Suggestion: Could we get a little bit more 'life' in the world

[tremanarch 6]

Battlefield 3 - excuse the reference - but is doing in this sector a good and tricky job, with easy tricks it seems:

they let the trees shake (too much in my eyes, but a little more seems nice), and they have some sand / dust swirling. Next is the cloud shadows! its just a cosmetic effect but it brings life to a once static map.

Also bf3 uses some neat texture artists so their mid range Sat maps looks still kind of good (cannot be seen in this video though) - while armas sat map is really good, it must look good at night and day! it could mayybe use a little improvement.

There is no shame in looking how bf3 does it - whene theres one little thing that bf does great - even if it failed in the other parts of the game compared to my arma experience.

--

btw I like the fauna in ArmA 3!! snakes, rabbits, birds etc really cool! that kind of stuff I like!

[NordKindchen 12]

Indeed - thats something I miss too.

And even if BF3 is a hated word - what it does well is the graphics side.

And there can be much learned from that.

[gossamersolid 155]

It does more on the graphics side because it has nothing to do on the processing side compared to ArmA.

[Crierd 24]

Indeed - thats something I miss too.

And even if BF3 is a hated word - what it does well is the graphics side.

And there can be much learned from that.

Acronym, not a word ;)

I agree though, subtle features like this make games really come to life.

[kilroy the nerd 14]

I think bigger, more notable wildlife certainly helps the quite countryside a great outdoors feel. BTW, we already have snakes (not playable) and playable rabbits, as well as doves when you die. But birds playable outside of death like falcons or something would be cool.

[Bee8190 10]

After watching that video one surely realize that some of these effects would make the battlefields more alive. +1

Ps more underwater stuff too

[rehtus777 10]

BF3 looks nice, but keep in mind that their maps are tiny compared to ArmA sandbox maps. Also, the clouds in BF3 are hokie / fake....they don't even move. I think in a couple of their latest maps, the low clouds are finally moving, but the high clouds are painted in the sky on every outdoor map.

[tortuosit 486]

"Life" could also mean "not that empty houses" and "civilians". Yes, performance side. But currently Arma maps have that kind of postapocalyptic flair with just the soldiers...

[tremanarch 6]

i know bf3 maps are tiny, I didnt play it for a year. but the effects arent so hard to make i guess. lets take the dust.

maybe thats just a small particle effect that only the client sees. must not be synced. can just ahppen more often when on sand and less when on grass. just a little shader effect how thats called.

the trees is another thing. lets just move the leafes left / right / not the tree or it must get synced.

and the grass can move a little too. cloud shadows i dont really need, but on some circumstances (many clouds) why not? its just a little eye candy :)

bf3 doesnt sync everything. some stuff could just be rendered client side. if theres no dust doesnt matter is there is a small dust doesnt matter. just eye candy.

[metalcraze 290]

In OA there was a module Environment - Effects which added dust, mist, snow depending on the date and time of date with a configurable intensity. I'm certain they will bring it back here.

Trees were also shaking in ArmA2 when there was wind. So is grass. Setting a wind force to max in ArmA2 looked almost like a hurricane was inbound. And in Arma3 there's now a slider for that.

And remember that because maps of BF3 are so tiny and in addition to that they have the every annoying "get back or die" they can slap more fake detail on backgrounds because you simply can't go there and see how badly drawn it in fact is. There was a video on youtube where a dude managed to leave boundaries and he encountered sprite 2D trees from mid90s that were always facing him as he moved.

Of course BIS can always improve ground texture by making it more hi-res. Unless of course that was already the limit of a satellite camera and there's no better offering for Stratis.

In any case it has always been like that. You get a tiny map with some good looking pre-rendered+fake tricks backdrop or you get an open world. Although IMO Stratis easily dumps many BF3 2D backdrops as long as you are not running it at 1km viewdistance.

Edited March 8, 2013 by metalcraze

[QuiteFranklyMyMaN 1]

Also add predators to the map, snakes, gators, lions, bears, spiders, camel spiders, aliens, wild dogs, wolves, etc. All the stuff found in real life.

[bad benson 1733]

maybe thats just a small particle effect that only the client sees. must not be synced. can just ahppen more often when on sand and less when on grass. just a little shader effect how thats called.

the trees is another thing. lets just move the leafes left / right / not the tree or it must get synced.

and the grass can move a little too. cloud shadows i dont really need, but on some circumstances (many clouds) why not? its just a little eye candy

and that's the beauty of arma!

almost everything you described is already there. don't forget that arma is a simulation. unlike battlefield 3 the environment of arma isn't just a map with specific effects. what you describe are the default settings of the editor. which are clear weather and no wind. there is a little cloud symbol in the editor. click that. in that menu you can crank up the wind with a slider. this will influence how much trees and grass move. you can also influence overcast which will result in a totally different atmosphere.

the dust effect is something that can be added to a mission via the sandstorm function (or with a user made script). things like that are optional in arma to allow a lot of possibilities instead of one specific setting.

cloud shadows are something that i think isn't there because those are dynamic volumetric clouds. i think would take too much resources to calculate shadows for those. not sure about that though. although cloud shadows would be cool you should not forget what you get instead. bf3 is tiny compared to arma. and arma is much more dynamic and flexible. i gladly trade those things for some shiny effects.

in arma it depends more on how well a mission is made and how the whole thing is set up. don't judge it by a few missions you played or the default editor settings. the possibilities are unlimited (except for maybe cloud shadows:p)

[NordKindchen 12]

Good word Bad Bensen=)

Even if I think that cloud shadows COULD be implemented^^

But for the time - how about we gather together what there COULD be implemented to increase the live on Stratis.

I have to say that wild life will be to hard to implement if it gets bigger - since you would have to implement fitting animations (huuuge work for sth you barely see) otherwise it would look pretty 2000century and dull. + You need to get an AI for them to work or it just feels more UNALIVE.

Also - in real life you barely get to see anything bigger than a rabbit. Wolves? Where?^^ Ok - some bambies maybe - but then again - rarely and that would be very hard to implement.

But what I think would fit well are sheeps! And cows. These are moving slowly and rather undynamic - also they were allready made for Arma 2 - so its no start from the sketch.

1. Little wind hoses.

2. Flying debris

3. Flying leaves

4. cows

5. sheep herds

6. little ufos flying over stratis at night

7.cloud shadows:P

8. moving things at houses in the towns.

9. clothing lines in towns or at little houses

10. some light and dust rays in towns - only decent pls

11. moving spider webs in certain places.

12. little dust clouds

13. little birds like black birds or sparrows. They dont need to be well modelled. But little birds flying around in little groups - flying away if someone comes close (so you dont see them up close) that would add a lot.

14. ants on the ground

And so on - any more ideas of yours?

Best regards!

[johncage 30]

ants on the ground....lmao

fyi, there's a pollen effect in one of the showcase missions(might be scuba). in terms of dust...arma 3's particle system sucks. there i said it. very poorly optimized. if we would have any environmental effects they'll have to be sprite based. which wouldn't be half bad actually. i'm sure that's how they did the pollens.

[lugiahua 26]

ah...some of you seems unaware the previous titles.

In ArmA2, there were tons of civilians and animals wandering on the map, even with civilian helos and boats around

During firefight around settlements, you have to carefully id fleeing civilians from the enemy.

btw...my favorite Arma2 trailer was the CDF one....good time (awesome part starts from 0:55)

Edited March 11, 2013 by Lugiahua

[Winfernal 2]

Sure. You can add lots of cool stuff, but you also have to sacrifice performance. This is not like Battlefield, they're not optimizing the game for small linear maps for 32 players. It is about balancing.

[calin_banc 19]

If you can't run it now, you turn that setting off and you'll run it later. Understand people, if someone would make a game with visuals and gameplay to cater for as many PC/gamers as possible, then we would still be playing on old OFP graphics, physics, animations, AI and stuff. You want evolution or not? :)

[WhiteArcticFox 1]

And remember that because maps of BF3 are so tiny and in addition to that they have the every annoying "get back or die" they can slap more fake detail on backgrounds because you simply can't go there and see how badly drawn it in fact is. There was a video on youtube where a dude managed to leave boundaries and he encountered sprite 2D trees from mid90s that were always facing him as he moved.

That happens even within the map boundaries.

@OP Though aren't most of those things in the game already?

[fragmachine 12]

I think there's not enought birds on Straits, dozens of little birds flying there and here would give more lifelike look.

Cloud shadows would look beautiful but would kill every rig.

Also tree branches and bushes explosion shake would be nice.

[Rak 0]

ah...some of you seems unaware the previous titles.

In ArmA2, there were tons of civilians and animals wandering on the map, even with civilian helos and boats around

During firefight around settlements, you have to carefully id fleeing civilians from the enemy.

btw...my favorite Arma2 trailer was the CDF one....good time (awesome part starts from 0:55)

The OP is talking about subtle graphical effects to achieve more life in the game that is always present.

Also adding "civilian life" to missions take a lot of effort to make it believeable. Mostly you don't get anything but having civilians standing around like idiots, doing the same animation on the loop completely oblivious to events in the environment, or at best crawling in the middle of the roads. Not something I'd call "atmospheric".

[tet5uo 4]

It does more on the graphics side because it has nothing to do on the processing side compared to ArmA.

Orly?

At least it's efficient at it.

BF3 Usage : 90% CPU usage, 3 GPU's at 99% each : 100 FPS

Arma3 Usage: 25% CPU usage, 3 GPU's at 15-40% each : 20-60 FPS

If arma is doing so much, let it use more of my damned system please.

[mrcash2009 0]

Everything here is already in 2 and no doubt later on release of 3 using the ambience modules. Place them for insta-population in towns, and animals/chickens and so forth. Its probably not in alpha as not its test focus at the moment. All of this can easily be modded anyway. Tree & grass sway was always the case in 1&2.

As regards birds, Dmarwick is making his flying birds from trees addon porting to arma3 at the moment, so when you shoot or walk past flocks fly from vegetation and trees.

Dont worry basicly, its all been and and will be done for 3.

Also like 2 using lots of the ambient modules and more scipt routines plus all the fighting will have FPS effect (regardless of any CPU usage arguments) its a fact, its a fact that it wont be high on priority for BI to implement this fixed into engine and will only be mission specific/module based so you have choices to use it or not depending on map/battle size etc.

[Winfernal 2]

Orly?

At least it's efficient at it.

BF3 Usage : 90% CPU usage, 3 GPU's at 99% each : 100 FPS

Arma3 Usage: 25% CPU usage, 3 GPU's at 15-40% each : 20-60 FPS

If arma is doing so much, let it use more of my damned system please.

You can't compare performance on BF3 with ArmA 3. This is the deal. :)

First of all. ArmA 3 is in Alpha testing, which automatically means that optimization is worked on. And where BF3 is focusing on arcade-gameplay on small maps, ArmA is focusing on simulations in a large "world". There's a lot of things going on in the background here.

[tet5uo 4]

F, ArmA is focusing on simulations in a large "world". There's a lot of things going on in the background here.

This is exactly my point, good sir.

There is ALOT going on in this engine for the CPU to calculate, so why would it not make sense to give it access to my WHOLE CPU and more RAM than a 32bit app can address.

I don't see how you can't admit that the game could be better at using resources.. and it's not just an Alpha issue, we've dealt with this for years in Arma2.

[Fergal 10]

It does more on the graphics side because it has nothing to do on the processing side compared to ArmA.

Same old tired retort.

To me, ARMAs AI is about as dumb as any other AI out there. As said above, it's amazing how many in the "community" refuse to concede that other games may be better optimized or have better engines in some aspects, regardless of whether a comparison is being made with ARMA 1, 2 or 3 Alpha.

As far as I can remember, all I had to do with OPF was add more RAM to an average speced PC at the time and it ran flawlessly!