Finally

[phaeden 0]

After many, MANY failed attempts, I finally got a desert terrain based on MCAGCC 29 Palms to work in game. I still have a long way to go, but the main terrain and sat images are finally working.

Thanks for everyone on these boards - your discussions and inspiration have helped tremendously.

Here is a picture of what an earlier Alpha looks like...

http://usmc-warriors.org/forum/gallery/39_13_01_08_1_05_12.png

[hypno toad 0]

Release plz. Looks good for nuke test, no trees to make lag spam.

and no, I am not being sarcastic, I like it.

[Allie 0]

looking very very nice

Keep up the good work, we need maps.

Later,

Allie

[hypno toad 0]

Personally I think people should us my satellite data technique so we could start mass producing maps.

[phaeden 0]

I don't know if you could really mass produce maps, at least not quality maps.

It is possible to get the height maps (or make them which would be even faster) but to get the sat image and terrain to match up, include all the proper roads, buildings and vegetation, as well as names, and other config information will take time.

I've been making islands literally for years and can, at best, ship out one every two months.

I do want to see more islands for ArmA but I really would rather see quality over quantity. My two cents.

[hypno toad 0]

I don't know if you could really mass produce maps, at least not quality maps.

It is possible to get the height maps (or make them which would be even faster) but to get the sat image and terrain to match up, include all the proper roads, buildings and vegetation, as well as names, and other config information will take time.

I've been making islands literally for years and can, at best, ship out one every two months.

I do want to see more islands for ArmA but I really would rather see quality over quantity. My two cents.

Satellite and terrain matching should not be too difficult, and if you are off slightly, it shouldn't be a huge problem.

Besides, you can always make a satellite image yourself, it doesn't take very long to make one with relatively minimal skills in photoshop.

[phaeden 0]

Even so, I don't know if you could generate maps on a weekly basic (or anything close to that rate) using the current tools.

Maybe if you were a student or had a part time job and had lots of "free" time to do it, but I certainly haven't had that luxury in a very long time.

Personally, I've built, rebuilt, and edited the same island four times now (just terrain mask, sat_lco and mask_lco - no objects) in order to get the results I am really after. I began with real world 10m DEM data, sat imagery from Google (and other sites), and a variety of techniques to create the mask)lco. I have since modified the terrain.png time and time again to get it to replicate what I envision. I have also spent hours going over the 20480 sat image in order to correct for any errors, remove anything that would work in game, and make alterations to the real world image so that the "island" is more playable. I am also to the point where I am truly happy with the geology and geography of the terrain. I think it is nearing a point at which it will be great for gameplay.

All that being said, I could probably shit out an island in a few days if I drew the terrain.png by hand, created a sat_lco and mask_lco also by hand with "generic" but "realistic" imagery and used a randomized object placer to put down most of the island's objects. Personally, I don't think I would be really satisfied with the results. Knowing that I could have done better if I had spent more time on it would bother me if I played it. It might end up being a "good enough" island to use for missions, etc, but wouldn't be "right."

I don't know how to explain it better than I am anal about anything I work on (like WGL and ACE) and don't want to release something that isn't done to the best of my ability.

Now, please don't take offense to my belief. I don't think anyone would really mind playing on islands if people made them - especially if newer islands were available on a routine basis. For me, I want it to reflect me and the design I have in my head.

[phaeden 0]

Slowly coming together:

[removed as site changed]

[opteryx 1562]

Good job man, Looks terrific! I personally know the pain of editing, importing etc. 20480px images. Personally I've done 4 of these and I gotta tell you I really started to get sick of it. Recently however I started a 5 x 5 map I and can't tell you how satisfying it is to see how much faster it goes stitching raster, creating mask, import and all that.

Back to your map, would you mind sharing what location it is? I presume it's located in the US considering the high res topo data, no?

-edit-

Never mind location, just saw the first post. *Doh*

[phaeden 0]

Greetings,

Thanks for the feedback.

I think my next map will me much smaller with more detail.

Right now, I am encountering some performance issues from this island. The terrain grid is 7m and I think that is taxing my system too much. In ArmA, it takes about 4 minutes for the island to initially load (and then about 10 seconds after that) but it also crashes ArmA if I attempt to increase view distance or adjust the view sliders (increasing anything). It also doesn't like it much when I alt-tab for anything.

I will see if there is anything I can do without resorting to increasing the terrain-grid size as I really like the micro-terrain features now present.

Live and learn I guess.

[Romolus 0]

About the loading time and instabilities: Did you binarize the map?

[phaeden 0]

No, I didn't do that. I will try that before taking any other steps.

Thanks!

[phaeden 0]

Still working on it - and I was able to make it much faster in terms of load time and FPS.

Here are some screens if you're interested:

http://usmc-warriors.org/phaeden/EAFupdate1.jpg

Standing atop a radio tower in a military training facility. View distance is 7500m.

http://usmc-warriors.org/phaeden/EAFupdate2.jpg

Standing in the northeastern corner of a relatively rural area - view distance 8000m. The buildings on the left side (above and to the left and right of the group of palm trees) are 2.3 km away - just to give reference to scope and scale.

http://usmc-warriors.org/phaeden/EAFupdate3.jpg

This last one is a picture from an early version of a weapons testing facility. The main buildings are down, but I still have to add the finer details. The view distance in this screen is 10km. You can just make out a large mountain off in the distance (slightly right of center).

[phaeden 0]

A few short videos that are all pretty low quality but should give you at least an idea of what it looks like

[biggibs 0]

very nice!

will definatly be keeping an eye out for the release of this one.

sat image looks realy nice,and some great ideas training camps ect

just the sort of terrain arma needs imo.

keep up the good/hard work

BiGGiBs

[ProwlerWolf 0]

Very Impressive