Grass, does it realy help?

[Jan.K 10]

Newbie question coming up :D

Grass, do it realy helps for cover against AI?

[whisper 0]

Yes, but often less than one could visually think it does. Don't be fooled by "I can't see him, so he can't see me", that's not true most of the time. But it helps prone people to remain undetected

[NoRailgunner 0]

Do the forum search and you will find many opinions about grass and AI! :p

[Pulverizer 1]

Nope. Grass won't protect you from bullets and the concealment it offers is roughly as effective as burying your head in the sand while keeping your ass up.

[mosh 0]

Nope. Grass won't protect you from bullets and the concealment it offers is roughly as effective as burying your head in the sand while keeping your ass up.

:bounce3: lol

I don't know fact from opinion, but my opinion is it doesn't help.

[Lal 10]

I disabled it since it's just an incredible nuisance in spotting enemies. I guess that's sort of a noob thing to do, but as other people have stated, since the AI isn't affected by it the same way they get an unfair advantage and can see you when you have no way of seeing them even if they are also prone.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Grass will supposedly help you from getting detected, but once detected, the enemy will have a solid fix on you no matter what you do. I disabled it on certain parts of the campaign, just to let the reruns go faster. But online I prefer grass missions.

If you're totally against the bad side effects of grass, try the SAP Clutter addon.

+ Although unrealistic, this low grass you can usually manage to see above when prone. It takes away the advantage the AI has over you in this respect.

+ It doesn't cause a close AIs camouflage to become completely useless, which a total disabling of grass does. Make sure you play with shadows on, in an old conifer forest, and you'll see what I mean.

- You don't have to worry about grass as a tactical element to consider, at all.

- You can't obtain a quick wind direction simply by looking at which way the grass bends.

We're going to try this addon ourselves and see what happens. Personally I like having grass as an obstacle (and honestly, I think the AI could use some help at times), but yes, the amount of high grass in Chernarus can be frustrating.

[Flash Thunder 10]

All grass does is chop 8FPS off, so its always off.

even though it also controls Terrain (polygon count and LOD) low making terrain look very flat and 2 Dimensional.

8FPS!

AI see right through it for me, extensive tests.

[qwertz 10]

To me, the game looks very old w/o the grass, and imho no grass kills the immersion (low res green painted blocky concrete everywhere) - but I dont play against AI so I do not suffer the "AI cheating" problem that people report.

But - some people do not seem to care about visuals, so yes it will improve your frame rate a bit and you might want to try it out if you have low FPS (although if you have performance problems I would always advise starting at the source which is insufficient hardware rather than dumbing down the game I paid money for - this is a little bit like buying the blue ray version of a movie just to have it run on 480p).

:cheers:

qwertz

[Wynthorpe 10]

I totally agree with you qwertz, No gras is pure sacrilidge in this game, makes it look like OPF.

[KeyCat 131]

All grass does is chop 8FPS off, so its always off.

even though it also controls Terrain (polygon count and LOD) low making terrain look very flat and 2 Dimensional.

8FPS!

AI see right through it for me, extensive tests.

Then you probably should change/expand your test procedures since grass do affect AI chances of detecting you - try a sniper in ghillie suit in grass versus on a road or tarmac!

It may not be perfect in all situations (i.e some wierd results for different clutter styles) but stating that grass/clutter don't work is wrong.

/KC

Edited April 23, 2010 by KeyCat

[Bouben 3]

Then you probably should change/expand your test procedures since grass do affect AI chances of detecting you - try a sniper in ghillie suit in grass versus on a road or tarmac!

It may not be perfect in all situations (i.e some wierd results for different clutter styles) but stating that grass/clutter don't work is wrong.

/KC

I think, that this effect is based on a simple position definiton (solider is on a road, soldier is on a grass-covered ground) than on some precise calculation based on grass' proportions. Texture itself is just an eye candy and will not provide any cover. It has no function of bushes for example.

My experience, I could be wrong, but I am seriously convinced of that.

[Dead3yez 0]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97036

:)

[KeyCat 131]

I think, that this effect is based on a simple position definiton (solider is on a road, soldier is on a grass-covered ground) than on some precise calculation based on grass' proportions. Texture itself is just an eye candy and will not provide any cover. It has no function of bushes for example.

My experience, I could be wrong, but I am seriously convinced of that.

That's my experience as well but stating grass covered areas doesn't affect the AI at all is not true (no offence to Flash Thunder, just want people to have proper info).

When testing this a while ago I noticed that I was able to hide very well in a ghillie suit. Laying completely still the AI would walk past me at 1-2 m distance 9 out of 10 times on the following surfaceTypes...

CRGrass1

CRGrass2

CRGrassW1

Trying the exact same in Chernarus woods (with surfaceType CRForest1) I was detected at ~40 m (IIRC it was the same distance on road/tarmac) and thats kinda wierd since I expected to be pretty well hidden (wearing a ghillie) also in forrest grass/clutter (bug? ).

/KC

Edited April 23, 2010 by KeyCat

[celery 8]

Then you probably should change/expand your test procedures since grass do affect AI chances of detecting you - try a sniper in ghillie suit in grass versus on a road or tarmac!

It may not be perfect in all situations (i.e some wierd results for different clutter styles) but stating that grass/clutter don't work is wrong.

/KC

I'm most certain that he's talking about terrain detail here, and the presence of the grass clutter drawn within 40 meters of you. It's proven that disabling grass via terrain detail doesn't affect the AI's behavior or spotting capabilities in any way.

[Lazyman 10]

Basically grass helps until the AI spots you: grassy areas do offer a certain % of camouflage, wich is checked against the AI spotting ability. Once the AI spots you, however, grass will only obstruct your vision without offering any benefit (unless the AI is pretty far away, since in that case as long as you are crawling around, it will tend to take a little while for it to re-acquire you).

Thanks to the 1.05 patch, using mods like SAP Clutter and other will not give you a huge advantage against human opponents, thanks to the new grass layer: if someone is crawling in an area where there should be lots of grass, the character model will "sink" into the ground, thus making it easier to utilise stealth against humans, and mods like SAP Clutter DO NOT influence this; also deactivating grass completely will still leave the simulated grass layer effect on.

[Fox '09 14]

Grass will supposedly help you from getting detected, but once detected, the enemy will have a solid fix on you no matter what you do. I disabled it on certain parts of the campaign, just to let the reruns go faster. But online I prefer grass missions.

If you're totally against the bad side effects of grass, try the SAP Clutter addon.

+ Although unrealistic, this low grass you can usually manage to see above when prone. It takes away the advantage the AI has over you in this respect.

+ It doesn't cause a close AIs camouflage to become completely useless, which a total disabling of grass does. Make sure you play with shadows on, in an old conifer forest, and you'll see what I mean.

- You don't have to worry about grass as a tactical element to consider, at all.

- You can't obtain a quick wind direction simply by looking at which way the grass bends.

We're going to try this addon ourselves and see what happens. Personally I like having grass as an obstacle (and honestly, I think the AI could use some help at times), but yes, the amount of high grass in Chernarus can be frustrating.

so basically it cuts the endless lawns of chernarus?

[rellikki 7]

We've had numerous of threads discussing this exact same matter. Please use one of them instead of starting a new thread. Or rather, please search before posting.

Closing.