Grass

[Peter_Bullet 0]

I think this deserves its own topic!

In my personal opinion graphics in Arma1&2 are so great you wouldn't even care if they looked better. But... compared to this the grass looks astoundingly terrible. That's why I think the grass is an important deal.

It looks very detailed up close, but in 10 meters it just fades away, and the contrast looks just awful.

In farcry2 the grass was very modest (wich I didn't mind one bit), but It would be drawn infinitely far away. I think same sort of solution would profit Arma2 (atleast increase the grass draw distance). Also some sort of impostor technology could be developed for grass very far away.. (though I'm not sure I can think of an algorithm for this)

So, what do you think? Very nice grass with very low view distances, or very simple grass with higher view distances?

[bravo 6 0]

Its just a matter of performance.

[HKFlash 9]

Its just a matter of performance.

Yup. Go play Oblivion and you will see the same thing...

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I don't mind so much how the grass looks at a distance, I'm more interrested in the fuction, that it hides stuff. I'm more interrested that if grass can still be turned off, it shouldn't be controlled with the terrain slider.

Sometimes, especially up north in the woods, I have to turn off grass for performance reasons (in missions that allow it). But I really hate how this reveals enemy units trying to hide behind terrain. Furthermore, you can't shoot these units, since the collision terrain seem to have a higher resolution.

So, to me, other grass features are more important than how it looks.

[TankCommander 3]

imo the grass fades at a good distance. If it was drawn at 200m, it would be a waste as the grass would get too small to really be noticeable. All it would do is lag the game to an unplayable level.

Arma2 grass is meant to blend into the sat image so that it would be less obvious when you see it getting drawn in front of you. And Arma2's grass looks better and more realistic than any other game out there as far as I know so I'd never want Far Cry 2 grass that's for sure. Also Far Cry grass is made for areas with smaller view distances than Arma which means even tho their draw distance is only a little higher, it isn't as noticeable. Where even if the grass drew over 300m in Arma2, as soon as you got some binos out with 15x magnification, the terrain would still look strange with the cut between grass and texture.

[bravo 6 0]

@Peter_Bullet maybe you have not noticed nor read but the grass in ArmA2 will be different then the grass in ArmA1, i would say its more advanced. To be honest I'm quite excited to understand how exactly works.

Firstly, we finished clutter; these are simplified models of vegetation that cover the landscape, such as grass or small plants and things. The locations where these models are placed is controlled by a kind of mask of the landscape’s surface texture, this is not finished yet, but we are finalizing this texture and on most parts of Chernarus it’s done. You can see it in some pictures around this text. So we can say that all vegetation for ARMA2 is finished.

Source

I'm not quite certain and sure how it works now but there are different colors among the grass, looks like grass color variate with the mask color. But can we say it uses the same clutter, model and texture?

In ArmA1 if we want to have different grass colors we need to have different clutter and models with different color.

I wonder if grass color adjusts with the mask without the need of having a different texture and model.

Edit: Another thing: I'm also intrigued if these new clutter also protect us from AI sight.  

[wolfbite 8]

How about having the grass like in joint ops? It worked no matter how far out you were looking and it concealed soldiers quite well.

[TankCommander 3]

Quote[/b] ]I'm not quite certain and sure how it works now but there are different colors among the grass, looks like grass color variate with the mask color. But can we say it uses the same clutter, model and texture?

The colour variation comes down to the satellite image as BI mentioned once. It can also be seen in the trailers if you look closely. The clutter is most likely a separate thing that determines the density and variation of certain plants in certain areas.

[bravo 6 0]

what if the Sat_image is equal to the Mask_image? Say some colored picture from Google Earth..

If we put grass to test the colored picture, we would have beautiful and different grass colors on the terrain with the same model, is that it?

[Peter_Bullet 0]

imo the grass fades at a good distance. If it was drawn at 200m, it would be a waste as the grass would get too small to really be noticeable.

I think that's wrong. In fcy2 you would still notice the grass in 300 meters. Watch the Arma2 helicopter videos: the terrain would look a whole lot different if grass was rendered. Think about real life. There definitely is a difference even far away. But could a shader be written to put some noise and motion blur to make the terrain look grassy?

You are right that FCY2 was designed for lower view distances. I meant that they could increase the grass view distance for Arma2.

@bravo 6

Yes, I've been reading the Dev blog. Yeah, they talked something about polygons and area over there, but in the videos the grass only renders few meters, so it doesn't look like BIS has done anything about it. I think it looks hideous. And have you noticed that the camera is always very low, as to hide this awful transition?

If the grass would render very far away, only then would I start caring about making it prettier with different colours.

edit: looked at the images at the dev blog (it has been a few years since I read the article), and the grass rendered pretty nicely. But I think the draw distance is lower in the videos. Well, we'll see...

[SimonSIx 0]

i don't care about the grass

it looks o.k to me in ArmA

my only care for graphic is the lightning system

its more important for me in realistic games

it will have influence on the shadows,smoke,fire,nightVision and so on

[Steakslim 1]

I'm kinda agreeing with Peter on the view distance fo the grass. The thing is, I'm pretty sure the view distance can be increased simply by changing a figure in one of the game's files. You could do it in Oblivion as well as other games to increase the distance that vegetation appears as well as structures but view distance on buildings isn't an issue for ArmA1/2 really. This game can boast some rather tall grass that can obscure a player who's in the prone possition, but if it isn't drawn for another player, it's almost completely useless in terms of concealment.

I know some will say "Don't try and hide in tall grass then". But sometimes in the unfortunate events of things, it may be the only thing you can do. If they must, they could use very low res sprites for the far away high grass (note I keep saying high/tall grass, as I am only suggesting it for the weeds and grass that is shown in the videos to be at least close to knee high, not the ankle high grass).

[scruffy 22]

You can hide in grass if it is activated. Since patch 1.05 the AIs view is affected by the grass layer.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2617/grasslayer.jpg

You can see it on the edge and it's what the guy in the right corner is lying in.

The tech is there, I guess it could be tuned to look better.

I believe you can change the draw distance in the config of the island somewhere or maybe with the PROPER World addon.

edit: whoops, the picture was a bit bigger than I thought

[bravo 6 0]

You can hide in grass if it is activated. Since patch 1.05 the AIs view is affected by the grass layer.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2617/grasslayer.jpg

You can see it on the edge and it's what the guy in the right corner is lying in.

The tech is there, I guess it could be tuned to look better.

You are wrong! Ai's can see through clutters.

The respective lods simply do not work for clutters that is why AIs can see us if we hide in grass.. independent the distance. (far or close)

I believe you can change the draw distance in the config of the island somewhere or maybe with the PROPER World addon.

You can change the distance for the clutters (grass in this case), you can set the grass to appear for 200m if you want.. its just a matter of performance like i said before.

The problem here is that AIs can see trough clutters, as if they do not exist.

Hope this is improved for ARMA2

[TankCommander 3]

Well at least Arma draws grass further than OFP2's hideous 10m grass.

I agree that I would like to see grass drawn over an infinite distance, but the hardware just isn't there unless you're prepared to compromise on most other aspects of the graphics. To render grass over a further distance means that it puts a strain on the hardware exponentially over every increment. It really just isn't necessary and has to be put into this perspective. And when you see grass from 300m away, you don't see each individual strand so a satellite image does suffice. A sat image is after all a distance image of terrain which includes grass.

Here's an image (not great) of how the grass blends into the ground texture making the same grass model coloured differently depending on it's location.

[dentist guba 0]

bi have stated that they have improved things like bushes so that they obsruct ai view, not sure if that means grass as well (i guess visibility of prone soldiers could be based on how much of the player shows above that layer at longer distances).

[POTS 0]

what they ultimately need to do right now is make it so zooming in, or using a scope, renders the grass further to hold the "blend effect". As of now, arma's grass does not dynamicaly change to zooming in or using a scope, giving that god awful upclose ugly texture look. It shouldn't be to much of a problem as it's not like increasing the grass dramaticaly.

[Electricleash 133]

Rendering grass or clutter when the player has his scope up I think could be something of import. So for example; when seeing something through the view finder at long range, the grass would be rendered around it, much as if you were looking at it up close, not sure how much of an effect this would have on performance as it would, theoretically, only be rendering within the sights.

[bravo 6 0]

The only thing we know is that BIS finished the clutters around 18 February 2009.

Though they did not elaborate about the clutters at all. So it is still a mystery IMO.

Bushes and trees are different models then clutters such as grass and some plants.

I'm not saying that clutters are not models, they are, but in ARMA1 some Lods do not work while using clutters. Meaning Grass and some small plants set as Clutters don't block AIs sight.

[dentist guba 0]

they did say that their new modeling techniques mean that bushes and stuff properly block AI sight, i just don't know whether that applies to all the clutter as well.

[bravo 6 0]

yeah.. the doubt is exactly there.

Clutters and bushes/trees act and are seeing differently by AI behavior in ARMA1.

The following phrase kill abit my expectation about grass concern..

Quote[/b] ]these are simplified models of vegetation that cover the landscape

As if they are simple, without any complexity involvement.. meaning they act exactly the same.

Hope I'm wrong about this feeling.

Maybe the changes are in the AI, the way they see clutter instead.  

edit: typo

[scruffy 22]

You can hide in grass if it is activated. Since patch 1.05 the AIs view is affected by the grass layer.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/2617/grasslayer.jpg

You can see it on the edge and it's what the guy in the right corner is lying in.

The tech is there, I guess it could be tuned to look better.

You are wrong! Ai's can see through clutters.

The respective lods simply do not work for clutters that is why AIs can see us if we hide in grass.. independent the distance. (far or close)

The problem here is that AIs can see trough clutters, as if they do not exist.

Hope this is improved for ARMA2

It says so in the Readme from Patch 1.05:

====Gameplay====

* grass is now simulated for AI and multiplayer (including largerd view distances)

Changelog:

5128 - Fixed: AI now considers grass layer in the visibility calculations

[Maddmatt 1]

Remember that the grass in A1 isn't long enough to hide you anyway, only make you less visible.

You would have to be utterly clueless about hiding to think that Sahrani grass would hide you

As $cruffy said above, AI does take the grass layer into account. But obviously it only partially conceals you.

[bravo 6 0]

@$cruffy: The readme from patch 1.05 is wrong! Wake up dude! More map makers can confirm what I'm trying to say.

From all my experience in MP missions, in editor and with O2 i can tell you the clutters, in this case grass, do NOT hide you, because of the reasons i already mentioned!

@Maddmatt: It does not have to do with if its tall or small. Its simply doesn't work as it should

If you use the exact same grass model, without adding or deleting LODs but instead if you make it bigger, taller like wheat fields the models will never hide you! This was already discussed for newer and recent patches.

While i was working and testing Wheat Fields, i noticed the models would never hide me from AIs sight while using clutters.

It wouldn't matter if i was close or far from AIs while i was in these wheat fields. The only way to make it work as it should is not using as clutters.

Clutters do not detect the following LODs (don't know why): Geometry, View Geometry, Fire Geometry. There for, AIs can see you as if the models (clutter) weren't there at all!

[.kju 3245]

bravo 6, AI is probably affected.

yet not in to the degree and way you want it to be.

i am not saying its fine as it is, yet $cruffy has a point.