ArmA Progress Updates

[Specter82 1]

I fully agree

[MrZig 0]

I fully agree

I fully disagree

[Placebo 29]

Does this info still remains or will there be any changes to the main plans?

There's only 19 days left.

Latest info as has been mentioned in a couple of places is that once the November release version goes gold then the demo will be worked on, depending on how long the demo takes to finish it could be released after the retail version.

[Journeyman 0]

Does you yet knows whether this will be single player or multiplayer demo or both? Or does yous not yet know?  

[Placebo 29]

The plan of MP demo first, SP demo later hasn't changed as far as I'm aware.

[GBee 0]

thats true, what about AOE 3... they system is good, basically you see a connon bal or something go into (out back out) a building and shards of the builting or ship are spread throughout the surrounding area, and the model is replaced by an increasingly more damages model (at least i think thats how it works/.

Consider the work involved, as Ohara (BIS Artist) has already said himself a few pages back.

Creating a single house model, with one set of textures takes a fair amount of time - three-four days? A week if you have interiors?

Now you have to do it again for every stage of destruction - at best that's 2 models, but for a more realistic look it's probably more like 4 up to 10 for larger buildings. So an average of ~3 weeks per building.

Then multiply that up against the number of buildings in Arma .... yep, so you're tying your small team of artist up for months just to add the sort of destructable buildings shown in CoD/AoE etc.

Dynamic destruction is out of the question - it's just not possible and even if it was, it still requires a lot more modeling and artistic work.

Animations again still require the same work as stage by stage destruction, only it also ties up the animation team for months.

People demanded some form of destruction, better than what was in OFP and they've got it. It might not be as pretty as CoD, Soldner or AoE. However it is something BIS could add to the game, ship this year and not require supercomputers to run. So be grateful!

If we are lucky and thank BIS for their work - they might see what they can do to make their current destruction a little better e.g. by adding some 'chunks' to the generic destroyed model for infantry to hide behind.

[maxqubit 1]

Latest info as has been mentioned in a couple of places is that once the November release version goes gold then the demo will be worked on, depending on how long the demo takes to finish it could be released after the retail version.

Will you inform us of the 'gone gold' status? (or is it better to to think of 'gone gold' date = release date - 1 ;)

[Placebo 29]

Will you inform us of the 'gone gold' status?

Yeah I should imagine we'll make a small announcement

[Spoock 3]

How many time have BIS to ArmA gold version? 1 week?

[Snake Man 407]

The plan of MP demo first, SP demo later hasn't changed as far as I'm aware.

What's the difference?

I mean SP demo would be without multiplayer capability, thats one thing. But what about MP demo, can I still play it without internet connection, or am I left only with option "enter IP address" or similar?

I ask because... well at my current internet access, its not possible to play multiplayer. Too many disconnects and stuff.

[KaiserPanda 0]

Well, as long as the game is moddable enough that we can experiment with different destruction types after it's released, what should we care?

As long as the ArmA engine is: efficient, scalable, and most of all - expandable, we're sitting pretty for the greatest game of the next 6+ years.

[rekrul 7]

Latest info as has been mentioned in a couple of places is that once the November release version goes gold then the demo will be worked on, depending on how long the demo takes to finish it could be released after the retail version.

Just make sure that we can have both the game and demo installed at the same time. We who are fanatics and want to recruit has to play with potentials on the demo as they probably don't want to pay for a german version and we don't want to wait for the english one. :P

[Maddmatt 1]

Even addons that deletevehicle and are replaced with damaged models are too noticeable, never liked it..

That's just because they are done badly, they don't cover it properly and you can sometimes see both models at once for a short time.

Its not that... i've seen very good scripting used to achieve this on vehicles but it still feels fake since you can easily tell that something was deleted and something was spawned out of nowhere. This was with small vehicles, imagine the horror if it was used on large buildings and structures (like Lipany town hall or a huge hangar).

Quote[/b] ]And now you say ArmA destruction looks fine? Make up your mind

When did i say otherwise? What i say is that it needs some work but its definetly better than something like deletebuilding and createbuilding this... if they slow down the colapsing and add more debris and some remaining walls it will look damn fine .

edit: Remember that BIS are the pro's, i doubt they will use bad workarounds in Arma.

Most games simply replace models with destroyed versions, sometimes they spawn as multiple pieces, Battlefield 2 seems to do that. What do you expect them to do? Break and deform into hundreds of pieces That kind of destruction is a few more years away.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]And now you say ArmA destruction looks fine? Make up your mind

When did i say otherwise? What i say is that it needs some work but its definetly better than something like deletebuilding and createbuilding this... if they slow down the colapsing and add more debris and some remaining walls it will look damn fine .

...

Quote[/b] ]

I cant believe someone actually sugested that BIS should swap building models and cover it up with smoke to simulate building destruction, please... .

That's exactly what bis are doing, swapping a building with the rubble, and covering it up with the building going down into the smoke where it disappears.

[Tussyman 0]

Hmm...german version of ArmA and a Demo maybe with english stringtable.csv, could it be possible...well you know what I mean.

(just an interesting thought)

[Bunkers 0]

Hmm...german version of ArmA and a Demo maybe with english stringtable.csv, could it be possible...well you know what I mean.

(just an interesting thought)

Indeed an interesting thought. Hope some1 with knowhow can answer that. However I hope posting the idea here wont make the dev's think of some way to stop it   BUT, having the game in czech/german and the demo in english would make it alot easier to translate/learn the menus and textings.

[imported_bör 0]

Most games simply replace models with destroyed versions, sometimes they spawn as multiple pieces, Battlefield 2 seems to do that. What do you expect them to do? Break and deform into hundreds of pieces That kind of destruction is a few more years away.

It'd be great if it was like Soldiers: HoWW2. I know it's a RTS, but we're speaking of dynamic destruction, so I mention it.

Do you know Soldiers? You can destruct every building rather dynamically.

Here's a video, showing you a little destruction in minute 6.20.

In MP the system's even greater. Imagine german infantry supported by some tanks slowly advancing through a small village, when being detected by some russian spotter and then you let your 5 Katyushas do the job. *howliehowliehowlie*, all the buildings get hit, crumble piece by piece and the whole village is no more than dust.

[Daniel 0]

Looks nice, but as mentioned, RTS games dont have to worry about the same complications as FPS games do.

In my opinion, the falling down building looked crap and I don't reckon BIS plan on it looking anything like that in the final version. I personally would prefer one or two seamless model swaps hidden by plenty of dust and tonnes of generated rubble chunks. If they get the dropping building to work in conjunction with this as someone already stated, then that would be even better.

BIS, if you havn't already finalised the building damage, good luck.  

PS. Just a thought. Even if the building damage is generic - like say on a one story building, a tank shell makes windows shatter and part of the roof collapse (via a model swap) - would it be very demanding to have some dust and bricks thrown out at the point the shell hits the building? That would certainly make it look more convincing and make it seem more "dynamic". Suppose it would work like the rocks from the ofp grenades, just have the rubble stay where it lands.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]some dust and bricks thrown out at the point the shell hits the building

You can use particle system to make such but unfortunally brick seized objects are the top limit I guess and they would not stay onscreen forever, as they are only particles.

[archsceptic 21]

Personally, I think just some flames coming out of the windows, then after a while smoke coming out of the windows would look better than a building collapsing in a milli-second like a pack of cards.

Hopefully this has been worked on.

Going off track a bit, but I thought the turning speed of the tank turrets might have been slowed down a little bit for ArmA, but it does'nt look like it.

[Dudester 0]

On the IGN game site, i have just seen, under release dates that its says Armed assault(UK) released 30th December by 505 games. Is this just a guess or do they know somthing we dont.

[giZrM 0]

On the IGN game site, i have just seen, under release dates that its says Armed assault(UK) released 30th December by 505 games. Is this just a guess or do they know somthing we dont.

A guess, always a guess.

[Commando84 0]

no way?! 30th december isn't Q1 2007 but hey if they release it that early it would make alot of fans wanting a english verison of the game more than happy

[mickuzy 0]

hey would it be possible to instead of having te entire house crumble could u do that on a level by level basis. so the house comes down slowly, and you could create a script or trigger so that if the level below gets destroyed the one/s above do to. is that possible or am i just taking a leak into the wind.

[max power 21]

From a simulating realism standpoint, if you collapse a level of a building onto another level, that level is not going to hold, if it's made of concrete and brick. That said, on the news about 6 months ago I saw them trying to implode a building somewhere in america, maybe washington. The building was old and of some very high quality construction. They imploded the bottom level and it just sat down, the second story becoming the first! This was something like a 10 story building!

edit: This may be the same one or a different one. At any rate, it's pretty amazing.

Now imagine the poor engineers who have to go in there to finish it off...

[Correction 0]

edit: This may be the same one or a different one. At any rate, it's pretty amazing.

Now imagine the poor engineers who have to go in there to finish it off...

Haha, that linked to some video of fish with a human-like face.