r3volution

I think that the m32 mgl would rock. It would be the answer to the prayers of the 'shoot then adjust' grenade launcher crowd (myself included) if only BIS had included it in the game, I mean, the Marine Corps does issue it now. :) Well either that or HeinBloed re-releasing his awesome grenadier mod for Arma2. That shizzle was awesome, actually countered the way in which the inaccuracy makes grenadiers weak, and meant you could have decent chance of laying on a 40mm hit.

True that. I've gone back to the 2d editor for now, at least I can play what I'm making in that. This 3d editor thing seems like for now its a bit of a tease, or at least with my skill levels it is. ;)

Well, in all fairness to BIS it does look like they're going to enable it properly and fix it up in a coming patch, at least if this is accurate. ohara Bi Developer However, that said, I wouldn't expect it to be super-simple to use even if they do fix it up for public consumption, the flip-side of all the Arma2 awesomeness and depth is the frustration of trying to DIY in the mission editor. I do hope that they fix it up with intuitive interfaces, and that it is able to supplant the old 2d style editor with its clunky scripting etc. I just don't want to hope too much for fear of dissapointment. ;)

Cadmium77: Nice work on finding those videos, they've been providing some helpful viewing. Damn this 3d editor, its making me spend even more time in the editor and even less time playing the damn game. ;) And yeah, this thread could definitely be moved to somewhere more visible without causing undue harm to the fabric of reality etc. I'm still yet to sort out the init.sqf file to get this 3d editor stuff spawning in a mission, I wish my scripting skills weren't quite so noobish.

Yes you can use it a bit, the functionality is a little bit limited in terms of actually getting stuff out of the editor and into the mission, but check out these threads for info on the editor's capabilities and how to place units etc... Here and here. That should get you started. Placing a unit in the 3d editor requires placing a 'center' entity and then a 'group' entity first, and then you can place units as part of that group. For more, check out the links.

When you place a 'group' in the 3d editor it seems to be different to the 'group' in the ordinary editor, so it won't spawn a group of units, but will allow you to place individual ones, if I interpret it correctly. What I found was that all the units were available in the unit screen following placing a group, of course depending on whether the 'center' unit was bluefor, opfor or independant you have access to different units in the unit menu. So just place bluefor 'center' then place group 'center west' and then you should have access to whatever units you like from the unit menu, which would then constitute part of that group. No pre-made groups like the ordinary editor I don't think, or I can't see any. *Edit* Okay I just checked this in the 3d editor, and yes, when you place the 'group' it just makes a group with nobody in it by default, and then with the unit menu, you choose units and can allocate them to whatever group you want. Of course if you've only got the one group there then it just goes to that one by default, otherwise I think you have to chooose between groups you've placed whenever placing a new unit in the 3d editor.

Afaik the 'center' unit is invisible and doesn't do anything apart from allow you to place a 'group' (also an invisible entity) which in turn allows you to place a unit, which you will be able to see and manipulate.

Place a 'Center' unit in the 3d editor, and then you should be able to place 'group' and then 'unit'. Some of the base templates look really neat, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of potential here, once I can just figure out how the f*$% to get it to spawn properly in a 2d editor map.

Wow this thing actually seems to even work with the old Arma1 islands and map addons as well. Its obviously not quite finished, but even as a work in progress this thing seems to be amazingly powerful. I can understand why they didn't want to advertise it in this unfinished and unrefined state, but even so it seems to have pretty impressive potential, just a bummer the need to do the switch to 2d ordinary editor and have to script it into the mission.sqf, but hey, its work in progress. *edit* Okay been fiddling around trying to replicate Provac's instructions, but can't get it working. I'm assuming its something I've done wrong with the init.sqf file, but not sure what. if (isServer) then { execVM "mission1.sqf"; }; That's what the sum total of my init.sqf looks like, I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong there but not sure what.

From my experience with Arma1 mission editing, the initialization box (if we're talking about the one on a unit here) just automatically runs the code in it once the mission starts, in order to add code that won't automatically run on the start of a mission it has to be done through waypoints or triggers connected to that unit. That's as far as I know, and I could stand to be corrected as probably 90% of the people who read this board know far more about editing and scripting than I do. Now I might shuffle off to try that 3d Editor for a bit.

Second! I have to say I agree with your points about the documentation and information, having been mission editing for a good 2 and a half years in Arma and now doing it in Arma2, its sometimes incredibly hard to find information. Its not that there's not a lot out there, its just incredibly hard to find what you need sometimes, especially if you're just looking for something specific. I do understand your frustration also, having done so much mission editing in Arma1, using a whole bunch of new things such as the artillery modules and the scripting involved has been and is still a very steep learning curve for me and I'm having trouble getting even basic stuff to work. I do wish that they'd put at least a simple bit of graphic interface over the modules so you didn't have to be a leet scriptor to set up a simple fire-support function in a mission, it seems that with every cool new feature that Arma2 has introduced that seem so effortless in the campaign, there's a messy and complex setup in the mission editor to reproduce it. I think it definitely, in keeping with BIS selling Arma2 in part for the editor, would be a good idea for them to release some more detailed tutorials and documentation. Something that goes into how to create the more immersive type of scenarios that they use in the campaign, as opposed to some 'run solo through a village with 1 squad of randomly placed riflemen standing about' type mission which, while its useful as an intro to editing, isn't exactly going to provide an immersive mission making full usage of Arma2's features. So did you manage to lock down the keys to bring up that 3d editor? Alt +E in main menu was it? And did you manage to get it to exit back to normal mode?

Have to say, you do raise a couple of pretty good points. I have my doubts about OFP2: DR, two things that worry me so far about it are the severity of the wounding system and its realism (i.e get hit in the head, step back a few feet and apply magic bandaid to self, and voila), and also the lack of decent view-distance I've seen in the pictures/videos so far, though in the first pic it seems to be better than anywhere else I've seen it. Graphically though, it seems to be well ahead of Arma2, with far more sophisticated LOD for foliage and buildings etc, more realistic grass and grass draw distance among other things. However, whether this plays out in the final game (and if so whether or not it cripples computers like Arma2 does), and whether its at the expense of the things that make a good mil-sim remains to be seen. TBH, OFP2: DR would have to include a pretty insanely awesome editor on top of all this other stuff to have a chance of displacing Arma2 as my mil-sim of choice.

I've had some interesting AI one-shot moments, but haven't been able to trace them to any one specific unit or set of circumstances. As others have said though, Arma's AI had super-hearing and so could pinpoint your position and drop a round through your face after only hearing one footstep, eventually patches and mods neutered it a little. I hope its just the same case here. Cackle, bout that 'ground wave' thing, I'm running latest Nvidia drivers and I've been seeing it too. Its like a little 'ripple' that seems to run through the terrain about 3 metres in front of the character model. Its quite bizzare, and I'm SURE i wasn't getting it before latest drivers, but I don't have older ones to roll back to to verify.

Well, I'd already decided a good 5 years before I bought my copy of Arma that I wouldn't be joining the army. But that being said, everything I've experienced in Arma and Arma2 has done nothing except reinforce the incredibly random nature of violence in war, just to reinforce the point that you can be perfectly trained, do everything right, and still cop a slug in the pan or an IED up the ass. Just a matter of being in the wrong place (i.e a warzone) at the wrong time (i.e when there's a war on) can be enough to get you killed, elite training or no. Now I wouldn't say I was perfectly trained or do everything right in Arma2, far from it, most of my missions I have the average lifespan of a soldier going over the top in WWI. Average, maybe 5 minutes till I get the chop. Army? Thanks but no thanks.

WTF edit in 3d? Wow I have to say I never knew this was included in the editor. Live & learn.

Very nice. Yeah, as poacher said, maybe the green on the vest in the third picture looks a tiny bit too bright. But honestly, these pics rock, I'm planning SO many missions. :D

Frakin' awesome! :D These units look better than top notch. I'm going to stop looking at the screens now lest I short circuit my keyboard from drooling... That guy should seriously get that arm checked out though, something's got to be broken. ;)

Camo Dragunov SVD or the M21DMR, depending on which side I'm playing. Either one is good, I find 5.56 doesn't have much punch above the 200m mark, and I do love the 'boom headshot' capacity of the semi-auto DMR's rather than the bolt actions, because moving targets are a bitch for un-co snipers such as myself.

Tophe For The Win! Seriously, most artistic and yet respectful complaint I've ever seen/heard on the net (or at all for that matter). All good points raised. My main complaint with the game (and this is a complaint because I do love Arma2, and its older siblings, not because I hate them) isn't primarily with the performance issues. It's more the underlying issues that have been in the games since OFP. As mentioned before, the AI being unable to drive, getting 'stuck' on small things while ignoring massive obstacles and walking straight through them. Also the 'drunk AI pilots' thing gets old after the 10th time you have to restart a mission cause the pilot conducted a controlled flight into terrain. A lot of the performance issues also seem to be similar ones to previous Arma series games. So its not that I have issues with Arma2 bugs. They're not arma2 bugs. They're almost all Arma bugs and for what I can see, mostly OFP bugs before that. It just seems like a lot of effort has to be expended on BIS's and the community's part in an attempt to correct the same things with each release, and I don't understand why BIS haven't attempted to correct them in such a way that they are ironed out of the engine for good. The best analogy would be that you build a massive house, its a great house but its got termites in it, but you put on extension after extension until its a palace. If you have the builders in, to put the next wing on your palace, wouldn't you want to protect your investment by at the same time getting rid of the termites which were in your original house, so they don't keep spreading to the new bits you put on? At the same time, I acknowledge I'm not privy to the inside workings of BIS, perhaps there is some reason that they haven't addressed these things, but honestly, when every critical appraisal of every game they've done keeps throwing up the same complaints, wouldn't it make sense, from a business perspective to address them in future products? *Edit* To give context, I barely play the main campaigns and BIS standard missions, I predominantly use Arma1/2 as a platform for making my own missions and playing those. So none of what I say refers to the campaigns, as I never even bothered to finish the one in Armed Assault (too busy playing with the editor) and have quickly skipped my way though the Arma2 one and am now just using the editor most of the time. Just my 2 cents.

This would be a masterpiece if it can be done without killing the CPU. Hell, it'd still rock even if it did, somehow dudes getting surface scratches from a close range grenade blast or mortar don't quite cut it as realistic.

Any word from anyone on whether the effects type mods will work in Arma2? I'm about to start going through all my downloaded Arma smoke/effects type mods and try them one at a time to see if they work. *Edit* Okay I tried JTD Smoke Effects, that didn't work, had a config error relating to classes for Tankdust2 or something. I'm not really enough of a scripter/modder to know exactly what to do but I'm bashing around to see if I can get it to work, I'm not holding my breath though.

I can't imagine it giving more than a couple of frames per second back to you, but in all honesty I'd use it if it did that. Any FPS is good fps, plus, as others have said, they're not really there, and when you see them out to sea, its a little unrealistic.

I'm running just the core files buildings desert desert2 misc plants roads rocks sara signs as well as their associated .bisign files and there's minimal errors. Only a couple on startup and/or load. Nothing too bad, and no sign of any purple death ray or pink line of doom or magenta carnage wand or whatever. As everyone has said though, there's something definitely wrong with the way the mid-distance textures are processed because the long-distance ones are being used at v-short distance. I'm not finding a massive framerate boost though, but that could be more attributable to my pc being a mound of suck rather than anything to do with the original arma1 maps.

nuggetz, all I can say is that Kronzsky's UPS and Tophe's new Housepatrol scripts are my very best of friends. Usually that results in sufficient randomisation to ensure I don't know where the next enemy is coming from. Between those two you can set up a number of very interesting scenarios, I'm yet to start fiddling around with the Ambient Combat module, but it looks like it could have some interesting potential. To start with though, i'd recommend trying those two scripts as they're pretty easy to use (i've been using them [or variants thereof] in the editor since I was a complete arma noob). But you may already know all this...

I tend to spend about 90% of my time in the editor making missions which I never bother releasing because I'm too damn lazy to figure out camera scripting stuff for intros and endings. Pretty much same deal as with Armed Assault. Campaign is fun, but I really don't buy these games for the campaign, the editor means I can pretty much play whatever battle I feel like playing on the day, never takes me more than half an hour to set up a decent scenario.