tupolov

Not to take anything away from IceBreakr, but this isn't his terrain! Tupolov (Maybe I need a sig!):D

All, So I have 3 main roads on my map and I'm considering including a script to spawn ambient civilian vehicles that travel up and down them. What are you thoughts on this? Should we do this or leave it down to mission makers? Bushlurkers ambient trawlers got me thinking about how much this kind of thing adds to the map. Is there anything else ambient that we should include in the map or anything we can do to make it easy to add these components? Thanks Tup

Bigshot, Everything is out there you need. I know because I started from scratch and now am close to finishing an OA based map. Keep at it, there are about 2-3 tutorials which pretty much cover everything you need. Tup

Will look really good with my forthcoming Qom Map! Some requests if possible (for AA sites): 1. SA-6 Launcher 2. S200 Launcher 3. HAWK Launcher 4. Static Radar (for use with AA Launchers) 5. Working Zelzal-2 Launcher oh and Sand berms? The Iranian's use these everywhere. Cheers, Tup

Can you show us the image properties?

Have you clicked on the button [bk] to show background images? Did you load your sat pic in as a background image? I have found that sometime the background won't display if you change the source image. Simply delete the background image from Visitor and re-add it.

Thanks all... will leave it to the mission makers!

Thanks YorT! Your Mod is amazing and really brings the map to life. Let me know if you have any ideas around what I can add. Will add you to the Beta list!

Thanks for the kinds comments! I'm still looking for more Beta testers and mission makers for the map. My feeling at the moment is that I want to private Beta the map, fix the bugs, get at least 2 missions ready for it before releasing as complete to the community. PM me if you would like access to the Beta release and are willing to provide bug reports/missions. You'll absolutely be credited when the map is released. Cheers, Tup

Thanks. There's no way to enter the mines currently.

Added a thread to the Addon Discussions... Will contact Armaholic once its in Beta! Dark - respect, that's a lot of work. This 10x10km has taken me since October... Determined to get it finished before end of March. Good luck with your maps, don't be afraid to scale back! I found focusing on a few short term objectives has helped me avoid the feeling of been overwhelmed by the amount of work to do. Cheers, Tup

Here's an update to my map... Created a pretty cheesy trailer to showcase the terrain and features. Enjoy! For users who have youtube content blocked... http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/technology_and_gaming/watch/v20795983GBpDEwDY

Aplion, Chill's recommendation should work. I'm using OA objects, roads in my map without any problems. Just convert the stuff in your P:/CA folder to ODOL 48. What exact error are you getting? Lots of people have converted the p3ds and they work fine in Visitor. Tup

Just don't underestimate the effort required to create a map. Its months of work and the bigger the map, the longer the process. I started a map back in Nov 2010... I'm targeting a March finish (its only 10x10km). You don't need really high res sat pics as often this picks out too much detail on the ground. Real life sat pics and data help you place most of what's on your map, which is a big help. I can't imagine trying to fill a 10x10 or 20x20km "fantasy" map, that's going to take some planning. Do the tutorials first and create a test map with some of the things that you want to use (roads, ponds, clutter, vegetation, villages, runways). Make sure you've got a good process for creating masks for clutter/vegetation. Make sure you can edit the heightmap to deal with anomalies, edges of the map etc. Work out how to use World Tools (along with the scripting) to place objects, fences and powerlines. Understand and plan how many towns/villages/areas you are going to create - make sure you create the key points for them so mission makers can use them. Create small building blocks of clusters of buildings as templates for town/village creation... There's lots of tools you'll need: GIMP GlobalMapper RoadPainter World Tools Eliteness RTE Ultraedit (or other advanced file editor) ConvertWRP (to convert current maps to PEW format - to see how the "pro's" do it!) Visitor (obviously!) BIS Tools 2 (BinBPO etc) Sat Pic Downloader such as MySatellite Recommended Process (braindump): 1. Create sat pic and heightmap that match, preview in Visitor. Use GlobalMapper to get heightmap data and matching sat pic data. 2. Fix any height map anomalies (holes etc) and also create 1-2m depressions where you want ponds or lakes. 3. Fix edges of map so that they are raised and reasonably random (to work better with the TerrainSynch) 4. Select the texture for terrain sync and fade this into the edges of the sat pic (to make the transition from your terrain to the auto-terrain look smoother) 5. Create your mask initially with clutter in mind, add layers for vegetation, plants, trees, rocks, roads. Avoid the edges of the map. Create your initial config.cpp file with all the necessary parameters. 6. Pack up your map (BinPBO) and test in Arma 2/CO (no Mods) 7. Use World Tools to create vegetation, plants, trees, rocks based on your mask, import into visitor. 8. Create a sat pic with the roads mask layer overlaid. 9. Pack up your map and load with Arma2 and RoadPainter addon. 10. Use RoadPainter to create all roads and import into Visitor, link up the roads by manually placing crossroad/terminator pieces. 11. Use the Visitor avenue script to add trees, signs, plants running along roads. (You could also use World Tools by creating a feather to the roads mask). 12. Use world tools to place powerlines across the map (use a world tools script to do this) 13. Place key points for all areas where units maybe placed in missions 14. Pack up your map and make sure the map displays correctly in Arma 2 15. Start placing buildings, objects etc either in RTE or Visitor (cut and paste elements from other maps will help build up templates). Good luck!

So, its been a while and i've been learning lots... More vegetation, trees, plants laid down, completed most of fields in the southern part of the map, working airport, road system (50%), some farms, towns and the start of an industrial area... Excuse the in dev mask colouring (helps when laying roads). Some more pics. Uploaded with ImageShack.us This map is 10kmx10km based on real life height map and sat map data in an area north west of the Qom district in Iran. The southern half of the map is dominated by farms, more modern towns and an industrial area with the Persian Gulf Highway running North South over a mountain range. The mountain range is the location of a couple of (secret) military and nuclear facilities as well as a military airfield. The northern half of the map features old ruins, older towns/markets and a large salt lake. The area contains a number of anti-air/air defense sites. The concept for the map is to play out WMD Denial/Search and Destroy type operations, mainly US/Allied forces vs Iranian Forces (see Iranian Forces Mod). (more pics at this post: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1812523&postcount=51) PS. Thanks to Shezan, Bushlurker and the guys on the ARMA 2 Map Making Skype Channel for their assistance

wondering if anyone knows how to set object size in visitor script. To set relative height is: _x setRelHeight value; looking for something like: _x setRelSize value; (this doesn't work though)

Hey Shezan, This is really really great! Congrats on getting this released and looking forward to seeing more of your good work. Tup

Thanks Gnat. resize requires an array as an input and not an object. I have a feeling we can't resize an object in scripting for visitor. :(

Similarly I'm looking for a way to set the object's size...

I'm currently working on Manzariyeh airfield, with the dimensions the same as in real life. So the runway is 3.2km long... just testing it out now. May post a video this week. Let me know if there's a particular aircraft you want tested. Tup

Try Eliteness by Mikero.

nice!

I haven't used this tool but I suspect you need to pass it a name of a P3D file? for example, convertp3d.exe -48 stone_wall.p3d If you want to batch convert all OA p3d's then you'll need Mikero's batch program - http://dev-heaven.net/projects/52/wiki/Arma2P?version=1 Tup

Had an issue last night during an MP game whereby Enemy AI are invincible to bullets... Was running ACE with WarFX Blastcore. I believe this is a known issue, just wish I'd known about it!

All I can say is wow! Congrats and thanks for this! Very easy to get going indeed, I really can't believe how great this is. Running on a 64bit Win 7 with a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. This is what worked for me: 1. Installed the software, set the properties of the icon to run as Administrator (do not run yet). 2. Launched Arma 2 and went to Options>Controls>Controller and enabled FreeTrack. 3. Alt-Tab to desktop and launched the FaceTrackNoIR app and selected File>Open>Arma.ini 4. Tracker source is Face API and Game Protocol Freetrack. 5. Started the Tracker source (click on start on the GUI) and confirmed that it could pick up and follow my face. Minimised the app. 6. Alt-Tab back to Arma and launched single player, editor, placed a unit on a map and voila! It all works. I found that launching FaceTrackNoIR before launching Arma 2 crashed Arma. Its important to launch Arma 2 first. I also found that simply by adjusting the position of the webcam helped calibrate my head position. I'm blown away by the difference this makes and with little or zero cost! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Tup