Development Blog & Reveals

[Mr.Wolf 10]

Pay attention to the collimating sights. No red dot/crosshairs are visible.

Unfortunately, they are:/. It's just not that visible on a video, but if you look closely, you can still spot the red circle in the middle of sights...

[celery 8]

lol'd at the music of the first video. Did the Glock run out of ammo or did it stop working because of lack of air?

[Nicholas 5]

lol'd at the music of the first video. Did the Glock run out of ammo or did it stop working because of lack of air?

I'm going to assume that he only had two rounds to begin with.

The music in the AR-15 video is pretty funny. I hated those underwater levels. :)

[paecmaker 23]

I must say that this showcase and dev log was the best one so far, I loved the movie and can watch it over and over again and still be amazed.

[Clarkey1 10]

@MavericK96 Yeah I actually got that the wrong way around, point-lights don't cast shadows as of yet as Pavel said in the interview. I edited the post a short time after rereading what he said, sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Dingo8 1]

Wow, what a pleasant report to wake up to! The night scenes especially look absolutely stunning!!

I know some of you are disappointed by some lights not casting shadows, but keep in mind they had to balance visual quality with decent framerate. Shadows usually take a BIG performance hit. The compromise seems fine to me.

[tremanarch 6]

the new Lightning Video: http://www.gamestar.de/index.cfm?pid=1589&pk=66109

WOW - just WOW!

Its looks really good guys! All the lights and colurs look fine and good when shifting throught the day cycle. Good work!

[IAshford 1]

Looks great!

Still have crazy legs while running though :(

[Steakslim 1]

Looks great!

Still have crazy legs while running though :(

What do you mean by crazy legs?

[mr. bravo 17]

I know some of you are disappointed by some lights not casting shadows, but keep in mind they had to balance visual quality with decent framerate. Shadows usually take a BIG performance hit. The compromise seems fine to me.

I think this should be up to the players themselves to mess around with in the graphic settings. Some might put more priority in proper shadow-casting than other enhancements, which there obviously is considering all the comments about it :P

And besides, hardware is always getting better and better, while the game is constantly being patched with optimizations. So it might not be that much of a performance-hit for a modern system within a year.

I really dont mind games being heavy to run at release (As long as it's not just about poor optimizing). Most often that means the game will look pretty for a long time :) But something tells me BIS might want to save further graphic enhancements for future expansions, as they did with OA ;)

Oh well, in any case the overall improvement on lighting compared to A2 is insane. So in any case I'll definitely be satisfied with their progress!

Edited May 25, 2012 by Mr. Bravo

[IAshford 1]

When running, the legs move too far back, which was the same problem with Arma2's animation. Looks like a robot is sprinting at abnormal speeds. Seriously, look at the legs in both videos and in the game itself, then run at the same speed/pace in real life. You'll notice the legs have too much movement to be considered realistic, which gets increasingly ugly as you notice the upper body of the animation is perfectly fine. Which looks inconsistent.

When I first started animating, with my running animation I did the same thing, and it always looked odd to me. But then I ran myself, looked at videos of people running, and people didn't spread their legs THAT much. Well, not as much as in Arma anyway. Which then led to a much better animation from me ;) The current run animation looks like you're trying to kick yourself in the ass as you're moving forward.

[-=seany=- 5]

Nice vid thanks, new lighting looks great.

But :)....

....I think the vehicle shooting could be better. I expected to see the terrain around the vehicle (and the vehicle itself) light up with the flash from the muzzle, but I couldn't really see that. It would have been sweet to see the tracer rounds cast a light on the ground/grass as they whizzed down range too.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Awesome work but im still worried about light going through objects.

I can understand the 1 light source casting dynamic shadows limit because if you had a bunch of vehicles/ other light sources and only draw shadows for one of them it would look stupid.

Good work though.

Cops and robbers will be cooler now with the nice strobe lights. :D

[el_muerko 0]

He mentions the 'Tactical Stance' shown in another video, can someone link me to it?

[Smurf 12]

He mentions the 'Tactical Stance' shown in another video, can someone link me to it?

He just mentioned it in an interview or DevBlog. That was the first glimpse of it that we had.

[mr. bravo 17]

When running, the legs move too far back, which was the same problem with Arma2's animation. Looks like a robot is sprinting at abnormal speeds. Seriously, look at the legs in both videos and in the game itself, then run at the same speed/pace in real life. You'll notice the legs have too much movement to be considered realistic, which gets increasingly ugly as you notice the upper body of the animation is perfectly fine. Which looks inconsistent.

When I first started animating, with my running animation I did the same thing, and it always looked odd to me. But then I ran myself, looked at videos of people running, and people didn't spread their legs THAT much. Well, not as much as in Arma anyway. Which then led to a much better animation from me ;) The current run animation looks like you're trying to kick yourself in the ass as you're moving forward.

What media are you referring to? I cant recall where I've even seen any running animations from A3, except possibly for last years demonstrations when they were still using A2-animations as placeholders.

[IAshford 1]

This namely, amongst the videos around this time. You can see the main problem from the side around 1:00 - 1:10

I of course bring it up now, because I'd rather do it sooner then later, since its a problem that should be fixed.

But regarding the new video, the lighting does look great! I just hope inside the buildings would have nice detail and shadows. In arma2, most of the buildings are bare and don't feel very... Realistic, I suppose.

[Dingo8 1]

This namely, amongst the videos around this time. You can see the main problem from the side around 1:00 - 1:10

I of course bring it up now, because I'd rather do it sooner then later, since its a problem that should be fixed.

That video is quite old and as far as I'm aware has none of the new animations or features of the new animation system...

[IAshford 1]

Thanks for clearing it up. Since the video is only a month old, i assumed that was the animation they were sticking with.

[Dingo8 1]

Thanks for clearing it up. Since the video is only a month old, i assumed that was the animation they were sticking with.

Welcome. Don't know where you got the idea that the video is only a month old though. It clearly says "Sep 13, 2011" in the description. But even if it was a month old, everything we've seen so far is work in progress and not representative of the final product.

[mr. bravo 17]

Thought so. It says 13 september 2011 for me as well. It's definitely placeholder animations from ArmA2. I've been staring at these for soooo many hours when rigging characters, there's no doubt about it.

[IAshford 1]

Oh, I only read what it said in the arma3official channel under activity. It says 1 month ago, maybe they editted a month ago? I dunno, but you're right, in the actual video it says 13 of september.

[Timmoboy 10]

Has anyone noticed the gun sway at 0:37 and 2:02? Does it look "smoother" than A2 or is it just me being blinded by the beutiful video? :)

Also, it would be nice if someone from BI could let us know if they are working on getting dynamic shadows from lights other than the sun/moon or explain why they can't/won't!

Edited May 25, 2012 by Timmoboy

[Trauma.au 10]

He mentions the 'Tactical Stance' shown in another video, can someone link me to it?

He just mentioned it in an interview or DevBlog. That was the first glimpse of it that we had.

You can see a bit of it

, go to about 4min mark.

[whiskeytango 11]

Also, it would be nice if someone from BI could let us know if they are working on getting dynamic shadows from lights other than the sun/moon or explain why they can't/won't!

It's in the devblog - performance hits.

I hope we get an idea of what indoor lighting is like - maybe still a WIP not ready to show?