Men stand out too well from background.

[Second 0]

Island can be build for that small height differences... Atleast theoratically. I made island which was almost full of "bumbs" which could be used as a complete cover, kneeling position was required to be able shoot over them... AI just sucked with them (they mostly were prone behind bumbs and didn't participate in combat by rising on their knee). I don't know how well wipman's idea would work out, but there wouldn't be this problem (atleast so freguently).

I created kind of digicamo-textures for Rahmadi and it did hide stationary troops somewhat well (it took time or luck to spot them at longer distances with ironsights), but even small movement was way too easy to notice. North Sahrani with it's longer grass might work better, but i think that it's not worth of try.

[Trapper 0]

Is the texture so bad? In my eyes moving around reveals most camo in a few moments anyway.

[NoRailgunner 0]

That depends at moving speed too and what kind of things (grass, trees, objects etc) are in your FOV.

[Second 0]

Is the texture so bad? In my eyes moving around reveals most camo in a few moments anyway.

No-no. I tweaked island's textures, not textures of soldiers. It was able to hide varios different kind troops and different kind camo suits (didn't favor default SLA, US or RACS but hid them all well).

Idea was that ground tetures had so many broken forms (basically each pixels side-by-side had bit different color in them) and variety of colors was so great that player can't pick up small details, like prone men, easily but needs to consentrate for long moments as ground-texture itself is so 'noisy'. I also thought that it would be able to hide movement, but sadly it wasn't. Idea was to try if this way it would be possible to "simulate" lacking shadows, microdetail and clutter to long distances (this would be easy to do to Sahrani) and then to see if that gives new vibes when playing Arma... Ugly looking? Yes.

Basically it's idea was to force player to consentrated on spotting more. But because movement is clearly visible on camoflaged ground texture, it won't work.

Edit:

@NoRailgunner: I can clearly see man crawling in southern grassland at default grawling speed at 400-300 meters distance in ArmA, that guy is going directly away from me (this kind movement is harder to spot than movement going sideways). I think i can see his heels and shoulders moving. It is't that hard even in northern taller grass, head and heels are drawn to screen so they are visible aswell. This is in ArmA with 1280x1024 resolution.

In real life... Not with my slightly below average eyesight I know two guys who could be able to see that but there are about 0.1% chages that human has that good eyesight.

[Dwarden 1125]

ok finally found my old topic with related theme

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....exture.

check these 3 ArmA screenshots (w/o grain, with soft and with dense)

problem now is when enemy soldier is far laying and under grass texture then often his head still pops out of 'uniform' one colored block

with such soft 'noise' on distance it would be bit harder to spot that head....

[Trapper 0]

@Second

Maybe another point for different personal implicitness of what will be breaking camo and it's simulation, I had very good eyes when I was in basic training. Oh and I was already referring to the ground texture.

@Dwarden

It's another implicitness for me that faces are of distinct lines and color and will just stand out without proper makeup breaking those up like we have it in ArmA. Combined with that one distinct prone animation.

It would be a very good idea for BIS/mission designers/addon designers to include camo faces in/for the right scenarios.

The boots are possibly textured too shiny and clean for camo, like the faces. I'm especially thinking about if a reflecting shader or anything else is used as texture effect. Or it is another bad LOD texture color selection.

But we can't use perfect combat ready "dirty" soldiers in every scenario.

And again the crawling is a perfectly repeating distinct movement when AI is doing it in a computer game.

[Second 0]

@Second

Maybe another point for different personal implicitness of what will be breaking camo and it's simulation, I had very good eyes when I was in basic training. Oh and I was already referring to the ground texture.

Okay i misread then your post. Ever-never has happenend to me...

To me this is very open space (if not including cropsfields):

I don't have much experience with wild grass plains or such, just what i've seen in pictures. It's either marsh, forest, cropsfield or lake in here.

Ofcourse movement is plain open (like sand-field) is easily visible. But how big precent of non-arid terrain is like this?

[Trapper 0]

This topic is really complicated. Conlcluding from the link you're based on Finnish terrain, aren't you?

In Germany I'm used to a different terrain. Even of the moderate wilderness on your picture isn't much to be seen here.

http://www.sauerland-bilder.de/index.p...._2.html

Overly it's more looking like a golf course. The last coherent areas coming close to your picture will be military training areas.

Finding a broad microdetail solution that isn't just based on randomness so it'll be fair for players but still realizable for all kinds of island terrain, sounds like a feature for games and hardware in far future. A grainy random ground texture + proper LOD color mod, can't think of much more for Arma.

[-HUNTER- 1]

Also to be considered here is the fact that the AI for instance doesnt really think about cover, and where he is camoed or not.

Because If I go sit in a bush it is really hard to spot me. But the AI doenst do that and moves thrue open areas many times. If human players are moveing along the same route they will go via cover to cover.

But I thought we allready had the discussion that ACU is crap!

[Trapper 0]

It's more about the fact that the the smallest micro detail in ArmA distance are bushes. It's not that close to reality.

[Second 0]

Other thing with mcrodetail is that AI is poor in using it as advantage.

Let's take example from OFP:

-Very high terrain detail and player can pop-up, fire few shots and hit the deck (and get into cover), then he can crawl by using dells in terrain (in cover from enemy fire) to new spot and repeat earlier thing. This way each time player pops up he's location is not known to AI and so AI's are somewhat under dogs. High skill AI is another beast in this. Player has to play very carefully and act fast when there is time to act as AI will fire spot&fire in high speed.

-In very low terrain detail (quite much like ArmA's terrain is) he can just find trees, bushes, rocks etc as cover, surviving the experience gets much harder. Expacely when AI's skill is high. There is no absolute cover like in very high terrain detail, player can't break contact to AI as because of lack of absolute cover. Game gets harder for player to survive.

Which one is better for AI? I would say that very low terrain detail, as AI can fight back player in best way = shooting. AI is poor in using terrain detail as advantge as it can't use pop-up method and it usually can't analyze terrain and movement when under enemy fire very well (forexample using tiny ravines to crawl in absolute cover or fast rushes from hole to hole). I'm sure AI can do that in some degree but not in optimal way, like careful player can. With very low terrain detail it's quite much volume&accuracy of fire which matters... Pretty much like in ArmA.

Here's one basic difference between AI and player:

Conserning mostly about very low terrain detail.

AI: Ofcourse it's not complitely about using just firing as effectively as possible, there are features in terrain which enables survival in very low terrain detail too... Which might not be very logical: advantage of terrain bases more into getting as much men into there and having them Line-of-sight to enemy than with coverness of terrain. Defending squad hiding among bushes might easily become underdog to attacking squad who comes across open space, as attacker can deliver high amount of accurate fire at any defender who opens fire. If only few defenders can fire at attacker at time (rest of defenders can't establish line-of-sight to attacker), so basically there are forexample 9 attackers vs 2 defences (rest of defending squad cann't have line-of-sight to attacker) = Attacker wins. This way they chew defender one-by-one and eventually win. If AI could form unified killzone where all of them are capable to see and fire, then defender could win.

Player: will choose proper firing positions very fast, but yet is bit of underdog against opponent with better firepower.

Very high terrain detail:

AI:With very high terrain detail this isn't so clearly about this. Attackers line-of-sight has been broken as well because terrain features are much more broken, half of attackers can be lying down and not see a thing, defenders might be lying in dells from where they can shoot to one direction and can be shot just from one direction (basically).

Player: will choose proper firing positions very fast, firepower's effect reduces while use of terrain gets more important. AI is under dog.

[NoRailgunner 0]

But if you develop+release very good AI behavior+moves the most kids will run mad because they want fun and easy shooting

btw hiding behind bushes what if AI decides to knock/shoot few bullets around? Awesome feature if your on stealth mission and enemy AI guards are little nervous

[Baron von Beer 0]

WRT terrain, as has been mentioned, color palatte can play a huge role.

One of the best looking (from an overall view) terrain systems I have seen on the PC is Steel Beasts Professional. The terrain may not have ultra high res textures, but the color relationships between foliage, grass etc, and units, is exceptional, and the elevation data is fairly detailed too. (though probably not too far from ArmA from an infantry standpoint)

Most of the time there is too much contrast between terrain features on PC titles, so any one object stands out against any other. This may be used to simulate depth, or just "look good", but is far from how a human eye sees things.

As far as AI interaction, having them use area and or chatter fire would also, IMO, do a lot for the game. As is they tend to only fire when they have a specific target, and even then there is often a delay from the time they get a solid line of sight to opening fire.

Better would be if they fired in the vicinity they believed them to be, switching to targeted fire as the situation allows. They will maneuver on an enemy they no longer see, but most any infantryman knows it's always better to have a generous serving of FIRE with that maneuver.

[Second 0]

In ArmA manuver is always not as good option as fire. We would need lots of microdetail serving as cover&concealment.

Here something. I'm in hurry so please excuse me about uncoherent (more or less off-topic) thoughts):

In Arma-verse you mostly have just clear targets, no just shady idea of enemy's location but sharp profile of enemy. Without suppression, best bet you can do is to fire as few and accurate bullets as possible, both human and AI. Every shot one makes is a report to enemy that: "Hey! I'm here!", lower volume of fire (and kills) means that one survives longer. As long as this applies in ArmA or possibly in ArmA2, suppressive fires are kinda no-no (if one is in range of enemy's fire).

With will to fight (suppression) modelled, this isn't so black-and-white. Like with one i wrote: skill-level of suppressed one is downgraded, it halts it's manuver and it's forced to look for cover... Which doesn't mean that suppressed ones would not shoot, they just shoot worse. by this we can have some plussides to use of suppressive fire. But yet, it's not close to being perfect or even good: firefight now becomes more about being suppression-race -> he who gets fireoverpower will destory opponent. But he won't win it's by manuvering. He wins it by being more able to send more lead towards enemy and chewing him dead. This isn't 100% right argument, there are cases in which manuver is necessary to destory enemy. But usually one doesn't have to bother to use suppressive fire (he can manuver freely). This is because ArmA AI works like it works when it uses cover. If AI uses cover it either can't shoot you (you can't shoot it) or then shoot you (you can shoot it) from there.

This comes again to AI's skill to use cover. ArmA AI knows how to use it in, let say, "single-mode" (hide behind it. Lying behind sandbags and bushes is 100% same thing in ArmA AI's mind), AI should know how to use it in "dual-mode": 1. hide behind it in maximum cover 2. hide behind it and yet be able to fire at enemy. This means that he can use forexample in two ways, go prone and be safe (maximum cover) or kneel while being able to shoot.

Then Adding effect of suppression to determe how much one would spent in maximum cover (unable to fire) + increased level of cover in terrain detail and objects (make it harder for player to spot enemy). Maybe with this recept we could have better and immersive firefights, in which manuver and fire both have meaning, another is to force enemy to keep in cover and make him passive (=fire) while other is to destory enemy (=manuver). Ofcourse there will be instances where fire has destoying value, like letting enemy troops to come in middle of open and then opening fire.

[ShrubMiK 0]

This is a very interesting topic, and an area I've been hoping to see improved in games for a long time.

I had a big "wow" moment playing Crysis the other day. I was motionless for some time in a lightly wooded area, no undergrowth to speak of, but I still couldn't see the enemy I knew was somewhere not too far ahead. At first I assumed that was because my line of sight to him was blocked by tree trunks, but finally I saw him only about 20-30m away, crouched motionless. He was partly obscured by a tree trunk, but most of his body was in plain sight and once I had spotted him the silhouette seemed obvious. However his camo made him blend into the surroundings well enough that it took me some time to see through it.

So it can be done...at least from the player's point of view...quite how they model the perceptions of the AI I don't know, but a detailed enough statistical model can probably produce realistic enough behaviour. I certainly feel like I'm better off in concealment or better still behind hard-cover in the game.

Making AI use its surroundings to best effect, and try to deny cover to the player or negate its effectiveness (e.g. flanking) is another, probably much more difficult matter...

But I am hoping we'll see a big advance in this area in ArmA2.