Really Dumb questions

[Helepolis989 10]

I have a couple questions, i have read the tutorial and manual a few times over and i still cant figure out a few things.

Looking at the manual it has a picture of some kind of hill with a tree, how do i get it to do that because anytime i make grass...considering that i did it right was just an ellipse or something. I dont get it, and then after i figure this out how do i move to making it elevated.

Also, do i have to make a new object for every building/sign/tree/flower that i put on my island or is there a different way.

[bad benson 1733]

grass should be made as clutter. if u don't get what i mean just reread the tutorial SLOWLY and follow it step by step as u read it. u have to memorize certain steps u'll always have to take to make a map for arma2.

rewriting the tutorial here in the forums doesn't help anybody. i don't wanna be harsh just wanna say: follow the steps of the tutorial like a stupid robot and when u have everything ingame u can start experimenting. otherwise it'll make u go nuts...believe me...been there;)

[Alliexx 10]

Hi,

I dont understand your questions ?

To make an island for arma2 you need a couple of things, first of all you need the game Arma2 installed on your PC, then second, you need the arma tools installed on your pc.

The tools are actually a suite of tools, it contains more the 1 application, the installation it self is straight forward, just install everything , keep clicking next.

After installation of the tools you should have a new "virtual" harddrive called P.

On this P drive some folders and files are pre installed.

Now check the P:\CA folder, inside this folder you will probably see a Roads, roads2 and plants2 folder.

This P:\CA folder is the location where all "3d models" from the game will be stored, to have all the models from the game you have to manually put addons from arma to this folder, only then are you able to put these object on your island in Visitor.

Now how do you get all your addons from your game to this P:\CA folder ?

First you need some more tools, for this i recommend to read the part for this in the manual from SgtAce.

* How to Extract Pbo files?

* Dowload the latest Versions of ExtractPbo and DePbo by Mikero at DevHeaven

* Extract them to whereever you like, as long as YOU know where.....

* Move the DePbo.dll from the dowloaded DePbo into the ..Windows\System32 folder (as explained in the readme.DePbo.txt)

* Rightclick on a *.pbo and choose Open with, then point to the ExtractPbo\ExtractPbo.exe (remember where you saved it :) )and mark the checkbox to always open this filetype with ExtractPbo.exe.

* Now each time you unpack a *.pbo by doubleclick you´ll recieve a clean unpacked file with *.p3ds, config.cpp and all other stuff from the pbo.

* There are of course much further ways to extract pbos and unrap config.bin's but this is a very conformable one.

Link for dpbo and extractpbo: http://dev-heaven.net/projects/list_files/mikero-pbodll

If you have done this right you can now go to your game directory and go in the ADDONS folder "D:\Program files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\AddOns"

Inside this directory you see a shht load of files ending with .pbo, all these files are containing models and other stuff which we need to start building an island.

Extract the folders you think you need, here is a picture off all my addons i extracted: http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2711/addonsb.jpg

When you have extracted them you can put all the extracted folders in the P:\CA\ folder, but please note !!! the PLANTS2 and BUILDINGS folder need some special attention, asswell as the ROADS2 folder. The ROADS folder is actually the roads from the ARMA 1 game, as you see in my picture i do not use that.

Lets start with the PLANTS2 folder, best is to take SgtAce his manual again and quote him again:

* 1: Go to P:\CA\ and create a new folder called plants2.

* 2: Browse to your ArmA2 main directory/Addons folder and unpack the plants2_bush, plants2_clutter, plants2_misc, plants2_tree .pbo's

* 3: Rename this extracted folders by removing "plants2_" of the name.

* 4: Cut&Paste the bush, clutter, misc and tree folders to the new created P:\CA\plants2\ folder.

* 5: Do the same with the building2.pbo. This time Ind_Cementworks, needs to be inside Buildings2 !

* 6: Now extract the Ca.pbo but only Cut&Paste the stuff inside the extracted Ca.pbo to P:\CA\

sample picture of the plants2 layout : http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/1020/plants2.jpg

sample picture of cementwork in buildings2 : http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/6483/buildcement.jpg

As you can read he also mentioned the BUILDINGS2 folder in there, i did the same for that with the BUILDINGS2_Ind_CEMENTWORK one, check my picture, my Ind_cementwork is inside the buildings2 folder(same as plant :) ).

Also pay close attention to the CA addon, you do not copy the whole extracted ca folder but only the stuff inside, and it goes straight into the P:\CA folder.

ROADS2 folder !!!!!!!!!

Inside the pre installed roads2 folder are the "open" P3D files, when you extract the roads2 folder in your game addon folder, DON'T copy the CLOSED P3d files !!!!!!

DONT OVERRIDE YOUR OPEN ROADS2 P3D FILES !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok first phase is done, we can still not start visitor, we need much more before we can begin.

To be able to make an island we have to have some data to work from, i mean you need to have an idea of what you want to build, what do you have as a reference?

Do you have a high definition satellite image, do you have a height map, and what kind of height map data do you have. You are able to make the terrain inside visitor, but trust me you do not want to try that. The 'u','i','j' and 'k' are the keys inside visitor to change terrain height, its ok to fine tune, but not to make an island with. There's more options inside visitor, but forget about them for now.

My personal option was google earth, because i bought a download tool for it so i'm able to download very high detailed pictures of unbelievable size. So that was my reference to work from. First i needed the size to be right and decide my pixel:size ratio.

So i ended up with a satellite picture of 20480X20480 pixels representing a game world of 20480km X 20480km, this is the whole island with the surrounding sea, my landmass is about 12X7km.

This is a very simplified situation i'm describing here, there's much more to an accurate calculation of size and game size and whatever you can think off, actually there is something called "blue edge TM" in visitor that gives more offset which has to be taken into account, but for me this is only a hobby for a game and i don't bother to much with precision !

Ok, smoked to much, lets presume you have like me only a satellite picture to start and make your island out off.

Then the next thing you need is the height map of your satellite map. Again more ways lead to Rome so i just point out 2 tools , they are called Wilbur and L3DT.

These tools are great to work with and to make whatever (height)terrain you can think off.

I read that you picked Wilbur.

When you are happy with your terrain in Wilbur you save it as TERRAIN.PNG, click yes when it ask to save in 16bit values. The size of that png should be for instance 1/10th of the size of your Satellite picture Size, it is not mandatory, but you do not want to much detail, but you will figure that out true trail by error dont worry. :)

Next is the correct project folder layout on your P drive, your projects folder whci holds all other files needed to run visitor with your island.

Things needed in your project folder on P are :

* A Terrain.png file (grey scale height image)

* A Terrain.pbl file ( config file used to import your terrain.png into visitor)

* A Sat_lco.png file ( this is the actual satellite picture which is used to make the landscape representing your picture.

* A Mask_lco.png file ( this file is the same size as your sat pic, but this one represent the textures, this is a picture with only rgb colors representing where what textures are used)

* A Maplegend.png file ( this file indexes the colors from the mask file )

* A Layers.cfg file ( this config defines the textures which will be used with our mask file)

And then you need a set of textures with config files, these textures can be borrowed from the game itself, for instance when you extract Utes or Charnacus, you can just use them.

One textures consist of 3 .paa files and a RVmat file, so when you use 4 different textures, you will have 12 .paa files and 4 rvmat files.

* A config.cpp file which holds all defines and values needed to pack your island before you can play it ingame.

Where to place them in your project folder is another thing, i do not have my game pc close at hand so i can not give you a sample picture, but i will upload a picture tonight in which you can see where to place all these files.

This is the basic layout : http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/1686/basicpdrive.jpg

DO NOT GET CONFUSED about the ca folder on the "sample_tag" folder, this ca folder ONLY contains the config files from the P:\CA folder.

To get those config files all to the right location i again point out to SgtAce his manual:

# 1: Following now a quite important part where we make sure that we have working animations/ladders on our Terrain. For that we need the respective config files from each Object which we´re about to use within our terrain.

# 2: To do that we can easy create a small bat or use the windows command line: Navigate to the P:\ca folder and

# 3: Run the following dos command: xcopy *.cpp P:\<YourNamespace>\ca\ /S /Y Or manually move the cpps with the correct folder structur to your namespace

o If your not familiar with cmd then put this copy_cpp.bat in your P:\CA\ foldier and run it.

* This command creates a duplicate set of '\ca' folders under your namespace and copies only the config.cpp files to each subfolder.

* Read more about that in Synides Great Tutorial ArmA_Build_Environment_Setup

So that is the way to go for getting the ladders and stuff to work.

Now the rest of the files.

* All texture and Rvmat files go into the DATA folder in your project folder, so P:\Sample_tag\Sample_map\data.

* The sat_lco, mask_lco, Maplegend.png and the layers.cfg files go into the "source" folder so P:\Sample_tag\Sample_map\source

* The terrain.pbl and the terrain.png go into the terrain folder inside the source folder, and P:\Sample_tag\Sample_map\source\terrain

And then the most important file, the main config.cpp for the island, this file needs to be stored in the "sample_map" folder. P:\Sample_tag\Sample_map

This is about all you need before you can start Visitor.

I'll continue later, have a nice day.

Later,

Alphons

Edited October 20, 2009 by Alliexx

[Kuris 10]

I also have a dumb question which I haven't found the answer for.

I have been fixing different kind of surfaces with clutters and I was wondering that how can I make forests? Do I have to put every single tree in the Visitor or can I use trees as clutter?

[spirit6 51]

I also have a dumb question which I haven't found the answer for.

I have been fixing different kind of surfaces with clutters and I was wondering that how can I make forests? Do I have to put every single tree in the Visitor or can I use trees as clutter?

The short answer: yes you place them all by hand.

Clutter is generated fun looking ground stuff. Thats all. They dont hold bullets and are shown to a limited range only (arranged in config). People playing with very low terrain settings will not see it. Another reason why a forest made by clutter is not a wanted way to go.

The easier way but not perfect way to place a lot of stuff is here:

Randomobjectplacer

Place in your visitor script directory. Run script in visitor under yes: scripts.

Another practise is make a nice looking combination of forest. Select it all, press ctrl-c (copy) and then paste like a mad man (dont forget a cold beer while doing this:P)

Good luck.

Edited October 19, 2009 by spirit6

[Kuris 10]

Randomobjectplacer

Thanks mate. :)

[Helepolis989 10]

well i figured it out, not sound like an ass, but i have read that tutorial probably over 100 times to figure it out. I did figure out what i needed though, i was trying to use the visitor to set all the heights, water, hills.etc and i figured out i needed the WILBUR thing to do all of this, which i am now using, and am having some pretty good success at it. After that i guess i will need to figure out how to do the clutter and things but i am not gonna be posting anything about that since im sure there is plenty of topics about it. so thanks, i suppose.

[bad benson 1733]

see? just like i said:p

welcome to arma2 island making. it's fun...most of the time;)

[Alliexx 10]

Yea thats what i said, :)

Still i think i tried to explain the hardest part, however.... hmmmm

---------- Post added at 06:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:25 PM ----------

This works fine for multiple models at once, you can just select multiple trees, bushes, plants and clutters.

This will give very diverse forrest or whatever you can come up with

The random object script that is :)

[Kuris 10]

Yeah.. I tested the Random object placer and put 50 % on my first run with 3 different piceas selected. It was nearly so dense forest that I almost couldn't run through it... Well after some testing I think that 5-10 % is enough dense while not being too heavy.

Seems to be a good script. :)

[prowler.wolf 0]

Part of the trick to learning island creation is to read the tutorial with the sample map and do each step on your own as you read.

[TankCommander 3]

Just to add to the questions, where are the Arma2 house objects located? I was rummaging through buildings2 and buildings1 (which has A1 objects for some strange reason) and came up short. There were of course a few A2 buildings in there but it seems more than half are missing.

Any help on this?

[commander1985 10]

Take a look into the Structures Folder ;) You can also find some Stuff in the Misc Folders (Army tents for Example)