ArmA greater view distance?

[UH60MG 0]

Look at this screen and notice the size of what appears to be a main road compared to distance the horizon. Looks like we will be able to see a lot further...

http://www.armedassault.com/pic_arma2/ArmA2Int_HINDS.jpg

Is it me or does that building appear flattened? Maybe they have a rendering systen that removes polygons with on altitude. This could make for a convincing flight simulator!

[Gargantua 0]

a lot simplier. just a satalite mask with great resolution

[stakex 0]

Its too hard to get any sense of scale from the picture... that "road" looks really small when you compare it with the trees... so it might not be that far away at all, because if it is thoes are some huge trees in the distance. Tho the view distance in ArmA2 will probly be a little bit higher then ArmA1... tho we really don't need it any higher then ArmA1's max really.

And the buildings aren't flater... in fact, there are no buildings in the picture. Thats just the ground texture from the satalite mask as gargantua pointed out. This is just an early screenshot, and the building models have not been added yet.

[UH60MG 0]

What I mean is perhaps the building models are deleted with altitude - just leaving the satellite texture.

[EricM 0]

Quote[/b] ]What I mean is perhaps the building models are deleted with altitude - just leaving the satellite texture.

It would be pointless to get rid of a 10 polygon-house in its lowest lod and leave thousands of trees with their trunk and foliage on screen...

Plus you need at least basic geometry to shoot at hit or get cover, even from afar.

I think 10km view distance is already enough, though if the code is further optimized and the hardware gets more powerfull, it may become more mainstream.

[dmarkwick 261]

It's more likely to be a sat image that will be repainted over when the buildings are placed. I do it that way myself

[franze 196]

UH60MG, please don't hotlink pictures over 100KB.

[Ferox 0]

it is definitely hard to see scale from that picture.. we can only sit and wait I guess.

[7 0]

one thing that bothered me in arma is that the trees are huge and if you look in that picture they dont get much smaller in the distance, almost as if they retain their size (in relation to distance) at extreme distances.

look at this image and youll see what i mean:

[max power 21]

That's because the distances in ArmA aren't extreme. If you crank your VD up to 6k or something its starts to look a little more realistic.

[Maddmatt 1]

one thing that bothered me in arma is that the trees are huge...

The trees in ArmA are not too big. On average, they are probably too small.

Compare trees with other objects in the environment. Many trees in real life appear much bigger than in ArmA.

plaintiff1 is right. With a huge viewdistance and high object detail you get a view that resembles real life a bit better. The trees do seem to scale correctly over distance.

It would be odd if that problem was true, it would require the lower LODs of the trees to be bigger than the higher LOD models, or some equally strange decision/mistake

The view distance in that picture is much higher than what you would normally see in ArmA. The field of view might be wider too, which would make things look even smaller.

ArmA already supports huge viewdistances, but you need a pretty high end PC to handle it. 10km is good enough for the map size we have.

BTW, it is possible to have a greater viewdistance than 10km in ArmA if you use the 'setviewdistance' scripting command. Setting it too high might cause the game to crash though. I don't know whether that's caused by a game bug or the PC simply can't handle it due to memory limitations or something.

It's not really a problem though because the game isn't playable at such a huge view distance for most of us

[dentist guba 0]

i think computers have most trouble with memory, ARMA doesn't seem very well optimised for loading many objects.

[King Haggis 0]

I think the viewdistance in Armed Assault is good enough. It's the Warfare Multiplayer viewdistance that could be better.

Offline, flying A-10's in singleplayer is a joy with viewranges at 3000 meters or more, but try it in Warfare and you end up shooting over your targets (buildings) which only pop up from the mist when you're a few hundred meters away from them and flying at high speed. Makes lining up for a GAU or FFAR strike very hard.

[sparks50 0]

Haggis, the view distance can be set in the mission file, but if you set it too high then people with bad computers wont be able to run it.

Heres a tip, if it is allowed on the server, use this addon:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3186

to set your own viewdistance. it overwrites the settings in ALL mp missions.

[Dwarden 1125]

in ArmA the trees are way smaller than 'real life like' in ArmA 2 this is supposed to be addressed ...

was mentioned in some developer interview some time ago

[Stendac 0]

It seems that too often Arma is a game that looks good from a certain angle or from far away. Get up close though, and the player quickly realizes that:

Many buildings can't be entered (and don't look good up close).

Those that are enterable aren't particularly interesting.

Trying to move around the close quarters of the inside of a building is frustrating. (it makes the already loose controls even more noticeable.)

The view distance in Arma was fine. For Arma2, instead of increasing the view distance, I hope that BI is working on the details of the game. Nice looking buildings and soldiers with better facial expressions. At the very least, I hope the controls will be better in the next game.

I loved OFP and I was gonna buy Arma no matter what the reviewers said. But after Arma... I'll just wait and see how Arma2 turns out.

[kklownboy 43]

Haggis, the view distance can be set in the mission file, but if you set it too high then people with bad computers wont be able to run it.

Heres a tip, if it is allowed on the server, use this addon:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3186

to set your own viewdistance. it overwrites the settings in ALL mp missions.

Is this the same Setting thats in ECS? "Dynamic View Distance", 1200,5000.

[opteryx 1562]

I think ArmA2 should have higher View Distance, the engine can handle it (VBS2 50km VD), but you'd probably need custom terrains with low object count and larger terrain tiles. Why limit things to only default content?

[dentist guba 0]

after doing some testing with ARMA i think it basically depends on whether they improve the streaming. my 500 pound ish comp can easily handle ARMA with every setting on full but as soon as i look at objects the frame rate dies, if i turn the settings down it seems to be just as bad or even worse in some cases.

if it is optimized for dual core as well as they say then i expect the view distance to be even better.

[King Haggis 0]

Haggis, the view distance can be set in the mission file, but if you set it too high then people with bad computers wont be able to run it.

Heres a tip, if it is allowed on the server, use this addon:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=3186

to set your own viewdistance. it overwrites the settings in ALL mp missions.

Oh, hey, that's great. I didn't know that! Thought the viewrange could only be set by the server admin or something.

This tool might become in handy, if the servers accept it. Thanks for the info, I'll try it out as soon as I've reinstalled Windows XP. Those nvlddmkm.sys BSOD's under Vista drive me crazy. Too bad, I kinda liked Vista...