Fixing the floating objects (splitting 50m blocks)

AGS/CAT Afghanistan terrain

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Snake Man
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Fixing the floating objects (splitting 50m blocks)

Post by Snake Man » 2009-10-15 09:26:45

Fixing the floating objects (splitting 50m blocks)

The cause of floating (or flying) objects is because ArmA engine cant/wont handle the 50m forest blocks the same as OFP, therefore we are forced to use individual objects to create forests.

I have now made a list of all the 50m block forests or equivalent objects in CAT Afghanistan with some details of their construction, here is the list:

^ P3D ^ # Objects ^ Complexity ^ Description ^
| CATAfghan3RockCpx1.p3d | 3 | Simple | 2 big rocks, 1 bush |
| CATAfghanBusho21.p3d | 2 | Simple | 2 bush, small clutter |
| CATAfghanBusho23.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, very large area |
| CATAfghanBusho24.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, very large area (same as 23??) |
| CATAfghanBusho25.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, very large area |
| CATAfghanBusho26.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, small clutter |
| CATAfghanBusho27.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, average area, thick |
| CATAfghanBusho28.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, very large area |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_11.p3d | 7 | Moderate | Small to very large rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_2.p3d | 6 | Moderate | Medium to very large rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_3.p3d | 3 | Simple | 3 medium rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_4.p3d | 8 | Simple | 8 medium rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_4_1.p3d | 8 | Simple | 8 medium rocks (same as 2_4 w/ different texture) |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_5.p3d | 2 | Simple | 2 big boulder rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_6.p3d | 5 | Simple | 5 medium rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_7.p3d | 7 | Simple | 8 small to medium rocks |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_7_1.p3d | 7 | Simple | 8 small to medium rocks (same as 2_7 w/ different texture) |
| CATAfghanCliffGreyVLarge2_8.p3d | 5 | Simple | 5 medium rocks |
| CATAfghanGrasso24.p3d | 1 | Simple | 1 bush, small clutter |
| CATAfghanGrasso25.p3d | 3? | Medium | 2-3 bushes, medium clutter |
| CATAfghanGrasso26.p3d | 2 | Simple | 2 bushes, large |
| CATCornfield1.p3d | 2 | Complex | very complex, cant be normally split? can take out one corn model |
| CATGreyRockRoad1.p3d | 2 | Simple | big and small boulder, not really for splitting? |
| CATOpium1.p3d | 2 | Complex | very complex, cant be normally split? can take out one opium bush |
| catrockscomplex1.p3d | 2 | Simple | 2 big boulders, 7 tiny rocks |
| catrockscomplex2greyhuge.p3d | 5 | Complex | 2 big boulders, 2 medium rocks and tiny rock |
| catrockscomplex2huge.p3d | 5 | Complex | 2 big boulders, 2 medium rocks and tiny rock (same as above w/ different texture|
| catrockscomplexgreysurround1.p3d | 7 | Complex | 3 big boulders, 2 small rocks, 5 bushes. very bad |
| catrockscomplexsurround1.p3d | 7 | Complex | 3 big boulders, 2 small rocks, 5 bushes. very bad (same as above w/ different texture |

When I'm looking at that list, there are indeed few models that are quite difficult to split and some are about impossible to run through Roller forest to single trees placement feature. I think more analyzing is required for this, to take the difficult objects and count how many times they are used in the terrain, maybe they are used only in one or two places, or maybe not at all (I recall some objects aren't used at all).

I guess in a nutshell you can say that even though you can split the models easily, you just split them its that easy... its not so easy to run them through Roller forest to single trees replacement feature as the outcome would be totally different than the original model in that spot (size, shape and "composition" if that is the proper term).

I don't expect anyone to have any feedback on this, but as usual I'm very interested to hear if someone has.
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Snake Man
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Re: Fixing the floating objects (splitting 50m blocks)

Post by Snake Man » 2009-10-25 07:53:17

I have now taken the CATAfghanBusho2* and CATAfghanGrasso2* series of object blocks into modo and splitted them up into individual objects.

Also there is some tweaking done, like for example one bush was just single plane so I added another to make X cross thing, still looks horrible but only half as horrible as before ;)

Made the models complete in o2, put them into the catintro dir, added into model.cfg and then it was time to write new Roller yaml file for them.

Ran the WRP through Roller replace forests feature and it came out alright. Now there is no more floating bushes in CAT Afghanistan.

The rock / boulder blocks or what ever you can call them, still remains an issue. They are quite special cases because the rocks are so huge and there is only few of them, worst example is like 3 huge rocks and then 10 small bushes, Roller just isn't configured to process that, it would only be possible to manually replace this sort of horrible object.

Good thing is that those difficult objects are only a few in the terrain from what I've understood so far (needs to do more digging though). So more or less the most offending floating objects have now been fixed.
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Snake Man
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Posts: 9338
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Re: Fixing the floating objects (splitting 50m blocks)

Post by Snake Man » 2009-10-26 15:51:14

Just finished the big rock blocks, they are all split now to individual objects. Ran the original WRP through Roller replace forest (with 5 to 10 objects to place config) and I guess they came out alright.

Now only things left used in the map in the 50m block format are catafghancliffgreyvlarge2_4_1.p3d and catafghancliffgreyvlarge2_8.p3d where the first one is just a retexture of earlier rocks and the second one appears to be the same (but I have to confirm first).

In a nutshell; there should be no more floating objects problem in CAT Afghanistan.
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