Realistic Stars

[bravo 6 0]

Yes, this thread is only for Stars.

Stars, those shiny things that shine in the dark sky.

I mean not the planets but the STARS.

Looks like there is only planets and there is no real stars in ArmA2 universe. ("yet")

Could some of those bright dots shine as they do in real life?

Would make things more realistic and pleasure for the player.

Youtube videos:

Night vision horses, stars and road (version 1)

(version 2)

Another thing:

Could we have some of these randomly too, please?

PS - Would be nice to see the correct effect of the stars when Night Vision Goggles were used (at night).

edit: damnit, after "dinner" i got dyslexic, i wrote "starts", it was meant to be "stars". Already asked Placebo by mp to fix it. Sorry!

Edited June 8, 2009 by bravo 6
Dyslexia

[frederf 0]

One of the prouder accomplishments of the ArmA2 game is the realistic and accurate starfield based on date and geography (~9000 stars if I remember).

Game developers commonly have issues with stars since in real life they are very small, much smaller than a pixel on a monitor. If you model them true to life then they flicker incessantly as the monitor can't decide whether or not to show a full pixel or not. It seems that ArmA2 has gone with "fat stars" so they look goofy but they are at least a pixel big.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

From what I've seen in the videos so far, the Arma2 stars looks a bit too fat, yet they still beat the hell out of Arma1 stars. In Arma1 I find it near impossible to locate the polar star, and having been a little into astronomy in the past, I know some of the tricks :) In Arma1 there was little to no variations on the apparent brightness, making every star looking alike.

In CWR mod/map/missions for Arma1 there is a mission where you get to navigate by stars, and for me the original OFP was too hard (hey, I played unreal tournament back then :)) so I never got to this mission there. I couldn't actually do it. But I found other ways to 'navigate':

I knew I was in enemy territory. I knew friendly territory was on the other side of the island. I knew the island had a big mountain in the center. Enough said? :D

If there is a very thin layer of haze in the atmosphere, will that diffuse light enough to cause a glow? Been a long time, so I can't remember. Like how the moon makes a halo in certain conditions? Could we perceive the current solution like this?

Also, consider that we can actually see star colors. Beetlejuice is the best example. Sirius will appear to flicker wildly in the night due to being som bright. I'm not sure if stars in Arma2 are colored, but I had no problems (too little problems?) picking out known constallations in youtube quality videos.

One dot stars would cause aliasing and flickering problems, so I'm against that.

Meteor storms appearing at regular yearly intervals could be a great idea for an addon :)

[jamie_c 0]

The appearance of the "fat" stars needs to be modified under NVG, their apparent size is increased when looking at them directly and given that I have used the stars to properly focus my NVGs in the past, they're usually no bigger than they are without NVGs. Actually with NVGs you can usually see a lot more stars than you do without, it's fairly impressive to say the least, until you realise you're either covered in dust and haven't showered for weeks or you're freezing your bits off.

And someone please make a telescope addon for Mr. Gustaffa here :bounce3:

Jamie.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Oh, I would be very happy with a proper spotter scope :) Btw, a friend couldn't believe what I said, so he sent me screenshots. Sure enough, polar star shined like a diamond and was picked out immediately. So I'm sure it has something to do with my graphics setup.

[sic-disaster 311]

There is a weird thing though, and i suspect the stars for being changed by the bloom.

I now use the nobloom/blur mod and that makes everything much sharper, including the stars who are much smaller now then the huge blobs they were before.

[bravo 6 0]

but.. but.. but...

..do some shine?

[Nicholas 5]

Actually, ingame I SWEAR that I'v seen shooting stars....unless it was a green bullet tracer. But I don't think so.

[gonk 0]

it is nice that the star map is correct. But it would be nice to add the correct colour to the stars as well.

[FlamingDeath 10]

The appearance of the "fat" stars needs to be modified under NVG, their apparent size is increased when looking at them directly and given that I have used the stars to properly focus my NVGs in the past, they're usually no bigger than they are without NVGs. Actually with NVGs you can usually see a lot more stars than you do without, it's fairly impressive to say the least, until you realise you're either covered in dust and haven't showered for weeks or you're freezing your bits off.

And someone please make a telescope addon for Mr. Gustaffa here :bounce3:

Jamie.

+1 post for you, congrats

Ps. dont complain about the stars you retard!

Just be gratefull

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=75256

[frederf 0]

The videos of stars through NVGs posted did not show "fat" stars as extreme as is in the game. They might be ever so slightly fatter but ArmA2's marshmallows are a bit off any way you look at them.

[r71 0]

WOW! :confused: I just got the demo and have to say the night sky looks really bad. And when I put on my NVG I was like wth! I will take ArmA 1 sky over this any day. :( I hope something will be done on their end and not have to dl a addon to fix it.

[abs 2]

It would probably be easy to simulate shooting stars by making a workaround addon. (I got the idea from the tracer post in the previous page.)

Just have an invisible helicopter addon (needs to be made) flying around, randomly shooting a white tracer...I know it's a cheap workaround, but I think it'll do the trick.

I don't know if shooting stars actually exist because I tend not to play night missions since I can't see shite at night.

Abs

[Uranium-235 10]

+1 to this.

I'm an astronomy nerd so better stars are always fine by me.

Things I'd like:

1) Color. It's hard to see if you're not actively looking, but there's a lot of blue and red in the night sky. (Also, contrary to science fiction, there's no 'green' stars. Green is the middle of the light spectrum, meaning they'll appear white!)

2) Smaller stars. This goes especially for nightvision. Here's two comparison pictures @ 2560x1600. Judge for yourself. The zoomed-out look for the normal sky looks far more realistic in terms of star size (these shots are 'zoomed out' in first person view. Much more how it should be...).

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/9886/armanight.jpg

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/228/armanightnv.jpg

Ursa Minor is smack-dab in the middle (Arcturus fell off the left side :()

3) Planets. Not a big deal, but still nice.

4) Atmospheric activity - shooting stars, Northern Lights (though it's not clear what latitude Chernarus is set at).

5) The milky way! The night sky is nice, I suppose, but looks more like it was modeled after the sky around a city. It's got all the major details, but none of the fine ones. Since ArmA2 is set in the middle of nowhere, you'd be practically able to see galaxies.

Saying this is the 'worst night sky ever' is a stretch. I'm going to give them a major thumbs-up for being the first game I've seen that doesn't depict the moon as being planet-crushingly huge, dominating half the damn sky.

Thanks!

Edited July 28, 2009 by Uranium-235

[Steakslim 1]

Uranium pretty much summed up all the things I'd like to see in the night sky, but if choices were to be slim, I'd go with suggestions 4 and 5 the most.

[Cpt.Goose 10]

I think that accurate stars would be sweet, and some color but honestly, planets, solar activity, etc.. is a little excessive maybe you need to go find some space astronomy game.

I much rather see patches come out or community mods that add campaigns before silly stars and the way your explaining your wants, it looks like performance would take a hit on this as well. Something that probably wouldn't go well with a lot of current Arma 2 players.

[frederf 0]

Goose, Strawman much? This thread is about not having stars the size of orbiting death stars, not about fiddledy details such as color or planets (Venus actually makes a good navigation reference, top 10 anyway).

You don't have to be an astronomy buff to be completely confused, distracted, and enjoyment-detracted by the fat marshmallows invading from the sky.

[Uranium-235 10]

it looks like performance would take a hit on this as well.

No. No it does not. Not in any fathomable measurement known to man is there any way could perceive a 'performance hit' because the stars are smaller and the 'key' stars are colored somewhat.

I love when people throw out the 'performance' argument around things that through no sort of loopy logic could possibly increase system demands.

No, you know what, you're right. In order to slightly colorize the star Betelgeuse, have a random streak across the night sky every now and then, and simply add the planetary coordinates to the solar cycle that's already built into the game, we're going to need to add 128 MB of RAM and up the minimum CPU performance threshold to a 3.5 GHz processor. And you'll need a DirectX 10 system, naturally.