Graphics engine improvement

[beugnen 10]

I created this thread to discuss anything about the entire graphics engine as a whole. (Of course I'm not an expert in this)

We were told BIS is working on pixel and vertex shading, this is extremely important if OFP2 is to look better but I'm worried about one thing:

improper use of this may rended the entire game to look pale and faded. Unrealistic like Raven Shield. If you don't know what I am talking about, go play the R6 Raven Shield Demo or full game and look at the colors. It's missing all bright clear colors. Even the fireworks look like a joke. I have seen this in other new games, I don't remember the titles, shading is nice, but it has to be limited and checked with real life appearance.

Also, as discussed before, I would like to see harware vertex tessellation/subdivision as supported by ATI,TRUFORM...

ATI's TRUFORM

General Surface subdivision

Pixel and Vertex Shading (ATI)

Pixel and Vertex shading

well that's surprising, why on earth does A2 have a Shader 3 requirement if its not using VS at least?

sadly, adding any eye-candy is more than likely going to reduce FPS even more on this game.

i would be happy on fixing the graphics pipeline optimization bug first and find out why the CPU is being overly used

Edited July 3, 2009 by Beugnen

[Master gamawa 0]

you know what's funny? I love the graphics when my game is being saved. Seriously. There is a weird contrast shift and a fluffyness that looks really good. Especially in the night and when I am wearing NVG.

It looks almost real for a few seconds. Then the game saves and graphics become flat and geometrical again! I have no complaints I just wonder what happens to the graphics during saving and if I could replicate the effect somehow!

[dunedain 48]

I've noticed that too in the first campaign mission.

[-=seany=- 5]

Yeah, pretty cool effect. I wonder if its a PP side affect or intentional?

[beugnen 10]

you know what's funny? I love the graphics when my game is being saved. Seriously. There is a weird contrast shift and a fluffyness that looks really good. Especially in the night and when I am wearing NVG.

It looks almost real for a few seconds. Then the game saves and graphics become flat and geometrical again! I have no complaints I just wonder what happens to the graphics during saving and if I could replicate the effect somehow!

hehe, i was going to post on this very thing this morning. glad it wasnt just me, thought i was going mad.

i agree, wish the game looked like that all the time

[MiltonSilva 10]

you know what's funny? I love the graphics when my game is being saved. Seriously. There is a weird contrast shift and a fluffyness that looks really good. Especially in the night and when I am wearing NVG.

It looks almost real for a few seconds. Then the game saves and graphics become flat and geometrical again! I have no complaints I just wonder what happens to the graphics during saving and if I could replicate the effect somehow!

I completely agree ARMA2 looks much MUCH better when saving, not only does it look more realistic, the increased contrast makes detail much easier to notice. (like soldiers prone in grass)

[fitzee 7]

well that's surprising, why on earth does A2 have a Shader 3 requirement if its not using VS at least?

sadly, adding any eye-candy is more than likely going to reduce FPS even more on this game.

i would be happy on fixing the graphics pipeline optimization bug first and find out why the CPU is being overly used

lol. You quoted a 6 year old post.

[beugnen 10]

lol. You quoted a 6 year old post.

wow you've been reading these forums for at least 6 years and know all by heart? get a life dude

in any event, it was obvious BIS was unable to understand and implement VS and PS

[Taciturnus 10]

wow you've been reading these forums for at least 6 years and know all by heart? get a life dude

in any event, it was obvious BIS was unable to understand and implement VS and PS

Get a clue. :eek:

[fitzee 7]

get a life dude

go suck a dick jackass.

[beugnen 10]

Fitzee[/left];1347878]go suck a dick jackass.

oh dear seems Mr Dictionary has failed us again

please refrain from posting until you have left school

[fitzee 7]

You cant figure out your quoting a 6 year old post that's irrelevant to the current game, yet your going to talk about my education.

*shakes head*

Your not worth wasting anymore text on.

bye

Edited July 7, 2009 by Fitzee

[Flouncy 10]

You cant figure out your quoting a 6 year old post that's irrelevant to the current game, yet your going to talk about my education.

*shakes head*

Your not worth wasting anymore text on.

bye

You can't figure out that you're quoting a 6-year old post that's irrelevant to the current game, yet you're going to talk about my education?

*shakes head*

You're not worth wasting any more text on.

Bye

[eenter 0]

When you're out of arguments you become a grammar nazi.

[Blueshift 10]

when you're out of arguments you become a grammar nazi.

godwin point

[diveplane 0]

another locked thread ..sigh

[Master gamawa 0]

Has anyone addressed the lighting issue?

When you set shadows at high or very high they are very good and dynamic, but there are 'holes' that cast shadows inside buildings and they move around in ways that don't make sense when you look at them. I was sitting in a barn enjoying my loneliness and suddenly the floor was lit up as if the ceiling was missing.

I looked up and it was still there.

Where was all this light coming from. My character was in shadow as I was able to see by looking at the reflections on my gun.

On the other hand, shadows on normal settings are very stable but the character remains visually unaffected when in shadow.

In the same barn I turned the shadows down to normal. Now the inside area was in shadow but my character was lit up like a christmas tree.

Can we have dynamic shadows that don't go away if you look at them in the wrong way?

[David1054 10]

Yeah i saw that once when playing. On high once.

lol to bad i had to take it off it was so awsome D:

Anyone said anything about trees??

I cant do anything beyond low/verylow/normal

without playing a 21 FPS average

but the trees....wow...FPS rape they drop my FPS madly..

Anyone notice that you look at a bunch of bushes and the FPS die out or something.

Or is it my current video card...:rolleyes:

[PRiME 1]

I only get large frame rate drops in medium to larger towns like those along the south coast.

Originally I was getting like 20fps in ArmA2 now I get like 30-35fps without loosing detail. So there is allot that Drivers can do and tweaking in settings. Just try everything people suggest.

[Jimmy the Saint 10]

I do not know if this idea was brought up before.

- But I would like to have an option to increase or decrease the LOD depending on the distance manually and not in general automaticlly by the game-engine.

[Callaghan 1]

This has probably been brought up before, but I would like to be specific, as this is crucial for tweaking and optimisation on individual systems. Separate out each of the post-processing functions into seperate options; that is - bloom, HDR, focus blur, motion blur and so on. It is silly to have so many options controlled by a single 'post-processing' option. I am sure opening arma2.cfg would allow me to make the desired changes, but most end users will not want to be messing with that. I would at least like to be able to adjust bloom and hdr seperately from blur and motion blur. I know many long-standing Ofp/arma fans who like the bloom/hdr, but hate the motion blur, which seems to stay on at low PP, wheras disabling PP disables both motion blur and bloom.

Another important thing, correct me if I am wrong, but in Arma, the Object Detail only controlled the number of on screen objects and the draw distance for them; in ArmA 2, it seems to also control the LODs and texture detail. I preferred it the old way. It should be made so that we can change the number of objects drawn onscreen seperately from the level of detail those objects are drawn at, it is far more logical that way, as it allows for eye-candy at low draw distances, perfect for good graphics in shorter-range games.

If all of this can be done, it would be nice (although a bit of a luxury) to be able to control the texture detail for different things separately, like character detail, world detail, object detail so on and so forth. That is all I can think of for now but no doubt there will be more.

[daraofp 10]

Yeah, Take that Black Hawk Down game for example, it uses lotsa pixel shadding efects and all that but overall it has too many low res. textures and its colors look cartoonish.

one thing bis should look into is light efects during the day, while opf looks amazing at night, and awsome during sunrise/sundown it looks a bit watercolored during the day .

Yes OFP looks great durring sunrise and sundown, most of my missions take place from 5 am to 8am and 5pm and 8pm(nad at night) but at high noon game looks a little pale...

Also, i think that gamers are asking to much from ARMA serial, i would also like to see realistic AI that supresses enemy, that it has a realistic fear factor or vehicles have better damage sistem and Physics and ect...BIS developers probably could make most of this things better, but this is a big game and all of those things would impact game preformance alot(then we would all cry because we would not have a powerfull PC to run it), dont forget that this game does not focus on just simulating a tank, or a plane or an infantry...(imagine if IL2 sturmovnik also simulated a infantry and other things, it would be inpossible)

If the vehicles in the Arma would use all those little things the game would use more models, texture filtering, scripts and not to mention that there would bee more bugs(because, the more complicated game, more bugs you have)

This game isnt like Call of Duty, it doesnt use medium levels that can look detailed and it doesnt script every move the AI have(remember when playing the same level at COD 4, you could always know where the AI will be, but playng OFP or ARMA it would always hapend differently)

I think that game will be the best if all the Aspects of the game would be balanced, Graphic, gameplay, Ai (you cant have one unit much better than the other unit just because in real life it's like that, the missions would be unlayable, things need to be balanced, if you want one side to win, just encrese theyre skill and decrese the oponents)

This is the most realistic military game, but it's still a game...

What good is the game that is so detailed if it isnt playable and you need a ton of patches for it...

It would be the best if they make a solid game with a solid AI and vehicle, and than maby make a Expantion pack that makes the game Ai better and detailed vehicle,And everyone is happy...

Thats why OFP is good, you have a great game and if you want more just search the web for mods that you like the most, different AI, effect and so on...

Big credit to BIS for the great game...

Edited July 13, 2009 by daraofp

[11_harley_11 0]

I know many long-standing Ofp/arma fans who like the bloom/hdr, but hate the motion blur, which seems to stay on at low PP, wheras disabling PP disables both motion blur and bloom.

I totally agree with this. I love the bloom on low but the blur still kills my fps. A seperate option for the two would be sweet.

I 've noticed the bloom also reduces/covers up a lot of the jaggies which is great when you've got AA disabled.

Perhaps the wrong place for this question but can anyone tell me how to turn off blur and leave bloom on in the config file?

[NoRailgunner 0]

Overall there are too many explosions after the first one.

What about changing those effects into:

car class

if ammo in cargo 1x explosion (kinda fast firework effect)

if empty or fuel no explosion only randomly burning + smoke effects

tank class

with random function for effects add:

1x explosion, smoke

1x explosion, fire, smoke

1x explosion, second explosion, smoke

only impact and smoke effects

Btw didnt test it yet - has the rain any effect on fire or burning objects?

[arma2disapointed 10]

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