SuicidalManiac

Found out proxies only seem to save you on the vertex and face count limits, not on the size limit for objects, problems still exist if bigger than 64x64 even with proxies. In the process of learning proxies, I discovered they work on addons that I bundle up by themselves, but if I try to put them into visitor as a part of the island project the proxies do not show, any ideas why? Also I would like the lake to be visible from the other side of my island, how do i set a custom view range for a single object, so it is visible over 4000km away or more? Looks good up close and from one side. But the other side shows a texture difference at the grid boundary, any way around this? Any tutorials on these subjects would be welcomed. Thanks in advance. Archaine

Ok thanks to "T D" I have a beautiful lake. I was able to export my V3 map with the contours set to begin at the elevation of my lake(making a perfect outline of where it meets the terrain), then I traced the contours over the image in autocad and exported the face into O2. My 600m custom lake now fits the landscape perfectly along every edge, but I have several problems. 1. No water sounds. 2. No water splash or sound when shot, I set a fire geo lod? 3. It is not visible from really far away. I played with adding several view lod's but nothing worked. 4. I can see several areas that are lighter and darker until I get closer, prolly relating to the grid system of the terrain, as my lake extends into several grids. 5. I can't swim in it. I assume fixing the 4th issue can be done by splitting it up into smaller pieces, though I would prefer a method that keeps it as 1 piece, I do not know if there is a config file entry that could help with the visibility issues. The other issues I assume are with the config file, or my lack of one, I could not find a sample water object config, and everything here looks to be vehicle, building, character, or gun oriented. Is there a manual or tutorial that focuses on the possible options and syntax in a config file? and not just for vehicles but a broad range of examples that includes water objects. I extracted a lot of pbo's and could find no model config for water objects. Should water parameters be set up in a model config, or the general config, or some other config? I have no idea what im doing yet. Configs scare me, I hate syntax, but I'm ready to learn damit! Someone please point me in the right direction Archangel

Spent hours of research on this, could someone clarify a few things for me. I discovered water parameters in several areas. I see there is a material .bisurf file that describes a materials properties, including water, though don't know all the parameters. I see the surfaces.hpp has possible entries for water surfaces, again am not sure of the parameters, seems to be tied only to materials on the terrain and not in objects, though maybe I tie my terrain materials to the lake above? I see water objects can be called out in the config.cpp, not sure what category to place them in, object, vehicle, etc. I assume this is where the majic of swimming etc occurs but have found nothing about it. Is there anything that should be done with a model.cfg in relation to my lake, no anims so I did not think it was needed? This is not for an addon that one would place in the editor, it is for a static object in my Island, so I assume this all gets placed in the general config.cpp for the island. I went through Mondkalb's_Addon_Tutorial and learned a bit though it seems frought with errors and name inconsistencies. Does anyone know of a better tutorial for getting this stuff straight? Archangel

I did a quick read through and didn't see a thread dealing with this offhand, probably find it if I dug deeper, maybe someone could save me an hour or two :) I'm still building terrain, and needed a larger pond, more like a lake, so I figure, Easy, load up the pond from my structures pbo into O2 and make the sucker bigger, NOT!, Oxygen says binarized model or something and I cannot edit it. Without going through every tutorial, how the heck do I unlock or unbinarize or whatever, a pond to edit it. I plan to move to learning oxygen modeling after building the majority of my terrain, but I got stuck on this stupid lake, and don't want to pile on a ton of new tutorials just to edit the size. My brain hurts from learning Visitor3 over the last few days. So hopefully someone can help me. Pre-Thanks Archangel

Ok thanks to "T D" I have a beautiful lake. I was able to export my V3 map with the contours set to begin at the elevation of my lake(making a perfect outline of where it meets the terrain), then I traced the contours over the image in autocad and exported the face into O2. My 600m custom lake now fits the landscape perfectly along every edge, but I have several problems. 1. No water sounds. 2. No water splash or sound when shot, I set a fire geo lod? 3. It is not visible from really far away. I played with adding several view lod's but nothing worked. 4. I can see several areas that are lighter and darker until I get closer, prolly relating to the grid system of the terrain, as my lake extends into several grids. 5. I can't swim in it. I assume fixing the 4th issue can be done by splitting it up into smaller pieces, though I would prefer a method that keeps it as 1 piece, I do not know if there is a config file entry that could help with the visibility issues. The other issues I assume are with the config file, or my lack of one, I could not find a sample water object config, and everything here looks to be vehicle, building, character, or gun oriented. Is there a manual or tutorial that focuses on the possible options and syntax in a config file? and not just for vehicles but a broad range of examples that includes water objects. I extracted a lot of pbo's and could find no model config for water objects. Do I just make a model config file and name it after the model, then create a water class in it, then... yeah im lost. I have no idea what im doing yet. Configs scare me, I hate syntax, but I'm ready to learn damit! Someone please point me in the right direction Archangel

I didn't notice the "this" was a link right away. Thank you very much, that's exactly what I needed. Archangel

I made an Island in OFP, and there was a wonderful utility in Visitor for autotexturing the terrain based on the elevation and the "SLOPE" of the terrain. So I would never have sand on a piece of terrain that was very steep, etc. I see they were kinda left in for legacy purposes in V3, though the terrain is now textured based on the layers and mask files. When I click on surfaces to try the old tools it is blank and I do not see a way to add textures this way. Is there anyway to use the old system or any way to dictate terrain texture based on elevation and slope in the layers.cfg? This new system almost seems a step backwards if you have to manually color every bit of terrain for texturing, I was able to texture a whole island with a click of a button the old way after setting a few params, and my low sloped regions close to sea level were sand, and the high slope regions close to sea level were eroded rock, etc. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Archangel

You guys ROCK!! You save me Eons! L3DT ROCKS!!! For those not using it, kick yourself in the head. Wish I was not laid off and I would purchase it so I can generate high res maps! Archangel

I did not ask why there are locked, I am slightly offended by your accusation, though not terribly so. :) I know why models are locked, but this is a figgin plane of water for god sakes, I am not trying to steal someones hard work, I just want to make a custom size pond. I would only borrow work if I though it was "allowed" to be borrowed. I had guessed ponds were similar to roads, and V3 came with usable "unlocked" roads, in lieu of the locked ones in the Roads2.pbo I did not ask to unlock a vehicle, or structure, just what I though was a standard terrain item. I realize there is no way to unlock them now, the question has turned to, is there a resource of templates that one could use to develop these models? (like the roads in V3). Perhaps maybe a pond template, where you just create the bounds, so the design work is separate from the more technical syntax that would look about the same for everyone, in this simplistic case of a plane of water anyway. I am biting the bullet and setting up the 3dsmax Arma tools, I will just make my own pond, though I had hoped to wait until the terrain was sorted out before switching tracks to O2 like this, mastering one tool then switching to another is preferred, learning both at once is rough. Hence the purpose of my original query seeking a quick to modify pond. Archangel

Visitor 3 most likely, as this is the forum pertaining to that particular program. In Bulldozer you can have an object selected and hold the Mouse Button and press page up and down to change an objects elevation. Also you can select an object an press enter, or go to the properties box in the menu pulldowns, there you can change its relative elevation to the surface its on by typing the number desired. You can also Run the script for setting absolute elevation, with the objects selected, nice way to set the elevation for multiple objects. Archangel

I saw someone post a link to a pond that snapped together like roads in the V3 forum, but the link was unavailable. I have 4 large ponds at 500% right now, but they flicker and have a lot of issues, and their overlap is visible in the texture. I need to make a custom one that fits the terrain where I plan to place it. Anyone know of a pond template that has all the textures and properties set up, that just requires the bounding poly to be added? Also I noticed my ponds water pattern moves rapidly as I walk towards it, also the scale of the water is off, think this is a problem with scaling it up 500% but not sure. And I do not enter it swiming, and the bullets do not make a splash, wonder if this is a config file problem. Thanks again Archangel

A thousand Thanks, overlooked that little pulldown in my hast. Archangel

Two questions in One. Can you set up a working train system that uses the tracks, with scripting perhaps. This would make a nice virtual train-set for my father to play around with. Also I read here that you cannot go under the terrain, is there anyway to break a hole in it, like in crisis, there you simply select a few faces and delete, then you can build a model to occupy the space, passing freely through the hole. I have a lot of mountains and placing tunnels through them is imperative, building the entire mountain as an object would be silly to say the least. Anyone find a workaround for this scenario. Archangel

I got wilbur and played with it. Love the erosion tools. Anyway, I see where you can display the map in terms of slope, but when I save it just saves the normal heightmap, the exports have 3 options but I don't see anything for a png or other format, they are formats I am unfamiliar with and don't see how I could import them into photoshop. So how would I export the slopemap, I captured the screen, hope that is not the only way. Archangel

I guess I will have to check out Wilbur. I am actually using SimCity4 to build my terrain and exporting it to SC4Terraformer for tweeking before saving the heightmap. (Plus you get the cool music and sound effects while doing it in SimCity, and laying roads and placing buildings, automatically smooths the terrain in those areas.) The tool is easy to use, hope wilbur is as cool. If it saves a decent slopemap I could open it in conjunction with the heightmap in photoshop and remove the steep areas from my beach layer easily with color range selection sets. I will update this thread with the results if they are good, for others who are looking for more automated ways of getting these things textured. I'm working on a Graphic Novel and this project will double as background for scenery. Assuming I can get my Poser character models to import into the environment. Thanks Again Archangel

Is there ANY way to edit my character in the single player to be white?? Every time i look down at my hands I think Iv'e been in the sun too long, it kills the immersion aspect, doesnt feel like me in the game. Come on at least give us a choice in the creation of our character. Besides he sounds like a white kid from Suburbia, who's doing the thinking over there? I need a job, hire me, I'll clean up that mess.

I am building a bridge, and have been researching the forums for the last week trying to find anything on structure damage. Gave up and explored it with hours of trial and much error. Here's what I discovered. The bridge section I have is roughly 20x80x2. When you destroy it it just crumples the smallest amount. Fine for some structures but not a bridge. I found that by creating a ghost box 40m below it that allowed it to shatter and split into a mass of destructed planes. So the size of your model including seperate parts determins how much the model deforms when destroyed. visible lods only The placement of the ghost piece is tricky you have to experiment a little. too far away and it makes the bridge planes spread out like a pancake etc. I have built the bridge into two seperate models, one for the deck and one for large beams. They blow up roughly at the same time but the beams deform less leaving a more destructed bridge look. Anyone know how to use hidden sections to custom model battle damage this would make a much cleaner application for the bridge. Thanks [suicidal] mANIAC

I though of that but to save size I was hoping to utilize the texture in OFP data folders. Anyone know how to fix or compensate. The bis bridge seems to work fine. Tnks

I have a bridge with a simple roadway that works perfect in all respects, you can walk on it, shoot it, blow it up, it cast shadows. But when I apply sil_new.paa texture to it for a nice road look the fire geo does not work anymore. Ive tried everything, all I do is apply another texture and it works fine. Anyone know why this is. Is it the transparency of sil_new.paa? Please help Ready to do it. Suicidal