The layers won't generate

[itsdonjon 25]

fixed it, thanks. :)

Edited October 27, 2014 by ItsDonJon

[itsdonjon 25]

Hey there! Encounting a problem with generating the layers! When im trying to generate the layers i get the error message: "Layers generation: Default Satellite File doesn't exist!"

It happened after i cancelled one generation (was just trying something, and it didnt work). Because there the problem was, that the generation was endless and killed TB. I hope you guys can help me!

greetz, Don!

[MiauX 10]

Wow, ive seen so much errors but never that one, try removing all the already generated files and if your computer takes forever to generate them, try with setting a texture size as close to 30x30m as you can without going higher, also i use a 1024px sat/mask size and it works well (also avoids the infamous sat image alignment bug).

Maybe ou should also delete and import again the sat texture before, it takes time but it cant hurt.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Hey there! Encounting a problem with generating the layers! When im trying to generate the layers i get the error message: "Layers generation: Default Satellite File doesn't exist!"

It happened after i cancelled one generation (was just trying something, and it didnt work). Because there the problem was, that the generation was endless and killed TB. I hope you guys can help me!

greetz, Don!

This one seems to happen a lot when tab doesn't like your selection of texture layer size and sat/mask tile sizes

[itsdonjon 25]

So the error doesn't come anymore (thanks for that @M1lkm8n and @MiauX !)

But the genereating of the "GRID c4w file" is still endlessly. Oh, and it makes TB crash after a while :D ("Error" Message is: "Please wait, generating GRID v4w file")

[jimbop 25]

ive had that. delete old grid file first.

[itsdonjon 25]

Hey there!

I now finally tried to make a real layers.cfg (the former one was only for testing).

But now my layers won't generate (again..). I don't know what i did wrong, but when i hit "Generate Layers" i get the error message "Unable to load file "P:\jorapp\source\layers.cfg"".

I think i made an error during the editing of the cfg.

I hope you can find it.

class Layers
{

 class stein
 {
   texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
   material = "jorapp\data\stein\stein.rvmat";
 };
 class beton
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\stein\beton.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_gruen
 {
   texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
   material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_trocken
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras_trocken.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_wild
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras_wild.rvmat";
 };
 class feld 
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\feld.rvmat";
 };
 class erde
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\erde.rvmat";
 };
 class erde_zwei
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\erde_zwei.rvmat";
 };
 class matsch
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material "jorapp\data\boden\matsch.rvmat";
 };
   class Steppe
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\steppe.rvmat";
 };
 class waldboden
 {
    texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
    material = "jorapp\data\wald\waldboden.rvmat";
 };
 class grasstein
 {
    texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
    material = "jorapp\data\wald\grasstein.rvmat";
 };
 class grasstein_zwei
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\wald\grasstein_zwei.rvmat";
 };

 class strand
 {
 	texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\strand.rvmat";
 };

};

class Legend
{
 picture="jorapp\source\mapLegend.png";
 class Colors
 {
stein[]={{120,120,120}};
beton[]={{}};
gras_gruen[]={{140,220,80}};
gras_trocken[]={{120,230,80}};
gras_wild[]={{110,220,80}};
feld[]={{140,220,70}};
erde[]={{110,220,80}};
erde_2[]={{110,225,80}};
matsch[]={{}};
steppe[]={{120,230,80}};
waldboden[]={{140, 220, 70}};
grasstein[]={{175,161,131}};
grasstein_2[]={{120,122,122}};
strand[]={{230,230,120}};
 };
};

Thank you guys!

[badluckburt 78]

Hey there!

class Layers
{

 class stein
 {
   texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
   material = "jorapp\data\stein\stein.rvmat";
 };
 class beton
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\stein\beton.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_gruen
 {
   texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
   material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_trocken
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras_trocken.rvmat";
 };
 class gras_wild
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\gras_wild.rvmat";
 };
 class feld 
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\feld.rvmat";
 };
 class erde
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\erde.rvmat";
 };
 class erde_zwei
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\erde_zwei.rvmat";
 };
 class matsch
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material "jorapp\data\boden\matsch.rvmat";
 };
   class Steppe
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\boden\steppe.rvmat";
 };
 class waldboden
 {
    texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
    material = "jorapp\data\wald\waldboden.rvmat";
 };
 class grasstein
 {
    texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
    material = "jorapp\data\wald\grasstein.rvmat";
 };
 class grasstein_zwei
 {
texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\wald\grasstein_zwei.rvmat";
 };

 class strand
 {
 	texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";
material = "jorapp\data\strand.rvmat";
 };

};

class Legend
{
 picture="jorapp\source\mapLegend.png";
 class Colors
 {
stein[]={{120,120,120}};
beton[]={{}};
gras_gruen[]={{140,220,80}};
gras_trocken[]={{120,230,80}};
gras_wild[]={{110,220,80}};
feld[]={{140,220,70}};
erde[]={{110,220,80}};
erde_2[]={{110,225,80}};
matsch[]={{}};
steppe[]={{120,230,80}};
waldboden[]={{140, 220, 70}};
grasstein[]={{175,161,131}};
grasstein_2[]={{120,122,122}};
strand[]={{230,230,120}};
 };
};

Thank you guys!

One thing I notice is that in your Layers class you have:

erde_zwei

grasstein_zwei

But in your Legend class, you refer to them as:

erde_2

grasstein_2

Not sure if that will fix your error but I think it needs to be corrected anyway :)

[Cype_Revenge 651]

why you have in texture always the same "middle_mco.paa" ?

class matsch

{

texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";

material "jorapp\data\boden\matsch.rvmat";

};

you missing " = "

this is right:

class matsch

{

texture = "jorapp\data\middle_mco.paa";

material = "jorapp\data\boden\matsch.rvmat";

};

and rename it right what BadLuck has found!

[badluckburt 78]

@19thCypeRevenge: nicely spotted! I missed that one but the missing '=' is probably the reason TB gave him that error message.

[itsdonjon 25]

Ah! Yeah the "erde_2" and "erde_zwei" was a first try for fixing it, i thought that it maybe can't work with numbers, just forgot about the other two. Thanks for that!

@19thCypeRevenge: Actually i got my "knowledge" from a tutorial, and there he had 3 example-textures with the "middle_mco.paa". I actually don't know what i could get there tbh.. If you could explan it to me, i would be happy to learn :)

PS: I renamed them and added the "=", it worked. Thank you!

[badluckburt 78]

@19thCypeRevenge: Actually i got my "knowledge" from a tutorial, and there he had 3 example-textures with the "middle_mco.paa". I actually don't know what i could get there tbh.. If you could explan it to me, i would be happy to learn :)

The MCO textures are overlaid on the ground-textures to give the impression of extra detail from a distance.

BIKI: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Layered_Terrain_Surface_Representation

Each terrain type is represented at close distance by a colour only (CO) texture and a normal map (NO*). On SaraLite, each 1024x1024 pixel detail covers about 4m. Each pixel of the layer mask covers about 2m.

Terrain types also have an associated MCO texture. This is a greyscale texture that is multiplied with the satellite map to provide middle distance details. On SaraLite, each 1024x1024 MCO texture covers about 40m (one terrain texture grid cell). The engine loads terrain textures one texture grid at a time, each segment being made up into 12x12 texture grids, plus the overlapping 32 pixels.

Bushlurker's Geotypical Terrains guide: ftp://ftp.armedassault.info/armad/docs/Bush_GeotypicalTerrains-Beginners_Guide_1stEdition.pdf

He gives a nice explanation of it on page 15.

[m1lkm8n 411]

BLB. Your looking at old information. Mcos haven't been used on a per surface basis since a1. In a2 they went to a single mco specified in the main island config for the terrain and in a3 they still utilize the single mco and have adopted a normal layer to in addition to the sat and layer mask to provide extra detail.

You can as they other guys say just leave the texture = blank. That bit is ignored anyway when generating the layers.

[badluckburt 78]

Thanks for the info M1lkm8n. Shame it doesn't work on a 'per surface' basis anymore, I can imagine one could do some nifty things with it.

[m1lkm8n 411]

Thanks for the info M1lkm8n. Shame it doesn't work on a 'per surface' basis anymore, I can imagine one could do some nifty things with it.

Yea absolutely. I've been talking to other guys and I'm gonna abandon the sat normal map and opt for the six ground texture instead. We feel the normal map looks overdone and doesn't really warrant the loss of a ground texture

[ronhillultra 14]

Hey guys... I am having a problem with the layers also... i made a map,allready a lot of objects.

But i never resolved the lines I was having over the map. now i fixed the sat image and mask... implemented a lot of new ground textures i needed...

I get the message "Layer generation - Unable to load file "P:\"

Settings in samplers tab...

Grid Size: 2048x2048

Cell size (m) : 6

Terrain size (m): 12288.000

Satellite / Surface (mask) source images

Size (pix) : 8149x8149

Resolution (m/pix): 1.500000

Satellite / Surface (mask) tiles

Size: 1024x1024

Desired overlap: 16

Texture layer

Size: 48.00 x 48.00

I crunched the map with Pboproject (without generating layers)... it didnt report any errors in configs...

Edited November 17, 2014 by RonhillUltra

[itsdonjon 25]

This error messag could mean, that your layers.cfg isn't correct, could you post it here?

[ronhillultra 14]

This error messag could mean, that your layers.cfg isn't correct, could you post it here?

Hey man..... thx... as soon as you sad layers.cfg... I found some missing brackets ( there is always some brackets missing I guess ) Works now, layer generation and map works in game with new textures. I have some issues with texture clutter but i will work it out i hope.

Only thing is I am still getting those square lines on the map... dunno how to fix that... my sat.png was off it wasn't 8192x8192... now that i fixed the resolution still get the lines

[MiauX 10]

Hey guys... I am having a problem with the layers also... i made a map,allready a lot of objects.

But i never resolved the lines I was having over the map. now i fixed the sat image and mask... implemented a lot of new ground textures i needed...

I get the message "Layer generation - Unable to load file "P:\"

Settings in samplers tab...

Grid Size: 2048x2048

Cell size (m) : 6

Terrain size (m): 12288.000

Satellite / Surface (mask) source images

Size (pix) : 8149x8149

Resolution (m/pix): 1.500000

Satellite / Surface (mask) tiles

Size: 1024x1024

Desired overlap: 16

Texture layer

Size: 48.00 x 48.00

I crunched the map with Pboproject (without generating layers)... it didnt report any errors in configs...

8149x8149 its not a proper resolution to work with safety, you should scale it to be at least 1:1 to your map size in meters. Also 6m cell will need extra performance on a map of 12x12km.

You said that you already have a lot of objects in the map so, resizing the cell its not an option. Try just resizing the sat_image to something more desirable to avoid surprises.

That could avoid the squared lines bug on the sat texture.

[badluckburt 78]

We feel the normal map looks overdone and doesn't really warrant the loss of a ground texture

With the little experience I have, I agree :) I did one test with a normal map and had it showing up over the normal textures in some cases. That may have been fixed in the meantime, I don't know but the effect didn't look that great and after doing a test today with Chernarus' skala mco it's obvious to me that there's more to gain from having a good one.

The only thing that keeps bugging out on me are the nopx versions of my custom textures. As soon as terrain is set to High or above, the parallax ridge of doom appears on the edge where two textures meet. It's just a warping mess of pixels. I've tried several ways of generating them but so far they all introduce the ridge. I play on Standard so it won't bother me but it would be nice if other people aren't bothered by it either when I finally release something. I did some checking on Stratis and saw it happen there in a few places but not as horrible as mine :P I don't know if there's a trick Bohemia uses to level out the values in theirs but if a dev or someone else would care to shed some light on this, it'd be greatly appreciated.

[ronhillultra 14]

8149x8149 its not a proper resolution to work with safety, you should scale it to be at least 1:1 to your map size in meters. Also 6m cell will need extra performance on a map of 12x12km.

You said that you already have a lot of objects in the map so, resizing the cell its not an option. Try just resizing the sat_image to something more desirable to avoid surprises.

That could avoid the squared lines bug on the sat texture.

Thx for reply.... my textures are 8192x8192 .... typo...sorry

You say it will need extra performance with 6m cell size.... shit...

Somehow I knew that not dealing with those lines will bite me in the ass eventually. So changing cell size will resize my map or?

I have a lot of objects carefully placed :/

What would be optimal setting than for 12km map... with best performance in mind

Edited November 18, 2014 by RonhillUltra

[m1lkm8n 411]

With the little experience I have, I agree :) I did one test with a normal map and had it showing up over the normal textures in some cases. That may have been fixed in the meantime, I don't know but the effect didn't look that great and after doing a test today with Chernarus' skala mco it's obvious to me that there's more to gain from having a good one.

The only thing that keeps bugging out on me are the nopx versions of my custom textures. As soon as terrain is set to High or above, the parallax ridge of doom appears on the edge where two textures meet. It's just a warping mess of pixels. I've tried several ways of generating them but so far they all introduce the ridge. I play on Standard so it won't bother me but it would be nice if other people aren't bothered by it either when I finally release something. I did some checking on Stratis and saw it happen there in a few places but not as horrible as mine :P I don't know if there's a trick Bohemia uses to level out the values in theirs but if a dev or someone else would care to shed some light on this, it'd be greatly appreciated.

How are you creating the nopx textures?

[badluckburt 78]

How are you creating the nopx textures?

So far I've tried:

Genetica: Software for creating textures, it also generates normal maps.

It has a few settings to tweak the output:

The Z-value can be set to 0-255 or 128-255.

Alpha can be changed from 1.0 to Height.

The Y-value can be Inverted.

I tried them all but no dice, the textures itself look pretty good but the ridge is a killer.

NVIDIA Photoshop plugin:

The output from this plugin looks different from what Genetica produces and gives a less pronounced effect but still a very clear ridge where two textures meet.

xNormal:

Tried this one yesterday, again different output from the other two but the ridge is still there.

I'm heading for the shop in a few minutes but I'll write down the steps I took in each program when I get back and will happily supply any samples if you're interested.

Just remembered I took screenshots of it before:

Terrain on Low or Standard:

Terrain on High or above:

As you can see on the left-hand side of the second screenshot, the texture stretches into oblivion. I assume because both nopx images give off different height values.

[m1lkm8n 411]

So to create a nopx texture and not the nohq textures which it looks like you are actually using here's what you do.

Take the co texture and create a displacement map out of it. Which will end up being a greyscale image (think heightmap) which is kinda how it's used. Darker the part of the image the more depth it will have ingame. Lighter= more height. Be careful not to overdo it tho or it can look funny in game. If it ends up being too strong you can add some glaussin blur to sort of smooth things out a bit.

Next step it to create a nohq texture like you normally would from the co texture. Open that newly created nohq texture in let's say photoshop and go to the blue channel and remove it completely so it's all white. ( delete everything in that channel). Next create a alpha channel and paste in your displacement map that you had created earlier. Then save the image as a .nopx and run it through textview to save it as a .paa file.

Edited November 18, 2014 by M1lkm8n
Originally I wrote diffuse when I meant displacement

[badluckburt 78]

Thank you very much M1lkm8n for explaining, I doubt I would've figured that out by myself but I understand what I did wrong now. And you're right, I was just using the normal maps as is without altering the blue and alpha channels. I'll give this a go tonight and will let you know how it goes.

- edit: and now for the conclusion

Alright, after failing miserably I consulted a friend of mine who's more Photoshop savvy than I am. For some unknown reason, Photoshop decided to hate me and saved what I thought to be a 24-bit PNG with 8-bit alpha as just plain 24-bit without alpha. I re-saved the files as TGA and the alpha channel shows up in Texview 2 now and the textures work beautifully

The steps you explained worked out to the tee so again, thank you :) This was one thing I had been avoiding for a while now, graphics really aren't my department. Coding is more my thing but I do plan to build a bit of a tutorial around my first map and this is one of the things I'm definitely documenting.

Edited November 18, 2014 by BadLuckBurt
it works :yay: