Zipper5 74 Posted February 4, 2010 I'm pretty sure that since BIA developed those tools shown in VBS 1.3 that it's up to BIA to release them to us, not BIS. When you spend over $1000 on VBS2, there's a reason that you get such nicer things than you do in ArmA II for $40. That seems like something people are not going to accept in this community so long as the VBS series continues... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
icewindo 29 Posted February 4, 2010 I'm pretty sure that since BIA developed those tools shown in VBS 1.3 that it's up to BIA to release them to us, not BIS. When you spend over $1000 on VBS2, there's a reason that you get such nicer things than you do in ArmA II for $40... Right, the U.S. Military spends thousands of dollars solely in the interest of creating virtual maps! Who needs AARs, Shooting out of vehicles, IEDs, New inventory system, be able to set arc of fires, Medevacs, Reports, the "gameplay" at all and alot of other extensions when you can create maps! After all, VBS2 is all about creating maps... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darkhorse 1-6 16 Posted February 4, 2010 Icewindo I think he meant that as a blanket statement for all the features. I'm actually surprised it's that easy to create something like that, considering the Army policy alot of people are familiar with. I am of course referring to "Hurry Up and Wait". lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zipper5 74 Posted February 4, 2010 Right, the U.S. Military spends thousands of dollars solely in the interest of creating virtual maps!Who needs AARs, Shooting out of vehicles, IEDs, New inventory system, be able to set arc of fires, Medevacs, Reports, the "gameplay" at all and alot of other extensions when you can create maps! After all, VBS2 is all about creating maps... ... You know... You... Just... Eugh... I can't be bothered... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
enad 11 Posted February 4, 2010 Cool! I cant wait for the update! I really wish you wouldn't stop making maps. Your the best map maker there is! Also, any update on the Afrene Troops?? I'm really holding back on making some cool mission since I don't have any Afrene Soldiers. :| Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beton 2 Posted February 4, 2010 This seems to go very much of topic? Maybe we should open a new thread to bring together all the tiny things like linemapper, maskmapper, visitorcripts etc and we will have something equal. By the way.. mapmaking is much more than placing objects via layermask as some others might know. @ icebreaker: i hope you do not retire from mapping as your islands are great just take a break. I know it is very timeconsuming and sometimes frustrating. For me it has been mapping 99.5% vs. 0.5% playing the game in the last year. have fun Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
icebreakr 3159 Posted February 4, 2010 (edited) Ok enough of "off-topic", here's a new Duala ;) v1.3 - finished construction of island Vixena on SW, featuring towns, fishing villages, farms, prison and a port. Since good stuff is reserved for VBS2 users I tried to get inspiration from its screenshots. Hopefully Vixena became something you will want to visit often. Just keep away from Ramon's property, Plantation on SW... even local army won't go there. - brand new satellite image with improved textures, improved normals for ground textures - added two new wall types with new textures - Afrene invested a lot of money into an upgrade of Tasmera Jungle airport infrastructure - Kinsella finally got its ferry port completed - fixed bug with pbo & sign file, signed dedicated servers should work now - other small bugfixes Download @Slovenia 1000MB (167 MB) *thumbs up* Edited February 4, 2010 by IceBreakr Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted February 4, 2010 Thank you for update IceBreakr but you have wrong link for download in your post. Right link: http://www.vojak.si/ftp/Duala/isladuala_v13.7z :cool: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sic-disaster 311 Posted February 4, 2010 What on earth does that website say? :P I cant find any link to download the map. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted February 4, 2010 SiC-Disaster: check my post above. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dragonbaron 10 Posted February 4, 2010 @Pauliesss: Thank you for the correct download link. @IceBreakr: Respect! Thank you for your great work and the current update. A big thanks also to all other persons involved. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
icebreakr 3159 Posted February 4, 2010 Link fixed. *blush* Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AnimalMother92 10 Posted February 4, 2010 Thanks for the update :) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alex72 1 Posted February 5, 2010 (edited) First off... AAARRGGHH! The master island maker will stop?! With OA coming i hoped to see more work from you Ice because of the obvious amazing talent you have doing this. Second, I understand though mate. I have friends starting on ARMA island making telling me after a bit of work that it will take them at least 6 months to make the island decent. Thats a huge task and deserves total respect of those who actually finish islands and share them. So big thanks to you Ice for delivering the great work youve done to us mate. They are superb work by a very talented guy. I made some islands for "Deer Hunter 2005" wich got used by official tournaments, and they got used becuase i made them with lots of clutter and tried to make them as realistic as possible. However it took about 2-4 weeks some hours a day to make them so it cant be any where near compared to ARMA island making. So i understand your decision if you decide to stop. Not because we dont get the VBS tools (that cost so much more sadly) but because of the huge task it is to deliver a good ARMA island with the current state of the tools (wich we are happy to have though ofcourse). So, i dearly hope before BI closing the chapter on ARMA (and moves on to their other projects) that they release some update on the tools, and make it at least a bit more simpler because it would definatelly breath more life into ARMA with OA coming. I wanted to start learning Visitor but after hearing the months of work it needs i just cant get the time no matter how much i want to, and as a result it would probably take me years to finish one single island. If it was made a bit simpler, less time consuming, even i would start, and probably many others. Right, time to check out your latest update of Isla Duala. Thank you tons IceBreakr for all your hard work. It is much much appreciated. :) Alex Edited February 5, 2010 by Alex72 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darkhorse 1-6 16 Posted February 5, 2010 First off... AAARRGGHH! The master island maker will stop?! With OA coming i hoped to see more work from you Ice because of the obvious amazing talent you have doing this. Second, I understand though mate. I have friends starting on ARMA island making telling me after a bit of work that it will take them at least 6 months to make the island decent. Thats a huge task and deserves total respect of those who actually finish islands and share them. So big thanks to you Ice for delivering the great work youve done to us mate. They are superb work by a very talented guy. I made some islands for "Deer Hunter 2005" wich got used by official tournaments, and they got used becuase i made them with lots of clutter and tried to make them as realistic as possible. However it took about 2-4 weeks some hours a day to make them so it cant be any where near compared to ARMA island making. So i understand your decision if you decide to stop. Not because we dont get the VBS tools (that cost so much more sadly) but because of the huge task it is to deliver a good ARMA island with the current state of the tools (wich we are happy to have though ofcourse). So, i dearly hope before BI closing the chapter on ARMA (and moves on to their other projects) that they release some update on the tools, and make it at least a bit more simpler because it would definatelly breath more life into ARMA with OA coming. I wanted to start learning Visitor but after hearing the months of work it needs i just cant get the time no matter how much i want to, and as a result it would probably take me years to finish one single island. If it was made a bit simpler, less time consuming, even i would start, and probably many others. Right, time to check out your latest update of Isla Duala. Thank you tons IceBreakr for all your hard work. It is much much appreciated. :) Alex +1 :pray: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
enad 11 Posted February 5, 2010 Quick question. Where are those cool buildings you retextured? I did a brief look around with V.102 and I could find any. They were still Blue and tan. Are they only in certain parts of the map? Also, any WIP shots on those Afrene troops? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
minimalaco 30 Posted February 5, 2010 nice work ice, thank's Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
W0lle 1052 Posted February 5, 2010 Based on what I saw in this VBS2 1.3 video I'm cancelling all my map making. I'll update Duala and Panthera, but I will cancel all upcoming island projects. Sorry, but I won't loose weeks and months of work working on obsolete tools knowing that authors have tools that can shorten months into weeks. Hope you all understand. Seriously mate, don't do that. While I (somewhat) can understand how you feel I also must say that you're 'punishing' the wrong people. It's not the community's fault that VBS2 customers (which paid more than 50 times the price ArmA2 costs) have a better set of tools for terrain creation. And in all honesty, I personally prefer terrains with lots of details over quickly thrown together maps created in a couple of days or weeks. And if creating terrains with the VBS2 tools is so much easier how come then there are not even a dozen of (VBS2) community created terrains available? And the majority of those available were made by a true professional (and even he spent weeks if not months on those maps). If the (VBS2)tools are that easy to use there should be tons of all kind of maps available by now. Believe me that's not the case. And if the tools are so easy to use, why then training courses are offered? The weeks and months you spent on Panthera and Duala are clearly visible everywhere on the maps, and yes you surely set a standard with them. Your efforts are highly appreciated and on behalf of the community I can only hope you change your mind some day. Quality over quantity - anytime. :) A "privilege" ??? ...man, they don´t do a favor to us uh ... we actually BOUGHT his product (fully bugged by the way) ... please don´t say this kind of things, specially when here are people who deserve most of anybody get this "help" of bis....don´t forget that if ArmA or ArmA2 are still alive is for this people who works on it (addon´s makers, map´s makers, mod´s makers). I said that several times before, and I say it again just for you: It is a privilege. Simply because nowhere on your ArmA2 box it says that you get free Modding tools. Yes you bought that the product (the game), you have not bought any modding tools. That might be hard but that's how it is. The tools are free giveaway from BIS to the community. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AnimalMother92 10 Posted February 5, 2010 Exactly what W0lle said. The effort put into Duala clearly shows. It feels so professional. It's the kind of thing that could be included in the full game and no one would know that a community member did it on his own time...for free! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jay316 0 Posted February 5, 2010 Thanks for the updated map version Icebreakr. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 46 Posted February 5, 2010 (edited) I think I can summarise Ice's frustration with the VBS tools depicted in the video in one word... ROADS! What do we actually see in the video that we can't currently do? The demonstrator has what looks like a DEM derived terrain with a matching terrain detail raster - OK, we have them too, and though the capability isn't embedded in Visitor 3, there are several GIS applications around that can be used to manipulate and crop these data. He clicks around an area and essentially makes a "shapefile" designating a wooded area... OK, again we can do that in a GIS or even a paint program... magic wand around areas, fill them all with a colour - export as a BMP and then, thanks to Rockets excellent Maskmapper script, we can generate an import file... a bit of a fuss compared to the video, but we can achieve the same results no problems... Then, the demo shows the operator designating a road, again via a sort of line/shape selecting procedure (can do that in microdem or photoshop so far, so we're OK), but then with a couple of clicks, he's able to lay the appropriate road pieces, following that defined line... This is where we lose it... we have no comparable capability (although again Rocket seemed to have a script that threatened to maybe do this with some items, though not roads so far at least)... So whats the problem? - thanks to Rocket we have almost "autoforests" now, why is roads such a big deal??? It can be difficult to believe if you've never actually attempted island making, but easily half if not more of the "6 months to make a decent island" can be taken up laying roads! While typing this I have visitor open in another window - laying roads... I have an overlay graphic loaded (derived from a shapefile made by clicking along roads just as depicted in Visitor 4)... since I have no V4 "click to lay road" button here's how it goes... lay 12m road piece - curve approaching, so lay a left turn 75 radius piece - alt tab into bulldozer - hmm, need a tighter turn - alt tab back - delete 75 radius piece - add 50 radius piece - alt tab to buldozer - thats ok - add 6m straight piece - alt tab to buldozer - hmm, better make that a 12m piece then another curve coming - alt tab back, delete 6m straight piece, insert 12 m piece - ok, gettin the hang of this now, reckon a 25 radius right turn needed now - add it - alt tab into buldozer so it updates - yup looks ok - alt tab back - ok now a 12m straight bit......... I think everybodys getting the picture by now... we covered about 50m there and it took about 10 minutes... after a while you do learn to anticipate well and it goes faster - sometimes... Then of course - you have to smooth the road - not without its problems with the current best option - the smooth roads script... it has a tendency to do THIS quite a lot, which requires a considerable amount of ironing flat with a road chunk, tweaking one cell vertice at a time with Visitor, and various other workarounds... that can easily take double or even triple the amount of time the road laying did... I can spare 2 - 4 hours in an evening if I'm lucky to work on my island... in that time I reckon I've done really well if I manage to get 1 - 1.5km of road laid and smoothed reasonably in an evening (with roads that travel in certain directions you can spend a whole evening just laboriously smoothing a small dodgy section - see pic #3 and#4 in the link above)... On my 20x20km island I reckon theres around 120+ km of roads... at 1km an evening thats a solid 4 months of 7 nights a week work... In the Visitor 4 video we see this entire task seemingly depicted as taking a few clicks, from map to drivable road! ...You can see why a certain sense of frustration might kick in on seeing that... Anyway... That summarises the issue for those non-island makers wondering what all the fuss is about... Like Wolle says - the tools are a gift - technically BIS don't need to bother, however, as we all know this particular game series has a worldwide reputation for the quantity and quality of its user-made content... no other game even comes close... BIS aren't crazy - quite the opposite, and for that reason I have a sneaky feeling that they haven't finished with the tools kit yet... To return to my roads example above... I do have a guide overlay in place in Visitor, if I could somehow "click ahead" a small distance at a time, and have Visitor automatically build a road using appropriate parts up to that point, then click ahead again, etc etc - and not have to select each piece manually, then while not in the same league as Visitor 4 that would still be a BIG improvement over current procedure. And if I could then "smooth roads" and it did a bit better job of it ;) then I could be looking at a month of work on roads - not 4 or more !! The island might still take 6 months, but I would be able to spend 3 more months on the "little details", the "quality" that everybody likes and admires so much on IceBreakrs work! Imagine how detailed his islands would be if the vast majority of his time was spent on that - not on endless low-level mechanical plodding, laying basic surfaces... The (almost) good news is that there IS just such a facility built into Visitor 3! It just doesn't work..... Maybe the community will come to the rescue... Rockets linemapper script seemed promising, though he hasn't mentioned any progress recently... Other than that, currently our best hope is that BIS will at least take a further look at Visitor 3... I certainly hope so... B * apologies to Ice for what turned into a huge post and... thanks yet again for another new version !!!!! Edited February 5, 2010 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Potatomasher 0 Posted February 5, 2010 Thanks IceBreakr for the update and all the work you have done so far with high quality maps. Without people like you and other addon makers this sim wouldn't be what it is now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thales100 10 Posted February 5, 2010 The weeks and months you spent on Panthera and Duala are clearly visible everywhere on the maps, and yes you surely set a standard with them. x2, absolutely. Thanks for the update IceBreakr Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lonestar 11 Posted February 5, 2010 (edited) Thank you Bushlurker for the explanation, it gave me a better idea of what it is like to be an island maker on A2. You guies deserve respect for all the time you put in such creations. ---------- Post added at 12:56 ---------- Previous post was at 12:25 ---------- Armaholic download page updated: Isla Duala v1.3 beta Edited February 5, 2010 by Lonestar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bfalcon 10 Posted February 5, 2010 Bush: thank m8 - I had no idea it was so clumsy, to be honest... :( I always thought the roads were some kind of bezier curve, joined at the junctions. :( One thing Ice: No Afrene troops in the update - you guys got problems with them? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
