Overall 3D Model quality in ARMA2

[meshcarver 12]

Hey up,

This is just a quick question about the overall 3D quality of models (Mostly buildings/structures) in ARMA 2 and it's many amazing mods.

I've noticed this myself to an extent, and also when I recently showed one of my friends ARMA 2, he commented; "It looks a bit dated..?" .

I asked in "In what way..?".

"Well, all the buildings seem very basic and low poly..? Really blocky like...".

I know it's a good few years old now, but is there ANY reason why most buildings and structures do seem to be lacking in the polished/poly department guys..?

All in all I find the OVERALL impression and feeling of ARMA 2 to be up there with the best imo- sometimes it looks like nothing can touch it visually, but other times, up close to buildings or whatever- it's very low polytastic.

So, is there a reason for this do you know? Is it some mod makers don't have too much experience creating objects, or is it a conscious design choice to basically keep poly counts as low as possible..?

I know ARMA 2 is doing LOADS of things behind the scenes aswell.

Also, would someone starting now to make buildings and assets that could be used in ARMA 3 engine be well advised to up the poly count a bit where it's needed..? Round structures/corners etc..?

I'm asking all this so I can hopefully gauge what/why the buildings are made the way they are and then hopefully work inside those constraints too, or maybe push them a bit.

Thanks for your time guys,

Marc

[[frl]myke 14]

First, please take note that the following is complete guesswork but i think it isn't that far fetched to be completely wrong.

Now, what do you do? You look at one single Object (say a house) and there, i couldn't disagree with you. I've also seen more detailed models in other games.

What should you do now? Take a step back and watch the whole scenery. You're looking at n polygons. It's no secret, every 3D game is built of polygons. The more polies in the scenery, the higher the load on the PC. That said, you either go for max quality and polys, resulting that even high end PC's can't render the game with reasonable FPS, or you lower the bar to a point where common gamer PC's can handle it.

What do you do now? You bring the argument that other games do look much nicer with higher poly models. Also here, can't disagree but pointing to the fact that other games do have n polygons in much smaller area and with less unique models than ArmA 2. In ArmA 2 it spreads out on a wide open area with thousands of object. And do not forget the area itself which of course also has polygons.

At the end it is a very simple calculation (i admit that it might be too simplified but it shows the general way):

In a scenery you are maxed to n polygons. If you have 100'000 objects to draw, the amount of polies per object is of course lower compared to a scenery with 1'000 objects.

As said in the beginning, i don't know if this is completely true but for me this sounds reasonable.

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Myke..!

Aye, thanks for that reply btw.

Yup, I thought it would certainly be related to the poly count on screen basically.

As I said, imo the whole impression of ARMA2 for me is never below par- it looks fantastic tbh- but it's just the individual parts of the sum that have to be "culled" back a bit to make it all reasonable.

I wonder if this could be countered by having a sparser landscape in general, then you could up the poly counts on little villages/huts etc so it still holds up very well when close up?

Either way- I hope my OP wasn't taken as insulting. It's a beautiful looking game at the worst of times, and the sense of scale is unmatched anywhere else!

I think it's the huge landmasses that are one of many reasons why it's got so much going for it. :D

Cheers,

Marc

[[frl]myke 14]

Either way- I hope my OP wasn't taken as insulting

Naw, it is a reasonable question. But to be honest, when in a firefight, the least i care is if the rock that saves me from bullets has 50 or 5000 polys. ;)

[meshcarver 12]

Lol XD

Really though ,I'm asking to get a good few answers about this, as I'm starting an island complete with buildings so want to make it look as good as possible where I can, without game-breaking it.

Things like rocks/trees etc already look fine to me, it mainly JUST the buildings and structures man- they could use some love around the edges, things as simple as beveled edges literally at times, so they catch the light on angle etc. It all helps the immersion.

[Robster 11]

As a reference, you might consider than under 2000 polys is rather low poly...

I made a 4/5 floors T building -is modular- with approximately 4000 polys with no bad performance using just one texture, I mean, I baked all surfaces in one 2048 px square image

I threw thousands of low poly rocks spread over there and perfomance still doesn't fail... even using BIS rvmats which sometimes have more than 5 stages of render processing... normal, specular, ambient shadow, etc... but those rocks are no more than 100 polys average and the bigger ones doesn't have more than 300 polys and still they can be tweaked to have less... and look not so bad

As said before, when you're under heavy fire you barely notice how many polys have some particular model... the important thing is that they do not make your whole scene so heavy that you can't have a relatively smooth gameplay... furthermore, you might notice that there could be a lot of players, AI troops and high poly vehicles engaging all at once...

So, I would say that poly count for a single model -and the number of rvmat stages also- is something relative: a hi poly building model may work if you do not use it extensively in a certain area... BTW the ref pics only apply for a PVP map -I'm not an AI fan really- with no more than 3000m distance view... otherwise, you might suffer because the overall heavy amount of detail...

:icon_evil:

[max power 21]

Usually in games you have some models with high detail and other ones with lower detail. You put the ones with high detail where you expect the player to look, and dress the set with lower detail things to sell it. In ArmA, unfortunately, the designer doesn't really have much influence on what the player will be looking at, so almost everything is probably about as detailed as you would want to make it. However, if you have a plot point where a building is a major feature, you might want to make that one in higher detail. I think maybe Fire-base Manhattan was a good example. It seemed like there was quite a lot going on there.

If you want to make some more detailed buildings, I say go for it. You can figure out how the performance is affected by your experiment. If worse comes to worst, you might have to eliminate the first LOD on a few building types. There is a lot that influences the performance of a map: the amount of vegetation, the cell size of the terrain, the number of different textures... If you want a building heavy map maybe you want to make some other concessions in the design process.

[PuFu 4600]

it obviously depends on a lot of factors. The most important being scene complexity. Here is a good example of pretty simple scene in outerra: around 3 mil polygons. That is with sprites trees.

http://www.outerra.com/images/a-complete.jpg

http://www.outerra.com/images/a-wireframe.jpg

What you need to take into account is the amount of objects create by you, that you would expect (min / avg / max) in a scene on your island. It is one thing to create a dense urban environment, it is another to create a mountain scenery (fair enough, here there will be also a lot more trees as well), with houses from place to place. Do you want the buildings to be accesible? If so, how many of those should be accessible? All of those? etc etc.

This needs to be though of before you start the project (especially if it includes custom 3d objects).

Regarding model complexity. You can fake (like every other game content creator out there), a lot. That includes shading (AO maps), geometry (normals) and so forth.. There is a huge difference between geometries created for renders (i work daily with scenes above 4-5 mil polygons, a ready to render outside urban scene can easily go up to 10-15 mil polygons, without the environment proxies) and game content. Here you need to optimize geometries, and find a fine balance between what you can model and what you is the visible achieved end result. Will that detail on that wall be noticed? Can i just bake it in? etc etc.

This is indeed an endless discussion. No one will be able to give you a recipe here i am afraid.

[meshcarver 12]

Hey up,

first- thanks for your input guys.

This has got to be the most active games community going. ;)

Aye, I know it's gonna be relative at the end of the day, and areas can be tweaked to reduce clutter and tress to accommodate one/two higher complexity building etc.

I suppose I was looking for a more or less definitive answer, but what you've all said ties in to one another's take on it, so that's a good standpoint to go off really.

The best point that this has brought up here, is that because of the nature of ARMA 2, ANY area can be viewed entered from ANY direction- so it almost cancels out the "tailored linear" high/low poly design of any specific location.

That's very relevant.

I think because of the nature of the island I'm going to create, which will be sparse/grim/desolate, that should lend itself to pockets of higher poly density than normal detailed villages/buildings etc- the only thing I'm not sure on as a newbie is how FAR in kms do I have to go from centre of said village/building, if every persons draw distance is alterable (In ARMA 3 up to 20 kms..?) by a lot..? Do I have to take MAX view distance into account before I start another village..?

I hope I'm understandable here- I've just done a bottle of wine lol... ;)

cheers guys!

[Robster 11]

I think your doubts are fair enough...

In my experience you should come with your models first... and if they are completely finished the better, then you should consider BIS objects and/or third party addons, cause some of them might require special attention to avoid performance issues...

And, as stated by MaxP, there are other factors to be considered: terrain cell size (meters), texture layers base size, and infinite outside terrain enabled or not... just to name the most relevant regarding terrain parameters design

Then you should pay attention to density of objects, since you can place millions of objects when engine "likes" them... in Clafghan -that's the "island" in my signature- I used a template with 10 different objects (trees, bushes, rocks) defining previously which ones would suit that project, then I could realize that a huge difference exists when choosing between similar objects, and that's related to models themsleves: polygons, rvmats, LODs number... which doesn't mean necessarily that one object could be better than other... many times it's a matter of choice (or taste, specially when you work in a teamwork basis)... at this stage WORLD TOOLS by Shezan is a must....

So, the best approach would be some planning before starting to place any objects, but experience says is all related to some sort of trial & error process, until you get used to engine capabilities which are enormous IMO

Of course, it's a good idea to share your advances with some fellowmates and if they have different PC specs the better, since you can gather close feedback about what could become troublesome as you keep building...

Saludos!

Edited September 4, 2012 by Robster

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Robster,

thanks for your input man! :)

I THINK I'll be going with a 2048x2048 10m cell setup..?

Is that more or less similar to Chernarus..? It'd give me about 22kms x 22kms would it, that setting?

I want a fairly large sized map, so there can be LOTS of roaming and getting "lost" in it all- that's my aim.

Do you mean a good process for this is to make ALL the buildings first, with their LODS etc then start placing them on a pretty much freeform map, then do the terrain planning AROUND that..? Sounds like a plan if so...

[max power 21]

meanmachine1, what modelling software do you use?

[PuFu 4600]

he uses mainly maya according to my skype convo with thim

[Robster 11]

exactly...

you might want to define which will be the set or template of single objects that you will be using the most... when terrain is large enough you may define plenty of different areas/sets/templates and then you should put these "filling" objects first next to roads network and surrounding stuff... if you get satisfying results, then you will have more freedom to create whatever you have in mind with your objects, being confident about avoiding bad performance issues and increasing level of detail/density as long as you move forward...

Those terrain parameters are very much like Clafghan... Chernarus isn't that bigger hahaha and it has a smaller terrain grid size: 7.5m, if I remember well...

BTW for that terrain size, some working parameters would be as follows:

- sat image size = 20480x20480, 8192x8192, 4096x4096... couldn't be sure about other sizes, so it's up to you

- mask image size = 4096x4096 is the biggest I've tried for that, I ignore how it goes with bigger masks, so do not forget to tell about your findings

- texture base layer = 40 meters minimum (if you try a tinier size you will start to see "micro-cuts" ingame, specially when flying around in fast aircrafts)

saludines!

[meshcarver 12]

Hey up,

Aye, I use MAYA man, and it's set to METERS as the working unit.

1 meter is 1 unit etc.

Basically, I reckon I'll use the Chernarus size dimensions for my template, so end up with a landscape roughly 20x20 kms yeah?

For this would you recommend 10m or 7:5m terrain grid size then..? Will it save me a LOT of performance to go with 10 in stead of 7:5m.

I mean, the visual quality can't be THAT much more impressive with a saving of 2:5 m can it..? Or is it?

Thinking about it, are the MAIN three things grid size affects:

ground texture quality resolution per cell?

landscape detail/flow/silhouette of terrain polys smoother kind of thing?

performance?

Is this a correct assessment please gents?

Also Robster, when you say to define a template of single objects, do you mean things like telegraph poles/signs/bins/street lights etc..? Basically generic objects that will be more or less used evenly across the whole map?

Again chaps, thank you for all this ongoing help...

MArc

[Robster 11]

Hi there Marc!

To start, you should be reading this That whole VBS2 wiki is a valuable resource as well as the community wiki...

Ground texture quality is the same, as long as you use the same seamless texture images... it won't change because you change terrain cell size or whatever...

On the other hand, while using a bigger sat pic you'll gain more res when flying ... look for "Isola di Capraia" to get an idea about this

Regarding detail landscape, hope you've read about that fractal function over terrain resolution at distance...

Anyways, performance variation is bearable noticed between 10 m and 7.5 m terrain cell sizes (perhaps this last one might help a little when drawing ground at distance, but I haven't noticed it, since I play with everything at very high)... even more, you can go down to 4 meters and still it will hold steady... I mean, you'll be able to play in MP with 10000m distance view... with a very basic template and a few other objects... once i made a one-made-day tiny 8x8 kms map with these measures... and it was all fun in CLA (r.i.p.)

Poles, signs, street lights, etc... that's the surrounding stuff I mentioned before... your templates rather involve enviromental objects basically, unless you're thinking about some city like landscape, in which case your template would be composed by buildings, house and concrete stuff... a template refers for the most used elements on a map, so you can have an approximate idea about how performance will be working... so, if your map has somehow heavy stuff you will notice it at first glance... otherwise, you'll be able to go without having to step back or reverse major changes in your design...

Making maps is a very time consuming task, since you're making tests all the time, specially everytime you introduce some major changes... so, using templates will help you to get a quick start. Then you can go into fine tuning introducing more detail into the scene...

[meshcarver 12]

Hey Robster,

Thanks man, some amazing info and ref in your post.

And no, I hadn't seen that particular wiki yet, so I'll give that a read when I get back from work tonight- cheers.

When you say the ground texture quality won't change, then how does it know over what area a, say, 1024x1024 tilable grassy/dirt ground texture should be over before it repeats, like every 1 meter/2:5 meter/5 meter..? Where is that defined or is it standard across islands..?

Thanks for the heads up mate...

[Robster 11]

erm, but do you think it really matters? just take your cell size as base for texture... for your chosen measures, you will have 10 sq.m. for each pixel at heights -which would be 2048 px- so, if:

mask size = 2048x2048 px size, then you will have 10 sq.meters of the same texture...

mask size = 4096x4096 px size, => 5 sq.m. with same texture

mask size = 20480x20480 px size, => 1 sq.m. same texture (I'm not sure if a mask of this size can be made)

Anyhow, I've never gotten worried about how ground tiles are displayed... sometime ago someone was asking about matching texture tileable floors with walls, but I did'nt pay so much attention to it, since the engine make a texture blending instead of overlapping textures so the only way to see abrupt cuts in ground occurs when there are more than 4 different textures in the same area... and that's pretty much because of an error than anything else...

saludos!

[max power 21]

I don't know the normal manipulation tools for Maya, but I know you can use them to create tight bevels with very little geometry. Usually if you take some geometry and bevel it once, you have the same number of vertex normals as a hard edge but really mushy lighting. If you take the vertex normals and make them perpendicular to the non-bevel faces, you get a nice, tight highlight and flat looking faces. Food for thought.

[meshcarver 12]

Hi chaps,

sorry, I think I've explained this in a really bad way..!

Basically, all's I was wondering is WHERE is it set from where you will tell the terrain how many times a tillable grass/soil ground texture (1024 x 1024 pixels say) will tile in say, 10 meters areas..?

So in a 10m x 10m area of ground, how to set the texture to tile say once or four times?

I hope this is clear- but do bear in mind I@m a complete Visitor newbie!!! ;)

Cheers fellas.

[Robster 11]

well, this has gone definitely off topic ... :p

but i'm gonna make an effort to understand you better...

when you define your mask_lco.png size as told you before, you can deal with ground texture measures... a 1 meter per pixel mask means a 1 meter ground texture... but if we consider overlapping boundaries, we won't be able to see the whole clean ground texture image in 1 meter, so we might need a bigger scale on mask anyways...

thus, to answer "how to set the texture to tile say once or four times?" in a given area, will involve a direct relation between mask size and terrain size...

in your example, about 10m x 10m area, we should be talking about 10.24 m x 10.24 m area to match pixels with integer numbers, since numbers can be divided, but a single pixel can't -by definition there are no quarks in CG :p- ... and we do not want any misplaced pixel (ground texture) right? riiiiiiiight?

so, in a terrain which is 1024 m x 1024 m with a mask file which is 1024x1024 pixels you will have 1 sq.m, ground texture... if you want the same texture four times bigger for the same piece of ground, then your mask file should be 256x256 pixels... and then you could start to notice some sort of low res ground... but I am not sure about this, since I've never made a test like that... why don't you give it a try and then you come to tell us all about your findings? perhaps you might notice the same texture size on it and then conclude that these measurement concerns could be properly related to texture base layer in projects parameters or "clutter grid" value in terrain's config.cpp

I'm not sure if this is a proper answer to what you want to know... I remember that Mondkalb was worried about something like this sometime ago, but I couldn't understand what was the problem then as it seems that I can't understand it now... sorry...

anyways, I assume that you already know what mask_lco.png file is, and how to deal with it, using layers.cfg file, etc... if you don't, perhaps you should be reading something else...

Edited September 6, 2012 by Robster

[meshcarver 12]

Hi Robster,

Aye man, thanks for your advice about this and it does make it more clear to me.

I reckon I might aswell hold off on the terrain questions for now, as I'm going to model all the buildings/objects first and then start on the terrain when they're finished.

I'm not as read about the subject of terrain now as I should be, but I have done the Mondkalb tutorial so have a grasp on the process.

So all in all, right now, I'll just concentrate on the O2 side of things mate..!!!

Thanks again,

Marc