Dayz Sahrani - Mod Development - Work In Progress

and.... dreams shattered, sort of. Roadway/Geo LOD etc don't get carried into the new model when they're proxied in, so there has to be a "base" model for every size in order for it to have all the LODs, not the end of the world, but would have been super cool to just plop down sections. Although I could still probably do that by having the not-proxied models available, then with scripting you assemble them in world.

Going to back burner that project for sure, it's a rabbit hole.

Going to finish up the 3 default versions of the buildings. I'm going to make them all 1 foundation style instead of having the elevator/non-elevator versions like there are now.

After that I'm going to build a different building.... with a special feature... I think.
 
Where there is a will, there is a way lol...


Kng8tYl.png


A video of the most utterly pointless building ever made... BUT clear proof that there is no reason not to have every room in every building open...


 
I actually cheated, it's a model with nothing but proxies, and the Geo/Roadway lods... I couldn't get the lods to work by proxy... but I didn't play with it too much. When I go back to this project I will see if I can get it working.
 
I have to learn how to focus.... I started on the A2 hotel for some reason...


8Wb2p.png


Not sure what I was thinking on that one, that does me no good lol.... Got the layout for the stairs done, and started on the elevators. All the rooms/floors will need texturing so I'm going to not do this one for a long time... just wanted to take a break from the panelak's for a while, they're doing my head in.
 
Focus, Follow Through, not exactly my strong suits... but look what I did in the meantime lol:


8WWji.jpg


Pimping out the A1 hotel a little bit lol.

I want to see if I can do an infiniti pool where you can see out the side, but I don't THINK it's possible.

Again, going to shelf this, and try to finish out the 4 buildings I was initially going to do.
 
Haha thats really funny nonov i'm exactly like that.
Always have to many new ideas popup and having the hardest time staying on track
and finish off what i started.
 
Well, been going back over, trying to do the models better, I would love to have a means of actually benchmarking the differences, but the section count was huge on my models due to tons of un-merged textures.

I'm working from scratch now, I'm basically going to re-do all 3 of the buildings with the lessons I learned. Sucks, but will end up with a much better final product for it. I also won't have much time today/tomorrow/next week, so not sure how quick it will get done either.

Played a bit with the backpacks again, and still can't get them working either, it's kind of maddening at this point. I've got it so you get the open/take menu, but they still go to the wrong position when you pick it up, it's really weird because when you copy/pasta it into the model it's in the right spot on the player unit.... who knows, as usual I was not looking at it with fresh eyes at all.
 
Have had a lot of personal obligations the past few weeks, think I have most of it sorted now. Should have some time to work on finishing the buildings in the next few weeks.
 
I hadn't touched anything arma since my last post... I picked it up again tonight a bit, got a few of the little things on the buildings cleaned up, but they're still not done.

I'm going to use w'ever time I can to finish those off, then get them down on the terrain, release an update, and then move on to getting ALL the buildings sorted for Arma3, Then the terrain as well into A3 if I can find the time.

Not sure how long it will be before I finish off the buildings and release an update, hopefully in 3-4 weeks... but there's no telling, everything is sort of up in the air for me at this point.
 
Well, I went back to it a bit, I changed the entire foundation of the apartments so they could have a hallway running to the back of the building where the elevator is.... I'm going to remove the wall that's normally at the top of each flight of stairs so that the elevator is accessible from each floor.

The 2 story one is pretty much done, and finishing the 8 story one should make the 4 story one a breeze.

The 2 story little stucco building I did is basically done, I just need M1lkm8n to help me sort out what I screwed up in the animations for the doors/shutters.

Hopefully I'll buckle down, finish off these 3 buildings if not all 4, then put them down on the terrain.


After they're down, I'm going to put out an update for the A2 terrain, and then move on in a new direction...

Not sure if I'm going to try to get the terrain into A3 myself yet, or if I'm going to try to get some more models done, or work on finishing some of the systems I've got sitting in progress (lootable world objects, construction system, and then a couple new ideas I haven't posted much about)

Likely going to start focusing my work in A3 though.
 
Getting there, the hallway is finalized to the elevator on the ground floor, and I've shrunk the un-enterable closets in the side rooms so the elevator shaft fits... each floor will have an exit from the elevator shaft.....

For now I'm just going to do floor to floor ladders, I will eventually either work out my own, or get a hold of a working elevator, and when/if power is restored to the island, they will work.

The building needs a firelod and some pathing for AI, but those should go quick. There are a few more seem issues to fix up, but they seem pretty straight forward, Then the 4 story (and any other number of floors) will be VERY easy to do.

I have a few ideas on the back burner for some more power plants, right now there are none (on island), but an island like Sahrani would likely have as many as 10 small ones... Only coal plants are available in the A2 library, and they're not enterable. So I'm prob. going to spend some time making a couple of the missing components, and then make a few power stations... Diesel Generator, Geothermal, and flesh out the existing coal one.

But, first things first, I want to finish off this building, get the stucco one's doors, shutters, and glass working, and then get those down on the terrain.


 
Fixed some more stuffs, got the firelods done for both the 2 story and the 8 story. The 8 story needs a few tweeks to the lining up of the modular parts, and a couple more additions to the firelod, but then it should be good to go.

I think I'm just going to finish up these 3 models, and leave the 4 story for another update... I want to get the terrain updated, and start getting a handle on how big a project the move to A3 is going to be.

It's likely going to be out of the realm of possibility unless some other folks want to help out.

I'm going to upgrade all of M1lkm8n's and my buildings to include the new A3 physx lod first so that any terrain maker, and CUP can use them. Then go from there.

I also want to put out a tutorial on the buildings... it's just a LOT of work to do a good tutorial, and there's a LOT of info to cover.
 
8 Story is 90pct done. The foundation, and floor sections have one last texture overlap I have to fix, then finish up the top floor, that should go VERY quick, I got some new techniques worked out that speed up the process, and will make for much fast production moving forward.

I put 20 or so of the 8 story buildings down in cherno in A3 and it didn't cause much of a frame hit at all, I really cleaned up the models and reduced the section counts.

I may spend some time configuring the doors so they all open and close too, but there is far too much glass to have it shatter like M1lkm8ns.

Last thing I just need to add the ladders to the top level stairs, and to the elevator shafts.
 
They're done. I have to move the doors I moved out of the way so the closets will be accessible. But all the seeming is done, the ladders work floor to floor, and the hallways are all done.


I'm not sure if I'm going to do the 4 story one before I put them down in Visitor, I want to get that done and put out an update for the terrain at least.

I don't know that I'm going to update the mod again?

I don't think it's compatible with the Steam authentication stuff, but I have no clue about that, nor the time/energy to look into it or adapt it.
 
If I ever do an intro to terrain modding in Visitor it will be called

"Welcome to the seventh circle of hell"

Wow, what a terrible, terrible, completely fucked program that is...

I got the 2 and 8 story buildings down. The 8's didn't swap directly, they all had to be adjusted by hand, which sucked.
M1lkm8n ONLY placed buildings down by hand lol, he's either totally insane or a saint.

I had problems packing it, but it's late, I'll give it a go tomorrow... I also have to put down the stucco building I did. Then I'll pack and release an update to the terrain on the BI forums.
 
UNLIMITED POWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously though, I'm pretty psyched, I can now make buildings, and swap them out in the terrain.

I'm doing some edits now to the building placements in Visitor, packing it, and then checking it in game.

Everything needs a bit of tweeking... BUUUUUT

I've replaced ALL the:

Panelak (previously 2 rooms) - 2 Floors Fully Enterable (4 rooms)
Panelak2 (previously 1 rooms) - 4 Floors fully enterable with hallway to elevator room (8 rooms)
Panelak3 (previously only elevator to roof) - 8 Floors fully enterable with hallway to elevator room (16 rooms)
dum_olez_istan2_maly (previously closed)- Now 2 Story enterable small residence (2 rooms)
dum_olez_istan2_maly2 (previously closed) - Now 2 Story enterable small residence (2 rooms)

Once they're all down and right, I'll release an update to the terrain, I've got another building that's fully configured, just needs to have the interior built out. but all the LODs are done, so the hard work is done. It's another one that has a few variants so it will open up a HUGE portion of the map.

There are really only 2-5 large buildings left, and then a LOT of little ones, and all the churches.

I'd like to shift focus to actually editing the terrain, but it will probably be a LOT more frustrating doing that, so I'm likely to either start batch editing the buildings for A3 use, or finish off a bunch more buildings.
 
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Power far more limited than previously assumed :(

Not sure WTF is going wrong, but 2 out of the 4 buildings are not taking adjustments to their heights, and are sitting with their entrances underground lol. I've also got some weird config.bin issues, that I haven't even looked into since the heights are screwed up.

It's really frustrating, I'm going to have M1lkm8n take a look when he has a chance, but I'm not sure when that will be...

The process of loading visitor, opening bulldozer, adjusting, closing, repacking the build takes almost an hour per attempt... it's pretty soul crushing...

Spending an hour to process and evaluate 5-20 minutes worth of adjustments is just unreal.... and until I KNOW what I'm doing wrong, I'm just throwing time in the garbage trying over and over.

I'll post an update once I have the terrain issues sorted out.
 
That or maybe a complete moron pathed his output folder wrong, and was launching the same build over and over and over and over, spending hours making changes, packing them to test the result... and then launching a completely different folder...

Not sure if I hate Arma or myself for this one... gunna go with "A little from Column A a little from Column B"
 
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