

rawalanche
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Everything posted by rawalanche
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Why does building and vehicle interior lighting look so hideous?
rawalanche posted a topic in Arma Reforger - General
Hi, I am a bit confused about why interior lighting in Reforger looks so hideous. Enfusion engine is supposed to power next 10+ years or Arma games but the indirect illumination of interior it showcases would be embarrasing even by 2015 standards, let alone 2025. What I am talking about specifically is vehicle interior, where there's absolute lack of any diffuse or reflection occlusion, and the environment skylight bounce lighting that's supposed to illuminate exterior assets completely bleeds through the walls into the vehicle. As a result, there's essentially nearly no lighting, it looks almost like flat shaded texture view: Or in building interiors, where there's also no signs of indirect illumination, just fake environment skylight bleeding through the walls, with extremely poorly configured short radius, high intensity SSAO that ends up looking more like cartoon shading outlines than indirect light attenuation: I completely realize that BIS doesn't have nearly as many resources to implement state of the art dynamic GI similar to Lumen or ray-reconstructed path tracing, but if this engine is supposed to power next decade of Arma games, then at the very least combination of Distance Field Ambient Occlusion and SSGI would be appropriate. Even SSGI (screen space ray traced GI) on its own would go a LONG way compared to the SSAO derivation (possibly GTAO/HBAO) we have now. The benefits of SSGI is that it's quite cheap on modern hardware, looks much better than SSAO and SSAO derivative techniques, but mainly, if implemented correctly, has nearly no parameters, so it's much harder to mess up, unlike the SSAO on the screenshots above, where the parameters such as radius, multiplier, falloff and so on were clearly configured by someone who hasn't seen a single path tracer reference in their entire life. The reason I am making this post is that Reforger graphics are really bizarre. In the foliage filled exteriors, it looks and feels like 2020 game, at the very lest, but as soon as the player enters inside of a building or a vehicle, they are instantly teleported at least 10 years back, graphics quality wise.- 1 reply
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Hi, I am looking for a way to make environmental effects such as wind, waves, etc... a lot louder. In default vanilla game, these sounds are incredibly and extremely unrealistically quiet. I've created a new scenario in Eden editor where I've cranked wind settings to absolute max in intel window, yet volume of the environment had not changed. If I am out in a windy that, wind is quite loud. I really miss Operation Flashpoint 2 Dragon Rising's ability to adjust environmental effects independently from other effects, such as vehicles and gunfire. I remember cranking up environment sound 4 times louder than rest of the sound, and the game felt incredibly immersive. So I am searching for a way of either maybe editing some files or using some mods to crank up these ambient sounds. Thanks in advance.
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Vehicle zoom bug 10 years anniversary
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - TROUBLESHOOTING
So they tend to ignore this part of the forum? :| -
Hello, control scheme of ArmA games has always been on a bit clumsy and unfriendly side ever since the complex modal zoom/optics mode was introduced in Armed Assault. Especially in multiplayer matches where every millisecond counts, a delay caused by ArmA figuring out which zoom mode to activate based on user input would lose you quite a few firefights. Luckily, in ArmA 3 it is especially easy to fix this by changing mapping to a more rapid mode, which immediately aims down the sight upon pressing RMB, without introducing delay required for decision between zoom and aim down the sight mode in default setup. Moreover, this alternative mapping is even included in a two default shipped presets with ArmA 3. Industry standard and ArmA 3 alternative. The small problem is - it does not work as long as you ever encounter a vehicle which can fire. This bug was first introduced in Armed Assault published in December of 2006. That makes this month a whopping 10 year anniversary of this bug, and a good time to bump it again. In 2013, I've reported this bug (it has wrong date, shows the date when database was migrated to new tracker) https://feedback.bistudio.com/T82903 and ever since then, for over 3 years, it's still "assigned". Now, obviously there's no hope of this ever going to fixed, so I would like to take advantage of this 10 year anniversary to at least ask developers here to explain themselves. Why keep dragging us around in circles and pretend it's something you are working on.... for 10 years? Why don't you simply admit it's an engine limitation. Why remain so silent and ignore this. Don't you think this should be somehow addressed? Look at it this way. One of the strong selling points of your game is vehicle combat on scale unsurpassed by other games. At the same time, you are also shipping official, more attractive control schemes in order to attract players who claim ArmA 3 controls feel heavy handed and unfriendly. And these two things do not work together? How does one make a choice between being able to interact with the game in a comfortable way but having to give up using significant portion of the vehicles (which are often crucial to completing given mission) this game can offer, and the opposite?
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Hi, i am not sure anyone from actual dev team reads these forums, but it's worth a try. In my opinion, singleplayer side of ArmA series feels as mediocre result of awesome immersive open environment simulator constantly spoiled by frustrating aspect of micro-managing incredibly incompetent AI, that often simply ruins mission flow. So i've tried to search what's exactly causing this frustration, and i've come up with an idea. Since we are not in 18th century anymore, and battles are not executed as a formations of soldiers standing opposite of each other with muskets raised waiting for fire order, i would suggest to completely ditch formation system (or at least make it some special mode, that's off by default). In modern battlefield, fromations are used only very rarely, and most of the time, soldiers move from cover to cover to avoid being spotted and/or hit. I've recently played OFP2: DR again, and while Codemasters have gotten most of the stuff wrong, they've gotten a few things right, squad movement being one of them. When i saw that my squad mates actually take cover and move according to the surroundings, it was a lot more enjoyable gameplay since i could really care about what's going on in the environment, not having to care what my team memebers do all the time. A few times, i actually had a great immersive feeling of "wow, that guy just saved my ass". That just never happens in ArmA. Only time I am impressed with ArmA AI when the moron actually manages to successfully use rocket launcher before entire squad is wiped out and before he gets killed. It's the feeling that ruins the entire experience for me. As much as a try to enjoy the game, i never can fully relax my mind because i always need to sacrifice part of my focus to micromanage those infants in grown men bodies, who don't even know they should go stand behind a cover when fired upon. So while it may sound too radical, i think that about 75% of all squad commands could be removed from the game, and replaced by some autonomy. The point of ArmA is being realistic simulator, and in reality, soldier acts with some amount of autonomy. Yes, one should be able to command the squad, but just to certain extents. I think it's quite ridiculous having to tell your team mates which direction should they watch, if they should stand or lay down, or exact point in the space relative to your body where should they move when you move. These things could be handled more autonomously. Like just telling them to stay closer to you, or to spread out a bit. Telling them to hold fire, or fire upon your lead, or fire as they wish, but don't divide it into groups of fire commands and engage commands. I am just trying to imagine how much more awesome could ArmA series be, if you had a feeling you are a commander of an actual squad of soldiers that are there to actually help you with your mission, and save you in a tight situation, instead of constantly having to worry and keep checking if a script in that little rat's head got executed properly so he isn't stuck in a fence or standing up and uncovered looking straight in a cannon of a tank. :)
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Zoom in vehicle optics stuck at maximum
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - TROUBLESHOOTING
Unfortunately i can not. The dropdown button in betas tap of Arma 3's properties on steam is frozen. I can't click it and select dev branch :/ EDIT: Nevermind, probably a steam bug. Doesn't work when clicked, but if i tab through to the button and use cursor key to swap the option, it works. ---------- Post added at 10:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:40 PM ---------- Okay, so while i was very sceptical about this being magically fixed in dev branch, because even though it remained unfixed not only since the birth of this game, but also since the birth of previous one, i still went ahead to waste my time downloading and running dev branch. And of course BIS did not let me down, it's indeed still not fixed in the dev branch and i doubt it will ever be. -
Hi, I've tried to map my controls to be more like battlefield for faster aim down the sights in multiplayer. The problem here is that once i have mapped Hold RMB as Optics (temporary), Zoom (temporary) and hold breath, as soon as i enter any vehicle and use optics, it immediately zooms at the max possible level, and becomes stuck there. Not even using NUM - works, not even accessing optics via any other hotkey, and not even exiting vehicle and re-entering it. I will be very thankful for any solutions.
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Zoom in vehicle optics stuck at maximum
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - TROUBLESHOOTING
That's really not an option. I use that exact setup to make target acquisition as rapid as possible. I found out that if i map my controls similar to battlefield games i often play, i get a LOT more competitive, and game becomes lot more fluid and feels lot less clunky. It makes difference between being able to to take out 4 vs 20 AIs on my own, or being able to take out about 4-5 times more players in multiplayer matches during one spawn. It makes that much difference and makes me that much competitive, which of course ends as soon as i board any vehicle with gun optics. The entire point of this is being able to aim down the sights of your rifle within fraction of a second and return precise fire. -
Zoom in vehicle optics stuck at maximum
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - TROUBLESHOOTING
Well, looks like i am done with ArmA for good. That bug has been reported more than 2 years ago and still isn't fixed >:( -
Will overclocking the Titan X with Precision X produce more frames for Arma 3?
rawalanche replied to pluke the 2's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
Upgrading GPU may raise your FPS by a few, but no matter how good GPU you have, ArmA 3 will never run optimal, especially in object and AI heavy places. This is simply because ArmA 3 engine's renderer is tied to simulation. New DayZ engine won't have this limitation and hopefully same engine will be used by next ArmA game :) -
No, sorry but you completely misunderstood and took it out of the context. If you read further you will see i was not referring to designating soldier groups, but to launching command macros. So for example. Imagine regular situation when firefight ends, and you very quickly need to move with your soldiers to some remote locations, and you don't wan't any of these incompetents to stay behind and then bombarding you with "where are you?" queries. So often you do following keyboard dance: All, disengage - All, stand up - All, stay alert - All, fall back into formation. 4 time consuming orders that are no fun to do. So you could for example hit shift+1 (just for example, i do realize shift+1 is already assigned to something) and that would initiate macro recording. Then you would issue all the commands, and once done, hit shift+1 again. Then whenever hitting 1, recorded chain of orders would be executed. This way you could create following interesting macros: One button order for sniper in your squad to find cover, lay down, and watch your direction, or scan horizon One button order for all your soldiers to enter danger mode, lay down, find cover and engage at will. Good when being ambushed One button order to pick them up after firefight and make them follow you rapidly, as in example above One button order to make the board the vehicle you are in Etc...
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Hi, i've been playing through campaign, and i have hard time using zeroing on any of the weapons i got so far. I try to press PgUP or PgDOWN keys, but zeroing remains the same. I tried already several weapons and and also tried to remap the keys to be sure they work, but so far no luck... Basically, here is a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/Vm1o0Ng.jpg (508 kB) There's zeroing indicator on the top right corner of UI, which seems like first intuitive indication of that it should be adjustable. But most importantly, looking at the scope mouted on my weapon, it seems to have screws for both horizontal and vertical zeroing. Considering level of simulation BIS puts into their games, i would expect scope that has modeled zeroing mechanism to work with zeroing. Anyone has any idea what am i doing wrong?
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I don't think wheel should/could have more slices. It's reliable 2 axis control for both consoles and especially for PC. It would be quite a pain if it had to be navigated using mouse cursor. The beauty of OFP2 one was that you could very easily memorize sequences for certain commands, such as right-right-up, and you could execute them very rapidly. If there were more than 4 slices, then imagine fragility of having to press say top and right (W and D) at the same time to hit top right slice of the circle. It would mean there has to be some timeout in which it decides if one or two keys are pressed at the time. The timeout would mean slower responses and therefore slow down order issuing. For objects out of line of sight, it could be as simple as performing orders on some map. You would put your cursor over an object on a map related to your order, and context menu would change appropriately. And all the objects you know of would be listed on the map. Of course it's nice to be able to do that while looking around on battlefield without map in your face, but at the same time, sometimes it's a bit problematic as there may be for example two vehicles of the same type, and you do not know which one of the two is the one you are ordering to. IMHO there is way too much flexibility right now. Sure it makes it feel like simulator, but it ruins big part of immersion factor. What you say about circular command menu accommodating for ArmA3 complexity, there are numerous design solutions for this, for example: Let's assume on Root circle, down is command for Move. The comand is cursor sensitive, so if you point at a car, then it changes to board. If you hit just down, they will get issued order that says "board anywhere", as in current number menu. Now, we have already one modifier key - Ctrl, used for stance adjusting. In circular menu, this key would be modifier too, and the bottom slice of the circle would be color coded, by for example yellow color, indicating it has modifier options under it. So in practice, if you aim at car, open command menu and quickly hit down, soldiers will board the car randomly, using board anywhere command. If you open menu, but hit Ctrl+Down, it would go to sub-menu, with options like driver, gunner, commander, rear, etc... It could be refined further by allowing for color coded modifier indicator to be present only when one soldier is selected, as you can't order two or more guys to take commander or gunner seat at once. This adaptive menu I think would be very intuitive, instead of constant keyboard orchestra we experience now when using numbered menus. I had even more complex and interesting idea the other day. You know how you can assign unit groups in RTS games by designating them using Ctrl+1-10 and then recalling selection by hitting 1-10 keys. I thought of something similar for ArmA, where you could customize sets of commands, which then could be recalled using single key press. So for example instead of often ordering your soldiers to go stealth, find cover, and hold fire, you could just create sort of macro of these commands, name the macro yourself and assign it to a key.
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Very useful. Thanks a lot!
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I did not mean that current engine somehow prevents AI improvement though. Current engine mainly cripples game performance wise. But it's very modular. Of course AI system would probably have to be somehow modularized to be replaced with a better one. But even something as basic as replacing numbered menus with something simplified similar to OFP2 Dragon Rising command menu would be a huge step forward. Sure Codemasters got most of the OFP2 wrong, but commanding UI was one of the few things they got quite right, or at very least significantly better than what we have in ArmA series.
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Actually i don't. I believe ArmA community members are mature enough to objectively answer questions without personal attacks, and are aware that no one is born ArmA expert. Of course, except a few individuals like you. I play ArmA series ever since original OFP, and i play very actively, but ever since i got a time consuming job, i was unable to keep up with the development of the series, so i don't play ArmA 3 that often and can't get into the game completely. Main reason i asked is because i played fair bit of ArmA 2 OA, where zeroing was introduced, and from what i remember, zeroing worked on a fair amount of scopes there. So my initial thought was that mechanism of this feature somehow changed in ArmA. Now, all of the people above you gave me some useful answers, that make sense. So big thanks goes to them :)
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The AI being terrible and AI UI being terrible are problems closely tied together. Large part of the reason AI is so terrible is because command UI is so terrible and vice versa. The reason why things like stand up, crouch and kneel (not exactly named this way) are in UI is that AI doesn't know when it's appropriate to stand up, lay down and kneel. And the reason AI does not know how to properly use these stances is because it is present in the UI, expecting player to tell AI when they should wipe their butts after they've pooped. It's circular problem. As long as UI is not simplified, AI can not be improved, and as long as AI is not improved, UI can not be simplified. You should never be telling your soldier what stance should they take. They should decide that on their own based on three factors: 1, If they are under fire 2, How is the terrain around them (are there any covers nearby)? 3, What are ROEs set by player (keep stealthy, move fast, etc...) I've already described how it should work in some older thread, but basically the entire formation based parody on the commanding system should be replaced with set of order that you could imagine saying to real soldiers on a real battlefield. If you tell them to stand up they won't keep standing up if they are fired upon. 99% of time, they should not hold some geometric formation, but move according to the terrain surrounding them, from cover to cover. If you have a mission to ambush a convoy, and you find out the easiest and most efficient way to finish the mission is by sending all of the AI soldiers somewhere far away from the point of conflict, and finish entire mission on your own, you definitely know something is terribly wrong with the AI. Unfortunately most of the posts in this thread are thoughts inside of a box. They refer to slight improvements of the current system, while only real solution to the bad AI problem of ArmA 3 is thinking completely outside of the box, and creating completely new system, instead of iterative improvement of current one. Polished, gold painted excrement will remain to be an excrement. You can see the same with ArmA engine. Believe or not, but ArmA 3 still runs on the very same engine original OFP (ArmA CWA) did. And you can see it being stretched to it limits and not being able to catch up by observing all of the performance problems everyone complains about still not being resolved.
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AI in ArmA 3 is bad. There is just nothing to discuss about it. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. But from more personal point of view... I found some of the campaign missions where i was in command of a squad very difficult. The same missions turned out extremely easy as soon as i sent entire my squad some random place opposite way of the battlefield and did the mission on my own. I think that speaks for everything...
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what is the most annoying thing for you in arma 3 ?
rawalanche replied to sgtsev3n's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
This is not the MOST annoying thing for me, but it makes me giggle almos every time i play the game, because i encounter it very often. Any experienced 3D animation artist should know you should never ever significantly retime motion capture data. If you do need to change speed of the animation, then it is also appropriate to do new motion capture to fit the speed of required segment. I would understand the difficulty if the motion capture was done elsewhere and shipped, but BIS constantly boast about their on-site mocap room, so they should use it! What i am talking about you ask, right? Well i am talking about those ridiculously funny idle walk animations! :D Someone probably on the last minute tweaked the speed of safe walk mode, but did not bother to get new mocap for it. Just used the old one and sped it up. As the result, all the soldiers, when walking with their guns down, look like they just pooped their pants and are hurrying to the toiled while trying not to smear the poop around too much :D -
Suggestion about AI for future ArmA games
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
You are completely missing the point here. I am talking about squad commanding and movement, not about how combat efficient AI is. But rather how well can they seek cover, or adjust stances on their own. I already stated in my original post there is a lot done wrong in OFP2. But playing that game, i didn't have such persistent feeling i constantly have to wipe butts of the team mates I am commanding, unlike in ArmA, where you always spend more time micro managing AI instead of actually enjoying the game. Also 90% of the video is just showcasing an issue of latent AI aim that could be easily fixed. You should know better than to assume i am suggesting ArmA should match OFP2 AI. I am just suggesting commanding system should be reworked. -
Suggestion about AI for future ArmA games
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
I think i have quite good understanding of how current command scheme works. I've been playing all ArmA games since original OFP. But understanding it does not mean it's sufficient. And that is my issue. -
Suggestion about AI for future ArmA games
rawalanche replied to rawalanche's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
Yep... that was my point. I think the best way to explain how it would make things better and improve realism is following: Imagine you were on a paintball or airsoft match, and had to command a team of people. How would you communicate with them. Would you micro manage each of them, telling them when should they lay down, when should they fire, what should they cover behind, which direction should they look, who should they shoot at? Of course not. You would just tell them general guidelines, like: "Let's keep low now, so we don't get spotted. Shoot only on my lead or when under direct fire. Don't go too far from me" So that's how i imagine new AI would work. For example: A leader would have a radius around himself, a virtual circle. This circle diameter would be defined by a set of three commands: keep together, spread out, wide spread. Say the middle one, spread out would make circle 20 meters in diameter. As the player stands, AI would run to hide near any objects that are in the diameter of the circle, and orient themselves around the object so that they are back to the leader, and front out of the circle behind the cover. As the leader moves forward, circle moves with him. As soon as any of the AI leaves circle, AI would run chasing the circle, and once in circle, looking for new cover. Only if there was no cover in range, AI would form up. If engaged, AI would break the rule of facing outwards the circle with their backs pointing at leader, and instead would get to the cover on the opposing side of the fired shots or spotted targets. Team members would always pick up targets and cover according to who is closest to the angle of the conflict, so if attacked from multiple direction, each AI would cover their angle, creating sort of protective circle around leader. Another good set of commands would be flank and storm the front. Now the advance and flank commands simply offset the position in the formation. New commands would work as follows. Storm the front would make team or selected units attack the position under the cursor. They would advance forward in a tactical cascade fashion, covering each other, approach the area and clear it out. Flank commands would to the same. Target area would be again defined by the cursor positon, but instead of approached directly, AIs would either flank around the position from the left or right in. Next idea would be to unify fire and engage commands. There would be three commands. Hold fire (but still return fire if fired directly upon, let's say if bullets hit within 2-3 meter proximity), fire only on my lead (AIs would hold fire unless you as a commander fire, once you fire, they would switch to free fire mode) and free fire mode, making them fire at their will. Engage commands would be ditched, replaced with single attack command, which would simply mean go, break formation, attack that unit, and form back up. Last idea is for combat modes: Stealth, danger, aware, and safe could be replaced by: Defensive, keep low, fast pace and safe: Defensive would make soldiers seek cover at all cost, mainly to cover themselves at the expense of offense. Mainly to enforce survival. This mode would also put emphasis on prone when moving. Running would be only from cover to cover. Keep low would be regular combat mode. Sort of what danger mode is now. Movement is fast, but when not moving, low stances such as kneeling and lying down are preferred. Combined with fire upon my lead command menioned above, this mode would result in a stealth behavior. Fast pace would enforce swift movement at all cost. Running and following commander is preferred over taking cover or returning fire. Safe would be good old safe, where soldiers put guns down or on their backs. Useful for cutscenes i guess. As for actual stances, like stand up, keep low or go prone, those would be fully autonomous, derived from combat mode. -
Hi, so i just finished (again after so many times times already) original OFP campaign, and i just can not believe how incredibly immersive the game is, even after all those years. So that gave me an idea. How about original OFP DLC for ArmA 3? Original campaign on original islands (Everon, Malden, etc...) but with awesome ArmA 3 features and graphics. I would really love that, and would be willing to pay for it as much as for ArmA 3 itself. Of course, creating all the authentic CWC content is probably enough to get entire team of people busy for at least a year, so i would be actually ok with BLUFOR and OPFOR sides being replaced with those currently in ArmA 3, but at least original storyline and islands is what i would love to see...
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I think it was mostly mission design what made original OFP CWC so immersive. Sure, BIS games that followed had better graphics, but i think overall mission quality kind of degraded. OFP is really just incredibly immersive game in all aspects except graphics, sound design and outdated physics. And these aspects ArmA 3 engine can solve. That's why i had the idea of CWC DLC for ArmA3. Same old awesome immersion factor, with great graphics complementing it.
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Yep, i know about CWR, but it seems left in unfinished state, and also won't be ported to A3, as you said. I would welcome something official from BIS themselves. Something finished and professionally done. Just imagine those good old OFP CWC missions with atmosphere and graphics of A3.