Robster

There is a certain amount of objects you can put together as maximum... make a test copy of your current work... delete all objects in your vis3 test map and then save, export to wrp and binarize... if it works, well you know where to track any mistake... If it does not work, I suggest you to make a new installation of the game... Actually once I had to do it on my steam version of A2CO and that resolved my pbo crashes... Hope it helps... cheers

I have the same issue right now... how did you fix that?

Here goes another heavy question: As far as I know, there is no way to export/import size of any object within Visitor3 ... Actually I saw a request from Icebreakr that still remains pending... so, I will do the job (!) Nah, just joking :p Can anybody tell us which is the command to set the size of a given object??? I've been reading about commands just like setDir, setPos and so, but still can't find anything related to size objects... EDIT: I mean "relative size of object" aka scaling objects ????? Help pleeeeease!!!

Any findings mate????

Yup. If you look closer you'll find a lot of trees down there... http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=34.949765,70.706227&spn=0.011995,0.01929&t=h&z=16 We are doing a more freely looking version... in fact, Mini did not like Pech river Valley as it is according to real DEMs when I made this elevation for him about six months ago... So I had to tweak it a bit, getting wider valleys and not so heavy climbing slopes cause choppers can't afford it no matter how good pilot you might be... (btw I really like the real stuff as it is... well but that's my particular view) Cheers! http://i56.tinypic.com/21o8w87.jpg

Hi fellows!!! Actually we are dealing with world tools tests (thank you Shezan!!!)... IMHO these pics are getting close to our goal... There is a lot of work ahead but at this time we are very satisfied with the results... Last night Mini told me he was going into mountains for about two weeks to build some FOBs... I am in charge of everything related to non placing objects stuff... masks, heights, sat pics, textures, airports, config, etc... and I can not wait to see this job done... Mini is doing a beautiful work with roads and objects placement and I couldn't be more satisfied with our effort!!! mmm and to get proper credit I am uploading some pics I took a few moments ago with the last version of our WT mask... http://i53.tinypic.com/aw3ub9.jpg http://i56.tinypic.com/21n07k9.jpg http://i56.tinypic.com/k4xqa0.jpg http://i56.tinypic.com/13yq7br.jpg ---------- Post added at 19:31 ---------- Previous post was at 19:20 ---------- eee I´m not so sure about that... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bibiyal,_Korengal_Valley,_Kunar_Province,_Afghanistan_-2.jpg

Hi DMC! Can you put these code lines into config.cpp when creating an island to force those color effects??? Greetings!

1.- Can someone tell me which are min and max heights posible or feasible within visitor3 and working ingame? 2.- Does anybody knows (and can explain here) why visitor3 suggests new height values when exporting terrain to pbl file? 3.- Does anyone knows which calculations or conversion system visitor3 uses when converting to pbl file? For example, I have my map with: minheight = -1000 maxheight= 2500 But then vis3 changes all that for: minheight = -1350 maxheight= 2850 In this example the whole variation range equals 3500 and is still found in both cases But, If I introduce some minor change, then numbers start to look weird.... and I couldnt tell what's going on... I would like to figure this out cause I am working on a river valley between heavy mountains and I want to get more control and be as precise as I can... I made a river about -0.5 meters and after making some changes on the sorrounding plainfield I lost my original measures and now river has gone deeper (about 2 meters) so infantry men can`t cross without swimming ... Then I begun to mess around with values in pbl file but recovering the first look is a real pain in the a**, you know... Anyways, thanks in advance for your advice. Cheers! PS: The river itself...

:confused: Thanks ;)

A pilot who is a member of my community said to me that airport runway should look wider to get closer to the real thing... so we agreed that the default size for airport runway should be enlarged (to reach a value between some 2/3 proportion and +50%) and I did as follows (and I will remember to post here about any further test): AIRPORT RUNWAYS DEFAULT SIZE : 100 AIRPORT RUNWAYS ADJUSTED SIZE : 140 So, This is the actual size I am beginning to use in my own projects Cheers EDIT: I did this only for main runway but not for taxi ways

Let me see if I got it... Is there a problem when placing any clutter as a natural object ??? or is just a "p_helianthus" file issue???

Moving to A2OA maps like making and have a noob question... Which are the folders I have to move to p:CA\ When I do: p:\CA> xcopy *.bin p:\MYTAGNAME\ca\ Do I need folders such as "characters_e" or "sounds" for map making??? I know this sounds soo newbie so don't bother AFAIK some of these bin files are needed for proper ladders and doors configuration but I want to know if all files are indeed needed or I may exclude some of them with no further failures on finished (binarized) map... Hope someone helps!!! Cheers!

I got the same heavy load time issue running arma2oa.exe leaving parameters (-buldozer -window) as always... At this very moment it still remains to say "inserting some objects"... Objects belong to arma2 the most and some of those in plants_e and rocks_e folders were taken from OA... What am I doing wrong??? It took about 5-10 mins to load OAbuldozer My machine shouldn't be a problem... I own an AMD 6X 2.8 GHZ and 4GB RAM DDR3 @1600 with 1GB DDR5 VRAM high end nv GPU... this PC runs fast, so speed performance is not a common issue... till now

@Shez: I usually export terrain as Bush said for getting better results, but I still get akwards boundaries looking not so good... at left bottom but on right top also... Anyways... for my Easter Island project I used World Tools (v1.71. If I well remember) and mask was not precisely focused (same issue with Road Painter Tool, so I guess it is not a malfunction of your software)... So, I picked up some remarkable tiny areas with plenty of objects (vegetation) and used it as a reference to avoid misplaced objects... this adjusted mask came back to PS for final readjustment of every layer ... and it worked perfectly... I ignore if I am making everything properly as I am just a newbie, so if anyone knows a better method it would be nice to know... is also relevant to tell that World Tools works and is doing a great job for all of us!!!! Cheers!

lol You make me feel like a veteran harharhar :D

AFAIK there is no limitiation related to emf export cause you may ever tell vis3 which image size you want and usually I have been exporting images larger than their respective heightmap png files size. I am using vis3 with no tweaking and no OA objects for getting stability... Exporting is particularly handy to retouch airports and roads grounds over sat pic so you can get a better view from distance... if I am working on mask_lco I export to emf to get better island/zones boundaries... On the other hand, till now I haven't got the whole idea related to boundaries on map... here is the pertaining discussion .... Hope it helps. Saludos!!!

As Bush said, PS saves as png asking for interlaced mode or something like that and we say no but I can not export it directly cause visitor needs 16 bits files and PS saves something else, 8 bits I guess. Then I go for the Gimp and finish the 16 bit conversion cause I do not know how to do it on PS... Besides I ignore what's the matter with saving alpha channels or the bottom color for which Gimp asks for.. so I saved those too, getting a file larger than unsaving this data... is it really necessary for the game??? I have absolutely no idea :confused: A couple of days ago I applied some Benson's tips and exported the whole height map from visitor as pbl (2048x2048 grayscale png file in this case)... then I went to PS and made a layer with sat_lco properly reduced and desaturated (black and white image with no contrast or bright manipulation... it could be useful to reduce shadows to 0% previously)... viewing both layers (sat pic on top) I took sat photo to 1% oppacity... and save as png then went for Wilbur to get 16 bits grayscale file and applied two or three rounds of gaussian blur (about 0.0350 to 0.75) and then imported png within pbl to visitor... you may judge the results ... every part of terrain between 90 meters band (for non US SRTM elevation map as is this case) that was totally plain woke up and became alive! giving us that sort of bumpy look for drainage and erosion effects... For the sake of truth I had previosuly worked on sat_lco previously for getting relatively plain colors and reduced shadows using PS tools already known (just a few in my case) Cheers!!! PS: These lands are taken from a near valley located at east of (is this correctly written?) Cerro Moreno Airport, Antofagasta, Chile :D BEFORE AFTER

As far as I know, you wanted to tell us all that: 1.- Invisible roads are a convenient method to avoid clutter on grounds; 2.- You made a custom autoadhesive piece of invisible road (cool); 3.- You could, eventually, release it for everyone interested... So, I still don't get it... 1.- Is this method better than painting mask and defining no character for clutter (whereas you may define smoke and rough amounts)??? 2.- Does this method affects IA walking (especially around airport and other relevant zones)? 3.- What is the real meaning or purpose of using such invisible roads within arma... ??? by now I am using invisible roads as leveler for some portions of terrain using "smooth roads" script and relative height and things like that... Cheers!!!

@Mikero: As always your work is invaluable for most of the guys "lurking" around... and thanks so many for all your efforts!!! I have a question related to updates on p:\ca ... As a member of Comunidad Latioamericana de ArmA 2 -we run A2CO with more than 4 GB of addons!!!- I had to use a Beta patch (I do not like them cause I tend to avoid experiments while creating arma maps) and after running BinPBO my log started to warn something about original models from arma2 -hangar2.p3d if I remember well... When binarizing I noted the terrain updates it self with stuff laying on p:\ca folder... so what happens after applying a beta patch or even an official update... do I have to extract all filles to p:\ca again???? I do not speak english as my native language so don't bother me with jokes about my dorky/tarzan sort of speaking

I've been reading this a while ago as my understanding grows. By now I realise that a good sat pic is hard to get sometimes as well as a good dem related to that sat map... and then is a matter of choice... pick up good dem map to work on sat photo or take a good sat map and go for better heights with terrain manipulation programs... As this very moment I have a question related to Photoshop: Is there is some special advice/tip regarding color managing???... I just go for PNG conversion, but for Textview cheking I use Gimp and save with no alpha and no transparent bits... and no idea about RGB settlement on the pic, or 16,24 or 32 bits... Such ignorance about technical stuff reaches my height maps on PS cause when importing to Visitor I can not see expected results... even If I retouch a minimal part of the elevation map and left everything else untouched... PS change the values inside my png file changing the whole look of my map... so I can not trust the final results... as I could even do with Wilbur... btw Wilbur ask me if I want to save 8 bits or something like that and always works for Visitor 3... as a matter of fact before Gimp I used only Wilbur as Gimp is used for getting more control over the touching and retouching process (that long painful process that Mr. Benson mentioned above and continues with heights)... Regards,

@ Bush: Thanks to you and Bis, then... As this island has many paths with no asphalt on them I painted a mask road with beige color (that I took from the original sat pic) and then applied this layer with some gaussian blur over sat_lco to get a smooth transition on ground colors... and that is how I came to first pic above... As you noted, grayish color was applied to airport area as it looks better from distance... Best Regards!

Hi fellows! After a few weeks of hard work I have gotten basic installment of my own version for Easter Island as you may see on attached pics... I've drawn airport runway and set landing coords. Now automatic landing is working but I haven't done any successful test with AI dealing with taking off... I am not sure how to do it... (and I don't know anything about making missions... ) I set UTM coords on south hemisphere I used Sky Remove Addon from VTE mod to get a clear horizon but before I had to fix some minor issues with alpha channels on paa files... Thanks Snake! I did some textures and used some beautiful ones from Bushlurker... if he doesn't mind... ;) but thanks anyway Bush!!! And now I want to put those night lights all over the airport runway, so: 1.- Can anyone tell me where those ArmA2 airport runway lights are? 2.- Does anybody knows about an automatic and/or an accurate method to set these lights???... I have seen VIS3 Avenue script but I ignore know how to use it and I am not sure if it can do this particular job... I need those lights to take place on my airport bearing 118 degrees with proper alignment and distance between each other... This airport is longer than usual because it is prepared to receive NASA Space Shuttles... no joke! That's what Prozac told me a few days ago. BTW Prozac is a senior member of my squad who's a commercial pilot ... and he knows Easter Island airport... (and the whole world I guess XD) Anyway... here are some pics, cheers!

Surely this will help a lot, many thanks! I have a basic Moai model and I am thinking to make some variations on it, regarding some eroded ones and a little bit closer to the real ones... It will be a hard task anyhow... ---------- Post added at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:32 PM ---------- It certanly should work for me... so i'll give it a try... for no clutter I drew all roads on the mask (took road network from an SVG -sort of vector- file and paint upon a layer) and defined no clutter for that color as you may see on the first pic above Thank you so much for your outstanding piece of software... already place about 35000 - 45000 bushes in a rush... awesome!!!

Is just read a method regarding some HEX modification for OA files to be compatible with A2... so by these means we can get OA p3ds working on ArmA2 the same??? Maybe this is a really newbie question, but for the sake of clarity many of us would be grateful... cheers!

gm RULZ !!!!