ArmA, view distance and the curvature of Earth

[Kamov 1]

It would be nice, because there is nothing innovative in ArmA3 at the moment.

[maddogx 13]

If VBS2 has this, I think AIII should have it too. I think it would add to simulation, not to mention think of marketing value of writing "the first civilian FPS to have curvature of Earth modeled". :) This should help convey just how enormous is the scale AIII is being done at.

It makes more sense in VBS2 because the maps are much larger and the sim features actual naval warfare - however, it is only implemented as client-side a visual effect achieved through calculations in the vertex shader. Nothing in the simulation is truly affected by it. Actually curving the map as you suggested would be much, much more complicated (which is the main reason why no one has done it yet).

So basically the only thing it would achieve in Arma3 would be having ships disappear over the horizon at about 7-8km distance. If you happen to be standing on the beach looking at them through binoculars, I'm sure it would be spectacular... for about 10 seconds. All the while, the extra calculations in the vertex shader would be eating performance that could be better used elsewhere - all the time.

Really, other than the "bragging rights" you and Kamov mentioned, I don't see the point.

Edited October 30, 2012 by MadDogX

[Kamov 1]

It makes more sense in VBS2 because the maps are much larger and the sim features actual naval warfare - however, it is only implemented as client-side a visual effect achieved through calculations in the vertex shader. Nothing in the simulation is truly affected by it. Actually curving the map as you suggested would be much, much more complicated (which is the main reason why no one has done it yet).

So basically the only thing it would achieve in Arma3 would be having ships disappear over the horizon at about 7-8km distance. If you happen to be standing on the beach looking at them through binoculars, I'm sure it would be spectacular... for about 10 seconds. All the while, the extra calculations in the vertex shader would be eating performance that could be better used elsewhere - all the time.

Really, other than the "bragging rights" you and Kamov mentioned, I don't see the point.

Immersion, every little bit counts and our hardware is more then enough to handle it.

[Covert_Death 11]

Immersion, every little bit counts and our hardware is more then enough to handle it.

???? no its not lol! our hardware is barely ever enough to keep up with the ArmA series and a performance hit like that that adds NO noticeable improvement or value to the game is just dumb. our hardware would be enough if this were COD or BF3 but its not and EVERY single FPS counts and only valueable or noticable things should be added if they take away from our FPS.

ya'll are crazy haahah!!! you say it ads to realism but this is something that no one would even NOTICE. it would be in the notes somewhere that "the map is curved" and you would be all excited and happy but wouldn't notice a damn thing. you guys realize the horizon is really only noticeable at sea and in this game we will not be a sea, we will be at MOST a few miles off shore. nobody walks around IRL noticing the curvature of the earth and no one is going to notice it in game. hell it took humanity up until recently in our existence to even REALIZE the earth was curved.

and to the fisheye suggestion. no because if you increase fisheye lense with height EVERYTHING will be affected, not just the earth, if a plane is flying at you and your both 30k feet up, your both gonna look really fuked up to eachother... NO NO NO

LOOK if curvature is important to you, you must realize this... the ONLYYYYY way you would EVERRRRR notice the horizon would be out on sea in this game. and i don't think you will be looking 20km out to sea, from sea. thats just stupid. the terrain of the island is so varied with mountains and huge hills that the horizon is pointless. you WILL see something in your sight line before you see the horizon on this map.

and to whoever said this adds to immersion please think about what your saying. it would actually take away from immersion by eating my FPS. the smoother the footage on my screen the more realistic it feels, you can add immersion but if it ends up eating 5-10 FPS overall its going to look MUCH less immersive.

now. can we agree this idea is pointless???????

Edited October 30, 2012 by Covert_Death

[maddogx 13]

now. can we agree this idea is pointless???????

Everyone agreeing on the internet... now that would be something. ;)

I myself wouldn't even say it's "pointless", just "not worth the effort". As stated before, costs vs. benefits etc.

Of course, if they can just pinch the vertex shader stuff from VBS2, or if writing their own wouldn't take too much time (come to think of it, I think even I would manage some primitive version of it, at least in GLSL) and if the performance impact from the calculations would be negligable, or otherwise if it was simply optional... then sure, why not implement it. But that's still a lot of "if"s. :D

[Sabot And Heat 10]

I'm not sure why earth curvature in Arma is considered so PC shattering.

Doesnt VBS have earth curvature?

I can tell you that the computers the U.S. Army uses are far less powerful than your average home PC. With that being said, they all run at a functional level of playability or the Army wouldnt use them to train soldiers.

[NeMeSiS 11]

So basically the only thing it would achieve in Arma3 would be having ships disappear over the horizon at about 7-8km distance. If you happen to be standing on the beach looking at them through binoculars, I'm sure it would be spectacular... for about 10 seconds.

This. Just this thread took more of your attention than this feature ever would, how the hell did it even get to 4 pages?

[narwall14 1]

because some people want it and some people don't

[Kamov 1]

???? no its not lol! our hardware is barely ever enough to keep up with the ArmA series and a performance hit like that that adds NO noticeable improvement or value to the game is just dumb. our hardware would be enough if this were COD or BF3 but its not and EVERY single FPS counts and only valueable or noticable things should be added if they take away from our FPS.

ya'll are crazy haahah!!! you say it ads to realism but this is something that no one would even NOTICE. it would be in the notes somewhere that "the map is curved" and you would be all excited and happy but wouldn't notice a damn thing. you guys realize the horizon is really only noticeable at sea and in this game we will not be a sea, we will be at MOST a few miles off shore. nobody walks around IRL noticing the curvature of the earth and no one is going to notice it in game. hell it took humanity up until recently in our existence to even REALIZE the earth was curved.

and to the fisheye suggestion. no because if you increase fisheye lense with height EVERYTHING will be affected, not just the earth, if a plane is flying at you and your both 30k feet up, your both gonna look really fuked up to eachother... NO NO NO

LOOK if curvature is important to you, you must realize this... the ONLYYYYY way you would EVERRRRR notice the horizon would be out on sea in this game. and i don't think you will be looking 20km out to sea, from sea. thats just stupid. the terrain of the island is so varied with mountains and huge hills that the horizon is pointless. you WILL see something in your sight line before you see the horizon on this map.

and to whoever said this adds to immersion please think about what your saying. it would actually take away from immersion by eating my FPS. the smoother the footage on my screen the more realistic it feels, you can add immersion but if it ends up eating 5-10 FPS overall its going to look MUCH less immersive.

now. can we agree this idea is pointless???????

Our hardware is fine, the software however...

[Covert_Death 11]

the software needs plenty of optimization, yes. BUT the pure SCALE of arma is going to cripple current hardware no matter how optimized it is

[AAD10 Pete 10]

curvature of Earth?

The last thing A3 developpers should invest their time for...

[Kamov 1]

the software needs plenty of optimization, yes. BUT the pure SCALE of arma is going to cripple current hardware no matter how optimized it is

Ironically ArmA does not simulate much at all. Most of it is "Press TAB to win".

[maddogx 13]

Most of it is "Press TAB to win".

That's just one particular broken gameplay mechanic; doesn't have much to do with the simulation on the whole.

Ironically ArmA does not simulate much at all.

Patently false, but I'm willing to bet you know that all too well. ;)

[Kamov 1]

That's just one particular broken gameplay mechanic; doesn't have much to do with the simulation on the whole.

Patently false, but I'm willing to bet you know that all too well. ;)

Yes it does, it cuts down on the amount of simulation they have to do. Wind etc is not even touched. Its a very simple game, its just overly complex and clunky controls that only let you do 1 thing at once.

[dragon01 902]

You forgot fatigue, realistic weapon range and ballistics, functionality of most of the equipment being modeled... The list goes on. Wind is about the only missing thing. Vehicles are more or less broken, that's right, and TAB targeting is the worst example, but ArmA is, first and foremost an infantry tactics sim.

It makes more sense in VBS2 because the maps are much larger and the sim features actual naval warfare - however, it is only implemented as client-side a visual effect achieved through calculations in the vertex shader. Nothing in the simulation is truly affected by it. Actually curving the map as you suggested would be much, much more complicated (which is the main reason why no one has done it yet).

Just how big VBS maps are exactly? ArmA III has been said to have at least 100x100km maps. I'd expect VBS 2.0 to run on similar scale. Also, ArmA III might feature naval warfare (at least, I hope it will). I don't think it'll be quite on Harpoon's level, but we know that naval aspect is going to be expanded. Seems like a good reason to implement Earth's curvature, even as just a shader effect.

[maddogx 13]

ArmA III has been said to have at least 100x100km maps.

I don't know where you heard this, but it's not correct. Arma3's Limnos is supposed to be ~300km² pure landmass, most likely on a 400km² map (that's 20x20km). Stratis is significantly smaller.

As for VBS2, I'm pretty sure I've read about it featuring 100x100km maps - that's 10,000km², more than an order of magnitude larger than the largest Arma maps.

[wipman 1]

Hi, i really miss the point of this discussion... on the ArmA2 i had a ViewDistance of 3000m, and the vehicles, objects and trees used to dissapear (and their effects) at something like 2600m; my computer had problems to set the VD this far, it was 100% unplayable with a VD of 10.000m. The ArmA3 sure that gonna be more complex in objects and world, so... no matter how much they optimize it that it won't move right with a high detail if you've the VD at more than 3000 or 5000 in the best case.

Effects as tracers, even from tanks or planes, dissapeared of the screen between 600 to 1000m depending on the kind; why simulate the Earth's curvature when you can't even have a tracers effect beyond the 600m? or set a VD that matches the human eye one!?, as some said we don't even have wind, neither temperature, pressure, humidity or height. I wouldn't worry about the Earth's curvature. Let's C ya

[Droikka 1]

Hi, i really miss the point of this discussion... on the ArmA2 i had a ViewDistance of 3000m, and the vehicles, objects and trees used to dissapear (and their effects) at something like 2600m; my computer had problems to set the VD this far, it was 100% unplayable with a VD of 10.000m. The ArmA3 sure that gonna be more complex in objects and world, so... no matter how much they optimize it that it won't move right with a high detail if you've the VD at more than 3000 or 5000 in the best case.

Effects as tracers, even from tanks or planes, dissapeared of the screen between 600 to 1000m depending on the kind; why simulate the Earth's curvature when you can't even have a tracers effect beyond the 600m? or set a VD that matches the human eye one!?, as some said we don't even have wind, neither temperature, pressure, humidity or height. I wouldn't worry about the Earth's curvature. Let's C ya

Direct X 11 is the answer to most problems with VD. Light sources can be pretty much visible all the time at any distance for ArmA 3 is getting deferred shading 99% probability at launch. The technology on RV 3 is based on an ancient code, most of it originates from OPFLASH.

Therefore I believe in BIS getting much more out of the engine for they had to recode the engine for it to run on DX 11.

[maddogx 13]

ArmA 3 is getting deferred shading 99% probability at launch.

Where is all this false info coming from? The percentage is the other way around: the chances for deferred shading at launch are 99% against. (Source)

[Droikka 1]

Where is all this false info coming from? The percentage is the other way around: the chances for deferred shading at launch are 99% against. (Source)

Cool, I stand corrected.

[Kamov 1]

Where is all this false info coming from? The percentage is the other way around: the chances for deferred shading at launch are 99% against. (Source)

Thats unfortunate considering they've been delaying it.. albeit for nothing apparently.

[Minoza 11]

We could probably expect that in a bigger DLC (like OA) or maybe even in a later patch for Arma 3.

[max power 21]

I think that unless the curvature of the earth was accomplished with some kind of shader effect, gravity would start to get a little complicated. If calculating gravity in more than one direction needs even one more cpu cycle, I would say it's not worth it for that fact alone, never mind wasting developer time on it.

[maddogx 13]

Thats unfortunate considering they've been delaying it.. albeit for nothing apparently.

PhysX 3.

[dekster 1]

I think (in future games) where the view distance goes even more up, the curvature of the earth should be implemented to make drawing objects in distance easier.

(needles to say you won't see them anymore then)