Will Arma 2 need a different program?

[Brendon 0]

I hope so, because I can't for the life of me create an Island for Arma 1. Hopefully they release a program that is easier to use. Do you think they will release different Tools for Arma 2 since it uses a different Game Engine in General?

All I want to do is create my small country, fill it up with Civilian Life, since you can do that now, I hope I can do that in Arma 2!

[xnodunitx 0]

IF ArmaII could import heightmaps from a 3D program or had a 3D editor similar to Crysis Sandbox (for making islands) that would make things loads easier.

[Brendon 0]

I hope we find out soon.

[gsleighter 0]

You can edit a heightmap in the Crysis sandbox and export the edited version, makes a nice WYSIWYG terrain editor, if your machine can handle it. You can even lay your sat map over it to fine tune details.

[opteryx 1562]

If you're finding it difficult creating terrains for ArmA1 I wouldn't get my hopes up for ArmA2 if I were you. Making maps for games has hardly ever been simple, you can only expect it to become more complex in the future as game standards are demanding larger more intricate and detailed scenery.

[Colossus 2]

As far as I've understud it, you can port ArmA content in to ArmA2. I'm a bit unsure if it was directly or if you needed to edit some parts to make it compatible with ArmA2 (as for OFP to ArmA).

[Brendon 0]

If you're finding it difficult creating terrains for ArmA1 I wouldn't get my hopes up for ArmA2 if I were you. Making maps for games has hardly ever been simple, you can only expect it to become more complex in the future as game standards are demanding larger more intricate and detailed scenery.

I found it hard not because of the Directions I had to follow, but because the programs recommended only worked with XP.

If a new tutorial came out that was Vista friendly, it would make things a lot easier!

Hopefully if Importing Maps into ArmA 2 is still the same, someone will make a new tutorial anyways, the old ones are never updated. Including your Visitor 3 Quick Tutorial. The last time you updated it was Edited by Opteryx on Jan. 29 2008.

Not insulting you, but none of the tutorials are Vista friendly!

[opteryx 1562]

Yeah sorry, I don't have time to update that. You can always make a thread asking how is A/B/C done in Vista as opposed to XP.

[Brendon 0]

Yeah sorry, I don't have time to update that.  You can always make a thread asking how is A/B/C done in Vista as opposed to XP.

I did, but it never got any responses !

Either way, I've given up until ArmA 2 comes out, it looks more capable of creating my dream country. A small island with a few villages, a couple of towns too. About 2.5 Ramadi's.

[BLSmith2112 0]

Kinda sucks as I'd love to hear from BIS specifically is going to be 100% convertible and what programs to use and what can be used/what to expect etc...etc.. That way when Arma2 comes out, a world of user generated content would nearly be done (6 months from now that is when Arma2 is released).

Then we'd have a bunch of new content right away... newer players would be much more excited about the future prospects into the game, and who knows... maybe a few more modders too! Not to mention, word of mouth when people are talking "Dude check this out", to all of their coworkers, because I'm sure we all talk like that at work.

[Brendon 0]

Would be nice if the Niche Developers gave their Niche fans more niche information. niche

[W0lle 1048]

I hope so, because I can't for the life of me create an Island for Arma 1. Hopefully they release a program that is easier to use. Do you think they will release different Tools for Arma 2 since it uses a different Game Engine in General?

The tool for creating terrains for ArmA2 will be Visitor as that's the only one BIS is using.

And ArmA2 doesn't use a new engine. It's the same Virtual Reality engine they are using since OFP, just even further improved then in ArmA.

[Brendon 0]

I hope so, because I can't for the life of me create an Island for Arma 1. Hopefully they release a program that is easier to use. Do you think they will release different Tools for Arma 2 since it uses a different Game Engine in General?

The tool for creating terrains for ArmA2 will be Visitor as that's the only one BIS is using.

And ArmA2 doesn't use a new engine. It's the same Virtual Reality engine they are using since OFP, just even further improved then in ArmA.

Good to know. I should practice using visitor then.

Do you know of Any Vista friendly tutorials for visitor and island creating? I hope a new tutorial comes out for ArmA 2.

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

I hope that a more user-friendly, reliable, and mostly overall better documented version is forthcoming in the fullness of time.

I only had good results with one terrain (same size and parameters as the example island), tried to make some larger ones and could never ever get the textures to behave - on one large 50km long island I always after many many attempts got a weird line running the whole width of the landscape, erroneously thinking that land was sea or vice-versa, with no apparent reason nor fix findable.

On another, and on that one I also kept getting SEA texture on the corners of bits of land, which no amount of fiddling with the texture itself could cure.

Got kinda annoyed as it took several weeks to get up and running to that stage due to the constant re-trying of different things.

If the program had 'played nicely' with my little projects I could have possibly used that experience to move onto greater projects, unfortunately this didn't happen.

You guys that have got good results with larger islands - I take my hat off to you, and thanks for your hard work.

This was the good one, showing part of a banana plantation, the roads were all sorted properly too:

And these caused me to wring my hands in frustration:

User-friendly, documentation for all the parameter and useable combinations would possibly have helped to get those working.

edited to add pics