Graphics engine improvement

[Raptor 10]

- directx10.1 for more athmosphere

- reallife like GTA4

- real and clear lightning ("HDR") on buildings and vehilces ( bad example ) and PP

[Neon 0]

Hi all

I have maybe a good suggestion for the next arma

Today we are all agree that arma is the best warfare simulation ,but if we look closer there is only the side of infantry wich is very well simulate .

The aircraft and boat side are more arcade wich give a disapoitnement when you see howw the infatry side have been done

So maybe It will be more interresting to combinate two 3D engine :

One already code by Bohemia interactive dedicaed for the ground unit : infatry tank ,boat

And a second Engine specially dedicaed to the aircraft unit :

I know that devellopping a new engin cost a lot of money so maybe if you get a license for the engin of Lock on modern air combat from Black Eagle (with the add on Blackshark and Flamming clif develloping by a second dev team).

Wich give a map as large as the Black sea in Europe instead of the 200 km² of arma

So you will have air and ground really good simulate

But the probleme will be to coordinate the two engin together so lets get some idea :

All start in infantry mod ,a pilot will get into an aircraft ,you get an animation then the game close ,and start the Lock on Engin and will flight in this mod ,during that the other infatry guys will see a normal aircraft ,but when he will take off it will progressly disapear in the sky ,to hide his opacity changing and material disaperition (only for fighter and cargo)

Then when the pilot drop a bomb or something ,the lock on engin will give the coordonates and speed to where the bomb is going on ,transmitting to arma engine wich will give the site of explosion on the map . So the normal player with arma engin will be affect by the bomb and the pilot on the other engin will see to an explosion but on own lock on engine

Something good with lock on engine he dont need to show all the infantry ,only those with a stinger .

For the map you can make that the arma map is only on a little portion of the lock on map

When an aircraft start flying around this sector around 100 km it will start transmitting data between the two engin for coordination

So you will have ground radar systeme with an anti aircraft systeme , realistic fly etc

So what do you think about that?

ps : sorry for my bad English im a simple French

[Kirby 2]

I dont think that's possible, Neon. Also doesnt sound too good either...

[svendejong 0]

Quote[/b] ]I would like "inverse kinematics

Inverse kinematics are a help in rigging 3d chars to help the animation process.

how do you imagine having them in the game?

[EricM 0]

As far as animation is concerned, Morpheme/euphoria systems from Naturalmotion would be kick-ass...

It's virtual mocap, based on intelligent behaviours and environmental awareness. Meaning it's like ragdoll with a brain : it's not canned animation, the mocap is virtually created on the fly.

It's being used at Lucasarts and on the next GTA IV.

As for more customization of characters, the Facegen modeler from Singular Inversion is pretty neat and affordable. It's SDK allows to create new realistic faces at the touch of a button to integrate in MMPORG. Download the demo to see for yourself.

Combine the two technologies and you have a kick-ass character creator : each with it's own face and behaviour.

[vilas 473]

what you wanna improve in ARMA, which is super graphically ?

engine needs improve, graphics is super quality

[jtec 0]

I like to see some sort of heat source added to the engine, aircraft, vehicles and even people produce a heat source which will build on the existing engine, i can see flames, vehicles vents/engines causing the air to destort, thermal imaging becoming a reality, heat seeking weapons (i know arma has them but its not due to heat)

[Dwarden 1124]

about animations i asked sometime ago about NaturalMotion

and i was told that 'importing' from it into ArmA/ArmA2 is 'bit more' complicated

tho i would love some more direct support...

also i wonder if it's possible that ArmA 2 can utilize Programmable tessellation units in ATI HD2xxx and 3xxx cards for terrain processing

about shaders i assume as game base on SM3 that effects like heat sources are supported to be modded / fully customizeable if present already...

for both direct and post processing effects (IR,image contrast enhancing etc)

(in Oblivion and STALKER you can replace original shaders and add new shaders anywhere you want)

[mr.g-c 6]

Besides this Thread, ive opened a extra-thread only for animation suggestions because i think they are single so important to differentiate it from this graphics-thread.

So if you have any animation-related suggestions feel free to post over there.

Animation suggetions ARMA2

[Jeff2121 0]

Honestly, I don't care if it looks like ArmA is right now; as long as I get good FPS, I'm happy!  

But, IMHO, the max viewdistance needs to go up a bit; maybe better indoors (i.e. No more running through walls).

[Perun 0]

I think If BIS have an programe or engine where they can create random nature obstacles constructed on some maps, why shoudn't they create random building structure based on maps too. It would be nice if every house will be different. And it will take less work on map creating

[baddo 0]

I think If BIS have an programe or engine where they can create random nature obstacles constructed on some maps, why shoudn't they create random building structure based on maps too. It would be nice if every house will be different. And it will take less work on  map creating

Yeah it would be cool...

How about textures? Does your tool generate those too? Well maybe some common textures could be used for the many different models.

There is going to be lots of work for this.

If you take a look at the building 3D model files, you will notice it is not just the simple shape of the building which makes up an OFP/ArmA building model file.

[Perun 0]

Baddo, what did you mean?? I don't understand sorry

And one more thing to suggest. When helicopter flies above grass (when earth isn't dry) the wind under the heli doesn't create smoke but only the grass will lay down. And if there is some smoke near the helicopter it will also be afected ... If I can show how does solve this problems in massive entertaiment <OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" WIDTH=425 HEIGHT=355><PARAM NAME=MOVIE VALUE=http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=op4S1CRK10A&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/op4S1CRK10A/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskLGoMQBxyzLA2ybdLr8BGKo&><PARAM NAME=PLAY VALUE=TRUE><PARAM NAME=LOOP VALUE=TRUE><PARAM NAME=QUALITY VALUE=HIGH><EMBED SRC=http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=op4S1CRK10A&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//img.youtube.com/vi/op4S1CRK10A/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskLGoMQBxyzLA2ybdLr8BGKo& WIDTH=425 HEIGHT=355 PLAY=TRUE LOOP=TRUE QUALITY=HIGH></EMBED></OBJECT>

And also it would be interesting if pilots in helicopter will have polarized glass at their helmets so if will helicopter flying a man with the helmet he will not see as much reflections at the glass, but that is too exacting to the effect it will have.

[max power 21]

Honestly, I don't care if it looks like ArmA is right now; as long as I get good FPS, I'm happy!

But, IMHO, the max viewdistance needs to go up a bit; maybe better indoors (i.e. No more running through walls).

AI characters running through walls is not a graphics related problem.

[maddogx 13]

I've tried searching for this but couldn't find anything, so here's my suggestion:

Soft shadow jittering

I've noticed that the soft shadows (high/very high shadow settings) in ArmA look very "pixely". Although having a form of soft shadows is definitely cool, they only really look good for trees and bushes, and anything that doesn't have long straight edges. The soft shadows cast by houses mostly look rather bad, due to the way the shadows seem to be rendered as a texture overlay. Even with shadows set to very high, straight shadow edges can look very jagged.

Enter inspiration: Crysis. While playing around with the graphic settings in Crysis, I noticed that soft shadows work very similarly in that game (at least in DX9) - only with a major difference: there is a setting called "shadow jitter" which seems to soften up the shadow edges by randomly "jittering" the shadow texture around. Using this method, even low resolution soft shadows (i.e. 128x128 as opposed to 512x512) can look very good because the edges are hardly noticable. Without jitter, the soft shadows in Crysis look very similar to those in ArmA at very high, but with it they look very good. As far as I can tell, the jitter setting does not effect performance too much either.

Perhaps this would be a viable possibility to enhance the visuals in ArmA2.

I would like to provide some screenshots to further explain my idea, but I can't find any online and I'm currently at work. I'll get back to it later though.

[st3a1th 0]

The grass was a nice feature added into arma but it was too long and made it hard for targeting enemy when in prone. If the grass is to be added in arma2 it should be shorter so you can see over it.

[LastNinja9 0]

Smoke that does not "change" while zooming...

(Did not read the entire thread)

[EricM 0]

Will Arma 2 support Parallax Mapping ? It really makes your textures pop at you and gives a real sense of volume, though it's a fake.

I'v seen it implemented in various small programs (Crazybump is one of them), so it shouldn't be too hard I guess...

[Stiletto 0]

I like the online gameplay of ARMA. But...come on man..the graphics arent good and im using a high end rig. You cant look at even the hands and tell me it looks good?

Cod4 has got a great wow! factor but online stinks. Arma has low end graphics but its online play is good. I think alot of the problem is the overly bland scenery. I just dont buy into my surroundings half the time. And the villages and cities need a big upgrade in the graphic side. I know theres a way to optimize this game more for high output rigs. And dont give me the....well ill settle for good gameplay and 1996 graphics. I want to like this game more but some eye candy would really help build this game into what i could be and bring more players into this game as well.

Keep up the good work, im crossing my fingers.

[baddo 0]

Baddo, what did you mean?? I don't understand sorry

I mean that a building in the game isn't actually as simple as you might think at first.

It would be in my opinion quite difficult to think of algorithms to produce buildings like that. For bushes and trees the idea works better as they by their nature do not have so much symmetry and clear shapes and functional shapes like a building does. The building has to have its windows and doors and... you get what I mean better now I think.

Also I mentioned textures. You could use some generic textures for different type of materials, but that would mean not much variation between the buildings (this can be ok). Would you want to have also procedurally generated textures. And normal maps. Et cetera. The thing blows out of control quickly if we go deeper into this.

I support the idea but I see that it is a lot of work to create such a system.

Computer programmers have created city layouts procedurally. And road networks. The creation of large urban areas benefit a lot from those methods. No need for so much manual work. I'm sure BIS has already gone somewhat to this direction, as it really makes a lot of sense. Press a button and you have a city! Press a button and you have the road network! It's all to shorten the time it takes from the beginning to the end of a project. The shorter the time the bigger the profit, is a thumb rule if the end result is the same or even better.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Will Arma 2 support Parallax Mapping ? It really makes your textures pop at you and gives a real sense of volume, though it's a fake.

I'v seen it implemented in various small programs (Crazybump is one of them), so it shouldn't be too hard I guess...

Isn't parallax mapping very CPU intensive?

[EricM 0]

Quote[/b] ]Isn't parallax mapping very CPU intensive?

You mean GPU ? I don't know what's the actual stress it causes, as I only really experienced it in Crysis and Crazy bump, but there are already quake 4 mods that can implement it, so I guess it's feasable : http://quake4.filefront.com/screenshots/File/49663/1

By the way I found something even better :Steep parallax mapping !!! Have a look :

http://graphics.cs.brown.edu/games/SteepParallax/index.html

Edit : from the above article :

Quote[/b] ]Parallax mapping is about as efficient as plain texture mapping on recent GPUs and appears more realistic than normal mapping alone.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Quote[/b] ]Isn't parallax mapping very CPU intensive?

You mean GPU ? I don't know what's the actual stress it causes, as I only really experienced it in Crysis and Crazy bump, but there are already quake 4 mods that can implement it, so I guess it's feasable : http://quake4.filefront.com/screenshots/File/49663/1

By the way I found something even better :Steep parallax mapping !!! Have a look :

http://graphics.cs.brown.edu/games/SteepParallax/index.html

I thought i once read something about FEAR that its parallax mapping was done (partly?) by the CPU, but i cant find anything about it on google.

[EricM 0]

Wow, I really encourage Suma and BIS to have a look at that Steep parallax mapping page. There are links of nice grass texture and fur discplacement there. It could be a nice complement to the current grass...

Another example of mod in oblivion : http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/Image.php?id=19051

[mr.g-c 6]

Wow, I really encourage Suma and BIS to have a look at that Steep parallax mapping page. There are links of nice  grass texture and fur discplacement there. It could be a nice complement to the current grass...

Another example of mod in oblivion : http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/Image.php?id=19051

Yes i really second this... this looks awesome!