Trying to figure out surface mask squares

[Juhansson 1]

Im trying to figure out the size of my terrains "surface mask squares", so i could make some kind of overlay to help plan the maskimg. So i wont put more than 4 textures in a square and brake stuff. I am aware of these wiki pages that try to explain this https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Making_Satellite_Texture_and_Mask and https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Layered_Terrain_Surface_Representation but im too stupid to get it.

Here in this pic is are my settings:

http://imgur.com/ip2R26J

If someone could explain this in really simple terms it would be great.

[Juhansson 1]

Ok ignore my awful first post, i apologize. Let me rephrase my confusion. Tell me if im getting this right. You can have more than 4 different textures on a satellite/mask grid, but you can only have 4 different surface types? If so what defines a surface type? Is it some colour scheme or some sort of config magic?

Also i am trying to figure out where the overlaps happen, so i could render some kind of grid on my WIP satmask to see where the overlap happens.

Oh and in one place in stratis there is a rough sand texture that has some tiretracks texture separately on top of that, how is that done?

Edited May 18, 2014 by Juhansson

[m1lkm8n 411]

Well first your slightly wrong. Actually arma 3 supports 6 color per tile without a sat normal map. 5 colors with one.

As for the tire track most likely that are actually a "road" with an alpha channel for transparency.

As for surface type. That is defined in your layers config and you cfgsurfaces for what clutter gets spawns on what surface

Ill see if I can entice bushlurker to wonder in and answer the other question.

Edited May 18, 2014 by M1lkm8n

[jakerod 254]

Also i am trying to figure out where the overlaps happen, so i could render some kind of grid on my WIP satmask to see where the overlap happens.

You can make an image in photoshop to determine overlap.

Your tile size is 2048px and overlap is 16px.

Make a 2048px x 2048px image in photoshop or gimp or whatever image program you use.

Put a red line one pixel wide going across the bottom of the image and another going up the right side.

Now put four orange lines in. Make them 16px away from the border. I normally do about 20px just to make sure overlap is covered.

Now (in photoshop) go up to Edit > Define Pattern and name it whatever you want.

Go to your mask and select the Paint Can (G).

At the top toolbar set Foreground to Pattern.

Select your new pattern

Fill the image with it.

This has always worked for me. I normally have it as an overlay when making my plan, the mask, and the sat and use it to go back and count colors in each tile.

[Juhansson 1]

Hmm ok. How about for example on stratis M_005_003_lca.paa there are 7 different colors, whats going on in there? And what is the point of assigning two colours to one texture like in this example taken from here for grass and rock?: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Layered_Terrain_Surface_Representation

class Legend
{
 picture="layertest\src\mapLegend.png";
 class Colors
 {
   /// color names should correspond to surface layer names
   snow[]={{255,255,255}};
   wetSand[]={{0,0,0}};
   grass[]={{0,255,131},{255,255,0}};
   sand[]={{207,115,0}};
   rock[]={{0,255,255},{121,255,0}};
   mud[]={{0,255,0}};
 }
};

class Layers
{
 class Grass
 {
   texture="layertest\data\grass_lco.paa";
   material="layertest\data\grass.rvmat";
 };

 class Sand
 {
   texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1)";
   material="layertest\data\sand.rvmat";
 };

 class Rock
 {
   texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1)";
   material="layertest\data\rock.rvmat";
 };

 class Mud
 {
   texture = "#(argb,8,8,3)color(0.5,0.5,0.5,1)";
   material="layertest\data\mud.rvmat";
 };
};

class Legend
{
 // see above
};

Ok i should manage to do that overlap overlay stuff in gimp. Thanks.

[m1lkm8n 411]

In the legend you can tie in as many color rgb values to a class as you want. But notice that class is still technically "one" color/groundsurface.

For instance on one terrain I was designing say I wanted snow and rocks and dirty snow but wasn't sure were I wanted that ground textures yet BUT I used l3dt to generate a mask already with 5 different colors. I could link all those color to one class color value in the legend temporarily while I figured out my terrain.

When designing your mask you can use indexed image so that no blending of colors happen to give you addition rgb values that need to be accounted for. Just remember to switch the image back from indexed before you export it. Indexed images will not work in tb.