RhodesianScout

Hi all....... Some time back I had been working on a mod for the Rhodesian Bush War. However tragedy struck and I lost all my work. This post is just a quick announcement to let you know that I have restarted work on this project and work done will appear here showing the map, scenery and objects built for Rhodesia in the 1970s.

A large town will be added to the map as shown below. I think this is Umtali but I have to check on that.

Thanks ineptaphid Making more progress with the map and have recreated the textures, look and feel simiilar to what I had created early 2016. My next step is to add in the kopjies and fill in the scenery using the satellite map as a canvas.

Yes the chest rig and webbing will be included........ Too Ambitious? Possibly but I have worked on big mods before so am up to the challenge.

Keeping it Real...... As this mod is based in early 70s Rhodesia I am keeping in mind that a lot has changed in the last 45 years as far as the scenery. So I use Google Earth Pro to give me a much closer representation of what Rhodesia looked like back in 1972. In the picture below the top image shows Mazvikadei Dam which was completed in 1988. The image below that shows what the area looked like in the 80s.

Test of hills

The Eastern Highlands of Rhodesia.......... This is where the map will be based and hopefully I can recreate the scenes as shown below.

Testing the DEM data for the area of Rhodesia I am hoping to add to my map.

As had been my aim in the prior mod the look and feel of walking through my map will be to recreate the African Bush as shown in the picture below. To do this I will be creating the plants, grass and trees in blender and adding it to the mod map....... if my memory is correct I can populate entire areas with specific vegetation and grass.

First picture on starting work on the elephant.......

With it being 21 months since I last worked on modding in Arma 3 the one issue I had to work on was having to remember how to actually do the modding. A new computer meant starting Arma 3 from scratch and when installing Arma 3 tools I can see there have been changes made to the software. An error message installing tools was eventually resolved when I discovered that even changing the location of my P drive did not fix the error I was getting when extracting game date...... I had not unticked the box "Use Default" so Tools was ignoring my specified location until I unticked that box. The game data is still extracting but after that I can then install Bulldozer and begin creating the map. Over night I was working on creating a low res model of an African savanna elephant..... using Blender for the first time the first model could take a couplehours to do.... however I am hoping in the near future the simple models will take 10 to 30 minutes to complete. i checked the DLC released since last I played Arma 3...... I don't think any of them will be needed for a mod set in the 70's.

Instead of using 3dsmax for the models I am going to look into using Blender...... this will hopefully reduce time taken on work on each model. My early aim for this map is to add African wildlife such as leopards, lions and elephants and add their sounds when you are in a given distance from them. After they are added other models will be created and added in order.

First post Edited October 24th with the official name of the first map for the Rhodesia Bush Wars: The first map of the Rhodesia Bush Wars now has an official name : Map 1 : Battle of the Mpopoma Dam End of Edit I have been enjoying playing ARMA 3 since buying it back in July and am now at a stage where I am working on the first of many mods covering the events of the Rhodesian Bush War. Work is under way on the first map which I previewed in L3DT this morning and it looks like a good start. For the past month and a bit I have being doing a Rhodesian Infantry combat simulation using the N'ziwasogo map as it was the closest map I could find to the Rhodesian bush. I have been learning what is involved with creating a map in Arma 3 and the mod is well and truly under way. The picture above will give an idea of the look and atmosphere I am trying to get with the mod and this bush will be very difficult to track down where the enemy is hiding. I was inspired by the N'ziwasogo map with it's look and sounds and I have already created 10 sounds which will be heard as ambient sounds around the map...... while testing the sounds it reminded me of when I was back there back in the 70s. I suspect that I will need to create most if not all of the objects for the mod , such as the trees and bushes, to get the dry look of the bush but will see what trees are available in Arma 3 which may be suitable as they are.

Just a quick post to let you know I am back. Someone close to me passed away and I had to step away from gaming for a bit. Will update posts frequently as before....but first I need to do some Arma III to get back into it and see if anything has changed.

Hi all Tuned into the twitch feed 4am Sydney time this morning to see what the Eden Editor was all about........ not once imagining that I would be able to get my hands on the editor today. When I saw Jay press the button titled Release Beta I said to myself "No Way!"... but sure enough....... download the latest Development Build and there it is .... the beta version of Eden. I have already had a quick play with it and I have to say I am highly impressed. I loaded the map I am currently building...... quickly moved to a section of the map and was able to quickly find an object and place it on the map a lot quicker and with greater ease than the 2D editor. Eden Editor is pretty simple and straight forward to use and I was able to add some new objects to a scenario that I had not found easily with the 2D editor. As I am several weeks into building a new map I can see that the Eden Editor is going to be a great asset to my little project and just want to thank the guys at Bohemia for giving me the chance to get my hands on Eden today. I have to say that I do like the 2D Editor which comes with Arma 3... it gets the job done. However.... now that I have been able to get my hands on Eden I have to say that the 3D Editor is in every way superior to the 2D Editor. Thanks for releasing the beta today guys........ I will certainly be using it a lot over the coming weeks and months and give feedback of any issues I find. [WIP] The Rhodesian Bush War https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/184560-wip-the-rhodesian-bush-war/

I will be back soon...... got some real world issues with the business I own that I must deal with. Doing more modeling with the little spare time I have the next few weeks. Below is a picture of something that will be added to the map....a good old African bush fire.

Added to the development timeline - farm house - lodges - camp buildings - old buildings - destroyed buildings - abandoned tourist tents Though this map is not anywhere near a town or city there will be buildings and camp sites found in different areas of the map.

Finished version of mod banner

Early work on redo of the mod banner that will be seen when selecting the mod........ still a bit more to do. When I am happy with where the Alouette is placed I then use a minimal blur tool in photoshop to trace around the helicopter which then adds a seamless addition to the background. Motion effect also to be applied to rotors.

Just to let everyone know that I am back......Christmas and New year is a very busy time for me and thankfully after today things will be a lot quieter giving me more time to get back to working on this mod. Mod is progressing nicely...working on some models and sorting out some issues...... will post screenshots soon.

Hi Flatbear... thanks for the link to the book... have downloaded i and will have a look at it later tonight.

You probably want to avoid these bushes....... Work in progress

Last night I added more to the config file and tested what each of the changes made to the map......... Example of some of the additions clutterGrid = 1;//1 clutterDist = 125;//125 noDetailDist = 40;//40 fullDetailDist = 15;//15 minTreesInForestSquare = 3;//5 minRocksInRockSquare = 3;//4 dynLightMinBrightnessAmbientCoef = 0.5; dynLightMinBrightnessAbsolute = 0.05; startFogDecay = 0.013; forecastFogDecay = 0.013; fogBeta0Min = 0; fogBeta0Max = 0.05; hazeDistCoef = 0.1; hazeFogCoef = 0.98; hazeBaseHeight = 150; hazeBaseBeta0 = 6e-005; hazeDensityDecay = 0.0006; horizonParallaxCoef = 0.045; horizonFogColorationStart = "0.8f"; skyFogColorationStart = "0.7f"; soundMapSizeCoef = 4; satelliteNormalBlendStart = 10; satelliteNormalBlendEnd = 100; skyObject = "A3\Map_Stratis\data\obloha.p3d"; horizontObject = "A3\Map_Stratis\data\horizont.p3d"; skyTexture = "A3\Map_Stratis\data\sky_semicloudy_sky.paa"; skyTextureR = "A3\Map_Stratis\data\sky_semicloudy_lco.paa";

Have you had a look here to see if this is how you are adding your runway? https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/183686-creating-runways-and-roads-on-satellite-textures/

Also have a look at config.cpp at these settings class Sea { seaTexture = "a3\data_f\seatexture_co.paa"; seaMaterial = "#water"; shoreMaterial = "#shore"; shoreFoamMaterial = "#shorefoam"; shoreWetMaterial = "#shorewet";