Worth trying to learn terrain creation now?

[mordeaniischaos 3]

I was curious is people think it's a good time to learn Terrain Creation with the recent release and near nill documentation of Terrain Builder out there. Trying to get even the basics working has been a chore for me and while I'm not opposed to doing difficult things, it seems like TB is just a mess of finicky issues more than a complicated tool for creating complicated things. I still haven't managed to get Bulldozer working fully (it launches and I get a flat plane, where as before it launched for a second, showed a bunch of spikes, and then crashed), I can't even figure out how to delete things I've imported in, and the program seems to crash 50% of the time I do anything major.

In short, the tool feels messy and unfinished (which it is, so that's probably fair... for now), so maybe I should wait. But on the other hand, I've heard nothing but stories of difficulty and quirkiness to ArmA's editing tools, especially for terrain.

Now, I really really would like to create some cool terrain. But, I'm wondering if my time would be better spent elsewhere until this tool becomes more functional or at least enough documentation for newcomers finds itself online so I can hopefully overcome the initial difficulties.

[woods825 10]

Simple answer: Yes, if you want to.

Complicated answer: Unfortunately like a lot of things with Arma, the tools are about as good as we'll probably get. There may be a few small adjustments over the next few months to fix a few bugs, but the tools are complicated and have a bit of a steep learning curve especially for map makers. I started learning map making late in Arma 2 (October 2012) and made a few poor maps that were mostly tinkering around since I knew Arma 3 would likely require different tools. I've started working on some rough concepts for new maps this past week now that the tools are out. If you are comfortable with spending months on top of months working on one map, then map making is definitely worth learning. Keep in mind its probably one of the harder things to create for Arma especially time-wise.

There's so few map makers that new people don't have many others to ask for help from, unlike scripting and mod making. I would recommend using a program like L3DT for creating the base terrain if you're not using real world maps. You can make nice looking terrain within a week and then its all about finding the right ground textures and putting the roads, trees, buildings, etc... on the map (These take longer than they sound especially on large maps). I'd suggest checking out Bushlurker's tutorials to get started, he's very good his tutorial is easy to get the basics down.

While many tutorials are out-of-date since the new tools are set up different, everything you learn from Arma 2 tutorials basically transfers over to the Arma 3 tools. So there's no wasted time learning useless information.

[Aus 10]

make tanks or vehicles, something that ppl will use. Why spend months making island that hardly anyone will use? I ask myself that as I sit swearing at Visitor

[bumgie 49]

If you make a quality terrain, the time you spend on making it will be a drop in the ocean compared to the time people will be playing on it.

[[aps]gnat 28]

If you make a quality terrain, the time you spend on making it will be a drop in the ocean compared to the time people will be playing on it.

Absolutely.

But of course the number of extra long hour you need to do a quality terrain .... Is much much longer.

I didn't do my first terrain until long after I'd done a few vehicles .... Otherwise I'd lost interest years ago.

[mordeaniischaos 3]

Simple answer: Yes, if you want to.

Complicated answer: Unfortunately like a lot of things with Arma, the tools are about as good as we'll probably get. There may be a few small adjustments over the next few months to fix a few bugs, but the tools are complicated and have a bit of a steep learning curve especially for map makers. I started learning map making late in Arma 2 (October 2012) and made a few poor maps that were mostly tinkering around since I knew Arma 3 would likely require different tools. I've started working on some rough concepts for new maps this past week now that the tools are out. If you are comfortable with spending months on top of months working on one map, then map making is definitely worth learning. Keep in mind its probably one of the harder things to create for Arma especially time-wise.

There's so few map makers that new people don't have many others to ask for help from, unlike scripting and mod making. I would recommend using a program like L3DT for creating the base terrain if you're not using real world maps. You can make nice looking terrain within a week and then its all about finding the right ground textures and putting the roads, trees, buildings, etc... on the map (These take longer than they sound especially on large maps). I'd suggest checking out Bushlurker's tutorials to get started, he's very good his tutorial is easy to get the basics down.

While many tutorials are out-of-date since the new tools are set up different, everything you learn from Arma 2 tutorials basically transfers over to the Arma 3 tools. So there's no wasted time learning useless information.

I guess I'll just start diving in then. I just got so frustrated at the tutorials I found seeming totally out of date or completely missing information. Not to mention the number of mentions of community created tools that seem to be necessities when making map, or the fact that every kind of texture map seems to require you to use a different (often difficult) format. I still haven't found a way to get a working heightmap! If this is what the devs use, it's no wonder progress can be slow on ArmA development. They should really consider putting more of their cashflow into their tools, they don't seem to have learned from the rest of the industry how incredibly important the tools are. Or maybe they just are so used to the ones they have, who knows.

As for generating terrain, my biggest issue is getting it in a format that TB won't scoff at. I pulled some terrain heightmap data from google earth, and used world builder to enhance the detail greatly, but now I need to figure how to get that data into TB.

Well, thanks for a frank response. Time to lose some hair, sleep, and sanity.

[jakerod 254]

This might help you: http://www.armamapmaking.info/quick_terrain_builder_tutorial

[L3TUC3 32]

I can relate buddy, it's certainly frustrating to look up tutorials and find they're no longer relevant, outdated or simply already too advanced. But if you stick with it, you will learn a lot from it. Just hang in there until some start to finish tutorials pop up. It was very much a pain to figure out what I needed, where I could get it and how I could use it with what program. I've a pretty good grasp of what's going on.

I've been working on porting an island based off real terrain and it's a hassle and now hit a snag.

I have the heightmap, and I can import it even! But it only shows part of it in TB and I can't figure out why. The raster layer and mapframes are as far as I can tell configured correctly. TB just doesn't render anything outside this one box?

I can recommend ZeroG's Arma 2 real world mapmaking tutorial for some basic explanations, tools and data resources to get the ball rolling.

After that I can recommend Jakerod's tutorial as a step by step to importing stuff.

Edited March 26, 2014 by L3TUC3

[m1lkm8n 410]

What happens when you import the height map?

How big is it. I have one that's 4096x7 and that imports fine.

And are you setting each raster to 0 northing and 200000 easting

[L3TUC3 32]

It's a 4096x4096 heightmap and seems to only display the center. I tried setting 200000 easting but that gave the same result.

Do I need more rasters?

Here's the island I want to do.

Here's what I got when importing the .xyz.

I'm a bit stumped. The scale seems ok though.

[1para{god-father} 105]

if you are using L3DT when you export the heightmap are your resizing it ?

As i am sure that is the issue as i have done that before and had the same issue in v3

what default size does it say ??

[L3TUC3 32]

No? I don't think so. The only thing I changed was set the export resolution to 10x10 meters. I exported it using global mapper v15 with a set size of 40960x40960 selected area feature over the island. That actually fits pretty neatly over it's entirety and should be within the margins for TB.

As for default size I have no clue.