the world in ARMA

[dentist guba 0]

would it be possible to convert a model of the earth (for example the one found in MS flight simulator) to run in ARMA. if so,once the basic conversion had been done, the textures e.t.c could be improved to ARMA standards. it said on one of the ARMA websites that the gameworld could be any size due to the new streaming techniques.

[Mabes 0]

So your asking someone to make an "island" using the whole world? Even if it was possible, do you have any idea how long that would take to load?

[zwobot 22]

So your asking someone to make an "island" using the whole world? Even if it was possible, do you have any idea how long that would take to load?

The answer is 12.

[Sled88 0]

And how long it would take to create...

[colligpip 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3507531.stm

[Scillion 0]

If anyone does do this I would like to help by making the 3d image of my house. I'll do this only after seeing the images of the other houses on my street.

If they're not done well my property value could go down.

[the_shadow 0]

in theory it´s possible....

but i dont think anyone is up to it....

it would take years!

and not to mention it would take years to load a mission on it too...

[canis lupus 20]

what about only smaller bits of the earth, with accurate places, like where I come form, a little island in Denmark, its not much bigger than Sahrani, it would be quite fun to play on a real life island.

[Daniel 0]

That's what I'm hoping for, can't wait to get my hands on some island tools.

[paragraphic l 2]

I guess that recreating some place on earth to every correct detail would be pretty though for your pc even if it's only 10km2 instead of the 400km2 of sahrani.

But still I would love to see some deserted place with every correct detail, alaska or something (I imagine that being deserted with only few people living distances from each other)

[Dallas 9]

what about only smaller bits of the earth, with accurate places, like where I come form, a little island in Denmark, its not much bigger than Sahrani, it would be quite fun to play on a real life island.

How about Amager?

[baddo 0]

This kind of project could be doable on a much smaller scale (resize the Earth to 1:100 or something). If someone first makes a program which generates the required world data, based on some real-world terrain, road, city etc. database. Way too much work for anyone to do it by hand, but put a computer to do it and then it might be possible... if there is a streaming engine in place in the game then why would the loading times be too long? Only a very small portion of the world would have to be loaded, no more than your maximum view distance plus a buffer area to allow movement without hicups.

Problems I see:

- huge size of data required as input

- huge size of data as output

- huge inaccuracy of the output because of practical impossibility of the task of creating accurate result

Google Earth is pretty impressive nowadays, even most buildings in Manhattan start to have 3D shape! Future could bring games which use a database centre to store the world data and the client application would download it as needed, just like in Google Earth. The required detail would be higher in a game than in Google Earth though. A database centre would solve the problem of client application package being too large to be practical to distribute.

[Mabes 0]

Microsoft Flight Simulator X did a decent job at it, but that game was 15GB, and I don't care how good a mod is, I'm not downloading a 15GB addon for the game.

[fasad 1]

Hmmm, imagine playing CTI (ctw?) on a small scale cylindrically projected map of earth, with a "round the world" warp script for the east/west boarders. It would have to be about 1:2000 scale to cover 20x20 km.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Future could bring games which use a database centre to store the world data and the client application would download it as needed, just like in Google Earth. The required detail would be higher in a game than in Google Earth though. A database centre would solve the problem of client application package being too large to be practical to distribute.

That would actually result in an even worse problem - lag due to lack of sufficient bandwidth. It's all fine and good to use Google Earth which is exclusively a mapping tool. But a game which would rely on a remote database to provide it's initial terrain.. hmmm....

And I say initial because sooner or later both the community and BIS will implement dynamically damageable buildings in ArmA - and assuming it's a multiplayer game with a more ongoing presence online, the database per se would not be designed to keep track of the inflicted damage upon a zone, for the sake of not having to constantly redistribute data... Such a database would not be able to cope with demands due to sheer network traffic, I guess...

[canis lupus 20]

what about only smaller bits of the earth, with accurate places, like where I come form, a little island in Denmark, its not much bigger than Sahrani, it would be quite fun to play on a real life island.

How about Amager?

Amager would be great, since copenhagen would be too laggy.

[walker 0]

in theory it´s possible....

but i dont think anyone is up to it....

it would take years!

and not to mention it would take years to load a mission on it too...

Hi all

Problem 1

I agree with the above 1st statement

Problem 2.1

As to the second statement 1st part

It would not take years it would take decades to create.

Problem 2.2

As to the second part of the second statement I disagree.

The new engine streams ground clutter and objects it does not bother to stream the DEM data as it is not worth the effort. If there was a requirement to stream DEM data I think it could also be done so the engine is theoretically capable of displaying the data.

The Data storage would be a problem though, it would need reasonable sized servers and a server farm architecture.

The solutions to Problem 1 and Problem 2.1

We then come back to problem 1 and problem 2.1

Surprisingly the solution to that has already been made.

I call it the million monkey effect. It is why OFP is so good and why ArmA will be great.

It is the basis of Youtube and Wilki and all the 2nd wave Internet successes

If everyone in the community was to make their own bit of the world and all those bits they find interesting then it could be created in less than a year.

We only await BIS giving us the tools

One other thing BIS could open source VISITOR and a small client island viewer

Allowing anyone one to use it over the Internet to view and create their own land.

By making these easily available you create a massive user community but in order to play the game and interact with land they need to buy ArmA creating the best of Guerrilla Marketing tools a fully functioning Viral Marketing system.

Marek and Ondaj please take note  

Kind Regards Walker

[olemissrebel 0]

Three words:

No

Fucking

Way...

(it's possible, just not feasable )

[chipper 0]

If the whole world were in ArmA. I'd take my download speeds to 28bps.

[the_shadow 0]

what about only smaller bits of the earth, with accurate places, like where I come form, a little island in Denmark, its not much bigger than Sahrani, it would be quite fun to play on a real life island.

no problems....

just wait for the tools, and in the meantime gather as much reference materials as you can...

satelite/aerial photos, maps, photos (you could take them yourself if you have a camera)

then make up plans on what part of the island you want to make first....

and learn the tools when they are released...

then only your imagination can stop you!

[baddo 0]

[ZG]BUZZARD, I was talking about the future, not present day. It would surprise us all if the performance of the Internet would halt to the level it is now. Also the system could work so that a client has part of the required information initially installed, but will download more detailed information from a server as, and only if, needed. Also when you would start the application for the first time, you could determine a start position in the world and the program would then download that area so startup from there on would be fast. Textures and 3D models could be pre-installed and only terrain elevation data and information how to place the textures and 3D models could be downloaded (WRP file in BIS products). The selection of textures and 3D models could be limited to a reasonable level. Many more tricks possible to use no doubt about that. Note that this talk is about another possible product, not about products from BIS to this date, of course.

Some more ideas how a large world could be modelled, also for BIS products.

Computer program generates the world based on pre-determined rules. A rule could be: make this area desert with no buildings. Another rule would be: make this area urban, with many buildings close to each other. Rules could include limits for maximum and minimum terrain elevation, percentage of water vs. land etc. The generator program would be given categorized textures and 3D models so the program could throw appropriate textures and 3D models into the areas set by your rules. Now the program would go on and generate the world according to the rules you gave. No need to go and model every single bit by hand. Accuracy to the real world would be reduced significantly but that would only make it practically possible to accomplish the task. If there would be a need to model a certain place more accurately, such area could be modelled by hand to the detail level you wish and let the program generate the rest.

I do not see it practical to try and do all this manually by yourself; there should really be a computer program generating the content based on rules.

Baddo

[fasad 1]

Proceedural worlds have been used for a long time, I can think of two examples over ten years old : "Starflight" (1986) and "Daggerfall" (1996). I think proceedural world generation will become more common again, given the increasing detail levels expected in games. It should be quicker to create an intelligent automated creation tool rather than manually placing objects given an certain world size and detail level. The problem is it requires smart programmers rather than object placing robots (us).

Objects themselves can also be proceedurally generated. All ArmA vegetation objects were created proceedurally. Buildings could be created by giving the engine a set of basic lego style "blocks" and letting it create buildings for you. Wow, I'm rambling!

Some basic proceedural object placement tools shouldn't be too hard to create for someone skilled enough, and would cut an island makers workload by half. An automated vegetation clumper and automated fence placing tool would be a great start.

[deanosbeano 0]

you can take a flight round kabul in arma so why not the world ?

i like this idea its a very way out kind of thinking.

would love to see north west england the lake district in particular in arma .

a preview of a very early import into arma

take a peek <<

i am aware of all the probs

[Shashman 0]

Three words:

No

Fucking

Way...

(it's possible, just not feasable )

Such a way with words

Walker's post was very interesting in the matter. It actually excited me, imagining this sort of exponentially growing community/network...

[dentist guba 0]

Quote[/b] ]Microsoft Flight Simulator X did a decent job at it, but that game was 15GB, and I don't care how good a mod is, I'm not downloading a 15GB addon for the game.

Maybe having flight simulator could be a pre-requisite to downloading the mod. then you should only have to download the replacement textures e.t.c. another way could be to somehow put it on discs but this would be pretty unlikely.

Also this could be downloadable procedurally and with compression so each download would be a lot smaller. this would also provide a basis to making smaller scale, more detailed maps(such as the area near your own house as was suggested before).