This is a break of a mission based within the ArmA franchise, a modern military simulator. This intro page and the following pages are a structured breakdown of a planned out infiltration scenario.
- Arma2 – Bowen Island – 01 – Overview
- Arma2 – Bowen Island – 02 – Campaign
- Arma2 – Bowen Island – 03 – Mission 01
A brief history
Bowen Island is real place. It is located just off the coast of Vancouver, Canada. I used a combination of Google earth and Google maps to locate the specific type of island I wanted. I scoured Asia, Africa, Russia but Canada produced the area. Bowen Island is roughly 12 x 8 km in size with its three “mountains” divided by 2 valleys in a T shape.
Using actual satellite height-map data, I cropped the island out of the scan and set it up for use in game. Following this is the visual data that’s combined of over 500+ images of satellite data to produce a 10240 x 10240 image stitched together in 1 seamless mega-map. With a bit of work, all three images, height-map, mask and satellite map line up over each other.
Workflow
As this is quite lot of work for one person, I’m dividing up my time by doing passes of different design projects. This makes my workflow staggered to so I get to do a bit of everything all the time.
- Height-map
- Mask
- Sat data
- Roads
- Buildings
- Foliage
- Campaign planning
- Campaign design
As you look through the pages you can see my structured workflow that allows for easy reading and logical setup of the tweaking involved. Through good control of groups and a decent naming convention, locating the areas you need to work on is simple. A good system setup early helps cure problems that may occur in the future.