Realistic water

[LastNinja9 0]

Make water/ocean more realistic with reflections and such.

This has probably been posted before (at least I hope so), I just did a quick search. Anyway, I needed to get it out...

[Viper23rd 0]

I thought Armed Assault didn't look very bad, at least it's a huge improvement over OFP.

Even better water would be nice but if it'd cause performance hits then I'd rather have the current water.

Anyone remember DXDLL for OFP? That was pretty awesome, and if you didn't tweak it well the water could be a mirror almost, was pretty cool.

Yours,

[LastNinja9 0]

Well, it's not THAT bad, but a simple optional reflection wouldn't harm.

[smellyjelly 0]

Yeah, I aways thought that the water it Arma looked pretty good. They really just need to fix:

-The waves along the shore doesn't transition very well to the rest of the sea. In addition, all of the waves in the sea are going the same direction.

-Since I believe they are adding reflections to the vehicles, I assume there will also be reflections on the water (especially don't forget lights).

-Since it's autumn, it would be nice to see leaves, or even litter, floating near the harbors.

[Colossus 2]

Can't say I got any complains about the water in ArmA. It might get improved in ArmA 2 since it will use DirectX 9 (or am I mistaken?). It does its job and it looks nice

[max power 21]

also remember that reflections aren't reflections in cg. To render reflections, you have to render the whole scene again. Then, to make it ripple you need to add per pixel post processing on a render to texture call. Even with optimizations like low quality LODs and texture definition, rendering reflections is not a fast process.

I do think that the option would be nice but it would be more like a feature that would become more usable in a generation or two of computing technology, like dxdll for ofp.

[stakex 0]

Well since ArmA2 is NOT ArmA... it should not have ArmA's water. Not saying it should be really high quality like Oblivion, Far Cry, or Crysis... but it should be improved apon over ArmA's water.

[tzvetoslav 0]

Yeah,let them keep the water,units,islands and the weapons and vehicles if you like?That way we can play it like it's the original ArmA,no?Give me a break...

[Daniel 0]

Guess i've got a bit of a British "not broke don't fix" attitude...

The water looks fine. Although shore transitions could do with some work. ArmA brought OFP's graphics up to scratch. Now hopefully ArmA II can do the same for the gameplay.

[Mr Sarkey 0]

In addition, all of the waves in the sea are going the same direction.

Your point being? Do you think waves go in different directions?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I do believe he's referring to waves not being perfectly parallel to the coast, and ignoring things like spits, barrages, etc.

[Spy17 1]

I agree in general i like the water, but the waves are wrong. The waves should be generated at one side of the map only. When they first hit land they should  disappear and deffinatly not show up on the other side of the island again.

Waves have to travel a long distance to build up a visible, organized swell. This would solve the problem with swell in river inlets and harbours also.

I hope this is not too difficult to do in a patch or MOD because it would look a lot better.

[Misfit Leader 1]

Chernarus isn't an island, so the performance problem shouldn't be the same as it could have been with Sahrani.

[stakex 0]

Daniel @ May 05 2008,12:44)]Guess i've got a bit of a British "not broke don't fix" attitude...

The water looks fine. Although shore transitions could do with some work. ArmA brought OFP's graphics up to scratch. Now hopefully ArmA II can do the same for the gameplay.

The "not broke, don't fix" attitude is fine, but its thrown around an awful lot in these forums... the water really wasn't THAT good in ArmA to not warent at least an upgrade. In perspective the water was kinda low quality for even its time, and the waves were a joke... and that was a year and a half ago. It needs work, to at least make it semi-comparable to the current standard.

This (and most of my posts) don't really represent my PERSONAL feelings on how the game should be. I could really care less how good the water and graphics are. Gameplay and game mechanics are alot more important as far as Im concerned. IMO the game could look like OFP, but things like adding a REAL physics engine should be top priority, not the current POS BIS jokingly calls a "physics" engine... even if that means turning the graphics down a notch.

However, you do have to consider the games ArmA2 is going to be releases along side, and the games its graphics are going to be compared to.... Halo3, GTA4, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Fable 2, and the list goes on and on. Graphics wise, these games make ArmA and even the current ArmA2 screens, look very old, and outdated. So things like better looking water have to be at least a minor priority if ArmA2 has any chance of drawing in new players.

Lets face it, ArmA has so many "small" graphical and gameplay issues that alot of people here say "Oh, thats not major... it dosn't need to be fixed", but they add up after a while. And people who are not already fans of the series are not going to buy and play a game that looks years older then all the other games out at the time, and is not nearly as polished. So while better graphics are not what I personally want, not fixing all these "minor" problems will cause ArmA2 to sell like a brick, and if that happens.... it well could be the end of the series, and perhaps game releases from BIS all together.

[LastNinja9 0]

In Oblivion (I think ?), one could choose between different qualities of the reflection, where the lowest was/is really pixelated, but kinda nice anyway. Adds A LOT to the atmosphere IMHO, though it needs to be optional of course.

It would make for awesome promotional screenshots !

Another thing... stormy sea should be, well, more stormy (if possible at all...).

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

Joint Operations had some great water with gameplay value. The deeper a person was, the harder it was to see them under the surface. The water had realistic cloudiness to it, depending on the map.

[mr.g-c 6]

Ohh yes, the water definitely needs some sort of reflections!

I mean come on, this was possible even in OFP, like in this video at 0:10 and 0:27

And Stakex, you seeming to speak exactly that out what i think.

Water in Arma is very Ugly in my opinion and yes there are way more important things in Arma(2) than water, but still in my opinion a improved water with some reflections is needed for Arma2.

Best Regards, Christian