ARMA 3 base terrain textures WORSE than the original Operation Flashpoint

[NordKindchen 12]

@NordKindchen

Would you be willing to create a ticket on the feedback tracker concerning this issue? Your understanding of the system seems quite good and your suggestions for possible solutions are the most in depth.

I think many people realize there is a problem, but not everyone understands where it stems from so it is hard to write a good ticket up.

Thank you for your trust^^ On your request I will add a ticket for this - but ""Sandbox player"" needs to put the feedback tracker link into the first post then - so it all stays together=)

You can await the ticket soon - but for the moment I will continue learning since I write an important test on thursday.^^

Best regards!

[xer0x 1]

Holy shit could you please share your color profiles so that I can try that out?! It looks great!

yep

ArmA 2 OA

http://www.mediafire.com/?up58gy48y2yvhue

ArmA 3

http://www.mediafire.com/?ow95uuo9jqj8d4p

[bristow 1]

If you are using nvidia cards, read this thread and give these drivers a go. They have better colour balance in game.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=375670

[-Coulum- 35]

Thank you for your trust^^ On your request I will add a ticket for this - but ""Sandbox player"" needs to put the feedback tracker link into the first post then - so it all stays together=)

You can await the ticket soon - but for the moment I will continue learning since I write an important test on thursday.^^

Best regards!

Thanks! I will be looking out for it.

[r3volution 0]

After reading through the whole of this thread I'm glad to see that amongst the two billion people who reminded us that it's an alpha, are some people who really understand the nature of the issue. Having played the Arma series since the first game (OFP was before my time) this has been a constant issue. Particularly given that as someone pointed out the way the AI works means that 90% of the engagements take place at the midrange where the engine seems to look worst. Landtex did amazing things to fix up Arma2 but the problem is still definitely there in Arma3. As Nordkindchen pointed out it's a little frustrating as a player to have the game look so absolutely amazing at short/long range and yet just kind of morph into blurry crap in the midrange. Even if there's no hope of a new rendering addition which concentrates on the 100-500m range, some work on the ground textures would be great. Also a little work to harmonise the texture colours on trees and vegetation between distances.

So if anyone puts up a feedback issue on this I'm looking out for it and will vote!

Edit: Also creating a feedback issue about the mismatch in colour between the tree LOD textures would probably not be a terrible idea either.

Also if Dwarden could pull some strings that would be great! ;)

Edited March 12, 2013 by r3volution

[Placebo 29]

yep

ArmA 2 OA

http://www.mediafire.com/?up58gy48y2yvhue

ArmA 3

http://www.mediafire.com/?ow95uuo9jqj8d4p

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[NordKindchen 12]

@Placebo

Yesterday it worked.

Here is the Arma 3 file. I didnt download the Arma 2 OA file though.

But somehow SweetFX wont work for my Arma 3 - even though I disabled Antialiasing.

If you get it running - maybe you could help me with that;)

Best regards

[NordKindchen 12]

I am working on a complex feature tracker entrance regarding this topic.

Included will be different suggestions for solutions with a comparison of advantages and drawbacks especially for performance, suggested delevopment time, adaptability for different graphic options and graphical quality.

This will take some time^^

But be prepared:P

[Scoggs 1]

I am working on a complex feature tracker entrance regarding this topic.

Included will be different suggestions for solutions with a comparison of advantages and drawbacks especially for performance, suggested delevopment time, adaptability for different graphic options and graphical quality.

This will take some time^^

But be prepared:P

Thank you!

[twistking 204]

I am working on a complex feature tracker entrance regarding this topic.

Cool. Thanks!

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Btw: They arent even that crisp! They only did a really good job with contrast and highlights in the textures

Actualy I realy dislike the level of contrast they use. I find it over the top and very unreal, actualy closer to sureal.

But from an artistic/game perspective I recognise how it could be used to psycologicaly blur interface issues. Adding a slightly dream like quality without actualy implying a dream helps blur the gap between player and screen, aiding in suspension of disbelief. Cute, but not to my taste.

Anyway thank you for disecting the issue and I look forward to seeing it in the tracker.

[-Coulum- 35]

I am working on a complex feature tracker entrance regarding this topic.

Included will be different suggestions for solutions with a comparison of advantages and drawbacks especially for performance, suggested delevopment time, adaptability for different graphic options and graphical quality.

This will take some time^^

But be prepared:P

Sounds great, thanks. Take all the time you need.

[tremanarch 6]

@Placebo

Yesterday it worked.

Here is the Arma 3 file. I didnt download the Arma 2 OA file though.

But somehow SweetFX wont work for my Arma 3 - even though I disabled Antialiasing.

If you get it running - maybe you could help me with that;)

Best regards

it works but fraps must be disabled. and the preset was trotally oversaturated and over sharpened. looks not so good ingame. ifiddled a bit with it buti like armas natural look.

that oversharpened look is great when standing in the sun or so but not all the time..

I made some screenies with my own tuned down fx.

and btw:

Originally Posted by NordKindchen

I am working on a complex feature tracker entrance regarding this topic.

thx man!

[MasterDon 10]

I hope to see some sort of improvement as well, but I do not see any real graphics issues. Any updates on terrain detail whilst keeping the resource usage low is welcome to me.

[Rich_R 1087]

Urm.....Its an Alpha folks.....

While I'm glad this has been brought up ow with PLENTY of time to be fixed.....lets give them the chance to fix it........................

[johncage 30]

fractal noise overlay applied to the texture because of its randomness, natural organic spacing, and accommodation for scale differences.

[tremanarch 6]

and Einstein-Heisenberg Shadows? ;)

I am all for ideas but arent fractals not so CPU intensive?

[mrcash2009 0]

Urm.....Its an Alpha folks.....

Tourette syndrome in this forum is strong.

Ever since Landtex mod came out http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?84082-LandTex-Texture-replacement-for-Chernarus - for Chernarus, I could not go back to vanilla at all, the difference was amazing.

So as much as people do keep saying it will change, it must be pushed to BI and the feedback section using this example becuase I know for a fact that every release this texture grid layer was never "fixed" it was pretty much it. How this is effected in new update engine and also map size only BI can say, but if there's room for a mod improvement, it was an issue in the past and was dealt with via a mod.

Edited March 13, 2013 by mrcash2009

[10t 12]

Hmm. I turned up everything to Ultra, and I'm actually pleased by what I saw. It seems there is a sort of 'detail' overlay (quite faint, but definitely there), which makes things much nicer to look at.

You can see HERE (that's at about 250m) that things are actually much better than they ever were in A2 (be sure to maximise it to 2560x1440 - it's not as good when the browser downsamples it). And HERE at a longer range (600m?).

The crisper edges of the faux-random pattern makes units stand out a lot less than before. For reference, HERE it is, unscoped.

Edited March 13, 2013 by 10T

[scajolly 14]

I would have to strongly support the notion that excessively blurry textures appear in the medium range. It is also moot to say that this shouldn't be said because it's an Alpha, so I've disregarded those comments. It has been a recurring problem throughout the series, particularly since Arma I, but there during OFP in one regard or another. It is something that should receive a lot more attention from the developers, since - as has been pointed out - both near and far are coming together very neatly. Medium range, the game looks like 2001, as aged as, but more visible than, many other aspects of the game.

[tremanarch 6]

what could be done is maybe increase grass range or bush count. but u cant change the way the engine works.

my idea was low poly grass in 100-400 m

or a texture overlay. or higher landtextures if thats possible

[NeMeSiS 11]

Hmm. I turned up everything to Ultra, and I'm actually pleased by what I saw. It seems there is a sort of 'detail' overlay (quite faint, but definitely there), which makes things much nicer to look at.

You can see HERE (that's at about 250m) that things are actually much better than they ever were in A2 (be sure to maximise it to 2560x1440 - it's not as good when the browser downsamples it). And HERE at a longer range (600m?).

The crisper edges of the faux-random pattern makes units stand out a lot less than before. For reference, HERE it is, unscoped.

Unfortunately the grass is still tied to the terrain setting, so few people can turn it to ultra.

[NordKindchen 12]

So here is finally my elaboration regarding this theme.

Its quite long - and I think this one time it will be ok to even open another thread for this elaboration. So here is the link towards the new thread.

And dont be scared by the size of the following^^ I tried to visualize as much as I could with pictures.

I also opened a new Forum Tracker Entrance

DONT FORGET TO VOTE

Best regards

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mid range textures are -sadly- very bad

Introduction

Arma 3's graphics have evolved a lot compared to its predeccessor. The close up environment looks really nice and thanks to the satelite image the world is made of, the far distance can convince even more!

Nice_ExamplePic_1

Nice_ExamplePic_2

Nice_ExamplePic_3

Nice_ExamplePic_4

Nice_ExamplePic_5

Nice_ExamplePic_6

Sadly..whilst the visual quality from close and far distance got crucial improvements, the mid range distance was left out completey . I can yet assure you that they used the same texture for the later explained midrange_texture as in Takistan!

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_1

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_2

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_3

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_4

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_5

Sadly_Bad_ExamplePic_6

This results in a very inconsistent look. But the worst is, as Arma veterans know, that that distance is the main engagement range!

There are allready lots of people aware of it and complaining about this issue. Most information can be found here: here.

However I'm here to write down a rundown and several wenn conceived suggestions. I will even deliever some example pics of how the suggested fixing method could be accomplished and brought into a work flow.

Explanation of the current system and why its not satisfying.

The current system shall be explained by the example of Stratis.

Overall/long range

The whole map consists of a very big satelite image. Its consists of 1024px*1024px*64 pieces creating a satelite image of 8192px*8192px. Each 1024px in length and width is approximately 1km.

I created an image to illustrate this.

This means we've got a resolution of about 1px/m. In other words - our smallest detail on the map is about 1m² size.

Closeups

Now if this would be all the engine does we would be having blurry textures everywhere! Even at the closest distance.

So to refurbish the close environment there is a radius of, lets say, 50 meters around you where the satelite map is overdrawn by a close up textures.

But these close up textures are generic. This means they are basically small tileable textures which are being put together infinitesimally. You just don't get to see that because they are under your feet and most of the time hidden by foliage etc.

So how does the game know where on the map it shall put road textures, where sand and where gras?

Here is the place where the logic_map comes into play! This mechanism will be important for my suggestions to fix the blurry mid range textures!

The logic map its basically a "map over the map" which defines where to put which texture in closeups. Each colour stands for a different texture kind, like red for grass for example.

Mid Range

The mid range is basically the satelite image - thats the reason why it appears so blurred. (Keep in mind: the resolution is about 1px/m.)

Now the Devs thought about a way to give the blurry midrange a bit crisp by putting a texture over those areas.

Thats the midrange_texture I spoke about earlier. As I said, its even the exact same as they used in Takistan OA. (That alone is not a bad thing - the texture for itself is pretty good. If a desert texture was the right texture to choose for Stratis it would be another story)

What the engine does is the following: The midrange texture overlays the blurry environment at midrange.(midrange_texture the original texture used in Arma2 OA and in Arma 3 just blurred to death because I dont want to give away non-official BI-data - in reality its sharp as s***t)

To make you understand this better I made a few examples for you:

1.image: Original Arma 3 pic

2.image: Arma 3 how it would look without this midrange_texture

3.image: The exact midrange_texture put ontop of the second image via photoshop

As you see, its very close to the "quick photoshop remade". So its basically a simple overlay from the engine.

The problem with this overlay is that this texture is the same for the whole map at mid distance. If one texture reaches over different colour patterns, as it is the case, it doesnt look natural at all! The solution is to introduce different details on different colours. Basically like yellow := sand details, green := gras details

Some other processes to sum this up

Of course there are also several normal and bumpmap maps applied to close range textures.

This is the basic scheme in which the engine renders the game. The wohle process of objectsrendering, lightning etc. is placed on top of it

Suggestions for Solutions

There are basically two ways to increase the mid range detail.

First the "bad one". Bad because it has more drawbacks than the second one.

Solution_1: Increase the size of the satmap

This is the simpliest solution to this problem but comes in with a whole lot of problems.

But first the advantages:

Advantages

The advantages are simple. You get more px/m so you get more details. Basic math. Also this will render the different distances EVEN BETTER.

This would of course be the way to go if there was no performance hit and if you had all the manpower youd want. You could draw infinite special details on every part of the island and it would look great - if the resolution was big enoug.

Disadvantages

1.A goddamn whole lot of work....Increasing the detail enough to make it count will be a huge amount of work and basically means recreating Stratis (and probably Altis) since the satelite layer resolution is likely to be final after the first creation of the map.

2. Every detail would require to be painted individually making the progress even more time consuming.

3. perhaps not even feasible to increase the satmap resolution enough while still keeping the game playable.

4. Since Arma is 32bit it wont profit from much RAM - therefore this will be even more performance intense. This means there must be a solution for lower Res PCs - maybe this could be achieved by differently resoluted satmaps. But maybe not since the satmap currently is saved in a non compressing procedure.

Since these are a lot of disadvantages I spent a lot of time thinking about another solution. And I think I found one!

Solution_2: Creating a logic layer and corresponding textures for the mid range

This solution is based on a system that is allready integrated into the game. BIs is allready using this, as already described (close distance).

A step into the future would be to implement this system into the mid range rendering, with a bit of adaptations though.

Operating Principle:

Instead of having ONE midrange_texture - implement MANY DIFFERENT mid range textures just like in closeups.

This way each different ground type will get its very own details.

Each applied texture must not exceed a certain texture size. The texture must be tileable.

The satmap texture will then be overlayed with the new midrange patterns which are tiled as often as needed.

Dependant on the Mid_range_logicmap the related texture will be chosen and placed onto the satmap. Quite as in closeups, only that instead of a complete ground texture with normal maps etc, the chosen textures will only be an overlay.

Thereoretically its the same system as now, only you use different textures for the different grounds.

To visualize this to you I made a few example pics. (As shown above - the technique to produce this images is very similar to the enigne procedure. The result will be quite similar)

1. This is the original picture.

2. This is the picture how it would look without any mid range texture.

3. And this is my vision of how it could look.

4. This is the "logic map" that I created to achieve the shown results

Pls keep in mind that this is a quick mashup, the end result could look even better! Of course there is room for optmization but I think the current results are allready positive.

To keep the process as close as possible to the engines procedures I worked as follows:

1. I blurred the ground to create the second picture

2. Then I chose specific colours of the image with the "wizards tool" to determine the thresholds

3. After that I downloaded several textures from cgtextures.com and made a tileable texture for each colour of the logic map.

4. Now I created a big picture out of one texture (basically like this) and overlayed it with the satmap where the colour fits.

5. I repeated this for every texture and looked at the result.

This is how the engine would work too! So its actually representative.

Here is the same example for a longer range:

1. Original_pic

2. My vision of how it should look

3. Logic map

The system for creating the logic map can be automated: MatLab for example has a feature that can do exactly this.

The system is easyly scaleable - for example: If you want to redo the current system - just fill the whole logic_map with one colour and connect it to the current texture. Or if you need smaller textures for different graphic options - relatively easy to implement.

Additionally the system can deliever plenty of special details for unique environments. Just put a special colour into the logic_map and create a unique texture just for that special part on the island.

It should be relatively easy to implement since you allready have a similar system working, it is not completely from scratch.

Once implemented you could in fact let others do the job for you if you haven't got enough manpower to implement it completely on your own. I would be willing to put much effort into the textures for the better of the community. Just ask^^

You could even implement it and still keep the current midrange_texture, meaning that the work effort could be stopped at any point if required.

Performance wise it shouldn't be that much of a hit since the textures will be tileable and the logic_map only needs to obtain the integrated colours. This means it can be an indexed picture, reducing the data and workload even more.

Ontop of that: Nobody even needs to have a performance hit with it since they can stick with the current system by disabling the logic_map - just keep it as "low setting" in the options.

I bet your artists will be eager to implement details in mid range;) I am sure they would love that!

Even the workflow is simple to use and ontop its even a workflow you are allready used to! This minimizes errors for you!

Of course there is still some work related to this. But as I explained it is most flexible. You could stop the work as soon as the functions are integrated and before even one new texture was drawn.

Of course there could be an impact on performance too but since its so easy adjustable, its not really such big a disadvantage since every one can choose to switch it off.

Advantages

1. looks much better than the current texture at midrange

2. relatively easy to implement due to present mid range overlay. BI is already halfway there!

3. perfectly scaleable with hardware capabilities, just make an option to enable the current texture or to lower the resolution of the midrange overlay textures

4. great accessability for modders

5. perfectly scaleable with dev effort, integrate the logic map functionality and leave there rest to the modders, no need to put many person-hours at stake!

6. can be partly automated

7. can also be used for further customization of the map, specific accents could be set in certain locations for a unique look

8. the workflow is well known, no surprises to be expected

Disadvantages

1. still, one more work package to be funded

2. possible performace hit

The mid range is one of those very few things that don't look wonderful in Arma3. For all I know the second suggestion is quite cheap and very effective.

To be honest, I don't think that anyone should release a first person simulation with texture pixels of 1m² size in 2013, those times are long gone.

Edited March 14, 2013 by NordKindchen

[10t 12]

I approve of the above post a whole lot. Top work.

[sqb-sma 66]

I approve of the above post a whole lot. Top work.

Adding my voice to this, that's a darn good system.

How does this compare to adding a noise map? Is it the same thing with a different name or something else entirely?

Many games recently have been adding noise maps to textures at a distance that's in between LODs. It seems to work very well (see War Thunder)