instagoat

CSAT WFAR Kandak Soldier of the Republic of Afghanistan CSAT Soldier wearing Desert OCAM pattern in a demonstration Photograph from early 2029 Another photograph from the same occasion as above, CSAT Soldier reloading his Rifle Personal Reskin of the CSAT Thermal Camouflage Combat Uniform, because I hate the Bond-villain style patch. Replaced it with Alpha/Beta style velcro, flag and CSAT patch. Weapon attachments by Alwarren and RobertHammer

But I love textures! ;_;

I think you're thinking in too tight categories. A great Idea goes beyond the boundaries of the "category" it is assigned to. Citizen Kane is not a great movie because it was solely a great drama. Doom was not a great game because it solely was a great shooter. Novelty and truly great Design go beyond the bounds of genre and mode, so an exceptionally good Idea might not even be able to be classed into a single category, strictly speaking. For example, you can look at "Abandoned Armies" as either a very long singleplayer mission OR a campaign without loading screens.

Veteran, unmodified APART from that I occasionally disable 3rd person.

You can take more than a year for a single mission. RE Abandoned Armies. If somebody did a mission on Altis, on the scale of Abandoned Armies, with modern features and the same grade of voice acting and storytelling in a super dynamic mission, your average Campaign would have a -hard- time competing. Single missions need to stand out significantly, to compete against campaigns. Overall workmanship, artistry, creativity and gameplay design should count, not really the dimension of the project.

I´m gonna hold out for RH's ports of these, he put these exact guns into Arma 2 before, with everything on the correct side, and the weapons scaled. The pace of these releases is incredibly fast, I´m not sure how much attention was paid to these details. Half-done work doesn`t do these models and their creators justice.

The whole gun is too big.

In germany people typically work up until the 23rd, and until the 26th it´s official holiday. The next official holiday is the 31st, inbetween some companies work, some don`t depending. I´d expect no news from at least the 23rd until the 2nd of January, roundabout. That is, if the czech republic runs a similar system of holidays, but the countries around this place are rather similar as far as that is concerned.

Question is wether they have the same speed, armour thickness and hitbox dimensions. They're all tanks, so... I´d still be in favor of adding Mini-Titan missiles to be launchable from the Slammer and T-100 to give them an edge. Another thing would be the defensive systems. The Kuma has them modelled too, and having them work would be really cool.

No update today?

I have to make myself clear here: I in no way intend to diminish or downtalk the achievements of the AI modders. What I mean is this: Every AI modder can only do so much, has his own scope, and only a limited means of gathering dedicated feedback. Even when employing entire communities to test, there will still be biases, inherent limitations to the design approach chosen, as well as priorities that cater to the specific desires of that community. Because Arma is a realism oriented community, these changes often will be done to the detriment of gameplay (ie: ACE wounding system, as an example.). This makes sense for a modding platform, built by the community for the needs of specific groups inside the community. However, AI mods with their added complexity cannot replace the core, and they cannot fix the flaws of the core. Basic changes and documentation are not enough, in my opinion, which is why I hope the major flaws of the AI can be adressed as far as that is possible. Not inside the code, I actually hope to see the Arma AI be developed to the point of being something that is limited by technology, rather than inherent code limitations. Cutting edge, sciency stuff, so to speak. Maybe it would make sense for BI to contact AI centers at relevant european Universities to set up a cooperation? At any rate, I think the AI needs -major- work. Arma is about the only gaming platform right now that has such a freeform AI, and there is so much potential still in there that could be unleashed, when the resources can be invested into the work.

Do you have quantitative and qualitative evidence for that, or is this just another "gut feel" claim? All the mods do is change the AI, but their behaviour is still very much hit and miss. By now I think the perception by the community that AI mods are improving the AI to such a large degree is down to the placebo effect. For example the AI picking up At weapons never worked for me reliably, AI often picking up weapons from halfway across the map or picking them up directly in front of enemies. They still reliably hid on the wrong sides of walls, stood up in the line of fire, and the biggest change that was noticeable at all was the larger engagement distance and their decreased precision. (Which made them much easier to deal with than Arma 3's AI, who are much better at hitting things than some of the modded AI setups.) ASR is a bunch of very good Ideas scraping right along the edge of the things that are possible, I grant that. However, I also think that what's under the hood is the only thing that can really make a difference. Making things even more complicated and convoluted by adding a script system on top of what already exists is really making things more difficult than they need to be. Edit: RE OFP AI: you're having nostalgia glasses on. OFP weapons didn't have dispersion and the AI was super precise with them. The "Headshotted by a farmer with an AK across 400 meters in the fog" line didn't arise with Arma, it was a problem with OFP to begin with (back then, really, a feature.). Mods like BAS and community standards like JAM then came up with High Dispersion (HD) guns to make firefights last longer. Go back and try the game, and you'll see that you can't get through any firefight without casualties, due to the extreme precision of the AI. Arma 3's AI is not as deadly as the OFP AI was.

Problem is that very large spotting distances do not scale very well. With some AI mods, moving in cluttered terrain at large distances will get you spotted, where it really shouldn't. The problem right now is the opposite: spotting distances for very cluttered terrain are good, but AI out in the open or even skylining is not identified and engaged quickly enough. AI also is poor at scanning their surroundings, so they sometimes resort to "eyes in the back of the head" cheats it seems. This is especially obvious with vehicles. (Stand behind a tank and fire at it with a rifle. There will be no reaction apart from very slow, rythmic spinning of turret and commanders sight, where the commander should really be quickly checking all around the vehicle if he notices impacts (Depending on the threats nearby, obviously. Riflefire should not draw as much attention as RPG fire.)

Is it possible to make something similar to this, except indicating hits on a surface and measuring the distance from the two furthest hits on the same surface? Some kind of precision shooting scoring aid, for testing weapons configs?

This. Weapons are inherently inaccurate. The degree of this is determined by a lot of factors, but the numbers are generally public. For example, an AR-15 with a decent barrel can print 1 to 1.5 MOA groups at 100 yards. That translates into a shot group of 1~ to 1.5~ inches in diameter (About 4 centimeters.). Machineguns have much larger beaten zones, simply because they have many more moving parts, while sniper rifles print sub MOA groups unless they are shit. What should be done is set up a shooting bench with the rifles on a fixed target, set them up for a target at 100 meters and convert (1 MOA at 100 meters = 2.908 centimeters.). Assault Rifles could be made more diverse simply by making some more accurate than others, thusly. For example, MX would probably be a mass produced, very high volumne rifle with average to high quality, the TRGs would probably Israeli or other nearby Surplus weapons, possibly of lower quality. The FNs may be more recently produced and be more accurate, while the Katiba might be just as high quality as the MX. Again, this is important. I might even set up a ticket. :I http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16297 Set up a ticket. I want to know what group size relevant ammunition prints through weapons approximating or equal of type to the guns ingame. The numbers I found in a quick google search online are for civilian off the shelf AR-15s, do military weapons fare better or worse? Edit: Dispersion values are -too high- ingame. The marksman rifles have the dispersion pattern which assault rifles should have, machineguns and assault rifles are equal. The diameter of the group at 100 meters is about 10 centimeters (as opposed to the 3 - 4 centimeters it should be) for the MX Rifle. The problem lies elsewhere, not with the dispersion of the weapons it seems. I used the bullet trace script to check. Does anybody have a script that accurately marks impact points on a target instead?

They really need to stop standing up when under fire. And stop staying in one place when under fire. Two things so far, now on to the rest. Alright, uh, no. First, the AI was a clusterfuck four years ago. By now it is becoming clear that this wasn't (just) because it was a mess, but also because it is an untransparent, difficult to balance, and especially to people who cannot actually look at the code a complete black box. In 2010 not even the devs themselves apart from a scant few had an Idea how the thing even worked, because it had gotten so extensive and complex that oversight seemed to have been lost at that point. Secondly, game AI is humongously difficult to construct. There are -no- games out there that I am aware of with competetive AI that does not resort to straight up cheating, or is operating in a very simple environment without many variables. Chess computers, for example. Especially in the shooter domain, AI has been notorious for its dependence on level design and tailor-made instructions for specific set pieces. The closest information to the latter that Arma is giving to the AI is type and location of terrain pieces (also, terrain elevation and wether or not an object is cover or concealment.), but the environment is specifically NOT tailor made to work with the AI. Altis is better than previous iterations of the game: remember those large platforms on Sahrani that the AI couldn`t even walk onto? Consider the amount of information the AI has to take in, and process, on an individual soldier to soldier basis. And it not only has to take that information in, it has to sort it, prioritize it, create some sort of plan from that information and then execute that plan (even if it is as simple as moving from A to B while under fire.). Then you get into all the other things that affect the AI, weapons ballistics, ammunition handling, fatigue, many of which are actually simplified for the benefit of the AI (not even Arma gets along without cheating.). What do you expect? A person, with an entire brain to work out solutions to problems faced in the game, is up against entities that have an individual brain processing power that is lower than that of the average housefly. We are running up against the limitations of linear computing technology at this point, I think. RE: Presets. What is the problem? Nobody even understands how the sliders in the menu or the numbers in the .cfg relate to each other. I doubt the devs do (otherwise we likely would've seen information about this on the biki, but in 13 years of the RV engine, zilch.) either, apart from the dedicated people working on the AI specifically. Presets in fact are the way to go from a game design point of view because they set a standard for what mission designers AND players can expect from the AI. On all levels, the difference between AI of a low skill and of a high skill should be broader, but what IS still important is transparency. People always talk about how setting X is better for them than setting Y (Say, AI 0.52 vs AI 0.78). But nobody produced any data, because Arma is offering such a dynamic playing field that you can't even -generate- data. You could write doctoral thesis on the effects these variables have on the performance of AI fighting each other on grid XXX YYY at 04:45 on 12. May 2018. Even changing the weapons will change the AI behaviour enough to have an impact. People are just wildly -guessing- at numbers until the placebo effect kicks in and they've convinced themselves that the AI "now is playing fair". There is no yardstick by which to measure that. And building missions in an environment where every player has different AI settings, possibly even with tack-on mods changing things through scripts is a nightmare. In OFP you could break the "Ambush" mission, for example, because some mods would make the Units in the town spot the US troops way back across the bay. They engaged even beyond Viewdistance! tl;dr: The AI is a beast, things are difficult, and we need some organization and possibly evaluation as to how things can best be developed AFTER we know what we as players want and what BI based on their knowledge of the engine can deliver.

Pretty much the only public, HQ multifuck pattern you're going to find is Alex Vestin's (As used on his own US Army Units.). The snakeskin was likely done with either custom brushes or a mask in photoshop/illustrator. The CTRG pattern is pretty much just a stone-grey 2 color triangular razzle dazzle, I think it'd even be possible to hack something like that together by hand. I don't think BI have any of their own camo swatches published. Another thing we have is the hexacam, somebody posted a really really great .psd file a while back. Edit: sample shot from the texture.

DayZ *trollface and gets out of here*

True, Especially the point on the misplaced folds is something that I find visually distracting especially in the arma games, since they are extremely honest in displaying the assets with this game (ie, no visual filters, glare, massive special effects and fast movements, so you can really take in the look of the models). Though, that is -really- difficult to get right, there's almost always going to be some part that doesn't make sense. For example in the vanilla US Uniforms, when going prone with a rifle, the left shoulder pocket and arm warps really awkwardly, stretching the textures and making the folds on the back side of the torso appear misplaced. I guess that also goes into weighting the model, too. I´m no 3D modeller, and I´ve only dabbled a little bit with 3DMax and ZBrush, but I feel that you can reasonably focus on making the parts of the Uniform that will always be in view work better to the detriment of parts that will usually be hidden, for example the torso. I´m not sure how applicable this Idea is, but in our design shop at work we usually do reasonable tradeoffs with details for the sake of an overall tighter picture. The quality of the stuff you`re hinting at is really great already, though, so I don't wanna come off as if talking into your business, so if I am looking that way I apologize in advance. One reason I take very big interest in your work is that the pseudo-crye BIS Uniforms don't really convey the same feel and presence as something taking faithfully from real life. I`d be more comfortable with them if there was an alternative. Also @ Scarecrow: I meant those details to be considered in a general fashion, not specifically to the type of fabric used in the Uniforms I linked. I realize they're specialty makes, as far as I know pretty much every large order of these Uniforms was specialty make (such as the woodland combinations made for the Marines special forces quite a while ago.). My focus was rather more on the fact of how chaotic and bunched up these Uniforms become in hard wear, unlike the often rather plain and tidy looking Uniforms provided with the vanilla game.

One thing that'd be cool is making the whole Uniform more dynamically sculpted, bulky pockets, fabric stretch-folds, warps, folds and bumps. Especially when moving around a lot, the fabric of these uniforms can become very tangled, and if the model and texture aren't made with that in mind, they look rather too clean (as the BI US combat Uniforms, in my opinion do.). What I mean is this: http://i.imgur.com/XkHKW.jpg <- pockets so bulked up that stuff is spilling out on top. Very tightly stretched seams bunching towards the bottom of the pockets, where the weight is dragging on (seams generally follow the lines of pull, as you know. I don't know what program you are using in general for this project, but the 3D people I had in my class in University told me that you can be pretty safe when making bunching and folding fabric where it is being pulled on by some kind of weight. I myself only draw, so my expertise with 3D programs isn'T that great unfortunately.). http://images-kitup.military.com/wp-content/gallery/australian-sas-in-crye-multicam-combat-uniforms/australian-sas-crye3.jpg <- very subtle ripstop effect, as well as dynamic folding and bunching. This also goes for the shirt, where it is being dragged on by the vest. Another thing, which is frequently overlooked by models for Arma, including all BI models so far, is how the vest is being distorted by the weight dragging down on it, pouches tilting and tipping, as well as bunching and folding on the vests fabric. I think it'd be better to do -very- aggressive sculpting first and then tone it down, just like it painting where you begin with a really nice, heavy coat of dark color, and work your way up from there with lighter shades until you have the picture you want. Fabric is a very dynamic and malleable medium, and representing it is difficult ingame.

Your stuff is great, I´m learning a lot from it. Do you stream your work someplace by any chance, or record it?

Would it be possible to do a custom hand animation for this gun too? The trigger finger's outside the trigger guard and the support hand twitches and in some positions, such as sideways prone, even leave the handguard and just clip through the gun to float a little bit beside it. Edit: Picture here -> It's a great gun, thanks for bringing this to the game! I hope the bugs are fixable, I'd love to have this in my toolbox in the future. Also, would it be possible to enable the joint rails addon, so we can mount community attachments on the gun?

Neat, I´m going to update my ticket (http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12555) with this solution tomorrow. Seriously worth considering, I think, since 3D interiors are a humongous amount of work.

Bolt actions don't even work, being treated like semi-automatics, so I don't even see how this could be brought into the discussion without the basis being there. Ie, working bolt actions with animations, magazine management and ammunition. Same for shotguns (you can't treat a pipe-magazine shotgun like the pipe is only one mag, you need to load on a round per round basis.), which possibly have not been introduced yet simply because the game is unable to correctly simulate hand operated, individual-round loaded weapons yet: the cheytac may only be a fluke that's been used for lack of a comparable blufor weapon to the redfor .50. They possibly wanted to introduce proper animations and systems for these guns (bolt action and shotgun platforms), couldn't manage it and threw the shotguns out, keeping the cheytac as a stop-gap or runover asset until propped up with the correct animations (character working the bolt) and the ability to load the guns up on a round per round basis at least for shotguns.

Doesn't have hidden selection textures is the problem. Ticket here: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12486