ArmA II's infinite land

[PsychoPigeon 10]

arma 2 - the ultimate game ever made ever

[txalin 2]

mmmm.... regarding mission/campaign, what will happen if u have to detroy all units in an area but, as it happened on arma/ofp, one of them get out and go to the infinite land? will be any way of automatic kill or something like that?

[Alex72 1]

Ofcourse. You just set up a trigger and tell to kill anything moving outside. Timed or not.

[maddogx 13]

One thing I'd like to know about the infinite land is: will it be configurable for addon maps? For example if someone makes a winter map, will the surrounding area be grassy green, or will the texture be automatically selected (or configurable)? And with maps like Schmalfelden that are fairly flat and do not have large mountains, will the surrounding infinite terrain also be fairly flat?

[walker 0]

Hi all

In reply to MadDogX:

We will not know untill ArmA II comes out.

But it occurs to me that BIS should give the millions of code monkeys in the ArmA community the chance to MOD the Infinite Land for I am sure some of us will produce a few sonnets that will take ArmA into an infinity of new ideas and adventures.

Kind Regards walker

[telejunky 0]

Yeah imagine schmalfelden sorrounded by huge mountains :) I think you will eb able to modify it, too :) But i will participate to an expedition too yeah :D

[max power 21]

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.

It does it in real time? We're talking about a game generating itself without any media files, Suma. A computer painting a forest in real time.

I'm aware of your Linda system and I think it's the cat's pajamas. I wasn't aware that Linda was generating forests the game loads or as you walk around in ArmA 2, though.

Edited May 25, 2009 by Max Power

[Misfit Leader 2]

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.

Hill and grass is, i think, enough to simulate the border land. (it's better than a flat terrain for sure !)

[walker 0]

Hi Paul-Hewson

I think the important thing is that Suma seems to be saying that BIS are going to devote resources to their procedural terrain technology as they have with Linda on flora and fauna.

My own hope is that BIS will allow the modding community to mod and work with Infinite Land as it will I am sure produce totaly unthought of results.

ArmA's modding community is the best of any game, given the tools they can produce wonders.

Kind Regards walker

Edited May 25, 2009 by walker

[Pyronick 21]

It does it in real time? We're talking about a game generating itself without any media files, Suma. A computer painting a forest in real time.

I'm aware of your Linda system and I think it's the cat's pajamas. I wasn't aware that Linda was generating forests the game loads or as you walk around in ArmA 2, though.

Afaik, the forests in Crysis and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were computer generated and then slightly adjusted to add some extra detail.

It's not realtime, but it should be possible to do in realtime on either the GPU through shaders or on the CPU through SMT processing.

Edited May 25, 2009 by SgtH3nry3

[Spokesperson 0]

What about using fractals for infinite landscape and forest generation?

[walker 0]

Hi Spokesperson

If you check my first post I talked about them using a Koch snow flake type formulae. So I too am guessing that fractal methods is what BIS will use.

While random dynamic fractal landscapes would be great of even more import is doing the research into discovering the underlying seed math to recognisable worlds and discovering and using fractal compression algorithms for storing real world data as fractal seeds.

I would suggest using a neural net to learn the underlying structures, though the training will need human analysis and inspired progamming.

Kind Regards walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

Some one asked by PM what I would explore in Infinite Land so here you go.

As I understand it, trees and urban terrain will not be in the first release but will be added in patches.

1) I am interested in what the seed numbers do to terrain height first off.

2) I then wish to explore the effect of leaving objects in the terrain.

3) Followed by navigation methods.

4) Finally I want to explore terrain limits in order to find out the topographic features of the simulation space

a) is it toroidal like say the Arcade Asteroids,

b) or spherical,

c) or some other form of classical polyhedron;

d) or are we talking something completely radical such as mobius strip or klein bottle;

e) or does it have an edge and end of the world if you will like Disc-world in the Pratchet novels

f) or is it truly radical and via some form of thunking of coordinates math a truly infinite land, that has amazing philosophical consequences if you think about it.

5) I will probably be using scripts to set pos at increasing numbers to achieve some of this exploration if the number is big.

If we are not talking case 4f I also want to know if the math can be modded as that might allow the thunked coordinate math needed for us to achieve an infinte universe.

Kind Regards walker

Edited May 27, 2009 by walker

[Alex72 1]

Hmm i dont read this as BIS will add trees and roads in with a patch. I see it as they will add the hills (terrain) with grass in a patch after the german release. German release will have what we saw in the video - black flat lands without grass.

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.

Cheers

Alex

[Hoot1988 0]

To me that reads that infinite land will not be included in the first release at all?

[Alex72 1]

First version will have like in the video from the 505 event. Looks like just black flat lands. So no, there will be no hilly grassy landscape until in a patch later. At least for the german release. The 505 version might have it though.

Alex

[sparks50 0]

Infinite land revealed! (taken by Bert at http://www.tacticalgamer.com/armed-assault-armed-assault-2-discussion/139761-guess-what-3.html#post1279428)

But to be fair, I feel sorry for BI being forced to put a partly unfinished product on the street. Damn you Morphicon!! Why would you think that pulling a game in development would make it sell better?

Granted, this isn't a very big deal compared to a stable gameplay, But I still hope we have something more complete in the June release.

Edited May 27, 2009 by sparks50

[sk3pt 0]

We'll never run out of parking space.

I'm sure it will look great in the final version.

[max power 21]

They're releasing it before it's done again, eh. That ain't good.

[icebreakr 3159]

Thats how my map border looked like before I raised the water. Ahh, some things never change!

[W0lle 1052]

No one is forced to buy it now, or tomorrow or even in one month. Take the complaints about Morphicon to their forums, BIS can't be blamed for a publisher decision.

[rstratton 0]

In arma the max distance from the center was _x million meters about 10,000km x 10,000km , if you place yourself on a map and a unit called bob , then place this in a radio trigger , player setpos [10000000,10000000,0];bob setpos [-10000000,-10000000,0] the shit will hit the fan add another 0 and you cant even move, what happens in arma2 . ask Bert to try it plea

Edited May 27, 2009 by rstratton

[meuhey 6]

eww nice land

[icebreakr 3159]

yeah Meuhey, LHX Attack Chopper sim had one of those flat thingies lemme see... 20 years ago? :)

[sk3pt 0]

In arma the max distance from the center was _x million meters about 10,000km x 10,000km

The distance from the North Pole to equator is 10 000 km, so it sort of makes sense.