General Discussion (dev branch)

[Smurf 12]

Ctrl+D?

The other left! :p

[zedderzulu 7]

I can confirm through my own testing, placing a character at 20,000m and with rain set to 1, there was no rain above the clouds and the effect of falling through the clouds and encountering rain underneath was fantastic :)

So whatever mechanism rules it works quite nicely imo, though in some respects I hope it isn't linked entirely to a global height-based equation; one of these days I'd love there be a means of setting the height of the clouds and/or having different layers of different types of cloud. But that's neither here or there.

There's still a way to go with some features, either WIP, not delivered or merely dreamt of, but I've been delighted so far by the amount of features already patched into the game and gives me a wonderful feeling about what's left in store :)

So, keep up the great work guys! Also I guess we now know who was responsible for some of the obscure C&C text popping up in AAN news reports a few years back :p

Be that as it may, I have encountered a few problems with the rain;

There are some objects that it still rains through - really not many as far as I've come across but the most noticeable ones are the research domes - it rains through the skylights even though they are quite solid - concrete cylinders and shanty roofs - the best example I can think of demostrating that last one is to go to Agia Stemma on a wet and windy day and have a look at the wooden shelter next to the stone house there. Finally I've also noticed it rains through the cargo-area roof on the (covered) HEMTT, but only in an external view. i.e. if you sit in the back you don't see rain coming through, but if you switch on the spectator camera and place the camera within the back of the cargo-area you will see it raining through the roof. Not an absolutely game breaker but it doesn't happen with the KAMAZ, for example.

Lastly I hit a problem yesterday when the raindrops suddenly turned into large black blobs which basically made me have to stop as it was impossible to see. The rain was getting steadily more intense and it was around 1800 on Altis. Tried various things beside alt+tabbing but the only thing that worked was reducing the rain in the debug console. That said, I've been unable to replicate that problem since. Anyone else come across anything similar?

[metalcraze 290]

Well from what I've seen, the rain is a lot, lot better than what we had before. Try moving in & out of cover & see the improvements there. Try standing close to strong lighting & see the improvements there. Wet surface tech is a different topic IMO, nothing to do with the rain itself. I'm even OK with the lack of ground splashing textures, they never looked convincing to me and in fact I find not having them at all more realistic.

The only thing I would add to it, is decreasing view distance for strong rain.

Can't have a rain without wet surface. Because it looks cheap.

Good looking rain effects aren't some next-gen tech. We've been getting these for more than half a decade now. Look at how rain and rain effects looked in Clear Sky for one and that's 2008.

They also need to make drops more transparent, they are way too opaque.

EDIT: In fact while at it BIS can improve lightnings too. Since during overcast shadows aren't rendered anymore they can do it just as Clear Sky / Call of Pripyat does. Render them from lightning's position. It shouldn't require any major engine changes (it's still a single "ambient" light source casting shadows) and it looks badass. Atmosphere is very important to immersion.

Edited October 16, 2013 by metalcraze

[maddogx 13]

Implementing simplistic wet surfaces is actually fairly easy by passing a "wetness" value to the shader(s) - usually a float value between 0 and 1 - and using that value to modify color brightness, specularity etc. of the material. You can even make basic "puddles" based on the normal map. It's not rocket science, but it does require someone to actually sit down and take the time to implement it.

EDIT: of course, that's just the visual side of things. Determining when things get wet, how they get wet, how they get dry again, tracking the wetness value etc. is a whole (and huge) other deal.

Edited October 16, 2013 by MadDogX

[progamer 14]

The CSAT pistol called the Zubr has the wrong caliber: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15462 it's made to use the .357 caller round.

---------- Post added at 14:12 ---------- Previous post was at 14:07 ----------

And are the new pistol sights using different rails than other weapons? Or are they just locked to pistols at the moment.

[dmarkwick 261]

EDIT: In fact while at it BIS can improve lightnings too. Since during overcast shadows aren't rendered anymore they can do it just as Clear Sky / Call of Pripyat does. Render them from lightning's position. It shouldn't require any major engine changes (it's still a single "ambient" light source casting shadows) and it looks badass. Atmosphere is very important to immersion.

Hmm yes, that would work :) although with one caveat - it wouldn't be a point lightsource but a distant lightsource. Not that it would make any difference in practice, except that each player would necessarily need a different & locally calculated effect. Not a biggie.

I don't know though whether the engine allows for such a rapid on/off or positionally fluid main illumination effect.

[progamer 14]

The new dayz items should be able to be inventory items: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15437

There is no light different between below the clouds and above the clouds: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15464

---------- Post added at 14:36 ---------- Previous post was at 14:23 ----------

Zubr's recoil is also wrong: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15465

[ange1u5 11]

The new rain effects worked briefly and then all turned to black pixellated squares completley obscures my view:

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00001_zps51b369d4.jpg

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00003_zpsb373fc71.jpg

[Victim9l3 11]

Bi, PLEASE, go through Altis and get rid of 70% of all the rock mounds. I have not had one single mission where vehicles get stuck on them. They are everywhere in major quantities. I have tried making a large scale tank battle and I can't because there are no big areas that are not swamped with rock mounds. Most small vehicles get stuck all the time. Tanks get stuck everytime they hit one that is going parallel to them. Sure I can find a few areas that are clear, but are not good places for a battle. Especially when there are places where there is narrow passages. Like a mountain on one side of the road and water on the other. I can't use the 50 meters between the road and water because of the rock mounds. All 20 tanks have to stay on the road.

And the vehicles still get stuck on small rocks and don't back up. They just sit there. A whole tank platton hung up on a small rock.

[dazhbog 10]

The new rain effects worked briefly and then all turned to black pixellated squares completley obscures my view:

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00001_zps51b369d4.jpg

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00003_zpsb373fc71.jpg

Interesting, can you get a repro for us?

[insumsnoy 4]

The new rain effects worked briefly and then all turned to black pixellated squares completley obscures my view:

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00001_zps51b369d4.jpg

http://i761.photobucket.com/albums/xx257/Ange1u5/2013-10-16_00003_zpsb373fc71.jpg

This happens after those debug type messages appear on screen ( the ones with black background like when you speed up time ). Turning on and off NVGs returns it to normal.

[barakokula31 10]

You mean CTRL+A?

Now I feel stupid. :p

[CaptainObvious 95]

Oh yeah, for sure. In ArmA2 I always scripted the fog to match the rain strength, using a monitoring script, and it looked excellent. I just think maybe it should be standard behavior :)

Yes, if this works in every situation, it should be very easy to greatly improve the visuals using fog as standard.

[Smurf 12]

Adding the mass and\or the volume of each item in the inventory screen is something planned?

[ange1u5 11]

Interesting, can you get a repro for us?

It seemed to occur when I switched to the night mode of my mission you can find here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=179806293

I have dozens of gamelogics loaded in the mission using the lightobjects command for night time racing, so I wondered if that was somehow causing the fault. Either that or the sudden advance in time by using the laptop in the mission to advance 10 hours gametime.

Once the fault occurs, it persists until I exit the game and restart. It didn't matter if I tried a new mission or anything until restarting the game.

[ShotgunSheamuS 1]

Oh yeah, for sure. In ArmA2 I always scripted the fog to match the rain strength, using a monitoring script, and it looked excellent. I just think maybe it should be standard behavior :)

This exactly!!! I play with the same settings for the same effect. Set fog up to 10 for heavy rain at 100, and it looks perfect. So I agree, it should be standard behaviour, not particularly as fog itself, but the illusion of heavy rain that limits your view.

[pauliesss 2]

Regarding the rain, I think the important part is to make raindrops splash effect on ground and objects, then, if possible, continue with wet surface etc.

[bad benson 1733]

Is this the new decommissioned Hunter 'Scrapping' object from the changelog?

http://thumbnails104.imagebam.com/28203/9e57a3282027163.jpg

Or was this wreck in there before and I missed it? It's got to be the most awesome, detailed wreck model in history! :)

this has to be used as a destruction effect wreck! and we need that for other vehicles too. looks so much better than the current wrecks.

[barakokula31 10]

this has to be used as a destruction effect wreck! and we need that for other vehicles too. looks so much better than the current wrecks.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?159551-Why-aren-t-the-wreck-models-used-as-quot-destroyed-quot-models

[EvEnLeaSe44 0]

Interesting, can you get a repro for us?

Happened to a buddy and I as well, we were just in Slammers... using the guns optics and night time, night vision, with rain.

Seems to get pixilated at night, turning on then off night vision fixed it though (briefly)

[nodunit 397]

Implementing simplistic wet surfaces is actually fairly easy by passing a "wetness" value to the shader(s) - usually a float value between 0 and 1 - and using that value to modify color brightness, specularity etc. of the material. You can even make basic "puddles" based on the normal map. It's not rocket science, but it does require someone to actually sit down and take the time to implement it.

EDIT: of course, that's just the visual side of things. Determining when things get wet, how they get wet, how they get dry again, tracking the wetness value etc. is a whole (and huge) other deal.

I believe pekta mentioned something about rvmats now being part of setobjecttexture or something like that. If there is a command to detect the status of weather IE raining or not, then perhaps a link could be formed between the two so that if rain is detected them the wet rvmat swaps over.

Of course there are several flaws to this the least of which being that this would apply to X assets only, ones that have rvmats and most likely more pertinent ones such as infantry, weapons and vehicles.

The biggest problem is due to the dynamics, most games I've seen in editors either have unique assets tailored for those rainy settings or have a shader specifically for it, which is either a 1 or 0 and not dynamic.

Edited October 16, 2013 by NodUnit

[chortles 263]

One of the British SF blokes also has a Mk.18 under NATO\Men (Story). James, I think

Thanks for the catch!

EDIT: "Zubr" may be Czech for the European bison, but according to an Egyptian Arma player "Zubr" is (also) Arabic phallic slang. DOUBLE Bilingual Bonus! :icon_twisted:

Edited October 16, 2013 by Chortles

[metalcraze 290]

EDIT: of course, that's just the visual side of things. Determining when things get wet, how they get wet, how they get dry again, tracking the wetness value etc. is a whole (and huge) other deal.

It's clear there's already a parameter in the engine that determines how many rain drops to render / density of the rain. The higher the density = the faster the specular / wet amount goes from 0 to max. If the rain is over the value starts slowly going back to 0. If the rain starts again - it goes to the max value again from the point where it was with the speed mentioned above.

Can even tie the drying speed value to the overcast variable. Less clouds = more sunny = faster drying.

Can go even further and add a drying speed modifier based on season. It will slow the speed if it's a winter.

[dmarkwick 261]

It's clear there's already a parameter in the engine that determines how many rain drops to render / density of the rain. The higher the density = the faster the specular / wet amount goes from 0 to max. If the rain is over the value starts slowly going back to 0. If the rain starts again - it goes to the max value again from the point where it was with the speed mentioned above.

Can even tie the drying speed value to the overcast variable. Less clouds = more sunny = faster drying.

Can go even further and add a drying speed modifier based on season. It will slow the speed if it's a winter.

It all sounds so easy.

Except, of course, that every surface will need a variable specular wet-material applied to it. :)

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I wonder when they are going at add in some more civilian things. I'm interested in seeing the use of Amphibious aircraft in vanilla, or maybe just some simple vehicles, prop/turbo prop planes/helis for civis.