Maximum island size

[SCAR 0]

I Imagine this has been answered before...

What are the maximum island dimensions in Arma? 25x25km?

[gsleighter 0]

I think it's more dependent on what the max texture size your computer can handle is. I've got a project laying around that I lost the motivation for because I tried to make a 10 by 10 km map with 1.5 meters per pixel sat mask, and got frustrated by photoshop crashing, and VERY slow going, copy and pasting from google earth to build the texture, and then aligning the texture to the heightmap, getting mountain ridges and draws to match the sat map. Pain in the butt. Otherwise, Arma streams the map data in real time, so if you built a map that was 100 km or more across, you could fly (or drive) across the entire thing.

I suppose you could just use a repeating texture to cover the whole thing, but I think unless you're importing a WRPtool island, you still need to create the mask with the repeating texture, and building very large sat masks crashes photoshop for me.

[ProwlerWolf 0]

I try and use a max of 10240x10240 texture size. 20480 x 20480 I have done on a full size version of kandahar but after importing the sat and mask the total filesize of the pbo turned out to be roughly 670 MB which takes about 5 minutes to load in arma.

[rocket 9]

The area of Sahrani is 400km square, I'm currently running a map with an area of 12,099km square. It has a heightmap res of 30m. I too tired importing large scale textures, but it was a real drama. Because my map is a snow map, I can get away with a very low res satellite and mask texture. It would appear too me, the limitation is more on sat/mask map size, than the physical map size itself.

[Thrash 0]

First post . A few of us from OGN are making Australia. It's over 1,600sqkm. We're using a 2048 height map x 20 (making it 40km x 40km). Originally we tried for 4096 x 10 but there was a problem when placing objects in visitor, it will only allow for half the map to be worked on, you cant place objects on the other half, so we went to 2480x20. It's coming along pretty good. I'd say it would have about 200km of roads once finished. The satmap is (only) 20480x20480 because none of out computers can run any bigger. The layered photoshop file of the sat is around 8GB.

Edit: ^^ above post... how big is your height map if the island is 12,099kmsq?? something like 3650x3650?

[Snake Man 407]

I have made 204 x 204km terrain, its not fully working as there is some bugs that cause RPT go nuts. But for example my 51km x 51km desert terrain runs absolutely smooth for hours, no problems.

These above of course are the 4WVR oldschool method, not the satellite texture layer thing.

You've seen the PMC WRP Demo islands?

[bravo 6 0]

Snake man, I was looking to the map images in game and the terrain detail from the air and ground are far from the best..

Is it because you didn't use an real live Sat_lco?

It helps alot to give and add more atmosphere to the map.

To make maps with those size people need better computers, due the fact that was mentioned above (Sat and Mak images)

For me 10240x10240 pixel size takes +- 25 mins to save an image, sadly.

[rocket 9]

^^ above post... how big is your height map if the island is 12,099kmsq?? something like 3650x3650?

I didn't use a heightmap for the import of terrain data, I used a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of an island in the arctic. I have experiemented with different resolutions, and I found that 30m resolution worked the best for me.

These DEMs were imported into MicroDEM, reinterpolated to UTM, and then exported as an XYZ. I then opened it in Visitor 3. Once I had the workflow, everything was a synch. I exported the terrain image a few times, and it created a pretty big image, but I only had to do that to clean up my terrain a bit by hand. I did all my imports on a dedicated "renderbox" at my work (I work at a gamedev company ) so I'm not sure how such a process would work on lowerspec computers.

I have found that 12,099sqkm is problematic from a gameplay perspective, so I am presently cutting it down to a level where it doesnt take hours just to get any where.

Edit: On a side note, if anyone wants any help importing DEMs, please feel free to PM me.

[bravo 6 0]

oh man this is incredible! It means we can create real and fully dimensional maps from now on based on real life data, not just image but 3r aswell!

edit:

edit2: A real Iraqi DEM.

1024x768

Note: 20480x20480 in selected in map

[rocket 9]

Awesome work, I do believe imports from DEMs are the way to go. Notice though the contours get a bit crazy sometimes on import, I exported my DEMs out to photoshop and run some filters over them (such as surface blur) to try and even out the terrain, you can use the errosion feature in Visitor 3 (F2 I think to enter vertex edit mode, then control + A to select all vertexes).

When modelling terrain objects such as rocks or custom buildings etc... from this DEM data, I exported my map as a PNG from Visitor, and then imported it into 3DS Max as a heightmap (using the displace modifier) which then gave me the 3D terrain to design things off. Very handy!

[VladAlex 0]

Do you discover it ? It is far from being a news !

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....2;st=30

[bravo 6 0]

to be honest i think the main problem of this method is how do we get the DEM Files.

I really think its hard to get these DEM witch are very good for visitor.. can anyone provide good links from Iraqi places so we can use?

[VladAlex 0]

http://seamless.usgs.gov/

The best website from my point of view...

[rocket 9]

I find it easier to download directly from their FTP, and just figure out which tiles I need based on lat/lon. Some places you can get at much better resolution. Best place to ask is at universities near your target location, trying their geology departments first. It is common for them to have resolutions for specific areas up to 20m, although in some cases it may be difficult to get access to that information.

Once you have the DEM's, I use the "Merge DEM" feature of MicroDEM to join them all together, before UTM'ing them, zooming into the required area, and exporting to XYZ.

Personally, I use 90-60m resolution, and I simply resample that to 30m resolution for gameplay reasons.

[bravo 6 0]

Ill have a try in my University, i will ask someone in Geology department for DEM information.

Do you guys think Math department might have these information aswell?!

I should have thought about it earlier..

[Snake Man 407]

Snake man, I was looking to the map images in game and the terrain detail from the air and ground are far from the best..

Well the question for this topic was:

Quote[/b] ]What are the maximum island dimensions in Arma? 25x25km?

And I answered to him regarding my own experience and as well providing example terrains.

[rocket 9]

Do you guys think Math department might have these information aswell?!

I wouldnt imagine the math department would. If you have no luck with universities, you can contact some GIS companies directly, sometimes they are very supportive of the community.

One such company I have approached for help was www.geographix.co.nz, they have been very supportive of the FlightSim community in the past and provide some sample data for New Zealand to work with. I think you will find many other GIS companies are the same.

[bravo 6 0]

Snake man, I was looking to the map images in game and the terrain detail from the air and ground are far from the best..

Well the question for this topic was:

Quote[/b] ]What are the maximum island dimensions in Arma? 25x25km?

And I answered to him regarding my own experience and as well providing example terrains.

as you can see/read even you didn't directly reply to what he asked, so don't indirectly tell me i'm "hijacking" the thread nor give me rhetorics.

With my comment, people should know that with huge terrain, maps intend to lose visual quality, due to limitations. Thats what i meant to inform.

I also posted an example of an little bigger map then the one you mentioned, so the problem here is should be Big Vs Quality. Not just Big.

[cross 1]

Guys,

I am trying to make a map of the dardanelles and gallipoli area..1024x20.

I imported the height map from a dem but I'm having trouble with the rough edges of the vertices. Ran teh erosion but it didn't seem to fix it fully.

Should I play with the grayscale file in GIMP?

cheers.

[opteryx 1562]

Guys,

I am trying to make a map of the dardanelles and gallipoli area..1024x20.

I imported the height map from a dem but I'm having trouble with the rough edges of the vertices. Ran teh erosion but it didn't seem to fix it fully.

Should I play with the grayscale file in GIMP?

cheers.

Why 1024x20 when you can use 2048px with 10m cells which is perfectly acceptable in ArmA? Performance? Also post a pic, not quite sure what you mean.

[gsleighter 0]

I've got a map in the works with 10m cells, and every time I up the viewdistance past 2600m, the game crashes to desktop. I've also got a 1m res satmask. which might also have something to do with it. Anyway, it looks great in game, it's just a pity that I'm limited to a 2k viewdistance, since the actual spot in Arizona I'm modeling has pretty much unlimited visibility to the horizon.

[Auss 208]

Max size for V3 is 2048 grid size with 20 metres cells size which equals 40960 Metres terrain size . Any bigger and you'll run into the problem where you are unable to select objects in Buldozer.

[cross 1]

Guys,

I am trying to make a map of the dardanelles and gallipoli area..1024x20.

I imported the height map from a dem but I'm having trouble with the rough edges of the vertices. Ran teh erosion but it didn't seem to fix it fully.

Should I play with the grayscale file in GIMP?

cheers.

Why 1024x20 when you can use 2048px with 10m cells which is perfectly acceptable in ArmA? Performance? Also post a pic, not quite sure what you mean.

I'll post a pic when I get home. I'll switch to 2048x10 as well...

All my hours of texture import are gone...

What I mean is the mountains are fully not round. The edges of the 20m cells are not fully rounded fitting the terrain. When you are driving on the mountain its like you are driving on a bumpy road.

I guess this effect should be reduced a bit more when I switch to 10m.

Btw I'm losing too much height when I run the erosion on the whole map. max 900mtrs -> max 300 mtrs with onl 8 generations and almost standard settings, some even reduced.

Do you have a nice sample setting which smooths out the terrain well?

[gsleighter 0]

It's the DEM data, it's got steps in it. Just open the heightmap in photoshop or gimp and run a really light gaussian blur over the whole thing, it should get rid of some of that step effect. All I've ever managed to do in Visitor using the erosion tool is crash visitor.

[Nicholas Bell 0]

"Wilbur" has a decent selection of good erosion routines which you can run on your heightmap.

http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/software.html

I've never been able to figure out good settings for the V3 erosion routines either.  It's always all or nothing, ie flatten the terrain way too much or I see nothing at all.  I'm sure it works great for those who programmed it, I just wish they would have shared some of the many secrets of V3 with us.

Quote[/b] ]It's the DEM data, it's got steps in it.

Wilbur also has a function which nicely fixes the DEM stepping. Check out the "Filter | Fill | Deterrace" function.