Suggestion for a new feature

WrpTool island creator utility

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klavan
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Suggestion for a new feature

Post by klavan » 2005-12-05 12:53:28

I'm wondering if it would be possible to add an additional feature to WRPTool, something similar to the Region Tool, but for elevation pourpouses.
By selecting large parts of terrain and by adding a min and max elevation values it would be possible to generate random elevations, making life easier and saving a lot of time.
An example:
I want to create a desert island and the terrain is mostly flat, but i don't want my island to be a flat table covered by yellow textures. I can modify the elevations using the interactive mode but it's time consuming and very often i exceed in altering the elevations up and down. So i dream of a tool that could generate negative and positive altitude alterations in a random way.
Hope you can understand what i mean.
Klavan

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Gnat
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by Gnat » 2005-12-05 13:55:06

Agree Klavan, would be nice.

Even if it something like a dialog box;
- select centre point on map
- enter radius of effect (ie 50 grid squares)
- enter max peak or trough elevation (ie +100)
- enter random variation per adjusted point (ie +/- 13)
- enter strength of random-ness (ie 66%)

The maths adjust the land higher (or lower) from the edge to the centre, ie graduated.

viola! you have a big broad hill ..... just saved myself and hour !
If random variation was 0, then I'd have a nice sand hill in the desert :)

I'd expect the maths & actual adjustment of the grid would be piss easy to implement in code.

ebud
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by ebud » 2005-12-05 17:04:29

Rather than start a new topic for another randomized feature, the replace texture tool updated to replace a texture with several random textures would be an amazing touch. Like the replace objects tool is now. I love being able to replace random trees and bushes. Being able to replace textures this way would be really nice.
Last edited by ebud on 1970-01-01 00:00:00, edited 1 time in total.

klavan
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by klavan » 2005-12-05 17:40:05

Other options/whishes for the dreamed tool already presents in the region tool:
-ability to select the min/max distance between positive and negative peaks in order to create vast area of depression for example
-ability to create regions by hand to enanche the randomized appearance of the altered area

And finally the possibility to generate alterations by "terrain templates" which could features various premade environments (desertical, hilly and so on)

Klavan
Last edited by klavan on 1970-01-01 00:00:00, edited 1 time in total.

klavan
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by klavan » 2006-05-07 08:01:04

Another usefull feature would be the ability for WRPTool to search for transition textures from different source paths.
I'm sure the most of you are aware that many of this kind of textures are missing for the BIS ones,
this feature would save time and resources, avoiding the need to eventually include already existing textures in the .pbo just to have proper transition effects for the terrain.
Just a thought. :)
Klavan

kubi
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by kubi » 2006-11-04 08:18:59

Hi,

I have a wish too :)

When I have a 12x12km island with lots of forests, I have to place ~100.000 bushes and trees to make the island a bit "populated".
This will make 1..3 object/ 50x50m square. It is still not enough, but the WRP will be big enough...
My problem is that the trees/bushes are distributed equally on the map, and making bush or tree groups is too difficult. If you check nogova there the bushes are in small groups. I like it very much, but don't know how to do it with WRPtool.

Is it possible now, or will be possible in the future versions?

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MI_Fred
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by MI_Fred » 2006-11-04 08:39:26

Hi,

I have a wish too :)

When I have a 12x12km island with lots of forests, I have to place ~100.000 bushes and trees to make the island a bit "populated".
This will make 1..3 object/ 50x50m square. It is still not enough, but the WRP will be big enough...
My problem is that the trees/bushes are distributed equally on the map, and making bush or tree groups is too difficult. If you check nogova there the bushes are in small groups. I like it very much, but don't know how to do it with WRPtool.

Is it possible now, or will be possible in the future versions?
It's possible, but tedious however.

You can start by practicing the region tool. And then practice some more. You need to learn how to do complicated regions. Large regions spanning km's. Not one square spanning km's but several, square's here and there, perhaps placed according to elevations... forests you name it. IE several squares with 1 region tool selection.

I understand if I don't make sense, I got so immersed doing the above on VTE islands that it's second nature for me. The truth is that you can't get away with automation if you want a great island. Those have to be handmade, that's what separates the amazing from the bad. You have to get immersed and change your way of thinking, no amount of automation can replaced an artistic touch ;)

fasad
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by fasad » 2006-11-04 13:33:50

How about a function in the region tool that allows you to define a maximum distance from another object? This could make creating random clumps a lot easier.

The region tool is your best friend! Remember that every single tree on the BIS islands was placed by hand - Visitor has no equivilent!!!

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Gnat
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by Gnat » 2006-11-05 12:03:51

Or a "Copy-Paste" template idea where you save more than one highlighted group into a template, you can then paste to a location a random selection from that template. The template could be populated with say 10 different "copies".
At a hidden level the template would just save the relative X-Y of the bush/tree/rock etc and the type of object or actual object name.
To ensure each paste doesn't look like all the rest, it will randomly mirror the X and/or the Y coordinates, rotate the object and will also Scale the object to a +/- value you set in the dialog.

Probably a lot better, but a bit harder to code is also having each object pasted from a set of rules. i.e. the Rocks can be one random of say 4 selected types, the bushes pasted are random from a list of 7, trees are only 3 different types .... etc etc

......... but it sounds like none of WrpTool code will translate into ArmA and its apparently very different method of map-making :( we'll have to use whatever tools BI provide.

fasad
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by fasad » 2006-11-06 02:28:16

don't stress gnat, in the last week a german site reported that BIS are currently working on a conversion tool.

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Gnat
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Re: Suggestion for a new feature

Post by Gnat » 2006-11-06 10:46:19

don't stress gnat, in the last week a german site reported that BIS are currently working on a conversion tool.
Cool, thx fasad, but we still need a good tool to make our own from scratch (with the new method), so I hope BIS includes a good tool for that.

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