mapmaking. How big is big?

[dsm 0]

Hi

I'm intent on getting stuck into this map making malarky, and I've had an idea in my head for a year or so now. What I need to know is just how big a map can be created? I've heard that the content streams so is it only limited by drive space and convienience, or is there a physical limit on map size?

thanx

[fasad 1]

The largest terrain I successfully imported into V3 and viewed in buldozer is 4096x4096 100m cells. 409.6km x 409.6km = 167772.16 km^2, ~419 times the size of the Sahrani terrain. Any larger terrain cell size crashes buldozer.

By the way, as a part time island maker, while making my OFP island, I only managed to create about 25km^2 per month.

[dsm 0]

cheers fasad

That's HUGE! Thanks for the time scale as well. A great help.

(I had envisaged it keeping me busy for the next year at least, but it will stop me mugging old ladies in my bored moments )

[biggibs 0]

fasad

did you manage to import sat and mask with terrains of 2048 with a cell size of 50 or 100?

looking at the size of the sat and mask files for our island that is 2048 with 50 cell size we will need images of 102400x102400

we managed to create a file that size eventually in ps but its could only be saved as psb and it can't be saved as png

BiGGiBs

[fasad 1]

I was only doing a quick test the engine limits, so I did not attempt to import a sat/layer mask.

102400 pixels is really massive, PNG may not allow files that big (header not big enough). Failing all else, you could manually make the sat/layer mask

[biggibs 0]

yep was a 30gb psb file and no way to save as png!

so it's has to be done by hand,not impressed

BiGGiBs

[fasad 1]

You could break it into smaller segments, let V3 import them into dummy terrains, then edit those outputs into one? Or just use lower res, I know photoshop 6 can save 25,600x25,600 as a png.

[dsm 0]

lol

You'll have to excuse me.

You're going to think I'm a right numpty. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about (at the moment, as I plan to learn)! My experience of world building is small. I have only used Hammer for HL2, and that's pretty much self contained. What other programs will I need to create a map from scratch? I have WinPBO already, and believe me, using that proved to me that there is a lot more to mapmaking than just stretching a few polygons! I guess I need to know what the various file types actually do as well.

[Allie 0]

Ok tools you need for arma terrain editing, me myself is not that far that i can tell you HOW to make the map but i can tell you you need: * a terrain making tool some like TERRAGEN or some other tool to creat a terrain.

Then u need some to convert your terrain so you can import into VISITOR, i use WILBUR for that.

Then VISITOR itself, which you have to configure yourself, i still havent figured that out myself, but to be able to have objects and stuff from arma you have to manually extract them from the game directory so you need some tool to DEPBO .pbo files.

Then photoshop or simular program to make your sattelite picture, layermask and stuff.

Maybe a tool to repack .pbo files.

But again i'm not really got the hang of it myself, it is really a pain in the ars to get the whole thing up and running.

There is a lott of stuff out there to tell you how to do it, but i still havent got it all 100% to work.

One thing tough, there is people who keep on talking about the time it takes to make a terrain, i dont know why they keep saying it takes months because u should be able to have the basics up in 30 minutes, i have made allrdy some terrains and the terrain itself takes me 5 minutes in TERRAGEN.

The next step is my problem and that is to get all object and textures of the game in.

Sure if you wanne make the right terrain and the right placements of objects and stuff this will be time consuming, but pls dont be scared of it. A simple desert island with little object on it can be created in really short time span.

P.S. tool: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:Tools

Have fun and let the terrains roll in.

[dsm 0]

nice one allie

thanks to all

[fasad 1]

One thing tough, there is people who keep on talking about the time it takes to make a terrain, i dont know why they keep saying it takes months because u should be able to have the basics up in 30 minutes, i have made allrdy some terrains and the terrain itself takes me 5 minutes in TERRAGEN.

The next step is my problem and that is to get all object and textures of the game in.

Exactly, making an initial heightmap is about 1~5% of the total work. Creating a complete terrain (term used for ArmA "islands" since they don't have to be islands anymore, not just the heightmap) such as Sahrani does take months

[.kju 3241]

Sahrani is way way too detailed

[Heatseeker 0]

Creating a complete terrain (term used for ArmA "islands" since they don't have to be islands anymore, not just the heightmap) such as Sahrani does take months

More please!!

I didnt know this limitation was removed, can we make a terrain surrounded by infinite, flat terrain instead of water?

Or perhaps a terrain with coast in one side and ground on the other?

Or what ?

[fasad 1]

The height and surface details of the edge tiles are "extruded" forever. I'm not 100% sure on how the the corner bits are done. I think ocean looks more believable.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

So if we want a large landscape it would be best to not have any hills at the edges, right?

That are great news indeed. A desert world would actually look like going on forever.

[opteryx 1562]

In case you're wondering how it looks: