USEC Aoraki/Mount Cook (New Zealand) Island

[rocket 9]

USEC Aoraki/Mount Cook (New Zealand) Island

By Rocket

www.usecforce.com

Latest WIP Picture 12 Aug 11:

Background:

"Aoraki/Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand, reaching a height of 3,754 metres (12,316 ft).[1] It lies in the Southern Alps, the mountain range which runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination,[2] it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki/Mt Cook consists of three summits lying slightly south and east of the main divide, the Low Peak, Middle Peak and High Peak, with the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the west." - Wikipedia

About:

- As many know, I'm a Kiwi. I'm also a mountaineer, having climbed the mighty Aoraki on my fifth attempt and several other 3000m peaks in the area. Grew up in the area so know it like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, not only has mountaineering cost me many thousands of dollars, it's also cost the lives of some dear friends, and nearly the fingers on my left hand. I've always wanted to show other people around the world, in game, just how beautiful this area is. You can

on youtube.

- Over the years I have compiled software and a database of images from my climbs and travels around the area. I've put these all together to make this addon. It's a 60km x 60km area, shrunk down into a 30km by 30km area. It stretches from the West Coast of the island, through inland to the southern alps. There is one sealed runway (Mount Cook Airport), two grass airports, along with another three high-country airstrips.

Technical Details:

- Area shrunk by 50% for ArmA (mountains half as high, distance half as long)

- 30km x 30km = 900km Square area in game

- Terrain texure resolution to 1.25 in-game meters (24k x 24k satmap/mask)

- 4096 Heightmap was used, heightpoints every 7.5 in-game meters

- 6 terrain types successfully on mask

Multimedia:

All these pictures are taken in ArmA2 1.04

View an in-game 360 degree panorama from near the summit

Question & Answers:

Why did you shrink the height and distance by 50%?

- Photoshop only handles PNGs (required for import into Visitor) up to 30,000 pixels. The maximum heightmap imported into Visitor is 4096. So I could either import at 15m height resolution, and have 60km, or I'd have to drop the resolution or the area.

- In the end, after testing 60km terrain at 15m height resolution, I found that halving the distance assisted gameplay greately and opted for this solution.

Where are the forests?

- Forests are eating framerates on my PC, and they're also lagging. On top of this, they're problematic to place in Visitor. If someone can write a script for Visitor to take a shapefile (I have vegetation data all ready to go in Global Mapper) and generate forests, let me know and I'll add them in.

- I will be adding a few trees here and there, but not too many.

What are framerates like?

- During the taking of screenshots, I was getting 30fps at 10k viewdistance with texture settings on full. Chenarus, by comparison, is barely playable on my PC.

How big will the download be?

- At the moment, it is looking at between the 600 to 800 megabyte mark. Reduced somewhat with RAR compression most likely.

How did you make it?

- I took publically available (LINZ) contour data, heightpoint data, and I imported this into GIS software.

- I then extrapolated height data from this into a heightmap, exported this along with much other data (shingle, ice, moraine, terrain type) and cut out a section in photoshop.

- This was imported into L3DT, where I then altered the heightmap by hand based on my own knowledge of the area to add details.

- I made a custom climate in L3DT, and generated base land attributes. I then exported this to Photoshop, added additional layers from GIS data (LINZ), and then imported back into L3DT.

- I generated Satmap from L3DT, and attributes I used to generate the mask.

- Import and then repeat many times, over many weeks, until i got it right.

When will it be released?

- I am currently unemployed, so I have all the time in the world to finish it. I expect to have an initial version out before the end of November.

Will you release the source files?

- Currently, this project uses up the good portion of an entire 500GB hard disk, entirely for itself. If anyone wants anything specific, let me know, but the entirely source will have to stay on my HD :)

Are you going to be adding buildings?

Yes, all the mountaineering huts, the small number of villages in the area, some farmhouses, and the airports. I may do custom buildings for the mountaineering huts, and the hermatige (hotel) if I have time.

Will there be custom sounds?

- I am planning on going climbing up there again shortly, and I will be recording custom sounds at this time should I not be able to find any locally.

Will there be lakes and rivers?

- As you can see, the rivers are dry at present in the island. This will remain. Lakes may be added.

Are you using custom textures?

- All textures, other than grass, are currently custom. I imagine this will remain. I will likely end up with eight textures, although no more than 6 in close proximity per the requirements.

Is it working in-game?

- Yes, silly. Thats how I got the pictures. It binarized without any errors (although it did take a long time!).

---

Ask any other questions below and I will answer as best as I can.

Those wishing to mirror the release, please contact me with private FTP details so I can upload to your server(s). My personal server blew up with downloads last time, so I will likely need to directly upload.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Rocket

[CombatComm 10]

W0w dude, I thought that second picture was a real comparison photo. keep up the good work!

[txalin 2]

wow, suberb work, those pics are amazing.

[roberthammer 582]

Wow mate , it looks really cool and realistic :)

[vilas 473]

woooooooooooooow

i love mountains too and this look awsome, keep working, it really looks great

[Snake Man 401]

Now this is a TERRAIN and not some sandbox for children! Excellent job!

[Psilocybe 3]

Looking verrrry nice.

[icebreakr 3107]

Rocket: great project, good luck! Hopefully AI will perform better flying on your map, heights were always a problem for BIS, I remember OFP times where choppers automatically plummeted down when you overflew the high mountain =)

Otherwise very nice L3DT work!

[soul_assassin 1723]

:) one to wait for!

[Mr Sarkey 0]

Looks fantastic mate. Am waiting!

[vasmkd 12]

Awesome pics, can't wait for this.

Any chance of kiwi's instead of rabbits running about

;)

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Beautiful just doesn't cut it to describe this. Whoa!

[corsair83 0]

very nice, one question comes to mind after you releaser a day or so to keep members usec? (as CH-53 that you do not want to share with the community ARMA2 and keep it for you !)

[Callsign 128]

Wow! Amazing work! (as always :P)

[Marijus 0]

WOW!!! I very love mountains, and wait this amazing project relase!!!

[rstratton 0]

hey rocket ive made a custom 50x50m lake object that snaps together in v3 if u interested

[dr_chris 10]

That looks bloody fantastic. Can't wait for this one to be released!

[niall0 10]

If you pull that off even to the standard it looks at the minute it will be awsome.

Good luck. And well done with the work so far.

[Pvt.Kiwi 10]

fantastic, absolutely bloody fantastic mate, hope you get just the way yah want

[bushlurker 45]

This is truly awesome work! I've never seen such a convincingly real terrain in any BIS game before....

Quite frankly it's made me look afresh at my own heightmap and think... "I have to do better!"

An inspiration to others indeed :)

(Back to global mapper......)

@rstratton

hey rocket ive made a custom 50x50m lake object that snaps together in v3 if u interested

WOW! I'd LOOOVE a copy of that for my Scotland project... there's dozens of wee lochs and trying to align the water objects has been driving me utterly insane!

B

[memphisbelle 99]

Holy Shit, what awesome pics, I was pretty much impressed when I read what you are using a total size of HD Space to store it for your sourcefiles....

Cant wait to see it ingame.

[Commando84 0]

beatiful mountain there! :)

Can't wait to play on this island, it looks really nice! Holding my thumbs for a christmas release :)

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Beautiful... Simply Frakkin Beautiful!

[katipo66 94]

Shot bro, looks awesome! after that can you whack up a map of Ruapehu and Waiouru area.. cheers .)

[rstratton 0]

This is truly awesome work! I've never seen such a convincingly real terrain in any BIS game before....

Quite frankly it's made me look afresh at my own heightmap and think... "I have to do better!"

An inspiration to others indeed :)

(Back to global mapper......)

@rstratton

WOW! I'd LOOOVE a copy of that for my Scotland project... there's dozens of wee lochs and trying to align the water objects has been driving me utterly insane!

B

anyone else interested here''s my pond object http://www.filefront.com/14895679/sk_pond_50x.rar