spookygnu 563 Posted October 31, 2014 this little tut is something I got from Bushlurker on the skype mapmaking channel. assigning colours to the polygons/polylines can be done in one of two ways.... For any polygon or polyline, when you select it there's colour controls in the "properties" panel - you can set any colour you like - thats purely for your own visual benefit - plays no part in anything... For the "export shapes to imagery" purposes, you can "assign a mask colour to a shapes layer" - thats slightly different - it DOESN'T affect the visuals you see at all - the only visual difference is that that layers "icon" in the shape layers list will have a coloured border - and the colour will be one of the colours already associated with a surface... - to achieve that, you right click on the layer in the list, and you should see the names of all the surfaces you have defined listed in the right click context menu - grass, beach, rock, etc - by picking one of those, you basically assign that surfaces colour to all the shapes on that layer... you get a coloured border - and thats it... - the lines don't change colour or anything (thats what the other colour control is for) - all that "surface colour selection" does is to make sure that - if/when you "export shapes to imagery" then in the export file - those shapes will be coloured with that surfaces "associated colour" - so if you want all your roads to be coloured "blue" in TB's 2D view - select all road lines, then in the properties panel, choose a shade of blue - if you want to export a raster image of your road lines with them all coloured blue, then - right click the road line shape layer(s ) - select the ground surface associated with "blue" - "gravel" maybe... nothing changes - ... but then... Export > shapefiles to imagery... choose a neutral "background" colour like Yellow and export - you'll get blue lines on a yellow background - same deal with any polyline or polygon - assuming you have a mask colour assigned to "general urban", or "gravel" or "concrete" which you want to use - lets say (again) that the colour associated with that surface is "blue" then you'd Assign that "gravel/blue" surface type to all the shape layers which have road lines, concreted areas outlined by polygon shapes, etc - then as above - export that raster image Now you have all your "concrete" areas in blue, on a yellow background Load your mask into photoshop - load the new blue 'n yellow image - drag the image on top of the mask - it'll become a new layer... (if you hold shift while dragging it in it'll snap to position properly) now use Select > Colour range and select the yellow hit "delete" Yellow background disappears - now you have your original mask with all the blue lines and areas neatly overlaid "Flatten image" or "merge layers" - and "save" Now you have a mask with all those areas in blue Reimport mask to TB or "refresh from source" if you cleverly edited the old mask "in-situ" Recrunch the Layers folder Now - the mask has been reprocessed - "concrete" or "general purpose gravel" or whatever surface was associated with "blue" is now in use in those areas - open Buldozer and you'll see it Now there are many ways of making roads but this one seems very easy to do if you already have defined your layers and what not. This also works for all your other surfaces such as beach area, pine forest and all kinds of different textured surfaces you'd like on your map. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1para{god-father} 105 Posted October 31, 2014 Thanks for that ! What does "Create Surface Mask " tick box on the export do ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted October 31, 2014 Wow! Big Thanks to Spooky for putting that together from the disorganised babble of the Skype channel in full-flow!!! As you can see from above, this "Export Shapes to Imagery" is a pretty powerful feature that could be used for other surfaces besides "roads". As Spooky mentioned, while you're assigning "blue for gravel" to your "Road Polylines Layer", you could also assign the same surface/colour to "concrete areas", "car parks" "airport runway/staging areas" - any area which you have defined as a polygon shape on a layer in TB which you'd like to use a generic urban/gravel surface on. You could take this even further, and assign your "forest area polygons" (if you have any) to the mask colour you've previously associated with "forest floor", beach area polygons to your "sand" mask colour, etc etc etc The only limit is the number of polygons and lines you've created to depict features, and the number of different mask colours/surfaces you've defined in your layers.cfg. So - if you actually had all those different layers, assigned to surface colours, and you "exported to imagery" the whole thing at once - with maybe "green for grass" to fill in the background areas not covered by any of the shapes - it would be almost like exporting an entire usable mask image! What does "Create Surface Mask " tick box on the export do ? ...and that is EXACTLY what this option is for - it doesn't "export to IMAGERY" (ie: a file), it "exports to the TB RASTER LAYERS DIRECTLY"! - where this image can be immediately used as a mask in it's own right! This is one of those areas where TB reveals its origins as a VBS Terrain tool. As we know, for VBS different priorities apply - the military aren't interested in "pretty", they're only interested in basic functionality. Additionally, their own Army people who they have trained to make maps aren't artists like us, they don't have access to photoshop, or - generally - the understanding that comes with that - they want a One-Stop-Solution. So, as a quick example, if an Army mapmaker was making a quick chunk of - say - Afghanistan for a military-use VBS map he might... Load his imagery Define a simple 4 colour surface setup - sand, grass, roads, mountain Make polygons/lines on separate layers which define the "green grass areas", the "roads and courtyard areas", the "mountains" Assign the mask colour/surfaces "green, red & blue" to those layers Then he would simply "Export shapes to Imagery" and use the "Export Surface mask" option, while choosing "yellow" (sand) as the "Background colour. Immediately, he would have a simple mask - in the rasters layer list and ready to use for the Layers generation stage. Of course, with the Arma series we ARE interested in "pretty", so we'd rarely use such a relatively crude technique and, for us - exporting to an actual image - as described in Spookys post - will be the more usual option... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jimbop 25 Posted October 31, 2014 doesn't pretty = realistic? VBS has pretty ponds and rivers doesn't it? does it have railways? without these arma3 will always be empty. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1para{god-father} 105 Posted October 31, 2014 hmm OK some advice please ! All was working great I exported shapes to \data\roads\roads.shp as i only had pol lines (for my roads) so i now made some nice new shapes so i can export to imagery- which changed my roads.shp to Road_Polylines.shp and now i cannot see any roads in bulldoze anymore ? even if i change my config ...newRoadsShape to the new path i still get no roads ?? Any idea what i need to change to get roads in BD working again ? So i now made a new shape Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted October 31, 2014 I think you may be confusing two separate procedures here... All was working great I exported shapes to \data\roads\roads.shp as i only had pol lines (for my roads) Good so far - that's what you do - create a "Shapes layer" with your road polylines - each of which has the necessary DBF parameters, etc - see any Standard Roads Tutorial for that stuff... so i now made some nice new shapes so i can export to imagery Still good - on a new shapes layer maybe some "forest polygons", on another layer, maybe some "car park and courtyard polygons" - whatever... which changed my roads.shp to Road_Polylines.shp and now i cannot see any roads in bulldoze anymore ? How could this possibly happen? - Unless you re-exported the roads shape layer as a new .shp shapefile with a different name??? There's no need to export ANY shapefiles (.shp) when doing the "Shapes to Imagery" procedure outlined above - you simply "tag" the layer with the appropriate ground surface, then use the "File > Export > Shapes to Imagery" option to export an image of those shapes, in the mask colours you "tagged" the shape layers with, with the background colour you specify at the export stage... No actual "shapefiles" are created at all - that's an entirely different process.... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1para{god-father} 105 Posted October 31, 2014 (edited) Note sure what is happening then :( Like you said all my roads working great have all my roads on a few layers then i export when I change / add Export to shapes > roads.shp This all works great . but my problem comes when i create a new Pol Shape... so I created a new layer and made some nice shapes for my Towns for concrete then if i change add a new road to my road Layer and export shapes to roads.shp I then get all new files in my Roads folder now instead of Roads.shp i now get Road_Polylines.shp & Road_Polyshapes.shp ( even tho I am exporting to roads.shp) ?? run bulldozer i get no roads any more ..... Delete the Polshape layer delete the new files that it created i.e Road_Polylines.shp then re-export to roads.shp and all back working again in Bulldozer. So it all seems to stop working when i create a new Pol Shape so no idea why ? Hope that makes some sense ****RESOLVED************** OK worked it out when i export my shapes after a change i had it set to Document not just my Road layers, so i was getting new files ( no idea why tho but i was) So all works now with shapes > and using this tut got my new Layers Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa THANKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Edited October 31, 2014 by 1PARA{God-Father} Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted October 31, 2014 sounds like you're exporting ALL your shape layers to a single shapefile... For "Roads" usage, you'd just export the actual road polyline layers as a single .shp shapefile set - don't include any of your other "surface line/area" shapefile layers - just the actual specially .dbf'd "roads" ones. For "Shapes to Imagery", you don't export any shapefiles at all - just "tag" the shape layers appropriately with the surface type then export an image file (then you can "untag" the shape layers again if you like once its done)... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1para{god-father} 105 Posted October 31, 2014 Yep you are correct was exporting ALL layers ....:j: Many thanks for your help ! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
