Development Setup

[Synide]

I noticed in recent times that a great many people have alot of problems with their development setups. And, being able to successfully build stuff.

I'm about 1/2 through a .pdf tutorial on setting up ones development environment but it's taking longer than I'd anticipated due to other activities.

Anyway, in a quick pre-cursor to that here are is a .rar file with the 'BIS Sample Map' reformated abit and with some extra building models sitting on it.
People were having problems getting ladders to work and doors to operate in Binarized .wrp's.

Make particular note of the P:\Synide\ca folder and the BinPBO build settings...

  Synide_synRahmadi_Sample.rar (null) (64 Megabytes - not 24/7) Link removed

The above example is being reworked with some comments extra... until then though...

When you build it have a look at the log file created... you'll possibly have lot's of warnings regarding the various building models... if you do then that probably means you have installed the BIS p3dm mlod's of the Buildings and they are a bit wonky as you'll note...

Anyway, all going well you should have a built binarized pbo of the BI Sample Map as a new island and the doors and ladders should all be working... If you change the time to dusk in the mission editor you should see the flashing lights and the lighthouse...

Also, make particular note that this source is sitting outside the &#39;ca&#39; namespace... no one should be creating addons that are sitting inside the &#39;ca&#39; folder on their <ArmAWork> drives, think of it as being off-liimits...

I&#39;ll eventually finish off this .pdf and post it... I think it has some handy info for the novice & budding addon maker.

anyhoo... good luck...

Cheers, Sy.

Edit:

As promised here is a .pdf on how to setup your Development Environment...

For novice&#39;s and budding Addon makers it might provide some guidance... dunno.

Cheers, Sy.

       ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf (ftp://203.97.251.53/ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf) 698 Kilobytes (Link not 24/7)

       ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf (http://synide.rkslstudios.info/ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf) 698 Kilobytes (from RKSL)

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Took a brief look at it Sy. This should be very helpful for ppl&#33;
Thanks for that. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/thumbs-up.gif

One comment about the config.
Seems to be the standard config sort of.

Nevertheless I believe all values should be commented
(deactivated) by default and people should have to activate them,
if they want to change them.

For this config many values are set and inheritance from CAWorld,
etc. no longer "works".

[Synide]

oh sure... very true... very true... it&#39;s by no means a highly optimized example...

the main issue I was trying to highlight was that of where to place stuff so the build tools and the O2pe and V3pe can find them and what settings BinPBO should have...

there are a plethora of different/alternative setups I could do and show as examples but this seemed the easiest to do to highlight the &#39;door&#39; and &#39;ladder&#39; issues people were having.

I broke one of my own rules in the config.cpp and that&#39;s the one saying &#39;use inheritance - keep your config.cpp as clean as possible&#39;... I&#39;ll amend that before the tutorial.pdf is finished...

the audience for this document and example is the novice and budding addon maker struggling to come to grips with how BIS&#39;s &#39;Real Virtuality&#39; works.
There seems to be week after week numerous people posting threads like... &#39;I can&#39;t get such and such to work...&#39;, &#39;My materials aren&#39;t showing up...&#39;, &#39;The anims are not working...&#39;, &#39;My build keeps crashing the game...&#39;, blah, blah... it&#39;s painful to see so many people struggling when I find it almost simple to get this stuff working... I know that sounds like bragging but truly I&#39;m not... I&#39;m just trying to highlight that ArmA and the modification of it is easy if one knows a few fundamentals...
BIS have been woeful in this area over the years... It&#39;s always piece meal tid bits and half-hearted explanations.
I believe there are a large number of people very capable of putting the information out... but like me get very disillusioned with the scene... and just find better ways to kill the time... but i digress...

Also, I should stress... that one expects that people should slowly either do away with the dependency on the .cpp&#39;s & .cfg&#39;s in the &#39;<YourNamespace>&#92;ca&#39; folder structure over time OR provide a &#39;buffer-zone&#39; of <YourNamespace>classnames that inherit from the BIS ones and are present at the &#39;top-level&#39; in the <Yournamespace> folder.
Thereby, making it alot easier for MOD teams to integrate the particular addon makers content if desired and allowable. And, more importantly easy for themselves to maintain and build on...

The above sample was a shortcut to get something out there for the &#39;masses&#39; to help them get stuff working now while I finish of the .pdf...

another senario invloves setting the &#39;PathToProject&#39; folder in BinPBO to the root P:&#92; drive... there are issues to accomodate for that senario that one has to address...
It&#39;s easier for the novice to place the .cpp&#39;s & .cfg&#39;s from BIS stuff underneath there own Namespace... for the moment at least...

[RKSL-Rock]

http://synide.rkslstudios.info/Synide_synRahmadi_Sample.rar

A more permanent mirror.

[Synide]

As promised here is a .pdf on how to setup your Development Environment...

For novice&#39;s and budding Addon makers it might provide some guidance... dunno.

Cheers, Sy.

       ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf (ftp://203.97.251.53/ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf) 698 Kilobytes (Link not 24/7)

       ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf (http://synide.rkslstudios.info/ArmABuildEnvironment.pdf) 698 Kilobytes (from RKSL)


Some additional info...

A method to copy the &#39;original&#39; config.bin files from P:&#92;ca&#92;..&#92;.. to P:&#92;<YourNamespace>&#92;ca&#92;..&#92;..

1. open the msdos window and navigate to P:&#92;ca

2. type the following command and press enter.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">xcopy *.bin P&#58;&#92;&#60;YourNamespace&#62;&#92;ca&#92; /S /Y[/QUOTE]

3. you should have previously placed any model.cfg files you acquired from the BIS supplied example models to there respective places within your P:&#92;ca&#92;..&#92;.. folder structure.
If you haven&#39;t then you should probably do this right now otherwise you can&#39;t do step 4....

4. type the following command and press enter.
<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">xcopy model.cfg P&#58;&#92;&#60;YourNamespace&#62;&#92;ca&#92; /S /Y[/QUOTE]

Result should be you now have a folder structure under your P:&#92;<YourNamespace>&#92;ca&#92; folder that matches the P:&#92;ca reference folder structure and there should be only the config.bin files and model.cfg&#39;s.

good luck.