Does Arma support Terrain LOD ?

[l etranger 5]

The terrain auto level of detail is a missing features of OFP, that is why you need a good computer if you want to play in high terrain detail.

The terrain auto lod is pretty simple to do, at a certain distance the engine begin to merge the terrain's vertex to draw less polygons. It makes the terrain less accurate but you doesn't see it because you are too far to notice the rougher edge, and it help a lot to save ressource that you can allow for other objects.

[sanctuary 19]

As i have read no real technology informations about ArmA other than the basic features i can't say for sure but isn't the new engine streaming feature advertised for Armed Assault working +/- like this ?

I remember having read that ArmA can support insanely big island, so i imagine if there was no engine trick to take care of the not seen terrain, such huge island would then need a NASA/Pentagon computer.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Im also wondering how the terrain streaming will work, will the area which is > x meters just disappear and loads around you as you walk around? What happens with AI units in the disappeared area?

[l etranger 5]

Well in OFP elite it doesn't seem to be implemented because they put a heavy cliping or maybe the Xbox is just too powerless.

The streaming must not be for performance improvement but more for memory usage.

[whisper 0]

Seeing that max view distance is slightly improve, it must have slightly better performance, on top of memory management redesigned

[NeMeSiS 11]

Seeing that max view distance is slightly improve, it must have slightly better performance, on top of memory management redesigned

And if you remember that a xbox only has 64mb ram, then BIS definitely did something good

[klamacz 447]

The terrain auto level of detail is a missing features of OFP, that is why you need a good computer if you want to play in high terrain detail.

The terrain auto lod is pretty simple to do, at a certain distance the engine begin to merge the terrain's vertex to draw less polygons. It makes the terrain less accurate but you doesn't see it because you are too far to notice the rougher edge, and it help a lot to save ressource that you can allow for other objects.

what gives you a idea, that OFP are not using AutoLOD for terrain like ROAM or smthing? If programmed really good it can be almost invisible for players. And if you can change terrain complexity there is ROAM almost for sure.

... eh?

edit: one more thing on streaming terrain ... its working like two programs - one is calculating the game, second is calculating what terrain first will need and is loading it 'on the fly'. Like calculating performance drop in OFP, when after a half of second models changed theirs lods upper or lower depending on how fast your game works now.

[l etranger 5]

Yes ofp doesn't use terrain lod :

http://pix.nofrag.com/3d....mg]

As you can see there 400 000 poly drawed, and no difference between near and far distance.

[l etranger 5]

That is very important to have Terrain Lod, because it would allow ArmA to have a realistic accurate human scale terrain (without performance drop), where infantery could duck in any gaps and holes they found when under fire. Right now Arma doesn't support that gameplay. Ofp does :

Arma (smooth edge, huge scale topography, unexploitable) :

Ofp (cover edge, holes, ditchs, human scaled, very exploitable) :

As you can see Ofp is much more realist, and the gameplay (motions & action possible with the only terrain) is completly different.

[JdB 151]

It is if you set OFP to Very High Detail landscape, not with "normal" people who have it on (very) low - normal. Alot of those ditches and holes won't be there on those levels.

[aus_twisted 0]

http://pix.nofrag.com/17/ee/20a5f1c6ce71f24bbf7e2074b1b2.jpg

As you can see Ofp is much more realist, and the gameplay (motions & action possible with the only terrain) is completly different.

And who runs such high terrain settings on there server with a lot of players and units on the map at once? The high setting is really only usefall for small single player missions or taking screenshots. The problem with a terrain LOD is that at different view distances the terrain would change for the players view causing problems of where players are actually located on the ground, it would cause for units beeing seen half in the ground or in the air.

[sniper pilot 36]

That is very important to have Terrain Lod, because it would allow ArmA to have a realistic accurate human scale terrain (without performance drop), where infantery could duck in any gaps and holes they found when under fire. Right now Arma doesn't support that gameplay. Ofp does :

Arma (smooth edge, huge scale topography, unexploitable) :

http://pix.nofrag.com/a5/8a/ba60b21e8e4c8d4b41f28ded0d39.jpg

Ofp (cover edge, holes, ditchs, human scaled, very exploitable) :

http://pix.nofrag.com/17/ee/20a5f1c6ce71f24bbf7e2074b1b2.jpg

As you can see Ofp is much more realist, and the gameplay (motions & action possible with the only terrain) is completly different.

ah thats a disapointment, although ArmA is 70% done there. Even this image looks a little like the first (no improvement that i can tell[except the pretty trees and such but still the ground])

.. I hope the addons for Ofp dont stop when ArmA comes out...

[aus_twisted 0]

I hope the addons for Ofp dont stop when ArmA comes out...

Even though addons made for ArmA could probably be converted to OFP, I dont see the point in mod makers spending time to release addons for the old OFP engine when you have a newer graphics engine that is so much better and supports more. OFP has had a solid 5 years of addons, at some stage mostly everyone will move on to ArmA that will have a far bigger communtiy then OFP had in it's prime.

[sanctuary 19]

It is if you set OFP to Very High Detail landscape, not with "normal" people who have it on (very) low - normal. Alot of those ditches and holes won't be there on those levels.

Using the command setTerrainGrid , a mission maker can have everyone playing his MP mission using the same terrain detail he wants (or even give different ones to different players), from very low to very high.

[Metal Heart 0]

Quote[/b] ]at a certain distance the engine begin to merge the terrain's vertex to draw less polygons.

This would be a problem with weapons that have very high range, like a tank. You would see your self hidden behind a hill but the enemy might see right trough it. Or you would see your self in a nice tank sized hole while the enemy far away would see only flat ground on that spot, making you invisible even though you'd have line of sight. Of course you could make it so that this merging doesn't happen near units but then the sudden change would give you away, especially when you move etc.

[whisper 0]

Genuine question :

ViewDistance is 5km

TerrainGrid high

I'm 4km from a soldier hidden in a hole on his screen, hole existing because of terrrainGrid setting

With adaptative terrain LoD, how could this soldier be hidden on MY screen, as the precision of terrain drawing is way lower on my computer cause it's 4km away?

[NeMeSiS 11]

Quote[/b] ]at a certain distance the engine begin to merge the terrain's vertex to draw less polygons.

This would be a problem with weapons that have very high range, like a tank. You would see your self hidden behind a hill but the enemy might see right trough it. Or you would see your self in a nice tank sized hole while the enemy far away would see only flat ground on that spot, making you invisible even though you'd have line of sight. Of course you could make it so that this merging doesn't happen near units but then the sudden change would give you away, especially when you move etc.

Well, it could be disabled in MP, AFAIK everyone uses Normal terrain detail in OFP already, but not sure..

But i normaly use High, but that would give an advantage to players who play with Low details, and i cant remember if it really is High in MP

[.kju 3241]

@whisper

depends on the netcode what happens / should happen

[l etranger 5]

It's up to dev to balance performance over the game abilities, a 3 Km view is enough with the terrain lod begining at 2 Km.

you can't see much thing at 1 Km with a 1024x786 resolution without optics. So optics could turn off terrain load allowing you to scan it in details (you don't lose too much performance because the zoom decrease your fov rendering).

[whisper 0]

It's up to dev to balance performance over the game abilities, a 3 Km view is enough with the terrain lod begining at 2 Km.

you can't see much thing at 1 Km with a 1024x786 resolution without optics. So optics could turn off terrain load allowing you to scan it in details (you don't lose too much performance because the zoom decrease your fov rendering).

So there is possiblity that a full viewed tank @ 4km suddenly become half hidden when zooming in?

Or should there be a LoS check making the unit drawn, or not, on screen at low LoD distance? In which case, client side, or server side?

Not sure the issues are too easy to clear

[NeMeSiS 11]

It's up to dev to balance performance over the game abilities, a 3 Km view is enough with the terrain lod begining at 2 Km.

you can't see much thing at 1 Km with a 1024x786 resolution without optics. So optics could turn off terrain load allowing you to scan it in details (you don't lose too much performance because the zoom decrease your fov rendering).

So there is possiblity that a full viewed tank @ 4km suddenly become half hidden when zooming in?

Or should there be a LoS check making the unit drawn, or not, on screen at low LoD distance? In which case, client side, or server side?

Not sure the issues are too easy to clear

@4km away you wouldnt be able to see if that tank is partly covered or not

[whisper 0]

On a descending slope, I would not bet. A completely uncovered tank may appear as a few pixel, interesting enough for you to check. A partly covered one would be unnoticed. But with terrain LoD it would appear compeltely uncovered whatever he tries to do to hide

[Trueman 0]

Wat is LOD and what is it do?

[Metal Heart 0]

It's short for level of detail. What it means in models is this:

The simpler lods of the model are drawn when the vehicle is far away because it would be a waste of performance to draw the original model when you can't see the details anyway.

[Stendac 0]

That is very important to have Terrain Lod, because it would allow ArmA to have a realistic accurate human scale terrain (without performance drop), where infantery could duck in any gaps and holes they found when under fire. Right now Arma doesn't support that gameplay. Ofp does

As you can see Ofp is much more realist, and the gameplay (motions & action possible with the only terrain) is completly different.

Don't jump the gun. It's too soon to say that. C'mon, we haven't seen the whole island yet in Armed Assault. Besides, OFP had its share of flat terrain too.

As far as bumpy terrain (with gaps and holes) being more realistic: Not necessarily.