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GBee

Streams and Rivers

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The topic of streams and rivers has come up many time but as far as I can tell it hasn't been discussed in depth.

There are a lot of calls for better animations and eye-candy additions, but I'd rather see streams and rivers in place of dynamic destruction for example. They would NOT have to be realistic in terms of physics - appropriate textures would surfice for the illusion of moving water. smile_o.gif

They would have a real impact on tactics, causing you to give greater thought to route planning and defensive positioning.

Bridges and fords would become strategically valuable, whoever controls them would have greater mobility.

No longer would troops be able to travel in straight lines from point A to B unless they were equipped to do so. So to an extent you could place assets with greater efficiency. Imagine a scenario where you are persuing a downed pilot; knowing that a river blocks his direct return to enemy lines you could choose to secure the crossing points or place units up/down stream.

Boats would be able to move inland a little on larger rivers and at estuaries.

Finally they would add to immersion and realism. The sound of running water from a stream or waterfall might become a navigational aid in the dark smile_o.gif

Edit: Fixed all my typos wow_o.gif I give the usual excuse - it was my keyboard's fault guv'ner!

Edit 2: No longer funny - I'm setting a personal best in the typos per word category.

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Yeah that would really be nice. It could really make for some good scenarios. You could maybe even have some Navy Seal or other units that could maybe be able to missions from the rivers and they could have the gear to cross.

You could also have amphibious vehicles too? Good idea GBee biggrin_o.gif

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due to fact i'm one of these "raising" the river/stream point multiple times ... i must leave some text in this thread too smile_o.gif

x2 ... You got my vote smile_o.gif ...

so where are some rivers?

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You could also have amphibious vehicles too? Good idea GBee biggrin_o.gif

Some of the existing vehicles in OFP are amphibious - the BMP for example, although it doesn't mean much unless you are starting a mission in the sea!

However the addition of rivers would give amphibious vehicles another dimension. e.g A BMP might be the better choice for a mission than a T-80 because it allows more choice over the direction of approach.

You could also have snorkeled vehicles capable of wading at shallow points.

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Mountain streams trickling over mossed covered rocks with ferns abounding! Waterfalls cascading over narrow cliffs deafening a bystander gazing at the spray! Streams at the end of fields, half hidden by nettles just waiting for the unwary rambler! Elevated mountain lakes with the sound of small waves laping at the pebble shore and noisy fast flowing rivers too dangerous to wade through and too fast for a boat, crossed only by bridges!  inlove.gif

Maybee in game 2 if they delay its release for long enough!  biggrin_o.gif

Ya, I would really love to see some kind of moving water simulated in ARMA. But if it was not done propelry it would look stupid. Also streams and rivers need to have recessed terrain to flow in. Also how many different sizes and types of streams and rivers would need to be implemented? Would the animated water cause lag problems if there was lots of it?

Lets hope that something will be done. But let's only hope!  wink_o.gif

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add one more proponent to your list; if nothing else, i want to see bodies of water at various elevations, and no more magically appearing water at sea level. come on BIS, make it happen!

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add one more proponent to your list; if nothing else, i want to see bodies of water at various elevations, and no more magically appearing water at sea level.  come on BIS, make it happen!

Well a magazine article said inland lakes are now possible with ArmA. That might mean its possible to have lakes are elevations

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would be fun if things could float via the streams... Making it possible to come places with engine off!

A similar system was used in Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, where the water had currents, so bodies and stuff would float down it...

That game didn't have vehicles though, so it wasn't really my cup of tea...

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Have a look at the tech demo from Avalanche Studios in Sweden, which will be used in the game called "Just cause". Needless to say, I will buy that game as soon as it is out, and the engine looks really promising.

http://www.justcausegame.com

This isn't so bad looking, is it? wink_o.gif

[im]http://www.justcausegame.com/images/Just-Cause_11.jpg[/img]>100kb

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The ideas of rivers in gernal are possible in OFP. I have made maps that had rivers in them. Just have to keep them at sea level thats all, and they will end up being fairly large. its streams that are not really possible in Flashpoint. But thats not really game breaking and imersion killing.

I mean huge rivers are whats tacticly important in military situations, and we can have large rivers (and we know of indland lakes now) in the game. Streams and waterfalls and things like that are simply eye candy themselfs. If this was game2, and it was a large persistant military battle that never stopped and makeing large strategic moves was important... then this would be a bigger feature. However, since the missions will likely be restricted and scripted... large strategic moves will probly not be possible in ArmA. So haveing rivers that you have to cross with armies wouldnt really matter anyway.

Things like animations are not just for "eye candy" either. Horribly un-life like animations really kill immersion, and you see them a lot more then you come across problems with the lack of rivers/streams. And as I said in another thread... dynamic destruction is also not "eye candy". But its horribly un-realistic when a town gets carpet bombed and buildings are totally un phased and people inside them survive. Now thats unrealistic and imersion killing IMO.

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the problem is ... we are here speaking about big areas (bigger than OFP/OFPR) in Armed Assault

and if they w/o rivers / bigger streams it will feel very very strange ....

why rivers / streams can't be simple similar to roads with just some additional defined features / scripting (to allow object immerse within river, differ what can float and what can't), river bed (topographic datas), stream direction and strenght, attached texture and it's transparency, linked area sounds, ...) etc...

it should not be so hard to implement this into code ...

of course for Game 2 can be implemented some sort of ultra complex stream network with complex fluid physics etc.

.... discussion welcome ....

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I don't know what the limitation is in the OFP engine that meant they were unable to create streams and rivers.

Certainly creating them as describe by Dwarden above was even possible in games as old as Quake 2 . Even the effect of simple currents was possible with Q2.

Perhaps the concern was with rendering - although I don't see how streams and rivers would be different from the current sea.

As far as being able to create "rivers" at sea level - well to be picky if they are at sea level they aren't rivers - more like inlets or fjords. It also would limit such rivers to low-lying costal areas of the map - further inland and your terrain would become a series of plateaus dissected by canyons wow_o.gif

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Playing OPF:E I've just found a pond wow_o.gif 200-300 metres north of Chotain on the East coast of Everon. I don't remember anything like this in OFP - has it always been there or is this a new addition?

I almost crashed my Camel when I first saw it from the air. biggrin_o.gif

It shows elevated water is not impossible. Now why can't the same principle be used to create streams, rivers and lakes? wow_o.gif

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Quote[/b] ](HIDDEN)Have a look at the tech demo from Avalanche Studios in Sweden, which will be used in the game called "Just cause".  

OMG Hidden i looked at the video of just cause its freaking awsome! wow_o.gif . Have you looked at the water?wow  wow_o.gif  wow_o.gif  xmas_o.gif

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Actually the articles says that lakes are in - which we already knew from the new video but no mention is made of rivers.

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Actually the articles says that lakes are in - which we already knew from the new video but no mention is made of rivers.

Now, make your lake really long and really thin, there you got your river? tounge2.gif

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Rives and lakes were already possible in OFP...

We need water, which isn't on sealevel wink_o.gif

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Rives and lakes were already possible in OFP...

We need water, which isn't on sealevel wink_o.gif

I know? that article makes it sounds like its done in a different way then OFP wink_o.gif

Ah well, as long as my lakes/rivers stop going up and down im happy tounge2.gif

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Floating objects, river flow, transparent water, fish, waterfalls.. we might be expecting a bit too much on that but it certainly would add to the environments alot.

Independant water streams on diferent height levels seems very complex confused_o.gif .

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Rives and lakes were already possible in OFP...

We need water, which isn't on sealevel wink_o.gif

Even though the article doesn't say over sea level water, it's quite obvious that ArmA should have it. He says that OFP didn't support inland lakes, but ArmA will. That means that ArmA does support a kind of lake that wasn't possible in OFP, so it's most likely a lake that's over sea level.

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Even though the article doesn't say over sea level water, it's quite obvious that ArmA should have it. He says that OFP didn't support inland lakes, but ArmA will. That means that ArmA does support a kind of lake that wasn't possible in OFP, so it's most likely a lake that's over sea level.

There was a real lake on Nogova wink_o.gif .

This thread bring something else to my atention, amphibious APC's, i believe its very unrealistic to have BMP's and M113's coming from the sea crazy_o.gif .

Thats why big lakes are needed, to make realistic use of APC's amphibious capabilities.

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Even though the article doesn't say over sea level water, it's quite obvious that ArmA should have it. He says that OFP didn't support inland lakes, but ArmA will. That means that ArmA does support a kind of lake that wasn't possible in OFP, so it's most likely a lake that's over sea level.

There was a real lake on Nogova wink_o.gif

"real"

not many lakes have tides, do they? wink_o.gif

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You could also have amphibious vehicles too? Good idea GBee  :D

Some of the existing vehicles in OFP are amphibious - the BMP for example, although it doesn't mean much unless you are starting a mission in the sea!

However the addition of rivers would give amphibious vehicles another dimension. e.g A BMP might be the better choice for a mission than a T-80 because it allows more choice over the direction of approach.

You could also have snorkeled vehicles capable of wading at shallow points.

I searched for a good place to drop the following observation in OFPE (but perhaps it is not relevant because it is already in OFP and/or well-known). Anyway, I at least WAS surprised. I made a defend mission near the bridge on Novoga. I'm on one side with some teams, the enemy is on the other side.

T72's etc. seems to cross the bridge well, infantery also but are sitting ducks:) but to my BIG SURPRISE the BMP2's didn't cross the bridge, the SWAM to my side, absolutely cool!

Don't shoot me if this is old news;)

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