Firefight Dynamics in ArmA 3

[rye1 21]

denser forests

thicker bushes

more foliage

micro terrain etc.

There looked to be more objects within some of the videos. And better objects i.e. fences, walls, fountains and other features.... not 'a tiny flower' counting as an object, which to me made it look way better. More playable too, more cover. :D

[Steakslim 1]

For me I've seen issues with setting Object detail on normal. At distances certain parts of an object don't render (like crews turned out) that could be useful when spotting from long engagements. Thus I run Very High with both object, shadow, and textures, and adjust everything else accordingly for performance if need be.

[maturin 12]

Yeah. I wonder if those little green balls are treated as grass or bushes.

[-Coulum- 35]

Hopefully bushes so that they are drawn from farther away. But judging from the screen shots I would say they are clutter that has an extremely far draw distance.

[maturin 12]

And those small little round bushes that are really grass-sized seem to be drawn like full vegetation objects instead of procedural clutter. See 13:11 of the long demo video.

[Whirly 1]

I see very few differences in that video. In Takistan, the distant bushes are almost all alike, and they are drawn far beyond small arms effective range.

I play ArmA on quite low settings, and if you just put Object Detail at Normal, you really lose nothing important. This is a non issue, I think.

Pause the Graphics Comparison video at 1:40

You will notice on low settings that if enemy infantry were in front of the player in a prone position they would be clearly visible, but under the exact same circumstances using high settings a squad of enemy infantry could be hiding in the ground clutter waiting to unleash a blistering ambush on a unsuspecting human player.

[max power 21]

Well, I think if there's no clutter, there's no clutter layer, and there's also no clutter approximation for AI sight calcs.

[-Coulum- 35]

And those small little round bushes that are really grass-sized seem to be drawn like full vegetation objects instead of procedural clutter. See 13:11 of the long demo video.

Maybe. I just think it is clutter drawn from further away. In a2 this kind of thing happens as well. bigger clumps of gras are drawn from farther out than smaller ones. If you look at gc presentation 5 you will see that these bush thingies seem to flatten out when you go prone near them, just like clutter suggesting to me that they are clutter. unless that's a different type of bush.

Well, I think if there's no clutter, there's no clutter layer, and there's also no clutter approximation for AI sight calcs.

Sorry Max, but what exactly does this mean? excuse my lack of knowledge concerning that kind of stuff.

[maturin 12]

Pause the Graphics Comparison video at 1:40

You will notice on low settings that if enemy infantry were in front of the player in a prone position they would be clearly visible, but under the exact same circumstances using high settings a squad of enemy infantry could be hiding in the ground clutter waiting to unleash a blistering ambush on a unsuspecting human player.

But that's only with close-up grass, not distant vegetation. And not really a problem.

If your computer is SO bad that you have to turn off grass, you have no real business playing the game, and BIS shouldn't lose any sleep over your experience. I should know. Zargabad buildings lag my laptop all to hell, but I can still have the damn grass turned on. It's borderline cheating in MP, and that's why most server's chose for you.

Well, I think if there's no clutter, there's no clutter layer, and there's also no clutter approximation for AI sight calcs.

If so, only for local AI.

Coulum, he means that if you turn off the grass, it no longer blocks AI vision.

[acoustic 82]

There's nothing wrong with the vegetation. Grass doesn't camouflage as it might, and a slight transparency solution could help.

If your bushes are disappearing at range, your graphics settings are too low, and the enemy is probably out of range anyways. Don't give everyone a fucking newby Acog and it won't be a problem.

In regards to the graphical setting response, I have done tests on the highest of settings and it still disappears at a distance.

Don't give everyone an Acog? I am not sure if you are aware but most of the worlds standard infantry carries some form of an enhanced scope on their weapons. Longer ranged firefights = less casualties. So suggesting everyone go back 30-40 years in technology is ignorant. Even with iron sights I can play target practice with the AI (and some players) at a certain distance so that still disproves your solution.

I am not sure how BI could solve the clutter issue because some turning down your settings does affect the amount of such. Maybe they could just tone down the quality of the clutter instead of the amount? Still would also like to see some sort of sand/dirt effect in certain areas to create better firefights.

[-Coulum- 35]

When grass in not drawn, the area of soldiers that would be covered up by grass should be made slightly transparent to make them harder to spot.

As for acogs and magnification in general, Acoustic is right. They are used in most modern armies and they do not result in short firefights like in arma. It was discussed in another thread that it might be a good idea to make grass and clutter draw distance proportional to the zoom the player is looking through. For an acog that would mean

normal draw distance 50m unzoomed

magnification while focusing/zooming in with naked eye - 2x = 100m clutter draw distance

magnification while using acog on screen - Approx. 12x = 600m clutter draw distance

This would mean while looking through an acog people 600 hundred metres away would be still able to hide using grass. the Theory was that since you have less grass to render while zoomed in you could make the draw distance more... but for some technical reason it was said that this would not be the case and it would rquire a massive amount of CPU resources to do.

Still would also like to see some sort of sand/dirt effect in certain areas to create better firefights.

Yes this would be awseom. Lots of dirt and dust kicked up by impact and explosions - and it should stay up in the air for a while. This is one of the easiest ways to identify if some war footage is fake or not. if there are huge clouds of dust being kicked up by weapons and not little hollywood style "puffs of dirt" you can bet its real.Would help conceal enemies being shot at and Would make it easier to know what the hell your ai buddies are shooting at in SP.

[gutekfiutek 10]

About grass and soldiers hiding in the grass:

The problem are mipmaps - textures have lower resolution when settings are low, you see polygon at an angle, or in the distance.

Generally they get more and more blurry.

So when youre hiding in the grass and someone else looks at you - even if grass covers half of body (just like it happens in A2) - you are still realy easy to see as you're only sharp object in blurry environment.

That's crap solution, it's still really easy to pick sodiers "hiding" in the grass, even if only head is visible.

Sharp on blurry is easy to see - blurry on blurry would be harder to notice.

So soldiers in ARMA3 need to be blurred when they are far away or prone.

This can be done by having different shader for last LOD of characters, even vehicles.

Different camuflages could give more or less blurrines.

Shooting and giving away your position (moving etc.) could sharpen your character, making it easier to notice.

---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:19 PM ----------

Here is example (i could not paste it into my first post:)

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VUa4hUk5ivQ/T4Q_gTBOfUI/AAAAAAAAFH4/dO74PfxurrQ/s882/arma%2520zoom.jpg

[froggyluv 2136]

I don't know about THAT degree of blurriness but I think you make a very good point -something Ive always felt but couldnt articulate. BTW, are you the same gutekfiutek from the glorious Mount and Blade Polished Landscapes mod?

[-Coulum- 35]

That example you have shown is overkill... But I completpey agree. Blurriness should be added at range to make spotting harder. The further the range, the more the bluriness. I always thought something like this would be great but the way you word it has for some reason made it seem so much more logical.

[gutekfiutek 10]

I don't know about THAT degree of blurriness but I think you make a very good point -something Ive always felt but couldnt articulate. BTW, are you the same gutekfiutek from the glorious Mount and Blade Polished Landscapes mod?

Yes:)

[rye1 21]

They've added haze-like effects haven't they?

Mirage like effects?

That will make longer distance observation harder.

I saw something similar mentioned in the confirmed features.