ArmA II's infinite land

[Commando84 0]

Hi all

The fundamental nature of ArmA players is a love of freedom.

We all got into ArmA because were sick of the prisons for our minds that most game publishers wanted to inflict on us.

Kind regards walker

Man I just saw the Matrix 1 movie the other night on dvd :D

[sk3pt 0]

It is possible to place units outside the map in ArmA1.

edit: a few hundred meters anyway...

Edited May 24, 2009 by sk3pt

[xmongx 0]

But if the off map space is randomly generated how can be sure you dont place the unit in a pond or on top of a house?

Dont get me wrong, the idea is brilliant, i was very excited when i heard it would be included, I had visions of rolling hills with forsets and towns scattered around along with a basic road system. But i think in reality i let my imagination run away with itself. I cant imagine how it would be possible to stage a meaningfull mission in an unknown space, but i really do hope someone better than myself can.

[sk3pt 0]

Even though you might have to create your mission on the main map, it does not automatically render the 'infinite terrain' :

pointless

Edited May 24, 2009 by sk3pt

[sidhellfire 0]

I doubt there will be any houses outside the map area nor the ponds and any other objects. Just surface with texture and varied level height. It doesn't even say it is random by any chance. Generated content with constant formula is always the same. The formula's elements are probably defined by the data on the map border. Anyway, this terrain have no chance to provide any amusement, and is supposed to just get rid of that "this is the end of our world".

[Squirrel (TheExperience) 10]

still, usefull for giving pilots lots of room to manouver in.

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

The Delta Force games had infinite land from the beginning, I believe, in the form of endlessly looping terrain tiles. I wonder if it would work the same way?

Anybody remember Soldner? Now there was some infinite unique land. Too bad the game wasn't all that.

[sk3pt 0]

Im ready for the expedition, and im bringin guns and gas!

If you bring infinite fuel, you will eventually reach the end of infinity.

Anyway, this terrain have no chance to provide any amusement, and is supposed to just get rid of that "this is the end of our world".

It's a little funny when people make such statements, when no one really knows exactly what we're discussing.

A procedural terrain doesn't necessarily have to be 'random' of course, but BIS has stated that they are working on some sort of dynamic/random terrain generation. I think that includes trees and towns ; at least, I hope so.

[sidhellfire 0]

And you assume that clients will download "outmap" everytime they join the server?

[Pyronick 21]

Maybe ArmA 3 will bring us initial procedural terrain, vegetation and texture generation.

Then the need for big storage media is over aswell.

[max power 21]

Most of the space needed for 3d art is in the textures, and computers don't make very good texture artists. The need for large storage media will still be there if they plan on texturing their procedurally generated terrain.

[telejunky 0]

i think it is procedural so joining a server won't make you loading any generated terrain. I think it will be the same algorithm on every pc...so restarting the game and you will find the same mountains in lala-land. I am only a mechanical engineering student but i think there will be a way of large numbers like the constant PI, which is the same every time and place in space-time continuum .

Imagine a 2d landscape where 1 is low and 9 is a high mountain. PI is saved to million places and then you will nearly have endless terrain.

For a 3d world just put it into a grid with different beginnings of pi... :)

Edited May 24, 2009 by telejunky

[Pyronick 21]

Most of the space needed for 3d art is in the textures, and computers don't make very good texture artists. The need for large storage media will still be there if they plan on texturing their procedurally generated terrain.

If the logics/algorithms are properly made and tested, computers might actually be far better texture artists.

The human brains works with patterns, we can distinguish a lot of natural patterns like the number pi, logarithms and mathematical constants like Euler's number, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, L-systems, etc.

If these are used properly, terrain and textures can be produced very naturally looking. Perhaps even more natural than most human texture artists are able to portray.

i think it is procedural so joining a server won't make you loading any generated terrain. I think it will be the same algorithm on every pc...so restarting the game and you will find the same mountains in lala-land. I am only a mechanical engineering student but i think there will be a way of large numbers like PI.

Imagine a 2d landscape where 1 is low and 9 is a high mountain. PI is saved to million places and then you will nearly have endless terrain.

For a 3d world just put it into a grid with different beginnings of pi... :)

Yes, but the number pi is always the same because the algorithm is persistent.

[telejunky 0]

sry i meant the millionth place after the comma so the server/pc hasn't to recalculate the number like superpi does :)

[frederf 0]

Completely generating everything (especially random objects*) would probably give too much synchronization issues. And since it has been confirmed that it wasn't in at the last version we have news about I'm not getting my hopes up for the release version either. Its pointless as there is no real reason to hope for it.

Ok lets say that you get some kind of "objects on infinate land" db.

What happens if you start a 12 player game, everyone sets off in a different direction in infinate land, all race out for 10 KM, destroy a tree and so on and so on.

Is this problem solvable technically? Or would it mean you can crash clients/servers by doing "A LOT" of stuff in infinate land.

I don't see why the size of the land the trees are in has anything to do with synchronization. 1,000 trees close together is harder to synchronize than 2 trees 1,000 miles apart. It's not the separation that matters, it's the total number of "Is Tree-N up or down?" answers that have to be remembered and agreed by all users.

Right now I bet we have too many alterable map objects in ArmA1 to be synchronized if they were all altered from default state. How you handle this is the same way that you handle too many bullet holes... you simply forget old states in favor of newly decided states. When you make your 1000th bullet hole the 1st one disappears. When you make your 1001st bullet hole the 2nd one disappears and so on.

Thus there is no problem with remembering object states, you simply remember the last N non-default states and assume all the rest are default. N is simply the number computers can handle and you don't worry about it.

Another thing that would be totally cool is that if you run out of space for coordinates (int32?)

That is a problem. Infinite space means infinite coordinate number size which obviously can't be done. If you simply made the coordinate addressed space 10x or 1000x the size of the artist-created normal terrain then you could put a invisible wall at the edge of that. You're not supposed to use the Lala Land too much anyway. Non-addressable coordinate space is simply not usable.

Even if it worked, if the terrain is random generated at mission start it would probably be still of little use, as what once ended up in a valley might be the next time on a mountain top...

Not true. Procedurally generated terrain is the same every time as long as you use the same seed. You would simply specify the seed you wanted in the mission file and the terrain would be the same for that mission every time, but it could be different mission-to-mission if the other mission had a different seed.

But if the off map space is randomly generated

Not randomly generated, procedurally generated.

---

One of the best reasons to have a larger "Lala Land" is to put an airbase way out there. If you can run a script or "stamp a template" for an airbase way out in Lala Land then I'll be happy.

Air navigation needs to get better so you can navigate "off the map" since generating a map is probably too hard to do for generated terrain (or maybe it's not?). As for why AI can't navigate off the traditional gridspace in Lala Land... why not? What's so different between Normal Terrain and Lala Land? The only, only differences are who "crafted" it, human artist or computer code and if it has a visual map representation.

[Gargantou 0]

I've been following 'Infinity: The Quest for Earth' for a long time now, and it might be my first MMO. They try to keep it like

with Newtonian physics, realistic distances and billions of stars. It has a big contributing community.

Those interested could try the Infinity Combat Prototype, basically a working demo/test of space combat.

Unlikely it will ever come out, it's incredibly ambitious, their first game as a team, and they don't have nearly the amount of financial backing that say World of Warcraft had during its development.

I would nothing rather than for Infinity to come out, but I think it's unlikely.

[max power 21]

If the logics/algorithms are properly made and tested, computers might actually be far better texture artists.

The human brains works with patterns, we can distinguish a lot of natural patterns like the number pi, logarithms and mathematical constants like Euler's number, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, L-systems, etc.

If these are used properly, terrain and textures can be produced very naturally looking. Perhaps even more natural than most human texture artists are able to portray.Yes, but the number pi is always the same because the algorithm is persistent.

I've played with a lot of procedural texture generation methods and I verily doubt it. This 'if used properly' is the big if here. You've dropped a lot of names of algorythms and said 'now if they were only combined properly, we could have the computer recreate the natural world for videogames, and all in real time, better than an artist could'. I don't see how your premises support your conclusion.

There certainly are mathematical laws that can describe the growth of plants or the erosion of landscapes and that sort of thing. Are you telling me, though, that a computer will paint a better cluster of leaves on a tree with better specular, normal, alpha, and diffuse maps more convincingly than a human with photo reference could in real time? You'd have to have an algorythm to grow those leaves, render them, sample their surface characteristics, then output different maps for them. The surface characteristics of leaves are dictated by their cellular construction. You'd at least have to pay lip service to the quantity, quality, and configuraiton of that in your computer model of plant growth. Computers at this time can't even render ambient occlusion in real time, nevermind the rest of it.

[suma 8]

Are you telling me, though, that a computer will paint a better cluster of leaves on a tree with better specular, normal, alpha, and diffuse maps more convincingly than a human with photo reference could in real time?

Yes. This is exactly what our Linda system does. Reconstructing tree structure in 3D with enough detail (even with a good photoreference, which hard to get or shoot) is a task very hard for human.

While procedural terrain generation did not get that much effort of researchers as plants did, still I think there will be a significant progress in this area in the years to com, especially in the area of inhabited area development simulation (such simulation is important not only for entertainment, but also for community, urban or social predictions and development plans).

Infinite land will be basically empty, no roads, no buildings, no plants, only hills and grass in ArmA 2. Futhermore, while the technology for infinite terrain is "almost ready" and result look very good, we experienced some minor issues with it and we had to disable it before finalizing German master, therefore you will not see it in the first release of the game. Unless something unexpected happens, you should get in a patch sometimes later, though.

Edited May 25, 2009 by Suma
Fixed typo

[myshaak 0]

Infinite land will be basically empty, no roads, no buildings, no plants, only hills and grass in ArmA 2. Futhermore, while the technology for infinite terrain is "almost ready" and result look very good, we experienced some minor issues with it and we had to disable it before finalizing German master, therefore you will not see it in the first release of the game. Unless something unexpected happens, you should get in a patch sometimes later, though.

Thanks Suma for clearing this up. I am sad that the "procedurally generated trees, roads & towns" rumors were not true, but I am not disappointed though. It is still far better than an invisible wall.

Two questions though:

How will this issue be handled in German version then?

And could we expect trees in some patches in the future? Not separate trees like in ArmA2, more like forests in the original OFP - not individual and indestructible. It is of course a matter of the terrain just being more "eye-candy" ...

Keep up the good work!

Edited May 25, 2009 by Myshaak
typo

[EricM 0]

Thanks for the info Suma. One more reason to wait for 505 release...

I actually never really hoped for roads and buildings, but I thought that if you could make textures and grass clutter, you could also make tree clutter/forest with a repeating mask

Indestructible forest blocks like in OFP (as mentionned by Myshaak) would do the trick, unless it's a problem for AI (though I don't think AI will ever cross the border).

But you know what you're doing and I'm sure you're working your ass off to finish everything now for the 505 release.

Just crossing my fingers for the 19th...

[Yoma 0]

I sort of had the feeling some people had high expectations ;)

[thaFunkster 0]

Not so sure it will be useless. Imagine having a 'capture the flag' or some such.. Either way, the other side wants to see you dead. You have a huge furball which gets carried into 'moebius land' (there's a trade name for the technology, Moebius). You get shot down, and they send in troops to hunt you down and finish the job. Towns, geographic formations, roads, forests all become concealment, cover, and landmarks for your team to come get you.

I'd imagine BIS -who have made a virtual memory addressing system among other nifty and ingenious numerical gymnastic routines- could make the relative coordinate system for this land so we do not have the same issue as BF where the AI cannot go outside default addressable space.

But why, when you have 225km of land, painstakingly detailed and beautiful to play in do you need / want to go anywhere else, I just cant understand?

[sk3pt 0]

But why, when you have 225km of land, painstakingly detailed and beautiful to play in do you need / want to go anywhere else, I just cant understand?

It's called freedom.

[zoog 18]

But why, when you have 225km of land, painstakingly detailed and beautiful to play in do you need / want to go anywhere else, I just cant understand?

Yeah, I don't see the use of infinite land (gameplay wise) either. Sure, for esthetic and immersion reasons it's nice to have infinite land. But gameplay wise I don't think it's needed having such a big map already.

[thaFunkster 0]

Exactly, the only real reason I can see it is of any practical use is flying aircraft, because lets be frank, 225km squared is only 22x10 km. In a fast jet, 10km can be covered in a very short time. On foot, its a different story though...