ArmA 3 Road Painting and Concrete Surface Tutorial

Road Painting and Concrete Surface Tutorial by Bushlurker

Assigning colors to the polygons/polylines can be done in one of two ways.

For any polygon or polyline, when you select it there's color controls in the “properties” panel - you can set any color you like

that's purely for your own visual benefit
plays no part in anything

For the “export shapes to imagery” purposes, you can “assign a mask color to a shapes layer” - that's slightly different - it DOESN'T affect the visuals you see at all - the only visual difference is that that layers “icon” in the shape layers list will have a colored border - and the color will be one of the colors already associated with a surface.

to achieve that, you right click on the layer in the list, and you should see the names of all the surfaces you have defined listed in the right click context menu - grass, beach, rock, etc
by picking one of those, you basically assign that surfaces color to all the shapes on that layer… you get a colored border - and that's it.
the lines don't change color or anything (that's what the other color control is for)
all that “surface color selection” does is to make sure that - if/when you “export shapes to imagery” then in the export file
those shapes will be colored with that surfaces “associated color”
so if you want all your roads to be colored “blue” in TB's 2D view
select all road lines, then in the properties panel, choose a shade of blue
if you want to export a raster image of your road lines with them all colored blue, then
right click the road line shape layer(s ) - select the ground surface associated with “blue” - “gravel” maybe… nothing changes - … but then…

Export > shapefiles to imagery… choose a neutral “background” color like Yellow and export - you'll get blue lines on a yellow background

same deal with any polyline or polygon
assuming you have a mask color assigned to “general urban”, or “gravel” or “concrete” which you want to use
lets say (again) that the color associated with that surface is “blue” then you'd

Assign that “gravel/blue” surface type to all the shape layers which have road lines, concreted areas outlined by polygon shapes, etc - then as above - export that raster image

Now you have all your “concrete” areas in blue, on a yellow background

Load your mask into photoshop

load the new blue 'n yellow image
drag the image on top of the mask
it'll become a new layer… (if you hold shift while dragging it in it'll snap to position properly)

Now use Select > Color range and select the yellow

Hit “delete”

Yellow background disappears

now you have your original mask with all the blue lines and areas neatly overlaid

“Flatten image” or “merge layers” - and “save”

Now you have a mask with all those areas in blue

Reimport mask to TB or “refresh from source” if you cleverly edited the old mask “in-situ”

Recrunch the Layers folder

Now - the mask has been reprocessed - “concrete” or “general purpose gravel” or whatever surface was associated with “blue” is now in use in those areas - open Buldozer and you'll see it