While you're at it could you fix the A.I. from being partially submerged in the terrain when prone?

[robowilso 40]

I concluded that this issue is of such importance that it should be added to the 'in development branch' thread and corrected immediately. There was a past main  branch update where it was advertised that there had been soo many A.I. improvements, but when you have A.I. enemies literally halfway submerged in the terrain it makes every simulated operation the fundamental equivalent of a hardcore zombie shooter!!!  I would definitely want this fixed before the BIG Tonoa APEX update if I was BIS.  Does anyone know of a community made fix or addon that corrects this?

Edited March 14, 2016 by R0adki11
removed unnecessary question marks

[austin_medic 109]

It's not that the AI is sunk into the ground. It's the fact that the terrain drawing is all shot to hell and beyond basically because it's still using old technology (some parts even use directX 7 still). No fixes exist because its probably on the very very bottom of the stack of code, so changing it can break anything that is above it that depends on it to function. 

[aronh17 26]

It's not that the AI is sunk into the ground. It's the fact that the terrain drawing is all shot to hell and beyond basically because it's still using old technology (some parts even use directX 7 still). No fixes exist because its probably on the very very bottom of the stack of code, so changing it can break anything that is above it that depends on it to function. 

I wouldn't chalk it all up to the old engine, I thought it was down to being difficult to have detail far away without a big performance impact. The most relevant comparison I can think of is Squad and even in Unreal Engine 4 they have it worse than Real Virtuality. Guys float in the air from not very far away in Squad.

[ineptaphid 6413]

Ai are not sunk into the terrain-it is just that terrain detail is not visible at those ranges. 

 

And I don't think your topic title requires 5 question marks..

[froggyluv 2136]

 Necessary Evil.

[andersson 285]

This is a feature implemented since arma2. It is there to simulate a unit partially hidden in grass.

[stk2008 14]

Yep its simulating grass cover at long ranges.

[ImperialAlex 72]

People are discussing two different things here. One is the fact that the terrain LODs do not degrade very gracefully. This means that you can sometimes see enemies "floating in the air" when they're actually behind a ridgeline that is far away. This is also an issue in other games, however it's of course only noticeable in games where you have very long engagement ranges.

 

The other thing is what OP is actually talking about: Infantry units (and not just AI, btw) are sunk into the ground a bit when they are prone and far away. This is intended to simulate them being "hidden in grass" (rendering grass out to 1000s of meters is sadly not yet feasible, even in other, better optimized engines). While it might have been a decent solution when it was first implemented (in OFP?), it is far less acceptable today where the visual fidelity of the rest of the game makes this look like a bug to pretty much anybody who hasn't yet heard of this "feature".

 

The feedback tracker is currently down due to a recent security breach, but one of the highest voted items on there was a very clever and thoughtful suggestion how to replace this "sinking" by a more immersive technique. ( https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/140105-rendering-grass-at-long-distances-my-thoughts-about-it/). As far as I know it was looked at by BI but they sadly decided that it wasn't feasible/important enough (or, more likely, a combination of both) and wouldn't be implemented (at least not in this iteration of the game).

[teabagginpeople 398]

Robo you are on the forums what three years and you never once seen this mentioned? It's definitely not for dev branch.

I agree with it being annoying as hell. You better believe I have ran into this problem many times . A clean headshot nope shot kicks up dirt. I know it was clean because the second they stood up out of the sunken ground their head was divorced from their body.

I had been keen to see a fix for this. The tread had a revival of sorts. Then the report on dropped on it. Wouldn't have been happy with a non fix due to lack of Man power as it for me was a big deal. They said they looked into it. But was an engine limitation. what can you say they tried.

[old_painless 182]

They should render detailed terrain when looking through a scope. That's the immersion killer for me. Not cutting it anymore this workaround. Make it a setting so machines that can handle it has that option.

If they are looking into new terrain technology with Tanoa please make this a priority

[bumgie 49]

People are discussing two different things here. One is the fact that the terrain LODs do not degrade very gracefully. This means that you can sometimes see enemies "floating in the air" when they're actually behind a ridgeline that is far away. This is also an issue in other games, however it's of course only noticeable in games where you have very long engagement ranges.

 

You can us this scripting command to help with units floating in the air above hilltops:

 

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setTerrainGrid

 

Lower values mean that units are floating less as terrain is rendered more accurately. Some of the arma graphics settings also alters this value.

This does come at a FPS price and our community has set it so that maps with many hills and large viewdistances has a much smaller terraingrid value set to each player automatically. Maps with not many hills and small viewdistances has a larger terraingrid value as people are less likely to be seen floating upon hilltops.

[Dwarden 1125]

the sinking into ground emulates grass cover in A2/OA/A3 and happens for both AI and player units (any characters)

it was only 'feasible' solution we managed to come out within short time next to 'nothing' ...

old OFP (not sure if also A1) had different method of rendering 2 layers of distant ground which was performance and visually unacceptable for high fidelity terrain

while there are other 'solutions' proposals like 'transparency' overlap vs soldiers

those really don't take into mind angles vs distances, viewer noticeable higher than target, target noticeably higher than viewer, clutter sizes, clutter color

it would be nice to take clutter's color,size around target and transparency to somewhat smudge the result with impostor alike overlay pass (perpendicular to viewer)

but I do remember there was some issue in A2/OA times which prevented that to be done

maybe it's doable now in DX10+ era, will try discuss it within team

[Fushko 59]

the sinking into ground emulates grass cover in A2/OA/A3 and happens for both AI and player units (any characters)

it was only 'feasible' solution we managed to come out within short time next to 'nothing' ...

old OFP (not sure if also A1) had different method of rendering 2 layers of distant ground which was performance and visually unacceptable for high fidelity terrain

while there are other 'solutions' proposals like 'transparency' overlap vs soldiers

those really don't take into mind angles vs distances, viewer noticeable higher than target, target noticeably higher than viewer, clutter sizes, clutter color

it would be nice to take clutter's color,size around target and transparency to somewhat smudge the result with impostor alike overlay pass (perpendicular to viewer)

but I do remember there was some issue in A2/OA times which prevented that to be done

maybe it's doable now in DX10+ era, will try discuss it within team

 

Have you guys thought about "simply" rendering the grass and other details when zoomed in enough on land far away?

[old_painless 182]

Exactly. Just the parts of the terrain that can be seen through scope need to be rendered in full fidelity, like I asked above.

[laxemann 1673]

maybe it's doable now in DX10+ era, will try discuss it within team

 

PLEASE :')

[Greenfist 1863]

When you're looking through a scope on a flat terrain, the ground at the bottom of the screen could be only 100m away, while the center of the screen could be 1100m away. Would the grass render for the whole 1km visible area between them? Or only on areas that are like 1000-1200m away? Creating a ring of grass around you.

 

Or would you render the grass only when everything visible is something like 1000-1200 away? Then you move the scope slightly and a side of a hill at 500m comes into view. Is the grass only at 1000m or from 500 to 1200? That would be a lot of grass, even if the clutter objects would be more sparsely spaced than right around you. Or would the grass pop in and out depending on if it's possible to render?

 

I mean there's often ground visible for very long distances in different parts of the screen, not just that a small area around the target.

[Kerc Kasha 102]

Have you guys thought about "simply" rendering the grass and other details when zoomed in enough on land far away?

I don't think it's that easy, only I know of that does this is the GTAV engine but i'm sure there might be others

[roberthammer 582]

Remember this thing https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/140105-rendering-grass-at-long-distances-my-thoughts-about-it/ ?

 

I wouldn't expect this such thing happen in A3 imho

[Dwarden 1125]

Have you guys thought about "simply" rendering the grass and other details when zoomed in enough on land far away?

you have various types of optics (rifles, binoculars, vehicles) and also camera and can use it from any angle including copters/airplanes)

also different types of zooms and fast transits between zoomed in/out

this makes very hard to render grass in optics cause what all you can see in optics based on altitude e.g.

so let say you standing on very high hill and watching 3 lesser hills, each apart by 1km (in line of view) and each has soldiers in grass ...

[old_painless 182]

Dwarden, appreciate the reply. So what you are saying is that zooming in through optics can lead to effectively viewing a very different area, dependent on where I am and where my opponent is, and what kind of scope I am using?

 

This complexity is of course present. However, if the rifle scope case was solved, you would probably solve 90% of the use cases, even if only 30% of the theoretically possible cases. That would still be a major improvement and give some valuable experience in how to tackle the rest of the cases.

 

As to whether or not to render grass, I guess that is a simple function of how zoomed in on the area I am. If an infantry opponent is clearly visible in my scope, I expect to see terrain details around him as well. However, if he is only a small dot through my scope due to distance or scope quality, I would not expect to see terrain detail.

 

This thread really needs some pictures  :)

 

-OP

[Dwarden 1125]

the problem is that way grass would need to be rendered on

all visible surfaces

at any distance

any angle of slopes

within the zoom scope

some angle buffer to all sides (so you can move the target point w/o grass render/load issues)

in short, in some zooms you would need render 100m2 of grass at 1km, another 100m2 of grass at 2km and another 100m at 3km

and such grass lod system which must look good at any angle and distance and while zooming in/out and traversing the target point

the rifle scope % argument is invalid, there're binoculars, there are laser designators,

there are static weapons and vehicle optics (main weapon turrets, side weapon turret(s), commander turrets)

there are UAVs and other camera systems

the issue must be solved properly for all of them

[froggyluv 2136]

 I dont see how the rifle argument is invalid as a "cant do one or else we have to do em all so we'll do none of em"

 

 Much of this franchise is based on a foot in the door philosophy with half done finishes. I don't mean this as a criticism as I know how many functionalities you guys have to tackle -but c'mon. Why do AI corner hiding if they dont use all corners. Why do underwater fighting if you can see thru the surface. Why add ragdoll if they cant be used for wounding or they only do dramatic backflips......and those are only 3 of about 10,000

 

 Rifle optics would be fine and I think 95% of rifle users would agree with me.

 

 For a start anyways..

[Greenfist 1863]

Really hard to imagine how the grass would look like in this:

The bottom of scope is 100m away and the furthest guy is at 700m.

[St. Jimmy 272]

I don't believe rendering grass in long distance would really be possible. Something along the lines of transparency could maybe do something so you're more transparent and in that way harder to spot, the closer the ground you're or how good camo you've on you. There's a ticket about that but the feedback tracker is still down.

Also something like this would improve things somewhat: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/141095-terrain-improvement-dev-branch/

[old_painless 182]

Great picture, thanks. I would say from a circumference around the red dot (center of scope) and inwards towards yourself, there should be detailed terrain. The two soldiers furthest out are already blurry due to the zoom not being centered on them, accordingly one does not expect the terrain to have high fidelity.

 

But it is not a trivial problem, eg. if you then start moving the red dot outwards, the terrain resolution should follow along. Will that look strange? Will it work smoothly? The more reason to start out with something well-defined like rifle scopes. The mindset should be that it can be a success in and of itself to just cover rifle scopes like this picture. That would be a major feat. Then the remaining cases can be gradually solved based on that experience.

 

-OP