Will we ever have a real "city" in the ArmA Series?

[NKato 0]

In AIII, AI should be improved to have a separate profile for urban combat, or even better, be able to seamlessly switch between field and urban environments, without any profiles. Note that even if AIII won't have big cities, it'll have more than it's share of towns and villages. Currently, AI has problems even with these. And if AI will be able to navigate a 3-floor building, it shouldn't be a big stretch for it to work in a 10-floor building. Perhaps an expansion for AIII, or a mod would introduce a city. ArmA III will be very capable in terms of realistic graphics, so I think that no overhaul of the graphic engine would be needed.

Of course, I'm talking SP here. I only play single missions and I'm not interested in multi. If a city will lag, it'd only mean that a good connection would be needed to play a mission in it. As long as the city runs well in SP, I'm sure that campaign and SP mission players will appreciate it.

The thing is, ArmA 3's graphics engine is based off of ArmA 2, and I am concerned that the graphics engine will not handle a high-poly environment well. See, when I play Chernarus in Combined Operations, I get the occasional hiccup, but Takistan has zero problems for me because of the near-complete lack of forests to increase the rendering overhead.

That's why I feel a graphics engine that can "scale down" graphics with adaptive culling (we already have a version of that in ArmA 2) or a better LOD. Frankly, the very fact that we're going to DirectX 11, and that high-end DX11 cards run DX11 games quite well, tells me that if the game's graphical assets (textures, models, etc) are optimized in terms of LODs (Levels of Detail, less polys for the model in the distance, more polys up close), ArmA 3 will have fewer problems adapting to a heavily urbanized metropolitan environment.

@SGTice: I personally think going for a smaller island, around 30 to 50 square kilometers, with two cities, one large (25 sq. km footprint) and one smaller (10 sq. km footprint) situated on opposing ends of the island, would be a good test case for Bohemia to use in developing the technology to support urban warfare.

---------- Post added at 01:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:24 AM ----------

You mean like this?

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=2065761&postcount=23

:)

Exactly like that. They will need to integrate Xaitment into the ArmA 3 editor if they want to support true urban environments. However, there are still problems with AI collision detection - when the AI goes into that high rise building, you can see him clipping into the inner wall of the stairwell. That will be a problem.

[froggyluv 2130]

Well a Dev pretty much insinuated not to get our hopes up for Xaitment but I am curious how they will tackle the Urban/Indoor AI equation in-house.

[BobcatBob 10]

The faithless cynic inside me thinks that maybe BI is saving excAItment specificially for Arma 4

[NKato 0]

The faithless cynic inside me thinks that maybe BI is saving excAItment specificially for Arma 4

So they want us to sit through three generations of pissy indoors AI?

Scratch that, four generations. I forgot to count Operation Flashpoint/ArmA X.

[frostwyrm333 1]

and even if they added it, it wouldn't be available to addon makers. How would be AI data generated for community islands?

[rye1 21]

you can see him clipping into the inner wall of the stairwell. That will be a problem.

Pet hate: Getting shot through walls.

[jw custom 56]

The main problem being pathfinding, even if the building are optimized to death. AI pathfinding is awful inside buildings even if all deserved path lods are correctly done, and isn't good inside a city with a lot of objects, creating a lot of lag.

Hehe my point was that it was not possible to have a real city in ArmA as it's a game :p

[Cripsis 10]

My personal assessment of BIS' ability with their existing technology? Doable.

I agree, providing that they don't overdo the amount of highrise buidings. I'm actually quite surprised that there aren't any mods with enterable highrise buildings.

In my honest opinion, it's possible to consider developing a separate line of games specifically designed for urban warfare

I'm truly flabbergasted that this hasn't already happened yet. It's not rocket science that FPS games set in urban environments sell big, I mean really BIG. Attention to realism would set BIS's titles apart from the COD/BF3 style mainsteam shooters, I'm absolutely convinced they would make far more profit selling games like that than TOH and Carrier Command.

[NKato 0]

I agree, providing that they don't overdo the amount of highrise buidings. I'm actually quite surprised that there aren't any mods with enterable highrise buildings.

I'm truly flabbergasted that this hasn't already happened yet. It's not rocket science that FPS games set in urban environments sell big, I mean really BIG. Attention to realism would set BIS's titles apart from the COD/BF3 style mainsteam shooters, I'm absolutely convinced they would make far more profit selling games like that than TOH and Carrier Command.

I think the main problem is that they are still stuck in an old school of programming when it comes to waypoint and pathfinding for AIs, especially when it comes to three-dimensional combat in buildings - as a result, the AI is unreliable by current standards. They will need to rip out the old AI code and replace it with something completely new for a proper urbanized FPS from BIS to become reality.

There's a bevy of reasons why many urbanized FPS's are heavily scripted in singleplayer, and rarely involve co-operative play in multiplayer, and this problem is one of them.

[jblackrupert 14]

It's hard enough maneuvering around a 2 story building in Arma as it is, I can't imagine

a 10+ story building with multiple rooms unless the hallways, stairs and doors are opened way up.

Games like Battlefield and COD don't have problems because those games are based on a floating camera.

The clunkyness of Arma's movement is the reason nobody bothers to make tall enterable buildings.

[JayMeal 10]

Ah, the only plus other types of games like BF3 have over the ARMA series is their ability to construct beautiful detailed urban environments

http://i.imgur.com/kUZ2z.jpg >100kb!

i really don't see how something like that would be possible in the ARMA series but its a nice fantasy, just to have one major city with all the bells and whistles.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Foxhound
removed image over 100kb!

[maturin 12]

Ah, the only plus other types of games like BF3 have over the ARMA series is their ability to construct beautiful detailed urban environments

http://i.imgur.com/kUZ2z.jpg >100kb!

Could be a GTA screenshot, only it's actually a tiny map. So what's the problem?

[Nicholas 5]

Could be a GTA screenshot, only it's actually a tiny map. So what's the problem?

It's a map from Battlefield 3. Tehran Highway.

[Cripsis 10]

The clunkyness of Arma's movement is the reason nobody bothers to make tall enterable buildings.

I agree that room to room fighting is out of the question for AI with ARMA 2 engine, but the AI will definitely fight from building to building. I know for certain that the AI move to and fight from the upper floors of buildings in Zargabad and Avgani, I dont see any reason why they wouldnt behave the same way in taller buildings.

[antoineflemming 14]

It's hard enough maneuvering around a 2 story building in Arma as it is, I can't imagine

a 10+ story building with multiple rooms unless the hallways, stairs and doors are opened way up.

Games like Battlefield and COD don't have problems because those games are based on a floating camera.

The clunkyness of Arma's movement is the reason nobody bothers to make tall enterable buildings.

Uh, the reason games like battlefield and COD don't have problems is because they are designed with close quarters in mind. Yes, those games are scripted, but not EVERY SINGLE ACTION is scripted. At least for COD, their AI actually does shoot at other AI. Whether they're programmed to be accurate is a different matter. They can actually fight inside buildings. You forget that only the player is a pair of floating hands. The other AI are actually 3rd person 3d models. They run off of varying scripts that seemingly randomizes their movement when in combat (nothing is truly random though), but how is that any different than in ArmA? Is there not some code that determines AI behavior in ArmA as well? The main reason is that ArmA2's AI aren't designed for CQB, room-to-room combat, where as standard FPSs' AI are.

[katipo66 94]

This from someone who knows zero about coding artificial intelligence but...

What if they had multiple behavior fsm's, one for out in the wide open, one for close quarter.. AI uses appropriate one depending on the situation.

[maddogx 13]

No real need for multiple FSMs in that particular case. You can have differents sets of behaviours for different situations in the same FSM. :)

[katipo66 94]

Ahh right... Told ya i knew zero, So I wonder if AI behave differently if fighting in a built up area as opposed to open terrain and visversa? Or I guess it's all just cover and they keep moving the same?

[spooky lynx 73]

Real city in ArmA? That's easy to make but impossible to use. Because only few gamers have PCs that will be able to have at least 30 fps on the map representing at least city with 250K population, with at least half of the buildings enterable and significant amount of AI (both combatants and civilians) and armor units, cars etc.

[dmarkwick 261]

The Fallujah map proves that a real city is a viable prospect :)

[Tonci87 163]

make fallujah with all houses enterable and then see that it isn`t

[Minoza 11]

Not every single house needs to be enterable... I never have a feeling that I lack enterable houses in BF3, yet most of them are not enterable...

[Tonci87 163]

I disagree, every house should be enterable. I really like the fallujah map but it really lacks more enterable houses! Zargabad is fun to play on because you can use every house as a fighting position and so can your oponent.

[dmarkwick 261]

make fallujah with all houses enterable and then see that it isn`t

Well, if you don't mind me saying so that sounds like an assumption :) unless there is a previous version of Fallujah that has all enterable houses that had to be compromised...

But as I said, it's a viable prospect. Fallujah is possibly bigger than an ArmA city needs to be, and it performs really well. With ArmA3 engine enhancements and improvements, I'd say it's likely :)

[NoRailgunner 0]

Maybe someday we will see a "real" city in an open-world/sandbox game with enterable buildings aswell as individual/unique interiors. Kinda sad that most enterable buildings still look empty like no one lived or worked in them. Guess it would be tricky to get the AI moving properly through + around custom/not preplaced objects in buildings/rooms.