Realistic Terrain

[BigBadBobNed 0]

In my opinion, ArmA seriously lacked realistic terrain.

I'm not talking visually, grass and tree details etc are fine.

The fact is the land is much too flowing and smooth. If we are going to have a balance of good gameplay and realism, the terrain needs the kind of gullies, valleys and little flaws that make games more interesting and realistic.

In Arma, tanks can go ANYWHERE. I don't care what you say, its true. Unless its vertical and the tank doesn't physically have enough steam to get up, there's no change your vehicle is getting stuck.

In reality, rocks, cliffs, rivers, lakes, trees, seriously rough terrain would limit the mobility of anything.

I think this would dramatically improve those firefights, as at the moment with ArmA unless your covered by trees or a structure, you can be seen pretty much miles away. Its like a series of football fields with trees, houses and a mountain here and there.

Lets see some of this

[sparks50 0]

Tanks and AI cant cope with that terrain. Chernarius(?) is vaguely based on satellite imagery, and it looks good to me.

[Spoock 3]

Chernarus is real terrain 1:1 from Czech Republic, It is beautiful czech landscape, It is popular for hiking and so good place for little warfare  

Pounds will be there, rivers of cours not.

We dont need some unrealistic improves!

[EricM 0]

You can't have a large terrain with that level of detail. Your computer wouldn't handle it and it would take years to populate accordingly.

But nothing prevents you from doing a small island (like porto or Rahmadi) with that level of detail.

Maybe for Arma 3... when we all have supercomputers by today's standards.

[xnodunitx 0]

It's possible, you just cant' have ultra realistic at closeup textures.  

We could do so much more with games thanks to todays modern technology however much of the disc space and work is being soaked up on the high res textures and their derivitive maps,  specular, normal, occlusion, offset, color, and possibly others.

Taking the time required to create these in their vast amounts with precision detail...of course I don't really quite know how Arma and Arma2's map editors work so I can't comment much on that.

There is of course also in how the engine is set up, for example, wether or not the game renders terrain for your computer if it is seen behind a hill or some other obstruction.

[Second 0]

You dont' necessarily need details like rocks and such. Already OFP had realisticish terrain in high/very high terrain detail-setting when it comes to cover and concelament. Sadly ArmA doesn't support this... Truly sad. We ended up having nicely textured football fields or golf-courses, which might look rocky grassland from air.

Visitor 3 could do somekind rough terrain... How ever i don't know how erosion (i used this feature as "quick rougher" for terrain) works with large complex islands. My small square island was covered with 0.5 meter tall bumbs created by using erosion... It's was nice at start, but started to feel lame. Far too simple. I never got anything like OFP's stock islands could have.

[NoQuarter 0]

I would have gladly traded more than a few klicks of playing area for just some relief (ditchs) along the roads... and even more if they would have thrown in some streams or rivers into the mix.

Not that it matters much, or now, but to me it is more important to have as realistic terrain as possible rather than limiting it to allow for maneuver room for the zoomies.

A happy medium has yet to be achieved.

[kavoven 4]

Regarding the terrain in ArmA 2 I have nothing to criticize on the screenshots

[Sosna 0]

I agree with the OP and Second...

The problem with ArmA's terrain isn't a lack of hills, but that the surface of the hills (and plains) is too flat. Less occlusion is provided, with the end result being more predictable and less interesting gameplay as infantry. (Since it's easier to see and shoot the enemy)

OFP proved that nice lumpy terrain was possible but for certain reasons (which I'm not entirely aware of) it had to be deducted from ArmA.

Aside from that, one thing that was missing in the series is realistic rivers/streams. I would really like to see it in ArmA 2, but I won't get my hopes up.

[BigBadBobNed 0]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks this suggestion has some wieght.

Couldn't agree more with the two above posts. Cheers lads

[EricM 0]

I don't know where you got the idea that you could get more "lumpy"/detailled" terrain in OFP. Arma can handle substantially more details at all levels than OFP.

[Average Joe 0]

Its because im so under-educated I find it odd you cant make ditches etc in a terrian editor but can create infinitely high mountains

[opteryx 1562]

Its because im so under-educated I find it odd you cant make ditches etc in a terrian editor but can create infinitely high mountains  

Would you mind rephrasing that? I don't see how terrain height correlates to terrain detail.

[MBot 0]

The problem with ArmA's terrain isn't a lack of hills, but that the surface of the hills (and plains) is too flat.

That hits it very well. ArmA had lots of hills and valleys, from the island point of view. From the point of view of an infantry-man looking for cover it was basically flat.

Judging from the screens and the latest interview, I guess this will stay the same in Arma II

[MehMan 0]

I don't know where you got the idea that you could get more "lumpy"/detailled" terrain in OFP. Arma can handle substantially more details at all levels than OFP.

OFP had a nice thing that I never knew about when you turned the terrain detail to very high, it turned the terrain bumpy, literally, with small bumps and dips all over the terrain. Really nice thing.

About the mountains...well here's the deal, a mountain has a lot larger surface than lets say a roadside ditch. The mountain in ArmA is lets say 3kmx3km, while the average roadside ditch is 2m by 1m. That's why it's hard to make it so. It's just too small a detail. What is a shady solution though is making a road model that is itself lifted off the ground.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I don't know where you got the idea that you could get more "lumpy"/detailled" terrain in OFP. Arma can handle substantially more details at all levels than OFP.

OFP had a nice thing that I never knew about when you turned the terrain detail to very high, it turned the terrain bumpy, literally, with small bumps and dips all over the terrain. Really nice thing.

Yeah, turns my damn computer into a slideshow though. Also breaks AI driving something chronic when going offroad.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Who was really able to turn OFP setting into very high settings? Only nice if you didnt use AI - their pathfinding went fubar.

Even in ArmA AI get stuck by little stones and bumpy terrain. Its really nice if they all stealth & prone and suddenly one of them stands up or when they not able to go because some invisible glue clip them.  

On the other hand default terrain should be at very good performance.

[Second 0]

I play with high-setting and OFP works like magic... I havent' seen pathfinding issues or anything with it. Very high puts knees even nowdays average computer if wishing to have long viewdistance. High is much more friendly for fps, but terrain already gets quite rough. I had 2.8 GHz computer and in there OFP was 100% playable with high setting, very high caused lagging when turning head.

Havent' had time to listen what was said about Arma 2 in Jerry Hopper's interview with that lead designer guy, and did my question recarding this issue made it... Probably not. So i take freedom i'd speculate that ArmA 2 will be like ArmA when it comes to terrain. It's upto map editors to make rough maps... like i said in earlier post (or atleast tried ) i haven't been able to produce OFP-ish terrain. Sure, i tried something like one or two days... That gives me HUGE amount of experience in this matter  

EDIT: Infact i dont remember any problems with very high terrain detail setting either, when it comes to AI's pathfinding (not even with vehicles). Maybe this is more issue in MP?

[MBot 0]

Havent' had time to listen what was said about Arma 2 in Jerry Hopper's interview with that lead designer guy, and did my question recarding this issue made it... Probably not. So i take freedom i'd speculate that ArmA 2 will be like ArmA when it comes to terrain.

Basically Ivan said that the terrain resolution of Arma II is not high enough for trenches or ditches. He also said that they added more objects instead to provide cover.

So yes, it probably stays the same as in ArmA, but with some more rocks, stone fences or stuff like that.

[fasad 1]

I've been playing a bit of OFP lately, and I've really noticed how much fun the rough terrain can be compared to larger, smoother cells.

OFP had terrain cells of 50x50. Each cell was automatically broken into smaller "sub cells", which used fractal noise to create variation in the slope. Sub cells size on various terrain detail settings:

Low : 25m

Normal : 12.5m

High : 6.25m

V High : 3.125m

Now ArmA doesn't have this automatic cell splitting, and Sahrani had 20m cells. It's obviously smoother than OFP was.

ArmA2 is said to use 7.5m cells, so it's not that much worse than OFP on high terrain detail, with the benefit of all vertices being fixed rather than fractally created on the fly. If an island maker chooses, they should be able to recreate the bumpy terrain of OFP quite easily.

[wipman 1]

Hi, one thing of the terrain in general that i'll like, it's to get ridd of

the smoke/dust cloud that the cars and vehicles produce in ArmA,

it's just 100% unrealistic, bad & adds more problems than anything.

I've never seen a so tall dust cloud coming out from any vehicle

when driving over wet or just a not dry surface, i've seen dust clouds

not that tall but a lot longer, driving on dry gravel roads at common

driving speeds (under 70kmh below the law limit) this show your current

possition to the enemy, when in the reality... it's the sound what

most of the times tells you that a wheeled vehicle or a tracked one

it's close; not a dust cloud 3m tall and 9m long as if instead in the

middle of a wet wood or field, you'll be in the middle of Afganistan,

doing the paris-Dakkar or taking place in some Australia's WRC

stage. That should be changed, reduced or limited to dry roads

and surfaces. If this gonna be placed in the northern europe...

the cars, APC's & MBT's shouldn't produce that dust cloud.

Let's C ya

[Perun 0]

Hi, one thing of the terrain in general that i'll like, it's to get ridd of

the smoke/dust cloud that the cars and vehicles produce in ArmA,

it's just 100% unrealistic, bad & adds more problems than anything.

I've never seen a so tall dust cloud coming out from any vehicle

when driving over wet or just a not dry surface, i've seen dust clouds

not that tall but a lot longer, driving on dry gravel roads at common

driving speeds (under 70kmh below the law limit) this show your current

possition to the enemy, when in the reality... it's the sound what

most of the times tells you that a wheeled vehicle or a tracked one

it's close; not a dust cloud 3m tall and 9m long as if instead in the

middle of a wet wood or field, you'll be in the middle of Afganistan,

doing the paris-Dakkar or taking place in some Australia's WRC

stage. That should be changed, reduced or limited to dry roads

and surfaces. If this gonna be placed in the northern europe...

the cars, APC's & MBT's shouldn't produce that dust cloud.

Let's C ya

That smoke was there because Arma was ment to be taken place in desert. This smoke effect make sence only on sand, but on grass not. So I trust that BI will develope some kind of system that will make smoke effects which will depend on the surface.

[fasad 1]

I agree with Wipman, terrain surfaces such as damp soil and asphalt should produce minimal/no dust. Ripped up earth/mud would create a much shorter, dark coloured trail.

That smoke was there because Arma was ment to be taken place in desert. This smoke effect make sence only on sand, but on grass not. So I trust that BI will develope some kind of system that will make smoke effects which will depend on the surface.

 OFP had the similar dust clouds, and was set in a "sub-temperate" or semi artic climate. Both OFP & ArmA's engine currently allow the island maker to define different terrain surface properties such as dust, but it's done in an very imprecise way - using large tiles (50m in OFP, 40m in ArmA).  Hopefully ArmA will allow surface properties to be applied at the same resolution of the satellite mask.

[Alex72 1]

I am also in love with how the new landscape looks in AA2, but i do see the OP's point. With tanks being able to hunt you down everywhere loses some realism/tactics. In real life you could end up in situations where you have enough rubble or similar to distance your squad and the tanks. Even in thick forests ArmA tanks can plow right through - not sure of reality on this, but too heavy forest should be impossible because of fallen trees forward, left, right stacking up to large heeps. And also tree by tree slowing the tank down until halted.

Maybe the trees in the thicker forests could have larger mass? So you and your men tactically can dissapear into it to get rid of following tanks leaving them to use MG/HE "only". I think that would add a bit more to the tactical bit. Maybe that is allready done, who knows.

I think the new map will make us very happy though.

Regards

Alex

[wipman 1]

Hi, also... a realistic terrain should be like this:

With those small elevations here and there, where take cover and

from where offer cover fire to allow the men in the squad to move

forward or retreat to a safer possition; in a flat terrain... we're just

dead, dead meat if the enemy is bigger in number or just have more

auto weapons or just MG's than your unit. It also makes almost

impossible to advance to get close enough to anything with the

needed stealth; without that kind of terrain... any stealth move

that should take 20 to 30mins, will take hours or will force you to

make an assault by force instead with stealth. Let's C ya