Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
Raunhofer

The best way to add roads?

Recommended Posts

To wake up this topic a bit, here's a main reason why we loose our work if we forget to do regular backup:

- when you have selected road (for example starting terminator+1x 25m piece) and you push CTRL to rotate the road you miss the road and click on terrain. That always causes hard drive activity and few seconds later a CTD.

CTRL + location should as a key-combo for automatic road placement, but I guess BIS never has time to fix that bug (in more than 4 years of A1/A2) for us.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think BIS should release parts of the Visitor 3 Source code to the public so we can have a crack at it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm trying to add a road network in v3 and i added all asf1 roads (roads2), but I can't get them to curve left, even though the road curve list shows in both the left and right curve window.

edit: nevermind, i was looking at it backwards.

Edited by El Mariachi

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Or maybe they could give those of us that are interested the opportunity to acquire the non "Personal Edition" of Visitor3/Oxygen2 - ie the VBS2 Dev Kit.. It appears that some of the features in V3PE get munted somewhere along the way.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
That is exacally what I told you, Global Mapper is the perfered tool for VBS2. The same applies to Arma/2.

Terrain generator>Global Mapper>Visitor>Game

Like I said, for VBS2 Landbuilder is available which makes the inbetween much easier for road laying but it's still possible without.

Vandrel, without Visual Landbuilder - its not possible to import Vector data into the Visitor available for ArmA2. So yeah, while your comments are great and all - this is an ArmA2 Editing forum - not a VBS2 forum. And I just wasted a couple of hours only to figure out that LandBuilder reformats the vector data into a script file, which is then read by Visitor.

So your workflow is actually:

Terrain Generator > Global Mapper > LandBuilder > Visitor > Game

LandBuilder is a BIA application, only available with VBS2 - so your comments are irrelevant.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm gonna tell you something guys. Stop f*cking and wait for visitor 4 and something like LandBuilder for ArmA2. For those who never worked in and doesn't remember wrpEdit - try to place hundreds of road parts TOTALLY MANUALLY. I thank god that I can copy and paste eaven 1500m road and just rotate it in that damn Buldozer. Making roads in Visitor 3 is anyway 100x faster than in a first wrpEdit that came out to make islands for old Operation-Flashpoint.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm gonna tell you something guys. Stop f*cking and wait for visitor 4 and something like LandBuilder for ArmA2. For those who never worked in and doesn't remember wrpEdit - try to place hundreds of road parts TOTALLY MANUALLY. I thank god that I can copy and paste eaven 1500m road and just rotate it in that damn Buldozer. Making roads in Visitor 3 is anyway 100x faster than in a first wrpEdit that came out to make islands for old Operation-Flashpoint.

You have took this thread out of the limbo only to add this post?

Well, there is not limit to the best. It's obvious that everyone of us will dream the day we will have V4 on our hands (maybe on ArmA3...) and it's undoubt that actual V3 is better than other softwares but can be upgraded and patched a lot (maybe something will be released with new A2 expansion...). This is what we have, and we have great island makers that can deal with this.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've had an idea in the back of my head for a long time about building a "tool" for the A2 mission editor which would let you define points, and then it would do the math and use copytoclipboard to give you a road network list, which you would then paste into a text file and import to Visitor. Has anyone else thought of this or can anyone think of any reason why noone has tried something like it?

Can anyone find a page that describes some mathematics behind drawing splines from a series of points?

Edited by Homer Johnston

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Take a look at this thread Homer... Theres some code posted - but no actual workable example - as yet.... Rocket seems to have been AWOL recently...

B

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Ouch, that linemapper tool still isn't usable? maybe BIS sent him a cease and desist letter :p. Unfortunately I don't know C, so I can't even attempt to continue his work or base something new off of it right now...

The complexity with road placement is that there are several different road pieces which must be correctly selected to produce a best-fit. I've had an idea down on paper for months which would allow you to click along a path, and it would automatically select road pieces to get as close to where you click as possible. Each click would use the largest-radius curve pieces possible to turn towards the final point, and then place any needed straight pieces to travel to it. I don't know if it would actually be very convenient to place roads this way though. I may get around to trying it someday (it'd probably only take a few evenings), but I'm too busy right now. I could post some related math and concept info up if there's any other scripters around who are a bit competent with math and want to give it a shot.

It'd also be technically possible to draw a spline and perform a similar best-fit along the spline, but the amount of math involved would need some serious brainpower!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder if there'd be a way to "repair" the automatic road function with the "shift"-button...it is just unfair....:mad:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

probably not without source code :( didn't it work in earlier versions and then it got borked? how did it operate before?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's vaguely mentioned HERE in the "official" Wiki...

You only have to place the first keypart of a roadsection. Then you can simply click on the map and Visitor will try to reach the point, autoplacing the road. Incase you don't like the placement you can change it manually, which is a bit more timeconsuming.

I think the procedure is supposed to be... place keypart - <ctrl>click - road lays itself....

Currently it just crashes Visitor... every time...

B

Edited by Bushlurker

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder if it's possible to run an old version of Visitor and use it, haha.

heh, during my lunch breaks I'm going to see if I can figure out Spline Mathematics but it's been a few years since I've done this sort of math so it might be hopeless...

man it would be awesome if we could click on some points in the editor and get a real-time preview of the road... it's possible, but so difficult that I may just be dreaming :p

Edited by Homer Johnston

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I wonder if it's possible to run an old version of Visitor and use it, haha.

heh, during my lunch breaks I'm going to see if I can figure out Spline Mathematics but it's been a few years since I've done this sort of math so it might be hopeless...

man it would be awesome if we could click on some points in the editor and get a real-time preview of the road... it's possible, but so difficult that I may just be dreaming :p

That could be the best way to see what trajectory of road the algoritms are proposing for us. BTW I wonder what happens when BIS will relase another Visitor. Maybe Visitor 4 ? Will it be same Visitor with same functions (automatic roads placement, non-polygon forests placement, etc.) ?

My way to place roads is simple. I'm making few kinds of road curves and then I can copy and paste them in any time when I need to place curve.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I will place roads with bulldozer open in another window. Every 4-5 segments i'll click on APPLY and switch to bulldozer to see what's the result. If something doesn't like i'll come back to V3 and fix the problem by adding the right piece. I don't use predefined curves, i'll use every kind of radius to follow my terrain and usually the result is good enough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think the procedure is supposed to be... place keypart - <ctrl>click - road lays itself....

Currently it just crashes Visitor... every time...

B

You got my hopes up :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Will it be same Visitor with same functions (automatic roads placement, non-polygon forests placement, etc.) ?

Just look at the Visitor 4 section and start to cry :butbut::butbut:

http://developer.vbs2.com/onlinehelp/, section 6.15

I wonder if its possible to buy just Visitor 4...maybe one should contact BI Australia concerning this ?! I dont need all the other stuff of VBS2...so..maybe it is worth a try?!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Man can do magic with V4, I would love to give it a swirl for 6 months or so :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One thing. If they relase Visitor 4 to community then number of ofp/arma/arma2 players will INCREASE DIAMETRICALLY. Visitor 4 in players hands means attack of islands like an attack of zombies, most realistic islands, most beautifull.

BTW when I place the road, I make few elements to copy them later (anytime I need), that's how they look like.

roadcurve.jpg

Most important is to end and start curve with straight part of a road so later it will be less problem to connect it to other parts.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

hm...

i wonder what those roads look like ingame. Do they really work?

Maybe i missed something but normally roads start with a terminator...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
hm...

i wonder what those roads look like ingame. Do they really work?

Maybe i missed something but normally roads start with a terminator...

They look same as in buldozer - good :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
One thing. If they relase Visitor 4 to community then number of ofp/arma/arma2 players will INCREASE DIAMETRICALLY. Visitor 4 in players hands means attack of islands like an attack of zombies, most realistic islands, most beautifull.

BTW when I place the road, I make few elements to copy them later (anytime I need), that's how they look like.

Most important is to end and start curve with straight part of a road so later it will be less problem to connect it to other parts.

I do the exact same method for creating roads. Takes time and is handy.. and it works out well enough in game:cool:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Would it be easier if you could create road networks with a tool like this? Basically, you'd move around, click to "set" the point, and then repeat until you were done. It might be helpful for doing long winding roads, but I'm not sure?

Red dots represent "turn" pieces, and the script selects the largest possible radius to use (I've added 25m, 50m, 75m, and 100m radii as options for trial purposes)

The annoyance of this method would be transferring it from ArmA to Visitor - I don't know if you can write scripts that interface with visitor in real-time to do the same thing. You'd have to load your project into ArmA, build the road line, then manually paste the result into a road network file and import it into visitor.

Edited by Homer Johnston

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×