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Setting up your ArmA 3 Terrain Builder project for multiple mapframes by M1lkm8n.

Instead of having a 40960 meter project (just an example size), terrain + satellites + objects, you can split that up to four smaller pieces of 20480 meters. This way you can hide the three other parts you are not editing which frees valuable performance resources in terrain builder. Also when you edit 40960 resolution satellite in photoshop it is very sluggish, however if you only edit 20480 its almost bearable.

This is not step by step tutorial and assumes you have experience with terrains or have read PMC Ultimate Terrain Tutorial through so you understand what we are talking about.

Not related to this four mapframe setup but if you are doing just normal terrain and want to expand it, make it larger, you can do that by adding mapframes to it but obviously power of two rule applies.

You can divide the mapframes into four sections / tiles. Any more than that starts to be more difficult than any benefits you get out from it.

These would be:

• Bottom left
• Bottom right
• Top left
• Top right

Then you need one more mapframe which holds everything, all these four corner pieces in it.

You can edit bottom left while your team mate edits lets say top right.

You both work on the same terrain but individually so no work is overlapping, no work is lost of corrupted. Your team member(s) can export his mapframe tile and send it to you to import into the “master” project, this includes all the normal terrain like heightmap, satellite, roads, shapes, objects… everything.

Edges of mapframes are problematic for example satellite, when you edit the image on the next mapframe edge how can you be sure that the edits match?

Or even simpler, if you change the brightness/contrast or colors etc of your satellite texture, you need to coordinate this with your team mates that they apply the same values to their images.

Basically in team work you need to keep off editing the edges until that time when all the rest of the editing is done and you finish by matching the edges. Its not that simple, but that's a rough idea.

The mapframes just “sees” whatever is underneath it. Yes you will need set up four directories for 4 mapframes to export the satellite texture and satellite mask data to if you want to launch buldozer.

If you just want to use it to the simple task of splitting the satellite image up into tiles so you don't have to edit one big image then you wouldn't have to do that.

So mapframes are like layers, the software sees through all of them.

Project Directories

Source dir has Mapframe_ prefixed BL, BR, TL and TR dirs which holds the four mapframe tiles. So full directory setup would be:

Source\Mapframe_BL\
Source\Mapframe_BR\
Source\Mapframe_TL\
Source\Mapframe_TR\

Directory name doesnt matter, but its pretty nice with mapframe_ prefix to sort in windows explorer and is also descriptive.

Directories mapframe properties → location → output root folder, this is Mapframe_BL, BR, TL or TR directories where layers are saved (layers is needed only if you use buldozer).

Final fifth mapframe is the big one, full size, that contains all the four smaller ones. This is the terrains real size and specs then. Directory mapframe properties → location → output root folder, this is the real terrain addon dir, the final product directory.

Mapframe Properties

This example uses 40960 x 40960 meters sized terrain.

Settings of mapframes easting / northing:
Bottom left: 200000 / 0
Bottom right: 220480 / 0
Top left: 200000 / 20480
Top right: 220480 / 20480

Each tile mapframe:

• grid size is real grid size divided by two, for example 4096 / 2 == 2048 to get four grids.
• satellite resolution is real resolution divided by two, like 40960 / 2 == 20480 to get four satellite tiles.

Name Mapframes

Naming mapframes is good idea so you can easily tell them apart, same bottom left, bottom right, top left, top right and then the “full” or whatever you wish to call it, perhaps just your actual terrain name.

Note

You can import the full terrain / satellite texture / satellite mask and export out the smaller sizes with terrain builders mapframes. Make any edits and re-import the smaller pieces… you would need to make sure they are higher on the layers list then the originals because the first one in the list gets preference.

Global Mapper will export your project into four sections / tiles. These resolve directly into your tile mapframes.

Pros

Working on small satellite images in photoshop is easier for performance, quicker load etc.

Having one mapframe tile selected and launching buldozer, it loads data only from that mapframe so quicker load and less memory requirements (objects count).

You can disable / hide from view the mapframes you are not using, freeing resources in terrain builder and avoiding freezes.

Cons

Roads in buldozer are a problem because you can only load them from easting 200000 northing 0. So it works only in two places, bottom left and the full mapframes. Roads do not load from bottom right, top left and top right mapframes.

Editing the edges seamlessly will be tricky for satellites and also for heightmap if you do any edits in terrain builder.