Terrain engine examples

[McHale 0]

Will Flashpoint 2 theatres look something like this?

The regions in these flight sims(Il2, Lock On) are vast and take a long time to traverse, even in a plane.

It would be incredible to not only be able to fly around such terrain but also to walk and drive around it. This combined with the depth and realism of the original Operation Flashpoint would make for something really quite amazing.

I hope BIS is paying attention to how they do huge areas like this in other games.

[SnypaUK 0]

Oh god ive nearly wet myself at the thought.

[Nathanz 0]

and adding the plane physics from il2 would ROCK !! crash landings would be possable   also planes exploding in the air and parts flying off ... i wish

Edit: You have just gave me an appetite for il2fb

[lee_h._oswald 0]

I think landscapes like shown on the pictures can be done with ofp1 also.

Just new textures are needed.

Only the water isn´t possible.

MfG Lee

[Supah 0]

Those maps might look nice in a flightsim but if you are in them on the ground they are too low detail

[McHale 0]

IL2 FB has good graphics even at ground level. They could easily modified it to make a decent battlefield sim, while still keeping the airborne stuff.

I'm not saying that BIS should use the same engine. It's just an example of the scale they should try and aim for.

[Friedchiken 0]

very impressive, never seen those angles. Well, OFP2 needs bumpy terrain and even more cover so the devs can't be that lazy.

[Mr. Snrub 0]

Well, OFP2 needs bumpy terrain and even more cover so the devs can't be that lazy.

OFP1 has bumpy terrain that provides great cover, but you have to turn the graphics settings right up - the same should be true for OFP2.

[Friedchiken 0]

well, i know but maybe they can make the "bumping" more efficient. Or I can get that new ATI card I want.

[SnypaUK 0]

It would be nice if the "bumps" where a bit more realistic and a bit more smooth. Minus a dirtboke track you dont see bumps like that in nature. perhaps the odd bump and the natural flow of land. perhaps more rivers and berms by roads. Hidden and dangerous 2 does land nicely.

[jubbie 0]

Terrain like that would be very nice, but only if it could also incorporate grass, dips and the terrain detail that is so important to infantry combat. Right now, that terrain would work pretty well for a tank, helo or flight sim, but it's still not quite right for infantry, where 6 inches of cover can make the difference between life and death.

Those cities, though, would be spectacular to fight in. Just add a few piles of rubble and the odd bit of detritus and I'd be in hog heaven.

[SnypaUK 0]

You could use that soldner thing with the destructible terrain. anyway thats what im saying dude Hidden and dangerous does have that good terrain its just not on big islands

[jubbie 0]

Is destructible terrain really that important? Believe it or not, artillery shells don't always cause huge holes in the earth. I would like to see an improved damage capabilities of buildings though - specifically the ability to blow holes in walls, blow out doors, etc. I'd like to see them methodically turn to rubble instead of crumbling like paper now.

Oh, and I wasn't referring to H&D in my post above, I was referring to the IL2/LOMAC screens above. I don't like H&D2 very much anyways, though the destroyed cities look nice.

[Spy17 1]

My dream!

It would be great for flying, Armor, Ari, sniping and scouting.

First thing for me to improve in OFP2 would be viewdistance!

Viewdistance and eyecandy should still be scalable so you can varray from mission to mission.

[jubbie 0]

View distance and eyecandy ARE scaleable right now.

[havocsquad 0]

There should be a division of the handling of graphic, data, and event parts of OFP into different sections.

Anything that doesn't involve any of the other environment engines is not transmitted to them.

If an aircraft drops a bomb from 20,000 ft in the air, the game engine only includes units from the infantry engine and the armor engine that are in the bomb's blast radius, everything else just hears a jet engine overhead.

Reduction of unecessary information to players game's is vital to keep gameplay smooth and not require a cray computer for every player of OFP 2.

- Main Game Engine

  +   Infantry unit Environment Engine

       -  Standard Visibility units

       -  High visibility range units

       -  Heavy weapons infantry units (MANPAD, AT4, Javelin, Mortar, field artillery)

  +   Vehicle unit Environment Engine

       -  Lower visibility for transport vehicles  (Jeep, HMMVV, etc.)

       -  AT equipped light vehicles (BRDM AT, HMMVV AT).

       -  APC's.

       -  IFV's and MBT's.

       -  Artillery

       -  SAM and AAA vehicles

  +   Aircraft unit Environment Engine

       -  Non-armed transport aircraft

       -  Video and IR recon

       -  Helos  (More detail when under 250 meters AGL)

       -  Hybrid functions

       -  Fixed wing jet aircraft

       -  Air-to-Air

       -  Air-to-Ground

       -  Anti-ship

       -  Squadrong commanding from runways or carriers.

       -  Radar

       -  Countermeasures & ECM

       -  Compartmental damage

       -  Navigation and AI behaviour for flight functions (takeoff,landing,etc.)

       -  and many many more.

Viewdistance and environment LOD should be controlled by the task of the unit in OFP for the player.  (With flexibility to computer specs.)

If he is a grunt soldier not using any vehicles, no binoculars, and standard day maximum visibility should be 2500 to 3000 meters.  High detail of the surrounding area about to 500 meters, medium detail to 1000 meters, and low quality after.

For armored vehicles, environment LOD should be very significantly reduced, and visibility should be 3500 to 4000 meters for a standard clear day weather.

Aircraft visibility MUST be significantly increased, and aircraft units must have simplified ground environment topography when airborne.

When these areas are divided up and only important information is distributed to each of these engines, the computer load is greatly decreased.

[Spy17 1]

Quote[/b] ]View distance and eyecandy ARE scaleable right now

I thought that´s what I said?!

Anyway it is a cool feature!

Just the limits need to be improved.

Now max view is 5k radius so you can only see objects in 2,5k distance. In IL2 viewdistance is something like 10k at least. That makes a diference.

[McHale 0]

This is Operation Flashpoint, Nogova on a very high view distance. The frame rate is horrible, yet it still looks like a day with bad fog or poor visiblity. This is at the limit of what my computer can handle because there is just too much stuff being rendered at once.

To get anything like acceptable frame rates the view distance must be made tiny(by flight sim standards), which makes for difficult and unrealistic flying conditions.

This is the Lock On engine, with an A-10 flying at a comparable altitude. The view distance is far more realistic, it runs really smooth (with high FPS) and looks much better / more realistic.

The problem here is that at ground level, the detail is so spartan that it would make for a poor tank simulator, let alone a soldier sim.

So I agree that there should be a whole different process for how much ground detail is shown at altitude. It's going to be a tricky balance between graphics, gameplay and realism.

[shinRaiden 0]

Well, for Airsim in OFP I generally use very_low, then boost it for boots on the ground. This still leaves the ground cells at 50m x 50m, way too small for what we'd need. Look at the buildings, they're all flat boxes. Not bad by air, but you wouldn't want to stand next to them, and walking in them would be a joke.

As for OFP's current scalability, the problem currently is that view detail (terrraingrid) settings are currently map-wide, instead of local dynamic terrain. Object placement is set based on the ground plane somewhat, and the 0-elev plane somewhat. If air units could get a dynamic terraingrid of up to ~200m, and addon makers work their view LOD's out to ~5000m, it would go a long ways to help/