raptor 6 actual 13 Posted September 28, 2012 Haha Joe, I thought the comment reminded me of myself. I always try and apologize for bothering people with my questions....then I proceed to ask. As you know from my other threads, I am attempting to take on many fronts at the same time. Bushlurker's tutorial got me going in the right direction, but I quickly found that I needed those "area-specific" building objects and thus decided that I needed to learn how to model those for my map. Hopefully, it'll all come together. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VovoNauta 1 Posted September 28, 2012 It is One point I should mention....In several of the paths above it says "P:\bush\etc\etc"... this betrays the fact you have the sample files in a P:\"Bush" namespace... That's cool as a "quick check" of the source files (they work fine), but it's no substitute for actually following through the tutorial - actually doing the laborious line-by-line renaming and repathing... In the future you'll usually just mass-rename, or search-'n-replace to do this sort of job, but first time around, its a good idea to do it manually... it makes you look at the files you're using line-by-line, and as a by product you start to gain an inkling of what they do and how they work, which in turn will stand you in good stead when you "go freestyle" and have a go at your own first project from scratch... B Thanks for the quick response! The idea is to use the files without changing anything was to check if my setup / structure in P: \ was correct. If all programs were working correctly. Now for the hard work. You're very generous. tks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted September 29, 2012 You're very generous. tks! He is, he certainly is! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 29, 2012 Arma2P uses a lot of "page memory" and it can be a little qwirky occasionally... it's unpacking a LOT of stuff... one .pbo in particular - "dubbing.pbo" is notorious for causing the occasional "out of memory error"... thats the most common problem usually - but it should say so in it's window when it fails - or if it successfully completes, you do get a "I'm done! press a key to continue" message...I'd suggest you try running Arma2P again.... Happened 2 times already. Is it even possible for this to not run out of memory on a 4GB Vista32 PC? Can I somehow manually do whatever that cmd does (it simply unpacks all pbo files?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted September 29, 2012 Technically - for terrain-making, you should have every .pbo unpacked on P:\... Mainly because not all .pbo's are entirely "self-contained" - stuff in one can refer to stuff in another so, for the sake of completeness, and to avoid any possible dodginess whatsoever, Mikero's Arma2P unpacks everything - without exception... Normally you can ease it past that tricky "dubbing.pbo" with a fresh reboot, then straight to the Arma2P job with no other anything happening, no internet browsing while it's busy - take a snackbreak sort of thing... However - I can't think of any reason whatsoever why dubbing.pbo would ever be involved in a terrain object crisis - ever... so... If all else fails - physically REMOVE dubbing.pbo from your game - copy it out of your Arma install to the desktop or somewhere SAFE..... Then - run Arma2P - it won't stall on dubbing.pbo cause it won't find it... Once it's complete - REPLACE dubbing.pbo back into your game!!! If you really wanted to you could even manually unpack dubbing.pbo and put it in it's proper place on P:\CA afterwards... As long as you've managed to get Arma2P to do the dirty work with the zillion other .pbo's, doing one manually isn't too bad..... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 29, 2012 ok, so I basically hide the dubbing.pbo from the unpacker then put it back in. I'll try that right away. EDIT: Will this unpacking make ALL arma2+OA assets available? Even if my ARMA2 is retail and OA is on steam? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted September 29, 2012 Will this unpacking make ALL arma2+OA assets available? Even if my ARMA2 is retail and OA is on steam? Yes - no problems... Arma2P will find and unpack all assets - including DLC - regardless of what variation or install location you have.... it's pretty smart, and designed specifically for this task... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 29, 2012 Thx that worked. Quick question however, is there no actual mouse interface when using bulldozer? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted September 29, 2012 There should be.... When you install at first, buldozer uses the default key/mouse assignments - from your game install... Launch your game - go to options/controls(?) - where you define keys... there's a popdown list of key groupings at the top - one of them is for buldozer... In there you can set up whatever controls etc you want... they get stored in the .profile file in "MyDocuments\Arma2\" or similar... You can also set up specific .profile and .cfg files just for Visitor buldozer - so you can specifically set viewdistance, detail, etc as well as all keys... There's instructions about that in the Guide... There's also a "direct interface" sort of thing - press F1 while in buldozer... I've never really messed with that - I prefer the separate .cfg & .profile for buldozer approach... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 30, 2012 From what I can tell now bulldozer is basically some hacked in direct control camera and there is no mouse interface. Are you really supposed to direct control fly around the map, target some object, then manipulate without any on screens gizmos? And no terrain sculpting tools? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted September 30, 2012 Welcome to terrain editing ;) But there are VERY simple in-Bulldozer sculpt tools. Check the manual. Bulldozer is definitely not the primary interface for editing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 30, 2012 Is there some heightmap editor which allows for precise sculpting? ideally with the ability to overlay images? (Visitor has to be the crappiest landscape editor in the known universe), I thought the Bf2 editor was crappy, but this wins the prize. I mean without a proper heightmap TO START with, you are basically stuck, because landscape editing with visitor is like trying to build a sandcastle with a toothpick. Just to prove I am not a complete newb at landscape editing: I made this map for Bf2 in less than 3 weeks only using a satmap for basic color, and the rest was all sculpted by hand. Now how is that work flow supposed to work with visitor? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted September 30, 2012 Looks great!! Nice field system!! I think you'll adapt with no problems at all... apart from the dismay you're currently experiencing at the toolkit! ;) Download L3DT Standard It's fully functional, apart from some size limits that won't immediately concern you... It works fine on heightmaps up to 2048 in the free version which is probably as big as you'll ever need... Visitor is primarily an "Assembly tool".. Heightmaps, sat & mask work is all largely done externally, though, as Gnat says, there are some basic terrain tweaking tools in buldozer which come in mighty handy in the later stages for fine-tuning small problems. Nowadays, thanks to some clever Community members, you can largely assemble your road network, and even do things like most of your bulk vegetation placement externally (Homer's RoadPainter 1&2, and Shezan74's WorldTools)... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alleycat 28 Posted September 30, 2012 Does L3DT have the ability to fly around in 3d and let me paint the actual overlaid satmap? I am looking for a way to color my map and sculpt the terrrain in the same application. I found this after a quick search: http://www.earthsculptor.com/ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted September 30, 2012 (edited) Hmmm... I'm not familiar with EarthSculptor, I must admit... I'm a huge fan of L3DT though... Heightmap generation/sculpting is just the beginning of what it does... It also has - like you're looking for - direct painting on the heightmap - yeah, but it's main secret weapon is - "Climates" Essentially - you can define a satmap size, then choose/define a "Climate", which is a series of surfaces - each of which has a texture and an associated basic colour - then L3DT will intelligently analyse your heightmap, looking for gradient, slope, salinity, proximity to water, etc, etc - then it'll assign a colour to each pixel of your proposed sat layer... At this stage you have spray and brush tools and - yes - a full flyable 3D interface where you can also manually paint colours... This is particularly handy for us, since an Arma2 terrain uses a Matched Pair of "satmaps" - one is a "satmask" which controls ground textures & clutter - it needs to be a "simple colours version of the sat layer".... that's exactly what L3DT makes!! So that part can be used directly as a mask..... Then - you can follow thru the rest of the L3DT generation process, ultimately ending at the texturing stage, where L3DT will actually use those coloured areas you created before and assign actual proper "satellite textures" to them, and render an actual fairly convincing "synthetic" satellite image - which exactly matches that "mask" layer... Since a pair of closely matching images like this is exactly what we need for Visitor - L3DT could almost be designed for Arma 2 terrain making... Like I said before, you'll almost never use heightmaps beyond 2048x2048, so the major limitation of the "Free" version is that it'll only make these "mask & sat" layers up to 4096x4096... The even better news is - there's a Full - completely unrestricted.... THREE MONTH demo of the Pro version available - just fill in the form on the website and check your email for the link..... The major difference you're going to immediately encounter once you start messing around with Arma2 terrains is... scale! Looking at your BF2 map, judging from the buildings size it's around??? 1km x 1km?? A recommended beginners size "little" Arma 2 map is 5km x 5km - 25 times the area of your BF2 terrain!! A "medium" terrain, like Icebreakr's popular 10x10km ones, would be 100 of your BF2 maps in a square! - ouch! You don't really want to have to paint that entirely by hand - yard by yard - in a 3D view... The L3DT "Climates" facility will autogenerate a believable "base sat & mask" which you can then retouch and enhance.... B Edited September 30, 2012 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DualJoe 10 Posted September 30, 2012 Or use a 3d-sculpt program like in my case Blender. I have multiple "satmap" images overlayed on it from an edited google-sat one up to some edited old black and white aerial photographs to help me with the sculpting. Just make sure your sculpt program is able to output something that can be imported into visitor. Oh and make sure that your hardware can handle the resolution you want. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pilinir 1 Posted October 2, 2012 Hi Bushlurker, thank you for this tutorial it has been really helpful in getting things going. Unfortunately I cannot get the final PBO to load into the game, I did the Sgt Ace tutorial before this and I can load that map in so I at least know that part of the process works. I looked into the log that BinBpo makes and it ends with the following text: <world = "p:\test\topGun\topGun.wrp"> bad case in test\topGun\data\tg_middle_mco.paa w:\c\Poseidon\lib\txtBank.cpp(377): bad case in texture name bad case in test\topGun\data\tg_middle_mco.paa w:\c\Poseidon\lib\txtBank.cpp(276): bad case in texture name bad version 49 in p3d file 'ca\plants_e\clutter\c_brush_hard_ep1.psd' Also, in my P:WRP_PROJECTS\ca folder there is no plants_e subfolder. I am sure this is what is causing the version error in that log, could that also be why my map is not actually showing up in game? I would appreciate any help you could offer, I am so close to getting this to work and understanding this entire process! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
icebreakr 3100 Posted October 2, 2012 alleycat: "visitor is like trying to build a sandcastle with a toothpick." - I lol'd so hard :) p.s. nice job with the BF terrain. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted October 2, 2012 (edited) H Pilinir! I did the Sgt Ace tutorial before this and I can load that map in so I at least know that part of the process works. Well done! Indeed, Sgt Aces quick tutorial (apart from the out-of-date initial setup bit) is an excellent "tools checker" as well as being a useful Early Success when you're starting out at first... Okay - lets take a look at your problem.... bad case in test\topGun\data\tg_middle_mco.paa Hmmm.... the only "Uppercase" letter I can see in this path is the "G" in "topGun" - that shouldn't matter! The "demo" path is "Bush\AfghanValley\data\av_middle_mco.paa", and that works perfectly well! w:\c\Poseidon\lib\txtBank.cpp(377): bad case in texture name There it is again!! I'm seriously not sure about this error... Sometimes, the Game engine/Visitor/BinPbo is picky about Upper & Lowercase... Uppercase causes issues in texture names sometimes, for example, whereas it's OK in model filenames.. In this instance it shouldn't matter at all though..... bad version 49 in p3d file 'ca\plants_e\clutter\c_brush_hard_ep1.psd' This one is wierd too, for a couple of reasons..... Firstly, BinPbo shouldn't be finding, or even looking at a ".psd" file at all... "c_brush_hard_ep1.p3d" maybe... Was that bit just a typo on your part?? Secondly, the "bad version 49" part - "type 49" is Operation Arrowhead models... In earlier versions, Mikero's Arma2P tool used to convert all type 49 models to type 58 (I think) - so they would work with the Tools Suite, but I believe that was abandoned as unnecessary in later versions, since the Tools Suite - and Buldozer - were upgraded to match... The latest 2.5.1 version of the BI Tools Suite should handle these models.... I'm going to take a wild guess and ask - which version of the BI Tools did you download and install? Was it the latest 2.5.1 version from THIS POST? Please check that if you would, and let us know which version you have installed, so we can eliminate that as a possibility..... Also, in my P:WRP_PROJECTS\ca folder there is no plants_e subfolder. I am sure this is what is causing the version error in that log, Plants don't actually have a config of their own, as you can see if you look in the main P:\CA\Plants_whatever folders... Since the "mini CA" folder in "WRP_PROJECTS" is only concerned with models that do have configs, it isn't a "complete mirror" of the main CA folder - only the stuff which actually has config files will be in there... B Edited October 2, 2012 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pilinir 1 Posted October 2, 2012 Well...looks like I am using just version 2. That might explain my problems... Strangely though I cant connect to the download link in that other post, will have to try when I get home, my work computer has some finicky restrictions. Plants don't actually have a config of their own, as you can see if you look in the main P:\CA\Plants_whatever folders... Since the "mini CA" folder in "WRP_PROJECTS" is only concerned with models that do have configs, it isn't a "complete mirror" of the main CA folder - only the stuff which actually has config files will be in there... Ah ok! this whole thing is starting to click for me, will try with the correct version of the BI tools tonight and see what happens. Thanks for the help, I didn't even think of verifying my version /facepalm. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VovoNauta 1 Posted October 4, 2012 Bushlurker master, I created a file xyz with Global Mapper and ASTER GDEM data. I wonder if it is possible to edit this file with L3DT pro (trial). If possible you would have some tutorial for this? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakerod 254 Posted October 4, 2012 Bushlurker master,I created a file xyz with Global Mapper and ASTER GDEM data. I wonder if it is possible to edit this file with L3DT pro (trial). If possible you would have some tutorial for this? Open L3DT File>Import>Heightfield Navigate to the file Open it Hit Okay The terrain should now load. I do my editing by right clicking on the heightmap in L3DT and choosing Tools>Heightfield Editor (3D) W, A, S, D, E, R navigate. Clicking edits the terrain. Mouse wheel changes the size of the brush. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VovoNauta 1 Posted October 4, 2012 Thanks, but when I do it appears these error messages and do not open for editing: -------------------- CsRoamPatch::TestVisible error: - cannot get heightfield pixel value CsHeightfield::RoamReset error: - call to CsRoamPatch::TestVisible failed CsHeightfield::RoamInit error: - call to RoamReset failed CsHeightfield::InitData error: - RoamInit failed CsLandscape::InitLandscape error: - cannot initialise heightfield CSapphireWnd::ShowWnd error: - call to InitLandscape failed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakerod 254 Posted October 4, 2012 Thanks, but when I do it appears these error messages and do not open for editing:-------------------- CsRoamPatch::TestVisible error: - cannot get heightfield pixel value CsHeightfield::RoamReset error: - call to CsRoamPatch::TestVisible failed CsHeightfield::RoamInit error: - call to RoamReset failed CsHeightfield::InitData error: - RoamInit failed CsLandscape::InitLandscape error: - cannot initialise heightfield CSapphireWnd::ShowWnd error: - call to InitLandscape failed You might need to resize the image or set the cell number. I have a rather large photoshop file open right now and L3DT isn't liking that so I can't tell you the precise place to go to set these. I believe the cell size one is under Tools > Heightfield > Rescale horizontal. The other one I think is either under operations or layers. I've never imported a xyz into L3DT but that should work. Well I shouldn't say never. I had opened one before I posted my first response to you to make sure that it worked. I'm betting that because it was an xyz that was already in L3DT it worked without flaw. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VovoNauta 1 Posted October 5, 2012 You might need to resize the image or set the cell number. I have a rather large photoshop file open right now and L3DT isn't liking that so I can't tell you the precise place to go to set these. I believe the cell size one is under Tools > Heightfield > Rescale horizontal. The other one I think is either under operations or layers. I've never imported a xyz into L3DT but that should work. Well I shouldn't say never. I had opened one before I posted my first response to you to make sure that it worked. I'm betting that because it was an xyz that was already in L3DT it worked without flaw. Tks help Jakerod I guess I could edit the file XYZ. steps: 1-Import arquivo.xyz 2-clicking right mouse button 3-Operatinos-> heightfield-> Resize heightfield AND change horizontal scale AND change vertical range 4-save project 5-button mouse right 6-edit heightfield 3d working! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
