SEOW Dynamic Mapping Tool (DMT) - Linking IF44 and IL-2 Campaigns

[madbilly 3]

Hi everyone,

I would like to announce a new tool called the SEOW Dynamic Mapping Tool (DMT), now in beta, that seeks to make it easy to incorporate Iron Front actions into the SEOW persistent campaign engine for IL-2 1946. You can learn a little more about DMT at the meta-SEOW Forum.

For those who don't know, SEOW is a long-standing combined operations (air, sea, ground) strategic campaign add-on for IL-2 that provides support for detailed orders of battle, logistics and a range of other sim-focused campaign functions. SEOW produces a sequence of coop missions (played without player re-spawn) that allows players to simulate combat with consequences. Here is a sample intelligence map overview of a recent campaign (Korosten 1943)

http://seowhq.net/4Simages/IF/SEOWMP.jpg (276 kB)

Until now, SEOW missions were all played (and all combat resolved) using IL-2 at IL-2 map scale (which is large, hundreds of km across, as befitting a flight sim). There was no first-person ground action available. This was a problem for us die-hards that wanted ever-increasing campaign fidelity in the air, at sea and on the ground.

With the new DMT tool, coupled with Visitor3 and mikero's tools, we can rapidly extract small windows out of the SEOW battle map and build them as ARMA/IF islands suitable for direct combat operations on the ground with Iron Front. We do this by extracting topographic and cadastral information from the IL-2 maps and using this information to construct ARMA layers and objects sufficient to build new island pbos. As an example, a 5 km square island can be extracted from IL-2 and compiled in less than 5 minutes. The results are not absolutely perfect, but they are easily good enough to support MP operations in Iron Front. You can see sample images and example islands here. Here is one such image:

http://seowhq.net/4Simages/IF/Dabryn_ambush.jpg (381 kB)

With these new maps constructed, we can then place the relevant combat units from the SEOW OOB on the maps, thereby creating .sqm missions that relate to the much larger SEOW campaign.

The DMT tool is still in beta, but we are now play-testing this at SEOW HQ and it works well. We think this is exciting for SEOW, essentially transforming SEOW into a meta-game combining IL-2 and Iron Front as combat resolvers, but it is also exciting for ARMA and Iron Front since it raises the prospect of a large variety of new maps becoming available essentially for zero extra effort. Since DMT is PHP-scripted, it is portable and extensible and, at the very least, provides a useful starting point for map and mission editing artists seeking to broaden the scope of their offerings.

Cheers,

MB / 4S

PS: I must acknowledge the friendly assistance of kju and others, who have helped me learn more about ARMA island building. My learning is not over yet ...

[badluckburt 78]

My jaw just dropped. It must've been quite some work to automate all of this but damn it looks good. I don't even play IL-2 but the technical aspect of this tool is more than enough for me to enjoy :D I downloaded the three maps on your forums and will take a look tonight.

Do you have any plans to share the PHP code for this at some point? If not, that's fine. I'd just love to see how it all works together as I'm taking a crack at town generation in the near future but I'll have equally much fun figuring it out on my own.

[fabio_chavez 103]

Mind = Blown.

[badluckburt 78]

Mind = Blown.

That comment + your avatar = winning :D

[rowdied 44]

Mind = Blown.

OH MY GOD! So correct!

I need to dust off my IL2 cd's now.

What a great concept and kudos to you for all the work you have put into this! <-- with mention to Kju as well.

Downloading and checking out the maps now.

Keep up the great work!!!

[madbilly 3]

Thanks for the positive responses!

And, just before I leave my keyboard for 2 weeks vacation :bounce3:, let me say that yes, all SEOW software is freely available under GPL.

SEOW is not a closed project - we are a team of people around the world and new contributors and play testers are always welcome. Check out http://seowhq.net/ for the TS server etc.

Cheers,

MB / 4S

Edited February 14, 2015 by MadBilly

[madbilly 3]

Hi guys,

I'm back now from vacation. Any feedback on the 3 demo maps?

Cheers,

MB / 4S

[madbilly 3]

With good advice from mikero and kju I have managed to get IF objects into the script-generated maps. Here is a screenshot from the Dabryn map showing a haystack, windmill, well and a white house:

http://seowhq.net/4Simages/IF/Dabryn_Mill.jpg (191 kB)

[madbilly 3]

Hi guys,

Things are progressing well, but I do have one annoying glitch when I try to use IF clutters in my new maps. Maybe someone can help, I get the following error when I binarize:

Error: Clutter lib_clutters\p_phragmites_dark.p3d uses alpha blending - use renderflag AlphaTest instead

The same kind of error occurs whenever I use *any* IF clutter objects, e.g. Pshenitsa, Phragmites, ... I tried editing the associated rvmat files and inserted

renderFlags[] = {"AlphaTest32"};

But this did not help. When viewing the maps in the A2 editor there is an error reported "Cannot open object lib_clutter\..." and the clutter objects do not appear. This seems to be an old problem but I don't know how to fix it. Any ideas?

Cheers,

4S

[mr burns 132]

Whoaw :butbut:

Q: Iron Front Standalone or the ArmA2 Mod?

I ask because my Standalone IF has the nasty habit of crashing the nvidia display driver 10 minutes after starting ...

[madbilly 3]

ArmA2 + IF Mod (PlayWithSix)

[scottdog 10]

I don't get this? does anyone have pictures?

[madbilly 3]

http://seowhq.net/seowforum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=3f0b79bb0b0a34c53d978ab142ee20fb

[madbilly 3]

And, in case you thought I had been abducted, I have now completed the release version of Iron Front support in SEOW, complete with scripted map generation, automated mission generation (with wildlife, refugees, off-map artillery barrages, weather, supplies, High Command module), and a custom dialog interface to write the mission results to a logfile for subsequent parsing and updating the out-of-game battlemap.

 

More information coming soon.

 

Cheers

4S (aka MadBilly)

[madbilly 3]

For those who are curious about how to extract terrain information from an IL-2 map and use it to build a brand new Iron Front terrain, have a look at http://seowhq.net/MP4public/DMT/

 

Once the BI and Mikero tools are set up, it is all just about completely automated. Just a little bit of Visitor3 import/export to be done by hand for each new IF map.

 

Cheers,

4S

[rowdied 44]

Looks awesome still. 

 

Poked around the forum IL2 Seow, and cant believe what you've done to combine Il2 and IF. Truly remarkable.

 

Congratulations on a great job combining the 2.

[madbilly 3]

If you are interested to see some of the IFA2 related documentation in SEOW, have a look at the SEOW Wiki at http://seowhq.net/seowwiki-en/  .  The documentation (still in progress) is found in the links inside the "meta-SEOW" coloured box halfway down the page.

 

The idea is that SEOW helps players construct a sequence of Iron Front missions in a persistent battlefield, where the detailed outcomes of one mission are used as starting conditions for the next. All missions are intended to be played as "dead is dead", so there is no re-spawning.

 

SEOW provides a strategic map overview that can be used between missions to resupply units, bring reinforcements into play, issue movement orders, arrange artillery barrages etc. This makes each Iron Front mission self-contained, but part of a broader, persistent and immersive campaign that runs outside Iron Front. SEOW is a campaign engine, whereas Iron Front is used to play each mission in the larger campaign.

 

Cheers,

4S

[madbilly 3]

And, to round off this new campaign feature, here is a youtube video I just made. The video demonstrates how Iron Front (Arma 2 mod) can be used inside a much larger and persistent campaign engine (SEOW) to resolve small scale actions and to feed detailed statistics back into the larger campaign seamlessly.
 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iDcQ3cUjZuo

(updated)

 

Campaign Feature Summary

 

 

• Iron Front terrains produced quickly and easily from IL-2 Sturmovik maps, in 2km, 5km or 10km sizes. Yes - an effectively unlimited number of IF terrains can be generated from the huge IL-2 maps!
• Automatic support for Arma-style units and groups
• Hills and plains, roads, buildings, coasts, forests and crop lands, refugees, wildlife
• Automatic HighCommand,TeamSwitch and other modules
• Full integration with SEOW campaign system, including map definitions, orders of battle, weather conditions, movement waypoints, barrages, supplies and after-action reports
• Iron Front missions generated from an encompassing, persistent and evolving campaign: missions are intended to be played in a "dead is dead" manner (no base re-spawns etc)
• Full command security models for SEOW mission planning, so sides can campaign against each other across vast landscapes with proper fog of war and hidden intentions
• All software released under GPL, written in PHP, Javascript, MySQL and VB.NET
• Now playing at SEOW HQ

 

More information

• SEOW Official Forum:  http://seowhq.net/seowforum
• SEOW Wiki:  http://seowhq.net/seowwiki-en/index.php?title=Main_Page
• SEOW HQ:  http://seowhq.net/

 

Enjoy!

Edited April 25, 2017 by madbilly
updated youtube link

[madbilly 3]

This SEOW-based system (for IFA2) has just been updated.

• Automatic Iron Front terrain generator has been improved to add explicit water features (ponds, rivers, lakes, coasts), short-range surface relief (because IL2 maps can be unduly smooth), better road mapping, airfield runway placement, bridges.
• Automatic Iron Front mission generator has been improved to track the health/damage/ammo/status/location details of every individual solder, gun and vehicle from mission to mission, plus generate bridges with correct damage state, aircraft movements

This will be the last revision for the IFA2 platform. It is intended that future revisions will support the IFA3 platform.

 

Just to recap: this SEOW system supports multiplayer online action, but its focus is on detail and realism within a strategic and evolving campaign environment. Missions are played once only, then the results feed back into the campaign for the next set of missions. Every action matters, every choice matters.

 

Cheers,

Madbilly

 

[Valken 622]

What Wizardry is this where 2 completely different games can have crossover operations?! Fantastic!!!

[madbilly 3]

 

Updated youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iDcQ3cUjZuo