Foliage cover and drawing distance?

[mr.g-c 6]

If the engine could composit the problem would easily go away :)

Standard composit:

xxxx

Composite with faded edged:

xxxx

Please for the love of god, do a ticket about this in the ArmA3 CIS.

This would be so amazing. But hopefully for all units, not only soldiers, because currently in for instance Chernarus, even the camoed Tanks. stand out of woods (especially at some distance) quite extreme. To easy to spot, etc.

[jackrabbitslim7 10]

[Steakslim 1]

Jack I hope you know that you cannot direct link images straight from your harddrive....

[PuFu 4591]

Jack I hope you know that you cannot direct link images straight from your harddrive....

coffee.......................all over desk :)

[Nowonnos 1]

one of the problems with grass in A2 is that there is no in-between grass and no grass. For most, a blending system would help a lot here.

on the other hand, the fact that the terrain texture is seen almost tangent at 99% of the time at the distance, doesn't help with the concealment, on the contrary, making units stand out.

one solution could be something along the lines DMarkwick described, by working with an oppacity layer. Another would be to actually render that grass at the distance, especially when looking through a scope (just like with switching LODs for vegetation), but the obvious result for that would be increased draw call.

Would it help to make grass in distances up to 2000m some kind of semi-translucent grass-coloured ground fog? That way concealment would be gradually reduced with hight above the ground. You could achieve a similar effect if you'd draw a ground level and above it a transparent level with a different image than the satellite image. The fog or the transparent image could even be blended with rendered grass for a smoother transition.

[-Coulum- 35]

Would it help to make grass in distances up to 2000m some kind of semi-translucent grass-coloured ground fog? That way concealment would be gradually reduced with hight above the ground. You could achieve a similar effect if you'd draw a ground level and above it a transparent level with a different image than the satellite image. The fog or the transparent image could even be blended with rendered grass for a smoother transition.

I don't know if it would be more efficient, but that my friend sounds like a very good idea. Of course the "fog" would have to match the colour of the grass/ground and its hieght would also have to match that of the grass. I have trouble visualizing it, but it sounds like a very good solution to the problem. I also think that the draw distance of this fog would be something like 250 metres X the zoom factor the player is looking through, that way it doesn't cover up "far away" ground textures which in my opinion look fine. I don't know if its possible but also adding kind of "static/fuzzy look" to the fog might help to make it appear more like grass, and less like mist. i would much prefer this solution to the current one of dropping the unit into the ground, which makes sniping quite random and doesn't really make it that much harder to see a unit.

hehe. I remember the first time I tried to post an image I did the exact same thing. Dragged the image to my chrome browser and then copied and pasted the address. It didn't work like I expected. What you need to do (what I do) is creat an account with imageshack, or a similiar website, upload your pics there and then copy the link to here. Good luck I am interested to know what "arma2oa 2012-07-04 04-07-38-06.bmp" is.:)

Edited July 4, 2012 by -Coulum-

[Tonci87 163]

C:\Fraps\Screenshots\arma2oa 2012-07-04 04-07-38-06.bmp

You serious?

:raisebrow:

:459:

[onlyrazor 11]

I find Imgur useful because I don't have to register, though it probably has some hidden drawbacks I don't know yet.

[mr.g-c 6]

one of the problems with grass in A2 is that there is no in-between grass and no grass. For most, a blending system would help a lot here.

on the other hand, the fact that the terrain texture is seen almost tangent at 99% of the time at the distance, doesn't help with the concealment, on the contrary, making units stand out.

one solution could be something along the lines DMarkwick described, by working with an oppacity layer. Another would be to actually render that grass at the distance, especially when looking through a scope (just like with switching LODs for vegetation), but the obvious result for that would be increased draw call.

Amazing, this took me really hard.

Created a ticket about it:

https://dev-heaven.net/issues/35782

[Bouben 3]

Guys,

some time ago I wrote this post about units camouflage in distance in old OFP (open the spoiler button).

After finishing OFP (Arma: Cold War Assault) campaign recently I realized one, I would say, important thing.

The units (at least those Russian) are blending with the environment really well and are hard to spot even from distance (something that should be a matter of course when you think about reality ) and even without all the grass clutter we have in Arma 2 now.

I really don't like the fact that in Arma 2 units in distance of, let say, 500 meters are really easily distinguished from the rest of the environment because the clutter or bushes are not visible because of the level of detail in your options menu. In Arma 2 you see one slightly different object in a field and you can be 90% sure it is a soldier because there is no other object that would confuse you. So while OFP suffer even more from insufficient number of objects in the distance (at least on my PC it does) it still manages to mask units really well even if they are moving and even if you look at them through binoculars or a scope and even on a fairly flat ground.

I don't know if it's texture of the ground in Arma 2 which is clearly less mottled compared to the OFP one (I love how confusing the ground texture is in the OFP excluding Desert island of course) or if it's the lighting system that make the units being lighted differently than the rest of the environment or if it is the colours of particular LODs of units that are not chosen well so that they appear somehow much darker than their surrounding and therefore do not blend very well.

So while we don't have photo-realistic games yet (and we will not have for some time) that would show us all the objects and clutter with a reality-like detail in unlimited distance I would like to suggest some kind of compensation for this issue. Current half-sunk-object solution for distant units as we have now is simply not sufficient enough. Units are still visible too easily. I am sure BIS will be able to find a solution for this now because they managed to find it 10 years ago in the old OFP game.

I would LOVE to have similar difficulties with spotting in the third Arma game as I had in OFP. It would definitely make the game more thrilling and fun and challenging (as OFP was).

My point is that maybe we don't need any hi-tech solutions for this but just careful texturing/coloring of LODs with respect to terrain texture.

What do you think?

EDIT:

And I would again want to point out what Whirly have written:

"After veiwing this video I have discovered that the mosaic of different colors is what produces the illusion of detail, the illusion of depth, high and low spots, nooks and crannies. This disruptive patterning of color makes distant units much harder to see even at medium zoom and helps them 'blend' into the background. Why is the environment suddenly blandly colored by comparison when on max zoom? The plain coloring is the root of the problem."

Edited December 14, 2012 by Bouben

[wipman 1]

Hi, i think that as some said before, make the most distant LODs half transparent would help alot on conceal the static units and the ones on the move too; the thing would be to switch to less or just not transparent LODs when looking by an scope or similar things... aside of draw the all the folliage too, not just bushes and threes, all the grass and the tall weeds etc. Make it this way up to the 100m and that happens too inside ground vehicles and not just on foot, but not on air vehicles; i think that could work and wouldn't require alot of resources for the computer, if the AI could ambush us in a working way (with surprise) the thing would be a much much bigger challenge. Let's C ya

[metalcraze 290]

Moving units shouldn't be transparent since movement is always quite noticeable. Not only that but it will have a "ghost" effect during movement due to transparency. Semi-transparent LOD for static soldiers will be a great solution however.

Basically when soldiers don't move - semi-transparent LOD past 200m. When they do any kind of movement (save for turning their head) - remove transparency. Should also be removed when looking through a scope.

This especially will make sense for ghillie suits. After all they should blend in with the environment and transparency at large distances will achieve just that.

[galzohar 31]

I don't believe blurs and transparency are the solutions, simply because all methods look unrealistic and rather ugly. Not to mention that if someone is sky-lining or wearing dark cloths in front of a bright background he will be easily seen from distances where you could only dream of seeing them in Arma.

Grass is not the solution either, as it's too expensive on performance. Besides, there are many places in the world where you can hide just fine without a single piece of grass around.

The main problem is the terrain detail level and lack of objects covering the terrain. Objects can be low quality at a distance as long as there are enough of them to cover a significant portion of the terrain. That, combined with terrain textures much more detailed than the current "almost-monochrome" terrain textures most islands have can go a long way by itself.

Just check out these screenshots, simply removing the portion where you can notice the ugly ground part:

Don't they just stand/stick out so much more when you include the ugly ground in the screenshot?

Seriously, if at all possible, the "almost-monochrome" ground texture has GOT to go! Then if we can get more objects spread around (for actual hard cover too, not just concealment, as availability of hard cover is also quite lacking in Arma) we'll be much better off. Add (at least some) micro terrain and we have a winning horse here.

Sure it might cost some performance, but I don't think any of this will cost nearly as much as all the grass solutions suggested here.

[-Coulum- 35]

I don't believe blurs and transparency are the solutions, simply because all methods look unrealistic and rather ugly.

At the ranges these sort of things would be applied (300+ metres or so) I don't think you would really notice that the characters look ugly or unnatual. Instead, those cluster of pixels would simply appear to blend into the surroundings more instead of being the dark blob that it is now, which contrasts strongly with most terrain.

Not to mention that if someone is sky-lining or wearing dark cloths in front of a bright background he will be easily seen from distances where you could only dream of seeing them in Arma.

A very good point which is a huge negative to the whole "fade the model at distance" idea - Unless of course instead of transparency/fading, the model was simply discoloured to match the ground it is standing on. This would make it so if a man is silhouetting himself you will still be able to see him, but if he is infront of a hill he would be much harder to spot.

Seriously, if at all possible, the "almost-monochrome" ground texture has GOT to go!

Yes indeed. Not only for gameplay purposes, to make spotting harder, but also simply for aesthetic purposes. Right now it looks horrible and pretty unrealistic, especially when looking through optics at medium range. It especially annoys me when the colour of the ground doesn't match the colour or texture of the ground, so when you look at a spot from a couple hundred metres away it appears to be barren brown dirt but as you get closer grass magically grows to make it lush and green.

To me the lack of vegetation at range is not the only problem. It also seems to me that camouflage looses its effectiveness at range. At 400 metres a ghillie suit can be spotted just as easily as a normal rifle man - they both seem to appear as darks blobs of pixels. This in addition to the lack of vegetation at range leads to spotting being easier from far away than close up which is totally unrealistic.

[BobcatBob 10]

Draw ALL the THINGS (Grass, shadows, bushes, trees.) Even if it means all our max viewdistances must be lowered to compensate.

[.kju 3240]

To 500 meter.. not a solution BobcatBob.

[dmarkwick 261]

Just check out these screenshots, simply removing the portion where you can notice the ugly ground part:

http://i.imgur.com/oTC55.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/a5cU7.jpg

Don't they just stand/stick out so much more when you include the ugly ground in the screenshot?

Those look like my screenshot mockups from several months ago - it might be worth reproducing them in their entirety :)

First shot shows 3 units in normal compositing:

Second one shows a mockup of composite with a blurred outline:

But I suspect this would be reliant on a major rendering engine change. Still, I don't think it's outside of possibility to perform this for units beyond X distance.. But you might lose some (very very minor) Z-axis accuracy.

Edited December 17, 2012 by DMarkwick

[galzohar 31]

Yes I took your screenshot but I could have taken any screenshot that has bushes on some part of it and ugly terrain on the other to demonstrate the point I was trying to make, where the biggest problem is the ugly ground textures, and instead of looking for workarounds I think just trying to improve the ground texture is the first step and will do much better than all other ideas in terms of cost vs benefit.

All those blurring/transparency tricks just seem like dirty hacks to make people half-invisible, and to make them do their job you'd have to make them pretty ugly. I'm not even sure how feasible they'd be performance-wise.

If we can't draw the grass 3d models, at least draw a grass-like texture of it on the terrain. Is the cost of having higher resolution terrain textures for <1~2km really anything comparable to the cost of any of the other suggestions here? Even an increased number of objects and micro terrain features have been shown to not be *that* performance hungry, and that's in Arma 2's engine.

[fraczek 4]

How about AToC? Alpha To Coverage? It's already implemented in engine, could it be somehow helpful for blending the 3D objects over the 2D ground texture?

[dmarkwick 261]

All those blurring/transparency tricks just seem like dirty hacks to make people half-invisible, and to make them do their job you'd have to make them pretty ugly. I'm not even sure how feasible they'd be performance-wise.

I only advocate performing this hack at medium-far distances, so in the screenies above you should look to the small inserts not the main image. Up close, camo is less effective in any case. But I think it is a viable idea :) it does the job of making units with appropriate camouflage difficult to see, notice how inappropriate camouflage is not very effective even with the effect (middle example). Also see how pale faces still show up (left example), and how a regular pattern on a unit will also show up (right example).

As a hacky workaround, I think it works, and it'd work with no need to extend the clutter or vegetation details, which has to be a saving.

[galzohar 31]

I still think better terrain textures would achieve the goal in a better, prettier, and maybe even less-performance-heavy way.

Blurring a small/distant object is still blurring. Considering it is already blurred compared to RL (IRL you can see MUCH better, at least if the background is made of a single color), it just makes no sense to me to use any kind of blurring techniques when trying to make things more realistic.

We need more detail to fix the problem, not less detail, and the only question is what kind of detail would give the biggest benefit for the smallest cost. Obviously, grass is a huge cost and doesn't even cover all situations possible IRL. Lots of time you would be hiding where there is no vegetation at all yet you'l be hard to spot since even the desert isn't nearly as monochrome as the Arma commonly used terrain textures. Lots of objets and micro terrain can help a lot but are also limited by performance (though apparently not anywhere near as limited as grass is). Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't higher resolution terrain textures be extremely cheap on the performance side of things? And at long ranges, they'd be almost as effective as actual grass (thinking of short grass here, not tall grass that covers large portions of the player's body)...

[dmarkwick 261]

Well of course anti-aliasing is also blurring, and that's essential for realism :) what I suggest is a form of extreme anti-aliasing, for the distant unit only. The problem of better textures is that you cannot get similar resolution textures for the ground as for the unit, and also that the ground texture is almost always viewed at a sharp angle, getting high-res face-on textures of a unit to blend with low res high-angle textures will be problematic. I can see the thinking behind it, but I'm not convinced it's the answer. The answer may be a combination of techniques.

[Smurf 12]

I'll play in "Low Settings" and will spot you anywhere! That is a problem.

And what would happen in tall vegetation like this? I was looking for a video made by Minimalaco (IIRC...) that shows one of the PR new maps with a part with tall grass. While inside it you couldn't see almost anything, looking from a distance you could see everything because the grass wasn't rendered at all.

And we don't even included shadows in the discussion....

IMO, the best solution would be something artificial like blurring or transparency based on terrain, stance, movement and shadows.

[galzohar 31]

There's a huge difference between anti-aliasing and bluring. Anti-aliasing makes things look more similar to RL, blurring does the opposite.

[Bouben 3]

Guys, seriously, why is everyone neglecting the fact, that the ground texture is THE problem? I mean, this camo-in-the-distance issue was pretty much solved in the old OFP 10 years ago. To be more precise, it did not existed. I finished CWC campaign recently and units was masked really well in the distance. Just make the ground textures cluttered as in OFP and units textures of a similar color tones and the job is done. And I mean it. There is absolutely no need for all this engine rewrites and performance killers. You are making it too complicated. The model's textures and the ground textures will do the job if they are similar (that is the point of the camo anyway isn't it?). Just look at the vanilla OFP. Done. Period.