BettIR - NVG improvements and IR Illuminators

[theVestarr 24]

BettIR - IR Improvement for ARMA (Alpha Release)

Download: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2260572637

Also, if you liked my work and would like to see more - feel free to support me on my Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/vestarr

 

 

 

 

Arma is a great game, but there's one thing it could never do - IR illumination. There's a lot of great things that only work in IR Spectrum, but ESPECIALLY in ACE mod, if it's dark - you're doomed.
In real life, you would normally use IR illuminators for that purpose. They emit a bit of IR light to help you see stuff around you. A lot of known Night Vision Goggles have them built in; you can also find these lights in AN/PEQ-15 boxes and other weapon-mounted light combos.
Unfortunately, Arma doesn't natively support such thing. However, with a bit of scripting (and magic) we can make anything work right?

The mod currently only involves:
- NVG-mounted IR lights (compatible with particular NVGs only)
- Weapon-mounted IR lights (e.g. vanilla IR laser pointer is enough to use this functionality)
- Compatible with Vanilla NVG's and IR pointers
- Compatible with most RHS NVG's and IR pointers
- Compatible with most CUP NVG's and IR pointers
- Compatible with most USP NVG's
- Allows you to use your laser along with the IR illuminator
- Multiplayer Compatible!
- Configurable keybinds to toggle the both lights (Ctrl + Alt + L and Ctrl + Alt + N by default)
- Adjustable viewdistance
- Tested with 66 AI actors with their illuminators on with minor FPS impact
- Easily Extendible - see "For Developers" section below

To be added soon:
- Weapon-specific offsets for better approximation of the position of the light source
- IR Patches
- IR-only textures
- Weapon-mounted illuminators
- AI using it and reacting to it
- Reorganizing the code architecture

Known bugs:
- Laggy in vehicles, potential fix in the pipeline
- Position of the lights is approximated and might not be perfectly lined up to the actual position of the light source; will not fix (unless there's a method to fix it)

Spoiler

For Developers

Adding more gun attachments to work with it

You can make this mod compatible with other attachments/nvg's from different mods fairly easy with configs.
First of all, add the BettIR_Core to the requiredAddons. Then you add your NVG classes to the config.cpp as follows:
 

class BettIR_Config
{
    class CompatibleNightvisionGoggles
    {
         class mymods_NVGs_className
         {
              offset[] = {0.1, 0.15,0.3};
         };
    };
    class CompatibleAttachments
    {
        class mymods_some_gunAttachment
        {
             offset[] = {0.15,0.22,0.25};
         };
    };
};

You can also inherit from classes that are already in place: __base_NVG, __base_Monocular, __base_topRailPointer, __base_rightSiderailPointer

Forcing AI to use it
Currently this mod isn't very AI-friendly, i.e. it doesn't have any impact on their behaviour. However, there are two functions that you can call which can turn on their lights as well.
Before you run them however, you need to make sure that the unit is wearing the NVG's currently and has them actually switched on.
 

[this] call BettIR_fnc_nvgIlluminatorOn;

// OR 

[this] call BettIR_fnc_weaponIlluminatorOn;

 

 

Credits
 

Ulfgaar - for giving me the idea to do the IR patches, which then spiraled out of control and became much more than that; for exchanging a lot of information about the real life technology and helping me understand it much more
Dslyecxi - for feedback and Nightvision-related consultation
OneLittleSociopath - for helping me figure out some of the optimalization concerns
TheVache & Somedudechen - for helping me test this mod

Disclaimer
This mod doesn't change the color of the NVG's as the screenshots suggest! I used a wonderful NVG mod by Apricot to take nicer preview screenshots. You can find it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1908374667


Licensing information can be found in the steam workshop link, to be updated soon.

Contributions/suggestions welcome!

[Steve 161st 26]

Awesome work. Thank you so much for bringing this to the A3 community

[[VW]Wrath 63]

Just had a little play around with this. seriously awesome work!

[MrMasMola 16]

We have been waiting 7 years for this. Thanks!

[stburr91 995]

I'm curious, how are you doing this? 

 

Are you creating an IR light source, and attaching it to the player?

 

 

[Reticuli 14]

Do AI with NVGs react to IR lasers yet?  If not, any other mods do that?

[HBAOplus 12]

Any plan to update your mod to utilize arma3's new IR lighting?