Shoadows at distance problem needs to be fixed in arma 3.

[Tom1 10]

Hey everyone. An old problem in arma was that, due to machine limitations, grass at distance would fade, leaving totally exposed soldiers when you looked through your scope.

Thankfully, this was fixed, sorta. If a soldier's legs are hidden in grass, at 500 metres through a sniper scope, while the grass is not visable, neither are the soldier's legs.

Unfortunatly though, shadows also play a large role in camoflague in real life and arma 2. But, like the grass a while back, shadows will dissapear at range leaving the once hidden sniper totally exposed when viewed from a long distance with a scope.

Now, using the exact same method used to fix the grass issue would not be very smart. Making the entire unit invisible because he is lying underneath a big tree? Hell no ;)

The thing is, scopes are laggy enough as it is, most will find using an acog will instantly drop their fps, so more detail being created when in scope view is obviously not the right solution.

Rendering shadows JUST where the unit is will stick out and is obvious to players so they know where to look, so that option is drawn out...

I don't really have any good ideas, I mean, if you are going to make someone's legs invisible because it is hidden by grass, you could make units hidden by shadows slightly transparent at range where the shadows have disappeared, but i don't know how this would look :/

Anyone got any suggestions?

Also I will post pictures about the problem I am having, I just need to read how big pictures are allowed to be on these forums so I don't get banned ;)

[dragon01 902]

I think that the way scopes are done could use a rework. Right now, the only thing they seem to do is to narrow down player's FOV, without any additional effects do go with it. LODs, grass and view distance stay the same, no matter if you're zoomed in or not. FPS stay the same or drop, despite a smaller, less detailed area being displayed. This doesn't make much sense to me.

[Tom1 10]

[neokika 62]

Hi Tom1, check this out.

p.s. this is experimental feature, it may be tweaked, optimized, improved or cut if needed ...

ARMA 3 may use this technology or parts for own distant shadows techniques

backporting of this feature into OA might be possible but is subject to further analysis (performance vs stability vs time)

_neo_

[Tom1 10]

sweet, will post a link to this thread so they can all see the importance of shadows at distance.

[PuFu 4600]

this could work with same sort of transparency on the unit (would love TKOH distance shadows anyhow)...

[Dead3yez 0]

Setting the shadow distance could be a nice option. Esp for lower end PCs. It's always nice to see shadows on objects around you, if not at distance.

As for grass layer, I agree it needs to be improved. It just looks stupid right now, needs some transparency. Too many times have I often been shot by AI laying in the open with only the tops of their heads showing.

[Tom1 10]

Yes, the invisible men was a good temporary fix but I think along with the shadows issue it needs a permanent, prettier fix.

[jumpinghubert 49]

the shoadows are obsvisdosly :p

grammar failure in thread-title is in vogue..

Edited September 24, 2011 by JumpingHubert

[Tom1 10]

'doh!

[falcon_565 11]

Hi Tom!

I completely agree with you, short of a netcode fix I think this is the biggest problem in ARMA right now and I really hope BI can find a solution that improves gameplay. I reccomend you check out this thread it has a very nice discussion on exactly what you brought up including a couple alternate ideas.

[Tom1 10]

Sweet, I am going to add this to Dev Heaven, if everyone gives it a positive vote then it might make it to the most wanted list of fixes/features for arma 3.

EDIT

Here is the dev heaven for the shadow fix: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/24867

Also, read through this thread (on realistic wounds, body armour, slightly offtopic but very important for a war sim) and vote up on dev heaven:

thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=2016983#post2016983

devheaven: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/24112

[5LEvEN 11]

When zoomed in with an optic it should just load the area you are looking at like you where close to it. So in other words grass and shadows appear when zoomed in. But when not zoomed in you would use the standard tricks arma 2 is already using.

[SwiftyBoy 0]

When zoomed in with an optic it should just load the area you are looking at like you where close to it. So in other words grass and shadows appear when zoomed in. But when not zoomed in you would use the standard tricks arma 2 is already using.

Agreed. If they're working on "picture in picture" for vehicle wing mirrors etc, it'd be an obvious thing to apply this to weapon scope views as well, surely?

[PuFu 4600]

Agreed. If they're working on "picture in picture" for vehicle wing mirrors etc, it'd be an obvious thing to apply this to weapon scope views as well, surely?

doubtfully...

[Tom1 10]

agreed, this is much more important than having picture in picture scopes (zoomed in scope but the outside of the scope is not zoomed in) and mirrors. This actually effects gameplay drastically and would make the long range combat so much more realistic.