Foliage and Vision

[lev 21]

I was wondering if and how Arma3 will tackle the problem of grass blocking the player's vision. I mean specifically in the case of where the player is prone in a field of grass. When not sighted in, the slight transparency of the grass allows the player to see some motion and detail of other units (very little but some), but as soon as the player sights in, the grass detail immediately makes it impossible to see anything. This is particularly annoying in engagements where the enemy is clearly in front of the player but because of the weird positioning of the player's head, going prone effectively blinds the player and puts him at a disadvantage instead of achieving the desired effect of giving the player a better firing position.

Perhaps a partial solution would be to "lower" the height of the grass or raise the player's viewpoint so that grass doesn't completely block the player's vision when prone. This could also be changed in a way such that players can be made more aware of whether they are "hidden" (sinking into the ground from far viewing distances) or if they are completely exposed by having "tall" grass that is similar to the way grass functions now in that it is high enough to block the player's vision but that is because the player is partially concealed. "Low" grass would behave as previously mentioned allowing the player to clearly see and engage targets in front of them.

Something more complicated would be importing the lowering and raising of the POV functionality for rising and ducking into cover. Thus in high grass the player can still elevate himself slightly to gain better vision instead of lying down in blinding grass.

Is this something BIS will address in ARMA3?

EDIT: Perhaps I wasn't too clear with my explanation.

Yes my primary concern is being prone and having grass totally concealing your vision while you are completely exposed. I'm not so much bothered by the fact that you can't see and can be seen as that is a perfectly realistic scenario. My main concern is that with the grass height in its current state, you SHOULD be able to see rather than not.

To the posters claiming tall grass blocking vision is realistic. I totally agree with your sentiment except the scenario I am outlining is not dealing with tall grass, but rather with short grass. I have no complaints with regards to situations where hiding in a wheat field or any other tall foliage, you can't not see anything.

I've uploaded some screen shots to help clarify the issue I am talking about. The scenario presented includes two soldiers facing each other at about 50m distance apart. One soldier is prone and the other is standing. I created this scenario at the following location if anyone wants to check for themselves or with different graphical settings: 036-103

Prone observing standing target. Unzoomed.

Prone observing standing target. Zoomed.

Prone observing standing target. Sighted in with ACOG.

Standing observing prone target. Unzoomed.

Standing observing prone target. Zoomed.

Standing observing prone target. Sighted in with ACOG.

Notice the following issues:

From the prone position, you can clearly see there is some sort of opacity/transparency effect on the grass. This is most noticeable from the unzoomed to the zoomed view where the detail on the target and background objects are blocked by the grass where they were previously more visible. In the sighted in view, everything which was visible is now obscured by grass. Hence what I mean by needing to raise the POV (head position) of the player so that they don't seem to sink into the grass.

From the standing position, you will notice that zooming in increases the opacity/transparency of the grass so that details of target and objects in the background become more clear. I think this is acceptable since increasing magnification will generally make details more visible and the current implementation seems to simulate this well enough. However, the issue still stands that the prone observer should be able to see the standing target and not have details obscured as they zoom in or sight in.

You could argue that yes the prone player's weapon is underneath the grass line thus its realistic that the player can't see anything when sighted in, but in a real life situation you could elevate the rifle and body slightly so that you can see. Granted when implementing this elevation feature, some care will have to be taken so that the player isn't elevating unrealistically high from the prone position.

Edited August 17, 2012 by lev

[HKFlash 9]

But in real combat tall grass IS an issue. All you can do is pop your head up to try get a better look at the enemy.

[maturin 12]

The grass is never transparent and doesn't change in detail (except perhaps in third person, in which case you're cheating to see above the grass anyways).

It's just that when you look down your sights, you lower your head to the weapon and can see an inch or two less.

Perhaps a partial solution would be to "lower" the height of the grass or raise the player's viewpoint so that grass doesn't completely block the player's vision when prone.

Why on earth would BI implement an artificial solution to allow people to magically see through solid objects? The AI are blinded when going prone in grass since 1.6 or so, so it's no longer that unfair.

We could use a way to peak above a grass layer without going into kneel, but if the grass is to high too shoot while prone, that's just too bad. Vegetation is a factor that any half-decent player or soldier will take into account. You can't fight from prone in a thicket in real life either. Luckily, Limnos doesn't seem to have the consistently towering grass of Chernarus.

[kylania 567]

Apparently they have new "stances" so maybe there's a new "peek up while prone" stance or something?

[-Coulum- 35]

Yes tall grass is an issue in reality, and I don't think that it should necessaries be made transparent. Perhaps the blades of gras only a few inches away from the player to account for the fact that you have two eyes and a single blade of grass at that distance isn't likely to cover both simultaneously.

But I think some of the new stance animations might solve this issues to a degree. Maybe there will be a a high and low prone position or something. --Edit-- damn ninja'd on that one.

I also think in arma 2 one of the problems was when sighted in you do not rais yor rifle to your eye but rather lower your eye to the rifle which is why you experence trouble when using sights. Maybe this will be fixed in A3?

[griffinz 10]

I think the real issue is the grass not being rendered at a distance, even when scoped in. This means that if you are lying camouflaged in tall grass, the enemy can still see you bu just being outside of the draw distance, and you can't see 2ft in front of you.

[wsoul2k 1]

I think the real issue is the grass not being rendered at a distance, even when scoped in. This means that if you are lying camouflaged in tall grass, the enemy can still see you bu just being outside of the draw distance, and you can't see 2ft in front of you.

You hit the nail my friend, this is and so far will be the worst cenario, you are a dead man for any multiplayer sniper aout there because HE can see you FAR FAR away

[-Coulum- 35]

I think the real issue is the grass not being rendered at a distance, even when scoped in. This means that if you are lying camouflaged in tall grass, the enemy can still see you bu just being outside of the draw distance, and you can't see 2ft in front of you.

This is not what the OP was trying to get at, but no doubt, it is a huge problem. There has been quite alot of discussion/ideas about it in other threads but basically BIS has said they will do nothing about it - I Think, I'll have to try and dig up that interview to confirm.

[Madeon 6]

I never go prone in grass, ever, it's much wiser to get into firing positions behind walls, trees, rocks, bushes and elevations in the terrain. I see soooooo many arma players in Youtube videos making idiotic decisions when moving through hostile territory, there are so many noobs here that I'm going to dominate in MP...

If I catch you in the grass, I'm gonna mow you down! Get behind solid cover as rapidly as you can you dimwits.

[smookie 11]

But I think some of the new stance animations might solve this issues to a degree. Maybe there will be a a high and low prone position or something. --Edit-- damn ninja'd on that one.

Hence the on-back position you already saw...

[dmarkwick 261]

The grass is never transparent and doesn't change in detail (except perhaps in third person, in which case you're cheating to see above the grass anyways).

It's just that when you look down your sights, you lower your head to the weapon and can see an inch or two less.

Why on earth would BI implement an artificial solution to allow people to magically see through solid objects? The AI are blinded when going prone in grass since 1.6 or so, so it's no longer that unfair.

We could use a way to peak above a grass layer without going into kneel, but if the grass is to high too shoot while prone, that's just too bad. Vegetation is a factor that any half-decent player or soldier will take into account. You can't fight from prone in a thicket in real life either. Luckily, Limnos doesn't seem to have the consistently towering grass of Chernarus.

Some sort of solution is needed, because, if you wish to reference "RL", you can move your head about by inches either way to get peeks through the grass, which you cannot do in ArmA, except maybe by swiveling your entire body to make your viewpoint move I suppose, but that would only be left-right. Personally I would like a "peep up" move where my avatar can raise ow lower his view by a small amount. This would be good in all poses, not just prone, but obviously prone specifically is the topic here. There is an unused TrackIR axis all ready for the job :)

[LeeManatee 4]

I think the real issue is the grass not being rendered at a distance, even when scoped in. This means that if you are lying camouflaged in tall grass, the enemy can still see you bu just being outside of the draw distance, and you can't see 2ft in front of you.

yeah, thats the real issue. camo supposed to blend you with surroundings and the larger distance the harder to spot you.

what about some easy solution like... textures become more transparent depends on distance? since arma cannot simulate eyes and camo mechanics

Edited August 17, 2012 by n7snk

[maturin 12]

what about some easy solution like... textures become more transparent depends on distance? since arma cannot simulate eyes and camo mechanics

Color fading transparency, fuzzy edges to soldier models. I suspect the capability would require some fairly major tinkering with the engine, though.

Some sort of solution is needed, because, if you wish to reference "RL", you can move your head about by inches either way to get peeks through the grass, which you cannot do in ArmA, except maybe by swiveling your entire body to make your viewpoint move I suppose, but that would only be left-right. Personally I would like a "peep up" move where my avatar can raise ow lower his view by a small amount. This would be good in all poses, not just prone, but obviously prone specifically is the topic here. There is an unused TrackIR axis all ready for the job

How about a 'slow rise' animation where holding shift and pressing Crouch will very slowly change chances so long as you hold the buttons, then immediately drop you back down when released.

[dmarkwick 261]

Color fading transparency, fuzzy edges to soldier models. I suspect the capability would require some fairly major tinkering with the engine, though.

How about a 'slow rise' animation where holding shift and pressing Crouch will very slowly change chances so long as you hold the buttons, then immediately drop you back down when released.

Interesting idea, although I should like the option of holding a particular stance...

[wsoul2k 1]

Color fading transparency, fuzzy edges to soldier models. I suspect the capability would require some fairly major tinkering with the engine, though.

How about a 'slow rise' animation where holding shift and pressing Crouch will very slowly change chances so long as you hold the buttons, then immediately drop you back down when released.

This is alredy implemented, in the first video it show the soldier rising up just a litle bit using when CRTL is pressed, it is showed in the firing drill on the first video, and it can be performe as well to the LEAN moviment

[maturin 12]

This is alredy implemented, in the first video it show the soldier rising up just a litle bit using when CRTL is pressed, it is showed in the firing drill on the first video, and it can be performe as well to the LEAN moviment

But there's no indication of rising slightly from prone, is there? When lying down, you're likely to be unable to shoot when doing that, and just pop your head up to glance around.

[wsoul2k 1]

But there's no indication of rising slightly from prone, is there? When lying down, you're likely to be unable to shoot when doing that, and just pop your head up to glance around.

In the video de player was crouched and then it just rise a litle bit

---------- Post added at 16:18 ---------- Previous post was at 16:17 ----------

But all this movement is useless if your opponent can see you there without ANY foliage ( the foliage is not rendered at distances )

And this is just SAD :(

[maturin 12]

The concealing grass layer at distance is aaaancient now.

[lev 21]

I don't think I was very clear so I've updated my first post to try to better explain what I was talking about.

Reposted here:

EDIT: Perhaps I wasn't too clear with my explanation.

Yes my primary concern is being prone and having grass totally concealing your vision while you are completely exposed. I'm not so much bothered by the fact that you can't see and can be seen as that is a perfectly realistic scenario. My main concern is that with the grass height in its current state, you SHOULD be able to see rather than not.

To the posters claiming tall grass blocking vision is realistic. I totally agree with your sentiment except the scenario I am outlining is not dealing with tall grass, but rather with short grass. I have no complaints with regards to situations where hiding in a wheat field or any other tall foliage, you can't not see anything.

I've uploaded some screen shots to help clarify the issue I am talking about. The scenario presented includes two soldiers facing each other at about 50m distance apart. One soldier is prone and the other is standing. I created this scenario at the following location if anyone wants to check for themselves or with different graphical settings: 036-103

Prone observing standing target. Unzoomed.

Prone observing standing target. Zoomed.

Prone observing standing target. Sighted in with ACOG.

Standing observing prone target. Unzoomed.

Standing observing prone target. Zoomed.

Standing observing prone target. Sighted in with ACOG.

Notice the following issues:

From the prone position, you can clearly see there is some sort of opacity/transparency effect on the grass. This is most noticeable from the unzoomed to the zoomed view where the detail on the target and background objects are blocked by the grass where they were previously more visible. In the sighted in view, everything which was visible is now obscured by grass. Hence what I mean by needing to raise the POV (head position) of the player so that they don't seem to sink into the grass.

From the standing position, you will notice that zooming in increases the opacity/transparency of the grass so that details of target and objects in the background become more clear. I think this is acceptable since increasing magnification will generally make details more visible and the current implementation seems to simulate this well enough. However, the issue still stands that the prone observer should be able to see the standing target and not have details obscured as they zoom in or sight in.

You could argue that yes the prone player's weapon is underneath the grass line thus its realistic that the player can't see anything when sighted in, but in a real life situation you could elevate the rifle and body slightly so that you can see. Granted when implementing this elevation feature, some care will have to be taken so that the player isn't elevating unrealistically high from the prone position.

[maturin 12]

From the prone position, you can clearly see there is some sort of opacity/transparency effect on the grass. This is most noticeable from the unzoomed to the zoomed view where the detail on the target and background objects are blocked by the grass where they were previously more visible. In the sighted in view, everything which was visible is now obscured by grass. Hence what I mean by needing to raise the POV (head position) of the player so that they don't seem to sink into the grass.

I told you, you're imagining things. When you look down the sights, you lower your head to the weapon. The camera changes position. You don't 'seem' to sink into the grass, you actually DO. Separating the POV from the player's actual eyes is COMPLETELY unacceptable because then we would be shooting walls in front of our faces. You look down the sights of the weapon you hold in third person.

but in a real life situation you could elevate the rifle and body slightly so that you can see.

I'm not sure you could. You can only shoot prone when your elbows are resting on the ground, and not when your torso is pushed up skyward at an odd angle.

The real is issue is one of animations. I have heard that rifleman are supposed to raise their rifle rather than lower their heads to the sight.

[Madeon 6]

When you look down the sights, you lower your head to the weapon.

This.

You can only shoot prone when your elbows are resting on the ground, and not when your torso is pushed up skyward at an odd angle.

This.

[lev 21]

I told you, you're imagining things. When you look down the sights, you lower your head to the weapon. The camera changes position. You don't 'seem' to sink into the grass, you actually DO. Separating the POV from the player's actual eyes is COMPLETELY unacceptable because then we would be shooting walls in front of our faces. You look down the sights of the weapon you hold in third person.

I'm not sure you could. You can only shoot prone when your elbows are resting on the ground, and not when your torso is pushed up skyward at an odd angle.

The real is issue is one of animations. I have heard that rifleman are supposed to raise their rifle rather than lower their heads to the sight.

Well this is pretty much exactly what I have been saying? I'm not sure why you are so confused especially since I added "POV (head position)" so that you wouldn't be. I have never endorsed separating the player's POV from the head/eyes so not sure why you would make these kinds of assumptions for a milsim. The reasons I say "seem to sink into the grass" is because 1) when changing the level of zoom (position of the head/POV NOT moving), the details visible to the player change making it appear as if the grass is now higher or the player "has sunk into the grass" and 2) The scenario was setup so that the differences were visible from the prone and standing position; if I had stepped back a few more meters it would appear to the prone player that he "has sunk into the grass" and is concealed (default unzoomed POV will show only grass, no standing player) while he is still visible to the standing player. Thus it often "seems" as if the player has sunk into the grass while he in fact has not. Not sure how I can make this any more clear to you if you still do not understand.

Currently the prone model has the position of the elbows and rifle relaxed (bent at only a slight angle) but if you wanted to elevate the position it would be possible by tensing up the elbows a little more. Realistically you can only raise the rifle so far when prone which is why I mentioned "some care will have to be taken so that the player isn't elevating unrealistically high from the prone position". And as you have mentioned, the animation has the head being lowered down to the rifle instead of the rifle being raised up which I believe might solve some of the issue but will still suffer from the grass detail making it harder to clearly see standing targets that are plainly visible when unzoomed (I mean come on, do you not notice that the horizon is plainly visible in the first image but not in the following ones? Not to mention the extra foliage you can see in the background that becomes concealed once you zoom in.).

[maturin 12]

I don't understand because your descriptions are vague and misleading.

You don't 'seem to sink into grass,' more grass is simply rendered. Call it what it is.

Zoom levels only make the grass more detailed at far distances, which usually means thicker and taller.

When you look down your sights, your PoV is lowered.

The point of shooting prone is keeping a low profile. It should not be raised because it would look unnatural and prevent us from covering behind low objects. You could make an argument for a 'high prone' stance, although I'm not sure it would work. A 'sniper's sit' lower than kneel might be best.

from the grass detail making it harder to clearly see standing targets that are plainly visible when unzoomed

The problem is not that the target disappears when zoomed, but that it is visible when un-zoomed.

[rye1 21]

Sorry a bit off-topic but someone mentioned visibility. Tested about 6 months ago, if you are static and an AI is walking obliquely towards your area they won't notice you for a good 15m. If you move it's a lot larger footprint. They have to fix the insta-turn around and shoot at you because they have spidey senses, especially when you're camo'ed up say in a ghillie.

[maturin 12]

There's no insta-turn around and spidey senses. If they have line of sight and are looking at you within the proper parameters of range, lighting and clutter, they will see you.

You're not referring to any specific issue.

Tested about 6 months ago, if you are static and an AI is walking obliquely towards your area they won't notice you for a good 15m. If you move it's a lot larger footprint.

This sounds like realistic, correct behavior, no?