spookygnu

I didn't mould the valleys. I took the height data from opentopography and then used the sat images from TerraIncognita. For future reference the route the aircraft take can be seen in this image.

I was lucky enough to catch a few pics of them on my first trip up there a few weeks back. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGVkyqKfsc0UjBYWm1kdDZjTUk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGVkyqKfsc0YWduTi1fampvODA/view?usp=sharing

Are you by any chance a fellow looper?

pretty much how i do things too!

I understnad it might be easy for you. But as you already have a map made, you must have created a p:drive (virtual drive) that has all your work files in. All the files from your retail game are extracted and placed in p:\a3. This is your root folder for all things you need to place on your map. then the rest of the folders are within that. Structures, weapons, vehicles blah blah blah. If you haven't got a p drive set up then you won't be able to access it. Like I said as a first suggestion, if you already have a map made and are ready for the object placement, then use map builder. But you would still need to have a p drive setup as you need to export those objects into terrain builder to place then effectively on your island. Im not sure on this but I thnk you might be able to have then place using sqf. Your best bet would be, ask a few questions on the object placement for map builder in the map builder thread! I've only used it to export them into terrain builder as I have a p drive already setup. https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/177323-map-builder-ingame-3d-editor-for-terrain-creation/

if you have a map already in game but no objects, use map builder whilst in game. Or you can load the libraries of objects from the p:\a3\structures etc. then place then in your terrain using buldozer. It really isn't that hard to do.

I use L3DT all the time you need any help post me a pm. ;)

don't follow that tutorial then! Simple as that really. try this! https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/178033-the-atlas-guide-to-arma-3-terrain-making/

The reason your terrain was flat is because you didn't set it any height values. When you load a map into L3dt you need to define the highest and lowest point, i:e sea level to the top of the highest peak. What you can do is when you load your asc or xyz file, you need to go to operations/heighfield/verticlescale. A dialogue box opens and you see a cross section of your island, denoting sea level and the highest peak. You then have two boxes the one of the left is the lowest point, example; 0 then the one of the right is you highest point. You need to find out what the value is and enter that for the highest point, you can get this either in L3DT or in game from the map. This will then adjust your terrain in accordance with the horizontal scale and size of the map. I have a map which is 2048x2048 at 10m/px my height range is 0 to 850. If I was to resize my terrain to 4096 at the same values I would get a flatter terrain. If I were to lower the terrain size to 1024 or 512, I would get very steeper looking mountain range and or possibly spikes. Little bit of a tip there. Check your scales and find out your values.

Thanks bushlurker. I was going to suggest the same thing. There does seem to be a few people having problems using those videos. Don't get me wrong, what he is doing does help to an extent but i think some info could do with being described better. Anyway, when i wrote the tut it was only the us that had 30m res. They did update the global resolution a few months back. Thanks for using the tut and its good to hear that you didn't have many issues with it. May i suggest looking at map builder aswell for object placement. It is in developement atm but once you have your images and your heightmap sorted you can easily place objects in the in-game editor turning into a 3d editor. Then you can export and import to TB having all you objects easily placed from the game. Lets us know how you are getting on. There is also the skype channel where people will help out with any issues you may have.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGVkyqKfsc0VjhuQ2FqbExFOEk/view above is a link to my google drive document I created to help people who want to use Opentopography and L3dt to create a real world location for the Arma series. If you have any more questions, I'll be happy to help "as much as I can". I'm no expert but I put this together using a method I found simple enough for even the newest of the new of map creators. Plus with the addition of the Terrain processor being in Dev and testing stages, I can only see more people joining in on the map making trip. Post your queries here and I'm sure eagle eyes will be able to answer. cheers spook.

Also having a sat map to work with can great improve how you want your island to look. You can overlay your sat map onto your terrain and by using the various brushes you can alter the terrain to fit the image. I have done this on many an ocassion to help define hills and roads, slopes and gulleys. Having a 3d view really is beneficial for this because you are altering the image in 3d aswell as the terrain. Another trick is if you are using a heightmap of a real wold locale you can use google earth to reference how it should look. This really only comes best if you have two screens or more. Will post an image later for reference. I'll also throw together a small tut for l3dt to use a sat as reference for altefing the terrain .

Press "h" whilst in 3d mode and play about with the brushes. Avalanche is quite good once you get your head around how it works. Perlin noise is good but best when dropping the values down too. I've found when i want to fine tune smoothing anything dropping the value to 3 helps alot more too.

I thought I had done. I'll set one up now.

I think you need to be abit more specific in what "tips" you are actually after. What program are you using for altering and generating your heightmap?

How did you get on with that document i sent?

Ok, you can use the attributes as a mask anyway, but i assume thats only temporary for now right. If you send me the attributes map i can sort out a cell grid for you and give you an idea of how to do it yourself later. Also you would find it easier for object placement once you have a sat aswell that basically gives you a better idea of where to put things. The sat map acts like a template for where you want things.

this wiki information will give you the basis of how to apply textures to your map using the cell sizes. https://resources.bisimulations.com/w/index.php?title=Making_Satellite_Texture_and_Mask I will put together a small readme tut that was given to me via Jakerod a while back. I did my map using 1024x1024 and managed to exceed the maximum of 6 textures layers on my map by bumping it up to eight. the map I have in mind will have more than this hopefully, I just need to get the correct mask layout for it.

wrong thread dude! try posting your findings in this one instead. https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/184176-is-there-a-mask-palette-limit/#entry2904264

Are you trolling me or something? Do actually have anything? I can help you out but not really until you have anything you can reference to yourself . I don't quite understand why you are asking all these questions without actually having anything to work with. Not saying ya wasting my time or anyone elses but it would make more sense and help to you if gou had a product to work with?????

I meant send me your mask image. A tilesize is determined by your mapsize i think. I'm not an ace at this or great at technicalities i just know methods to get a result. Tbh i've not played with TB or done any editing for quite a few months. But lke i said i know what works.

I didn't know that bush. I was assigning rgb's to the surfaces i wanted. Like all coastal grass types would be dry grass, all grass types would be grass_green, gradually narrowing down to six surfaces.

it depends on the cell size of the island. For example a 1024x1024 with a cell size of 2.5m is about 5sq kilometers I think. I'm not using my program to work this out, just trying to remember what I have seen in things I've made before.

Do you have photoshop?? Just to make sure, I can have a look at it for you if you like and get you started with it then you can finish it off.

you have to visually try and do it if you are using opentopograhy to try and get a square. All you really need to do is download the data that site gives you and then with the image once you have sorted it out resize it in photoshop. follow this. I knew I had it somewhere. This is something I put together a while back. don't know if anyone really used it. But it might help. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGVkyqKfsc0VjhuQ2FqbExFOEk/view?usp=sharing