Night battles rather unspectacular?

[deady 0]

So i remember playing OFP missions set at night. Towns would be lit by streetlamps and shilkas would light up the area around them as they fired into the sky.

Is it just me or are Arma towns *mostly* thrown into complete blackness during night? And is there no kind of "lighting up" effect when shilkas fire?

And why does the Sahrani runway have no runway or taxi lights? Theres a few approach lights but thats it.

It seems night time in Arma hasnt got the attention it deserved.

[Nihilistix 0]

Im going to have to agree with you. Granted I only have the demo and have seen vids and screens and everything seems great enviromentally. But little things could be done during night time like with the nonenterable buildings maybe add a slight glow to some of the windows as if there were lights on in some of the houses. But overall I love what BIS has done with HDR and the blinding headlights and all that good stuff but I feel it can be taken so much further. I think that night battles do need to have the dimmer switch turned up just a little esspecially with regard to the big guns

[Millenium7 0]

yep I agree it does need a lot more attention. Also lights while they do blind you a bit its not enough you can still see soldiers in the light, same goes for the sun you can still clearly see birds/planes/whatever. And your eyes don't focus very realistically, if you stare at a light then look away it only takes 1 second or so for your eyes to adjust (except with night vision but thats still too fast)

The biggest problem and such a major disappointment, nay insult is ArmA still uses that crappy lighting system that was in OFP. Lights aren't projected they are just blobs on a matrix which never work properly. This is just barely forgiveable in OFP, but in a DX9 game.. this was solved way back in what DX3/4/5?

[icebreakr 3159]

Well, i'm quite satisfied with night setting. Its very nice to see that sun goes up/down differently in June or December (set in mission details)....

Here are couple of night screenshots of yesterday meeting, we had a great time (3 hour play):

http://www.arma.si/modules/news/?news_id=315

[maxqubit 1]

Well, i have to re-check but my first impression is that in Elite(!) the nightsessions are strangely enough more beautiful, like 'warmer', esp. the fires with its orange glow. Both on tv and on my TFT with a X2VGA device. Check my 'landing' vid in the sig. The vid was made by capturing the s-video signal.

It could be a technical thing. I'm no expert but e.g. the 360 with component is also much 'warmer' than with vga.

Perhaps i have to saturate the visuals more. Any thoughts on that?

[KeyCat 131]

I agree with you Deady and glad you brought it up. The lighting effects at night and the tracers are some of the few things that I personally had higher hopes for.

Due to the very limited light sources it actually feels like a step back. The few lamp posts that are there are giving quite limited light and that somewhat strange light cone is also present.

However, if you place out some camp fires near buildings/objects it shows you that the ArmA engine is capable of much better lighting effects! The new camp fires gives a very nice effect and looks great IMHO but it doesn't feel right to sprinkle Parisio with camp fires  

Trying to look at it from the bright side here we did get a working searchlight and I still hope that things are WIP so hopefully BIS will improve it or some skilled addon maker will make new light sources (like Lester did for OFP with his very nice AEF_Reallights v2.0 - btw, thanks Lester).

/KC

[ALDEGA 0]

In OFP, a single street light would light up an entire town (even the sides of objects that weren't supposed to be lit )

In ArmA however, it's extremely dark. The street lights barely light up anything (same for other lights, e.g. vehicle lights). However, when you switch to night-vision, you can actually see that there is signficant lighting, it's just extremely dimmed when you switch off the NVG. Maybe due to the HDR?

[ALDEGA 0]

and that somewhat strange light cone is also present.

The only time when you should see a "light-cone" is when there is dust or smoke in the air, which would reflect the light. In OFP/ArmA I'd rather have no cone at all, it feels cheap, old-skool

[Heatseeker 0]

I cant shoot out the lights in towns, this was possible in Resistance/Nogova.. The lights dont really light much, its all very dark but in OPF the lights killed my frame rates. The way car headlights iluminate the ground could have been improved, the lighted ground jumps (ala flashpoint) instead of iluminating it smoothly while in motion.

[KeyCat 131]

The only time when you should see a "light-cone" is when there is dust or smoke in the air, which would reflect the light. In OFP/ArmA I'd rather have no cone at all, it feels cheap, old-skool

Or if the air is very humid.

/KC

[ALDEGA 0]

The only time when you should see a "light-cone" is when there is dust or smoke in the air, which would reflect the light. In OFP/ArmA I'd rather have no cone at all, it feels cheap, old-skool

Or if the air is very humid.

True, I guess Sahrani has a lot of humidity

[PeterEyres 0]

I think the battles are quite impressive at night. Rockets, At's javelins etc light up the area around them whilst they are travelling, the explosions are excellent (room for improvement however) and the burning fire effects are still the best in any game around at the moment.

The tracers on rifles need improving, but I do like the tracers on shilkas and tanks for example.

It never was spectacular in Flashpoint either, but then mods like ECP came out and took it to a whole new level of awesomeness. Hopefully those guys will get cracking on an ArmA version.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

It may be my settings or a symptom of this mysterious "HDR"

going awry, but I like the dark nights in ArmA. Night actions

now have much more of a realistic flavour than they ever did

in Flashpoint. For my intended purposes it'll suit me just fine -

once someone makes me a "parachute flare" addon (your

mileage may vary, of course).

[blackdog~ 0]

Here's testament as to how spectacularly realistic HDR NVG effects are.

(that was sarcasm by the way)

I realize that if you look into a light source with NVG's IRL you will be blinded. But you'll have white spots where you were blinded! It's not as if the whole scene should fade from black like that as soon as one takes off the NVG's.

[TheReddog 0]

My only problem with night fighting is that the AI soldiers seem to be able to see through complete blackness and shoot my prone arse on a hill 200m away even when I haven't fired or given away my position.