"Terrain Layer Flexibility Increased"

[senchi 0]

ArmA terrain technology was a lot more flexible than what we had before, and as written in Arma Technology Inside blog, ArmA 2 uses the same technology, only slightly improved. The main improvement is that by using all four channels of the ARGB mask and with some encoding tricks employed, the total number of different surfaces on a single satellite segment was increased from four to six. This may not seem a lot, but it has allowed our terrain designers to use a few surfaces which differ segment to segment, therefore the surface variability in the whole game world is now a lot higher.

How can I do this? :)

I made a Layer-map with an alpha channel (transparency taken from Chernorussia)

Tried to edit layer.cfg but without success.

Any ideas ?

Edited January 3, 2010 by SenChi

[beton 2]

Obviously Bis is keeping us away from some information...

i never had any files with the ending .LCA only .LCO

Maybe we are not using the right rvmat files?

Would be cool to have anyone explaining this to us...

[Synide 0]

Try multi-materials feeding into your layers.cfg with appropriate mask textures for each.

Have a look at 'ca\misc3\wf\data\wf_buildings_001.rvmat' for some partial inspiration. Here's (175Kb not available 24/7) an approximate facsimile of a portion of geom similar to what you might find in 'WF_anti_radar_WEST.p3d' and mapped to the above multi-material.

While the mat setup in the 'wf_buildings_001.rvmat' won't be what you'd use in one for your layers.cfg mat's it does give you the clue as how the channels in the '_mask' texture effect the filtering of the other portions of the 'wf_buildings_001.rvmat' for display.

Perhaps I'm off the mark as far as using the 'multi' feeding into your layers.cfg but when I did have a poke around with this stuff it seemed the most logical alternative. Also, from memory when I used a main 'mask_lca' like the method you initially described, V3 balked and ran away.

And, there is always a possibility that cher & utes weren't created using V3 that was provided in the A2 tools and you may not be able to produce what was touted in your quote with the tools at hand.

hehe ;), was sorta waiting to see how long it would take for someone from BIS (or assoicated) to post the appropriate info. regarding this and the TerrainX shader on the biki of their own volition. Maybe your thread will stimulate a response when the Christmas break is over.

Hopefully, something semi helpful there... cheers.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Synide

[rstratton 0]

visitor 4 was used

[[aps]gnat 28]

visitor 4 was used

? Says who?

[commander1985 10]

I dont know if this helps... but:

I had 4 Textures, all where in layers.cfg with rgb code etc.

I made my Mask in photoshop and imported them etc. I noted that i had 5 Textures!

I later found out that i forgot to use a hard brush. so the edges in my mask where in colors i didnt even use! So i guess Synide is right with that multitextur rvmat thingy..

sry for my worse english :P