Summervegetation

[-martin- 10]

Hi tpw....

I'm afraid it doesn't really work that way...

Basically, when you start the game.exe the first thing it does is load itself like a modfolder - thats the "CA" you see popping up in errors sometimes (it's just Arma2's name for itself) - after that it loads whatever other modfolders you want - in the order you have them... this means that one mod can overwrite another mods settings if they both edit the same thing and one loads after another... thats why mods sometimes conflict...

This replacement mod basically takes advantage of that...

First the game loads its regular vegetation files, then - when it hits this modfolders it recognises them as the same vegetation files all over again - so it replaces the first ones it loaded (autumn) with the new (summer) - so they're not loaded side-by-side, and all loading is over by the time you hit the main menu...

I'm not sure if "hot swapping" vegetation on an island-wide basis is actually possible...

B

Hmmm "swapping" the trees doesn't require changing the models them selves because you are using the original models I presume, so what would only have to be done is to change the textures on the models using hidden selections, this is possible to do with an add-on in editor but I'm not sure if it would be possible to do with objects on the actual island .wrp.

The other method is, you don't actually see summer change in to autumn in 24 hours, unless you want to make time go fast in a cut scene or what ever so you can just start the cut scene on the original Chernarus, black the screen out, load part 2 of the cut scene on summer Chernarus and then just black the screen out again and continue with your cut scene.

[miller 49]

Thanks Beton

ArmA2Base.de Mirror updated:

Summervegetation v1.0 by Bushlurker, Homer Johnston and Beton

Kind regards

Miller

[Punisher5555 0]

Couldn't live without this MOD since 0.5. Looks and runs even better. Thanks-a-million!!!!!!!!!

It give me much better performance because it got rid of those damn orange trees. :jump_clap::jump_clap:

[CameronMcDonald 146]

This is excellent. Much awesomeness.

[Binkowski 26]

this makes chernarus look all happy. chernarus and its citizens will endure the constant depressing emo environment no more!

[hotzenplotz 138]

Thats realy nice Addons, looks mutch better then original. Great Work

[zapat 56]

As far as FPS is concerned... like LandTex, this addon basically replaces info the game loads anyway with a slight variation on that info... apart from the few seconds extra loading time as the game loads the default veg, then immediately overwrites it with slightly different data - FPS will be entirely unaffected...

I've just come across with this mod, and it looks amazing. I hope there is still support for it.

I read what is written about how textures are handled, still: when I have summertrees_1.0 loaded (the 344M file) I got constant stuttering.

With original trees game runs like butter, with occasional texture loading halts, but with summer trees even using a scope makes the game stutter badly. It constantly loads something: I guess when new trees are coming into play.

Landtex works okay though.

CO latest patch (1.56 final)

2G mem, 512 Vidmem (ati 4850), textures are on normal, most visual settings are on normal, distance is at 2500.

Any ideas?

[AnimalMother92 10]

From my limited time with this addon, it's great! Will continue to test...

[bushlurker 46]

I read what is written about how textures are handled, still: when I have summertrees_1.0 loaded (the 344M file) I got constant stuttering.

Hi Zapat...

Hmmm... First thing I'd suggest is you defrag your game drive... the free version of Ultimate Defrag is a good utility for this - you can tell it to "performance defrag" your Arma 2 folder only, and move it to the fastest part of the drive...

The plants2.pbo - of which this replacement pack is basically a copy - is fairly big - and adding stuff to your game directory fragments these big files - patching does it too...

It could be that your original plants are sitting undisturbed on your drive, and relatively easily accessible, whereas the new ones are a bit more scattered... forcing the drive to "search" more to fetch all the bits... this is a common cause of stuttering - especially if things are usually OK...

Its probably worth trying a "performance" defrag on just the Arma 2 folder with Ultimate Defrag or something similar...

B

[zapat 56]

Bushlurker: thanks for the tip. I used contig, but this util seems better. I start a defrag now.

So basically you say, that it should have the same performance loadwise than the original trees.

Does the game load both original anad summer everytime, or original is fully overwritten? Or how does this retexturing works?

[bushlurker 46]

So basically you say, that it should have the same performance loadwise than the original trees.

Yeah... should do...

In simple terms... how it works is that in the original game you have a .pbo called Plants2 - all the vegetation is inside there in seperate folders, so when the game wants a tree it looks for "Plants2/Tree/nameoftree.p3d"

Our pack uses a cunning file called a "$PBOPREFIX$" inside the .pbo files - these are like "headers" and they read "ca\plants2\tree" (or whatever)... on load, the game reads these headers...

When you launch the game the first thing it does is load its own assets - its own "modfolder" - from "CA" (which is just a virtual location... the games own name for itself) - so it loads Ca\Plants2\tree and labels it as ready for use...

Next it finds and loads all your own personal modfolders...

When it comes across the summerplants tree.pbo it reads that prefix - thinks "hold on... ca\plants2\tree ?? - didn't I load that before? - oh well - load it again... since the game is convinced its just the same files over again it just replaces the old ones with the new ones - it doesn't try to keep both in memory, because the $PBOPREFIX$ convinces the engine its just the same files - which it is... just with slightly different textures...

Since the game always loads itself (and its original plants) first - subsequent loading of what it thinks are the same files over again just replaces the originals... the game goes with the last version loaded...

It's a cunning trick, and stuff like the Beta patches, etc use essentially the same principle...

There's a downside, of course - ain't there always...

Since effectively, we've used a prefix to say bye bye to the old Ca\Plants2 folder and replace it with our own - we can't actually call on that old standard BIS plants selection anymore - the game doesn't have access to it anymore - it thinks OUR files are the real ones...

So - for example - in the case of the Pine trees and evergreens - we didn't change them - no need to... but we still had to include them in the pack! since our new plantspack is the only CA\Plants2 in town - it HAS to contain EVERYTHING that the original plants2 gamefiles did...

Thats the primary reason the pack is such a big download - if you're gonna fake it, you need to fake it all!

B

B

Edited December 2, 2010 by Bushlurker

[zapat 56]

Thank you Sir for the deep explanation! It was very beneficial.

One last question though: what about dynamic loading: Does the engine do this once, when mission starts, or does it do it everytime a new terraingrid (I don't know what terms does bi use for this) is loaded?

As far as I experienced Arma is handles object loadings very dynamic, sometimes it loads a vehicle (which is close to me), only when I look on it. And it is visible, so it doesn't take it from memory, but from HDD. So if it needs to find appropriate textures first in great quantity (like trees).... On the other hand it is okay with bushes.

Maybe my 2Gs of ram is to be blamed.

Anyways, I'll see this evening, when Ultimate defrag is done, and my gamefolder has been put to the edges of disc, instead of Lord of the Rings Director's Cut. :D

Edited December 2, 2010 by zapat

[bushlurker 46]

As far as I experienced Arma is handles object loadings very dynamic

Thats it exactly.... it doesn't load every model and texture when you start the game - it just catalogues all the available assets (internal game stuff + additional modfolder stuff), makes a big list of where everything is and whats available.... then, when the situation demands - it knows where to look...

So - you look at a tree.... what tree that is, and where it is - is hardcoded into the terrain itself... "thats a Betula2s, and it was placed by the island maker from a folder on his development drive called (surprise surprise) CA\Plants2\Tree\Betula2s.p3d"...

When you look at the tree, the engine dynamically rushes off down that hardcoded path (which our plants pack has hijacked via that sneaky $PBOPREFIX$) - it finds a model called Betula2s - and displays it... it's that dynamic fetching that can cause the stuttering if the drive has to shuffle about gathering clusters to assemble that file for use...

This is why a RamDisk or a hyperfast SSD drive is good - it basically just speeds up that fetching process... A decent defrag will help though...

I'm not absolutely sure about exactly how the engine handles its assets in memory... to a certain extent at least - currently in-use stuff is stored in memory - so it doesn't fetch the same tree model over again every time you see one... getting into speculation territory now though... best not overreach myself...

B

[zapat 56]

Thanks again for the insight, no question remains. :)

Edit: After a performance defrag stuttering went away, so that was the problem. Thanks again for the kind support!!

Edited December 2, 2010 by zapat

[kage74 10]

Any news on the Wintervegetation pack yet? It'll be nice to see everything covered in snow this Christmas.

[tpw 2315]

I agree! It gets so hot here at christmas that it'll be nice to go somewhere cold in Arma...

[ziiip 1]

Looks nice, downloading now.

[kevaskous 10]

Love this mod, really makes Chernarus look much more appealing, can we get this added to SIX?

[Baraka 10]

[kevaskous 10]

http://rlv.zcache.com/i_see_what_you_did_there_poster-r8f044f42410c44898ead34192059346f_y1u_400.jpg

<3 hahaha

[[frl]myke 14]

<3 hahaha

Keep laughing...

§10) Do not dig up old threads

Threads older than 4 months should not be dug up unless something significant is being added. If in doubt as to what is "significant", contact a moderator and they will give you their opinion. As always old threads will remain open or be closed at the moderator's discretion. Digging up an old thread simply to ask "any news" is also not acceptable, PM the thread starter or mod leader to ask.

Thread closed, OP knows where to find the key if he needs it.

:EDITH:

Re-opened by popular request. ;)

Edited July 3, 2012 by [FRL]Myke

[pooroldspike 129]

Hi, is this thread closed or not?

I wanted to ask how do I install Beton's Summer vegetation mod to make Chernarus a lush green?

I downloaded the 6 separate RAR zips to my desktop but what do I do next? They contain a total of about 50 PBO, BISIGN and BIKEY files and I don't know how to get them into which AA2 folders on my hard drive, any advice?

(I PM'd Beton but I don't know if he's still a member)

[archsceptic. 10]

Well, I've been using this nice addon for some time now - but once you unpack the RAR's you should have a folder called "@sum_rep_1.0" which enables you to use the addon in the mod folder tradition.

I personally like to use Alpinestars excellent AmA 2 launcher to manage my addons and mod folders. You can enable or disable a mod when launching the game with a tick of a box, instead of having to manually alter your shortcut parameters.

I highly recommend it; http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6649

[chrisb 196]

Hi, is this thread closed or not?

I wanted to ask how do I install Beton's Summer vegetation mod to make Chernarus a lush green?

I downloaded the 6 separate RAR zips to my desktop but what do I do next? They contain a total of about 50 PBO, BISIGN and BIKEY files and I don't know how to get them into which AA2 folders on my hard drive, any advice?

(I PM'd Beton but I don't know if he's still a member)

Make a folder called ‘@sum_veg’ then inside that make another folder called 'addons', put all the pbo, bikey & bisign's into the addons folder. Anything else like ‘readme’ etc can just go into the title folder.

Now put your new 'title' folder '@sum_veg' into your arma 2 game folder/directory, look in my sig under pbo’s to get an idea of where it is if you don’t know.

Enable your new folder in game (expansions) or via any other option you use.

[pooroldspike 129]

Thanks guys but after just trying to unpack the RAR's I got stuck again when these messages came up- "Bad block:File fails CRC check" whatever that means.

I suspect it's down to my lack of experience at handling RAR's.

However I downloaded another summer veg file off the net from here-

http://www.arma2base.de/include.php?path=download&contentid=2896

which seems to be a lightweight version with only a few files in it, AND it came in IZArc file which I know how to open.

But after booting up after putting the files into AA2 the trees stayed a hideous red and orange (sniffle).

Obviously I made a simple mistake somewhere, here's the contents of the lightweight file so if anybody can talk me through where exactly to put the files in AA2 I'd be over the moon! Sorry to trouble you but I know zilch about computers, I'm just a wargamer and only know how to make my little men and tanks run around shooting their guns)