Simple ArmA 2 Terrain Tutorial

[spirit6 51]

Awesome! Not :(

Well when i got something working i gonna make a thread about it. By all means if only anybody knows this or knows more speak up ! :)

Ere is what is in utes config. without a doubt this has to do with it:

 class Utes_CC01
  {
   name = "$STR_LOCATION_KAMENYY";
   position[] = {3381.94,4399.93};
   type = "CityCenter";
   neighbors[] = {"Utes_CC02"};
   demography[] = {"CIV",0,"CIV_RU",1};
   radiusA = 10;
   radiusB = 10;
   angle = 0;
  };

A lot of questions arise when i see this. Ah lets port it to a new thread instead of wasting this total awesome tutorial thread with waste questions. ;)

Why is it needed to define neighbours?

What is the 0 behind "CIV" and for that the 1 behind CIV_RU?

What is the $ before taht name?

Etc etc

[Alliexx 10]

$ stands for "stringtable", this name is defined in a different file called "stringtable.xml"

So the name of this village/town is defined in a seperate file which makes sure that somebody with a different language will get the text in his language for instance.

I don't feel like explaining actually

Just extract a default mission from the game and have a look inside, they use "stringtables" too.

class Utes_CC01

{

name = "$STR_LOCATION_KAMENYY"; // name of the town

position[] = {3381.94,4399.93}; // Position of the town

type = "CityCenter"; // sort of "keypoint" ??

neighbors[] = {"Utes_CC02"}; // neighboring "keypoint(s)" towns/villages/....

demography[] = {"CIV",0,"CIV_RU",1}; .. when using the Civilian"module" in a mission this will define the "type" and howmany civis will spawn

radiusA = 10; // size of marker

radiusB = 10; // size

angle = 0; // angle ??

};

Edited October 29, 2009 by Alliexx

[bushlurker 46]

I haven't tried it yet but I think these ARE keypoints set in visitor (the neighbours and demography lines being typed into the "config" area on the keypoints window)...

I think the designated civs spawn from closed buildings within the keypoint radius, but I'm not sure if it's only certain designated buildings with something special about the particular model...

Still puzzling over this one myself.... if anyone else has other info please feel free to share...

B

Edited October 30, 2009 by Bushlurker

[ebanks129 10]

Quick question!!

How would you go about seperately packing a map if you have two under one directory?

Example: I have two maps, under this..

P:\EDE\Shekhabad_Region\

and

P:\EDE\Kapisa_Region\

is this correct for having two maps under that one directory or do i need to make another one??

[[aps]gnat 28]

It doesn't work when you select the Shekhabad_Region OR Kapisa_Region with BinPBO ?

As I've said in these forums before, the whole idea of working / placing individual projects under a "Owner" subdirectory (like EDE) seems wrong to me. All my projects work fine in the root directory of P

[.kju 3244]

So you can set P:\ as 'path to project folder' in binpbo?

[icebreakr 3157]

How come binarization takes so much time each time you run it (when you have for example three island projects in your personal P:\xxx\ folder)? Isn't there a way to skip binarization somehow and just update heightmap+objects+config?

[Snake Man 407]

Binarization takes as long as it takes. It doesn't not matter how many addons you have in your personal namespace (to which you refer as P:\xxx\ dir), for example in PMC namespace I've got 45 addons right now. You only choose one for BinPBO and binarization at one time.

If you want to speed up the process, I guess you could try the unpacked addons method. However I'm afraid I've got very limited (if any) experience on that, I have no idea if it works with terrains the same as with config and soldier etc addons. Please try and let us all know.

[.kju 3244]

The longest part is normally binarize copying all required files to the temp location.

So if this data does not change, try to disable the auto delete of temp.

Another idea is to use a RAM drive as temp location.

[icebreakr 3157]

RAM drive, what a great idea! Tnx!

[El Mariachi 0]

Left click and hold in either terrain or object mode will create a selection box you can drag

S - changes from select terrain to select objects

When in object mode:

Put the box outline cursor over an object and left click, this will select the object.

Once the object has been selected:

Hold left mouse button on selected object and move the mouse around to move the object's x-y access it.

Hold right mouse button on selected object and move to right/left to rotate it.

The two methods above give you amazing control over objects alignment and positioning in the map.

If you select multiple objects you will be able to move/rotate them all at once.

U increases the height of the object <--- This is false, or I'm not doing it right

J decreases the height of the object<--- This is false, or I'm not doing it right

Terrain editing:

U will raise the height of a vertice slightly

I will raise the height of the vertice greatly

J will lower the height of a vertice slightly

K will lower the height of a vertice greatly

About vertices:

You may have to hit F or G (i forget which) to show the arrow that goes to each centerpoint of a vertice. While moving the mouse around the map, you'll notice that the arrow cursor 'sticks' to the closest centerpoint of a vertice.

Think of a vertice as a hexagonial shape where you simply raise or lower the centerpoint of that shape. So, when you raise a vertice, it'll make a point upwards. Doing it repeatedly will make the point higher and 'sharper'. Therefore to make sure your terrain isn't too sharp, you'll have to raise the vertices around it as well.

Keep in mind also that editing vertices is pretty tedious, and it should really only be used for tweaking height.

Road networks do not act as objects, therefore you can only select, move, or budge them in Visitor 3.

Edited November 11, 2009 by El Mariachi

[noubernou 77]

If you want to speed up the process, I guess you could try the unpacked addons method.

I have not tried that yet, but THANK YOU SO MUCH! If it works out I will be in dream land. I have been doing some heavy addon editing and doing little script changes in my addons and it was beginning to be a royal pain to repack the pbo and relaunch ArmA after every change...

[mikebart 1]

Not sure if this has been solved yet and this might not be the solution for everyone, but just a note to anyone getting the "Cannot load material file namespace\islandname\data\layers\p_000-000_n_l02.rvmat.

Check that your .wrp is in your namespace\islandname directory and that your config path is right. I did alot of things to try and fix this and that was the final thing that made it work.

and make sure you have "clear temp folder" ticked.

Edited November 21, 2009 by mikebart

[Nephris1 10]

First of all a big thx to the tutorials, whithout them it would be one big mess!

I got to the point when importing my Satelite and mask.

After all is imported and Visitor should actually start to work and create the layers....it crashes without any error msg.

Guess there must be sth wrong.

I checked the paths inside the cfg to the layers, what are correct.

Sat_lco and mask_lco are at same size ...

So dou u have any hints by expierience of those crashes?

[.kju 3244]

What are your project details (size, settings, etc).

[Nephris1 10]

Terrain Grid Size 512x512
Terrain Cell Size 10.0
Terrain Size (mtr) 5120x5120

Sat.Grid
Current 48
Satelite seg. 12


Terrain. png 512x512
Sat_lco.png 5120x5120
Mask_lco.png 5120x5120

thx

[Catchyy 10]

First post

I've completed this tutorial and everything worked fine - however one problem I'm having is doing it a second time around -

different sat_lco & mask_lco - importing etc all went fine.

Upon loading i get the error "unable to load material file layers\p_000-000_l00.rvmat" however my .wrp file

is in "tagname\map\" directory and the filepath in my config is correct.

Any ideas? Cheers

[.kju 3244]

Catchy what do you have at

tools - project prefs - folder texture

Does that path equal to your addon setup (pboprefix path + subfolders)?

[Catchyy 10]

Catchy what do you have at

tools - project prefs - folder texture

Does that path equal to your addon setup (pboprefix path + subfolders)?

Bit of a late reply :D

Yeah, it's all fixed up now. Had a wrong path defined in the project preferences - had spelt a folder name incorrectly.

Cheers!

Edited December 10, 2009 by Catchyy

[likuid 10]

Hi there,

Make sure you have a "Sat_lco.png, Mask_lco.png, Maplegend.png and a Layers.cfg file in your source folder of your project.

Make sure that the colors used on your mask_lco.png file are all defined in the layers.cfg file.

Make sure that the paths in the layers.cfg are all pointing to your texture folder (P:\tut\tut_samplemap\data\texture_name.paa.

Make sure the path to the maplegend.png file in the layers.cfg file is right.

It must have to do with a wrong path or missing file,

A bit of a jump on the board, but I just wanted to say thanks man.. I kept running into no maplegend.png error and couldn't figure it out. I for some reason didn't even think to check the Layers.cfg. All I had to do was mod the picture= by one path name.

Anyway thank you, you have helped me on my way to ARMA2 modding greatness. One more step down the path of understanding the system from the ground up.

[minimalaco 30]

hello, before beginning to read the tutorial, lowering the programs, etc… I have Windows 7 64 bits, gives to some east problem operating system?

[zombo 10]

I need this tutorial in spanish (español) or more videos plz!!! I need a tutorial for this part :How to Extract Pbo files?. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND PLZ MAKE A VIDEO !! !

Edited January 15, 2010 by zombo

[hotzenplotz 138]

Hi we have been building some islands for Arma 2 and we are stilll having the problem to pack the Pbo file . Could this be related to the configfile? We can see the island at briefing but when we start the game crashses. Does any one know what causes this problem.

Thanks

Ok Works , i look in Page 5

Edited January 25, 2010 by Hotzenplotz

[Mickd 0]

hey guys, just wondering which PBO do you open to get ground texture RVMATS. I opened chernarus_Data and the three of the files i need are there but no RVMATs. Anyone shed any light.

A second question is: Is it possible to use ground textures from ArmA if you copy over the RVMATS and .paas?

[bushlurker 46]

If you've done the tutorial you'll have an RVMAT - you can make your own from that - one for each texture, properly named and referencing the correct files, but otherwise the same...

And... yeah, at least the couple of A1 textures I've tried worked fine...

B

Edited February 2, 2010 by Bushlurker