Arma II Officially Better Looking Than Crysis?

[Scrub 0]

"Hemispherical lighting" posted in the PDF file for the VR engine history  I'd say they did a bit of a re-write.  

Hovis- You mentioned a word that is going to come up more and more in other games: Sterile. Meaning devoid of life, or the variation therein. Though, I do know what you mean.

With Citizens and new animals included in the ambiance, with the motes, leaves, bugs and birds, I believe Arma II will not be considered sterile (I know you had a different meaning to it). The twigs snapping and little dynamic details that enrich the solo enterprise that is Crysis, may be forgotten in A-II as you rush over to a citizen that's been hit and you drag them out of the line of fire, maybe holding back an attack so they may evacuate.. Or you are sneaking after a noise only to find out it was some wildlife. This world will be more alive than Arma 1. Crysis is about the visceral view of the individual. Arma II will continue to be about the 'whole', the richness that is found in teamwork, and trying to save a butt that's not yours, lol.

Damn, there should be a law against drinking & posting.. I'd spend a night in jail...

[Hovis 0]

I think it's very likely that ArmA 2 will look better than Crysis in some regards, hell if you pick the right moments the original ArmA can be a fantastic looking game. The difference though is in how alive the world feels, until ArmA can capture effects like bullets slicing through foliage, snipping off twigs, even cutting down small trees, then it won't feel as great as Crysis does. Crysis is pure Hollywood, but it works.

ArmA 2 is going to look amazing, but as with ArmA and even OFP the real beauty of the game will be in the scale of it, watching the night sky get lit up with tracers, seeing battles unfold on the fly, all that good stuff. As far as the grunt on the ground is concerned it'll probably feel a bit more sterile than Crysis.

Scale is the big factor though. Crysis isn't a quarter of the game ArmA is, let alone ArmA 2, so comparing the visual quality of the two is sort of like comparing the Mona Lisa to the Sistine Chapel.

[Steakslim 1]

I think it's very likely that ArmA 2 will look better than Crysis in some regards, hell if you pick the right moments the original ArmA can be a fantastic looking game. The difference though is in how alive the world feels, until ArmA can capture effects like bullets slicing through foliage, snipping off twigs, even cutting down small trees, then it won't feel as great as Crysis does. Crysis is pure Hollywood, but it works.

ArmA 2 is going to look amazing, but as with ArmA and even OFP the real beauty of the game will be in the scale of it, watching the night sky get lit up with tracers, seeing battles unfold on the fly, all that good stuff. As far as the grunt on the ground is concerned it'll probably feel a bit more sterile than Crysis.

Scale is the big factor though. Crysis isn't a quarter of the game ArmA is, let alone ArmA 2, so comparing the visual quality of the two is sort of like comparing the Mona Lisa to the Sistine Chapel.

I truly hope to see some spectacular night fighting in ArmA2. In ArmA itself, going in at night doesn't look at all half bad.

[Jinef 2]

Hopefully my aging PC will be able to run this new fangled stuff.

[Blackbird1967 10]

looks better? maybe (who cares)

plays better - definitely

[De_little_Bubi 1]

sterile? i love the small insects in arma hwo appear from time to time.

[max power 21]

After thinking about it for a little while I think maybe Hemispherical lighting may refer to a lightig setup to simulate diffuse light of the atmosphere + bounced light from the ground creating different lighting conditions on the top and the bottom of objects. Then you add the sun as a light source and other light sources. This is just a guess. It seems to make sense as kind of a realtime HDRI type set up.

[thaFunkster 0]

He's from the future steakslim, don't question him.

L O L - nice one! :)

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Just to add my two cents worth: I also think A LOT of these screenshots I have seen look like photoes to me. It has to do with the dull, not overly bright colour palette, its far more like real life i think. In reality not that many things shine.

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The longest <s>shots</s> hits on spot targets I know of, with an unguided weapon visually directed from the gun platform were about 26km, claimed by german and american ships in different naval engagements in WW2.

...[/img]

I dont beleive that at sea level, you would be able to see another ship any more than 10kms or so away. Surely that would be the distance to the horizon? The only way they could have done this is if there were aircraft spotting for them noting where the shells were landing?

Edited April 28, 2009 by thaFunkster

[walker 0]

Hi all

I explained about the horizon in the view distance thread.

Longer view distances are more important with ships but even up in the crows nest of an Aircraft Carrier you will not be able to see more than about 16 Nautical Miles and probably all you will see is another Carriers crows nest.

Here have a read I cannot be bothered to explain it again plus this one gives the more accurate formulae, I used the rough formulae which works for close to the ground in the previous post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon

Then you have the resolving capability of the Human eye, its Angular resolution, which makes another human an indistinguishable speck at about 2 km and does the same to cars and trucks at 3 to 4 Kilometres.

So for most Infantry Gameplay you only need about a maximum 1000m to 3000m view distance for objects. For aicraft you should up it to perhaps to 4000m to 5000m. Yes terrain should be drawn further but ArmA already does that.

Kind Regards walker

[telejunky 0]

Would be nice to see a dynamic viewdistance, which sets itself to maximum out at see. Though i would be happy if the straight face viewdistance could be change to some updside down truncated cone. So the player could earlier see enemy aircrafts while not affecting performance: still you can't see more landscape but definately more less-polygon rendered sky.

But i don't know if this is possible...

[NeMeSiS 11]

Would be nice to see a dynamic viewdistance, which sets itself to maximum out at see. Though i would be happy if the straight face viewdistance could be change to some updside down truncated cone. So the player could earlier see enemy aircrafts while not affecting performance: still you can't see more landscape but definately more less-polygon rendered sky.

But i don't know if this is possible...

[telejunky 0]

Mmh i thought about it if you see first the top of the mountain and then the rest... so an official engine tweak is needed to display planes and choppers though they are not inside the viewdistance... the skytexture is still infinite far away or?

I think the flying vehicles could appear above a ficitonal, approximated line where the top of the mountain is. Even when the mountain is not visible to the player the choppers would fade in...

*dream*

[Alex72 1]

I like the idea Telejunky. One problem with performance is what Nemesis said though. When facing big mountains and hills there will be performance problems for many needing to show all that graphics.

I dont know how it could be done, but i really like the idea. It is a bit of a b**ch to hear a chopper "close" and not be able to see it as well as some immersion goes away when you hear the aircrafts flying around but you cant see them. Would be nice if BIS took a look at it when they got time, and if possible maybe add it in a patch.

Alex

[Pyronick 21]

Mmh i thought about it if you see first the top of the mountain and then the rest... so an official engine tweak is needed to display planes and choppers though they are not inside the viewdistance... the skytexture is still infinite far away or?

I think the flying vehicles could appear above a ficitonal, approximated line where the top of the mountain is. Even when the mountain is not visible to the player the choppers would fade in...

[ig]http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/6295/viewdistance2.jpg[/img]

*dream*

I assume you mean a similar technique to what Crysis is using?

Instead of the geometry being shown, a much more simple voxel-based billboard is shown.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Placebo

[thaFunkster 0]

On the topic of ArmA2 vs Crysis again, I just wanted to say that in every vid and screenshot I have seen so far, it looks photorealistic to me, that is, if someone told me it was a photoe, I would beleive them (except for the Russian soldiers - they havnt changed much since OFP).

In the latest HD trailer from BIS, all that stuff at the start with the soldier running after the m113 (is it?) and lying down, climbing over the fence etc, it looks like some kind of documentary footage, I think the camera shake works perfectly too, though I could see it becoming annoying...

[boomar. 10]

On the topic of ArmA2 vs Crysis again, I just wanted to say that in every vid and screenshot I have seen so far, it looks photorealistic to me, that is, if someone told me it was a photoe, I would beleive them (except for the Russian soldiers - they havnt changed much since OFP).

In the latest HD trailer from BIS, all that stuff at the start with the soldier running after the m113 (is it?) and lying down, climbing over the fence etc, it looks like some kind of documentary footage, I think the camera shake works perfectly too, though I could see it becoming annoying...

The screens BIS provided look really nice to me, you probably need to get your eyes checked if real life looks like that to you though.....

[thaFunkster 0]

The screens BIS provided look really nice to me, you probably need to get your eyes checked if real life looks like that to you though.....

Ok, with some shots, fair point. But for example all of these could be passed off as photoes IMHO:

http://www.arma2.com/images/stories/gallery/ARMA2_ingame_screenshot_0209_6.jpg

http://www.arma2.com/images/stories/gallery/ARMA2_ingame_screenshot_0209_1.jpg

http://au.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958404/arma-ii/images/arma-ii-imagery-20080821112925635.html

And there is one in particular, released quite a while ago (maybe a year?), it shows a hind flying over the forest, and at first I honestly wasnt sure if it was a photo not. Kind of similar to this

Edited April 29, 2009 by thaFunkster
incorrect link

[MehMan 0]

There's one screenshot from Dsylexic of a UH-1 that got me wondering if it's real or not.

[Placebo 29]

I posted the latest ArmA2 screenshots to a football gaming forum I frequent:

Those images are stunning. People labelled Killzone 2 as the best looking game ever made (although to be honest I don't really see why) but this slaps the shit out of killzone 2'

So there we have it, ArmA2 officially better looking than Crysis and Killzone2 ;)

[thaFunkster 0]

Woot! (Do ppl still say that or do I look like a dumbass)?

[Placebo 29]

Both ;)

[Uroboros 10]

Yet another article is out about ArmA looking better than Crysis. This seems to be the current view in the Gaming Press.

I dont care if they even use tetris graphics :)

[nodunit 397]

Well it can't be denied that Chernarus is not anything but stunning.

Edited May 6, 2009 by NodUnit

[thaFunkster 0]

Well it can't be denied that Chernarus is anything but stunning.

Do you mean it is stunning or it is not?

Sorry to give you an English lecture, but to say that something is 'anything BUT stunning' actually means you think it is definitely NOT stunning.

Personally, I think it is stunning, for example this shot (with the airborne helicopter) looks real.

[nodunit 397]

Yes I got to thinking about that later, I meant to say it IS stunning.