Arma 3 Scripting

createMarker

  • Global effect
  • Arma 3 v0.50
  • First in Armed Assault v1.00

Command · Markdown · JSON · original wiki page

Description

Creates a new map marker at the given position. The marker will be created for every connected player as well as all JIP players. The marker name has to be unique; the command will be ignored if a marker with the given name already exists.

Important

The marker will be visible only once at least markerType has been defined:

_marker = createMarker ["markername", player]; // Not visible yet.
_marker setMarkerType "hd_dot"; // Visible.

Note

If the marker position is given in 3D format, the z-coordinate is stored with the marker and will be used when the marker is passed to commands such as createVehicle, createUnit, createAgent, createMine or setVehiclePosition. When a marker is manually placed in the editor, z is always 0, which means the marker is placed on the ground. But when the player places a marker on the map in game, it is placed at sea level, so the z-coordinate of that marker is -getTerrainHeightASL markerPos "userMarker";.

Syntax

createMarker [name, position, channel, creator]

Parameters:

Returns: String - the marker's name or empty string if the marker name is not unique.

Examples

Example 1

_marker1 = createMarker ["Marker1", position player];

Example 2

_marker2 = createMarker ["Marker2", player]; // since Arma 3 1.50

Multiplayer

Note

Multiplayer optimisation: Global marker commands always broadcast the entire marker state over the network. As such, the number of network messages exchanged when creating or editing a marker can be reduced by performing all but the last operation using local marker commands, then using a global marker command for the last change (and subsequent global broadcast of all changes applied to the marker).

Problems

setMarkerDrawPriority sorts allMapMarkers from least to most priority. Before Arma 3 v2.18 createMarker/createMarkerLocal did not care about drawing priority and added the created marker to the end of the array, making it top priority. Running setMarkerDrawPriority again sorted this issue.

See also

createMarkerLocal · deleteMarker · BIS_fnc_markerToString · BIS_fnc_stringToMarker

Community notes

X39

In Arma 3, one can create markers which are deletable by the user by prefixing the name with _USER_DEFINED.

Example:

createMarker "_USER_DEFINED someMarkerName"

Tirpitz

When creating a marker with the name format: "_USER_DEFINED #n1/n2/n3". n1 can be used to set the owner, n2 I think is an incrementing index to ensure markers are unique, to this end also mangle some more characters onto the end of the string, and n3 is the channel ID the marker is in.

_markerName = format ["_USER_DEFINED #%1/%2/%3" , clientOwner,_index, _ChannelID];
_marker = createMarkerLocal [_markerName, _pos];

POLPOX

If you use the letter "/" in the name, it may break the channel visibilities (especially in MP). Possible reason is described above by Tirpitz, the engine may confuse which channel the marker belongs to after the "/".

Leopard20

You can use a helper function if you intend to call createMarker with duplicate marker names. It doesn't necessarily guarantee that the marker has been created (e.g. it could fail not due to duplicate name, but due to maximum number of allowed markers reached)

private _fnc_createMarkerSafe = { private _marker = _this#0; createMarker _this; _marker };
private _marker = ["MyMarker", [0,0]] call _fnc_createMarkerSafe; // will return "MyMarker"