Graphics engine improvement

[POTS 0]

Now, I love the grass in this video. Nice and tall, much more realistic than arma1. But it's the darn grass at a distance! I have an idea to fix it. Has anybody played on the avgani iraq map? Well, if you have, and have updated it to the current version, the wheat fields look really great and extend out beyond the normal radius of detail without any performance hit. I was wondering if it would be possible to take the tall grass pattern data from what i've seen in this video, map it to the grass distance texture, and fill the tall grass clumps instead with the avgani iraq style texture to stick out in that area. That way when your walking in those areas the grass doesn't appear out of thin air but instead phases in from a 2d style texture sticking verticaly out of the horizontal flat grass texture.

[POTS 0]

This is the type of tall grass we should see in the tall grass clumps at a distance.

Wheat field

Now doesn't that look a lot better than the current texture? Spans way further then the current one.

[lecholas 2]

Grass like the one on Avgani was done before and even on OFP engine it didn't hit the performance too much (see for example I44's Osterbeeck map or VTE's maps). It seems that Arma's engine is even more friendly performance-wise to such a solution for grass. Not only does it look very nice but also it has a great impact on gameplay and tactics (you can really hide from the enemy when you go prone 500 m from him, and not be like in the middle of a plate for him; and he could do the same). I'd even prefer Novalogic's Delta Force solution (i think it was called voxel engine) which didn't look very good but was trying to simulate the possibility of hiding in the grass. I really can't understand why (from what we can tell so far) Arma2 is not going to use something similar...

[POTS 0]

Grass like the one on Avgani was done before and even on OFP engine it didn't hit the performance too much (see for example I44's Osterbeeck map or VTE's maps). It seems that Arma's engine is even more friendly performance-wise to such a solution for grass. Not only does it look very nice but also it has a great impact on gameplay and tactics (you can really hide from the enemy when you go prone 500 m from him, and not be like in the middle of a plate for him; and he could do the same). I'd even prefer Novalogic's Delta Force solution (i think it was called voxel engine) which didn't look very good but was trying to simulate the possibility of hiding in the grass. I really can't understand why (from what we can tell so far) Arma2 is not going to use something similar...

I know. I think the grass in that video looks amazing, but it ends and becomes an ugly monster. It would be really nice if they could just throw in some 2d style tall grass clumps beyond the radius of detail. And if it's done at a distance like avgani iraq, there should be barely any performance hit.

[sk3pt 0]

- Heat effects for engines (up close), would be great.

http://www.afotec.af.mil/shared....901.jpg

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraf....rey.jpg

http://www.russian-victories.ru/su_33_d.jpg

...and Harrier 'smoke' while hovering                          Other planes... (in this case a SU-33 landing):

[EDIT]

- Some sort of optional water/ocean reflections would be nice.

- Possibility of greater waves (than A1). Stormy sea, white foam, and the possibility to set wind force in editor separately from overcast.

[Taurus 20]

(able to choose wind force in editor separately ?).

yes please!

About grass.

What needs to be fixed also is that the AI cares about it's being there, so that they don't see units hiding in it.

Same goes with bushes and other foliage.

Also about the smoke effects(smoke grenades anyone?), those doesn't affect the AI either.

Now, I'd like to ask one thing about the graphics in Arma 2.

Which year will gamers be playing the game on "Very high" settings?

Yes eye candy looks great on ingame screen shots but if the game runs like a slide show of those pictures it's not going to do much good.

I have a pretty decent? computer way above recommended and I can't get more than 20 FPS in wood/heavy foliage areas, no matter what I try to tweak.

I lacked the foliage in OFP, now its there and bogging down my computer, and (again) AI isn't effected by it.

Part from that, graphics doesn't do a game, the content, how well it works and how fun it is to play makes a game worthwhile.

Arma is not OFP, its not the Arma I looked forward to either

I hope Arma 2 will live up to its expectations and what's been promised!

[ubernoob 0]

just watched the hd-trailer...yet I can´t be whining about the face models.

They still look like lifeless and "plastic"...like slightly different clones of each other.

See for yourself, or is it just me...

ARMA2: (attack of the clones)

http://www.gamersyde.com/pop_image.html?G=9275&N=9

and

OFP2: (face models, couldn´t find decent ingame face screens)

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head1.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head2.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head3.gif

[max power 21]

just watched the hd-trailer...yet I can´t be whining about the face models.

They still look like lifeless and "plastic"...like slightly different clones of each other.

See for yourself, or is it just me...

ARMA2: (attack of the clones)

http://www.gamersyde.com/pop_image.html?G=9275&N=9

and

OFP2: (face models, couldn´t find decent ingame face screens)

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head1.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head2.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head3.gif

To be fair that's an old pic, they have stated that they have not yet implemented the skin shader in the build represented in the HD trailer, and all of those ofp2 heads are not all that dissimilar either.

[POTS 0]

just watched the hd-trailer...yet I can´t be whining about the face models.

They still look like lifeless and "plastic"...like slightly different clones of each other.

See for yourself, or is it just me...

ARMA2: (attack of the clones)

http://www.gamersyde.com/pop_image.html?G=9275&N=9

and

OFP2: (face models, couldn´t find decent ingame face screens)

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head1.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head2.gif

http://www.ofp2.info/ftp/pics/news/pics1/head3.gif

They said they were still working on face models in some other thread in the general section.

[Lou Montana 101]

And, thinking about it, the heads they are showing could very well be "heroes" faces...

Take Team Razor faces to compare, then

[wipman 1]

Hi, something that needs to be improved are the shadows; to be

casted well where & how they should, instead cast 'em in the middle

of the air over other objects. This has been with us from the OFP

and it's something that really needs to be fixed/improved. Let's C ya

[-BR--Dawnrazor 0]

Question

Whats with texture popping in ArmA2?

In this Comments (No. 8)

BIS New

Jan Hovora said in March:

Quote[/b] ]Yes, we develop new shader called multimaterial, you can imagine it like shader for layer merging. This shader alow as to use more repetitive textures with good visual result. So we can save with this technique some video memory, hopefully this will help to reduce texture popping in urban areas.

But in this Vid from August on 2:14-2:17

Video

there is massive texture popping

also on the new HD Vid there is it also at 1:24 on the Rifle

For me it is the most important that this is not in ArmA2!!!

Every time I see this, i must hold me back from throw my ArmA out of the Window

[Zander 0]

is ambiant occlusion supported ?

[EricM 0]

Ambient occlusion is usually a pre-rendered effect baked in the textures to simulate GI lighting.

If you want to speak about parallax "occlusion" mapping, the answer is yes.

[Zander 0]

Ambient occlusion is usually a pre-rendered effect baked in the textures to simulate GI lighting.

If you want to speak about parallax "occlusion" mapping, the answer is yes.

i'm talking about real time ambiant occlusion

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2592720445119800709

[DespairsRay 0]

To be honest I wouldn't care if ArmA2 looked like ofpr, but with just mass improvements else where all across the board.

I want it to be another long last game, not how many games are now... hype it, play if for a few weeks, trade it in.

[baddo 0]

Even BIS admitted [1] they weren't happy with the quality of the graphics in Operation Flashpoint. Definitely there needs to be much better graphics in newer games, considering that they admitted in 2001 that they are not happy with the quality of the graphics in OFP

Quote[/b] ]First of all, some technologies in the game were a bit outdated after more than four years. We didn't know at the outset that the game would be still in development after so long, and we hadn't left time at the end to rework parts of the engine. Some of the criticism of Operation Flashpoint addresses the amount of detail in the textures and some models — and we have to admit that these could have been better.

<snip>

Next time, we will work much more diligently to better estimate our development time — and we will probably try to aim higher with the detail of our artwork, even if it seems insanely detailed for present and predicted hardware capabilities.

[1] http://www.gamasutra.com/ Operation Flashpoint postmortem article: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20011219/spanel_01.htm

But I have to say I had an idea a while back that it could be interesting to see what happens when the graphics quality of ArmA is brought down to the level of Operation Flashpoint. I mean convert every texture, material and visual 3D model so that they are low quality at best (I mean about the same as in OFP). What does that do to the overall performance of Armed Assault. It could be interesting to see that. It is not achievable by just setting the graphics settings down, the files would need to be modified.

[Pyronick 21]

I guess they didn't know Operation Flashpoint would be this successful.

If they did the RV1 engine would probably be much more modular and multi-threaded (or atleast SMP support) from the start since the RV1 engine also powers VBS1.

Quote[/b] ]i'm talking about real time ambiant occlusion

That technique is so hardware resources (especially realtime global illumination, look at Crysis Warhead) demanding that I think it shouldn't be done.

It might be interesting to have subsurface scattering, soft particles and volumetric clouds though.

[sparks50 0]

just watched the hd-trailer...yet I can´t be whining about the face models.

They still look like lifeless and "plastic".

They said they were still working on face models in some other thread in the general section.

Also, it has been said that Characters (and possibly other things, I cannot be bothered to watch the trailer again) does not cast self-shadows.

This is because its WIP and they just couldn't enable it in the stage they were at in the development at the time the trailer was made.

Was it smart of them to release a trailer showing graphics lacking effects? I dunno, but it sure made a lot of people here happy to see some content.

[Zander 0]

volumetric clouds would be nice yes

[Lou Montana 101]

Ooh by the way talking about grass, I have a nice (and I believe not too resource-consuming) suggestion :

grass you crunch when lying on, would come back to its original form after some time and not "instantly".

So you could see a more natural movement of the grass/small bushes/leaves.

[SaBrE_UK 0]

Ooh by the way talking about grass, I have a nice (and I believe not too resource-consuming) suggestion :

grass you crunch when lying on, would come back to its original form after some time and not "instantly".

So you could see a more natural movement of the grass/small bushes/leaves.

Good idea

[mr.g-c 6]

Ooh by the way talking about grass, I have a nice (and I believe not too resource-consuming) suggestion :

grass you crunch when lying on, would come back to its original form after some time and not "instantly".

So you could see a more natural movement of the grass/small bushes/leaves.

Good idea

I second this!

this could be cool if you track a guy in Multiplayer and you come at points where the grass is still flattened a little bit, then you know someone must have been there some few minutes ago....

I like that very much.

[sparks50 0]

Excellent idea!

[icewindo 29]

Any chance ArmA 2 will feature the DOF as a seperate option so you can play with higher bloom/hdr of the high postprocessing settings but without the weapon blur?

The weapon blur makes some sights even useless, as you can't see the markings anymore, take e.g. the M203 sight or the PK, which is rather ridiculous imo   .