Deformable terrain - Do you guys want it?

[ck-claw 1]

ECP (OFP) had 3D craters AFAIK

Yepp they did,you could also get into them. :)

[wipman 1]

Hi, yeah, the OFP's ECP 1.085 Mod had 3D craters that made the game play much better

and they served as cover for the troops; the terrain deformation should be only made by

fat ammo, like bombs and fat arti, but i'll vote for the craters, i loved 'em in the OFP. Let's C ya

[norsu 180]

Could a following idea be possible in future BIS games?

The gaming area has a fixed cell size, lets say 10 meters. Normally 3x3 cell area would look like this:

Now the player adds a round foxhole object in editor that modifies each cells it touches resulting in something like this:

After this the whole terrain would need to be rendered again of course. But only one small area in it would use smaller cells so only that area would require more calculating power. This way mission makers could build real trenches from objects or add subterrain structures without huge performance issues that a full map in smaller cells would require.

[Spooner 0]

Deano and I were considering something similar. 10m cells for the default terrain, but replace any deformed terrain with 2.5m cell sections. Never got around to trying it, but would work in theory. Of course, we aren't using regular terrain, but...

[sidhellfire 0]

Why changing ground terrain, instead of stripping it from it's characteristics - I mean clipping and visibility of selected meshes. I've got no practical programming knowledge, but just placing a model of a hole, and applying some kind of 'mask' to the terrain within that model's area to remove it's geometry LOD and view, and a player should be able to use the one, that hole object has. Of course, there would be probably chances to meet bugs similar to walking trough walls, but instead falling into abyss beneath ground level.

[max power 21]

Boolean operations are shit.

[MehMan 0]

Boolean operations are shit.

+1

It's not as easy as plonking down a new object...

[suma 8]

Why changing ground terrain, instead of stripping it from it's characteristics - I mean clipping and visibility of selected meshes. I've got no practical programming knowledge, but just placing a model of a hole, and applying some kind of 'mask' to the terrain within that model's area to remove it's geometry LOD and view, and a player should be able to use the one, that hole object has. Of course, there would be probably chances to meet bugs similar to walking trough walls, but instead falling into abyss beneath ground level.

While deformable terrain itself is relatively easy to implement in the rendering level (it could be done like you describe it here), the real difficulties are how to integrate it with other parts of the game. You need to handle static objects placed on that terrain. You need to handle collision detection, meaning the "terrain hole" needs to be propagated into collision detector as well. Terrain collisions are currently very simple and fast, given the regular grid. With irregular mesh or mesh with holes it gets more contrived.

I am not telling it is not possible, I am telling our decision was we will spend out effort more effectively elsewhere, like in the AI area.

[S!fkaIaC 10]

I am not telling it is not possible, I am telling our decision was we will spend out effort more effectively elsewhere, like in the AI area.

So feature candidate for ArmA 3 release date 2012? :cool:

[sidhellfire 0]

And that's OK for me. Deformable terrain at the complexity level which would be satisfying for players is probably impossible to implement for today.

As for objects in newly created hole - wall of buildings could be expanded to be "burrieed" in ground, and hole would expose only another meters of wall, and small objects, like M2 machine-gun could just roll over damaged. But still trying workaround everything is not a proper attempt to solve anything.

ArmA2 seems to be already ahead from anything in presenting enviroment. It's hard to find features that won't be a milestone for a technology/performance. The only things related to terrain I can come with, is lack of places, when terrain creates a natural "shelves", to let soldiers hide behind them.

Just throw a glance at these pictures:

For now the smoothness of terrain doesn't allow to find any natural cover other, than hills for targets hundrets meters away.

[Spooner 0]

I was rather hoping that A2 had reduced the cell size from A1, which would allow more undulation and allow terrain features such as you describe. As I said, the change from 10m cell to 5m cell we made in our Dynamic Terrain test for A1 made a massive difference; we could suddenly make reasonable, if not perfect, small rivers, craters and trenches. 2.5m cells would really make a massive difference, though it might be too much strain on the engine to be worthwhile.

[sidhellfire 0]

2.5m wide squares won't allow creating almost vertical slopes to create level difference in about 0.5-1.5meters. It still needs a textured 3d object to be placed, but it would help to place it. Maybe "dynamic" cell density, or rather terrain cell "patterns" to place on maps. Don't know.