Graphics engine improvement

[OFPDude 0]

ofpchaos wrote:

- different sizes for people (fat, normal, slim, big, middle, short)

Yes I'm thumbs up for that suggestion. It would be some work load for the developers though, all those different physical models and movements to take care of.

You could end up with some 30 stone guy lagging the server, or maybe a gang of midgets on a TK mission  

No disrespect to big people...i'm big myself....down below

[funnyguy1 0]

would be cool if they implemented some kind of mirage

effect.

Especially cool when you`re in a desert area...when objects in the background are disorted and so on...

At least some kind of air waveing(?) when It`s hot, or near warmed metal surfaces, or planes/chopper`s engines...

[ninjatek 0]

Granted not everyone's PC is created equal so video setting options will be unique for most users. Howerver for those that use elements of terrain such as vegiation and grass for concealment and stealth should not have that concealment stripped from them by a player who turns off or down certain video effects.

If the best way across a certain field of tall grass is to crawl on your belly thru it, but sniper BOB turns off his grass effect and then makes the players completely visisble who are crawling across that field then what's the point of it tactially? Players will simply turn off those effects so they can reveal other players and that is just wrong.  JO did a good job balancing this issue.  If the grass is turned off then the player simply can't be seen in that field of grass he's crawling through. Players who turn on such settings can have a better chance spotting the target, because they may see thru parts of the grass or notice the grass moving irregularly.

Also grass, treess and bushes should blow around with the wind. And when your Helicopter comes landing down in a field of tall grass to pick up or unload some soldiers you should see the grass being pushed down by the force of the chopper blades. This was done in JO so I know it can be done easily, that little touch makes a huge authentic feel to chopper insertions and extractions.

Oh, and grass/forest fires would be a nice touch too. It would be a great tactical maneuver to route, block or destroy enemies. But setting such fires may have variables depending on weather and time of year. Random fires may set off themselves too from explosions, crashes, tracers, etc.

[Ryujin 0]

Im just wondering, but is all that possible on the huge maps? My 3.6 Ghz (built it my self) gets choppy when i do HUGE (and i mean insainly huge! battles on everon. but these battles are nothing compaired to the gigantic dynamic stuff bis say they can do. so i hope they have some way of making this possible... is there a way to pull this off for a 1 ghz comp? It all seams pretty CPU intensive...

edit:

oops, OT had to many windows open, lost track

[ninjatek 0]

Im just wondering, but is all that possible on the huge maps? My 3.6 Ghz (built it my self)   gets choppy when i do HUGE (and i mean insainly huge! battles on everon. but these battles are nothing compaired to the gigantic dynamic stuff bis say they can do. so i hope they have some way of making this possible... is there a way to pull this off for a 1 ghz comp? It all seams pretty CPU intensive...

edit:

oops, OT had to many windows open, lost track

I've been playing the old OFP again with a hell of a lot better system then I had before. But some mission FPS are very dissapointing. I imagine that it has to do with the old engine and certain limitations in it. Probably this will be addressed with the revamped engine optimized for DX9. (crossing fingers)

[Mad Computer Doggy 0]

Im just wondering, but is all that possible on the huge maps? My 3.6 Ghz (built it my self)   gets choppy when i do HUGE (and i mean insainly huge! battles on everon. but these battles are nothing compaired to the gigantic dynamic stuff bis say they can do. so i hope they have some way of making this possible... is there a way to pull this off for a 1 ghz comp? It all seams pretty CPU intensive...

edit:

oops, OT had to many windows open, lost track

I've been playing the old OFP again with a hell of a lot better system then I had before. But some mission FPS are very dissapointing. I imagine that it has to do with the old engine and certain limitations in it.

ANd it's not only the limitation. The old engine also seems to be quiet unoptimized in terms of speed ;(

[Acecombat 0]

would be cool if they implemented some kind of mirage

effect.

Especially cool when you`re in a desert area...when objects in the background are isorted and so on...

At least some kind of air waveing(?) when It`s hot, or near warmed metal surfaces, or planes/chopper`s engines...

This sort of effect is present in GTA:SA. Verymuch possible to do in OFP2 aswell.

[Jinef 2]

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.

The founder of this thread made this important point.

After the release of some screenshots quite a few people I play OFP with are getting agitated about the colours and how the whole engine seems too faded and light.

Just remember, get a photo of the real thing, take a sample of the colour and implant it on to the engine representation ... if it matches ... great!

[crave22 0]

I'm sorry if it's been brought up before, but this has been eating me up little by little. (not really, but you know )

I'm not sure if it's just me, but don't the rocks and grass on the ground look a little too repetitive in the desert screens? Anyone agree with me there? It looks like the same rocks were put around at exactly every three or so feet. Does anyone get that same feeling when looking at the pics? I think I'd like to see a slightly more random system of that with the graphics. Maybe some rocks of different sizes and not so close together.

[bn880 5]

Sure I agree, the ground textures are also very repetetive and boring. I think this will all be addressed for Game 2 though.

[FireLord 0]

I would like to see high quality textures along with support for things like pixel shader 3.0. This makes a huge difference in the detail of games, like in Half Life 2 with pixel shader 3.0 then it appears like every cobblestone is 3d. However, if you have a graphics card that only supports shader 1.1 then you would only get 1.1 effects. This works well in games like Far Cry.

If the graphics options are very scalable then I think it would be possible for all the latest effects to be used.

I suppose it maybe a little too much to ask for HDR Lighting

[meyamoti 0]

Yeah pixel shader 3.0 can definatly do some pretty beauitiful stuff,and with it the addon makers could make things even twice if not three times as good.

[Commando84 0]

i think it would be cool if the game engine could sense that the date is somewhere around november to february or if its snowy and cold island , area the a.i's and players breath clouds could be seen you know

played call of duty 2 a bit lately and its very nice when you notice all the small details here and there, would be cool if ofp 2 would have such a system.

[Acecombat 0]

Yeah but Call of duty is a laggard and in no way matches the depth and width of OFP2 .

I tried CoD2 with high settings and in outdoor envoirnments i was getting like -1FPS. Only indoor did it play well.

[guyguy1 0]

I agree with firelord. High res textures that can be supported by pix shader 3 are a must. But maybe by the time this game comes out pixel shader 4.0 could be out too...(or a newer version than 3.0)

[Jinef 2]

Is it me or do the screenshots look strangely .... bleached.

OFP had some really dark realistic looking textures and lighting.

I really liked it.

> The new screens look bleached out as if the gamma is too high.

> The colours look blended in and desaturated.

> There is a lot of highlighting on objects accentuating reflections.

If BIS could just turn down the gamma a bit and turn up saturation it would look better. Also the grass is radioactive, I would prefer deep dark green grass which easily shadows a soldier hiding within, not bright green which highlights him.

Has the planet lost a few inches of O-Zone layer? Maybe it actually looks like this since I last went outside, or does anyone else agree with me?

[funnyguy1 0]

One of the scanned screens. Those objects do look like made of glass, or iluminated by a nuclear blast...

It`s not really realistic to have a heavy, dirty armour looking like that...

edit:

On some screens ArmA looks like a cartoon...

Both ArmA and Game 2 need better looking explosions and fire effects...not to mention smoke..

edit: important: It`s ArmA screen of course...

[NeMeSiS 11]

Also the grass is radioactive, I would prefer deep dark green grass which easily shadows a soldier hiding within, not bright green which highlights him.

The grass in my backyard has more or less the same color, and i dont live near a nuclear reactor or something,,,  

EDIT: well, actually it doesnt, but it depends on the pic...  

EDIT: This color is ok

This color is indeed kinda weird...

It looks like the fist pic is in full sunlight (check the face) but i dunno what's up with the second

But it also depends on your monitor(setting), mine is kinda fucked at the moment so everything looks like crap (have to play OFP1 with the brightness and gamma all the way up to actually see something...   )

[funnyguy1 0]

The grass isn`t that bad, and when it comes to Game2, there`s still time to do such things...

I`m worried rather about those gamma settings  

Vehicles ,especially in the evenings, are shning like they`ve just left the car wash...Old ofp also have this problem...

edit:

That`s a feature! What about raindrops on the glass or transparent surfaces...Yeah, just like in NFS

[guyguy1 0]

I'm hoping for realistic shadows (Not blade sharp shadows everywhere, but soft shadows as well) and high resolution textures that can surpass those of Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault. If game2 is coming out in 2007 then im definitely hoping that it has better graphics than medal of honor or battlefield 2 (which both came out in 2005), but if not, oh well I'll still buy the amazing game .

[ShadowVS 0]

give me the water/ocean depth from Silent Hunter 3 and i'll be a happy camper.

[Dahzek 0]

Having been an avid OFP player (and having created some graphic custom content as well) I of course find these new upcoming games very interesting.

However, judging from the screenshots of Armed Assault so far, the graphics seem weak to me...and not up to todays graphics standards.

As AA is supposedly a "beefed up" OPF, one can perhaps forgive the poor looking graphics on that one (at the screenies it graphically looks no better than your pretty average UT2004 mod)...but at the same time, whats the point to even bother if you don't make considerable improvements?

This is 2006 and anything less good looking or less featured in terms of grahics as the Half Life 2 source engine (which now btw is considered pretty old) would simply be a waste of time IMO....especially for any completely new retail realease.

And if you really want to make something that will not be put to shame by todays standards, you'll have to produce something similar to the Unreal 3 engine or Gamebryo (elder scrolls IV) in terms of quality.

Huge landscapes, deformable terrain, dynamic weather etc...it can be done and all while still looking gorgeous. Look at Alan Wake for example. If you worry about needing more powerful graphics cards, this is hardly an excuse to completely nerf a new title. Besides, you can always remove whats there (i.e. tweak your graphic settings for the game) but you can't add whats not.

I say BIS should do their best to produce a graphics engine using all available features today because frankly, you'll soon have truckloads of user made modifications using the Unreal 3 engine alone...and releasing a retail title that won't even be on par with user mods in terms of visual quality seems like a waste.

Also, make the engine as customable as possible. Make limitations dynamic instead of hardcoded as much as possible. Avoid silly hardcoded limitations like "there can only be one minigunner on a chopper" etc. The original OFP was an editing success in many ways, but to be honest it was not thank's to BIS.

All the editing tools in the beginning were user made and when BIS after a long time finally decided to release their editing tools it was under strict control and by this time many serious editors in the community had already given up. Also, there were far too many pointless hardcoded limitations which made editing more complicated than it should be.

Flexible is the keyword I think...and by adding as many graphics features as possible from the start (so people won't have to make weird editing workarounds just to achieve basic effects that are todays overall standard) and by very flexible editing possiblities (as few hardcoded limitations as possible) as well as providing fully working editing tools from the start they can't go wrong IMO.

D

Edited: Changed "Armored" Assault to "Armed" Assault...which is of course what I meant...my bad.

[guyguy1 0]

It's Armed Assault by the way. Anyway, AA has been delayed since late 2005 already and everybody is anxious to get their hands on it. The graphics are somewhat near the range of HL2 (the water isn't probably), but you know...the gameplay will compensate for the graphics if they are not eye candy. Game2 looks like it has some excellent lighting and HDR effects, as well as good textures and shadows (not those razor sharp edges, but more closely resemblent of "soft shadows"). ppl have to remember that even though the gamma may seem really high, you can turn it down in the options menu. Same goes with the difficulty that everybody's been so crazy about lately. The only weakness I've seen so far graphicswise is the ground texture. OFP and a few screenshots from ArmA are known to have..well, not the best ground textures out there. Other than that though, I can't find anything to nag about Game2's awesome graphics.

[berghoff 11]

I was thiking about another feature.

When its very rainy, everything looks a bit more saturated, roads, tree bark etc also when its dry some things look a bit more desaturated, wouldn't this be nice to see it ingame? I don't know if it is possible to do this =).

[bravo 6 0]

well im not sure how game 2 will be, now that we saw ArmA pics..

I lost imagination for game 2 when i saw New Arma pics..

how will be the new generation game?