Does ARMA2 use volumetric smoke?

[Yapab 10]

Hi,

I've noticed the smoke effects in ARMA2 seem to move with the "wind"... is this real volumetric smoke done in DX9?

The smoke looks very nice but has a huge perf impact on my machine.

For example, I get 38fps looking at one particular area... I then throw a grenade and keep looking at the very same area... as soon as the smoke fills parts of the screen my fps drops to 15 which is more than 100% fps reduction!

I'm running an 8800GTX and it has no problem with smoke effects in other games, but they might not be volumetric....

How does smoke affect ur fps and do faster GPU's overcome this slowdown?

Yapa

[Potatomasher 0]

Hi,

I've noticed the smoke effects in ARMA2 seem to move with the "wind"... is this real volumetric smoke done in DX9?

The smoke looks very nice but has a huge perf impact on my machine.

For example, I get 38fps looking at one particular area... I then throw a grenade and keep looking at the very same area... as soon as the smoke fills parts of the screen my fps drops to 15 which is more than 100% fps reduction!

I'm running an 8800GTX and it has no problem with smoke effects in other games, but they might not be volumetric....

How does smoke affect ur fps and do faster GPU's overcome this slowdown?

Yapa

I was surprised how smoothly my rig can handle the big smoke clouds from smoke grenades and explosions.

In that village sweep scenario where you call the airstrike and 2 bombs fall in to the heart of the village my fps stayed above 18 (usually around 25 ) all the time even with old rig like mine. Walking in big cities/villages is much more fatal fps killer. There my fps may go down to 10 at times.

Guess my GPU is still powerful enough. Also i can keep PP high and no degrade on fps, as a matter of fact fraps shows 2 fps increase if i use high and not off setting. Also i get more arma mark score if i use PP high instead off. Tried multiple times and results were always the same.

Edited August 22, 2009 by Potatomasher

[MadsHilde 10]

If a heli lands in a smoke cloud the smokes won't be winded up

[Yapab 10]

If a heli lands in a smoke cloud the smokes won't be winded up

Hmmm that would mean the smoke is not volumetric... but it does seem to move in a certain direction... I guess its just random but looks quite good.

Dont know why it kills my perf by 1/2... you have an 8800GT and I have GTX, which is same or slightly faster!

Yapa

[Alex72 1]

The clouds you can activate with the weather module is volumetric. But just cause its volumetric doesnt mean it will react with things. Thats how i understand it anyway.

We had volumetric fog etc in ArmA1 as well. Doesnt react to models just like that. It reacted to wind however just like ARMA2 smoke/dust.

[Yapab 10]

Ahhh I see, so even though it is volumetric it does not react to models/objects because this feature might be disabled/not implemented... could be because of performance reasons.

When driving a vehicle the dust sure does look like its reacting to wind and it looks great hovering over the trees in a mist...

But the chopper creating wind should disrupt it, I guess its not fully enabled.

Yapa

[Windexglow 10]

Volumetric smoke is just smoke with a cube collision, no? The smoke in this game is pretty standard particle smoke.

[TankCommander 3]

The way I understand it after using 3D apps is, no game really has true volumetric smoke. All the smoke in arma is rendered using sprites. Real volumetric smoke would indicate that the smoke would have some 'volume' so that it is truly 3D and so things like shadows will be able to cast realistically within etc.

Volumetric effects are always harder to render and within a game engine it makes little sense so it is faked with various techniques like well placed textures to give the impression of volume.

In Arma1 I think this was a little more effective as shadows would cast rays through smoke. But when looking at it in different angles quickly, it would lose the effect as the sprites would rotate thus changing where the shadows would sit.

So for example the 3D clouds in Arma2 will just be a cluster of multiple sprites and not actually be a volumetric cloud that would take a bit more power to process.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this as there are games out there that claim to have volumetric clouds and look sorta convincing.

[Yapab 10]

I'm not really sure how it works, but I know that volumetric smoke reacts to the environment/objects in the game.

For example in Stalker:CS it would move as the player walked thru it, or it would disperse when a fan was on etc.... it should also move dynamically with the worlds "wind"....

In ARMA2 I see the smoke moving dynamically with the wind (dust from cars and smoke from grenades) but I'm not sure if this is a particle smoke effect or volumetric, thats why I was asking :)

Also the smoke seems to have a huge performance hit for me (100%+) so I figured it would be volumetric, as particle smoke in most other games has little effect on performance.

Yapa

---------- Post added at 01:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

The way I understand it after using 3D apps is, no game really has true volumetric smoke. All the smoke in arma is rendered using sprites. Real volumetric smoke would indicate that the smoke would have some 'volume' so that it is truly 3D and so things like shadows will be able to cast realistically within etc.

Thanks for the explanation! The smoke still looks very good in ARMA2 even though its not real volumetric smoke!

[IronTrooper 0]

...

Dont know why it kills my perf by 1/2... you have an 8800GT and I have GTX, which is same or slightly faster!

Yapa

It kills everyone's performance in high resolutions and when seeing it from a close distance, especially with PP on. In the 1.02 version when I threw a smoke grenade in front of me I got single digit fps on my gtx 280 oc.

But I think that BIS are doing something about it.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I'm dropping quite a lot of ARTY_SmokeShellWhite into four aiming points that advances with a manouver in my mission. In 1.03 there was hardly a noticeable fps hit, but with the new beta the hit is quite hard. With the new beta smoke grenades work again, but I was never under the impression that arty smoke didn't work before. Why does new beta take such a hit?

The egdes of each particle btw looks a little aweful as well. This texture should be fixed in an upcoming patch, as the egde isn't fully transparent and creates a visible line along the egde... Yuck...

Smoke looks generally good though, but of couse it's not "volumetric". In one of the campaign missions (getting from NAPA), there was some very nice "volumetric'ish" ground fog though. I'd like to see more of this in missions :)

Makes me wonder though, what kind of smoke and particle effects OFP DR will come with. With Arma2 already being release, surely they must strive to make it better. Maybe even OA should do this? :)

[VF-33 10]

Seems to me, smoke volumetric or not, the real potent question would be "Does smoke actually impare the AI friend or foe from seeing its target?"

Same effect as " does hiding in brush actually diminish your siloette to foe?"

[rasdenfasden 12]

I think it does, but like with bushes if they know you're there they will shoot in your general direction.

[Maddmatt 1]

Particles like smoke do block AI vision in ArmA 2, unlike ArmA 1.

Also, they are affected by the wind (but not by helicopters).

[Gunter Severloh 4070]

Hey madmatt, are you the one that created the JTD smoke mod for armed assault?

Was wonderign too are you working on anything for arma2 for liek explosions, i swear i seen a post somewhere about it

[Maddmatt 1]

Hey madmatt, are you the one that created the JTD smoke mod for armed assault?

Nope, that's DMarkwick. See here.

I will do something if I can find the time ;)