A browser-based, top-down composition editor for Arma "Warfare" defense templates — and whole base layouts. Lay out walls, sandbags, batteries, emplacements and checkpoints on a grid — or switch to 🏗 Base layout mode and plan an entire base (barracks, factories, radars) around the HQ — then export ready-to-paste SQF for your mission. One file, fully offline, no install.
▶ Open the editor · Quick start · Templates · How it works · Using exports in a mission
Arma Warfare missions place "compositions" — a parent object (a factory, or a deploy point)
plus a list of child objects at relative offsets. WDDM is a visual editor for exactly
that data structure. Instead of guessing [x, y, z] offsets and directions by hand, you
drag objects around a top-down canvas and the tool writes the SQF for you.
All 16 engineer presets at a glance — BLUFOR vs OPFOR, Light & Heavy, laid out to Cold War defensive doctrine (NATO dispersed & concealed · Warsaw Pact massed & belted):
- Drag-and-drop layout — move objects, drag the handle to rotate, arrow-keys to nudge (Shift = 1 m), 0.5 m grid snap.
- Textured top-down icons — H-barriers, sandbags, fortified nests, camo nets, razor wire, concrete blocks, cones, and distinct silhouettes for MG / AT / AA / artillery weapons.
- Live SQF export — a
missionNamespace setVariable [...]block updates as you build; one-click copy. - Crew-cost estimator — counts crewable weapon emplacements (1 gunner each) so you can see a layout's AI cost while you design it.
- Rotation preview — a "facing" control rotates the whole composition so you can confirm it stays coherent when the building is placed at any heading (matches Arma's
modelToWorldmath). - Import an existing template to edit it, and save/load your work as JSON.
- 18 built-in presets, including the four faction-specific defense types in light & heavy variants.
- HQ / Factory wall mode — click Edit HQ / Factory walls to load enclosed one-exit wall examples, including the concrete HQ shield, and filter the palette to fortifications-only assets for community submissions.
- More buildings — besides the HQ and factories, design around the Artillery Radar, Reserve and UAV Terminal, each with its own wall target and ready-made enclosed-wall presets (plus faction guard presets for the Reserve).
- Signature footprints — the Artillery Radar draws a live rotating antenna sweep (in the defense footprint and on the base-layout building), and the Reserve draws a motor-pool plan with three vehicle bays and a marshalling lane.
- Factories & radar = fortifications only — picking the Artillery Radar or any factory (Barracks, Light, Heavy, Aircraft) as footprint, wall target or preset auto-enables Fortifications only. The filter allows every non-weapon game item (walls, sandbags, obstacles, boom gates, sheds, towers, camo, cones, barrels) and blocks guns and ammo crates.
- 10 worked building designs — five fortification layouts each for the Artillery Radar and the Reserve, all 0 AI. The chosen mission designs (⭐, listed under Mission walls) are the radar's walled boom-gate checkpoint and the Reserve's floodlit walled yard; the concrete shield, camo concealment, obstacle belt, watchtower ring, concrete yard, motor-pool gate, camo compound and obstacle perimeter remain as alternatives.
- Build-up animation helper — a copyable
CreateDefenseTemplateAnimated.sqf(under the export panel) spawns templates with the same rise-from-the-ground construction animation the stock factories play. - Preview mode — one click hides the grid, axes, handles and selection and drops the layout on a terrain-toned backdrop so you see it the way it will read in-game.
- PNG snapshot — download the current view as an image, ready to drop straight into Discord.
- Checkpoint props — boom gates, guard shed, fire barrel and manned searchlights (1 AI each), plus deer-stand towers, sandbag barricades, single HESCO cells and RU ammo boxes in the palette.
- Two editor modes — 🛡 Base defense (walls & emplacements around one structure) and 🏗 Base layout (position the Warfare base structures themselves —
US_/TK_WarfareB…_EP1classes — relative to the deployed HQ). The mode is saved in share links and project JSON. - Five worked base layouts as inspiration: NATO dispersed FOB, Warsaw-Pact geometric regiment, compact opener, airbase with a kept-clear taxi lane, and an artillery firebase. Each encodes real zoning logic — read the comments in the preset source.
- Grouped preset menu & auto-fit — presets are organized by category and the view zooms to fit whatever you load.
Click 🏗 Base layout at the top of the Build panel. The origin becomes the deployed HQ,
the palette switches to the buildable Warfare base structures (WEST US_…_EP1, EAST TK_…_EP1,
plus the neutral Depot/Camp), and the cost box shows structure count and max spread from the HQ
(keep it inside your commander's build radius). Structures draw as labelled building plans with the
entrance bar on the front edge. The export is the same ['class',[x,y,z],dir] array — feed it to
whatever placement logic your mission uses for base construction templates.
Zoning rules baked into the sample layouts, if you want to roll your own:
| Principle | WEST (NATO) | EAST (WarPac) |
|---|---|---|
| Spacing | Dispersed, irregular, 25–45 m | Massed, geometric rows |
| Vehicles | Factory strip + Service Point on the exit lane | Production row aligned on the HQ axis |
| Air | Far flank, clear approach, blast-distance | In the production row, AA radar close |
| Sensors | Opposite perimeter corners | Symmetric flank pair |
| Troops/medical | Barracks + Hospital paired, away from vehicles | Support row behind the production line |
WDDM is engine-agnostic about what you build — any classname string works, so it's equally useful for Arma 2 (OA), Arma 3, and forks of the various Warfare modes.
Option A — just use it Open the hosted version: https://rayswaynl.github.io/WDDM/
Option B — run locally
git clone https://github.com/rayswaynl/WDDM.git
cd WDDM
# open index.html in any modern browser — that's it, no build stepindex.html is completely self-contained (the only external request is Google Fonts,
and it degrades gracefully to system fonts offline).
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Load a starting layout | Pick from Load a demo / preset → Load preset |
| Add an object | Pick a class from the palette → + Add to centre, or + Custom… to type any classname |
| Move | Drag the object body |
| Rotate | Drag the white handle, or edit Relative direction in the inspector |
| Nudge | Arrow keys (hold Shift for 1 m steps) |
| Pan / zoom | Right-drag to pan · scroll to zoom |
| Check rotation | Change Facing in the top toolbar to preview the placed heading |
| See the end result | Preview in the toolbar — clean in-game-style render; PNG ⬇ downloads it |
| Export | Copy the Generated SQF on the right |
| Import | Expand Import an existing template, paste the entries, Load |
| Save / load project | Expand Save / load project (JSON) |
- The deploy pad sits at the origin
[0, 0, 0].+Yis front,+Xis right. - Each child is stored as
['Classname', [x, y, z], relativeDir]. - At spawn time the engine rotates the offset into world space with
origin modelToWorld [x,y,z]and faces each object withsetDir (originDir − relativeDir), so the whole compound rotates as one rigid body. - Z is intentionally ignored for ground compositions (the common
CreateDefenseTemplatehelper flattens every object with_toWorld set [2,0]). The editor shows a Z field for completeness but marks it ⚠.
Besides the real WASP HQ / Factory wall examples (included as worked references) and a blank canvas, WDDM ships the four engineer defense types, each in Light and Heavy weight and BLUFOR (WEST) / OPFOR (EAST) variants:
| Type | Light — guns | Heavy — guns |
|---|---|---|
| AA Battery | WEST 2× Stinger · EAST ZU-23 + Igla | WEST 4× Stinger · EAST 2× ZU-23 + 2× Igla |
| Artillery Battery | 2× howitzer (M119 / D-30) | 4× howitzer |
| Weapons Emplacement | 2× MG + 1× AT | 4× MG + 2× AT + watchtower |
| Checkpoint | chicane + overwatch MG + guard tower | twin towers, 2× MG + 1× AT, hardened chicane |
AI cost is cheap — one soldier per crewable weapon, no garrison. A position costs only its gun count: light AA/Arty = 2, light Emplacement = 3, light Checkpoint = 1; heavy 4 / 4 / 6 / 3. That crew comes out of the engineer's personal AI budget. HEAVY is gated behind the side's Barracks upgrade; limits are 2 positions per engineer and 1 per town, within 250 m of a friendly town centre — so you can dot cheap fortifications across the map.
Note: stock Arma 2 OA has no static bullet-AA for the US side, so the WEST AA battery uses Stinger (rocket) pods; OPFOR gets a true rocket + bullet mix (ZU-23 + Igla).
Use Edit HQ / Factory walls for community wall designs. It enables Fortifications only, which keeps the palette to empty wall/cover assets such as HESCO walls, H-barriers, sandbags, concrete walls, ramparts, empty nests, watchtowers, camo nets, razor wire, hedgehogs and concrete blocks. Guns, ammo crates, logistics objects and vehicles are intentionally excluded.
When the layout is ready, submit either the copied SQF block or the copied share link so the design can be reopened and reviewed exactly as authored.
WDDM is a single HTML file with three panels:
- Build (left) — presets, the class palette, and the list of placed objects.
- Canvas (centre) — an HTML5
<canvas>that draws each object in its own rotated local frame, so textures and footprints rotate correctly. - Inspector & Export (right) — per-object class/position/direction fields and the live SQF.
The output format is a single missionNamespace setVariable call holding an array of
['classname', [x,y,z], dir] tuples — the shape consumed by composition spawners like
CreateDefenseTemplate in WASP-derived Warfare missions.
WDDM produces a named template variable, e.g.:
missionNamespace setVariable ['WFBE_NEURODEF_EMPLACEMENT_HEAVY_WEST',[
['M2StaticMG',[-8,3,0],0],
['M2StaticMG',[8,3,0],0],
['TOW_TriPod_US_EP1',[-5,5,0],0],
// ...
]];To spawn it, you need a composition helper that takes an origin object + the template array, places each child relative to the origin, and flattens to ground. The canonical WASP helper looks like this:
// CreateDefenseTemplate.sqf — [originObject, template] call ...
private ["_origin","_template","_dir","_created"];
_origin = _this select 0;
_template = _this select 1;
_dir = getDir _origin;
_created = [];
{
private ["_obj","_relPos","_relDir","_o","_world"];
_obj = _x select 0; _relPos = _x select 1; _relDir = _x select 2;
_o = createVehicle [_obj, [0,0,0], [], 0, "NONE"];
_world = _origin modelToWorld _relPos;
_world set [2, 0];
_o setDir (_dir - _relDir);
_o setPos _world;
_created = _created + [_o];
} forEach _template;
_createdThen, anywhere you have a position + direction:
_helper = "Land_HelipadEmpty" createVehicle _pos; // invisible origin
_helper setDir _dir;
_built = [_helper, missionNamespace getVariable 'WFBE_NEURODEF_EMPLACEMENT_HEAVY_WEST'] call CreateDefenseTemplate;
deleteVehicle _helper;Static weapons spawn empty; crew them with createUnit → moveInGunner if you want
manned positions.
The social banner is rendered from docs/banner-source.html:
# serve the folder and screenshot docs/banner-source.html at 1280×640
python -m http.server 8000
# open http://localhost:8000/docs/banner-source.html and capture at 1280x640- Built for the Arma Warfare community.
- Visual identity (palette, logo, fonts) from Miksuu's Warfare — used here with permission.
- Developed with the help of Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant.
- Licensed under the MIT License — free to use, fork, and adapt.
Classnames in the presets reference Bohemia Interactive's Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead assets and are the property of their respective owners; WDDM ships no game content.