Getting rid of the Grass Layer: Yes / No as well as an Idea

[instagoat 133]

The grass layer has been the pet peeve of a lot of people, and it has never worked as well as the grass clutter has worked for obscuring the view of prone shooters throughout the series since the release of Armed Assault.

The question now is, what are the alternatives and if there are, are they worth investing a lot of time and effort to prototype and implement them if they work.

So what I am asking is basically the following, would the community consider it worthwhile for BIS to invest a nontrivial but also not crippling amount of time and manpower into re-developing the camouflage system as well as the AI spotting mechanics involved in such an endeavor? Or is this issue not as important, and should be relegated to an OA style addon or completely ignored in preference for other things?

Personally, I would prefer this to be worked on, since I find the grass layer to be mildly annoying. I also don´t think the AI spotting is as good as it could be (or rather, it is way too good most of the time, and in some special cases way too bad.) and needs an overhaul to be less dependent on finnicky scripting or huge chains of complicated FSM stages. Because of this, I´ve made a ticket here explaining the one better than bad Idea I had to solve this: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=5796

[dnk 13]

We have a long topic on this already, with a good solution that's gotten a ton of upvotes and is currently "assigned"/"open" on the tracker. This is somewhat similar to yours, but adds in a blending texture that looks like grass to make the model harder to pick out as its geometry does not so easily give it away.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it

The OP's idea to use an alpha texture is so simple and light on performance (as is yours). Here it is in pictures:

http://s1.directupload.net/images/130309/uaklkkkf.jpg (266 kB)

And here are my two additions to the topic:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it&p=2335978&viewfull=1#post2335978

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it&p=2336692&viewfull=1#post2336692

And here's the tracker:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=3505

(4th place in upvotes, btw)

ADDITIONALLY,

SQB_SMA has release this addon for the midrange textures that makes spotting people a LOT harder at range by giving a bunch of similarly-shaded background noise. I think it needs to be toned down a bit, but here's a pic for reference:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/106806270/arma3%20midtex/Ultra%20Midtex/4/ultra4.png (1640 kB)

Try and spot people in that! Here's the comparison post in the thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?150645-midrange-terrain-texture-replacement&p=2352520&viewfull=1#post2352520

Edited March 24, 2013 by DNK

[Gorbachev 1]

The SQB_SMA mod disables the "sinking" effect or does it actually make use of it by simply making the ground camouflage the unit?

[instagoat 133]

We have a long topic on this already, with a good solution that's gotten a ton of upvotes and is currently "assigned"/"open" on the tracker. This is somewhat similar to yours, but adds in a blending texture that looks like grass to make the model harder to pick out as its geometry does not so easily give it away.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it

The OP's idea to use an alpha texture is so simple and light on performance (as is yours). Here it is in pictures:

http://s1.directupload.net/images/130309/uaklkkkf.jpg (266 kB)

http://s1.directupload.net/images/130309/iyqh868j.jpg

And here are my two additions to the topic:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it&p=2335978&viewfull=1#post2335978

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it&p=2336692&viewfull=1#post2336692

And here's the tracker:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=3505

(4th place in upvotes, btw)

ADDITIONALLY,

SQB_SMA has release this addon for the midrange textures that makes spotting people a LOT harder at range by giving a bunch of similarly-shaded background noise. I think it needs to be toned down a bit, but here's a pic for reference:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/106806270/arma3%20midtex/Ultra%20Midtex/4/ultra4.png (1640 kB)

Try and spot people in that! Here's the comparison post in the thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?150645-midrange-terrain-texture-replacement&p=2352520&viewfull=1#post2352520

I´ve seen the thing, and I considered not making a ticket because of it, however my concern is also with improving AI spotting at distances. I missed the other ticket having been assigned already, so I guess I am somewhat late. :I

But I think spotting for the AI at long distances could be improved, still. So I think at least parts of my ticket are still relevant. Otherwise, the mods will let me know quickly by closing that and this pronto :P

Either way, my prime interest is that the long distance spotting gets improved. How is not important, as long as it is a good solution that also involves the AI as well as Human observers.

[whisky 1]

The real problem for with the grass is that on long distances is that the ai in prone is actually inside the ground and it's to see them, they need to fix it.

[dnk 13]

The SQB_SMA mod disables the "sinking" effect or does it actually make use of it by simply making the ground camouflage the unit?

Ground is camoflaging, the sinking is in the engine, I don't think it can be disabled through mods. If it could, it probably would've by someone by now.

[antoineflemming 14]

Just change the AI behavior. But remember this, the default character models' camo patterns don't blend with the green grass. So someone shouldn't be 90% camouflaged in the grass. One thing that would help is giving uniforms camouflage value and adjusting AI behavior based on that. Also, actually making it harder for AI to see and engage you at long view distances.