Any real solution for the visibility of units at higher distances possible?

[wiresnsnakes 1]

Hello.

Im new to the Arma-Series and just want to know if there will be a real fix for the problem that units are so easy to spot or if the devs talked about that.

I wasnt aware, that there isnt a solution for Arma 2 or earlier games and was quite pissed as i found it out (cause i buyed apha-access), because engagements at ranges from 100 (or200) to infinity are broken, by the fact, that there are no sharp textures, no Objects above the bland textures like grass and no shadows either, so everything that makes a player hard to spot. I was surpised, that the series is still so popular, cause thats the most essential part for "realism" or a sim for me, specially if you die that fast.

I see sharp texture around me and tons of grass, all with shadows which make a salat of details i would feel save from being spotted in my suit from higher ranges. But above 100-200 there is just nothing and in some cases im brigthned by lightning in an overall dark environment and the edges of the playermodel flicker. Results varie, depending on weather. It was much more ok, if it there was no sun at all at daytime.

Its the only real problem i have with the game, everything else is good or at least ok, just that thing is the dealbreaker.

The grasslayer is rather cheap and not that effective besides it does nothing for crouching and standing units. Especially the last part counts for this approach:

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

and makes it horrible, cause you are forced to prone the whole time to take a use from it.

Then you are forced by MP-Servers to use the grass, so you cant get rid of it generally. It looks not that good then, but there is just one environment and not two or more depending on the range. BTW: Are shadows forcable too? In other games it highly depends on the shadows if youre seen or not (besides the details).

That really sucks. Anyway its somehow unfair, if people have different settings for grass and shadows.

Anyway a general solution seems impossible cause everyone have different computers, you cant set shadows and details (like grass) generally on low, cause the fancy (->sells) and dont force high details cause many could play it then (again ->sells).

Anyway there are 3 "maybe"-solutions, that maybe would make it ok for me and others who got huge problems with it

I used the textures of bendson (is this his name?) and it improved it (maybe even more if there would be many sharper lines/details and smaller bits that are brighter and darker on the texturesthat distract from the silouettes and other sharp likes from the 3d-models).

This approach sounds even better, if it will be optimised for infinrtry couverage: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?149905-Sophisticated-considerations-on-how-to-get-rid-of-the-blurry-mid-range-textures&p=2335482#post2335482

The new midrangetextres and landtex for arma 3 just do nothing. Its sharper but without much sharp details and not much varieng colour, so a alternative to the mix trough parts of grass stones earth and the shades of shadows that would be there.

Just there still will be nothing "on" the ground like grass which could be fixed to a disstortion effect or a blurring of the 3d models. So something that simulates the effect most perfectly, if like there would be the same details in regards of texture, grass and shadows (BTW: are there pictures that show the difference if there would be high details and shadows at high ranges?).

Last in some cases its far to easy if the enviroment and the units arent shadowed in the same way. Anyway maybe there are ideas for that too. Nordkinchen allready had one, if i remember right.

Maybe then the grasslayer could be gone, cause really, i mean...?!

There is so much good if not great in that game, just that one point makes it totally broken for me. And its really not about the graphics/aesthatics. http://forums.bistudio.com/images/smilies/frown.png

Edited May 13, 2013 by wiresnsnakes

[byku 13]

There's even a ticket assigned to the devs about this issue! :) http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=3505

[brad7 4]

Dont know if its related but with the taw view distance script i could put it up to the max and see the mountains etc but ai wouldnt appear?

[white 1]

Dont know if its related but with the taw view distance script i could put it up to the max and see the mountains etc but ai wouldnt appear?

currently they are hidden by being hidden under the ground after a certain distance while proning.

[NacroxNicke 11]

A easy solution is lower fov for ironsights and eagle eye.

However, bio-realism guys have already show how the current fov is the most "realistic" setting for long range firefight.

Anyway, I remember that OFP (0.35) had less fov than ArmA 2 (0.25?) and mods like WGL had even less fov (0.42). They really make long range firefight more difficult, but they tend to be too weird when you are used to the eagle view setting.

[Smurf 12]

Dont know if its related but with the taw view distance script i could put it up to the max and see the mountains etc but ai wouldnt appear?

Guess it limits your vision to what AI can see.

__________________

Been discussed to death, don't think there is an easy solution (read: that can be implemented right now in the engine) but I'm not an expert.

Dunno what was done in Heroes and Generals, but it seems to work: (@50s)

People also say that the Joint Operations system:

But in Joint Operations, when you lay down in grass, your character model turns the same color as the ground when you're viewed from a distance. You won't be entirely invisible; an astute observer scanning the terrain with his binoculars can pick you out. But the average Joe running and gunning with an M-14 isn't going to spot you and pick you off from 500 meters.

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/joint-operations-typhoon-rising-/523466p1.html

Never played it but seems it had some nice features that most Arma players would kill for.

Some RTS\RTT also seem to have managed a solution for that, but all those are just examples. The sinking in the ground method is likely to stay. Better than nothing?

[St. Jimmy 272]

There was some good talk about this some months ago but it was on Arma 2 side back then. There was couple picture edited "solutions" that looked good. What I believe they need to add some transparency to models at longer distance if they lay prone and also maybe just bit when crouched.

Also better mid range textures would help a bit.

/Oh the discussion can be found from Byku's feedback link.

Edited May 14, 2013 by St. Jimmy

[wiresnsnakes 1]

I dont see any solution. Elcos approach only works for prone units and a bit for crouching units. I dont want to move prone through the whole island to profit from a solution, there have to be something for everyone (it should be clear, but if you are standing in front of a hill with grass, sure if the person looking at you sees the sky there is nothing you can profit from), and to archive that there have something above the groundtexture, so grass and shadows (example simple grass which maybe can get split into half black and half green, if lights hit it, to simulate shadows) or so a layer with a kind of a distortion (so if you look on a grass surface, there are many little points that hide a part from the ground texture units) effect again reacting to light so points with dark and bright points reacting to lightning.

Anyway all of this takes much power or is maybe hard to programm, so highly detailed and highly resoluted texture that prevend 3d models stand out of it (again if there are hills behind you from the enemys perspective) "and" maybe a effect that blurs the siloutte of 3d models so you can see the figure but the sharp edges melt with the surroundings and units dont stand out, no matter which settings you are using.

Then there are still the shadows or more precisly situations in which the environment and units are not equally darkened by shadows and again people are easy to spot. I read about a low performance cost solution which darkens everything equally somewhere, that sounded good.

Shadows are really important for balancing, if i set shadows (and some other settings) off in Planetside 2 I see many more units, that try to profit from the shadows, especially important if the person actually will try to kill me. I always try to stay in the shadows as a sniper or at least try that the sky isnt behind me, from anyone looking in my direction. There isnt much (or I just deactivated it in the settings, i dont know anymore) stuff like grass, you can profit from and even if you are spotted, the time to kill is so high, that you dont die if you get hit by one bullet. And even if you die, you can spawn most times after 10 seconds not far away.

In Arma you often die from one bullet and in many cases you have to walk a long long way (Im working, I dont have time to walk the same freaking way ten times, that takes 20 minutes to one hour) to get back. So that are 2 very different cases.

I really liked the game as i played it first but nwo im angry that i spend the money on it after i recognized there is just nothing that hides me from enemys far away in the same way especially if im crouching or standing (I crouch to get fast somewhere, but I really will not prone the whole fucking way everytime), as if there would be the same detail (grass+shadows) or actually is the same detail or roles reversed, i see a poor bastard easy to see as a dark stick on a white peace of paper. First could be expected.

Its 2013. There could be a solution, but no matter if they just see it as a problem or the engine just cant take it, it really just sucks, I wouldnt need the eyecandy 200 meters around me, dump the whole fucking grass and shadows close up even, its just about realism, that i would expect from a sim.

Really: Everything else i great or at least ok in this game. But this really makes every engagement above a few hundred meters a real turn off for me, so literally I played a few times till this situations accour and just couldnt stand it and exit the game.

Ah! To make it clear: I dont want to convince people from my opinion, everyone should have as much fun as he can get from Arma 3, Im just sad that there is something that brakes the great overall concept and all the other good aspects for me.

Just say that, cause in forums about games, there are always nerdy kids who would like to see you suffer endless pain, if you say something bad about their game and Im afraid I will never want to have kids if I read much more of that.

And sorry for my bad english.

[gutekfiutek 10]

I wrote something about this some time ago:

About grass and soldiers hiding in the grass:

The problem are mipmaps - textures have lower resolution when settings are low, you see polygon at an angle, or in the distance.

Generally they get more and more blurry.

So when youre hiding in the grass and someone else looks at you - even if grass covers half of body (just like it happens in A2) - you are still realy easy to see as you're only sharp object in blurry environment.

That's crap solution, it's still really easy to pick sodiers "hiding" in the grass, even if only head is visible.

Sharp on blurry is easy to see - blurry on blurry would be harder to notice.

So soldiers in ARMA3 need to be blurred when they are far away or prone.

This can be done by having different shader for last LOD of characters, even vehicles.

Different camuflages could give more or less blurrines.

Shooting and giving away your position (moving etc.) could sharpen your character, making it easier to notice.

---------- Post added at 03:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:19 PM ----------

Here's example

http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-VUa4hUk5ivQ/T4Q_gTBOfUI/AAAAAAAAFH4/dO74PfxurrQ/s882/arma%2520zoom.jpg

[metalcraze 290]

Dunno what was done in Heroes and Generals, but it seems to work: (@50s)

Made the rest of the graphics look 10 years old so they can render patches of wheat on empty ground further?

Also no large viewdistance + optics... In ArmA3 you can't just render grass 500m away and be done with it when with optics you can see infantry a km or two away.

Shadows from truesky look good though. ArmA3 needs them too since it's the same tech.

I know BIS showed some interest in that suggestion though which mixes the simplified grass texture with player's model on the ground which achieves the same effect without the need to render grass that far. I hope they will implement it although "drowning" units in the ground doesn't look too shabby for gameplay purposes either.

Edited May 16, 2013 by metalcraze

[samco 1]

its a difficult problem to resolve but check this

it is a graphic engine which use fractal algorithms to render grass and objects at distance with low resources.

If BIS engine or a mod could do something like that, this problem could be overcomed maybe.

By now sinking with the grass layer technique and improved mid range textures , seems the best workaround . Also the blur the soldier thing is very interesting .

Edited May 22, 2013 by samco

[wiresnsnakes 1]

@samco The tech from outerra would be a great solution.

Still the workarounds just dont do it for me, as much i wish they would, but they seem to be the only solution people can expect.

The flatness just let all stand out if not prone and a solution just for proning units just isnt fair and i dont want be forced to prone kilometers. if you walk in front of a hill all the details like stones and dirtfragments plus all the grass and overall shadows that draw a picture with much detail and contrasts (shadows!) that makes you hard to spot if someone isnt looking exactly in your direction. Thats just too elementary in a sim where the interacting is relevant above a few hundred meters and you can get killed in a blink.

Overall its the inconsequence of the graphic that brakes it forme. Everything is detailed and looks good upclose, yeah great eyecandy, gameplaywise its horrible, if beyond that its a game from 10 years ago and there are totally different rules for the different ranges for encounters.

Instead of variating grades of details, I would expect just one. It doesnt fucking matters how good it looks, if its looking bad, undetailed and dated, who cares, who want a milsim, just so its just one world and the same conditions for all interactions in possible engagement ranges.

Its just seems like lousy patchwork to make everyone happy (I understand that they "have to" make it pretty so they can get they money they need to pay the employes), instead on focussing on the simulation/realism and the first thing would be a consequent environment.

I would be happy if they take all the grass out or just a little low growded low detailed grass , removing the grasslayer use most simple shadows and texture with grass, stones and dirt and faked shadows with the best possible resoltion, but the detail of the textures shadows and everything else would be the same as far as optics allow you to see.

If it should be pretty too, you just ahve to wait for better hardware or a solution like in Outerra, if its all about realism and gameplay.

Anyway, I should have waited for the full release, before buying it and test if i like it generally and there isnt any dealbreaker for me. So mea culpa.

[Raible 1]

I think 4k monitors may be the ultimate solution. :)

[samco 1]

this should be a priority together with weapon resting ... it totally ruins the gameplay