cifordayzserver

Short/Near term, yes; the only way to use SMD Sahrani will be with AiA or A3mp. The only reason we were able to have such a small standalone package for A2 was that Arma 2 already contains 70-80pct of the assets used in Sahrani.... our package was just the map data, and any missing buildings/objects/signs/trees/rocks etc... SO, to make a standalone package for A3, we have to port ALL those A2 objects that were previously unneeded. On top of it, they all need the A3 model additions to be properly functioning. At the point that I'm doing 60-80pct of the the Arma 2 buildings, trees, veg, and objects and the A1 stuff we need I might as well do ALL of them for @CUP. Basically, it's just more logical to do all the work for the entire community to benefit from and then loop back and take what I need back out of it to do a standalone package for Sahrani... IF that's even a logical decision, as mentioned we might be talking about a VERY small difference in size. I'd guess that a standalone SMD_Sahrani_A3 package would be 4-5gb on it's own. What I'm MORE likely to do at this point, work with AiA/CUP to create an addon that creates SMD versions of ALL the terrains... IE any map that calls a BI building that we've opened, calls our open version instead of the closed BI one... it will take some tweaking though as they don't just swap 1 for 1. That way, once you have AiA_TP you have all the BI terrains with the option to have all the SMD enterable buildings on all of them. I'm still discussing everything with the AiA/CUP guys to see what's the best route to go, but focusing only on Sahrani seems like a similar amount of work for far more narrow results. +++ In other news, using the tips from Rock-RKSL I was able to take the panelak middle and top floor models from near 70 sections down to 20 or so. This SHOULD me drastic improvement in performance. I'm going to pack up a quick build and see if it makes a big difference, it SHOULD

Welp... bad news/good news. Bad News - I lost the source for the section count reduced buildings... all of it. I'll have to re-do all the work. Good News - M1lkm8n was shown how to (by Rock-RKSL of RKSL Studios); and then showed me how to; reduce the section count to the MINIMUM possible. So, when I go back through and do them all, I can now make sure they're fully optimized. Once that's done, I'll re-add the physx lod for A3 and use Mikero's Move Folder to begin finalizing them for @CUP for use in A3. All of these processes will be documented and shared via tutorials that I am creating in the Open Modders Group I created some time ago. I will be doing video versions of the tutorials that are narrated so they're easy to follow for anyone. I've already prepared and published 3 text tutorials which are also in the OMG Group here on the BI Forums In A3 News I've also gotten some planning and steps towards a proper A3 port for Sahrani in motion. Ian Banks will be donating his time and using his customized tool to convert the Sahrani A2 Roads to A3. I should be able to get the rest of the artificial objects done fairly quickly so long as I retain a dependency on AiA_TP or A3MP for the textures. In view of AiA_TP's release, I will be releasing a very cursory initial version of SMD_Sahrani_A3 that fixes the map tiling, as well as some other minor details... I'm shooting for before the end of the month.

Looks phenomenal!

Yes, I've been meaning to put together an A3_Lite package that will just fix the map preview screens, the map tiling issues, and the intro scene errors. I will try to get that done this month for sure.

Heya, The project is on indefinite hold. M1lkm8n is working on another terrain, and I don't have the time to dedicate to it. Currently, the very loose plan is as follows: 1. Take the SMD A2 buildings and convert them all for A3 use (partially complete) 2. Share those buildings with @CUP so they can be included and integrated into AiA with full A3 function 3. Loop back and start processing ALL the other objects. 4. Begin work on importing the terrain to Terrain Builder for full A3 functionality update 5. Add undersea ground textures so the ocean floor is properly populated with Coral Clutter I can't provide any kind of timeline for any of it though. My guess is next year sometime.... but that's a fairly wild guess...

That's is an error in the shadowlod, we fixed it for our SMD Hangers. I should be getting the rest of M1lkm8n's buildings he's done for his A3 Jalalabad Terrain (takistan OA buildings) tonight or tomorrow, then I will port ALL the SMD buildings and those for @CUP to use, so that should solve the problem in due course. No need to alter any of the packages at all. Only launching it with Play With Six will stop SMD_Sahrani_A2 from loading, AiATP does not. I used the A3 launcher and selected @CBA_A3;@AiA_TP;@SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite; and it launches and plays fine with no errors. Same should go for creating a desktop shortcut, it's only PWS assuming that the A2 SMD is not compatible with A3, (since AiA_TP is not classified as a compatibility mod), and therefore preventing SMD_Sahrani_A2 from launching. Also, make sure you look through the WHOLE Map list, I've seen our Sahrani in a few different places on the list when I've launched it. "ours" is the one w/o any preview picture.

So, had some time to check it out. Basically, the AiATP mod doesn't have any of the compatibility fixes that standard AiA has.. because it has the actual data there setup for use in A3... SO, in order to run SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite you can either run it with the lite package and CBA, or the full package and the AiA system compatibility mod.. I BELIEVE this allows you to run it w/o having A2 installed but I'm not entirely sure as I have A2/OA installed so it's launching with those as mods as well... If anyone wants to give it a try here's the collection: http://play.withsix.com/arma-3/collections/kp185fUEIk60hucDbpycOg/collection-allinarma?filter_text=&sort_fields%5B%5D=followers&sort_fields%5B%5D=name&sort_directions%5B%5D=desc&sort_directions%5B%5D=asc&page_pageSize=12&page_currentPage=1&other_view=grid

I've managed to convert all the SMD Buildings for A3. It's only a small step towards a full A3 Map conversion, but it's a start, and the buildings should be good for any terrain artists who want to use them. I also created a "shared collection" for SMD_Sahrani_A2 with AiA/CBA_A3 for Play With Six users. It's linked in my sig. I will be making an A3 specific lite package to get rid of a few errors and make a few improvements for A3 use.

It works fine, AFAIK, I used to use only the AiA compatibility pack. We structured SMD_Sahrani in such a way that it wouldn't override anything in CA, IE all our buildings have their own names, and the changes are at the terrain level, so there's no way for a compatibility mod to affect our buildings/terrain. *edit Confirmed, I just gave it a go with AiA_TP, CBA_A3, and SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite as a PWS collection and it seems to work just fine. PWS Collection - http://play.withsix.com/arma-3/collections/UK3ogeiwakak-PTcs-z3rw/aia

United Sahrani had the following changes/additions: Northern military barracks by Selva De Cresta are all leveled, and I think fences/deerstands removed Cabo Santa Lucia military base converted to rock quarry Sawmill and much more cleared forest in Roca Del Dror TV Station building in Bagango with some minor terrain changes to allow same. Corazol DMZ walls/barriers/checkpoints all removed Small hotel added to Isla De Libertad I THINK that's about it. On the SMD Sahrani A2 terrain, or the buildings, or anything else, kju/team are welcome to use it.

This is AWESOME! Thanks so much for this!

Yeah, honestly I'm not sure, I know alice "works" but there are certainly issues with how it's working, I don't get very many civilians at all if any in some cities. The only person we ever had contributing scripts worked only on the DayZ side, so we never really were able to properly figure out why. I have a feeling it has to do with the building names maybe? But again I have literally ZERO idea how ALICE works, and even if I look, I'm not sure it will make any sense to me. I might take some time to look, as I really want to create some fun MPmissions for the terrain, as I feel like it's just not getting the exposure it should... but I have ZERO experience with mission scripting so, that's probably not on the immediate horizon. As much as I'd love to get it done, I just don't think I have it in me to dive down another rabbit hole in Arma modding. ANYONE willing to help or take a look is totally welcome to do so. Thanks a ton to everyone for the positive comments, it's greatly appreciated. *edit I played with it a little bit, here's what I noticed. 1. Ambient Civilians (expansion) doesn't seem to do anything. In Chernarus or on ours 2. Ambient Civilians - does spawn about 60 civilians per town (I enabled debugging and hopped around a few cities a bit 3. Our civilian population lists per town could use some building up, but that will cause a problem for anyone using the "lite" version of the terrain. BUT that would cause conflicts for anyone using the lite package, as obviously I'd want to populate the list with our Sahrani Civilians. What I MIGHT be able to do is modify the module inside the assets pack, so it works properly if you have the units. 4. I believe the biggest problem is that some civilians seem to be getting dropped on or in buildings or objects that they can not path off of, or get stuck "inside"... not much I can do about that I don't think. 5. I THINK I could add some more params to the ALICE config to get it to work a bit better, but I'm not entirely sure, I'll look into it a bit.

Updated the changelog/frontpage downloads with the google drive links: v1.5.0 Google Drive SMD_Sahrani_A2 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTveVNfZGJURWMwYUk/edit?usp=sharing SMD_Sahrani_A2_lite - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvY2g3WU5ITDV3anM/edit?usp=sharing Buildings - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvWWJMQWJvdlhsSU0/edit?usp=sharing Mediafire SMD_Sahrani_A2 - http://www.mediafire.com/download/xkkao36662c41kc/@smd_sahrani_a2_1.5.0.7z SMD_Sahrani_A2_lite - http://www.mediafire.com/download/8yyya8ut22v2qf3/@smd_sahrani_a2_1.5.0_Lite.7z Buildings - http://www.mediafire.com/download/b15avhydua6mmdb/@smd_buildings_1.5.0.7z

Went totally nuts, and went through the ENTIRE library of our buildings, and did as much section count reducing as I could. There were some HUGE improvements. Doing test back to back, you can see a big increase in performance for the Panelak3, but it's still pretty laggy. I'm going to release an update with the green hangers placed down, and all the improved buildings by the weekend. That should give a better baseline to go from for further refining the 8 story apartments. although I'm not too sure much more can be done. Once I'm done with placing the green hanger down, I'm going to switch gears and bang out these buildings for @CUP since they're all optimized as much as I can. *EDIT So, having optimized all the buildings as much as I feel I can w/o going insane for now, I placed the green hangers down, repacked/signed the build and am uploading v.1.5 now. I will do a changelog and link the files in the morning. From here, I will take more input over a few weeks on the buildings and their performance, as this should provide a much better baseline, and I've cleaned up the likely culprit apartment buildings as much as I could quickly... so eventually they will likely get re-done, but for now, I'd like to take a break from them. I've already started the process of making the building package fully A3 compatible on it's own. Once the buildings are done, I will pack them for @CUP as well, and then loop back.

Cleaned the Panelak3 (8 story) up a bit more, not too much. Spent some time trying to clean up so other models too, all of our previously done models have pretty high section counts. Previously, I worked a bit on making a green version of M1lkm8n's animated door Hanger, I looped back tonight, and both cleaned up the desert version (107 sections down to 44, and subsequent reductions in each view lod), and made a green version based on the cleaned up model. So, now both hangers are fully animated, the green recolor/hue I did for the door texture isn't the greatest, but it's not terrible either... I also have almost finished the Budova2 building which is a decent 1 story stucco military barrack building, I'm going to populate the floor with folding chairs/table when I can find the proxies lol. Here's a quick vid of the new buildings: ---------- Post added at 04:26 ---------- Previous post was at 04:00 ---------- Haha, yeah right? It's a freaking DAUNTING task, I mean throw some ambient civilian life, and randomly placed insurgents, and you've got a 2-3 hr mission AT LEAST, if you have to just clear Corazol. So many angles to watch with 2 porches per floor... you never know where someone could be taking pot shots at you from anymore. The cleaned up versions were still bottoming out at 40 or so FPS, and I removed all the doors, which I REALLY don't want to do, Thing is though, w/o the buildings at all, you still get bottomed out pretty hard on that side of Corazol, I think the huge number of "containers" at the docks, and the industrial sites doesn't help, and you also have the DMZ wall, and all the tank traps on the beach, it's just a HIGHLY dense area for objects. There are really only a couple other enterable buildings right there, so, I'll take a look at those section counts, and play with removing some containers, and maybe ALL the tank traps? Not sure. I might also play with how the buildings are placed, and maybe with my previous idea of randomizing the floors with enterable/unenterable floors. Although I'm really leaning towards leaving them in, I really like them being fully enterable, and IMO the lag isn't game breaking at all, it still performs better for me than running through Elektro or Cherno... and it's really only that one NE corner of Corazol that's affected. Although one of the next things I was going to do was replace all the bombed out buildings with rebuilt/enterable ones.... Major terrain changes/additions/removals are something I'd like to start playing more with.... although I will likely do that as a splinter map.. United Sahrani+ or something like that... Taking the changes from United Sahrani, and then going further, by rebuilding all the destroyed locations, making Pita a major city, modernizing the PITA AF, removing all propaganda signage and statues, no more DMZ, a VERY built up Rahmadi, and the rest of the outlying islands... as well as some modern additions, I want to make geo-thermal, diesel generator, and solar power stations around the island. Sahrani would likely have 7-10 power plants between the 2 big islands alone, and it currently has none, besides the generator sheds that are randomly placed at some military areas (I plan on opening those and making them enterable/repairable as well.) This is something I've always wanted to do, and was a influencing factor when getting M1lkm8n to create so many animated buildings. The idea was to require the power stations be repaired, fueled etc, in order to supply power to the island, and allow access to the powered buildings.

Did some cleaning up of the proxied in floor model, it has a really high section count, I cleaned it up a lot, but it's still really high, I don't really know enough about the subject at all. I will read around a bit, and see what I can figure out. Meantime I have almost finished another building too (I work on new buildings when I get frustrated with the current building I'm stuck/frustrated with. http://puu.sh/aEYD7/a8d88d6967.jpg (334 kB) http://puu.sh/aEYJG/183e1db07d.jpg (324 kB) I stumbled on it while going through the models, and it was just too easy not to do real quick. Some lods need adjustment, but it works pretty well, and looks alright now.

Well, the buildings are modular, so I can adjust it fairly easily. I did not spend a huge amount of time optimizing the individual floors, so I'm sure that's causing a bit of strain. Also from the sounds of the lag spike rounding the corner, mixed with the sunlight on the stairs, I think that portion of the view geometry is not correct. The template floors I used were the ones with porches on the front of the building.. I'll have to have a look. As far as the smaller rooms, they're actually unchanged apart from opening the doors, the textures/rooms were already there. I Just moved the doors so they were swung open. This whole Panelak project is sort of an experiment, and was certainly pushing the boundaries of what's reasonably do-able. I'll take some time to play with them in the A3 diagnostics exe and see if that will help me get them squared away a bit. To be perfectly honest, the buildings could probably use a thorough do-over, as I had absolutely no clue what I was doing when I first started, and I still have a lot to learn, so I just don't feel like it's worth re-doing them at this point. Worst case scenario I will create a few new floor models, Left Rooms, Right Rooms, and No Rooms. That way I can mix the building up a bit and reduce some of the strain hopefully. The funny part is, that the 2 story panelak that I changed the least actually has a MUCH MUCH higher section count than any of the larger ones. I'll try to spend some time looking at them again, but tbh, I'm really burnt out on those buildings right now, so it will likely be a week or two.

How bad? I'll re-run my tests today I guess, but I get on average 40-50fps in low object areas, 30-40 in most high object areas, and 20-30 in corazol with the new buildings, I used to get 30-40 in Corozol. This is on foot too, in the air the lag isn't as bad. I also ran the tests in test DayZ MP server where the buildings were all spawning 100's of pieces of loot each, and it again, would hit in a similar fashion to any large city in any dayz mod for me. It's not as snappy as it was, but I don't think it's a killer at all either. There has to be some trade off when making basically the entire city enterable. I'm totally open to input though, I've got a few ideas on how to optimize the buildings a bit better, but I'm pretty burnt out on working on them at this point. I'll wait to see what the general response is and go from there. Please post any metrics you have produced. On the 8 story, the "hole" is supposed to be a sunlight, I'm going to model a little openable bubble window so you can open it from the roof and lob grenades down to the top floor. The shadow lod I have to fix, I think it's just pulled in too tight, pics of exactly what you're seeing would be great though! Thanks for the input. *Edit Ran some quick comparo's in the A3 editor: Windowed 1600x900 Fullscreen 5760x1080 FPS FPS Rec FPS FPS Rec A3_1.1 30 to 58 avg 30 30 to 60 avg 30 13 to 15 avg 14 10 to 18 avg 14 A3_1.2 27 to 54 avg 30 29 to 50 avg 30 13 to 19 avg 16 11 to 18 avg 14

Welcome to the city folks: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz-fdGGxhJTvU2taMERLZ2d6RDQ/edit?usp=sharing This is the full SMD_Sahrani_A2 package including the assets and units, the lite version is still uploading to Google Drive and Media Fire. I will also update the buildings standalone release as well. *Edit: Google Drive links for: SMD_Sahrani_A2_1.2.0 SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite_1.2.0 SMD_Buildings_1.2.0 Mediafire links for: SMD_Sahrani_A2 SMD_Sahrani_A2_Lite SMD_Buildings

Alright, I've gotten pretty much everything sorted at this point, I also animated all the dumpsters, and the backyard well pumps, so now you get "Open Dumpster" / "Close Dumpster" and "Pump Water" which makes the handle crank 3 times: I'm a little concerned with the frame rate drop you get in Corazol, but I can't really judge it properly, it's certainly not worse for me than Chernogorsk or Elektro in Chernarus. I've got to adjust one thing in the geo lod for the 4 story panelak, and then do a final pack, resign everything, and upload the package. Hopefully ready by tomorrow or Saturday.

Yeah, trying to brute force your way through terrain editing isn't exactly a wise man's venture in Arma. I couldn't help myself, I went back and fixed all the placement issues I noted and went back and checked them (I managed to miss 2 and have noted them). I also fixed all the outstanding issues with the buildings besides the distance lods. The Maly has shattering glass, and animated doors/shutters, and the apartments all have their ladders working. I just need to clean up the textures in the elevator shafts for the 4 and 8 story buildings, and do better view distance lods for them all. It's getting there.

Going to be a week at least before I release anything. Haven't gotten any feedback from outside sources, but I spent a lot of time over the weekend and tonight checking the terrain and buildings. The buildings had a bunch of silly things that needed fixing that I took care of. However there are still a few final bits that need to be done, the glass and door don't break in the maly, and the ladders are not config'd properly in the Panelak buildings which is important. I also found a BUNCH of placement issues with the Maly building in Paraiso, and a few other spots. Getting there, but certainly not ready for release as is.

Ok, I've really gotten a LOT done over the past few days, and learned A TON. I've got all the building placed, and adjusted pretty well. I've cleaned up the models, (the two story one is still pretty bad though honestly it's not hurting performance, but it has way too many sections and really needs cleaning up, I'm going to see how the MP performance tests go and decide from there) The build is looking pretty tight, and I've provided the patch file DL links to my testing community, and to a server host who PM'd me. MIGHT have a build out by the end of the weekend, but certainly by next week.

REALLY tightened up the Maly, and fixed some of the placements that were not 100pct. Also got the 2 story apartment finalized, you can now access the closets that were previously shut, and you can also now lean off the balcony railings and have a VERY good range of motion. You can see both features in the below vid:

Yeah, SERIOUSLY. You could make a whole mission out of clearing one or a couple of those 8 story buildings, much less a whole squad fanning out and clearing all 9 ... and the Maly really fleshes out a bunch of the towns in the south, so you can actually do a meaningful house to house in some cities. I haven't really tested performance very thoroughly yet. The models definately need some cleaning up, and optimization, (we actually found out in the middle of my learning, that ALL the models can be optimized a bit more as well.) I will test it a bit myself, polish off the last problems with the buildings, and then, I set up a community on G+ a while back for testing our DayZ derivative mod, I posted there and I might be able to get a group together to test performance more thoroughly. There is also a fairly large server host that's using the terrain for hosting their mix of mods, I might see if they're interested in testing it and providing feedback. If anyone here has a community that's willing to or interested in testing it let me know by PM or here. I think I fixed all the major issues with the Maly last night, but there's still a bit more to do, the apartments are pretty good as is, I just need to adjust the stair height and re-add the railing proxy.