Fence Generator preview

[shezan74 11]

Hi there, some screenshots from my new tool called Fence Generator.

It's able to place virtually every kind of object by knowing his size and his footprint (default direction when placed on ground).

It's suitable for drawing long fences, house fences and placing oil pipes, sequential structures and so on.

Supports relative altitudes and multiple object placements (wall-gate-wall for example).

Here some preliminary screenshots for a fence placed in a circle.

Next version will (maybe) support some kind of visual representation of the placed objects. Will be released as freeware through armaholic or something like in some day. I hope it will be appreciated.

This castle and oil pipes has been created in some seconds:

This castle has been created with 8 clicks

Edited March 26, 2010 by shezan74

[icebreakr 3157]

Amazing stuff... first Homer with road creation utility, now fence/wall generator :)

[bushlurker 46]

Wow! That came from nowhere!

Well done Shezan74! This looks VERY promising! I can think of several uses already - from harbour sections to roadside barriers... excellent!

B

[beton 2]

Maybe you and Homer and Lester should team up to give visitor the capabilities it is lacking right now...

great work...from now on maps will become unplayable with AI:p

Edited March 24, 2010 by Beton

[mikebart 1]

nice stuff shezan!, thanks

[shezan74 11]

Well, last test seems to be positive, so i think i will release it tomorrow, after having some fixes on preview (loading maps behind fence previews should be fantastic but i can't find a .NET control that can easily manage 10240x10240 images).

i've just played with fences and light towers, this is the result.

Later could be useful to made a collaborative work to create a small "database" of objects to be used into the software, with size and default orientation.

I'm also thinking to make something like user-customizable sets (3 types of wall, 3 types of fences, 3 types of castle walls or mixed environment like sandbags and bunkers in order to have -----O-----O----- polygons with - that means sandbags or jersey and O that means bunkers.

good night to all :)

Edited March 26, 2010 by shezan74

[bushlurker 46]

Looks very useful!!

I was just thinking while studying the initial screens that it looked like it might be handy for quickly generating "set-pieces"...

B

Edited March 25, 2010 by Bushlurker

[[aps]gnat 28]

Awesome, just plain awesome !

[ZeroG 23]

Shezan, that is just another awesome piece in the puzzle...! THANKS!

[shezan74 11]

Well, Fence Generator 1.0 has been released for "family and friends" :)

You can download the program from here (tested on Windows XP and Windows 7 64 bit / Framework 2.0 needed)

It's not publicated on ArmA2 dedicated websites for now, it's only available trough this thread. This has been made in order to avoid wide spreading of a potentially bugged software, as i'm proud producer :D

There is a small new-entry feature not shown in the poor help system (this will be my next step):

The main program will place pieces in a sequential way, one after each other.

If you click on a item on the result list the program will ask you if you want to attach next pieces on that position. This allow to virtually draw everything also in a T shape or in each other way.

Beware: the program is able to remove, on output, 2 pieces of the same type placed one over the other one, by leaving only one piece. This feature doesn't apply if those 2 pieces are different in type or direction or everything else. So, it's able to remove two IDENTICAL pieces placed exactly one over the other. This mean that if you place a fence into a wall, your fence will remain in the wall forever.

Please report there (if useful for everyone) or PM me each bug/problem you can find. New features on the forum, for public discussion and sharing.

Thank you guys :)

Shezan74

Edited March 25, 2010 by shezan74

[shezan74 11]

New release is out.

Download from Armaholic (see link below)

What's new:

Added support to background images and rescaling (maximum image size allowed 5120x5120, maximum world size 40960x40960 (upgradeable if needed...). Now, before creating maps, check if the world size on the bottom right is matching with your world size (in meters)

Added support for point-and-click on the map. When clicking on the map before entering in drawing mode the system will set your starting point to this place (suitable for following roads/rivers/...). Again: CHECK FINAL WORLD SIZE or you will see your objects on the map but the will be totally out of position on the V3 world.

Next development:

- upgrade the application to support undefined number of objects at the same time.

- Add the ability to create multiple objects each separated one from the other

- Load and save of projects

feedback and bug reports are appreciated, as usual.

Edited March 28, 2010 by shezan74

[senchi 0]

Fantastic ! :)

Please Make Zoom :)

And button "Remove Last Section" :)

Edited March 26, 2010 by SenChi

[Guest]

Thanks for informing us about your release. This looks to be an excellent tool for map makers, very nice work!

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Fence Generator v1.1

[shezan74 11]

Thank you FoxHound :)

@SenChi: zoom is actually a disabled feature, working on my tests. I've had some issues with zooming and precise allocation of the start point when click on the map, but it will be on a future release.

Delete a piece is also on the very next release, with support for unlimited number of placeable object templates (i'm thinking about having a shared database between users with every kind of placeable item).

Thank you for your feedback, i'll keep you up-to-date :)

[Bartchie 10]

Veeeeeeeeeery nice :) I like it. Now we can say that creating island is almost totally automatic :D

[shezan74 11]

Roads will be the next frontier, but there are a lot of people working on that, so i'm confident they will achieve this result too :)

[shezan74 11]

Well, release 1.2 is near to be released.

Will feature:

- colour coding in result panel, to easily see what area you're watching, related to the map.

- ghost segments: this feature will allow you to move the cursor of a predefined distance along the direction you want (set by current object definition) without creating any object.

This could be useful for placing separated objects or making holes in walls or fences by keeping constant alignment.

- drawing point repositioning: this feature will allow you to draw 2 separate structures in the same project (similar to ghost segments, as result, but allow you to reposition the cursor virtually everywhere in the map, and not along a straight line). Another way to reposition cursor is by clicking on the desired point on Result page (right click).

- multiple colour support for result page and preview, to allow you to easily identify each segment you need (or set, by using paint colour as you need).

Colour coding for easy reading in the result page (background set accordingly to the foreground colour)

- segment deletion: added the ability to delete segments from the map in every position. This should be used with the repositioning function to allow you to continue from the last section without interruptions (right click on segment page).

- PROJECT SUPPORT: allow you to export/import the whole work by saving files (actually the export is in compressed XML. This is a performance/file size issue, but if users will ask i will revert back to plain XML for easy access/patch/update).

- Major class refactorings and optimizations (damn Color, it will not serialize at all :mad:)

- from this release it will REQUIRE .NET FRAMEWORK 3.5 (serialization issues and file dumping)

Next improvements before release will be:

- Support for unlimited number of objects in the "predefined objects" page.

- Import/export of object templates to/from the internal database. This will allow the community to increase the default predefined object lists in a collaborative way. The internal database will be saved in plain XML for future improvements or sharing in other projects.

- support for object picture (for user reference) in template.

Next improvements after release could be:

- IMPORT of existing objects from Visitor3

- Massive object reposition

- Object cloning and reposition

- Coffee and wine bar service :D

I will need a small help for testing the program before release. If someone is interested in testing please PM me.

Edited March 29, 2010 by shezan74
Images added

[senchi 0]

Wow :)

Look nice

[ebanks129 10]

shezan thanks for the heads up man:)

[shezan74 11]

Preview for the object management window.

Next release will conclude initial development for Fence Generator.

It's time to use it on my own island :D

[ebanks129 10]

Nevermind this post, good stuff shez:)

Edited March 31, 2010 by ebanks129

[shezan74 11]

Fence Generator 1.2 has been released on ArmaHolic.com and it's still waiting for Admin download activation (thank you in advance FoxHound)

This will be the final release of the software. Next step is something like MaskMapper that could meet my needs.

Here the Fence Generator 1.2 main features:

Main features:

- Load and save projects, including background bitmaps, objects templates and items placed.

- Automatic import of new template objects when found in other user's works

- Export and import of template objects for community sharing

- Placement position relocation to attach to existing objects and make T patterns

- Placement position relocation to start separate structures virtually in every place of the map

- Ghost objects

- Template item substitution allow the map maker to change on the fly the item type to reflect changes on island artificial/natural object naming conventions (ca\building\misc\house to house\red_house for example)

- Complete control on item templates. Everything you made on templates, to reflect your needs, will not be saved until you press Templates -> Save on top menu.

- Actual in-memory template will be saved on your map. When opening map you can OVERRIDE duplicates on your objects with template saved on map or only ADD new objects to your actual template.

- Template object will allow preview image attach for easy identification of pieces (will get images from user file or clipboard)

- Object template editing, deletion, creation and cloning.

- Export directly to Visitor3 importable files

- Object placement flip, for inverting wall placements to reflect user needs (for example some castle walls have an internal side of the wall that can be placed as user needs)

- Different paint colours on map and result window, for easy object identification

- "On the fly" item length/height/colour modification to place specific objects and colours for further needs/identification without affecting the master template.

- Support for maps bigger than 40kmx40km

- Preview image background and automatic rescaling for images until 5120x5120 pixels

That's all... thank you for your support guys :)

[ebanks129 10]

"Placement position relocation to start separate structures virtually in every place of the map"

Say for my instance i'm making compounds, so it is possible to make more than one compound rather than just one at a time?? is that what it means?

[Guest]

Fence Generator 1.2 has been released on ArmaHolic.com and it's still waiting for Admin download activation

Thanks again for informing us about your release :cool:

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Fence Generator v1.2

[ZeroG 23]

Really really awesome! Alone your GUI is far better than the whole Visitor! You know, your small preview window there is something that LACKS...cause it is stupid to be not knowing what you place on the map and always having to look in Bulldozer...

Say, Do you have an integrated p3d-viewer for that? or did u just paste pictures from the catalogue into the editor for the default objects?

Edited March 31, 2010 by ZeroG