New universal dynamic grass script

[mcpxxl 2]

@ThruYerStErNuM

Upcomming Problems ?

[KeyCat 131]

I'm pretty sure it's just RL stuff interfering and he will be back ASAP

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[mcpxxl 2]

Lool that is "RL" definatly ENOUGH now

I wait sooo for it ...

[KeyCat 131]

I'm with ya MCPXXL but all we can do is practice patience and hope/pray that ThruYerStErNuM find some free time slots in the near future...

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

OK this is not an 'official' release, this is a 'dont be mad' release, just the objects right now for whoever is following this thread. Look in empty->objects for all the grasses you saw in the screenshots.

http://waskosky.com/projects/files/uwar_grass.pbo.zip

I want to keep working on the scripts but I have very little time for flashpoint until about mid june when I get done with school. I began adding too much extensibility into it because I kept getting more and more ideas about how awesome dynamic environments that generate everything on the fly could be...

This is the new interpreter for mission.sqm files (also requires this addon that has the abstract objects), it allows for information in 'abstract static objects' that are placed on the map to represent what is generated in game. For example, once the system is ready, you can use the placement radius setting in the editor for an abstract grass object to determine how large an area it encompases, then when you run the interpreter program it will put the information into a configuration file. Settings like fuel and amunition are optional parameters that control other aspects of the grass, such as patchiness and density. The final interpretation is done by very complex scripts of course. I know it doesnt need to be so complicated for just grass.. but just grass isnt much progress.

I might have time to finish this in the next few weeks but I dont know, maybe by the end of June.

I also want to try making grass like in the flashpoint 2 screenshots..

And to Yssabem and everyone, do whatever I wont mind.

[mcpxxl 2]

First "THX A LOT" for some new Testing Tools

Second It´s more than ok to finnish your school first.

My Question was because to often i saw a commitment and then it was never seen.

If there is anything to figure out with this addon just let me know.

[KeyCat 131]

Thanks for the new grass objects, will try them out ASAP!

And to second what MCPXXL says... Your school is much more important than any addon/script so take your time and finish your schoolwork first.

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[-IT-Q- 0]

hi ThruYerStErNuM

hopefully you will find the motivation and time after school to work and release 'final' version of this great stuff.

ofp can benefit a lot of this !

best regards

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

By the way, for the AOSQM2SQS interpreter:

Use the UWAR object-> "Abstract Any" object to specify your own objects and use additional parameters. If you use a given grass object that has '250m' on the name, then it will set the config parameter to -1 where the placement radius would be if you used the "Abstract Any" object. Put in the presence condition field, in place of "this", any number of objects that you want to be put into the config too, and you can seperate object names with '&&' or 'and'. So the config result of a default 'any' object placed with presence condition 'MyGrass&&MyGrass2' would be: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

[false, ["MyGrass", "MyGrass2"], 250, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]

first field is whether the object is predefined type (one I made or one specified with 'Any'), second field is object list, third is placement radius with 250 being default when not specified, fourth field is for density (set with presence likelihood), fifth field is set by health and sixth is set by fuel. You could use all these fields to make your own system of object to script interpretation or just use the given objects to start making configurations.

This probably doesnt make sense unless you try the program out on a mission.sqm with the UWAR objects to see what it does.

[mcpxxl 2]

A chance for one litle demo mission ?

The interpreter gives a message to add code in a script that i don´t can find ?

and asked for everon or ie ?

What is POC

How to init the whole thing ?

But i don´t want make you to many work with it !

[-IT-Q- 0]

here are the classes of the new grass

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">units[] = {uwar_empty, uwar_emptyg, uwar_nothing, uwar_G50, uwar_G50malden, uwar_G50kolgujev, uwar_G50winter, uwar_G250, uwar_G250malden, uwar_G250kolgujev, uwar_G250winter, uwar_G1000, uwar_G1000malden, uwar_G1000kolgujev, uwar_G1000winter};

needs to changed in the build_grass.sqs

Quote[/b] ]_grasses = ["uwar_litweeds1","uwar_litweeds1","uwar_litweeds1","uw

ar_litweeds1","uwar_litweeds2","uwar_litweeds2"]

(if i got this correct )

some suggestions:

~ incorporate in the script a query which determines the players height - i dont think its neccessary to have this active while being in a choper or plane

~ add additional short grass as a much greater object for the near distance in order to have less single objects (?)

~ very short grass but dense over the whole area might be cool too (look at ofp xbox vids to get the impression somewhat)

to have this in a mission or a campaign you just have to add these 2/4 scripts in each mission - apart from having the two addons - nothing else required, right?

cheers  

edit:

almost forgot - maybe some can answer CrashDome's question

Quote[/b] ]I am very much interested in this project for an island we are working on. What is needed to incorporate this into our island? Do we require others to install this script into their missions? or can it be used as a standalone island object?

[mcpxxl 2]

@[iT|Q]

Are these comments for the new script ? and if yes how did you run it ?

The "transparent Grass" from AA and Ofp Pictures are nice too !

Is there any chance to make Grass halftransparent ?

[mcpxxl 2]

On the AA Ofp2 and Battlefield 2 Demo i saw something that i think is it worth to test.

You can see that the Grass seems to be a little Bit transparent. So my idea is :when it is more away then make it more transparent , it will look more realistic and has the effect like in real world , there you get something Bush like instead of sharp grass.

At the Mapfact workshop i asked flashpoint_k to do some tests ... and ok we test only short because the lack of time, but waht i saw was really nice

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

Try this out:

Download grass and sample use

Add a trigger to the map that detects everything and name it "everything". Then add objects located in the empty -> "uwar_grass". The grass sizes range from 10 meters to 1000 meters in width.

I'll test it a bit more this week and post in the addons and mods complete folder once I know its ok. There may be a few bugs, the scripts are fairly complex. They have evolved into a more generalized dynamic environment generation system, but I wont get into that yet.

I decided not to add multiplayer until I make the objects more consistent when viewed from a distance. I have been taking foliage photos recently and will make a third grass addon after this one later on.

Also, I dont want to use the sqm2sqs interpreter system for this system yet, because for most purposes, just placing objects on the map is much more convenient.

I'll explain more later because its almost 5am.

[KeyCat 131]

Hi ThruYerStErNuM,

Will take a look at it as soon as possible, things are quite slow on the OFP front for me during the summer...

Quote[/b] ]

I have been taking foliage photos recently and will make a third grass addon after this one later on.

Looking forward to even better grass objects and your latest ones are really great... Keep it up!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[mcpxxl 2]

WoW he lives !

Testing imediatly....

[KeyCat 131]

Just tried the latest version of your grass and I LOVE it! I'm still using my "tweaked" version of djukels original script and by mixing in some of the new brownish grass (uwar_kolgujevweedslit2) makes it look even more lifelike. And thanks for making the grass objects placable in the editor, now it's easy to hide some of MAPFACT's nice AP mines as a surprise    GREAT JOB ThruYerStErNuM!

Now I must finish my Avignon template and hope that djukel (or someone else) can help me out generate the grass table since I can't run the JAVA thing utility...

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[KeyCat 131]

@ ThruYerStErNuM:

After finishing the template for Avignon I scratched my head for a while before I realised that your VPOSsqm2sqs.exe requires the following data structure to parse (else it just leaves a 0 byte file)...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

               class Item0

               {

                       position[]={8423.135742,24.644497,2255.657471};

                       id=0;

                       side="EMPTY";

                       vehicle="Flagcarrier";

                       leader=1;

                       skill=0.600000;

                       text="grass1";

               };

My template looks slightly different for a few reasons and I can't use your neat program to generate the grass table. My data structure(s) looks like this...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

               class Item0

               {

                       position[]={6257.668945,100.140556,7777.142090};

                       placement=200.000000;

                       id=1;

                       side="EMPTY";

                       vehicle="FlagCarrier";

                       skill=0.600000;

               };

First, by having a placement radius 200 m on the flagpole makes it much easier to visually spread out the grass and see where it covers and don't in the editor.

Second, is it really nescessary to manually label each flagpole with "grass1", "grass2" and so on? Each object automaticly gets an item number by the editor (i.e Item0, Item1 etc.) as well as an ID number (i.e id=0, id=1 etc.)?

I know you are a busy guy but would it be an easy change to make VPOSsqm2sqs.exe parse the data as in the second example above?

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

I thought my interpreter accounted and was tested for all such situations, can you email me your mission.sqm so I can test it? You might be using an earlier version that had problems.

But... djukels scripts dont support a placement option, because placement is hardcoded. Did you try my new scripts? They support various placement options that are hardcoded so you can easily place the objects for the mission and not need the sqm2sqs interpreter at all.

But of course, I understand the benefits of having preset objects for each island, making it so that mission editors don't need to worry about it, so currently I am making default grass templates so you can use any placement, and remaking the sqm2sqs system so you can place objects with triggers, so you can have the option for rectangular placement sizes, and different orientations, among other features I've mentioned earlier. Having rectangular trigger placement can guarantee precise grass cover.

I think to avoid confusion regarding the various grass scripts, I'll post a complete description with the new objects in the A&M:C forum within a week. I just took more nice foliage pictures yesterday and I want to make them into objects.

And again, I dont think we should be making preset configurations for entire islands until the objects are high enough quality for use in something like the FFUR pack.

Edit: I don't post very often, only when I have something significant to say, but yes, for my one hundredth post, you receive a picture of my foot.

[KeyCat 131]

I thought my interpreter accounted and was tested for all such situations, can you email me your mission.sqm so I can test it? You might be using an earlier version that had problems.

Sure I will e-mail you the mission.sqm file in a ZIP-attachment. I believe I use your latest version posted.

Quote[/b] ]

But... djukels scripts dont support a placement option, because placement is hardcoded.

I know, I'm using the placement radius on the flag just as an "visual aid" when covering the map. Helps alot and you can easily see where to place the flag objects. Another trick/hint is to also show textures on the map to avoid placing grass on wrong spots.

Quote[/b] ]

Did you try my new scripts? They support various placement options that are hardcoded so you can easily place the objects for the mission and not need the sqm2sqs interpreter at all.

No I haven't tried your new script yet. Wanted to finish what I started before I proceeded and also to have working grass on Jakerods nice Avigninon island so I could start doing some missions instead of just scripting

And you are correct, both ways have it's pro's and con's so it would be great to have both options available also in the future.

Your new script/system with rectangular areas sounds nice tho

Quote[/b] ]

I think to avoid confusion regarding the various grass scripts, I'll post a complete description with the new objects in the A&M:C forum within a week. I just took more nice foliage pictures yesterday and I want to make them into objects.

As I said before I am looking forward to any improvements you make to it.

Quote[/b] ]

And again, I dont think we should be making preset configurations for entire islands until the objects are high enough quality for use in something like the FFUR pack.

Must say that your current addon kicks a** so I would say the quality are high enough to be used by anyone.. IMHO your grass looks even better than the few screenshots we seen from ArAs so far!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

PS: Let me know if the parser works on the mission.sqm file I have e-mailed you.

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

Thanks, I guess I had an older version online, sorry for the mistake. The newer version should work even if the file has unrecognized classes or whatever. Same link:

http://www.waskosky.com/projects/files/VPOSsqm2sqs.exe

In multiplayer, people would be able to not see through grass close up, thinking they are in cover, but see through grass further away, depending on how their visual quality settings, and so they would be able to shoot the people thinking they are in cover. One reason they are like that is because grasses can be generated relatively close to the observer, then morph to more complete objects, rather than remain consistent the whole time, so that you don't notice them as they pop up into existence.

I have to make better textures and models for the distant LODs so it performs just as well and looks the same. The new scripts (djukels and mine) generate grass based not on individual objects coming into existence but by groups of objects. His scripts have 3 groups always being present as being hardcoded, and mine allow any number of these groups to be created based on their distance. I'm using sorting now to reduce slowdown when using very large numbers of objects.

Quote[/b] ] I haven't tried your new script yet. Wanted to finish what I started before I proceeded and also to have working grass on Jakerods nice Avigninon island so I could start doing some missions instead of just scripting

I totally understand, I think many of us get too carried away on some things and forget that we aren't helping the community as much as we could be if we balanced our focus. Although, hopefully I can create systems of organized object generation that can remain helpful throughout our future flashpointage in Armed Assault as well.

[KeyCat 131]

Thanks, I guess I had an older version online, sorry for the mistake. The newer version should work even if the file has unrecognized classes or whatever.

Thanks for the new parser! It now swallows my mission.sqm file fine but (I hate to tell you about this) there seems to be other problems...

First a tiny bug, it misses the first comma (,) in the generated array... No biggie and easily fixed by inserting that missing comma by hand.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

UWAR_VPOS = UWAR_VPOS + [[6216.05957,99.628761,7768.820801][5626.794922,100.324448,7713.32373]

Next bug/issue is worse... The generated data array from this new version doesn't work with my script (that is based on djukels original script posted here) and after looking a bit closer to the data array stuff seems to have swapped places?

The new parser generates this...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

UWAR_VPOS = UWAR_VPOS + [[6216.05957,99.628761,7768.820801] and so on...

The old parser that generated data arrays that worked with my script generated this...

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

UWAR_VPOS = UWAR_VPOS + [[6257.668945,7777.14209,100.140556] and so on...

Notice that the Z cordinate changed positions in the array and that explains why it didn't worked with my script. Don't know if you changed this by choice or if it is another bug?

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

PS: To stop confusion about different versions of the parser maybe a simple version number in it's name may be handy

[ThruYerStErNuM 0]

The parser was udpated, the script generator was back a step, this should be the final version:

http://www.waskosky.com/projects/files/VPOSsqm2sqs.exe

edit: fixed below case, now final

[KeyCat 131]

Almost there ThruYerStErNuM

This latest version parse everything correct and build the array OK except for the very first entry in the array where Z cordinate still have wrong position.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

UWAR_VPOS = UWAR_VPOS + [[6216.05957,99.628761,7768.820801]

No biggie and easily fixed by swapping values myself, other than that it works and I can continue my work and hopefully finish it soon, thanks!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[mcpxxl 2]

Sorry but i don´t get the Abstract Any running.

If i use the onditionfield of presence with your param it comes

Bolean Error.

This thing of Description is Missing in your newgrass2.demo Mission :-(