ARMA3 - Brand new engine or backward compatibility?

[Murklor 10]

Sort of? Let's see, we have:

-gravity

-collision

-forces

-acceleration

-momentum

-inertia

-etc..

Yep, all the basics of physics.

We also have:

- Bouncing vehicles

- Infantry that slide away from vehicle trying to run them over

- Wheels that dont have anything to do with the actual driving

- Infantry that literally glide along the terrain away from explosions

- Basketball grenades

- Objects that easily stop a 60 ton tank dead, such as a small rock

- Zero arch on RPGs

- etc...

[echo1 0]

Change weapons on the fly(Grab an M4, go to the ammobox, and grab an M68 CCO, and an M203, and attach them).

Does this sort of thing actually happen in real life? I'd imagine that weapon attachments would be added and removed back in the base, and not whilst out on a mission.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

We also have:

- Bouncing vehicles

- Infantry that slide away from vehicle trying to run them over

- Wheels that dont have anything to do with the actual driving

- Infantry that literally glide along the terrain away from explosions

- Basketball grenades

- Objects that easily stop a 60 ton tank dead, such as a small rock

- Zero arch on RPGs

- etc...

That's configuration. All the basic physics componenets are still there.

[CriminalMinds 10]

Don't mix up real physics with the handling of cars! A Mercedes has a

quite good handling, a GMC A-Team van not. But they are both effected by

the same physical forces. Its the exact same way ingame!

[Flash Thunder 10]

I just really want the game to be actually playable with reasonable settings and hardware also without all these inconsistant performance issues, 5870's bogging down, crossfire and sli support being FUBAR, all these other performance issues.

Graphically I would expect, 20km+ viewdistance, better particles/decal effects, improved lighting engine, smoother transitions in animations, improved collision detection models (raising weapon when near wall or surface), some minor physics Arma 2 has some cool death animations but it would be cool if the object didnt become fully static and still had physical properties bodies rolling down hills, dismemberment, vehicles with angular momentum.

Other small details,

cloth simulation for sleaves and stuff that would be cool for people with higher end machines, farther grass draw distance, wet clothing look when in water or when raining(simple material change), destruction models when exploding shoot out pieces of debris that can harm the player.

Optimizations:

Particle effects not straining the living hell out of your gpu/cpu Dont even know if this is possible to begin with even with a new engine

Streaming engine, LOD handling, no more 2d trees at close distance, ugly transitions, faces without materials during campaign, more than 20fps the entire time through campaign

script performance

Sound:

Dont know if this could also be in this area but I would like to see some hardware accelerated support things like EAX on sound blaster cards would be cool. Sound adds more than graphics to me.

I would say brand new engine, im against alot of opposition Modders would want backwards compatibility I dont know what the engine would offer in terms of modding support.

As long as I have an excellent editor made by BIS I will be happy. :)

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People if Arma 2 didnt have Physics which is complete bullshit then when you kill someone they wouldnt even fall they would freeze

alot of problems people are bringing up are just configuration, things like basketball grenades, no arch on RPG's etc.

Edited July 31, 2010 by Flash Thunder

[tacticalnuggets 24]

Completely reworked multiplayer system, so implement things like solid tcp, universal chat before even joining a server, addon downloading in game.

Animations need reworking, but physics are fine. For instance, the animations need to be designed to flow when interrupted. And when you fall and land on the ground, there shouldn't be a stupid pause before you can start moving again.

Dynamicaly allocated memory at runtime so addons can be loaded without restarting the game.

[Inkompetent 0]

@ Flash Thunder

I hope you don't expect the new engine to be done before 2020 with those specifications of features?

[DieAngel 0]

Erm... what are you guys on?

No company ever rewrite from the ground their game engine (especially if it's made in house).

[tpM 478]

I dont think it would require a complete rewrite. We already have a good graphics engine, just need to add better physics (if I remember correctly JCOVE lite has quite good physics), animations and more realism features like proper FCS for MBTs, tageting systems, weapon handling (weight, muzzle velocity, bipod simulation) and things like that.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Graphics engine is good, but it still lacks shadows from dynamic non sun/moon lightsources. It really kills the immersion when you're "hiding in the shadows" only to be lit up by lightsources that doesn't generate a shadow.

[maddogx 13]

Graphics engine is good, but it still lacks shadows from dynamic non sun/moon lightsources. It really kills the immersion when you're "hiding in the shadows" only to be lit up by lightsources that doesn't generate a shadow.

Yeah, that's one of the ancient holdouts from the previous engine versions. Of course it is understandable that not every light source the scene can be fully dynamic in a world of such scale as Arma2, but really only the most "important" (i.e. closest and brightest) lights need to be treated as such.

[CriminalMinds 10]

Thats right, it really kills the immersion. I personally hate it when a car

outside a house turns the light on and inside the room it is like there

are no walls at all. I know they improved the night lighting and its not bad

all the way, but a few more dynamic light sources wouldn't kill my GFX card.

(I hope! :D)

[Tonmeister 14]

No company ever rewrite from the ground their game engine (especially if it's made in house).

Thats simply not true. There are reasons for changing or rebuilding core assets. Significant advances in commercial technology is just one.

[4 IN 1 0]

If they want to get rid of most of the annoying engine limitation, bugs and user unfriendly interface then they would have to go for a complete rewrite of the engine, the basic principle still work, but the engine itself might not. Ragdoll is a wildcard, the fact that I can hide behind bodys in current game is a big plus for me, and if it not dont right it will just be a waste of CPU power and I'd rather have a better animation system instead

[DieAngel 0]

Thats simply not true. There are reasons for changing or rebuilding core assets. Significant advances in commercial technology is just one.

Maybe there are, but it's usually just not code efficient.

If you want an example, ID Software's different engines are mostly built one over another, improvements yes, sometimes really huge improvements, but code is expensive, battle proven code, stable code, bug free code is not only costly but takes a lot of time to create.

You can still find large code segments of Quake in the Quake3 engine sourcecode. The same way the engine used in Arrowhead is an improved, more matured version of the original OFP engine.

I'm sure a lot of things we perceive as "limitations" to OA's engine are here for a reason, maybe oversight when the first structural model was put in place, maybe ingherent limitations due to the way things are done in the engine. Some can be pushed back further, some will need deep modifications to be overcome.

But a full rewrite? come on, when would you like to see these improvements? as soon as possible or in the same time it took us to go from OFP to OA?

Fresh code need a lot of time to mature, as bugs are found and the game is tested and crash again again and again the programmers refine it, see what doesn't work or what could be improved.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

You really should have added a 4th option to the poll. "Just Keep Updating the current engine"

I don't really care about backwards compatibility, but I think they should keep the RV engine, and get the right people to, as MTV says, "Pimp My Ride". :P

Now, for some dreaming.

a complete editor overhaul (unit height/stance/etc., weapons loadout) - If a mod can do it, BIS can too.

advanced weapon handling and interaction

- They have started this, with the OA features and with the Beta recoil, although the recoil is... difficult to learn.

a more fluid animation system for troops and animals

- It would cost BIS, but if they get the right people they could make it look awesome.

Render to Texture

- We oh so desperately need this. We could have PROPER "Blufor trackers" inside of vehicles, proper mfds, proper radar, fully working rear view mirrors, hell we could even have working TVs!

Realistic Gun sounds and explosions like the HARCP and HiFi sounds

-Again, something that we really really need that is very easy to do. We do not need ArmA turned into a gore game. We do not need to see limbs blown off, or your head shot halfway off. A proper wounding system would be nice, limping as you said, having to switch arms if your shot, or having to drop your main weapon all together (Pistol could be used in other hand) would be acceptable, the gore you want, no.

The biggest dream of all. That Bohemia would send the AI to driving school. Or, even better, Defensive driving school.

[maddogx 13]

You really should have added a 4th option to the poll. "Just Keep Updating the current engine"

That's covered by option #2 - "keep it compatible". From the first post:

1. Complete rewrite: You think BIS should completely rewrite the engine for and disregard backward compatibility.
   
2. Keep it compatible: BIS should build upon their current engine, ensuring compatibility with older content and disregarding new features that might break it.
   
3. They should do both!: You disagree that a new engine and backward compatibility are mutually exclusive and think they could do both.
   

:)

[echo1 0]

Newsflash - Poll shows 56% of people have no idea what they're on about.

[HOPEnSPIRIT 10]

Moderators must be on holiday, I had a post closed that was less ridiculious than this.

Other have pretty much posted the reasons why; so no need to comment further, other than close this thread please :)

[jdmt 12]

Does this sort of thing actually happen in real life? I'd imagine that weapon attachments would be added and removed back in the base, and not whilst out on a mission.

In real life, I'm sure you could rip off a scope(broken), and pop up the iron sights.

[4 IN 1 0]

In real life, I'm sure you could rip off a scope(broken), and pop up the iron sights.

I wouldnt mind if I can take it off if its borken, I dont think its a good idea to put a non-zeroed scope back on the rifle:p

[dm 9]

Newsflash - Poll shows 56% of people have no idea what they're on about.

Agreed FPDR

[afp 1]

I very much agree with your point Maddog, an editor overhaul is so much required also a better scripting language closer to C#/Java and object oriented if possible.

[echo1 0]

In real life, I'm sure you could rip off a scope(broken), and pop up the iron sights.

Thankfully the game doesn't implement broken scopes, and couldn't do so in a meaningful way.

Unless of course, BIS should completely rewrite the engine from scratch to implement that.

[enforcer1975 0]

Erm... what are you guys on?

No company ever rewrite from the ground their game engine (especially if it's made in house).

If the engine is actually from BIS and not from CM. Otherwise ArmA 2 could have been released with a state of the art engine if they either had the funds or the ability to do so.