Simple ArmA 2 Terrain Tutorial

[Civilian_88 10]

Ok, first I created the Bis Tools 2 Folder in C: then i got my P: virtual drive then the problem that is halting me is the D**M pbo! Wheres the help when you need it. its giving me " Incorrect Command Line " whet the hell am i doing wrong? :mad:

is there any other program that can unpack pbos and pack them? OFP had a nice one why cant this modern game have a nice application like them?

Edited July 30, 2010 by Civilian_88

[McGregor_CiA 19]

Hello, the tutorial mentioned in the first post tells me that it's best to install BI Editing tools 2 to a clean empty partition. Why is this and how large does it have to be?

Also under the setting up visitor part it gives the hint: If you are using arma2.exe from your present game version then you need to replace the bin folder in p:/ with the extracted bin.pbo from your present game version too, otherwise there is a mismatch of shaders. What does this mean?

I have not started anything yet. Not installed or anything because I want to read as much as I can before... In my experience it's allways best to read first :-D

I will probably start tomorrow... Any help and/or answers to my questions is much appreciated

[bushlurker 46]

Hi guys...

OK... a couple of quick answers...

is there any other program that can unpack pbos and pack them?

Eliteness is a favourite with many people, it pretty much does everything in a nice GUI... more recently I've been using Kegetys Cpbo (new OA-compatible version) and Mikeros Derapify for unpacking .bin files... it doesn't matter what you use - just pick one and get it installed and working...

the tutorial mentioned in the first post tells me that it's best to install BI Editing tools 2 to a clean empty partition. Why is this and how large does it have to be?

Not sure why exactly, but it gets quite big once you unpack everything into P:\ - which is really just a virtual "P:\" drive, its really just a folder in with the BIS Tools... My setup is a 500gb drive split into C: and D: with C: for system & progs, and BIS Tools plus assorted storage on D:... something along those lines if you can arrange it... my current "BIS Tools 2" folder, (which as mentioned above actually contains "P:\" too) currently weighs in at 12.4Gb, so allow yourself a bit more than that if you can...

If you are using arma2.exe from your present game version then you need to replace the bin folder in p:/ with the extracted bin.pbo from your present game version too, otherwise there is a mismatch of shaders

When the Tools are installed, you'll find a file called "buldozer.exe" on the P:\ drive - Visitor and O2, etc use this as a basic "viewer" program so you can see your work properly rendered - in effect, its a chopped down version of the actual game .exe...

Because of this - you can choose to use the actual game .exe file instead - so you're viewing your work in the "latest version"...

The "BIN" folder needs to match the .exe you use...

The "Bin" folder on P:\ is installed to match "buldozer.exe" when used as a viewer - if you set the tools up to use "arma2OA.exe" as the viewer, it'll require its own "BIN" folder - so you need to replace the default one on P:\ with the one from OA...

Thats a techie minor point for later on so, now you know - forget about that for now... concentrate on getting a nice clean default tools install done... then start that Sgt Ace Tutorial!

*edit* - speaking of SgtAce tutorials... I nearly forgot theres a Sgt Ace "installing the BIS tools" video tutorial

which might also be helpful...

B

Edited July 31, 2010 by Bushlurker

[Civilian_88 10]

ok i tried the Mikeros and nothing the files wouldnt unpack, same with Kagetys i get a "no parameter" error simply i cant unpbo the files.

im so fraustrated i been for a day with no success, and help is limited

[Civilian_88 10]

can someone help me fix this problem?

using ELiteness: extract pbo>> cannot make folder

[McGregor_CiA 19]

Thank you Bushlurker for making those things a little more clear for me.. I still havent started anything yet... a bit hungover so I think I'll wait. But I have a clean 1Tb drive I will use for the tools, so I should'nt run out of space :D...

I will try to get my install nice and tidy and then i guess I'll be back with more questions. Will check the video tut aswell...

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

Basically I posted a question about the binarize process not working, I figured out that the problem was actually an ID10-T error between the chair and keyboard.

Can't get the map to appear ingame though?

Edited August 16, 2010 by TechnoTerrorist303

[deltaGhost 10]

Finish lingor dude , cant wait ;) pls go fast i want to run in there with my clan playing operations and killing enemies on the middle of the jungles ;)

[Geo1 10]

I've just read this tutorial and it really is easy to understand and use.. Good Job!

..But now i've got a problem,

when i start binPBO, windows (7) immidiately says binarize.exe has stopped working.

There are 2 files created in the tut\addons folder and it is possible to load the mod

but when i start the 3d editor or missionwizzard it crashes with the error

"cannot load material file layers\p_000-000_100.rvmat."

please help me to get this to work.

##Also buldozer doesnt show anything.. i can hover through the map, but when i just press all keys on the keyboard

(U,I,J,K have visible effect on the level) but when i get in some sort of menu (F1), there are textboxes without text when i click one i get following error

"No entry 'bin\configt.cpp/RscDisplayConfigure/controls/ControlsPage.arrowEmpty'."

Edited August 19, 2010 by Geo1

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

I'm slowly going insane(er).

I have successfully got the tutorial island into visitor, imported the sat and mask and then previewed in bulldozer. First run of bulldozer shows the conversion of the textures and the island appears fine. When I run binpbo with settings as stated in the tutorial it creates a PBO file with no errors in configs etc. After all this, the map still doesn't appear in game...

What are the possible reasons for this and can someone please mail me a hammer so I can beat myself around the head, it's more entertaining and less painful than attempting to get this working.

[akio 10]

Your file *cpp is called config.cpp ?

And in your file config.cpp, check the path of your world.

Example:

worldName=\My_Map\SampleMap\SampleMap.wrp;

And in your file config.cpp, have you given a name with for example :

units[] = {SampleMap};

description = "My Sample Map";

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

I used the config and all the files from the tutorial.

[akio 10]

When you look at the shortcut properties "Arma2"

In target after \arma2.exe" you have marked -mod=@TUT.

Have you left a space between \arma2.exe" and -mod=@TUT because it takes a space

Edited August 23, 2010 by akio

[bushlurker 46]

Theres not really enough info to go on, TechnoTerrorist...

Part of the BINpbo process is defining a path where the final island file will be created... does a file appear there when BINPbo finishes? do you actually GET a .wrp file? is it in a proper modfolder? do you have that modfolder added to your shortcut when you run the game?

Thats a few basic "mechanical" reasons why the island might not show up... There could be others - config.cpp stuff etc like akio says... is this the actual tutorial island you're doing? - no actual changes to the config, etc yet - you're just trying to follow the tutorial all the way thru? - in that case it's liable to be a BINpbo/paths/something issue rather than bad paths in the config, etc... the tutorial DOES work - all the way to island in-game, so theres gotta be some sort of basic mixup somewhere...

Assuming it's just the island files and config - untouched - that you're using..... post your BINpbo settings... everything you see on the main wee BINpbo window, plus the window that appears when you click "options"... one "/" out of place in these settings can cause problems... that was my personal first island nightmare... 3 days failing to binarize - because of one extra "/"... we've all been there... ;)

PS - if you've changed ANYTHING in the tutorial config, we need to know about/see that too.....

B

Edited August 23, 2010 by Bushlurker

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

Ok I just did this as a sanity check after deleting the tutorial island folder and starting again. I did exactly what the tutorial said to do regarding importing from picture, setting grid size, texture paths etc. I saved the .WRP file into the TUT_SampleMap folder and then went to binpbo. Let's assume that all the stages before binpbo were done correctly.

In binpbo I have the following settings (my tools drive is R not P because I already have a P)

addon source directory r:\tut\tut_samplemap\

destination directory d:\

path to temp folder r:\bin_temp\

path to project folder r:\tut\

use source path is unticked

addon prefix is blank

My normal procedure is to then copy that file from the root of D into the relevant mod\addons folder and then run the game with the correct shortcut. I KNOW that I'm doing that right, other mods/islands run fine.

[bushlurker 46]

Try this...

addon source directory r:\tut\tut_samplemap

destination directory d:\

path to temp folder r:\bin_temp

path to project folder r:\tut\

in the "options" section, tick both the "Create log file" at the top, and "Automatically" at the bottom if you haven't already, though the main thing is those "\"'s...

Give it a try with the above paths...

(you're fine with setting the "destination directory" to point anywhere you want - I send mine to the desktop... it's the other paths which are pretty unforgiving...)

B

Edited August 23, 2010 by Bushlurker

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

You sir are a god amongst men.

Map now in and working... It's now time to cause even more problems for myself by making my own :)

Thanks very much for the help!

Edited August 24, 2010 by TechnoTerrorist303

[bushlurker 46]

I can't take the credit really... the paths I told you to use ARE the paths as stated in the tutorial... the tutorial IS correct...

Well done getting it all working, by the way... Welcome to island-making!

B

Edited August 26, 2010 by Bushlurker

[Depth08 10]

when i use pack on binPBO It does the job but says don't send while on the first step of objects p3d. Don't send message says that binarize.exe had crashed.

I didn't have anything ingame until I re-added .wrp to the list of files. Very unclear about that.

But loading time takes very long I think binarization was a mess.

Help me!

Edited August 28, 2010 by Depth08

[[aps]gnat 28]

If load times are long then you havent binarized the wrp file.

By adding any files to the binPBO list (ie *.wrp) you exclude the tool trying to binarize it and the tool will just copy the file as is.

[Depth08 10]

Well then something is seriously wrong with my binPBO!!

i'm gonna download a new one later on.

[CodyLang 0]

This is my first time playing around with this, but I have vista. Is it not supported yet? I can't find the P:/ drive.

[shezan74 11]

This is my first time playing around with this, but I have vista. Is it not supported yet? I can't find the P:/ drive.

P: drive is a virtual drive, that is mounted by tools when installed.

If you follow the tutorial you can find everything you need to start.

Tutorial is on first page of this thread.

[Robster 11]

Hello everyone,

I am a newbie and I need to know what I am doing wrong with BIS tutorial

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA_2_Terrain_Tutorial

My problem is that I can not see the sat map view on Visitor 3... but I can see it on bulldozer... weird

All I got in V3 is that sort of height map but nothing else... no airport nor anything... :(

I tried with a pretty big map (about 20 square kms.) and it not just did the sat map but also i could made my pbo and fly around this map in game editor...

So, does anybody knows what's wrong with these pngs and cfgs from TUT_SampleMask...

Thanks in advance

PD: I am just trying to help a friend of mine with this huge map and actually I need a little one to learn the basics and test some ideas dealing with roads particularly...

Edited September 29, 2010 by Robster
this is my first post, accordingly XD

[luki 53]

Hey,

The tutorial is not from BIS, its more a collection of infos alredy present and a Guide for Beginners. Did you followed the steps in the tutorial? You are complaining about some cfgs and mask problems from the tut map, but your working on another map? So please clarify exactly what you mean and where your problems are.