meshcarver

@ rzon- cheers on both counts man..!!! I showed your post to my better half before and she couldn't stop laughing..! I don't think she considers me a Tom Cruise lookalike but I can dream lol- the mansome beast..!!!!! ;) @ Das Attorney- hey man, great to hear from you before..! Yeah, I ran more tests yesterday in the dark with a torch and it is truly unnerving to see them surround your house where you end up cowering... One looked like it was looking in through the window and the hieght rnd is working wonders for variations..! :) Indebted sir...

Hey man, thanks for getting back..! Is it only a visual issue, or is it things like LOD/AI pathing or some other stuff that messes up? Is it limited to visual bugs now- for example, say i create a 100 meter long building, stick it in A3 from the editor and it seems to work fine for 5 hours testing- would that be ok? Or could there be an issue I dont see? Do you get me? Also, whats the situation with this "cutting up" thing? It just seems so ropey to me? I mean, what about AI Pathlods etc? How would they match up as I take it they just wouldnt work seamlessly? It seems like a thing to simply avoid, making buildings out of "parts"? Also, if its one building, cut into 4 parts, might each part may as well use its own unique rvmultimat, or better to use the same one? 16 textures or 4 across it all? Its such a rooey area and not well documented..?

Anyone pleae guys? I can't find any updated info about this, but read here that it could have been?

Hi guys, sorry to necro this, but is there now any solid guide about object/LOD dimensions..? Can we have structures bigger than 50 meters at last or is it still as it was- confused..? I remember hearing somewhere that that 50 meter thing also applied to objects in the way that if you rotated them on their central axis and any part of it stuck outside the imaginary 50 meters limit that was also a problem? Any updates I've missed about this? I'm just not comfortable with having to chop up all my objects, as that means each "chopped" part will need its own set of resLODS which multiplies the workload so much..!!!

@ Inlesco- Cheers dude. Yeah, I might release the assets separately, but only after NOVA ZONA has had a good run all by itself as a package- otherwise I think it'd become "diluted" too quickly and would perhaps lose its appeal. @ Pepe Hal- Aye, it is early days mate and not much dev time is the all important factor to consider when guesstimating a release date..! @ TokyoIndia- Great stuff, wait until you see them creeping up behind you in the dark and rain with nothing but a torch... it is f&*^g unnerving to say the least..! @13isLucky- Aye mate, all in game. I see now they look like scarecrows/slendermanish/stick people which is fine by me- freaky as hell..!!! :) @serjames- Thanks man..! @Defunkt- (Lol avatar) Yeah, they're pretty scary when you get too close and it will take a long time sadly... @suds420- Cheers dude- it must have been a good book to wait that long..! @FrankHH- Yeah man, with these they present an interesting dynamic indeed. I've been testing a few quick situations with them and goddamn they're hard to handle in numbers..! Even a single one will give you a jump..! @Inlesco- Aye, they look like slendermen when you get them at night with a torch in a field or hidden in a bush... good luck on teaching them a lesson- they're made of metal..! ;) @13isLucky- Aye.. they move... they mooooooooooove..! @Shurka- Nice man, I am in love with the STALKER games..! @Kilo1-1- Glad to hear you're looking forwards to this. Aye, these Designators will be AI Entities that you'll be able to place on the map but then it's down to you to deal with them... @Das Attorney- Das Attorney is the man who is making this ALL happen. After spending only a few hours on a script for the Designators he managed to make me actually jump and shout out in my chair to my embarrassment..!!! He has a lot of great ideas for their behaviour and potential so I'm picking his brains for all its worth..!!! Really, it feels like an immense step to have some actual moving life given to NOVA ZONA in the form of the Designators and I can't thank you enough for your time and effort man and I incline in your general direction sir..! :) In a nutshell, the Designators are entities that, if you find yourself in their vicinity, you will have to TRY to keep them in your sight- turn your back on them and they could start to approach you... muwahahahahahahaaaa..! :dead:

Holy shit- PM sent mate, thank you..!!! Making them MP compatible is great if it works for SP too yes..! :) In regards water, I reckon it'd be good to allow them to cross thinking about it... but they'd be more freaky if they submerged instead of walking on water kind of thing. Also, if in MP, I think if ANY player is looking at them then they shouldn't move at all, as it'd spoil the "trick" and perhaps that is also easier for you to code..? Also, they should be indestructible mate. PS- As I said in the PM, goto bed mate..! ;) PPS- there's a more detailed description of what they are here fyi: Fyi, there are currently 10 different Designators, all will behave the same but they will be different objects/units. Another point, it'd be great to experiment with a figure in meters as a radius for when the chances of movement occur- so like only s chance if there's a player within 30 meters say.

Hey man, thanks for your questions and interest! I think I'm badly placed to answer multiplayer requirements as I haven't got a clue in any difference there'd be between SP and MP for this kind of thing. Say for now it was just SP- would it be an easy transition somewhere down the line to make it MP compatible? They will not cross water if that's better/easier. Water can always be problematic anyway can't it? I don't know... In SP they will obviously move towards the player yes, but if they worked in MP, then yes, they'd move towards nearest player- an interesting gameplay dynamic would come out of that- to try to get past them blocking a doorway say you send someone in as bait..!? ;) Ideally, I'd love these to be individually placeable in the editor, and to have a "group" or "radius placement" of them or something similar with a random number... I hope that makes sense. In effect, like placing Units down as normal. Das Attorney, are you interested in this as you are considering the script, or just asking? No problem either way of course..!

++ YOUR TRAGIC PROGENITORS: THE DESIGNATORS ++ With the Designators, I wanted to create something that would be iconic of NOVA ZONA. Something that when you see it you should think "Hey, that's on NOVA ZONA isn't it?!" I had them in mind a long time ago, but they also needed to fit the back story 100% and look striking too. I decided to go with the simple "less is more" approach, and after a long design process ended up preferring the stickman look..! It's weird- they may not look like it, but it took a long full circle of design ideas to get back to the basic forms you see here... In a nutshell, the Designators are locational markers (to designate a spot) placed at the area where bodies were found after the Event. The Event killed everyone and everything 2 minutes after it had started so there were no survivors- people had no time to pack, find each other or hide. There was utter panic and they fell where they where- huddled together in classrooms, standing in their homes as a family or caught out in the open running in blind terror. Years later, when the Island Authority (Who continued to monitor Border Island from a distance) discovered the blight was slowly spreading, they mounted an operation to return and try to contain what they thought was spreading from the centre, in the location of what's now known as the Feeders. They started to erect a huge containment structure like a vast wall and placed Designators at the locations of all the bodies they discovered across the landscape for research purposes and record. Each Designator was structurally symbolic of the body found- there were female, male, military, Island Authority Personnel and infant Designator frames. In addition, each had its own label of the corpse's details attached. When it became apparent that containment wasn't working and had zero chance for success, the Island Authority dropped everything and left Border Island for ever. It was soon after declared a no go area, or "New Zone"- and NOVA ZONA was born. I'm currently working on ways to make the Designators not nice to be around. As it stands, my plan is to have these guys impossible to approach on risk of death... If you get within a certain radius of them, then you'll start to deteriorate rapidly- vision will deteriorate and so will your health levels. If you don't evade them you will rapidly die from these effects. Also, when you're looking at these, and lets say trying to get past at a distance then nothing will happen- just don't approach them. But, if you turn your back or lose sight of them- they could move closer to your position. You will know if there's movement in your vicinity if you hear a long low metallic scraping behind you... It's early days with these guys, but hopefully someone in the Addons Configs and Scripting section section can help me with this side of things- I haven't got a clue..! Anyway guys, I hope you like the idea of the Designators. I'm really happy with how they turned out- I stuck a few around a village randomly last night and went in with nothing but a torch light and it scared the s*&t out of me- and they're not even doing anything right now..! They look bloody freaky in a field at night lol... ;) Thanks for your continued interest in NOVA ZONA- I know it's taking a while but I'm working on it.

++ INCOMING TRANSCRIPTION OF SHORT URGENT DISTRESS CALL RECEIVED [13 OCTOBER 2015 11:51PM] FROM NORTH EASTERN WARD, NOVA ZONA... TRANSCRIPTION AS FOLLOWS: "...OF US! ONLY MYSELF TEAM LEADER OSCAR DELTA LEFT- MOVING! MOVING MOVING MOVING! MORE THAN ONE- MOVING! REPEAT THEY ARE MOVING- HOW CAN? BEARING DOWN ON ME... THEY'RE DESIG!- I WA..." TRANSCRIPTION ENDS // RECEIVED ALONGSIDE DISTRESS CALL WERE THREE CAPTURED IMAGES BELIEVED TO BE FROM TEAM LEADER OSCAR DELTA. OSCAR DELTA NOW ASSUMED DECEASED. MESSAGE ENDS ++ ++ CAPTURE_01 ++ ++ CAPTURE_02 ++ ++ CAPTURE_03 ++

Ok, edited for shame... I completely missed a large section of the file paths- highlighted in the code below. I hold my hand up: But still, a LITTLE concerning is that I HAVE to have the CO linked to the texture slot and the RVmat linked to the material slot still..? If I don't link the CO to the texture slot, I get JUST the NOHQ and SMDI showing up ingame, no CO..? Is that how it should be or is it still incorrect? Again, see below: I didn't have a CO stage 0... ambient[] = {1,1,1,1}; diffuse[] = {1,1,1,1}; forcedDiffuse[] = {0,0,0,1}; emmisive[] = {0,0,0,1}; specular[] = {0.29,0.29,0.29,1}; specularPower = 200.000000; PixelShaderID = "NormalMapSpecularDIMap"; VertexShaderID = "NormalMap"; [color=#FF0000]THE SHAME; I HAD NO STAGE 0, SO ADDED IT AND PUT THE CO TEXTURE...[/color] class Stage1 { texture = "[color=#FF0000]!!!NOOB MISSED FULL PATH HERE!!![/color] MESH_designator_ia_personnel\data\MESH_designator_ia_personnel_nohq.paa"; uvSource = "tex"; class uvTransform { aside[] = {1,0,0}; up[] = {0,1,0}; dir[] = {0,0,0}; pos[] = {0,0,0}; }; }; class Stage2 { texture = "[color=#FF0000]!!!NOOB MISSED FULL PATH HERE!!![/color]MESH_designator_ia_personnel\data\MESH_designator_ia_personnel_smdi.paa"; uvSource = "tex"; class uvTransform { aside[] = {1,0,0}; up[] = {0,1,0}; dir[] = {0,0,1}; pos[] = {0,0,1}; }; };

Long shot, but do you think you could send me those templates..? No problem if not... it's just I'm steaming through the actual model/texture creations here but am being held up by these f&*(^ed up RVmats lol...

Ah, thanks man..! So I don't need all those 7 stages no? And when pressing "E" to apply this material, you ONLY apply the co TEXTURE slot right? Or do you apply the RVmat to the MATERIAL slot instead/aswell? Also, how do you know WHICH pixel and vertex shader to use..? I mean, the documents I was just looking at on the WIKI are really bad- no explanation of which to use for what etc etc..?

Cheers Animander, could you please tell me- is that RVmat that I posted a STANDARD RVmat..? I mean, what most of the normal base objects use in ARMA3? I'm basically after a standard (co, nohq, smdi) RVmat template so I know it's going to be fine- and I can't find an empty template anywhere to use as a starting point...

Hi guys, aye, what Pufu says is correct- for example, yesterday after a busy day I managed to squeeze in 2 hours Dev time on NOVA ZONA- and that was after I was burnt out from the day so you can imagine the difference in output if I won the lottery/found some gold coins in a field and was enabled to go full time on this. This is how it is though- I know this situation is not unique to me but I have so many comments and emails making reference to the time it is taking that every now and then I feel like I must address the issue. I know people are only wanting to find out if they can get it in their hands faster because they are interested in what they see so I don't resent their comments/requests but it does get a bit difficult replying. Bottom line is this: I have masses of motivation for NOVA ZONA- it's my absolute passion, but again, what I don't have is masses of funding and on the back of that comes time. That's as simple as I can phrase it. Thanks for your post Pufu- it's good to know people understand the sheer volume of assets alone needed to create a new map.

Oh, no probs man... I thought it was pasted by accident or something. Yes, it's been ages, but because of RL work/commitments etc I must've had literally only about 4-6 months tops of actual uninterrupted development time... There's a longish post a ways back that goes into depressing detail about my situation if you'd like to find out... Fyi, I won't be releasing anything until it's all finished as a complete map.

?? What's that man?

Hi guys, quickie reply as RL crap again getting in the way of NOVA ZONA dev time... :( I didn't use any CC as I remember..? Just basically set the time to 1986, made it December at around 4pm (ish) and ramp the rain up and also added the FOG command thingy..? That's it for a lot of them... I don't even know if I'll be able to get this kind of look in the final map (absolute noob in that regard) but if I can do it in the editor, then SURELY I could replicate it in the final map settings..? Yes, no..?

Thank god someone else noticed this- I thought it was an issue with how I've been modelling my structures...

Hi guys, pretty much what the title says..? When I try to post a single sentence entirely in capital letters, when I preview or post it only has the initial letter in capitals and puts the rest to lower case..? Is there any way around this please?

LOL... or, lol- as this case may be... ;)

It's ok man, I'm not shouting... ;) The last post in my NOVA ZONA thread will explain all..! And, for the record I don't really know how I managed all caps in the end- so many attempts and one just worked..!?

++ INCOMING TRANSMISSION - THE DESIGNATORS WILL BE WITH US ALL SHORTLY - END TRANSMISSION ++

Aye, it's crazy for some reason..? Is that confirmed for you that you post first, then edit later- that's all you need to do..? Any mods here to assist please? :) THIS IS ONLY A TEXT LOL

Hi dude, yes, I've done it in the past on the same thread, but now for some reason it's just concerting what I type into lower case when I preview/post..? ---------- Post added at 12:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ---------- For example i typed all of this in caps