Simple Object Checkbox Gone?

[phronk 898]

Did BI recently remove the "Simple Object" checkbox from inanimate objects? (such as a H-Barrier)

 

I've been making use of the checkbox with most of the objects placed in a base I've been working on for my mission, while taking AI line of sight and pathing into consideration, but now I notice many of these objects I've set to be simple objects don't have the checkbox anymore.  Is this a bug or did they decide to remove it?  I'm behind on the change-logs.  I'm currently running stable branch in the 3DEN editor.

[Greenfist 1863]

Yup, it's an intentional change.
 

Quote

We tested all our assets and whitelisted all that were working fine as Simple Objects and at the same time got some measurable performance boost of it. In other words if you cannot set an object as Simple Object, you wouldn't get any performance boost of the feature (e.g. simulation house objects) or it would be horribly broken (e.g. weapon holders) or often both of those no performance boost and broken (grenade that cannot be thrown through military cargo buildings etc.).

 

[Eagle-Eye 1]

Simple objects aren't just useful for overall performance, they also de-clutter the Zeus interface by removing objects you don't need (or want!) to interact with, and thus avoid accidentally moving or deleting them. For that reason alone, I'd vote in favour of getting the Simple Object checkbox back.

 

E.g. a base I made with all structures as Simple Objects, vs all of them as normal objects.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

[bl2ck dog 80]

Couldn't agree more.

[loopdk 92]

give it back plz :D

[moricky 211]

How was the composition placed? By Zeus, or was it prepared by mission designer and made editable?

[Eagle-Eye 1]

4 hours ago, moricky said:

How was the composition placed? By Zeus, or was it prepared by mission designer and made editable?

 

That composition I showed was built in Eden when we still had the Simple Object checkbox. Because I checked that option on all static structures, there is an entry in the Mission.sqm ("createAsSimpleObject=1") for every static structure, which I used to show you the example (quick and simple "Replace All" in Notepad to change "createAsSimpleObject=1" to "createAsSimpleObject=0").

 

Unfortunately, that line is not always added to an object (not even in disabled mode), so using the "Replace (All)"-method won't work... I suppose we could add this manually to every single item we want as simple object (regardless of availability in-game?) but that would be a very time-consuming process of text editing, especially compared to the simplicity of the checkbox.

[DieselJC 196]

Thats a good looking base..is that on Tanoa?

 

 

 

Diesel

[Eagle-Eye 1]

1 hour ago, DieselJC said:

Thats a good looking base..is that on Tanoa?

 

Yes, just northwest of Katkoula, on the first field directly east of the bridge.

 

Spoiler

 

[moricky 211]

11 hours ago, Eagle-Eye said:

 

That composition I showed was built in Eden when we still had the Simple Object checkbox.

If it's built in Eden, that means it's then marked as editable by Zeus using addCuratorEditableObjects. Not making it editable would have the same result as objects being simple. Or am I missing something?

[loopdk 92]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=31073

 

will this stíll work?

[Eagle-Eye 1]

11 hours ago, moricky said:

If it's built in Eden, that means it's then marked as editable by Zeus using addCuratorEditableObjects. Not making it editable would have the same result as objects being simple. Or am I missing something?

Not very familiar with scripting, so maybe this is actually really easy to do, but it seems like an unnecessarily complex step to take if you could do it with a few clicks instead.

 

After some quick and limited testing, I also don't understand the apparent randomness and usefulness of what can / can't be turned into a simple object... For example, the following 6 objects:

Spoiler

 

1. Land_WoodenCrate_01_F (interactive: NO, enterable: NO, destructible: NO, simple object: YES)

2. Land_WoodenCrate_01_stack_x3_F (interactive: NO, enterable: NO, destructible: NO, simple object: NO)

3. Land_WoodenCrate_01_stack_x5_F (interactive: NO, enterable: NO, destructible: NO, simple object: NO)

4. C_Offroad_02_unarmed_F (interactive: YES, enterable: YES, destructible: YES, simple object: YES)

5. Land_dp_mainFactory_F (interactive: YES, enterable: NO, destructible: NO, simple object: NO)

6. Land_Wreck_Hunter_F (interactive: NO, enterable: NO, destructible: NO, simple object: NO)

 

What logic or testing defined that a single wooden crate can be made a simple object, but a stack of those crates can't?

Why can a vehicle's (note that of these examples, the car is the only really useful object to a player) simulation be disabled entirely, including entering and destruction, but a non-enterable non-destructible building can't?

 

 

EDIT:

Worth mentioning as well is that rocks, that are designed and can only be used as part of the terrain, can not be simple objects. Quite odd, since the description of the Simple Object checkbox is "When enabled, the object will behave like a map object (e.g. rocks or trees)".

[Brebera 13]

On 6/20/2017 at 8:09 AM, moricky said:

If it's built in Eden, that means it's then marked as editable by Zeus using addCuratorEditableObjects. Not making it editable would have the same result as objects being simple. Or am I missing something?

Well the problem I have with "Simple object" being removed is, that me and my milsim groups (just as tons of other players and groups) have addon called Ares - which allows Zeus to easily add some or all of the mission objects - even those placed in 3den and not being marked as editable (don't even know how to do that - even though I think a got at least decent experience with Arma scripting, but never needed that - thanks to Ares). I can understand why to you Simple object option may have occurred like unnecessary, but trust me - it is really necessary. For example - I've built huge FOB for my milsim group. In this particular FOB/mission, I have manually placed over 10k objects (most of the are H-Barriers, walls, trees, static props, roads, lights etc..), which is obviously huge FPS drawback since all those objects are simulated - not even mentioning the fact, that when Zeus adds all of those objects, then hen can go make himself a sandwich as well. So please please please... add this fucntion back as its one of the best 3den features for me (: Thanks 

[Drift_91 33]

The main problem for me is 75% of the decorative objects I've placed in Eden are from mods. Because these mods were made before the whole whitelist concept was devised, they don't include a whitelist. Also, @moricky, they're not using the addCuratorEditableObjects module; As far as I know they're using a mod that, among many other useful things, applies addCuratorEditableObjects globally on everything placed in the Eden editor.

 

Another thing I'd like to point out is that there's no harm in making an object simple that doesn't improve performance when simple as far as I can tell; Yes it may be useless in most situations, except those mentioned by others, but does it do anything harmful? And if you make something like a unit or weapon a simple object pretty much all it does in my experience is bug out the object in a way that's very obvious when testing the mission and can be easily undone.

 

Overall, in my eyes at least, restricting what can be made a simple object is causing more of an inconvenience than what it's solving. In my base that I've built with lots of complex objects laying around, mostly from mods, the FPS is moderately lower compared to untouched areas of the map.

 

Edit:
Found a possible solution for now (use with caution): https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/BIS_fnc_replaceWithSimpleObject
Not sure why it's not recommended for multiplayer. Maybe a dev or someone with an understanding of the function could elaborate?
 

Btw credits to the guys in this thread for the solution:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/107410/discussions/18/1319961868335245227/

Edited September 16, 2017 by Drift_91

[das attorney 858]

Quote

What logic or testing defined that a single wooden crate can be made a simple object, but a stack of those crates can't?

 

It depends on how those objects are defined in Arma.   If they are a physics based object, then then it's fine to make a simple non-physics based object of them.  But if they are a class that has no physics properties, then there is no gain to disabling their simulation and it's wasting time to define something as simple when it doesn't have those properties in the first place.

 

Quote

Why can a vehicle's (note that of these examples, the car is the only really useful object to a player) simulation be disabled entirely, including entering and destruction, but a non-enterable non-destructible building can't?

 

 

Again, vehicles have many different states available to a player, so it it is useful that all these options can be switched off/turned on.   An object like a building has not much simulation in the first place so a lot of it's simulation is switched off before players even load their game.  If you really want a solid answer about buildings, then you should ask Nou from ACE or his old partner in crime Jaynus.  They sorted this stuff out back in Arma 2 (in concert with the devs)....

[Drift_91 33]

3 minutes ago, das attorney said:

It depends on how those objects are defined in Arma.   If they are a physics based object, then then it's fine to make a simple non-physics based object of them.  But if they are a class that has no physics properties, then there is no gain to disabling their simulation and it's wasting time to define something as simple when it doesn't have those properties in the first place.

 

Again, vehicles have many different states available to a player, so it it is useful that all these options can be switched off/turned on.   An object like a building has not much simulation in the first place so a lot of it's simulation is switched off before players even load their game.  If you really want a solid answer about buildings, then you should ask Nou from ACE or his old partner in crime Jaynus.  They sorted this stuff out back in Arma 2 (in concert with the devs)....

Yep, you can see an example of this in the benchmark shown here: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Simple_Objects#Performance

 

On 2017-06-20 at 2:55 AM, loopdk said:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=31073

 

will this stíll work?

I just tested it and it doesn't seem to be functional. I placed a car battery in mid-air and tried the vanilla simple object, the script in my last post and that mod's simple object. With the mod's simple object it fell to the ground while the other two made it static in mid-air.

[das attorney 858]

To be fair to you @Eagle-Eye it is a bit of a nightmare if you don't know the rules (of how all the physics stuff works).

 

Some of the objects in the game are physics objects (and they derive off of "ThingX" class).  And some of the objects are things like buildings and they derive off "Static" class".

 

"Static" class does not have much simulation enabled anyway because it's things that don't move (like buildings)

 

"ThingX"  (which is physics enabled) is generally for smaller things, like laptops, crates, spanners, etc etc) can be moved and you can do all sorts of cool things with them.  So the option of making them simple is appealing in a lot of ways (reduced overhead etc).

 

Hope that answers things for you in a way that is much less "arse-hole-ish" than my last post

 

 

[swurvin 6]

100% agree, I will never understand the reason for messing with such an amazing function. I have used it in every single mission I make and is probably the most important option out of everything. When people say it only applies to objects that "need" it obviously have never played on a mission with 40 other people travelling through an EDEN made cave system with nearly 1000 massive cave rocks or attacked a whole EDEN made oil facility or underground complex. Literally my unit cannot do these type of missions anymore all because of this one option being removed, it has forced us to deal with very bad fps compared to usual and forced us to calm down when making missions which just limits the whole mil-sim group from doing its usual events. There is no such thing as "only applies to objects that need it".

Laws of War brought some cluster mines and vans but absolutely destroyed zeus with the new memory leak in the map screen and taken away all possibility to make objects simple, great! 

[lexx 1363]

Sorry, but you can as well just script this? Mark every such object, then put into all their init fields BIS_fnc_replaceWithSimpleObject  ?

[swurvin 6]

Means you have to name 1000's of objects instead of just clicking a checkbox or editing the mission.sqm

[lexx 1363]

You can mark all objects and then write the code into the init input field. It is then taken over into all objects init fields. Hardly harder than ticking every objects checkbox.

[Drift_91 33]

10 hours ago, swurvin said:

Means you have to name 1000's of objects instead of just clicking a checkbox or editing the mission.sqm

lexx is right to a degree. Although it's not recommended for some reason, I personally just put the following in all the objects' init and then test to see which objects are broken by it:

[this] call BIS_fnc_replaceWithSimpleObject

Using "this" makes it so you don't need to name the object and then place the individual name in each init field. As lexx was saying you just select all the items, right click and select "Attributes", then paste the above code.

Seems to be working perfectly for me except on a handful of assets. Although the warnings on the function's wiki page worry me a little and I'm hoping a dev can shed a little light on what's so bad about it. I'm hoping it's just some minor inefficiency at mission start or something like that.

[swurvin 6]

Still doesn't work, I can always still add the objects into zeus. It's literally been removed for everything except vehicles.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

12 hours ago, swurvin said:

Still doesn't work, I can always still add the objects into zeus. It's literally been removed for everything except vehicles.

 

it was explained above that this is due to there being virtually no performance benefit for it with normal objects, while there IS performance degradation due to wear & tear caused by creating/deleting/replacing normal obejcts with simple objects.

 

H-Barriers fall under the House/Building simulation class.

 

[das attorney 858]

12 minutes ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

it was explained above that this is due to there being virtually no performance benefit for it with normal objects, while there IS performance degradation due to wear & tear caused by creating/deleting/replacing normal obejcts with simple objects.

 

H-Barriers fall under the House/Building simulation class.

 

 

That's a good explanation, but I think it could have been left in for objects initialised in 3den as they happen at mission start, so shouldn't really have any bearing on FPS in the game.

 

But yes, agreed that during runtime it can be more of a burden than boon.