Graphics engine improvement

[kuIoodporny 45]

The rendering method used in most games (I think, makes most sense) to limit viewdistance is actually a sphere around the player, the player being in the middle of it. What's funny though is that in Battlefield 1942 and 2 they use a rectangle, the result is you being unable to see a distant object straight ahead, but if you turn your view it magically appears in the sides of your view. (:

IIRC same happens in Americas Army.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

SLI compatible please.

[-=seany=- 5]

^ +1

Although Nvidia "fixed" the SLi problems with Arma, the performance gains are not nearly as good as they where before the release of the 18x.xx drivers. Turning on Sli Visual Indicators clearly shows that it is very erratic and cuts out a lot of the time. This didn't used to happen.

Nvidia will most likely release at least another 2-3 WHQL drivers before/up to Arma2's release. If they haven't already, some one from BI needs to sit down with some one from Nvidia and figure this out before release.

A game, with the benefits created by sli that we saw before Nvidia messed up the drivers, will sell a whole load of dual GFX cards, I just hope Nvidia realises this. Even though it never said "Sli support" on the box, Arma1 was one of the best games to make a really good and tangible use of sli. With the increased optimization of the Arma engine by the BI devs there is no reason why Arma2 shouldn't be a seriously good experience with a SLI rig.

Please don't disappoint :)

thanks

[Chaos 0]

Lets please getting the soldiers in their vehicles with oppening and closing the doors.

[sidhellfire 0]

Useless visual detail IMHO, especially if it comes to embark/disembark animations and things that may happen to the player meantime.

[sluggCDN 0]

There is one thing that was inherited from OFP. When a tree is standing its foliage blocks AI vision. When the tree's fallen the AI seems to be able to see unobstructed through the foliage and branches. When armor goes through an area and falls trees, AI bots get instantaneous advantage over a human player. It becomes almost impossible to do any fighting with AI in such environment. I hope this was addressed in A2. They'd be shooting you from behind fallen trees and the trees provided no concealment once on the ground.

Another thing is the static glass window panes in buildings. No matter how many times you shoot through them the glass is intact, without even the bullet holes.

The third thing - the brown rusty damaged wheels. When shot up, in ArmA wheels magically turn rusty brown. In original OFP there was this genius effect implemented; when shot up wheels whould simply sink into the ground. I believe the wheel geometry was simply shifted down on its axis after being damaged, creating the effect of deflated tires.

[maddogx 13]

Another thing is the static glass window panes in buildings. No matter how many times you shoot through them the glass is intact, without even the bullet holes.

That's necessary, because not all buildings are enterable. If they made the glass breakable, they would also have to model the interior of the building. Bullet holes in the glass would be nice, though.

The third thing - the brown rusty damaged wheels. When shot up, in ArmA wheels magically turn rusty brown. In original OFP there was this genius effect implemented; when shot up wheels whould simply sink into the ground. I believe the wheel geometry was simply shifted down on its axis after being damaged, creating the effect of deflated tires.

I agree, the effect in OFP was much better. The instant-rust wheels in ArmA are somewhat comical. Hopefully they've changed that in Arma 2.

Btw. I think I should point out that none of the above issues are directly related to the graphics engine. They are game design issues. :)

[Scrub 0]

**not sure if this goes into scripting or graphics section.. I thought the end result of the display was a gfx issue**

BIS, would you please, at the very least, make it easier to script this:

into the game? And at the most, hard code it into the engine in a patch?

(Yes, I know what time it is in the dev cycle, but had to throw this in ;) )

[sluggCDN 0]

That's necessary, because not all buildings are enterable. If they made the glass breakable, they would also have to model the interior of the building. Bullet holes in the glass would be nice, though.

Btw. I think I should point out that none of the above issues are directly related to the graphics engine. They are game design issues. :)

I figured it all roughly fits into the Graphics topic. There is no "Game Design" thread - and I didn't want to start yet another single-focused thread.

The glass in ArmA enterable buildings is a magic non-destructible entity, some sort ot advanced nano-material of non-earthly origins. IMO leaving the buildings issue unresolved since OFP (when they just made boxes with textures stretched on them) is a bit sloppy. They care to create tens of different vehicles which requires time but leave the buildings - a very important gameplay element - underdeveloped. Look, in one of the latest images I noticed fairly detailed destruction of non-enterable apartment building. Yet window panes still appear to be just texture without any phisical properties.

There is another issue here - right now in ArmA when bullets strike tree trunks we can see parks flying. Sparks are the indication of a metalic object.

[Yoma 0]

The third thing - the brown rusty damaged wheels. When shot up, in ArmA wheels magically turn rusty brown. In original OFP there was this genius effect implemented; when shot up wheels whould simply sink into the ground. I believe the wheel geometry was simply shifted down on its axis after being damaged, creating the effect of deflated tires.

That was indeed a superb effect that i missed a lot in Arma.

[EDcase 87]

I know this is too late for the dev cylce but I just want to get it off my chest and maybe see how other people see it...

Does anyone find the jittery or randomly rotating rotors and props of aircraft really annoying and unrealistic?

[The AH-1 and MI-24 aren't too bad but the KA-50 has no blur at all. (I'm assuming that its still under development)]

I think the problem is because BIS used video footage to match to but this is wrong as they look much more blured when viewed with the human eye.

When filming prop or rotor aircraft most video cameras will use a high shutter speed when pointed towards the sky creating the sharper look of the rotors. If the camera man know what he's doing and has a pro/semipro equipment he can reduce the f/stop instead to maintain the blur seen with the human eye.

Edited May 6, 2009 by EDcase

[PuFu 4591]

i believe that the named ka50 has no rotor proxy used yet....i have no reason to think that the aa1 system for blurring rotors has been changed in aa2

[el_muerko 0]

Been a while since I looked on here (hopefully ARMA2 will work with ATI cards), saw this today and while the game looks stunning in many ways one which will be most obvious to the player still looks a bit like OFP and that's the human animation, especially the running at 1:50, is it final code? I see it as the only weak point graphically.

[Recta DP 10]

I was very excited when BIS had shown screenshots with 3D ironsight before Arma was released, i would be much more if Arma2 features 3D scope with "this time" realistic aimpoint and EOTech sights and finally i hope this time infrared laser modeled on m16/m4 will work, those things are on other games "Red orchestra (UE2.5) insurgency "Hl2", Vbs2" so i'm sure it's not impossible. :)

Yes, this would be great!

At the moment it looks like the EOTech red-cross is "painted" on the sight glass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk-mlGLvmIo&feature=channel_page

[sidhellfire 0]

Minor thing, but i just hate ponds being clearer than pools.

I vote for replacing underwater view from that:

into:

There's also minor bug with no underwater effect right under the water level.

Edited May 28, 2009 by sidhellfire

[SASrecon 0]

I was looking around on youtube and cracked up when some people still haven't realised that Codemasters rendered their first few oficial trailers, have a look at this comment on an OFP DR vid;

its just a bad trailer. when u actually see it on ur tv itll probably look a lot better.

I guess BI's in game trailers have payed off :)

Edited May 30, 2009 by SASrecon

[Sturmer 10]

Just looked some screenshot from Steam and noticed how clear ground was from helicopter.

Flat colored plate where few trees and largest bushes. No high grass or small bushes? Infantry will be really easy targets for helicopters.

Or how about tanks in long distance? Are they going to see infantry running on clear ground, when infantry thinks his in well covered high grass?

[Wolfish King 0]

That's necessary, because not all buildings are enterable. If they made the glass breakable, they would also have to model the interior of the building. Bullet holes in the glass would be nice, though.

Yeah true, but, are they lazy? No offense or something. But how hard is it to break glass? It's been in the gaming industry for how long, I don't know, but long. At least have breaking glass for the buildings you CAN enter.

It's just stupid. I can get mad angry of those little things haha.

[killaalf 0]

Yeah true, but, are they lazy? No offense or something. But how hard is it to break glass? It's been in the gaming industry for how long, I don't know, but long. At least have breaking glass for the buildings you CAN enter.

It's just stupid. I can get mad angry of those little things haha.

Glass does indeed break for buildings you can enter, no reason to get mad angry.

[mr reality 0]

I just had a thought.

I don't know how BIS go about improving there engine, but do they strip it down and debug it all before jumping right into it.

Maybe the game engine needs to be rebuilt from scratch. I would hate to think of the mess it must be in after more than ten years of tweaking and fiddling.

I'm no coder, but i know there are unused files in the arma directory, surley this needs to be cleaned up.

I don't even know why i'm mentioning this, but after ten years OFP is exactly the same as ArmA2 asthetically speaking. The animations and movements just look so outdated by todays standards. I never get the feeling that i'm actually fully in control of my character, especially in urban enviroments.

This is not a BIS bashing post, i'm just writing what i'm thinking.

[electron-libre 10]

Anti Aliasing first.

That is my main concern !

[Wolfish King 0]

Lol where?

The only thing that happens is change texture to glassbroke.jpeg

[FraG_AU 10]

I am sure it has been mentioned before, but may as well throw my 2c in.

SLi/Xfire support... Come on if your game only pumps out 25-30fps on high end rigs wouldn't you naturally ensure you support the best (dual GPU, even triple/quad) solutions for the game, so we can enjoy the experience just that bit more?

Pretty please?

[wilkinson_james 10]

To be honest this 'STYLE' of shooter, with all the 'wonderfull' effects are best left to EA and Ubisoft et al. What you appear to have done is to try and compete on their level, in their playing field, possibly thinking to get some of their market. You might well do, but it's no where near as clean or as well executed as they would do it and it's not what BI are good at. It would have been better to stick to what your are good at, and let the rest try and match the quality of the game strategys, the ai, vehicles and all the other authentic stuff we love.

Sorry to moan and boar... like I said, it's just a bit upsetting.

Edited June 10, 2009 by wilkinson_james

[Wolfish King 0]

To be honest this 'STYLE' of shooter, with all the 'wonderfull' effects are best left to EA and Ubisoft et al. What you appear to have done is to try and compete on their level, in their playing field, possibly thinking to get some of their market. You might well do, but it's no where near as clean or as well executed as they would do it and it's not what BI are good at. It would have been better to stick to what your are good at, and let the rest try and match the quality of the game strategys, the ai, vehicles and all the other authentic stuff we love.

Sorry to moan and boar... like I said, it's just a bit upsetting.

Nah, I think you're wrong, but I respect your opinion. Don't get me wrong, no offense.

But this game should not have been released in Germany. They paid for something that wasn't completed. Of course you have patches but that doesn't justify it, in my opinon.

But anyway, what 'wonderful' effects are you talking about? I just want to see my bots shooting out of cars, I want them to take cover behind a wall and pop out and shoot. I mean, it's a kind of a sim right, so why do games like GTA IV have a cover system? Is that something only Ubisoft or Rockstar or whatever can do?