Community Food and Drink Textures!

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Normally textures use mip mapping, i don't "think" you have to do anything in this regard, but i could be wrong, i don't really know the paa format.

[joeyslucky22 638]

Do the textures not also need to be "lod"'d?

Nope. The A2 engine scales textures in real-time.

[attorney1977 311]

I will definatly have a go at scripting a working book - Im not huge on scripting but its great fun...when it works.

I put together a test dialog mini mod and test mission for you if it helps. There is no book item, but it's just to demo how you can have a reading system.

There's only 5 pages to the book as I just wanted to show it working, but you can modify the scripts to support more pages.

You can download the source files here. If you want to test it in game as it is, you will need to run CBA at the same time. Feel free to use any of it if you want to be able to read books. I still think right clicking the book in the gear menu would be the way to go, but I couldn't do that in here as I haven't got a DayZ server at home to test it on (I really need to set up a server).

EDIT: Pressing 0, 0, 0 loads the dialog on screen in the test mission. Oh yeah, sorry for dodgy page turning sound. It was all I could find in a rush.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Horde

[DemonGroover 8836]

Nice job.

Being able to set up my own library in my underground lair seems closer and closer.

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

I'm loving the way this is heading. Still working on my cans (albeit slowly, exams coming up and all that).

[Private Evans 1303]

Amazing...maybe one day the Chernarus library will beat the The Elder Scrolls...(anyone else made his way through all books in Morrowind ??)

PS: some newspapers would be nice also

:thumbsup:

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Oh, by the way, I'd be happy to write some content for the books as I can do that when I have the odd 5 minutes (unlike the texturing).

If anyone would like to make a list of books they'd like to see in the mod just post it - we can always use ones with expired copyrights (although abridged I assume). Out of interest, does anyone have an idea of how large putting something like 100-200 books into the game with about 10-50 pages each would be? An immediate thought is that 200 textures sounds a bit ridiculous, so maybe we could randomise it or something like that.

EDIT: A quick update on the nailgun. My friend seems to have gone AWOL, so if anyone with a bit of modeling expertise would like to give it a shot then I'd love to see something akin to a Pulsa 700P in game - although I'll probably texture it yellow rather than red.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Ingasmeeg

[attorney1977 311]

That brings up a really good point. The textures for the book are about 250Kb per 2 pages in that demo. For a 50 page book that would be about 25 x 0.25 = 6.25Mb.

Is that too much? It seems okay for one book, but if your talking about 100 books then that starts to get really large imo. Ideally, we don't want the community stuff adding hundreds of megabytes to the DayZ download.

Other way round it would be to display the book as blank pages and do the 'print' using structured text. (Which would decrease the size dramatically as structured text is nothing compared to paa files. Only downside here is we are limited to the fonts used in Arma (LucidaConsoleB, Zeppelin33Italic, Zeppelin32 and Zeppelin33).

I will make a demo for doing it this way as well and post it up.

[Guest]

I didn't get my donuts :(

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

That brings up a really good point. The textures for the book are about 250Kb per 2 pages in that demo. For a 50 page book that would be about 25 x 0.25 = 6.25Mb.

Is that too much? It seems okay for one book, but if your talking about 100 books then that starts to get really large imo. Ideally, we don't want the community stuff adding hundreds of megabytes to the DayZ download.

Other way round it would be to display the book as blank pages and do the 'print' using structured text. (Which would decrease the size dramatically as structured text is nothing compared to paa files. Only downside here is we are limited to the fonts used in Arma (LucidaConsoleB, Zeppelin33Italic, Zeppelin32 and Zeppelin33).

I will make a demo for doing it this way as well and post it up.

Sounds good, TBH the fonts aren't so much of a worry for me as the size.

[attorney1977 311]

Awesome :)

I changed it so HTML is now the text and not a load of paa's. The book is a bit bigger and also remembers what page you were on (like a bookmark) in case you get interrupted while reading.

You can also click on the pages to turn them now, and there's a little "book closing" noise when you put it away.

The size of the file has shrunk dramatically from about 6.25Mb down to 250 Kb for the picture (which can be shared between books) and 20Kb for the text (10 pages).

Haven't seen Hoik on for a few days, but here's the source code. You don't need to run mods now, just drop the demo mission in your Arma 2 Docs folder and open the book with 000.

The code isn't finished as we ideally need a couple of parameters in the book's config to determine the page count and a couple of other things but it's working well enough as a demo...

Obligatory media:

[alphax 99]

EDIT: A quick update on the nailgun. My friend seems to have gone AWOL, so if anyone with a bit of modeling expertise would like to give it a shot then I'd love to see something akin to a Pulsa 700P in game - although I'll probably texture it yellow rather than red.

I'm a bit busy atm, but at the weekend i could do it, together with the other models of the stuff i've planned :).

[SmashT 10907]

That book looks awesome. Only thing I don't like is the default arma menus for turning pages.

[attorney1977 311]

That is definitely something that could change :)

[hoik 415]

Wow, you've been busy Horde! Great work.

I still think right clicking the book in the gear menu would be the way to go, but I couldn't do that in here as I haven't got a DayZ server at home to test it on (I really need to set up a server).

Yeah, I don't have a DayZ server installed either, I think we'll have to bite the bullet and install it :( . I had tried once before, got to a point while installing it and couldn't get any further... I have had a look around though and from what I read DayZ Server Control Centre ( http://www.dayzcc.tk/ ) might be a more user friendly way to install a server.

Oh, by the way, I'd be happy to write some content for the books as I can do that when I have the odd 5 minutes (unlike the texturing).

If anyone would like to make a list of books they'd like to see in the mod just post it - we can always use ones with expired copyrights (although abridged I assume).

Librivox.org might be a usefull resource - all the books there are in the public domain, they're all audio books though - Im pretty sure Smash_AU is a stenographer :P .

Awesome :)

I changed it so HTML is now the text and not a load of paa's. The book is a bit bigger and also remembers what page you were on (like a bookmark) in case you get interrupted while reading.

You can also click on the pages to turn them now, and there's a little "book closing" noise when you put it away.

The size of the file has shrunk dramatically from about 6.25Mb down to 250 Kb for the picture (which can be shared between books) and 20Kb for the text (10 pages).

Haven't seen Hoik on for a few days, but here's the source code. You don't need to run mods now, just drop the demo mission in your Arma 2 Docs folder and open the book with 000.

The code isn't finished as we ideally need a couple of parameters in the book's config to determine the page count and a couple of other things but it's working well enough as a demo...

Seriously, this is awsome! Way beyond my scripting/coding skills thats for sure. I will have a look but can't promise anything - plus I need to set up a server. I will be MIA over the the next 2-3 days as Im moving to a new place over the weekend, but just to prove I haven't been slacking heres a couple picks of a the plastic and aluminium drink bottles:

This is another example of needing a server to properly test new content.

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Is there any way someone here could set up a test server for us? As in, purely for the items and textures we're doing?

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Just a gentle bump. Unfortunately I've been really busy and can't see me doing much work for the foreseeable future. If anyone wants me to push content (and is absolutely sure it's perfect as can be) I can do that for you a couple of times a week. :)

[Private Evans 1303]

THIS IS EXACTLY WHY DAYZ SA HAS TO BE MODDABLE AT SOME POINT !!!!! :thumbsup:

[Raged 187]

Keep it goin! I love this thread despite not being able to participate! :beans:

[hoik 415]

Hi all,

So I still haven't set up a test server for myself - though I have watched the tutes for DayZCC and it really does look quite easy. On a brighter note I have made two new thermos's - they're in game but I can't really test if have scripted them in properly. So what Im gonna do is make the lods for the theroms's and drink bottles then upload them with the books for anyone to play with.

[attorney1977 311]

Hoik - can you set up your forum account so you can receive PM? I have a way for you to test your items without having to set up a server. BTW awesome work really liking the drinks containers (esp the tartan thermos) :)

Been working on some melee weapons:

[hoik 415]

Lol, that was f***ing beautiful. I don't know which was my favourite bit - the frantic flailing on the ground or the righteous head shot when you were pickaxe handling (thats the right word right...) that poor bandit. Oh, but wait, maybe its when you attached the god damn pickaxe head to the pickaxe handle. Great stuff! Other utilties of a pickaxe - dual-wielding them you can scale rocky out crops and/or buildings :lol: .

BTW I think my PM should be working now.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Hoik

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Love the pickaxe! Sorry, sorry again people, been far too busy and probably will be for a good long time. Until June at least. :( :( :( :(

[Guest]

This is all awesome!

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Work is slowing down a bit so I should have more time to get frustrated with all of this soon. My main problem is the type of items I want to create. A lot need new spawn locations or behave similar to the hatchet (items gained from various uses). That's a bit beyond me but should be fun. I'm starting to look at some of these really cheap dayz servers at the moment. :)