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NordKindchen

Terrain Improvement (dev branch)

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did anyone notice how ungly tree are, in comparation with AO and arma 2 trees? from afar, up close when they are fully rendered is prettier

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did anyone notice how ungly tree are, in comparation with AO and arma 2 trees? from afar, up close when they are fully rendered is prettier

they look similar, quality wise, it's just that arma 2 trees retain more of their shape because they're tall triangular while arma 3 trees are blobs.

---------- Post added at 12:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:06 AM ----------

@-Coulum- currently the texture overlay for the mid range is as far as I can possibly see with my optics. So there shouldnt be a problem;)

@the question towards the performance: Its not totally clear but it seems it will have a rather small performance impact. Possibly even none? -> I mean - look at all those graphic options which dont change the framerate even if you turn them from "low" to "ultra". possibly the same here^^

Best regards

i'm pretty sure most modern games use this type of system even if they don't have a logic map, they're rendering the same things(swatches of tileable diffuse and normal map textures)

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Well, I've been playing for 3 days and I think this is the mayor problem I have found (beside the strange performance issue on some servers).

Grass should be rendered until 500m or a solution to make players less visible on the blurred ground. Also, when shadows are turned off, it's very easy to spot enemies, this is a real advantage/disadvantage. I think the performance limiting features lie elsewhere, so hardcoding grass until 500m and shadows (even with less detail if necessary) would make the game much more enjoyable. Lying under a bush beside a tree and surrounded by grass makes you think you are in cover, but the fact is that the enemy most probably is seeing your body lying on a bright blurry texture, totally exposed. This is a fun killer for me. The ground textures could also need some work, but I believe grass and shadows are at least as necessary. Change this, and we have got a killer game (it's already a lot of fun)

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did anyone notice how ungly tree are, in comparation with AO and arma 2 trees? from afar, up close when they are fully rendered is prettier
maybe its the effect of less antialiased details...parts of soldiers, balconies/rails, grass in the distance, parts of the trees. Arma2 was fully antialiased, arma3alpha approximately 70%. Plus PPAA has no additional antialiasing effect if you have set 8xAA.

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nice to have ^^

grascluter to in scope view and i happy

Edited by JgBtl292

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Haha,

If that was aimed at me - I'm just saying it IS a game after all and I've played them all and loved them all but I'm no fan of taking things THAT far. I mean - do you quit when you die because that's real isn't it....? :j:

Still love the suggestions though. And I do feel that one of them is absolutely necessary.

Keep the thread going.....

hahah Im sorry but I do that(quit when die) sometimes Haha. But I think I understand part of what you say, its the same that happens with 4k cameras/TVs nowadays, they look so realistic its unrealistic, bright colors, ultra crisp image and color corrected color schemes. Imo, Arma II had a very boring(not so saturated not so bright) but natural look that i love in comparison with A3 bright and colourful look which is kind of an issue sometimes because after a couple hours playing the game it starts to wear out your eyes and your perception of things on screen.

As for the trees, I believe theres a thread for that somewhere, guys argued about their color being too bright as well, for me they look a little too alike(no variations inside each florest) and blobby at distance. That plus the midrange issue really make for a "smooth everything".

Edited by jefcostello
insert quote

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. Imo, Arma II had a very boring(not so saturated not so bright) but natural look that i love in comparison with A3 bright and colourful look which is kind of an issue sometimes because after a couple hours playing the game it starts to wear out your eyes and your perception of things on screen.

After a few hours in Chernarus I felt like I slipped into the messy paint world of a morbid VanGogh. I like the current :)

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agreed. arma 3 looks real and natural, not desaturated artificially. the mediterranean is a colorful place.

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Yep the brightness of Stratis is a nice change from Chernarus and even takistan. Admittedly when I first loaded up the alpha it was a bit of a shock, but I have come to like it quite alot. Not sure how realistic it is as I haven't been to the Mediterranean, but it looks like most of the pictures I see.

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you guys might want to check out this little experimental addon i made.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?150645-midrange-terrain-texture-replacement&p=2344270#post2344270

this doesn't solve all the problems discussed here but it shows how much of a difference already just changing the midrange texture makes.

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Nice one Benson. So you replaced the default "rocky" midrange textures from takistan with a grassy looking texture more fitting of Stratis? Very nice. This alone makes things look much nicer... But we still can't let BIS get away with just changing the one texture to fit the island more than the previous rocky textures (they are probably planning to do that anyway.) I think it is important to have different textures for each type of terrain on the "logic map", like NordKindchen has suggested. more variety looks nicer and more natural and confuses the eye more (which is what we want to make spotting at these ranges harder).

But stilll a very good looking mod there. I take it there are no performance hits?

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Nice one Benson. So you replaced the default "rocky" midrange textures from takistan with a grassy looking texture more fitting of Stratis? Very nice. This alone makes things look much nicer... But we still can't let BIS get away with just changing the one texture to fit the island more than the previous rocky textures (they are probably planning to do that anyway.) I think it is important to have different textures for each type of terrain on the "logic map", like NordKindchen has suggested. more variety looks nicer and more natural and confuses the eye more (which is what we want to make spotting at these ranges harder).

But stilll a very good looking mod there. I take it there are no performance hits?

yes you can already see the shortfall in some screenshots where the road and rocky surfaces has the patchy grass texture as well, and it looks strange. but at least with this we get a glimpse into what good noise textures can do.

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It worries me a bit that there is noone assigned to the issue yet in the tracker

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It worries me a bit that there is noone assigned to the issue yet in the tracker

I wouldnt worry yet;)

@Bad Benson

Nice work! I think this can be seen as an example of how well other textures can support the overall look! And jeah! Your texture definately fits more than the vanilla one!

On the other hand as was said earlier there still remain the same issues. While it looks great on many places - theres no way to have a fitting texture for sand AND gras at the same time. As you say yourself.

And if we look at Altis which will be about 12 times bigger. The problem appears to get even bigger since one texture will never suffice for such a big island.

In the end I feel that we still need a change.

Best regards!

Ps: Allready using your addon=)

Pps: Would you mind adding a link to this topic into your thread? They seems to accompany each other quite well!

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I had a look at Bad Bensons work and if its any indication of what the island could look like with the additional midrange textures using the logic map, it will transform the look of these maps from good to spectacular

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Only that my introduced system will leave space for ten times more specialiced and unique textures for each terrain!

But I totally agree! It delievers a really nice view into the possibilities!

Best regards!

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Just another message to say I agree that mid-range textures should be improved officially by BIS if performance isn't hit too hard, or the work far too intimidating to spend development time on.

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I like and appreciate the fact you took the time to write all this in regards to one of the bigger issues that I think impacts gameplay. Arma has (in my opinion) always been at its best when played as an infantry simulator, and to see something implemented to increase mid range fidelity would greatly add to the game. One can only hope.

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Only that my introduced system will leave space for ten times more specialiced and unique textures for each terrain!

But I totally agree! It delievers a really nice view into the possibilities!

Best regards!

I am curious. After trying Bensons Addon, i had an idea about your logic map. Would it be possible to mark tree, bush and maybe even big stone locations on your logic map?

That way you could give trees and bushes some kind of undergrowth and bigger stones a bit rubble around them, to make them "blend in" with the terrain even more.

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I am curious. After trying Bensons Addon, i had an idea about your logic map. Would it be possible to mark tree, bush and maybe even big stone locations on your logic map?

That way you could give trees and bushes some kind of undergrowth and bigger stones a bit rubble around them, to make them "blend in" with the terrain even more.

Of course. Only it would not be as easy to automate as the rest of the process.

Besides that - little stones may be to small to be adequately represented in the logicmap.

AND most of the trees allready have a certain colour underneath them so the part of the trees in such a situation are allready covered by this introduced method.

Best regards

Edited by NordKindchen

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Overkill of LODs

Proland - Real-time planet rendering VIII: forests (video of Eurographics 2012 paper):

This is the video submitted with our upcoming Eurographics paper, "Real-time Realistic Rendering and Lighting of Forests", Eric Bruneton and Fabrice Neyret, Eurographics 2012

Real-time capture at 1024x768 resolution, with an NVidia 470 GTX. Windows demo available at..

I send report to Bohemia for investigate this tecnology an others.

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The problem with all those techdemos is that they are, well techdemos - that may or may not be suitable for real games - and also don't deal with a view from the ground.

I still haven't seen a single procedural-texture generation techdemo that would produce a proper ground detail texture that wouldn't look artifical or unreal compared to handmade ones based on photos.

Even in Outerra all the illusion of awesomeness breaks the moment you view it from the ground as if it was a FPS.

However those techs as they are - are definitely great for space exploration and flight sim games.

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(...)

Even in Outerra all the illusion of awesomeness breaks the moment you view it from the ground as if it was a FPS.

how it was done

Your point of it being techdemos remains though.

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