Yuval 29 Posted July 13, 2015 I am currently working on terrain in l3dt while adding up the layers to the terrain's files (the .paa's, clutter, surfaces and layers.cfg). My map is designed to be detailed, just like the Taviana map. I am planning to add fields and terrain details to make it look very nice. Now, I don't specifically know how did the Taviana guy made it (and the map was designed for ArmA 2) but I have way more than 4 terrain types (7 currently and possibly more coming up). I've heard that the engine limits 4 and under some kind of circumstance 5 terrain types in the same "tile". I barely know what it means and I'd love to know how can I use these stuff effectively to be able to run more terrain types. If someone could please tell me or help me with it, It'd be very appreciated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Richie 330 Posted July 13, 2015 The limit is per cell, so with a 10 meter cell you can't have more than 6 surfaces in that 10 meter area. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuval 29 Posted July 13, 2015 The limit is per cell, so with a 10 meter cell you can't have more than 6 surfaces in that 10 meter area. Oh hell, I'm pretty certain that I won't have more than 6 surfaces in a 10 meters cell. Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ianbanks 30 Posted July 17, 2015 The limit is 4, 5, or 6 (depending on which "Export surface mask" setting you use in your map frame) surface types per satellite/surface mask tile. Typically these tiles are between 512x512 meters and 2048x2048 meters (not 10 meters). You can see how big your tiles are by looking at the .paa files that Terrain Builder generates when you "process" your map frame. Most people use the 6 surface type settings, but if you want a normal map layer (like Altis and Stratis) you're limited to 5 surface types per tile. Also, 10 meter cells are probably too small; the recommendation I've heard many times from the nice BI/BISIM terrain people is to try to get it between 40-60 meters. Aside from rendering, land grid cells are also used for AI vs terrain interactions and collision detection, so the size can have an impact on performance. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yuval 29 Posted July 17, 2015 The limit is 4, 5, or 6 (depending on which "Export surface mask" setting you use in your map frame) surface types per satellite/surface mask tile. Typically these tiles are between 512x512 meters and 2048x2048 meters (not 10 meters). You can see how big your tiles are by looking at the .paa files that Terrain Builder generates when you "process" your map frame. Most people use the 6 surface type settings, but if you want a normal map layer (like Altis and Stratis) you're limited to 5 surface types per tile. Also, 10 meter cells are probably too small; the recommendation I've heard many times from the nice BI/BISIM terrain people is to try to get it between 40-60 meters. Aside from rendering, land grid cells are also used for AI vs terrain interactions and collision detection, so the size can have an impact on performance. Sounds great. So do I get to choose the amount of layers or do I need to export it in a certain method? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ianbanks 30 Posted July 17, 2015 Sounds great. So do I get to choose the amount of layers or do I need to export it in a certain method? When you're in the "Processing" tab of your "Mapframe properties" window (the window you go to when you're exporting your satellite map and mask) you have options (under "Export surface mask") for: 4 materials per cell 5 materials per cell + satellite normal map 6 materials per cell 4 materials hasn't been used since ARMA 1 (and most ARMA 2 community maps, since the ARMA 2 tools didn't actually support producing ARMA 2 masks), so either 5 or 6 are what you want. (and "Futura" is just the internal name for ARMA 3). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nanobot 10 Posted July 17, 2015 Question regarding this, the Satellite/Surface (mask) tile's are spread across the actual in game terrain right? So if you have the size set to "512 x 512" and a Map grid size of 2048 and terrain cell size of 2 m (for a total terrain size of 4096) you would have a 8x8 grid of Sat/Surf mask tiles? If so what does "Texture layer" size(m)" do? Is there a way to view these cells in Buldozer or Terrain Builder? I want to make sure I'm visualizing the grids correctly when determining best how to paint the surface map. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ianbanks 30 Posted July 17, 2015 Question regarding this, the Satellite/Surface (mask) tile's are spread across the actual in game terrain right? So if you have the size set to "512 x 512" and a Map grid size of 2048 and terrain cell size of 2 m (for a total terrain size of 4096) you would have a 8x8 grid of Sat/Surf mask tiles? If so what does "Texture layer" size(m)" do? Is there a way to view these cells in Buldozer or Terrain Builder?I want to make sure I'm visualizing the grids correctly when determining best how to paint the surface map. That's pretty much it, except each tile needs an overlap with the other tiles. The overlap is required because ARMA renders terrain cells as separate (but touching/adjacent) objects (to deal with DirectX limits on the number of polygons per draw). If each mesh didn't have any texture overlap, then they wouldn't have perfectly blended (interpolated) textures over the ~1m cell where the separate meshes join. The overlap is mentioned on the "Samplers" page, as "Actual overlap (px)". 16 pixels or higher is a good overlap, any more tends to be wasteful of texture area. The 5 or 6 surface type limit in theory applies to the entire tile, including the overlap area, but I've seen maps that violate the rule in overlaps to no particular ill effect. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
