Separate options for DOF, Blur and Glare, Ambient Occlusion ?

[grandstack 1]

I was just wondering if ARMA III will have an option for enabling ambient occlusion? It will drastically improve the visuals, especially in urban areas.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Dwarden

[frostwyrm333 1]

There is something like AO in OA, when you set post-process to higher values. Its very costly and barely perceptible.

Depends on how you implement AO, it can eat half the performance. And AO is not the biggest flaw, the biggest problem is that light passes through objects which makes everything much weirder. Wait for next dev blog which will be soon.

[-=seany=- 5]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Ambient occlusion does look good I agree. I believe it is some what already implemented into the Arma2OA engine via the High and Very High Post Processing options. Both of these enable SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion).

There are other different types of AO, not sure what the advantages / disadvantages are though. SSAO seems popular. Is SSAO the same type as the version you can force in nvidia control panel, I don't know?

[frostwyrm333 1]

Interestingly you can actually turn AO on in NVIDIA control panel but I don't know what will happen, I don't use driver settings on games.

[max power 21]

There is something like AO in OA, when you set post-process to higher values. Its very costly and barely perceptible.

Depends on how you implement AO, it can eat half the performance. And AO is not the biggest flaw, the biggest problem is that light passes through objects which makes everything much weirder. Wait for next dev blog which will be soon.

AFAIK, in all realtime game applications, light is not cast. Polygons (and per-pixel normals) are shaded based on their angle compared to a light source (and other things like lighting maps). Shadows are a separate thing. Things in ArmA don't cast shadows at a distance because the shadow casting is evidently quite a costly process.

[naizarak 4]

AO doesn't enhance visuals in any way. Just makes shadows darker while taking an inexplicable performance hit. OA already has it, and to be frank, the game looks better without it.

[Minoza 11]

AO doesn't enhance visuals in any way. Just makes shadows darker while taking an inexplicable performance hit. OA already has it, and to be frank, the game looks better without it.

Not true, and AO is natural effect.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Seeing that Arma 3 is Dx11 I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion HBAO implemented.

We will just have to wait and see. E3 is soon.

[naizarak 4]

Just talking from experience here - I tried AO in bf3 and arma 2 and didn't like it. Performance took a big hit, too.

[instagoat 133]

Unfortunately, this is pretty ugly in Arma 2. It also is a MASSIVE performance drain. It cuts a whole 10 fps off my rate by default, and up to 20 in situations where it is heavily used. I don´t have a space-age rig, and I hope we´ll get to turn this off selectively with Arma 3. Because I like my dof and such.

[Panda_pl 0]

I was just wondering if ARMA III will have an option for enabling ambient occlusion? It will drastically improve the visuals, especially in urban areas.

If you have NVidia GPU you can enable their SSAO in their settings. It will work in all games, perhaps slightly glitchy with stuff like fog in distance etc.

It does make the game look very, very vivid however.

[maddogx 13]

Ambient occclusion can improve visual quality in certain situations, if done properly. It's especially helpful when there is only indirect/ambient light and no direct light casting shadows, since with AO objects create a slight shadow on anything close to them.

However, the AO in Arma2 doesn't look right to me and it's definitely not worth the performance impact.

[griffz 1]

There is something like AO in OA

i lol'd , game of word wise ...

[quote name=frostwyrm333

, when you set post-process to higher values. Its very costly and barely perceptible.

Depends on how you implement AO, it can eat half the performance. And AO is not the biggest flaw, the biggest problem is that light passes through objects which makes everything much weirder. Wait for next dev blog which will be soon.[/quote]

yeah. but the arma2 engine SSAO is the worst visually , i ever seen ...

by chance, their texture work counter - balance that . they include a sorty of lightmap SSAO on building texture. smart guys i think

[maddogx 13]

they include a sorty of lightmap SSAO on building texture. smart guys i think

Yeah, that's pre-calculated ambient occlusion, which makes sense for buildings and the effect actually looks pretty good. Some of the houses in Arma2 even look photo realistic in certain lighting conditions.

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to do such pre-calculations for moving objects, and I believe the best real time AO algorithms require a G-buffer, meaning they only work with deferred shading.

[max power 21]

I think almost all objects in AO, including the soldiers, have an ambient shadow map.

[maddogx 13]

I think almost all objects in AO, including the soldiers, have an ambient shadow map.

Well, I guess it makes sense for areas that can be anticipated to be almost always in shadow (i.e. "places where the sun don't shine" :D), like the undersides of cars, soldiers armpits and stuff. This is basically "self-shadowing" AO.

What I was talking about is ambient occlusion caused by dynamic objects on other objects, which can't be pre-calculated.

[metalcraze 290]

There's AO in ArmA2 so the only thing BIS needs to do is let us enable separately of annoying bloom.

Ambient Occlusion is a massive resource hog. That's why even heavily outdated looking BF3 eats so much FPS when you turn it on.

[max power 21]

Well, I guess it makes sense for areas that can be anticipated to be almost always in shadow (i.e. "places where the sun don't shine" :D), like the undersides of cars, soldiers armpits and stuff. This is basically "self-shadowing" AO.

What I was talking about is ambient occlusion caused by dynamic objects on other objects, which can't be pre-calculated.

I think on soldiers it's for in details like the folds of clothing and under gear that doesn't get removed and that sort of thing.

[maddogx 13]

The HBAO method used in BF3 does look pretty decent though, compared to the "black halo" AO implementation in Arma2. It's just as much of a performance killer of course, but at least improves visual quality instead of detracting from it.

Unfortunately, it's one of the AO methods that require deferred shading, so fat chance of seeing it in Arma3. (Unless they've gone the deferred route and just haven't told anyone yet. ;))

[Panda_pl 0]

Unfortunately, it's one of the AO methods that require deferred shading, so fat chance of seeing it in Arma3. (Unless they've gone the deferred route and just haven't told anyone yet. ;))

Not sure why this is a problem, normal SSAO works fine.

Video example of SSAO in ArmA2OA: http://www.youtube.com....

It's NVidia onboard feature, not in-engine AO (which is awful and does not even kick in untill you're right in front of an object).

[maddogx 13]

Not sure why this is a problem, normal SSAO works fine.

Video example of SSAO in ArmA2OA: http://www.youtube.com....

It's NVidia onboard feature, not in-engine AO (which is awful and does not even kick in untill you're right in front of an object).

Not a fan of the NVidia onboard AO. It's definitely better than the in-engine variant and looks good near the ground, but it produces a lot of dark flickering around objects silhouetted against a bright horizon.

[Panda_pl 0]

Not a fan of the NVidia onboard AO. It's definitely better than the in-engine variant and looks good near the ground, but it produces a lot of dark flickering around objects silhouetted against a bright horizon.

Not a fan of that either. It's not in-engine so you cannot prevent that.

I actually mentioned glitches already in my first post ITT.

[metalcraze 290]

The HBAO method used in BF3 does look pretty decent though, compared to the "black halo" AO implementation in Arma2. It's just as much of a performance killer of course, but at least improves visual quality instead of detracting from it.

Unfortunately, it's one of the AO methods that require deferred shading, so fat chance of seeing it in Arma3. (Unless they've gone the deferred route and just haven't told anyone yet. ;))

The problem with ArmA2's AO is that bloom and DoF completely ruin it. Of course the "black halo" will look bad when one uses the two most blurry effects on top of it. Otherwise it isn't any different from Crysis 1.

I wish there was a possibility to have AO only without any other effect. I bet it would look good.

[nodunit 397]

I've come to enjoy the soft blue glare that Arma 3 has in the post processing setting, it adds a warm, somewhat tropical feeling. I also greatly enjoy the glare given from specular surfaces on the soft bloom on building sides and other things which leads to the blur issue. I was wondering if perhaps DOF or whatever it is called, the effect of blur you get when turning or sometimes moving (such as driving) to become separate from bloom and the soft haze generated by post processing.

[Gorbachev 1]

I agree.. one of my few gripes about the game. Needs more modular configuration options. Everything should be an option except vegetation rendering distance.