Living Islands

[Imshi-Yallah 0]

Ok, two topics in one day...I know I know. Sorry folks.

But while discussing all the new and exciting things for the game like dynamic weather and top1 (fingers crossed it will be as good as it sounds) it came up about super detailed islands like Mapfact Nogova and farmland island.

Now the one thing that seems lacking in these islands is a bit of life, you can painstakingly place civilian units for a bit of atmosphere but even then if you aren't moving through their specific location it can be wasted on you.

What I was wondering is would it be possible to have some sort of integral script in an island to generate non military activity at varying levels of CPU suck and depending on a predetermined War footing of the island itself.

So for example in standard OFP warfighting missions you might see a column of randomly generated civilian vehicles pass you on the road, or animals out grazing on a hill.

Picture the atmosphere of passing a wrecked car with two dead occupants in your military convoy.

Secondly for wandering around super detailed islands like Mapfact and FML, even a few civilians randomly sitting in enterable buildings or walking the streets would do wonders for atmosphere, making even a mission less explore or quick firefight in the editor a more immersive experience.

Finally, I know that OFPs engine has it's limits in these regards, but still I'd ask you not to pelt me with rotten fruit.

[biggerdave 56]

In 1,000 years, we'll get right on it

Of course, you haven't thought of the massive amount of time it takes for such a project to be done, and the proformance hit it would have (for example, try Cessna Fun)

Now... were did I leave my rottern fruit

[berghoff 11]

I think Game2 will have such things as it is an "RPG".

[NeMeSiS 11]

Its pretty easy to get an island look alive with DAC, but it sucks up 50%+ of my FPS, so theres not much left for a mission...

[Drongo69 117]

This is a very interesting topic, I've been trying to answer this question myself recently.

It should be possible to use DAC to generate low-resource civilian activity. Use unlinked zones for foot traffic in larger cities, use linked zones for vehicles. You could even put them on the friendly side to make enemy units attack them (resulting in the finding a shot-up civvie car you mentioned above).

The problem with civilians in OFP is that the engine is designed around infantry squads who move about in a distincly non-civilian manner. Civilians often end up looking unconvincing.

Also remember, sound is a very important sense. Another way to add detail is to include triggers with ambient sounds. Thinking about this the other day, I was thinking it would be good if there was a random-ambience addon. Basically a set of scripted logics that played random sounds at random intervals. You could have different types, eg. jungle, small European town, forest, large city, etc. It would be a simple, low-resource way to add some aural ambience to missions, without dropping triggers all over the place. For example, imagine you drop a "deserted village" logic into a small town. It could play sounds like a door creaking in the wind, perhaps a distance barking dog, maybe even a hushed whisper of someone hiding from the soldiers.

Finally, empty civilian vehicles parked in the right places can help things make a bit more alive.

[NeMeSiS 11]

The problem with civilians in OFP is that the engine is designed around infantry squads who move about in a distincly non-civilian manner. Civilians often end up looking unconvincing.

If you let them move with the "Limited" speed, "Safe" behaviour and max the groups to 2 units it looks quite good, and its a millions times better then that random civilian thats standing all the time with his thumb in his arse

[Guest Ti0n3r]

I usually add some parked vehicles + some civilians wich will run away if they spot the enemy, etc. I think that's good enough for now.

I guees the ArmA campaign will feel/be more alive than anything for OFP has ever been though.

[biggerdave 56]

Try behaviour safe, speed limited and the S&D action, at least, until someone can script some good civilian AI (so they'll walk around a bit, see if they can find somewhere to sit down, talk to other civies etc.)

[moricky 210]

Good idea with living island. I'll think about it

[ebns72 0]

Would it be possible as in GTA to despawn and spawn cars and civilians so the cpu only has to calculate maybe 20 items at a time?

[Imshi-Yallah 0]

Well what I was thinking of was that the Civilians would be triggered by the proximity of a player.

As for giving cities more life, I was thinking about the sort of "novelty" addons that things like Cessena fun (Sp?) used like beach bars and offices by philcommando. but built into islands.

That way in theory civilians could be spawned and take up some reasonable civvy behaviour like a move waypoint followed by a get in waypoint at a desk and chair for instance, or into a phone box or bus.

*ducks for more vegetables*

[Marcus4 0]

I thought about this aswell. It woudendt be that hard. Make a trigger on a road for example. then place a gamelogic further down the road. write a script that creats a car, chooseing from a array of them. then, it make a driver, move him in. then, he will drive past, then get delted. sorry, writeing this in a hurry

[NeMeSiS 11]

I thought about this aswell. It woudendt be that hard. Make a trigger on a road for example. then place a gamelogic further down the road. write a script that creats a car, chooseing from a array of them. then, it make a driver, move him in. then, he will drive past, then get delted. sorry, writeing this in a hurry

The spawning/despawning isnt that hard, but how the hell do you detect roads and do you get time to drive them properly? Cause you cant place triggers on the whole island...

[hellfish6 7]

I've long advocated something like this (i.e. a template or some such for each island with traffic patterns and such) but every attempt has come out unconvincing. Granted, I haven't tried it in years and many improvements in mission making have been made since then.

Part of the problem is that the civillians DO act too much like soldiers but the main problem is that its exceedingly difficult and time consuming to get the AI do do anything other than wander in circles.

Ideally you'd probably want an AI to get into a car, move to a random destination, exit the car and do something other than stand there blankly or walk in a circle and still have them react to fighting or possibly interact with the player.

I've always kind of hoped that BIS might someday do all this work for us and have a little button in the editor that turns a "living" version of the island on or off...

[5133p39 12]

if you look at the "psycho slayer" mission(a little advertisement, sorry ;-) ), i made some very basic background where NPCs are traveling randomly throughout the whole island - either by foot, or by some vehicle they found.

It's simple and far from the scripting miracle you are dreaming of, but it's a start

I work on a newer version, which implements a BUS traffic.

There can be any number of BUS routes, and the NPC will pick the best route (including route changes) to get to their destination. Players can check the route plans on each station, etc. And the BUSes will have neat sounds playing appropriate information messages (maybe i will end up with some "BUS simulator" )

I am trying to make it to be easy portable to any other island than Nogova, while i rewritten all the scripts hundred times, because everything is so complicated with the various constraints of the OFP scripting engine (it's still maybe the best game scripting engine i have ever seen, but it does have it's drawbacks) so the progress is rather slow.

I am happy to see someone with similar interest, would i know that before, the whole thing could be done already - i have suspended the work for many months because of lack of emotional support, and got back to it few days ago, because i am planning a little game party with my friends, where it might be useful :-)

In the future i want to add some basic NPC activity brain which will send them to "work", or to sleep into their homes, etc.

..but i am affraid this will have to wait until the ArmA is released (i hope the scripting engine will be more friendly towards array handling, string processing, and getting various unit's states and variables, maybe even something slightly object oriented - but that's probably just my dream).

Anyway, i would be happy to share my thoughts and ideas, if anyone is interested. Is there anyone who is working on something simmilar? maybe we could help each other a little

EDIT: i forgot to mention one probably important thing - it's MultiPlayer compatible, hope it stays that way

[AgentFox2 0]

Hey, all.

p39, That sounds like an awesome system! I'd like to try it out.

My own humble attempts at this sort of thing have been also suspended, but maybe we can work together to progress towards this goal!

A long time ago I made a "traffic" script to make some low-performance civilian vehicles that would travel routes using a marker waypoint system. It didn't get very far, and I've learned a lot since then, so I never really picked it up again.

Here is a link to a test mission:

Temporary 7-day link

[5133p39 12]

Hey, all.

p39, That sounds like an awesome system! I'd like to try it out.

My own humble attempts at this sort of thing have been also suspended, but maybe we can work together to progress towards this goal!

A long time ago I made a "traffic" script to make some low-performance civilian vehicles that would travel routes using a marker waypoint system. It didn't get very far, and I've learned a lot since then, so I never really picked it up again.

Here is a link to a test mission:

Temporary 7-day link

ok, i'll be allways glad to participate.

I tried the mission of yours, it's funny - put a few Skodas piloted by AI on the map, and the fun is guranteed - although i have some suggestions, but i suppose this thing is old, so you probably know all of that stuff.

In case you are interrested, PM me.

[5133p39 12]

In case anyone is interested in the BUS traffic thing i work on, take a look at this pre-alpha mission.

Unpack it into your ofp/users/you/missions/ directory, load it in the mission editor and try it.

It's no big deal, just a bunch of AI units traveling by bus, randomly around the island.

The timetable is removed from this version, so check the image included inside the ZIP if you want to know where the bus routes goes.

And don't forget to read the included readme.

And as allways, i am open to suggestions concerning features and script design of this baby of mine.

[Julian 0]

Hi guys this is a great topic, I'd like to add the ecp's dsai to this discussion if it hasn't  been added already.

But the new extention on top of the existing dsai really does make a differencce in the game.

  In away this really gives a more atmosphere when your around other soldiers in the game.

    The point here is if you can use ecp's dsai for the civillians, and add the other things you all were talking about that would at least make the civillians more alive.