Texture Builder

[Gnat]

I haven't tried making an island or even converting an island as yet, think I'll wait for some tools, but on the subject of tools, seems to me from the description of a ArmA island and the OFP convertion tut, a handy tool would be a "Texture Builder".
i.e. An Application that reads the OFP texture tile layout then using copies of the paa files, builds 1 big tile from the small tiles per the layout saved by WrpTool .....

Just a thought.
I can build applications but I have no a clue how to work with graphic, or even assemble paa files into another format!

Nice tut Snake btw, except I think I have to read it 10 times before I understand it properly 8)
I'd be interested in converting my 51km "WaterWorld", once we can use more than 1 texture

[fasad]

Heya Gnat,

I assume you are referring to making a satellite texture map? As slow and boring as importing a "base" map from the OFP version ground textures is, it's nothing compared to "painting" the real satellite map, depending on how polished you want the end result. The satellite map only needs to be 1/10 the size of the total OFP terrain texture - each pixel in ArmA = 1m, not 0.1 as in OFP.

I've started creating a satellite map for my Rezina island. To create somthing to work from, I started by making a OFP base by taking screenshots of the terrain in WrpTool, then pasting it all together. [s]I plan on importing the slope steepness and/or contours from Visitor or WrpEdit, to allow more natural slope placement of surfaces than the Visitor (1) rules method allowed. [/s]

edit : It's easiest to take screenshots of the textures with the contours in WrpTool in one step. Visitor displays very few contour lines, wrpEdit divides cells across the wrong axis, and wrpTool is pretty close to the contours created by the ArmA map itself.

To paint the satellite map, I've created 4096^2 pixel repeating tiles of each basic surface type, then use layer masks to paint on the correct surface type for each location. I've done a "proof of concept" job to Rahmadi, and creating a crude but reasonable result with this process is surprising quick. Photoshop is the weak link, it can barely deal with 1gb psds, and I've broken the Rezina sat map up into 16 chunks of 2gb. I need more ram/cpu.

Once the objects are finalized, I will import an overlay of the object locations to paint on the roads, object shadows, buildings etc. I expect that this will take much longer than creating the basic map. Another concern is creating a smooth satellite/detail transition while staying within the 4 surface types per (50m) segment limit, which is damn tight. I intend on using more surface types than Sahrani uses too, which means more wasted time...

By the way, we can use more than 1 surface type and a half proper sat map using the hex editing technique. It's just a ridiculously slow and painful process, so I'm not going to do bother.

[Snake Man]

An Application that reads the OFP texture tile layout then using copies of the paa files, builds 1 big tile from the small tiles

Hmm, not a bad idea. But first we would need to figure out the exact WRP texture file wormat for the satellite stuff. I'm not sure if the 4WVR method used in the user made islands are the same, I mean there would be the 512 limit if I'm correct.

Well "limit", at least in my mind its a limit as in the WRP file after the texture names the objects begin, ArmA loads 4WVR ok so... I assume its hardcoded to the old format... umm if that makes any sense. Anyways.

Nice tut Snake btw, except I think I have to read it 10 times before I understand it properly

Thanks. Which parts were difficult to understand? Please help me to write it more clearly as I want the tutorial to be most helpful for everyone.