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"might want to get the helipad sticking out of the oil rig more" Good tip, I checked my reference materials and indeed, the pads are sticking out alot more. I have moved it out further - looks great. "enterable buildings for spec operations?" Yes, The rig has about seven levels too it, both external and internal. The main building on the rig has 5 levels. I have interior walls creating a number of rooms. As noted above, I have some pretty major work to do on Geo to stop weird things happening. Also - external camera when running around the building does not work well (the camera will often be in the room above). Hmmm... I wonder if I should place the floor in the geo layer as well as the roadway... that might solve the camera issue... I'll try making the walls extra thick to stop the view "bouncing" and also from being able to run through the walls if u keep trying. "@Windows" It sounds like I'm going to be making the alpha release with non-destructable windows. I'm basically putting anything that seems non-essential asside for the alpha release, mainly because I want to test how well this will run on lower-end machines and from an AI perspective before I commit too much work. Thanks for everyones advice on windows so far! Update... Detail Based on the feedback I received, I have now added more detail to a number of areas. Most of it is railings, such as netting around the edge of the helipad and more external detail on the building. I have also increased the deck size, added an exterior deck on the top of the building, and several oil tanks. Possible feature... Operatable Crane Several people have asked if the crane will be usable (lol). I have a theory about how to do this (basically turreted vehicle with no wheels). I'm not entirely sure what the purpose would be... except I have a large number of Ship models I made for FSX that I could easily port to ArmA, and write some sort of "unload ship" script based on the position of the crane. I think maybe thats something for version 2.0. Update... Performance Currently the model sits in four pieces, and is around 40,000 triangles. I am not sure what the performance will be on lower-end PC's which is my aim for testing in (pre)Alpha. My current approach is to break the model down into more and more objects, and then LOD the heck out of any that have a significant number of triangles. This will, however, make placement of the rig virtually impossible via the mission editor and the objects all need to be placed perfectly on top of each other. I'm also concerned that LODing may be based on the CENTER of the object, in which case, all my objects are offset so their position is right on the rig... meaning LODing won't be as effective as if the objects were not offset. My current triangle budget is 50,000 as I figured being out in the ocean I could get away with that much detail. If anyone has a better LODing or performance recommendations... please feel free to let me know. Anyway, thanks for the feedback I'll post some more screens soon and aim to get something online for folks to test. Does anyone know of somewhere I can run bugtracker for this?

I've been working on a Oil Rig model for my clan (USEC) to use in missions, and I thought I would post some screenshots. Â I will be running a closed alpha in the weekend, with the intention of releasing a beta sometime in October. You can land a helicopter on the rig. Â I have five ladders working so far on the rig. Â There is currently no animation, or lighting, nor moving parts. Â I doubt I will have these working for Beta in october but I will have them in the final. Â My intention is to combine it with a number of scripts I have developed and release a deathmatch and rescue co-op mission. One key thing I have noted is that more than 20k polygons and you must split the objects out. Â Currently, the rig is three models and totals about 40k polygons. Some problems I am having: * How do I create windows? * How do I create destructable parts of objects? * Getting Geo objects to "behave" with the camera and player (such as walls) If anyone has any ideas on these two, please post below or PM me to help. Also, if anyone has any bright ideas or suggestions about what I could add, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks for input guys! So far I've got the following feedback I'll be actioning: * Obstacle near helipad should be moved * 44gal Drums should be added * Retexturing from tiled texture (baked, touched up) Continuing my questions above * Windows ? Awesome, thanks for the outline of what too do Gnat! Does anyone know if it is possible to assign the windows as destructable? * Destructable parts ? You're right it is probably is more work than is necessary, maybe something I will look at for a later release. At this stage I am actually propogating the rig in game using a script. You place one of the game models in the editor, and it places the additional two when you load it up. * GEO behave ? What I am finding happens is that in external view while running around, the camera bounces up to the level above, or into the room next door. Basically the camera does not conform to the bounds of nearby Geo like I thought it would. I wondered if thats because I wasn't building the geo right perhaps? Also, I am finding that I can run through walls if I try hard enough, which makes me think that I am not doing the walls right. Might have to play around a bit I think. Some new questions. * Has anyone done any work with detail maps in ArmA? I have a handle on the Normal Mapping, which I intend to have working in Alpha assuming I can work out some performance issues. I think I may have to have full LODing in for this to work properly on lower end systems. * Success with lighting? I want to put a number of fluorescent lights on the rig. I think I have the process worked out, but if anyone has had any success with this (or indeed, any hints on how I should approach the lighting of the rig) I would love to hear it. * Ladder confusion Well I have the ladders working, but I can't seem to tweak them how I like. Either the "activate" position is too far out from the ladder and therefore confusing, or the animation of climbing the ladder is "inside" it. Am I correct that the ladder points are mapped in game to be "activated" by the nearby section of geo from the geometry mesh? If anyone has some pointers here that would be great. I have the ladders working, just I'm not happy with their quality.

Thanks for input guys! So far I've got the following feedback I'll be actioning: * Obstacle near helipad should be moved * 44gal Drums should be added * Retexturing from tiled texture (baked, touched up) Continuing my questions above * Windows ? Awesome, thanks for the outline of what too do Gnat! Does anyone know if it is possible to assign the windows as destructable? * Destructable parts ? You're right it is probably is more work than is necessary, maybe something I will look at for a later release. At this stage I am actually propogating the rig in game using a script. You place one of the game models in the editor, and it places the additional two when you load it up. * GEO behave ? What I am finding happens is that in external view while running around, the camera bounces up to the level above, or into the room next door. Basically the camera does not conform to the bounds of nearby Geo like I thought it would. I wondered if thats because I wasn't building the geo right perhaps? Also, I am finding that I can run through walls if I try hard enough, which makes me think that I am not doing the walls right. Might have to play around a bit I think. Some new questions. * Has anyone done any work with detail maps in ArmA? I have a handle on the Normal Mapping, which I intend to have working in Alpha assuming I can work out some performance issues. I think I may have to have full LODing in for this to work properly on lower end systems. * Success with lighting? I want to put a number of fluorescent lights on the rig. I think I have the process worked out, but if anyone has had any success with this (or indeed, any hints on how I should approach the lighting of the rig) I would love to hear it. * Ladder confusion Well I have the ladders working, but I can't seem to tweak them how I like. Either the "activate" position is too far out from the ladder and therefore confusing, or the animation of climbing the ladder is "inside" it. Am I correct that the ladder points are mapped in game to be "activated" by the nearby section of geo from the geometry mesh? If anyone has some pointers here that would be great. I have the ladders working, just I'm not happy with their quality.

Same rig as mine mate, I can't get ArmA to load. I suspect that ArmA is not having much fun in the mega-future environment of 8800GTS drivers + Vista 64bit. Would really recommend a dual boot in your situation, until some sort of solution comes along. Vista 64 is GREAT but riding with a new technology comes with some limitations. Read This Thread which exactly mirrors my experience, except with an ATI card (my screens look exactly the same).

I have the same specs as the top poster (except my CPU is the model up  ).  I also have the same problem with Vista 64Bit Ultimate. The compatibility mode setting doesn't work, or any command line switches I could find.  Suspect its a pretty major problem not just associated with 64bit but also with the 8800 and drivers. Eventually, I got the menu to "load".  But no textures were loaded, so it looked something like piccasso would paint as a child. It was only on guessing where the exit button was in the main menu that I was able to exit. My solution was just to set myself up as a dual boot, and run ArmA quite happily from WinXP.  Considering ArmA isn't using either 64bit architecture, or DX10, it was only really a convenience factor for me to load it up on Vista.  Definately recommend installing it on either WinXP or Win2k, I have run it on both very stable.  I even have it running outstanding on Win server 2003.

Great work! Â I had been doing some editing with the CZM and put together a whole bunch of sounds that I had developed/purchased the rights for as part of a previous project. Â I have some great sounds that you might like to add to your mod (screams, music, etc...) that would be good for mission makers. Flick me an email at icemotoboy@hotmail.com and I can zip them up and send them through to see if you'd like them. IMB.