Arma II Officially Better Looking Than Crysis?

[walker 0]

Hi all

On the matter of Steakslim's comment about ghilli suits standing out at lower lod levels.

The problem with getting camoflage correct in a simulation is failure to match the difference levels between the light and colour of the camoflaged object and the light and colour of the probable background that is taken from tests in reality with those in the simulation.

A perfect match to reality is impossible; that does not mean you should not try your best! Simulation is always a model not the reality. What is important is that you use scientific methods as well as the human senses to do your best to match the reality.

Process

To do the scientific side you need to quantify the colour values. First of all you have to have sensing data equipment that matches the human eye. Then you have to quantify the differense between the background and the camoflaged object across a range of lighting levels.

You can do this in various ways such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_histogram

Now you have to match those diferenses in the output of the simulation:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_quantization

This is then complicated by the reduced colour gamut of computer screens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut

And additionaly complicated by differenses from monitor to monitor; diferenses in display software including drivers; ambient user environment light factors, window in room vs electrical lighting, and plain old user settings. We all know the turn up your gamma for night missions without NV gogles cheat.

Either way the process has to be repeated LOD by LOD. with each LOD in the model matching the apropriate distance LOD in the environment.

LOD standardization is something BIS should force on the community.

I should point out that I think BIS seem to have been applying this in ArmA II from at least some of the pictures I have seen.

This failure to follow this procedure I think along with some form of lighting incorrectness in FarCry is the root cause of the Fakeness we see in the Cry engine.

Kind regards walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

ArmA seems to be gaing increasing plaudits as the best looking game in years.

http://www.gamegrep.com/preview...._crysis

Kind Regards walker

[general 0]

While ArmA2 has some amazing scenery, it doesn't beat crysis in other areas. Especially not character detail or effects.

[Andymc4610 0]

While ArmA2 has some amazing scenery, it doesn't beat crysis in other areas. Especially not character detail or effects.

You know all this from videos on the net?

I hope for ArmA2 you can tone down the graphics like you can in Crysis you don't need the greatest graphics card i.e. my laptop to play it.

[NeMeSiS 11]

While ArmA2 has some amazing scenery, it doesn't beat crysis in other areas. Especially not character detail or effects.

You know all this from videos on the net?

I am quite sure that is true from just videos yes. Especially since ArmA2 has alot more units the character detail is going to be lower, it just makes more sense. (Or sence..?)

[Steakslim 1]

While ArmA2 has some amazing scenery, it doesn't beat crysis in other areas. Especially not character detail or effects.

You know all this from videos on the net?

I am quite sure that is true from just videos yes. Especially since ArmA2 has alot more units the character detail is going to be lower, it just makes more sense. (Or sence..?)

I concure. I could go through the videos and pick out the many things Crysis' graphics engine has that ArmA2's doesn't, but again that's because ArmA2 has to support a lot of things that Crysis doesn't (Like a 200+km world, and 60 players against Crysis' 8km maps, and 32 player limits), so Crysis can afford all the extra eye candy. Remember things like the cut scenes in Crysis were IN GAME, each time you played they were acted out in the games engine, none of it was prerendered, yet it appeared to be. The facial movements were all realtime, even when there wasn't a cutscene being displayed, the characters were rendered as so. In the ArmA2 videos, the facial movements, or movements in general were very stale, like watching a GTA4 scene.

[Dwarden 1125]

so ... you want face simulator or military game

[Steakslim 1]

so ... you want face simulator or military game

Oh christ, from all the different gaming communities, I would have thought I could expect a better discussion from the ArmA community.

[De_little_Bubi 1]

realy serious people dont play^^

[Maddmatt 1]

so ... you want face simulator or military game

Oh christ, from all the different gaming communities, I would have thought I could expect a better discussion from the ArmA community.

I would expect people to at least have some kind of sense of humor here

[Placebo 29]

Let's not start getting tetchy with each other now

[Steakslim 1]

Let's not start getting tetchy with each other now

tetchy or techy? Anywho, I do have a sense of humor, however his post came off as patronizing. If this wasn't so, I guess it's just a case of humor not translating well over text.

[Placebo 29]

Let's not start getting tetchy with each other now

tetchy or techy? Anywho, I do have a sense of humor, however his post came off as patronizing. If this wasn't so, I guess it's just a case of humor not translating well over text.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tetchy

Tetchy, hence me using tetchy

He's been here 7 years, you've been here a couple of weeks, therefore it's best to get an idea as to the lay of the land, the attitudes of posters being jumping on them and assuming they're being patronising or whatever, if in doubt take a couple of breathes before posting

[Placebo 29]

Balschoiw if you have nothing constructive to offer please find a different thread to post to

[4 IN 1 0]

I think the point trying to make out here is that many of us here don't really cares about having a totally lifelike face in a hardcore milsim that people playing hardly ever notice the face of the blufor and opfor while fighting, it may look nice in cutscreen, but otherwise very useless

[avibird 1 154]

4 IN 1 you are a smart guy! why have faces at all. You are not going to see them from 200 meters out but the noob's can't understand this because COD you are 20 meters away. Good point but the kids will not get it!

[xnodunitx 0]

@ Feb. 26 2009,22:25)]

If the gameplay suck we'll still have the best seagull, cow, dog and rabbit simulator on the market.

FARMA : the ultimate Farming simulator, tractor included.

lol true...

what i can say about arma 2 graphics is they far, far away from crysis... far ahead off course crysis is too shiny and eye candy for me...

I agree, Crysis still has some great stuff and it actually CAN be better but the problem is everything is so bloody shiny, if they toned that down things could look far more realistic, but that will never happen, certainly not by (most) of the fanbase.

But who cares about the graphics when there is one far more important aspect that OFP, Arma and ArmaII will have over Crysis or for that matter virtually any other nonsim (and sometimes even the) game out there...what you can do with what you have, modability, realtime (permanent) abilities and much more.

[Scrub 0]

4 IN 1 you are a smart guy! why have faces at all. You are not going to see them from 200 meters out but the noob's can't understand this because COD you are 20 meters away. Good point but the kids will not get it!

And even if you are 20m, or 2m away, as I'm hoping with good AI and player movement for CQB, does it matter in combat? I know in undiciplined close quarters action, I'm quickly thinking, o.k. weapon type, camo pattern, FIRE!!! Definately not, is that Bob from second section? Or Boris I met from that Spetznaz/MEU mixer we had 2 weeks ago? He has a mole on the left side.. It's Bob. Features, not faces will make the game. They wouldn't hurt to refine, but won't kill it.

[4 IN 1 0]

4 IN 1 you are a smart guy! why have faces at all. You are not going to see them from 200 meters out but the noob's can't understand this because COD you are 20 meters away. Good point but the kids will not get it!

And even if you are 20m, or 2m away, as I'm hoping with good AI and player movement for CQB, does it matter in combat?  I know in undiciplined close quarters action, I'm quickly thinking,  o.k. weapon type, camo pattern,  FIRE!!!  Definately not, is that Bob from second section?  Or Boris I met from that Spetznaz/MEU mixer we had 2 weeks ago?  He has a mole on the left side..  It's Bob.  Features, not faces will make the game.  They wouldn't hurt to refine, but won't kill it.

I would agree if this is in reallife, but problem is that no matter how hard you try to treat it as real as possible, it's still a game, and I just never ever care about those poly face as I would in RL.

[EricM 0]

I agree that the faces/skin shading of the regular grunts do not look as stellar as the rest.

In that Department Crysis was indeed awsome though character design was a bit more cartoonish with all their superhero features.

Arma2 shoots for regular anatomy and people and has to cater for a wider set of situations (it's not always a bloodfest) hence its probably harder to convey subtle emotions in standard faces.

Razor team looks good though, but the russian soldiers in the faction video felt lower quality, which is understandable up to a point.

The one thing that Crysis cannot be beaten at yet is for it's water rendition... with surface caustics, chromatic aberration, reflection and refraction...

[Steakslim 1]

I guess I should point out that the reason I was bringing things up like characters faces amongst other things was for the reason of the original cause of this topic. A writer claiming ArmA2 was officially better looking than Crysis. This simply isn't true when you break things down, hell when you just look at the two games. I have nothing against either game but what I'm afraid is that if ArmA2 get's such a reputation before game release, a lot of graphics/arcade junkies are going to buy this game, and then trash it, HARD. The last thing ArmA2 needs is a bad word of mouth due to idiots, and yes, most gamers in general (even the ones ArmA2 would like to have) will listen to these idiots.

Also, question about the criticism on how shiny looking Crysis looked. While it did seem glossy (I mentioned the ToD's, but I forgot that the shaders were a major reason for most glossy textures, especially on the very high settings), by what example was it so damn shiney? I never found it that distracting. I mean in open sun tropical sun, yes a lot of things are shiney including plants, pavement, rock, water, and sand, hense why photographers often have to use filters and lenses to reduce large whited out reflections and other artifacts caused by the natural lighting. My problem I found was the HDR effects were a bit much at times where if you were in a shaded area, seeing out in a brightened area was indeed more difficult than what would be possible.

[someboy 0]

Regarding faces quality, don't you think Arma1 has better faces than the ones seen in Arma2 videos? If so, that means they are just a placeholder and that they are still working on them (doesn't make sense to use lower quality models for a more recent game).

[Dwarden 1125]

let me put my short humor remark bit differently ...

---

You sure remember these scenes from Crysis where soldier take off theirs mask from theirs superior combat suits just to talk 'chat' about something important while enemies are just behind corner ... typical in-game cut-scene

>>>

now imagine real soldier in any combat-zone on earth, to take off his protecting gear (e.g. armor plating or helmet) just to CHAT ...

in Crysis it was only and only to showcase the 'uber' facial animations and so on (tech-demoing the Cry-Engine 2 engine) ...

in reality ... soldiers put off his mask ... something goes wrong and fragment of grenade ends in his face

or not just fragments or bullets what about smoke, gas, bio hazard, radioactivity ...

i mean cmon if You were user of the combat suit would You ever in any even remotely possible insecure location put the protecting mask off ?

---

by my comment i not meant the faces are supposed to look awful

with proper quality textures and already implemented lip-sync they can look fine in ArmA 1

now with improved lighting etc. in ArmA 2 how come there are still some individuals claiming it's not enough ?

maybe express exactly what you want ?

like fluid motion on hairs in wind ? sweat droplets on skin?

but i fear such game would need more time to develop than Duke Nukem Forever

i would trade such 'gameplay' useless visual enhacing for something more important

like procedural dynamic blending animations for dynamic stances, way improved explosion effect system, dynamic muzzle effects or IK and mass on trees and so on ...

You not ?

[andersson 285]

Well, I think a pointer that the faces are better looking in crysis is a valid point in a topic named "Arma II Officially Better Looking Than Crysis?"

[Laqueesha 474]

Crysis has far better graphics than ArmA 2 from what I've seen.

I can't say much because I only own Crysis and not ArmA 2.

ArmA 2 does look very nice from what I have seen in screenshots and trailers.

The only downside is the player animations. In the Russian Military trailer, one Russian Soldier went from a fast sprint to a complete halt, as if he were at attention. I hope this is fixed.