====== ArmA 3 ======

[[https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=68|ArmA 3 Forum]], [[:arma3|ArmA 3]], [[arma3:config|ArmA 3 Config]], [[arma3:missions|ArmA 3 Missions]], [[arma3:modeling|ArmA 3 3D Modeling]], [[arma3:scripting|ArmA 3 Scripting]], [[arma3:terrain|ArmA 3 Terrain]], [[arma3:texturing|ArmA 3 Texturing]], [[arma3:tools|ArmA 3 Tools]]


====== arma3work Symlink Namespace ======

This tutorial page is for those people who edit more than one, or lets say "a few" addon projects.

Problem: you have many ArmA 3 addon projects which use same namespace but are not related to each other, in my example like [[https://www.pmctactical.org/arma3/terrain.php|PMC Terrains]], [[https://www.pmctactical.org/arma2/pmc-somalia.php|PMC Somalia]] and [[https://www.vtemod.com/|Vietnam: The Experience]], etc.

arma3work directory contains base ArmA 3 files for editing (unpacked PBO files), Community Upgrade Project (CUP) and then my project namespaces. PMC namespace gets too large, at 2017-09-19 it contained over 1200 directories. PMC namespace must be split up to smaller chunks. Back in [[:arma2|ArmA 2]] it was already split up for PMC terrains, PMC Somalia and VTE.

arma3work? Yes I believe this was the old school 2014 era example directory naming for [[arma3:tools:installing-steam-arma-3-tools|ArmA 3 Steam Tools]], however in 2024 and for years now I've used other physical hard disk directory path, it doesn't really matter what the dir name is as long as the bat files point to the right dir :)

Below are examples of HOWTO symlink namespace directories.

ArmA 2:
<code>
mklink /J PMC D:\ArmA2.Store\PMC_ARMATOOLS_TEMP_HOLDOUT
mklink /J PMC D:\ArmA2.Store\PMC_ARMATOOLS_TEMP_PMC_SOMALIA
mklink /J PMC D:\ArmA2.Store\PMC_ARMATOOLS_TEMP_VTE
mklink /J TUT D:\ArmA2.Store\TUT_ARMATOOLS_TEMP_HOLDOUT
</code>

ArmA 3:
<code>
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_misc
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_ofp_terrains
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_real_world_data_terrains
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_real_world_data_terrains_tourist
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_somalia
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_test_terrains
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_vte
mklink /J PMC E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_pmc_vte_preview_08-30-14
mklink /J TUT E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_tut
etc...
</code>

In ArmA 3 on my PMC real world data terrain mega project, I have split up one country into its own namespace, for example physical hard disk dir Arma3tools_pmc_real_world_data_terrains_iraq/ contains 215 sub dirs for various Iraqi terrain projects, now that is fine as a whole namespace, however when you start to add other countries into the same pile the dir list gets way too big as mentioned above, for example Afghanistan has 101 dirs, Balkans 53 dirs, Georgia 62 dirs, Germany 88 dirs, Korea 66 dirs, Libya 153 dirs etc the list goes on and on. Its just not doable to have over thousand dirs in your ArmA 3 namespace. Gotta split 'em up. As said in the opening, if you are only editing a single or "a few" addon projects, why are you still reading this page? heh.

Create "tut" namespace symlink batch file:
<code dos>
@echo off
if exist tut goto AlreadyExists

mklink /J tut E:\ArmA3.Store\Arma3tools_tut
pause
exit

:AlreadyExists:
echo tut namespace already exists, huh?
pause
exit
</code>

Delete "tut" namespace symlink batch file:
<code dos>
@echo off
echo deleting symlink "tut" ...
if exist tut rmdir tut
pause
exit
</code>

Same as above but for "pmc" namespace:
<code dos>
@echo off
echo deleting symlink "pmc" ...
if exist pmc rmdir pmc
pause
exit
</code>

My symlink bat files are located in E:\PDrive\ directory which is the root for my [[arma3:tools:setup-p-drive|Setup P: Drive]], meaning that dir becomes P:\ root. So all symlinked namespaces like PMC and TUT in my case, will be created in E:\PDrive\ directory.

How this works is lets say I need to edit my tutorial related "TUT" namespace projects, I first delete "pmc" namespace with above bat file as it is currently present (otherwise there is no need to do anything) and then run PMC namespace creation bat file to whatever project I want to edit, I have many different ones, each bat file creates "pmc" namespace dir into o:\arma3work\ dir

In the end my PMC namespace appears to ArmA 3 tools as p:\pmc\ dir so all model and texture paths work properly, its the addon environment thing.

Note that PMC is well my reserved namespace, TUT is something I used back in 2016 when creating [[arma3:terrain:ultimate-terrain-tutorial|ArmA 3 Ultimate Terrain Tutorial]] even though I later noticed its registered by someone already. So don't use my or TUT namespace, register your own.

If you have any questions or feedback, please post in [[https://www.pmctactical.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=22973|PMC Tactical forum "arma3work Symlink Namespace Tutorial" topic]].