Displacement maps

[AhabtheArab 10]

Hmm, this has been asked before, but got NO answers.

Is it possible to make displacement maps in Arma 3? I'd like to make the bricks stand out in a building model, not just look like a picture of bricks pasted on a board.

[AhabtheArab 10]

Wow, guess the devs are on vacation.

[opteryx 1562]

Do you mean parallax? If so, no. It can only be applied to terrain textures as far as I know.

However you can use normal maps on objects.

[Jackal326 1181]

Wow, guess the devs are on vacation.

Perhaps giving them only ~30 hours to respond, over a weekend (when they don't work), was also rather naive.

However, Opteryx has answered your question for you.

[AhabtheArab 10]

Hey Opterix, thanks for responding. The last person asked this question over A YEAR AND A HALF AGO, and got NOTHING, so whose being naive, Jackal?

I've seen some posts say there's some distinction between Parallax and displacement mapping, but I think Parallax is just the old term before DX11 and Tessellation came out.

The textures in this game are decent, but they all look like their pictures of bricks, sand, rocks, etc. that have just been pasted over a flat board. I hope BIS will give us REAL DX11 graphics abilities in the next updates.

Right now, I'm just constantly on the lookout for a new Arma like game with a modern engine.

[PuFu 4600]

Hey Opterix, thanks for responding. The last person asked this question over A YEAR AND A HALF AGO, and got NOTHING, so whose being naive, Jackal?

I've seen some posts say there's some distinction between Parallax and displacement mapping, but I think Parallax is just the old term before DX11 and Tessellation came out.

The textures in this game are decent, but they all look like their pictures of bricks, sand, rocks, etc. that have just been pasted over a flat board. I hope BIS will give us REAL DX11 graphics abilities in the next updates.

normals maps (tangent or object space), bump maps, height maps, vector displacement map etc are ALL displacement maps. As said, parallax is working only on terrain textures.

Which ones of the above do you refer to?

and what capability would you like to be given?

Tessellation is process of subdividing geometry. It can work in conjunction with a texture map yes.

Right now, I'm just constantly on the lookout for a new Arma like game with a modern engine.

good luck with that

Edited April 27, 2015 by PuFu

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Right now, I'm just constantly on the lookout for a new Arma like game with a modern engine.

Give it another 20 years, and someone will come out with one on the Outerra Engine.

[AhabtheArab 10]

I mean where the bricks come out on the corners (edges) as well, not just the middle of the pic, if that helps. Bump mapping (normal mapping) doesn't seem to do edges.

There are engines out there, but so far, no one has done a realistic military one on them yet. Most seem to be focusing on Fantasy games, unfortunately.

I played with CryEngine for a number of years, but they seem to be fading ( or dealing only with governments now ). Just gonna have to wait, I guess.

[babylonjoke 22]

Give it another 20 years, and someone will come out with one on the Outerra Engine.

You have never been so wrong. Other devs like epicgames (ue4) are looking towards envioriment size and are already developing new techs. At GDC 2015 they showed a 16x16KM terrain impressively detailed. And just to remind, UDK4 now it's now free for everybody.

My suggestion AhabtheArab is stick your nose out of BIF, especially if you are an Artist wanna be.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Babylonjoke

[AhabtheArab 10]

You have never been so wrong. Other devs like epicgames (ue4) are looking towards envioriment size and are already developing new techs. At GDC 2015 they showed a 16x16KM terrain impressively detailed. And just to remind, UDK4 now it's now free for everybody.

My suggestion AhabtheArab is stick your nose out of BIF, especially if you are an Artist wanna be.

Yeah, unfortunately I have to agree. I spent many years with Arma II and had high hopes for Arma 3. But I feel like its become even less graphics and objects in order to become bigger. Even lakes and water have been abandoned. We're fighting in a desert wasteland. The engine feels too old and stretched beyond its abilities. Many new engines are coming out, and as you said, UDK4 seems to be rivaling Crysis now. Its time for a new engine that can use modern graphics hardware ( which will in turn, increase FPS ).

[kklownboy 43]

actually its 22x22

stupid post.....

Crytec is dead

UE4 is way past that(to me Crytec) as of today. Frostbite is using PBR... The RV is great. and will be updated for awhile. But....only one Game, ARMA, to pay for it.

Fusion/DayZ in ARMA 4? just the mesh for AI path finding will push ARMA on to cooler stuff.

Edited April 27, 2015 by kklownboy
mistake

[gibonez 18]

And then the Outerra engine is owned by BIS now....

Wait What ?

[opteryx 1562]

And then the Outerra engine is owned by BIS now....

Source please.

[AhabtheArab 10]

And then the Outerra engine is owned by BIS now....

News to me. And sorry, but Crytek and UE are not dead. UE just hit 4.7. VERY NICE features. The problem with RV4 is can only do basic stuff, its graphics abilities are BEYOND dated, and its editors remind me of UE1. VERY hard to use!

BIS has done a good job with textures and such, but were not able to do displacement mapping ( think taking a picture of rocks and pulling the rocks out of it - i.e. Heaven Unigine demo - displacement mapping - tessellation). Stuff like that. Its just tooo old.

We can't even have lakes and rivers, which have existed in other engines for ages now!

[Jackal326 1181]

...and its editors remind me of UE1. VERY hard to use!

Are we talking about the same editor? Its one of the easiest to use mission editors I've ever used in a game, and certainly the most versatile. You just need to know which side of the mouse to hold...

[AhabtheArab 10]

Are we talking about the same editor? Its one of the easiest to use mission editors I've ever used in a game, and certainly the most versatile. You just need to know which side of the mouse to hold...

I'm talking more about Oxygen and terrain. VERY dated compared to the editors on the newer engines. Especially UE4.

[kklownboy 43]

opps I get BI-Sim and BIS mixed up.... AND Otterra and TerraSim mixed up too I will edit.... dont hit me to hard.

http://www.riversidecompany.com/News_and_Media/Press_Releases/TerraSim_-_Add-on_News_Release.aspx

[AhabtheArab 10]

Ah, ok. I was wondering! Something I missed? Lol, we'll I just hope that BIS get displacement mapping in their next releases for objects. Bump mapping is just an illusion, where as displacement mapping is actually physically bringing out the rocks / bricks from mortar and such. Like in the Unigine Engine Heaven demonstration where you turn on "tessellation" ( yeah, I know, not exactly right ), and the cobblestones come up from being flat and you see the bricks start to stick out from the wall. Best example I can think of.

[babylonjoke 22]

Crytec is dead UE4 is way past that(to me Crytec) as of today. Frostbite is using PBR... The RV is great. and will be updated for awhile. But....only one Game, ARMA, to pay for it.

CE is not dead (star citizen and kingdome come anyone?), Unity (don't know if they released it already but I've seen they were working on it) and UE4 supports PBR as well but this is just a minor thing for the whole artistic part that satisfies a creative mind.

We are talking about graphic stuffs, so please, get the fuck out of there if you think RV engine is great in the way they provide it to us.

Are we talking about the same editor? Its one of the easiest to use mission editors I've ever used in a game, and certainly the most versatile. You just need to know which side of the mouse to hold...

Sure, it is, except that there's no 3D editor yet.

As for the tools Arab, if you are a fan of the game and you want to start some serious project go for it, no other engines are versatile like this one (you can do any type of asset without many problems air,naval,land). However, if you just want to make some objects for envioriment just for the sake of doing it you better go to UE4, CE3 SDK or Unity. Pretty sure the result will satisfy you much more

Edited April 28, 2015 by Babylonjoke

[Healbeam 10]

Since we've gone offtopic anyways,

Squad is based on the Unreal Engine and supposed to be a standalone successor to the popular Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2. I doubt it'll be a competition for ArmA, but we'll see.

TitanIM is based on the Outerra Engine. It looks okay-ish, but I doubt they'll be able to get the terrain detailed enough and the weapon systems complex enough for it to be even remotely fun. But we'll see.

DCS is currently just a flight sim (although arguably the best one for the civilian market) and also looks very dated without even featuring infantry. However, it is supposed to get an engine overhaul (called EDGE) soon, as well as (a) new terrain(s) which is already beyond the level of detail Take on Helicopter's maps had. If they get out a proper infantry module for a reasonable price, we might have a competitor. Although complexity and price are still major deterrants.

[gibonez 18]

Titan Im looks the most promising merely because of the game engine.

Outerra would be a huge boom for Arma style gameplay, it would fundementally change the formula where Arma is mainly an infantry game , with outerra it would be a large scale game where Artillery, armor, and air are all extremely important.

[AhabtheArab 10]

Here's what I meant by displacement maps.

http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/Surface_Relief__Displacement_maps.htm,topicNumber=d30e632545

"With Displacement maps, depressions and elevations become part of the geometry of the object, changing the topology, unlike Bump maps that only create the illusion of surface relief."

Nice game list. I'm a big fan of DCS already. A-10 and Blackshark pilot. They have hinted at coming out with an M1A2SEP Tank module. That might get us into an Arma like game, which would be interesting, because it would have highly realistic flight simulation and a HUGE map.

Another game coming that should be on the list is Blackfoot Studio's - Ground Branch. http://www.groundbranch.com/

Edit: Wow! I didn't know Outerra was up to that level now. Looks like they're about to go mainstream soon!

Edited April 27, 2015 by AhabtheArab