TankCommander

Awesome pics Alex[Dev]72!

Ultimate military shooter sandbox game. Playing all sorts of games for the past 17 years, this one holds the appeal of any great strategy game mixed with FPS and a great online community. Best game so far. Latest patches improve quality and performance so it deserves a top shelf in your HDD.

Had the idea of this one reserved for a while for when the aussie mod I've been working on was done. It's not done and has shifted focus a few times so I present this now. Mods - AAF retextured SF units, Navada, Modul sky and animations Click to enlarge

It would be nice if they added a 'zoom out' toggle for aircraft like the choppers. Atm I'm having to use a paper weight over the minus key which messes with some of my other key presses (too many keys the game can't recognise??)

Thanks Sniperwolf. Unfortunately that was the largest image size I was working on so no chance for a wallpaper. Kolt: I see the images

I'm using cpbo and just extracted the PBO to check for the rvmat's which are all there. I've just noticed that in the error is says file not located in "ca\uluru\data\..." and in my PBO file there is no "ca" folder. Could this be the problem? Because what I did was place my data folder and Uluru.wrp file into a new folder called "Uluru" in my P drive and then packed it. Otherwise I have no clue.

Nope I've got all that sorted in the raster department. Sorry I probably should have explained more clearly. The error I'm getting is this: My map raster directory is P:\CA\Uluru\data\Layers which contains 190 rvmat's with a code snipet of: (there are also the PAA files in there after it all got converted within buldozer) <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">ambient[]={0.900000,0.900000,0.900000,1.000000}; diffuse[]={0.900000,0.900000,0.900000,1.000000}; forcedDiffuse[]={0.020000,0.020000,0.020000,1.000000}; emmisive[]={0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000}; specular[]={0.000000,0.000000,0.000000,0.000000}; specularPower=0.000000; class Stage0 { texture="ca\uluru\data\Layers\S_003_004_lco.png"; texGen=3; }; class Stage1 { texture="ca\uluru\data\Layers\M_003_004_lco.png"; texGen=4; }; class TexGen3 { etc, etc, etc, etc... What I was thinking is that because these rvmat's link to PNG's, that may be where the problem is coming from as Arma can't read those? I've tried deleting the PNG files from the layers folder as advised by someone else but no dice. Thanks so much for the help guys

I've been following this and another similar tutorial and reached the part on exporting the map for use in Arma. Map works great within bulldozer but when loaded into Arma, I don't get any textures and an rvmat error. I'm guessing it's because most of the rvmat's are still linking to the PNGs and not the PAAs sat/mask maps. What's the way to fix this? And sorry for the probably lame question. Just been filtering through these threads for a few good hours.

Hi NC, I don't understand how that image could looked washed out to you. It was taken directly from ingame and then uploaded and posted here. There always is a degree of mistrust in colours as generally most monitors will show them differently. Especially the old CRT's but I've got (what I believe to be) a decent LCD showing correct colouration. And as mr. g-c said, I'm also a big fan of your map and have already begun creating a very large multi session operation on it. What I was saying before was just a suggestion on changing something that I saw slightly off on my side. And only if it wasn't too much trouble or as long as you may have agreed on it. So no harm no foul The waypoints you showed are fine. There are still some parts of the asphalt road near the south end that require 4 times as many waypoints. But it might change depending on the vehicle type. I won't comment more till I test it out later.

Yeah Stewy I'll check it out. Atm I'm looking for some really nice areas of oz to make into a larger map after this training one is completed.

Trying out the whole map making gig. This is a map of Uluru in central Australia and should be around 5x5km. Just one nights work and seeing already how crazy some aspects of map making really are. Will need to start posting in the Visitor thread soon... EDIT: Went through and refined some stuff. Still some of the sat map needs to be altered around the rock but I'm happy so far with it. Height map has also been finished just about. May add some small elevations around for a bit of variety but that's it. Sample of tree coverage seen in small clusters.

I'm no expert too heh. At a guess, it could have been formed by a very low level river/stream. Or most likely when the river began to dry up, the water would have been flowing in multiple lanes making it all look like that. Otherwise I have seen that sort of thing on a smaller scale in the creeks here in Australia.

Here's what I mean about the blue. Taken at noon just north of the village. If you're seeing it differently, then maybe it could be the monitor you're using. Was also just checking GE, and was wondering if you could maybe add the same sort of surface variation to your satmap? The part where you can see the water has sculpted the river bed. This way, I think would make it more convincing. It also shows how the river bed isn't smooth, so adjusting the surface value would make sense after all.

Monty from AAF asked me to post this up for him. Apparently he'd had a few beers and dreamt about Arma cell shaded... So the obvious result was an attempt at making Arma units look more cartoony... I think.

My experience on Sahrani is that adding only a few waypoints was enough for the AI to stick to the roads. I've also considered the point you made about terrain roughness and how the AI may calculate it quicker to travel off-road. Maybe worth a try configuring those values? After all, wheeled vehicles would find it tougher on rocky unstable ground regardless. Also is there a way to make the roads maybe smoother and more appealing to the AI? In regards to the map colour, I think the river beds could be more grey to match the colour when up close. From a distance it looks more like flowing water with the blue pigments. It should reflect it's surroundings more as it's made up of the same sand and rock but lighter in tone. http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~klimek....pg http://www.thisfabtrek.com/journey....h-4.jpg http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/d30-10/dry-riverbed.jpg http://dogbait.smugmug.com/photos/423476918_yF8gd-X2.jpg

It looked as tho there were many little spots the AI drivers would turn off on. They would prefer to travel along the river bed than the roads from what I noticed. And as said above, they do seem to try and shortcut roads that run closely parallel. Found the furthest most north dirt road doesn't like AI drivers the most. I'll have to use waypoints like suggested but they would need to be placed on every road corner.

Are you planning to optimise the roads? Because at the moment the AI is having a rather hard time sticking to it. I've tested several cars on each road heading to the same destination, and some roads do not behave properly at all where AI is concerned.

Great map so far! My only suggestion would be to add more bushes around the linear looking bush clusters. Just sparse bushes would do to break up any uniform patterns. Also took a few screenshots as I was wondering around the map... I love it so much Now I just wish my clan was active so we could have some missions on it... Anywho, thought you might like to see your map through the eyes of someone else =) I think those river beds would make for some nice off-road racing tracks =p Second EDIT: Just got to say how amazing it is to just take a rover and drive along the dirt roads. The long grass draw distance and all the bushes with the winding road taking you to scenic areas... breath taking. And damn those roads are dangerous lol. But feels very realistic.

Looking good Legi! Very epic indeed. Will need to grab some popcorn when this comes out. -Tank (aka SpaceGoat from GAW)

Well at least Arma draws grass further than OFP2's hideous 10m grass. I agree that I would like to see grass drawn over an infinite distance, but the hardware just isn't there unless you're prepared to compromise on most other aspects of the graphics. To render grass over a further distance means that it puts a strain on the hardware exponentially over every increment. It really just isn't necessary and has to be put into this perspective. And when you see grass from 300m away, you don't see each individual strand so a satellite image does suffice. A sat image is after all a distance image of terrain which includes grass. Here's an image (not great) of how the grass blends into the ground texture making the same grass model coloured differently depending on it's location.

The colour variation comes down to the satellite image as BI mentioned once. It can also be seen in the trailers if you look closely. The clutter is most likely a separate thing that determines the density and variation of certain plants in certain areas.

imo the grass fades at a good distance. If it was drawn at 200m, it would be a waste as the grass would get too small to really be noticeable. All it would do is lag the game to an unplayable level. Arma2 grass is meant to blend into the sat image so that it would be less obvious when you see it getting drawn in front of you. And Arma2's grass looks better and more realistic than any other game out there as far as I know so I'd never want Far Cry 2 grass that's for sure. Also Far Cry grass is made for areas with smaller view distances than Arma which means even tho their draw distance is only a little higher, it isn't as noticeable. Where even if the grass drew over 300m in Arma2, as soon as you got some binos out with 15x magnification, the terrain would still look strange with the cut between grass and texture.

Just finished working on a quick edit of the ArmA2 trailers to make it more 'Russian'. Best viewed in HD

They've said that they will start work on the console version a few months after PC release. I suspect that way they have a chance to patch the game of any faults before committing to console which cannot be heavily patched. It makes sense and is the smart thing to do. Also development for the console may take a while so don't hold your breath.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments =) Of course the colours won't please everyone, as with everything else it comes down to taste. I did the colour grading for atmosphere more than realism (which is not all brown - watch again) and because if I hadn't, it would be the same old trailer but with different music. Understand it was a personal project and that I am not representing BIS directly or trying to convey their message, whatever that may be. And yes that is the current Russian anthem with the current Russian flag and with the current Russian Armed Forces insignia in the top right corner