Arma 3: Poltergeist -- Taking the 2035 setting and running with it.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hey, I've just tried your showcase. Looks great so far. Amazing scenery and the cutscenes fit nicely, though they're probably raising the mission size. Here are some loose observations:

• I've encountered at least one debug hint saying "second trigger activated" or something similar.
  
• One squadmade had the same name as the protagonist.
  
• I've met some enemies with disabled simulation in the village. Maybe I took the wrong way.
  
• Some kind of map markers are missing. The hud view is really nice but task directions are not always visible.
  
• The grid value in the hud had a line break some time. (See first picture below.) I'm running 1600x900 on my laptop.
  
• One texture error in the briefing area. (See second picture below.)
  
• How the fuck did they get these huge devices into the houses?^^
  
• Helmet said I was healthy while I had the option to heal myself.
  
• A binocular interface for the helmet would be cool.
  
• Nightvision for the helmet?
  
• Voice acting ranged from very good to sometimes not understandable.
  
• You're applying the "hidden" Russian CSAT texture. However, the underlying rvmat and smdi is not adjusted properly causing the CSAT sign to shine through. I've had the same problem and could provide you with (more or less) proper files if you wish.
  
  

Overall a good impression and I'd like to see more. Really enjoyed the helmet functions!

[doln 10]

• I've encountered at least one debug hint saying "second trigger activated" or something similar.
  - Bug squashed!
  
• One squadmade had the same name as the protagonist.
  - Should be fixed when I next patch
  
• I've met some enemies with disabled simulation in the village. Maybe I took the wrong way.
  - You almost certainly did :v
  - My fault for not coralling you into the path you're meant to take. It is admittedly quite linear.
  
• Some kind of map markers are missing. The hud view is really nice but task directions are not always visible.
  - Noted
  
• The grid value in the hud had a line break some time. (See first picture below.) I'm running 1600x900 on my laptop.
  - I'll look into it
  
• One texture error in the briefing area. (See second picture below.)
  - It's intentional - it's active camo ;)
  - I thought the beep gave it away myself, but maybe I should make it more obvious.
  
• How the fuck did they get these huge devices into the houses?^^
  - Very carefully, piece by piece :v
  
• Helmet said I was healthy while I had the option to heal myself.
  - It said it couldn't pick up any major blood loss ;)
  - The threshold for whether or not you're "healthy" is if you're above 60% health - medkits only heal you to 80%
  
• A binocular interface for the helmet would be cool.
  - Possible, good idea, I'll look into it
  
• Nightvision for the helmet?
  It's possible with not a lot of work but the player not having access to nightvision was intentional for a number of reasons.
  - A number of the helmets features won't work with NV enabled.
  - The mission was much more striking set at night, enabling NV would have shattered that.
  
• You're applying the "hidden" Russian CSAT texture. However, the underlying rvmat and smdi is not adjusted properly causing the CSAT sign to shine through. I've had the same problem and could provide you with (more or less) proper files if you wish.
  - I appreciate the offer, but that would neccesitate an addon, which is outside of the rules of the Singleplayer category. I'm just using setObjectTexture for now.
  

[Greenfist 1863]

I'm having a terrible performance; 25-30 fps, even in the training section. While other medium sized infantry missions run at > 40 fps.

Other than that, it's awesome. :cheers:

[doln 10]

I'm having a terrible performance; 25-30 fps, even in the training section. While other medium sized infantry missions run at > 40 fps.

Other than that, it's awesome. :cheers:

An unfortunate side effect of the ridiculous amount of scripts being run. I've made as many optimisations as I can but it's as good as I can get it without a ton of work.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Edited May 17, 2014 by Doln

[IndeedPete 1038]

- It's intentional - it's active camo ;)

- I thought the beep gave it away myself, but maybe I should make it more obvious.

Yes, I somehow realised it later on. It's actually a good idea but as you say, some explanation would be good.

- It's possible with not a lot of work but the player not having access to nightvision was intentional for a number of reasons.

- A number of the helmets features won't work with NV enabled.

- The mission was much more striking set at night, enabling NV would have shattered that.

Might be true. I'm also working on HUD overlays and it seems simulating nightvision without NVGoggles requires playing around with pp effects...

- I appreciate the offer, but that would neccesitate an addon, which is outside of the rules of the Singleplayer category. I'm just using setObjectTexture for now.

No addons needed. You just have to create your own smdi and rvmat (basically a bunch of configs). And then you can apply it with setObjectMaterial. I don't see how this could violate any rules. You are allowed to use addons, they just have to be part of the mission/campaign.pbo.

[doln 10]

No addons needed. You just have to create your own smdi and rvmat (basically a bunch of configs). And then you can apply it with setObjectMaterial. I don't see how this could violate any rules. You are allowed to use addons, they just have to be part of the mission/campaign.pbo.

Silly me, I had no idea about setObjectMaterial - I was googling like a madman when I noticed the CSAT logo poking through for the first time months ago for a similar command, but never found it. Thanks for this. In that case, I would appreciate it if you could send those files my way if you're still offering c: with full credit and all that lovely stuff of course

Edited May 17, 2014 by Doln

[barakokula31 10]

You really miss those railgun tanks, don't you? :p

[doln 10]

Hell yeah I do!

Edited May 17, 2014 by Doln

[Variable 322]

Awesome work Doln, hats off!

[DerBiwi 10]

Hey Doln, I have one question:

How did you made the active Camouflage?

Greets from a big fan of your work :)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hi there,

I've made you a small example regarding the uniform textures. You need three files to accomplish your goal. The nohq tells the game where highs and lows are on a texture (pockets, patches etc.). The smdi defines which parts reflect light in what way (the emblems usually do, that's your problem). And finally, the .rvmat tells the engine where to look for those files. It's usually a config entry but in your (and my) cases I took hard-coded paths. That means you won't be able to use my example mission until you've adjusted these parts to your file structure. It's working with the relative campaign dir (e.g. "Campaigns\Poltergeist\textures\RussianSMDI.paa") but it seems like the rvmat is not be able to recognise files from it's own dir. (Don't know why, didn't do much testing.) You can adjust the .rvmat with the material editor if you have at least BI-Tools 2.5 installed. Look for the two paths leading to the nohq and smdi. Other than that you might want to also adjust the nohq and smdi as they're not fully mapped to the Russian flag. I just did a quick & dirty job on those ones. Hence, I've put the GIMP source files into the example mission so you can fiddle around a bit by yourself.

My certainly not perfect solution looks like this:

And here is the example mission containing all the files: Download

You might want to re-do also the officer's uniform. I've noticed you've added some stars to his shoulders instead of the CSAT stuff. But these emblems are also shining through.

Also, - no offense - but looking at your code you might want to familiarise yourself with Functions and Control Structures. It might also be a way to increase the performance of your showcase and a proper code and file structure would allow you to easily apply repeating stuff like the helmet functions in the coming missions. Just a tip, I really don't mean to insult you or your hard work. :)

[doln 10]

No offense taken, I code by the seat of my pants. I'm amazed anything works at all to be completely honest.

And thanks, I'll get onto this tomorrow :)

[haleks 8212]

A bit off-topic : Thanks IndeedPete, those are usefull inputs about the uniform configs. I'm also using those uniforms for a scenario - if I understand correctly, there's no way to fix that emblem/flag issue without creating a new smdi file?

If this is the case, are your texture files free to use (with given credits of course)? I totally suck at that kind of stuff... :(

[IndeedPete 1038]

Nope, you'll need to adjust both the nohq and smdi file (and by that also the rvmat) to stop the old emblems from shining through. Otherwise you would either see the light reflection or the plastic outlines. What I've done was just to cover the heights and shiny parts with the surrounding colours and then copypasting the corresponding parts from the Blufor uniforms into the Opfor files. So it's not perfect and needs some adjustments. But with some effort you could put in any logo, emblem or whatever you like and make it look natural. Anyway, feel free to use my files, there's nothing special about them. If you have other questions you can contact me and I'll try to help with my little knowledge or even better open a thread in the forums. We don't want to hijack Doln's thread, do we? ;)

[haleks 8212]

Thanks a ton man; I will see what I can come up with those explanations and your file! ;)

End of OT ^^

[foffy 58]

I gave the Showcase mission a try, and I am absolutely impressed. If not for the fact that it states it was made by a modder, I would have seriously considered this an official Showcase from Bohemia. I think that says a lot on quality and presentation.

Fantastic work! I really dig the idea of something focusing on the "alien" technology of CSAT, and the premise of this campaign seems to be doing that well. Really looking forward to seeing more of it.

[Kommiekat 11]

Very nicely done!

Getting my ass kicked in the first combat scene, but well done.

Nice voice, lots of eye candy at the base............enjoying lots!

[frankfranconi 24]

Just played the mission and I loved it!

Do you have any plans to release some of the features like the Defender HUD as separate mods to be used outside of your campaign?

[doln 10]

Just played the mission and I loved it!

Do you have any plans to release some of the features like the Defender HUD as separate mods to be used outside of your campaign?

I plan on doing an "asset release" of sorts with all the scripts with videos and comments describing how to implement it and so on, as well as all the custom textures.

So, yeah :D

[frankfranconi 24]

That's great, keep it up!

[DerBiwi 10]

Have you made the skripts as .sqs? than you should convert them into .sqf. This is better for Performance Doln.

[frankfranconi 24]

Have you made the skripts as .sqs? than you should convert them into .sqf. This is better for Performance Doln.

I was wondering too and had a peak, they're all sqf. It's really just the sheer amount of scripting going on that makes performance a problem.

[IndeedPete 1038]

It's not the amount of scripts, it's how they're written and executed. As I've said before, Doln should look into control structures, proper loops, CfgFunctions - stuff like that. He would be able to implement his great concepts in a proper way. It would offer reproducibility and customising which should also support the post-contest "asset release" he mentioned. My advise is to re-write the whole suit scripting into a separate package of functions. Then he should move on tweaking the showcase itself. But from what I saw the suit scripts are often tied to the mission itself. Might be a lot of work but I think it will pay out later on.

[frankfranconi 24]

... it's how they're written and executed ...

That's what I was too hesitant to say.

I was looking into the ShotFinder feature of the helmet and unfortunately it's initialized manually for all units present in the mission. I tried to implement something similar with a more flexible approach, cycling through all present units of one side and applying the callback automatically. It didn't work however and I didn't have enough time to debug it properly. Maybe I'll try again at some point.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thought about similar stuff for my glass system but I haven't found away without using eventhandlers yet (which I don't want to keep the system from affecting other stuff.)