Persistent smoke

[dmarkwick 261]

I wonder if anyone has any info on whether AA will have a persistent smoke effect on wreckage. FDF is still my mod of choice, one reason is that the battlefield quickly starts to look very real with persistent thick plumes of smoke filling the sky. I always find it slightly distracting that other mods (and indeed the vanilla game) has rather weedy smoke that peters out after a couple of minutes.

I know it's not exactly a deal-breaker, but it does have more value than simply aesthetic, these plumes are visible for as far as you have visibility set at, and are useful for navigation, especially for something like DAC AI addon where you don't necessarily know where things are likely to kick off.

Check out the following two sample screenies, the first is FDF with very nice persistent smoke effect, the second is FFUR with weedy smoke that only lasts a few minutes per wreck.

[Frans 0]

You can see some smoke effects in the E3 trailer, which I'm not too enthousiastic about. But as always, it's just work in progress, so who knows what BIS finally comes up with...

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Elite has something similar to the FDF smoke/fire effects. Think it'll be in ArmA too, improved.

[EiZei 0]

And hopefully they will not allow smoke to be turned off, makes me more than a bit paranoid in MP when assaulting enemy positions in a totally open enviroment..

[VISTREL 0]

I think it will be crucial to remove "turn off the smoke" option. Sometimes you forget about that feature and throw smoke granade, thinking it will provide cover. But then the other player doesn't have smoke, and kills you. Although, smoke can lag the game very heavily. Losing team might start spamming with smoke nades, and crap the game for everyone.

[chipper 0]

Look if BIS doesn't do it some mod will.

[dmarkwick 261]

Look if BIS doesn't do it some mod will.

Yep that's true but I hope it's in the vanilla release, I really think it adds a lot to the subliminal feel of the battlefield. And of course, although smoke was a FPS killer in OFP, with newer rendering engine improvements it's really needn't be as bad.

[Trapper 0]

From my scripter's point of view this persistent smoke is nothing fancy. With the drop command of OFP you can select the duration of any cloudlet and all current smoke effects are based on the drop command. So it's only a matter of taste and performance for the desginers in old OFP.

[funnyguy1 0]

[Scrub 0]

^the prophet of game 2^

[Ukraineboy 0]

I think WGL has the best smoke effects, and these sort of effects would work perfect in ArmA.

[frederf 0]

I'm sure BIS would love to have such smoke effects, but they were minding the FPSs. You gotta remember when they made the game initially everyone's computers were a lot slower (not that they couldn't "patch it up" since then).

[Lou Montana 101]

maybe a setting, but then again, it could be a performance problem, with seeing (or not) through the smoke... damn it's not easy

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

I lvoe the smoke in this pic:

http://www.armedassault.eu/photogallery.php?photo_id=225

[chipper 0]

It looks like John's smoke and fire addon. Which looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!

[Adamicz 3]

It looks like John's smoke and fire addon. Which looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!

Yeah, but not in motion

[chipper 0]

I don't really mind it the transitions cause it just looks so good. But when used with a mod like FDF or WGL where the smoke flows slow it looks great.

[funnyguy1 0]

Yeah, both fdf and John`s fire&smoke addon have something that makes the smoke look more natural.

I wonder how such ammount of smoke from this pic (fdf pic from the first page), with a quality of the photo from ArmA (the smoke from that pic is a bit different, seems to be lighter a bit and more transparent) that fluently disappers into the air, or (depending on the kind and ammount) gets higher and higher, or the dust kicked by firing vehicles or explosives that flyies away with the wind, could be generated without a gigant preformance loss.

You can notice how far ofp is from the reality by watching some footage from Iraq, smoke and hudge ammounts of dust flying everywhere...that would be really impressive...

[GBee 0]

It looks like John's smoke and fire addon. Which looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!

Yeah, but not in motion

We haven't see a recent video with smoke, so we cannot say what it looks like in motion.

[lwlooz 0]

Knowing that I stand pretty much by my own,I am going to say I dislike that new smoke effect based on the assumption it works like John's smoke effects. You put a reasonable detailed texture on a large 2D effect and sell that as smoke. Pardon me,that might work for screenshots,but not for a 3D game enviroment.

Heck I know its a cheap(as in CPU resources) way to sell "detailed" smoke to the user,but I far more prefer less detailed smoke that is far more dynamic and less static.

I also think that just like with reflections[Not everything shines,infact very few things do and almost no material reflects white light back(If the material has a different color) when the sun shines on it] there isn't only one type of smoke(or one type of reflection). It depends a lot on how easily the smoke particles spread in the air,how heavy they are,the overal density,if a bomb kicks up dust too. But I love to be proven wrong and shown that all kinds of smoke can be simulated by sticking a 2D Texture on everything no matter the size or the origion like FFUR 2006 V2.0 does[Notice:I can only judge that from screenshots of it,I take that back if that is not the case,and no offece to the FFUR modteam since I acknowledge the work they put it]

So in short: I rather have undetailed smoke that acts like smoke than a huge 2D texture that wants to sell me something as smoke

On the long smoke trail vs short smoke trail issue.I think again you can't generalise all smoke emitters to act in one specific way

[Adamicz 3]

It looks like John's smoke and fire addon. Which looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!

Yeah, but not in motion  

We haven't see a recent video with smoke, so we cannot say what it looks like in motion.

I talked about John's smoke effects

[GBee 0]

It looks like John's smoke and fire addon. Which looks FREAKIN AWESOME!!

Yeah, but not in motion

We haven't see a recent video with smoke, so we cannot say what it looks like in motion.

I talked about John's smoke effects

Ahh, my bad

[CsonkaPityu 0]

I don't know lwlooz, they solved it good enough for me in the COD series.

What i would like though is lingering fog like smoke/dust effects.

There is a firefight video from iraq that takes place during some dawn raid on a us outpost, the smoke or fog or whatever it is lingers on the ground blocking the view pretty badly, i'd like that to be in a game one day.

[Daniel 0]

Red Orchestra doesn't look to shabby either. Can seem to lack a bit of depth at times though.

[max power 21]

All particle effects are two dimensional billboards. OFP's stock smoke included.