General Discussion (dev branch)

[Dwarden 1124]

as i tweeted about it , here is where you can read bit more about the lightshafts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays

[Smurf 12]

Oh man... blinding sun is back (hehe) and the heat distortion on wrecks is sweet.

EDIT: Can't see any of the three on this pic lol

[auscleaver 12]

Was fooling around in the editor and found the following issues. (Not sure if they have already been reported - sorry for the large sizes :o)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/img]

These bullet holes don't look quite right, maybe still WIP or unfinished?

Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/img]

[jumpinghubert 48]

have the clouds the beautiful lightshafts too?

[CJoke 11]

Wait a second...does that happen in real life?

Nope.

not only simple light shafts, the sun does much more crazy things:

picture-database: sun, lights, halos and much more

[nodunit 397]

DEV Googlava if you read it :

In the beggining of the alpha, with a full sun, we can't see properly when we show it with a front view (as the real life). Since beta, in my opinion, the light was great but don't have the blind effect when we show a full of sun in front of view, it's :( ... it's just an opinion.

I repport it to my subject of the lights.

Suns till blinds you but it has to actually be IN your view, not just overhead, keep in mind that clouds will also effect the sunlight as they do in reality. It could also be brighter now with the addition of sun rays.

Speaking of sun rays..damn do they look GORGEOUS! Surprisingly precise as well, if you walk around in the metallic shed with the cracks you can actually see where the wood planes cut off the sun ray, not only that but the screen brightens if you look directly at it and to the sun! It lends itself amazingly to the new HDR and gives an even stronger impression of being blinded, and I haven't noticed any performance impact from this addition.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light2_zps2566ba32.jpg

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light3_zpscb8b0af9.jpg

The change to light flares is great too, no more constant bleeding through scopes.

Edited September 27, 2013 by NodUnit

[Varanon 892]

I have to admit, I love the sun now... It really is blinding when you look into it. Now, just add a filter that reduces it when you wear sunglasses :D

The crepuscular rays are IMHO a bit too pronounced, though. Aren't they produced by scattered particles in the air ? In this case, they should be less apparent when the air is clear and come out more with slight to medium fog

[gliptal 25]

My layout got resetted by todays update.

Yay!

[Varanon 892]

By the way, any plans to extend those light shafts to underwater scenes, too ? Like this

[Alwarren 2765]

By the way, any plans to extend those light shafts to underwater scenes, too ? Like this

Yes please!

Love the new sun, and the light shafts look great. Very positively surprised.

[el_muerko 0]

It does look lovely, shame it'll make it even easier for the AI to get the drop on you and shoot you with it's radar eyes and hive mind communication :(

[horrorview 10]

It does look lovely, shame it'll make it even easier for the AI to get the drop on you and shoot you with it's radar eyes and hive mind communication :(

Well, they look like Borg already, so...:D

[meatball 25]

Did I miss something, or is there no way to change the cloud level in mission through scripting anymore? You used to be able to use simulSetHumidity, but it appears they've removed that command. So right now the only way I can see how to add clouds to a mission is to set the intel slider for overcast to a high level. Unfortunately, that doesn't help if you want to do any type of dynamic weather at the start of or during a mission.

[Greenfist 1863]

Light shafts sure are beautiful but have a rather high impact on my FPS, empty map with a single playable unit, as soon as I look towards the sun to see the shafts, I get 30ish FPS, otherwise topped out at 60.

Also a rendering issue occurred as pictured below:

http://i.imgur.com/AyTR55es.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8bsNhIms.jpg

It's a sector of around 180 degrees where my character does that, aiming at the same point and freelooking left and right does that, as well as turning the whole character, 3rd person isn't affected, also bringing up menu fixes it temporarily but as soon as menu is closed it breaks again.

http://i.imgur.com/zDmLjMVs.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eRMbqWys.jpg

Happens both on Stratis and Altis at any time of the day. Any ideas?

I had the same rendering fail but setting HDR higher cured it.

I tested the performance impact comparing dev and stable but saw very small difference. Without god rays 68% GPU usage, with them 72% (vsync on). Doesn't even mean the difference was because of the rays though.

[Fushko 60]

Finally the camera follows your head when in ragdoll mode. This issue has been around since the alpha.

Regarding those amazing light shafts, I have a suggestion: why don't you make them less pronounced when the sky is clear, and a bit more strong when there is fog? That would not only be kinda realistic, it would be also AMAZING ;)

[GranolaBar 10]

I'm sorry, i'm not affected by the blind, in the alpha, i had a very blind.

Real life, 16h50 I show here through my window, we are in autumn, there is a little sun behind clounds, i can't fix the sun.. it fire on my eyes, it's very uncomfortable as the the old sun in the beginning of alpha.

Actually i had not this problem.

Maybe i'm crazy :) but at this time, i have no problem with Sun.

To close my impression, effect was nice, it's just a little thing my problem ^^

I accept a ticket to the crazy hospital

(I think than DEV Googlova has the answer of a treatment for me^^)

Suns till blinds you but it has to actually be IN your view, not just overhead, keep in mind that clouds will also effect the sunlight as they do in reality. It could also be brighter now with the addition of sun rays.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light1_zps11f62f26.jpg

Speaking of sun rays..damn do they look GORGEOUS! Surprisingly precise as well, if you walk around in the metallic shed with the cracks you can actually see where the wood planes cut off the sun ray, not only that but the screen brightens if you look directly at it and to the sun! It lends itself amazingly to the new HDR and gives an even stronger impression of being blinded, and I haven't noticed any performance impact from this addition.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light2_zps2566ba32.jpg

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light3_zpscb8b0af9.jpg

The change to light flares is great too, no more constant bleeding through scopes.

Edited September 27, 2013 by GranolaBar

[CaptainObvious 95]

Light shafts sure are beautiful but have a rather high impact on my FPS, empty map with a single playable unit, as soon as I look towards the sun to see the shafts, I get 30ish FPS, otherwise topped out at 60.

Also a rendering issue occurred as pictured below:

http://i.imgur.com/AyTR55es.jpg http://i.imgur.com/8bsNhIms.jpg

It's a sector of around 180 degrees where my character does that, aiming at the same point and freelooking left and right does that, as well as turning the whole character, 3rd person isn't affected, also bringing up menu fixes it temporarily but as soon as menu is closed it breaks again.

http://i.imgur.com/zDmLjMVs.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eRMbqWys.jpg

Happens both on Stratis and Altis at any time of the day. Any ideas?

After autodetecting my graphics settings all is good now, no performance hit with the light shaft, and boy oh boy they are gorgeous!

edit:

I had the same rendering fail but setting HDR higher cured it.

I tested the performance impact comparing dev and stable but saw very small difference. Without god rays 68% GPU usage, with them 72% (vsync on). Doesn't even mean the difference was because of the rays though.

Roger that, good find if anyone else is suffering this and doesn't want to tweak all the settings again.

Edited September 27, 2013 by CaptainObvious
added quote

[gammadust 12]

have the clouds the beautiful lightshafts too?

I looked for them with near overcast weather (below 50% - before global sunlight is reduced) and did not see them. I would like to keep my hopes up for those and maybe even cloud shadows too (it appears to be a screenspace effect and the intersection of those rays with the depth buffer could be not too far from provinding an approximation of ground shadows).

In any case they give a lot of atmosphere in woods. Love them.

Now, just add a filter that reduces it when you wear sunglasses :D

It exists already ;) hint, hint... i do need to update the effects strength now.

[jumpinghubert 48]

many thanks gammadust to check it. Yes, big sunrays from clouds to ground plus cloudshadows would be a dream!

[becubed 24]

7.62 vs buildings, and they collapse? How can you love that? :P

100 rounds of 5.56mm against a stacked pile of bricks 2 deep

100 rounds of 7.62

Given that this is about a one second burst from a mini gun I see them being able to chew up buildings without any problem

[Gekkibi 11]

Given that this is about a one second burst from a mini gun I see them being able to chew up buildings without any problem

...But completely collapse a building? I highly doubt that. Can you collapse a building with Zafir?

Edit: just tested it.

AH-9: Fired 250 rounds and the construction site collapsed

Zafir: Fired 600 rounds and no damage at all

.50 HMG: Fired 400 rounds and no damage at all

Conclusion: dafuq? :)

Edited September 27, 2013 by Gekkibi

[Tonci87 163]

What I don´t like is that he miniguns now do splash damage. Is this the solution to making them more lethal?

The fix is quite simple. Both guns need to converge. Make the bullet paths meet 500m in front of the helicopter and it will be much easier to hit something.

And the minigus shouldn´t collapse buildings that fast.

But it is really cool to see how bullets penetrate walls!

[barakokula31 10]

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee200/NodUnit/light2_zps2566ba32.jpg

Is that picture from real life? I'm not joking.

[kylania 567]

Can we please turn wrecks back on as selectable map objects?

{_x hideObject true} forEach (nearestObjects [this, ["Wreck_Base_F"], 200]);

That used to hide wrecks on the map, even though it insanely left collision on for vehicles. But in today's stable release wrecks aren't picked up by nearestObjects at all. We used to use underwater wrecks as spots for missions, but now we can't since there's no way to select them because nearestObjects doesn't even see them anymore. This is optimization gone too far. :)

[instagoat 133]

The 7.62 miniguns are overpowered on the liddlburd right now.