drew and the size of the mapframe that you are trying to generate layers for are too different. Or at least that is what it seems like at this moment.

--

Yeah I got the error again, and what solved it for me the second time was to add a new mapframe after doing everything else. Setting the parametres for it and save. Then delete the first (old) mapframe, before generating the layers for the new layer. Working now again.. for now