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I've searched everything trying to get my roadways making sounds other than the default. I have created a rvmat file: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> surfaceInfo = "plate01.bisurf"; and a bisurf file: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> rough = 0.15; dust = 0.1; soundEnviron = "metal"; impact = "Impact_Metal"; isWater = "false"; I tried adding this to both the LOD geometry and the Roadways, but alas - the sound is exactly the same when I walk on it to as it was before. Any ideas?

Its working! Ah thank you so much Solution was actually very easy. No need for RVMAT editing, I simply put the following in the config file: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> class CfgSurfaces { class Default; class Water; class Roadway; class Plate : Default { files = "plate01*"; rough = 0.15; dust = 0.1; soundEnviron = "metal"; character = "Empty"; impact = "Impact_Metal"; }; }; The bolded bit was the name of the texture, now it sounds like you are walking on metal Thanks so much Armored_Sheep - you made my day!

Benoist: Good tips, will experiement with the pontoon/ladder base for the Alpha. Note to everyone: Please feel free to use the Request a Feature page if you have any ideas about things you would like to see added. I have already had some outstanding ones, including the suggestion of a command center which got me thinking I could put a CCTV script in, and have people be able to view the cameras from the command center. I will probably not be accepting feature ideas once I release the alpha, and instead focus on getting what I already have scoped in. If you would like to help, please spend a few minutes and submit your ideas. Be sure to include your username and you will receive a mention in the credits.

The CZM zombies "strike" effect was simply the throwing of a grenade. It looked pretty realistic, but not a strike or a punch. Also, and I'm going out on a limb here, but possibly the animation could be taken from the karate moves for a punch (is that stored in an RTM file somewhere perhaps)?

I add an any (or BLUFOR/OPFOR) trigger in the editor at the spawn point, that activates a script (with an IsServer check). This way, for example, with a player joins in progress the server knows and can publish any variables.

Good work though, thats quite a good base to start a model from.

I struggled with this a bit for a start too. The key for me grasping the concept of locality, was to first consider what I wanted to achieve, then to consider the locality I wanted to achieve it in, and finally find the script combination that would work. You can use the publicVariable command to distribute a variable to all the connected computers. I use this when distributing the outcome of completing a mission objective, so that when one individual has completed it, the result is broadcast to all. When a player joins, I often have a trigger that is activated only by the server (?IsServer == true etc...) that again publishes the variable. Also, check that you have packaged the mission file correctly, as if you change the mission name you will need to recopy the scripts. I manually package the file and move it from my SP missions to my MP missions and ensure all the scripts are there.

This makes me think its a path issue, I often find if I have the paths a little screwed up (such as usec\ instead of \usec\ I have similar problems.

Good work mate, sounds like its progressing well. Hope to see some more screenshots soon!

Ladder entry from water One of the big problems I currently have is that when you use the ladder from the water, your swiming animation comes back once you get to the top. I have some ideas about a way around this - but as was noted above it might be best if I just create a pontoon as the point of entry anyway. On a personnel note, does it have any working lights? I've made a note to take a look at lights, scheduled for the beta release. I may place one or two lights for the alpha to test how things are going. Thanks for the advice on where to look for lighting packs, I'll download them and get in touch with the authors. I have a question, it's desctructable? Because the model is already split out into four seperate objects, I can assign desctructable components. For the Beta release I have a task assigned to create seperate destructable components. Is there a Beta? Yes and there is also a semi-open alpha. Most likely I will require people to register on the trac site to participate. For more details about release dates, check out the roadmap. Splinter Cell reference material Those images are great! Definately be of use. Thanks guys and gals.

I'd really like to use some kind of bug tracking software for my model(s), rather than just a web forum as it streamlines feature requests and bug fixing. Does anyone know where I could find a hosted bugtracker solution? I suppose I could install one on one of my own servers, but I pulled out enough hair of my own installing a wiki once...

Many thanks for the kind words and feedback. To ease the process of people requesting features, and to assist with the Alpha and Beta testing, I have created a project site at http://tools.assembla.com/usec_oilrig/wiki and amended the first post of this topic. Â I have put an FAQ and milestones (including estimated delivery dates) on the wiki. Feel free to keep posting questions and ideas, and I will continue to put the odd update here. Â I will put the majority of the screenshots on the other site to ease the burden on forum lookers. If you would like to help with ideas, use the Request a feature page.

Well, good tip! I found a great site at: Assembla - http://www.assembla.com/search/home Would recommend if for all addon developers here

Have you considered adding some sounds to it? Very good point. I briefly thought about it, my thinking is too place sound objects via a script when the object is loaded. I've had great success with some sounds I've made for maps/addons I've made previously so don't see this as a problem. I'll put at least a few sounds in the alpha. Have you come up with any ideas about the lighting? At the moment I have some reference material that indeed indicates that the rigs are lit up like a christmas tree. I haven't yet begun to research placing lights on models, so I haven't given it much thought beyond a desire to have the rig well lit (especially inside the building and around the Helipad). I will try and get one or two lights into my Alpha release, but it is unlikely to have many until the Beta. Add more pipes Definately a good point. Also fairly low-cost in terms of poly's too. I am going to add some cables lying around on the deck, to break it up, and some plugs to walls etc that have cables going to them. Hopefully this will break up the bland areas of the model. Because the main building is now conrete, I am going to be adding steel reinforcing to the edges of the building, which should further break up the surfaces. Cargo Containers I've had a small play and I may largely leave them as they are for the moment, at least for the alpha, as to make them any bigger I will need to fiddle around with their placement and make the deck bigger, and the exercise becomes more complicated and delays my alpha release. Will probably leave the containers as they are until after I get feedback on the alpha. Ladders up containers is something I can do, will experiement with adding that for one of the containers for the alpha. I originally built the rig with almost exclusively ladders, as that was what my reference material showed. However, I quickly realised there was major usability issues with this and changed the majority of them to stairs. I even put a spiral staircase in there, but took it out due to a huge poly count (I may put it back in there! Fuel Containers Will be experiementing with these, and at the very least, adding some additional support columns to ensure it realistically withstands the weight. Hopefully with some extra supports it looks realistic enough, and I can leave it substantially as it is for the alpha. Helipad I've definately seen plenty of reference material that indicates that helipads are placed well off the side of the rig, usually by some pretty crazy/intense support struts. I chose my initial reference material on the basis it was simple and boxy, hence everything is pretty much on top of each other. I've shifted it out as far as I dare at this stage, I think it needs ALOT of helicopter approach testing to determine if the current clearance is sufficient... it may very well not be. As Gnat noted I am cutting pretty close to the line with size of objects and triangle count, but I could handle moving the pad off and placing struts. A problem would be what to put in the space left on the deck. Detail increases I am planning on continuing with detail increases including: * Tools on floor/decks * Piles of unused cabling on decks * Wooden crates * More signage * Fire extinguishers I'm also planning to spend considerable time on the interior of the building, with particular focus on the kitchen and living areas.

I know when he released them he mentioned they were super-detailed (both in textures and poly's), so I suspect that is your issue. I'm not familiar with his jungle models - but they may not have levels of detail set. You could try downsampling his textures (say, if they are 512 x 512 you could resample them to 256 x 256). You could also get in touch with him and offer to LOD his models for him in O2, should be relatively straight-forward and just lodding a few of the jungle objects should see a massive improvement.

Have you worked out whether its the triangle/vertex count that is causing the problem, or the texture size/quantity, or even the draw calls (such as one object having many textures)? I'm pretty sure that ArmA uses occlusion culling so I'm not sure you'd get any benefit from your "invisible wall" as if the object isn't in the viewport, its not causing the CPU or the GPU a problem in terms of processing (although the textures were probably loaded into VRAM). If its a vertex problem, try nuking the map with LOD'ing. I've found LOD'ing individual objects has helped performance issues for my models - its just very time consuming. I make my LODs in funny colors for a stard so that I can play with when they come into effect. If its texture size (using lots of 2k textures?) try reducing them down to 256 maybe. You could try covering all the objects with the same texture, just to see if that makes a difference. If its the draw calls, you could try making sure that each object only uses one texture. This might reduce the number of draw calls the GPU needs to do when rendering an object I believe.

Ah yes! I need some pipes going out from the bottom of those tanks. Please do feel free to throw problems/suggestions at me... I often find I get far too close to my work and miss the obvious detail/problems. I've been making great time and would like to have an initial version out in the next few weeks. RE: Pipeline/Refinery. That would make a really nice stage two, with some sabotage missions etc... going well with that theme. For the moment I will just add some pipes to make it obvious that the oil is heading off the platform. And ... YEY! Gnat you are are my personal hero Thanks for that. *Sigh* sometimes its the most obvious things in life I seem to miss...

You calculations are about bang on! Yeah, they wouldn't hold much at all. Basically I thought the top looked a bit bland, so I wanted to put something there. The "backstory" I was going to go with was storing the oil in the "supports", but then - the supports aren't that tall! What i could do, is create a pipeline object that goes back to land (underwater) and say those tanks are for holding additional oil should there be problems with the pipes? Or something like that... I could make them taller I suppose, and like you said cut them down to two or extend that level out further with more supports. Hmmmm....

It never ceases to amaze me how connected natural selection is with the ability to spell...

So true! I didn't even realise it, but its pretty obvious when you look at it. I will try placing some supports to see if they look believable. If not, I may have to do a shuffle around a bit too see whats possible. I thought the containers might have been a bit small, I'll see if I can nudge them up a bit

maybe also an idea to have a torch on the side Would love too!  Although, from my scripting experience it could be very difficult to script in fire coming off the model... unless someone has some ideas? How many ways are there to get from a boat onto the platform and vice versa ? Can't quite see it from my screenshots, alas, but there is currently one ladder that reaches down to the water (and below depending on tide).  The pontoon idea is great!  I will see what I can do in the next update, as I planned on redoing the base next. Seen as your already splitting some objects. You could always model other parts of the rigg as seperate objects to. Just experiemented with that over the weekend, appears to work great! Thanks for the tip  Will be a bit of work but should at least be able to get *some* things blowing up. UPDATE: 1 OCT 07 Many thanks to those who have contacted me with ideas.  I spent most of this weekend changing the textures thanks to the reference and feedback I have been given... initially I was skeptical that I could texture it with hi-vis colours, but I am happy with the result. I am totally stumped on windows, is there any tutorials anywhere on how to set transperancy in O2/Material editor?  I tried the material editor tutorial, but alas I don't think I entirely understand what I am doing.  Any advice on the subject of windows/transperancy would be very much appreciated! Anyway, enough of me blabbing... here is the progress over the weekend... (thanks to copious quantities of Coke Zero® for keeping me going! Scale:  This has been done using the "mark one eyeball" method, so please let me know what you think of the scale.  I think the drums are probably too big, and the containers are probably still a little too small.

Thats just the stock model from www.turbosquid.com, mate. Â Nothing exceptional about it at all - and its about 3 years old. Â Reference link is below. http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/284497 I didn't want to pay $169.00 for the model, so I just used the photos as a reference I've been working on the rig for about four weeks.

Okay, based on some great feedback and some really good reference material that i've received, a number of changes have been made. Â I am now focusing on uprezing most of the rig so that it is more detailed and the textures more appropriate. I still need to do alot of work with the shadow geo, at present I'm just using the same geo for this as for the 0 LOD. Â I believe that it should be slightly smaller than the main geo? Based on a great idea (thanks Ray! I have made some of the crates open, so that you can run through them. Â I now have the geometery all working fantastically, only in one or two places (with alot of trying) am I able to run through walls or barriers. Â I am concerned tho that my scale is currently wrong. Â I think I may increase the size of everything by 1/4. Thoughts, feedback, and constructive criticism most welcome.

Casually suggesting that an artist has plagerised work associated with you, and then interrogating them publically about it, all without producing any evidence at all has to be one of the most insulting things I can think of. If I have a problem with someones work, I deal with it in a mature and professional fashion. Â I would appreciate the same courtesy. Perhaps one might follow your own rather explict advice, listed in your signature

I didn't find the model anywhere, I built it, based on google image searches. Thanks for the feedback guys, will be posting new pictures soon. I'm also grateful to those who provided some assistance with getting the geometry sorted, I wasn't creating the objects right, and it now works like a charm. Most appreciated.