Flir

[GoOB 0]

My first question would be: Does this pseudo-FLIR work with postprocessing disabled in the options menu? If not, let use hope BI addresses such a potential issue in a future patch, perhaps along with a standardization of FLIR on stock vehicles that would indeed have FLIR realistically.

[soul_assassin 1745]

Yep still works with PP effects disabled.

[Alex72 1]

Nice! Very nice.

You need some of the "film grain" used by BIS in the UAV and get the contrast control and your there. :) (EDIT: Contrast/Brightness control was already done. Im tired).

I was thinking though. Since we now can tweak colour values and use noise/grain plus dynamic blur (how some missions are made) it looks like we almost can make thermal optics with it. Not sure if its possible but i came across an image here somewhere - images section maybe? A tweak by MrBurns looking somewhat like thermal.

Like i said before - can always dream huh. :D

Nice Soul_Assassin to see progress on this. Very longed for by many. Thanks for working on it mate.

Cheers

Alex

[EricM 0]

@Frederf : you can switch pseudo IR/camera (or white hot/black hot) with the night vision toggle key since 1.02. It's a lot better.

What would be needed now is a "lock on target" feature...

[frederf 0]

A ground stabilized pointer would be nice I suppose. So "N" changes IR on or off or BHot/WHot... which is it?

[76 0]

get off from that camel hump you standing now. Excuse the mortals over at BIS for not fulfilling your expectations.

if PR has it all, why did you bothered buying this game then?

Don't be an ass, he has a legitimate complaint.

I like how you try to appear constructive and professional here, after throwing a hissyfit in the first post.

Another ass....

What's with the elitists here? lose the high and mighty attitude it makes new comers what to leave... just because someone has a problem with an aspect of the game that you don't... what makes it ok to mock them and ridicule them?

Edited June 22, 2009 by 76

[Helmut_AUT 0]

So we can switch the "Pseudo-FLIR" off in the UAV with N? Or only toggle polarity?

Main problem I see with that kind of implementation is that it's still basically a re-colored daylight view. It's not truly thermal, unlike VBS2 which seems to use a separate texture for hot items.

BTW, FLIR has even more potential and "need" now since camouflage works pretty well in A2. Contrary to NVGs, a real thermal sight will make people stand out much better from the background.

[OverDawg 10]

Hmm, regarding posted screenshot. Correct me if I'm wrong but stars don't look in FLIR as they do in NVG I would think... So would be awesome if we could loose the golfballs in the sky for this view. Keep up the great work :)

[Alex72 1]

@Frederf : you can switch pseudo IR/camera (or white hot/black hot) with the night vision toggle key since 1.02. It's a lot better.

What would be needed now is a "lock on target" feature...

It says in the 1.02 patch that the UAV have stabilized camera. Doesnt it work?

Alex

[DennisK4 10]

*golf applause" to the Arma2 fanboy. One has every right to express ones thoughts and disappointments regarding a game ones paid for. If everyone here said, we love it, theres no bugs and theres nothing lacking, BIS would be equally disappointed because there would be no one giving them feedback.

please go about your usual business and keep forum policing. :p

Yes, but when you rage like that over one little thing in a game as vast and ambitious as Arma 2 you come across as an *******.

You could politely ask for it to be changed in a patch you know.

[EricM 0]

It says in the 1.02 patch that the UAV have stabilized camera. Doesnt it work?

Camera is more stable when the uav is banking or changing direction, but does not "lock" and track/follow a point like camera.sqf does.

So we can switch the "Pseudo-FLIR" off in the UAV with N? Or only toggle polarity?

Being that it's not "real" FLIR, you can toggle polarity and then adjust brightness until to have standard B/W night vision camera look.

But yes, it misses texture swapping for true FLIR. Still neat.

Edited June 22, 2009 by EricM

[edenborn 10]

ok lets clear things up. I dont hate the game. nowhere did i specify that i did. arma 2 has alot of things going for it. if people took the time to read the original post in a calm manner instead of "read this as if hes going to explode:"

im not gonna sit here and fanboy whats good with the game and make a list of what the game has going for it. i bought the game because i knew it was good. then i make a valid complaint and along comes retarded comments like, "stop moaning" "if you dont like it, why did you buy it" "poor BIS are only mortals, cut them some slack" "dont complain and just leave" etc etc.

1. i do know what to expect in a "realistic warfare simulation" with a background in the SF.

2. I do not know how to implement addons/mods so why bother trying to give advice in the "how-to's & how nots" (im not interested as coming across as a Mr. knowitall who googles answers to later post as replies as i see people doing over and over again).

Edited June 22, 2009 by edenborn

[Alex72 1]

I could make similarities to other situations where i came in to your world and said something in the manner you did and where you would probably responded in the same way as some of us did to you.

But lets not go there. We get it your pissed there is no IR all over where it should be. We know. We have wanted it for a long time as well and VBS2 has a good one implemented. However BIS cant take that and add it into ARMA2 for several reasons. They would have to build it up again and add it, and looking at the shear scale of ARMA2 and the number of developers you understand there will be cuts here and there. luckily this community is among the strongest around when it comes to modding. So instead of blowing a fuse going bananas its smarter to start a conversation in the adddon request thread or even maybe try and ask BIS if they intend to implement it more in future patches.

I continued here to show how the IR looks like in the UAV and with showing that i hoped it would spawn some interest. Soul_Assassin is now working on a vehicle version wich is awesome news. What he showed is the beginning of the mod and im sure it will improve with time as the bright modders around here break it apart and find out how to improve it even further. At least we who want this got something more to look forward now. Playing ARMA is like having christmas every other day with addons coming almost on a daily basis (soon it will). We will use single small addons and use many of them to tailor ARMA2 to how we want it to play until the grand master of full conversion mods come wich leaves you with only 1 mod and whole lot of changes/adds. Cant wait for ACE2 but you all know that.

Lets bury the hatchet now and look forward to some kick ass IR.

Alex

Edited June 22, 2009 by Alex72

[CarlGustaffa 4]

BTW, FLIR has even more potential and "need" now since camouflage works pretty well in A2. Contrary to NVGs, a real thermal sight will make people stand out much better from the background.

But the Arma2 NVGs are exceptionally good based on the images I've seen so far. IFF is completely impossible with FLIR (humans, even vehicles can be difficult). And the most obvious tactical usage to me with FLIR over NVGs is it's ability to see through smoke (which probably won't be the case with pseudo FLIR). And smoke isn't something that I've seen widely used on the Arma battlefields so far.

So, although I'd like VBS2 based FLIR, it's not the most needed feature in my book. Lets see what the modders can do with the new tools first.

[frederf 0]

@Frederf : you can switch pseudo IR/camera (or white hot/black hot) with the night vision toggle key since 1.02. It's a lot better

God darnit man, does "N" switch FLIR on/off or does "N" switch between BHOT/WHOT? Wtf does this "or" mean?

[soul_assassin 1745]

Did some more testing. The first image demonstrates the normal ArmA NVG (left) and a simulated passive IR with green tint (right). The green tint is normal of the soviet/russian nv scopes.

this highlights the fundamental problem. As the post processor takes the pixels and just modifies them it doesnt know the emmisive and absorbtance values of the objects it takes. Thus humans (highlighted with the arrow) that should be glowing green are actually black.

Better results are aquired here:

No green tint here, just inverted the previous image but in B/W. The soldiers are now emmisive which could pass off as an IR image better.

Im going to keep on playing around.

[soul_assassin 1745]

Fact is, untill we get control of the shaders this fake solutions are all we have. The new vertex shader should be something like this:

where you set the temp value and the IR map through a separate rvmat called yourmodel_1_ir.rvmat.

then an entry in the config:

irDef = {"yourmodel_1.rvmat","yourmodel_1_ir.rvmat","yourmodel_2.rvmat","yourmodel_2_ir.rvmat",...,"yourmodel_n.rvmat","yourmodel_n_ir.rvmat"};

The NVG "simulation" would then need to be recoded to perform a material swap during use.

[frederf 0]

Isn't inverting the IR image just switching between BHOT and WHOT?

[galzohar 31]

I think he meant changing from green/black to white/black and THEN inverting it. Which like he said is very fake and doesn't really look like an IR image.

The only reason you can see the people in the IR image and not in the regular NV image is the IR image having more zoom. Not to mention having people and trees much colder than the ground makes no sense.

So yes, if we want IR in the game BIS will need to make it from the ground up. Otherwise it's just a differently colored NV which is rather pointless.

[EricM 0]

Wtf does this "or" mean?

You can only "switch" BUT one of the pseudo mode is just a normal B/W night vision with adujstable aperture, while the other is an inverted night vision with adjustable aperture.

So, by setting the correct mode and aperture, it's basically "off", except for B/W

[Deadfast 43]

Even project reality pulls it off better with an outdated BF2 source. im very disappointed.:mad:

Just for the record PR uses the same method as ARMA 2's UAV.

[Alex72 1]

Soul_Assassin

Nice to see your going strong on the case mate. The shaders you say "until we get control over shaders...", does that mean that we can eventually get control of them? And if we do it will get even better? I think i know the answers but i just want to hear it from people in the know. Im lost when it comes to these areas. But im really happy to see your on it. Thanks! :cheers:

Alex

[soul_assassin 1745]

Well the shaders that A2 uses are compiled and dissassembling them (not that its that easy anyway) would be a breach of the user lisence agreement. Thus leaving two choices:

1. BIS releases the source code thus shader replacements can be made.

2. Somehow integrates and documents a way to add user made custom shaders without overwriting the originals.

Rewriting the original is preferred though as then the stuff that is already in the game would just pick up. Yet I readily dont see BIS doing that as that would make it easy for competition to steal stuff.

[Alex72 1]

Ah i see. I would really like for BIS to do something here to give us a chance to ourself imrpove IR. Like making it possible for us to make the necessary changes into better IR images. If ARMA2 is the last of these series (trilogy) then i think its even more important. I know that many see this as unimportant, but with good IR it opens up for more tactical play. Im thinking of good IR optics that actually makes people want to hang around the base being UAV operators for example. To track down targets and report to the front. I know it works now as it is, but with it being made a bit better it would make it more appealing to do those kinds of jobs. Not to mention easier to spot enemies. I noticed it was very hard to see units with the IR in its current state. Kinda impossible from the sky tbh - i never saw units when i tested even though they were there. It was too hard. It should be able to lock/track camera and see units bright white or black for BHOT. Its just not so appealing right now to do UAV service. And i know its possible as some guy on youtube made that IR with white units. However it was not a switchable FLIR. It was on from start with scripts changing all units/vehicles textures to white if i understood it correct. Looked fantastic though and means its possible, but maybe only with help from BIS.

I have to end this with saying though that im pleased BIS did something with this. They could have skipped it completelly tbh. They never mentioned IR so it was a surprise. A happy one that could been a bit happier. :) I hope the bright community members like yourself will be able to take it further though. im sure you will. Maybe BIS will help somewhere down the road.

Alex

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I hear it's possible to use setobjecttexture on most of the default vehicles in ArmA 2 to reskin them.

Is it possible to switch vehicles textures to a greyscale _co.paa (coloured so that hot things are white, cold things are dark) such that it acts as pseudo-IR signature when the client activates the IR system, then switches back to their default skin when switched off?

My understanding of the setaperture pseudo-IR is that it just makes light things white and dark things black.