Sorely Unimpressed with Arma 3's Graphics as they exist in the Alpha.

[Failberry 10]

I am sorely disappointed with the fidelity of Arma 3's graphics. This game, even at the highest settings, does not look anything like the screenshots BIS has posted. Particularly, there absolutely is a lower level of texture detail with regard to the ground/grass layer, the bushes, the trees, the actual overlay image of the ground as viewed from above. The game is muddy looking, everything from the textures of the environment to the lighting, which creates what I would call a whitewash effect.

I am confused by this. The screenshots BIS posted, look wonderful. I have even seen some image captures that show high geometry trees that do not exist in the alpha. What I have seen so far while playing the game, is a markedly lower level of quality and fidelity and texture resolution than what was in arma 2 even. Here is a BIS photo http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/02/Arma_III-image.jpg. Now here is a picture off of armaholic http://25.media.tumblr.com/2bbef0700551a79fa5f2891530525b45/tumblr_mjgbn6GSrY1s3xx02o1_1280.png

I have a gtx 690. The game does not look like either of these images. Not at a 1080p resolution, not at any resolution. Not at any graphical setting period. Those trees in the second picture don't even exist!

[dmarkwick 261]

I can certainly agree that the trees are lower in visual quality than that second image. I'm not particularly fond of the Stratis trees they look rather cartoony, particularly when in large groups like forests.

I cannot comment on how Altis will look eventually, seeing as we don't have access to it, but the Stratis island doesn't look like that second I agree. Lighting is the biggest difference I think (tree models notwithstanding) but I think lighting is generally off in the alpha in any case, withness the many complaints about lights acting oddly in low-light situations etc.

[Deadfast 43]

The second image has been assaulted with some really heavy color "correction".

I have to agree that trees don't look particularly good. This is especially a problem at distance when they turn to a bark with some green goo on top.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Deadfast

[hudson78 1]

I am sorely disappointed with the fidelity of Arma 3's graphics. This game, even at the highest settings, does not look anything like the screenshots BIS has posted. Particularly, there absolutely is a lower level of texture detail with regard to the ground/grass layer, the bushes, the trees, the actual overlay image of the ground as viewed from above. The game is muddy looking, everything from the textures of the environment to the lighting, which creates what I would call a whitewash effect.

I am confused by this. The screenshots BIS posted, look wonderful. I have even seen some image captures that show high geometry trees that do not exist in the alpha. What I have seen so far while playing the game, is a markedly lower level of quality and fidelity and texture resolution than what was in arma 2 even. Here is a BIS photo http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/02/Arma_III-image.jpg. Now here is a picture off of armaholic http://25.media.tumblr.com/2bbef0700551a79fa5f2891530525b45/tumblr_mjgbn6GSrY1s3xx02o1_1280.png

I have a gtx 690. The game does not look like either of these images. Not at a 1080p resolution, not at any resolution. Not at any graphical setting period. Those trees in the second picture don't even exist!

This is still an Alpha man. This is like complaining about what color your car is before you get buy it. From my time spent playing the Alpha it seems to me that the terrain is still not finished. If the game was in Beta, I could see where you have a point, but at this stage in the build it is alright IMO.

[[frl]myke 14]

Maybe i'm getting old but i don't see much difference: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9367994/arma3_2013_04_08_10_14_31_082.png(2972kb)

:EDITH:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 @3.4GHz, AMD Radeon HD5870

[Failberry 10]

This is still an Alpha man. This is like complaining about what color your car is before you get buy it. From my time spent playing the Alpha it seems to me that the terrain is still not finished. If the game was in Beta, I could see where you have a point, but at this stage in the build it is alright IMO.

Many of the official images that BIS posted for this game through 2012 look much better than what we are seeing in this alpha. I'm talking about the grass, the textures, and the overall geometry in those official pics. They were of much higher quality. These images came from an even earlier alpha state of the game. The trouble I having in accepting your response is that you seem to believe the game's art/mechanics/etc will change once it gets in beta if everyone's feedback is that they don't really have any. The game was already looking better than this when BIS was releasing photos in late 2011. If they changed something, they want to know if this is what the consumer will accept. I'm sure they didn't pass it off as lowering the graphics of the game to see if anyone would notice, but they want to see if this is what the consumer wants.

I think the most important thing when discussing a game's art is obviously to put it in terms of what we see. I think a lot of people noticed that it didn't look as good as the pre-alpha pictures. Questions are raised; did the art direction change, did they have to lower the overall fidelity for some unknown reason? I think that's a more reasonable way to approach this topic and hopefully get feedback. My fear would be that everyone would feel content with this alpha state's graphics, that nothing gets changed, and we begin to discuss it after the game has long experienced a full release. This is especially the case because you can see that the game did become worse looking from 2012 to 2013; you can see it in the media. I feel that many of us want to know why, or what happened, or if there is some other reason many of us are noticing this difference. In the alpha stage, it would be a great idea for us to be asking these questions as BIS is giving us their content so they can determine based on our feedback if we like this game as is and will want buy it once they add the rest of the content.

[dmarkwick 261]

This is still an Alpha man. This is like complaining about what color your car is before you get buy it. From my time spent playing the Alpha it seems to me that the terrain is still not finished. If the game was in Beta, I could see where you have a point, but at this stage in the build it is alright IMO.

True it's an alpha, but not raising the issue is like saying there's nothing wrong with this aspect of the alpha - if the trees are replaced in the alpha we can be sure it's a design decision that will stay unless there's problems. As far as I can see the problems are aesthetic and immersive - LOD switching on trees that are already displeasing. Likewise the lighting, if no issue is raised it might not get looked into.

Edited April 8, 2013 by DMarkwick

[Failberry 10]

True it's an alpha, but not raising the issue is like saying there's nothing wrong with this aspect of the alpha - if the trees are replaced in the alpha we can be sure it's a design decision that will stay unless there's problems. As far as I can see the problems are aesthetic and immersive - LOD switching on trees that are already displeasing. Likewise the lighting, if no issue is raised it might not get looked into.

Yeah, thanks for summing that up for me.

[nikiforos 450]

I wonder what kind of impact better grapchics will have in game performance.

I think priority right now is the better utilization of the game (at least for the community). Dont't get me wrong I agree with you guys that the images from the past are better than the current in-game.

In any case it's good this subject is brought up.

[ziiip 1]

You can adjust the color scheme of the game with just a few scripts commands. Other than that, the problem is with you.

[chrisb 196]

I don't think they look too bad http://imageshack.us/f/267/arma320130408112132395.png/, you can alter a lot with colour, gamma, brightness etc, plus all the in-game settings.

Also the ratio, my picture is 16:10, I sometimes prefer 5:4, don't like 16:9 much even though my monitor is a 16:9, but has a 5:4 switch. 16:9 to me, makes the people look too thin scrawny, 16:10 is better for me, but for immersion I really like 5:4 just pulls the screen in, weird I know, but thats life..

[hekuball 10]

Myke;2367678']Maybe i'm getting old but i don't see much difference: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9367994/arma3_2013_04_08_10_14_31_082.png(2972kb)

Exactly this, the images that the OP posted look identical to the game as it is as the moment except for the colour saturation levels.

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

??? By altering the gamma / brightness in game I get the same colors and better quality when everything set to Ultra:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/3dab71a0a613f604f0bccb0d21834d4a/tumblr_mkxpbql8uh1sneir7o1_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/cf5af9f97d6ff3eceadc3a09f593fe29/tumblr_mkxpbql8uh1sneir7o5_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/e16199ef3949af6364a4910ee0de4083/tumblr_mkxpbql8uh1sneir7o4_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/5babca7a746b7f468d7bb5acab94c165/tumblr_mkxpbql8uh1sneir7o6_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/4662d328308f70fac4f047207982f1f1/tumblr_mkxpbql8uh1sneir7o7_1280.jpg

Must be video drivers or something else your end - I get better screenshots than the ones BIS released.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Mattar_Tharkari

[jumpinghubert 49]

yes, you can do a lot with gamma, brightness, weatherslider and day of time. The only complain are the midrange textures and the unbalanced antialiasing (arma2 was perfect antialiased with max AA and max msaa) some things are still pixelated like soldiers and some elements of the houses.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

Guys,he is talking about something that has been shown 1 year ago (none of your screens is close to that) ... which means ,something that was achieved and should be in alpha,while it's not the case !

Well,i don't care about graphics ,but if it's a necessity to decrease the beauty for better performance then this is how it should be ... the current level of performance on stratis is not a good sign for what's coming on altis already,graphics should be the last thing to be discussed ...

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/02/Arma_III-image.jpg

Qaz, you prefer this brown filter over the current palette? :D You've been playing too much ArmA II.

As always, weather greatly impacts on the lightning of the scene in ArmA.

[trent 14]

This is still an Alpha man. This is like complaining about what color your car is before you get buy it. From my time spent playing the Alpha it seems to me that the terrain is still not finished. If the game was in Beta, I could see where you have a point, but at this stage in the build it is alright IMO.

To be fair, did you notice with any BIS games a difference in graphical fidelity between the first screens and the last? Typically in preview shots the only things updated are like tweaked shaders or post-processing.

[maddogx 13]

To be honest, I agree with the OP. Not necessarily because I'm expecting photo-realistic visuals, but there are a lot of graphical issues that have been bugging me since Arma2 (or even earlier), and they are still around today.

Just one major example is LOD flickering/popping, which unfortunately hasn't recieved much attention on the bug tracker: #5024, #5830, #6285.

Then the fact that only the sun and moon cast shadows and all other dynamic light sources don't. On the one hand this is an understandable technological limitation, but on the other it makes the engine feel extremely outdated in some situations.

[nmdanny 22]

There isn't a difference between ingame graphics and the pictures, but I still wish they had improved the grass and trees graphic since A2.

[On_Sabbatical 11]

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2013/02/Arma_III-image.jpg

Qaz, you prefer this brown filter over the current palette? :D You've been playing too much ArmA II.

As always, weather greatly impacts on the lightning of the scene in ArmA.

Setting everything to low except objects quality is the first thing i do before playing :D,max performance for MP is my choice ...

[Wolf85 1]

I don0t care much about images posted by developers cuz in fact they are allways some sort of "marketing". Also, I don't like games with lots of blur/post processing image filtering with make the tarmac shine like a star or even walls. I like the way grapichs are now in ARMA III but I hope they improve some details like trees.

Having said that, I am of those who prioritizes improved basic character animations rather than better looking trees.

[zapat 56]

While I partially agree with OP, and I am not good in PS at all and I had only 3 minutes for this:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxjqGzmtx1GBX0VpaWhWX21PWVU/edit?usp=sharing

[accapella 1]

Arma 3 looks pretty good.

Foliage could be better but 4/5.

[Vibe 1]

Wait...

companies photoshop game screenshots to make it look better?

No way.

I could never imagine. Why would they do such a thing.

[zoog 18]

While I partially agree with OP, and I am not good in PS at all and I had only 3 minutes for this:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxjqGzmtx1GBX0VpaWhWX21PWVU/edit?usp=sharing

So the question is, were those official screenshots edited with Photoshop (adding the blur like above for example). At least I believe the A3 screens never had the "IN-GAME" tag added to them, compared to some previous Arma 2 "IN-GAME" screenshots which to my eye basically resembles the in-game quality as experienced by the user.