Visual Upgrade – Feedback

[Fushko 60]

Splendid work devs. Extremely impressed with how it turned out.

Lighting is a definite step forward, especially at early hours. Water is so good it makes me thirsty. Also the sun in first person isn't gigantic anymore.

 

Couple things to note (so far):

 

1. The water still climbs the shore in an unnatural way:

 

The wet effect should be the only thing affecting the shore at a steep angle, me thinks.

 

2. The new road texture doesn't reflect sunlight. It seems to have no specularity at all.

As you can see, the sea is properly reflecting the sun, can't say the same for the road though.

 

It should be more like this: (not exactly the same surface, but you get the idea)

 

 

Now I'm not sure if it's possible to fix this, or it's an engine limitation, because I noticed that terrain and grass don't have specularity too. The ideal would be terrain and grass also reflecting sunlight, kinda like this (pic from Rainbow Six Siege):

 

 

Thanks for listening.

[bullet purveyor 85]

I made this timelapse webm to show my friends and I noticed some weird cloud behavior: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2282299/tl3.webm

 

 

They seem to kinda loiter and just move around back and forth, and at (I'm assuming) midnight, they seem to totally reset and make a totally new formation. This happens around 19 seconds in the webm. I've seen other A3 timelapses and I haven't noticed this issue so I'm guessing it was introduced with the visual update.

 

 

thats due to changing wind and overcast/forecast values

 

There were several complaints about this in alpha and beta, It happens when mission makers have wind direction set to random.

The whole cloud layer switch directions in a split second, following the complete abrupt wind changes. Looks really bad.

Devs should just remove the random wind direction if they can't make smooth transitions.

[johnnygitarr 4]

hi,

 

i love the new visual update.

 

can you please explain whats the technology behind: "dynamic lights"?

is it new or got an update?

 

for immersion it would be superb if we can get dynamic shadows.

besides "dynamic lights".

 

.. and yes: midrange textures looks terrible (hope for a fix in arma 4).

[haknslash 12]

Is anyone else having issue with smoke grenades (either throw-able or launchers) not showing the color of the smoke if its dark outside? It doesn't matter if it';s in the early hours of the morning or late at night. Basically anytime that there is no light being cast the smoke does not render the color, even if there is a light source nearby. I haven't double checked on the stable build to see if this is the case but I don't recall it being this way.

 

Here are some images...

 

Early morning

 

 

Dawn

 

Afternoon

 

Late night

[pundra 8]

There were several complaints about this in alpha and beta, It happens when mission makers have wind direction set to random.

The whole cloud layer switch directions in a split second, following the complete abrupt wind changes. Looks really bad.

Devs should just remove the random wind direction if they can't make smooth transitions.

Okay thanks. I can fix that and then record this again. But is that the reason the entire cloud formation instantly changes around 19 seconds?

[DJankovic 401]

 

damn this picture looks realistic from the first look and then you see the HUD :D

 

[I give up 152]

Is anyone else having issue with smoke grenades (either throw-able or launchers) not showing the color of the smoke if its dark outside? It doesn't matter if it';s in the early hours of the morning or late at night. Basically anytime that there is no light being cast the smoke does not render the color, even if there is a light source nearby. I haven't double checked on the stable build to see if this is the case but I don't recall it being this way.

 

Here are some images...

 

Early morning

 

 

Dawn

 

Afternoon

 

Late night

Same here. all white at night.

[I give up 152]

I would like to make 2 suggestions.

 

Taking as example some other games who have PP effects, why do you do not create some PP presets so we can choose. Right now we have default and custom. Having some PP presets pre-configured would be a nice addiction, I believe.

 

Can you make the inserted values (numerical) in PP settings to be accepted when we click Ok? Right now the only way to change PP is moving the slide bar which is somehow frustrating when we are fine tuning. Make it like the other similar settings in game (like view distance for instance) where the inserted numerical value is accepted and saved when we click Ok.

 

Thank you,

[dlang 24]

I have some strange shadow on characters with GTX960M. Shadow are long artefact

[Alwarren 2765]

I have some strange shadow on characters with GTX960M. Shadow are long artefact

Standard units or with addons?

Send from my tablet, so pardon any autocorrect bollocks

[dlang 24]

BI units and addons.

Disabled all the mods I was using and the issue still occurs.

Drivers are up to date. Will post a pic of the glitch tomorow

[haknslash 12]

Same here. all white at night.

Thanks for confirming and testing! Can a dev chime in and explain if this is the desired behavior or a bug we've discovered?

 

I just got home and downloaded the current stable build and sure enough, environment light and glow sticks, flares, etc illuminate the colored smoke as they should. Tested at same time of night. Take a look...

 

Ambient environment light 1

 

Ambient environment light 2

 

Using glow sticks to illuminate smoke

[jtgibson 18]

I haven't actually given a trial run of the new devbuild yet, but basing on the screenshots alone, will we be able to turn off that vignette-style radial blur around the fringes of the screen?  The human eyes already do this while looking at our monitors -- there's no need to cripple our eyesight and make things out of focus just because we're not pointing our heads squarely at something in the game. =)

[49lone82 11]

Underwater view was always bad but now it even more hazy 

[road runner 4344]

Underwater view was always bad but now it even more hazy 

I kind of like it, it's very rare to have Crystal Clear water and visibility beyond 20-30M's even in the Andaman Sea depending on the season, considering this is set in the Med, I'd say they got it looking not too bad at all.

It really depends on how far/much you want them to simulate being underwater, as in real life?

[ffhammack 10]

Friggin brilliant. Visual_3 looks straight out of a streetview image. Shadows seem to have a better curve and are less distracting in places where they were unrealistically dark before. I'm happy the sky has less saturation, the scene no longer looks blue and orange like a Michael Bay movie. Awesome changes, y'all are rockstars.

[road runner 4344]

Splendid work devs. Extremely impressed with how it turned out.

Lighting is a definite step forward, especially at early hours. Water is so good it makes me thirsty. Also the sun in first person isn't gigantic anymore.

 

Couple things to note (so far):

 

1. The water still climbs the shore in an unnatural way:

 

The wet effect should be the only thing affecting the shore at a steep angle, me thinks.

 

2. The new road texture doesn't reflect sunlight. It seems to have no specularity at all.

As you can see, the sea is properly reflecting the sun, can't say the same for the road though.

 

It should be more like this: (not exactly the same surface, but you get the idea)

 

 

Now I'm not sure if it's possible to fix this, or it's an engine limitation, because I noticed that terrain and grass don't have specularity too. The ideal would be terrain and grass also reflecting sunlight, kinda like this (pic from Rainbow Six Siege):

 

 

Thanks for listening.

The reason for the "sheen" from Tarmac surfaces is Tar itself is smooth, and can naturally have a "glossy" look about it and therefore has the surface capacity to reflect light, the picture from Rainbow 6 looks fake, unless the ground is covered in something that will reflect natural light, bog standard earth "rarely" does this.

The only time I've seen grass reflect the sun, is when it's covered in morning Dew, which depends on other variables such as temperature and humidity, or it's been pishing down and the sun comes out.:D 

The sun will rarely reflect off items that are matt colour in composition, throw in a few bits of granite, "shiny stones" and you will get some sort of "glint", I don't recall actually seeing any glint from the sun coming off buildings that have lots of windows, during sunrise come to think about it.??

[bek 744]

That photo of the road makes me wonder if screen-space reflections would make sense on roads as well; perhaps in combination with some wet surfaces trick (increased glossiness) only during rain — not necessarily to reflect the sun, but vehicle and road lights.

[tpw 2313]

That photo of the road makes me wonder if screen-space reflections would make sense on roads as well; perhaps in combination with some wet surfaces trick (increased glossiness) only during rain — not necessarily to reflect the sun, but vehicle and road lights.

Agree. I'm not sure how the increased glossiness at the edge of the new water is implemented, but I'd love to see this effect applied to road and concrete surfaces during heavy rain.

[roberthammer 582]

Hi da12thMonkey,

The new lighting is more contrast so very dark and very bright pixels can be out of the range. There are two ways how fix too dark part of your models.

1. Brighten the dark pixels up, a little bit more bright intensity. (this is a simple way )

2. Better improve of reflection by the super shader. I mean let the environmental light make pixels more bright by fresnel. (this way is more complicated, but I think it will looks much better)

You are telling me , i will have to update every single rvmat to adapt to the new contrast? meaning all the custom addons?

if yes , then that's just great....

 

dunno if that was really worth to boost contrast that much that you need to modify texture/rvmat because of it

[KoalaDSK 122]

I haven't actually given a trial run of the new devbuild yet, but basing on the screenshots alone, will we be able to turn off that vignette-style radial blur around the fringes of the screen? The human eyes already do this while looking at our monitors -- there's no need to cripple our eyesight and make things out of focus just because we're not pointing our heads squarely at something in the game. =)

Hello,

you can disable and enable the vignette effect with the "Pause" key.

I am more prefering an option in the video settings, but for now this will do the work.

Best regards

[googlava 57]

You are telling me , i will have to update every single rvmat to adapt to the new contrast? meaning all the custom addons?

if yes , then that's just great....

 

dunno if that was really worth to boost contrast that much that you need to modify texture/rvmat because of it

Hi RobertHammer,

 

of course you don't have to change the each material which you made. It depend if your model is too dark or too bright in the new light. I think almost all of your models will be already OK.

I belive this change is a good way for improve our game. And really I am not happy to hear that you have trable with your amazing models. I will be here for your quastions about how help fix your material and textures if you need it. 

[fabio_chavez 103]

Underwater view was always bad but now it even more hazy 

if you dont see 100% improvement in this compairsion you obviously have never been in water :P

no seriously, there is nothing wrong with the range of visibility and the new gradient finally adds some depth into the underwater space, the causics are also nice.

 

[nodunit 397]

Underwater view was always bad but now it even more hazy 

Thats actually very accurate, my source is almost having drowned :)

The only bodies of water that will be really clear as mainly swimming pools since the chemicals would be cleaning it, the constant maintenance, not to mention no dirt or mud.

http://blog.oceans-campus.com/Portals/288079/images/2b.shoot%20up.snorkelling%20and%20practising%20breath%20hold%20techniques%20at%20Paindane.%20photo%20credit%20Cullen%20Welch.jpgsome fairly shallow water but you can see how foggy it gets.

[EDcase 87]

Visuals looking good in general.

I agree with previous comments that shadows and unlit sides of buildings need to be darker.

 

Underwater shading looks better to me.

But needs particulates in water.  Why isn't that ON by default?

 

Will smoke get any improvement?

At least soften the sprite edges so they aren't so obvious.

In ARMA1&2 they were spherical and shaded which looked better.