Latest ArmA2 & ArmA2:OA Press Coverage | NO discussion here!

A video has been released that shows what looks like the 360 interface as it has the coloured buttons for the menu.

A video has been released that shows what looks like the 360 interface as it has the coloured buttons for the menu.

I would put my money on a Xbox 360 controller conectet to a PC.

The sun size is about 0.5° in size. This makes it's shadows quite hard. I have no idea how the engine does shadows, i.e. raytracing or shadowmaps, or any other technique. If raytracing (only sun and moon casts a shadow in ArmA afaik), the computational expense of soft shadows are extremely high. And not worth it for such a smallish lightsource. Shadowmaps can be expensive in a game like Arma2, since the lightsource is moving and maps needs to be updated from time to time, although probably not every second. Here the effect is opposite - getting sharp enough shadows costs more in terms of memory and time to generate. Considering the scale of the world, shadowmaps may not even be very possible. Shadowmap positional accuracy is also a common problem (bias in 3D software). I doubt this 'global shadomap' method of doing shadows is used.

But a game engine is most likely using many different approaching depending on what it is rendering: One method for terrain, one for destructible objects (houses) onto the terrain, one for objects self shadowing, one for player stuff (incl self shadowing), and one for tress and such.

In Armed Assault, shadow to light ratio is being affected by the cloud cover, but not the actual softness of the shadows (btw I have 3D and photography background). It's probably going to be the same deal, and it's not something that bothers me very much. It would be nice, but it depends on the cost naturally.

Even modern games like FEAR 2 and the latest source engine games mostly have hard dynamic shadows (stencil shadows), while all soft shadows and "radiosity" are either pre-computed or only partially dynamic lightmaps. I'm not sure about DX10 but the DX9 version of Crysis used shadow maps for soft shadows, jittering the edges to improve visual quality.

I can't remember where I read this or where it was discussed, but I believe Arma 2 has a feature called "hemispherical lighting". It's not very clear what that means, but it could be some kind of improved ambient lighting system that does not consist of a simple global light minumum.

Please don't hotlink images >100kb.

the latest source engine games mostly have hard dynamic shadows

I thought that the Source engine always had soft dynamic shadows.

Not sure if it was posted before but as i didnt see it on Armaholic & co i guess not:

Videos from German Gamestar magazine:

ArmA2 Amored vehicles

Theres even a very nostalgic vehicle in there ;)

And

ArmA2 Helicopters

I think the last oen was posted before but maybe at least the amored vehicles one is new.

And if the music is from the games soundtrack then i have one more reason to like this game already :)

Edited May 5, 2009 by Shadow NX

New aircraft video:

http://www.gamestar.de/index.cfm?pid=452&pk=12175

Woho! T34, awesome! xD

Looks pretty good, would of liked to see the inside view as well tho.

Not sure if it was posted before but as i didnt see it on Armaholic & co i guess not:

Videos from German Gamestar magazine:

ArmA2 Amored vehicles

Theres even a very nostalgic vehicle in there ;)

And

ArmA2 Helicopters

I think the last oen was posted before but maybe at least the amored vehicles one is new.

And if the music is from the games soundtrack then i have one more reason to like this game already :)

Ugh... No suspension on the tanks and the Shilka still only fires from 1 barrel (without spread like the real thing has).

Vehicles still slide around like they weigh nothing. That is partly the AI's fault though. :(

Where are the improvements?

Nice T34 though.

Edit: God, after looking through the "new" footage I'm praying that it's from the early Feb. build and that BI have done something about the vehicles already. That was a major turn-off..

Edited May 5, 2009 by 7

thx for the videos :)

nice old tank: a good surprise

the lighting seems really nice; no extremely shiny metals :ok:.

And the ofp feeling is back. :)

My impressions:

- Tanks are still acting like moving rocks with no weight or mass effect

- No suspension

- No backblast on main hull

- Ai still skidding and turning to break...

- Tanks still sliding

Apart from the visual effects and new or polished models there seems to be no improvement at all in the physics and AI compartement of armoured vehicles compared to Arma and to OFP.

Congratulations...

It's the same preview version build from february so ...

What's with the incredible low view distance in most videos and pictures ?

Videos from German Gamestar magazine:

ArmA2 Amored vehicles

Theres even a very nostalgic vehicle in there ;)

Did i see the recoil of the tank's barrel ? (At 0.42 s) ?

My impressions:

- Tanks are still acting like moving rocks with no weight or mass effect

- No suspension

- No backblast on main hull

- Ai still skidding and turning to break...

- Tanks still sliding

Apart from the visual effects and new or polished models there seems to be no improvement at all in the physics and AI compartement of armoured vehicles compared to Arma and to OFP.

Congratulations...

hope those improvements you mention are in. Not many days for german version to come out and then can see of ourselves.

Ugh... No suspension on the tanks and the Shilka still only fires from 1 barrel (without spread like the real thing has).

Vehicles still slide around like they weigh nothing. That is partly the AI's fault though. :(

Where are the improvements?

Nice T34 though.

The shilka fireing sounded exactly like the flashpoint version. Graphicly they look superb, but there just the exact same in behavior to what we already have.

This is the problem when you consistantly rehash US and russian equipment. We've seen these vehicles dozens of times, there nothing new.

I just hope and pray the infantry squad AI is better than ArmA, i wouldn't mind if they even reverted back to flashpoint squad AI.

It's the same preview version build from february so ...

Such things are not fixed in weeks. It´s a matter of gameplay design and it looks like they took the OFP, Arma approach again, although it´s completely static and outdated by now. The AI handling of tanks was a letdown in both, OFP and Arma and it looks like it will be in Arma 2 aswell. Hurrah !

Did i see the recoil of the tank's barrel ? (At 0.42 s) ?

Yes, recoil on barrel is already confirmed, but that´s it. The tank itself does not move an inch, nor does it nod. I really thought there would be more movement with the tankhulls in Arma 2, eg. backblast effects, nodding when breaking, suspension, etc. In the preview there is no change to the old system and I don´t think BIS can pull something out of their hat in the last second.

Oh my.

Edited May 5, 2009 by Balschoiw

Hope for new release date (Germany is 29th May :butbut:). 26th june world wide would be great.

ArmA2 need much more fixes and improvments i think.

Yeah, the game sux bad.

/end of the world

It's the same preview version build from february so ...

Yup , let's be optimistic . Important things were not implemented in the february build

Such things are not fixed in weeks. It´s a matter of gameplay design and it looks like they took the OFP, Arma approach again, although it´s completely static and outdated by now. The AI handling of tanks was a letdown in both, OFP and Arma and it looks like it will be in Arma 2 aswell. Hurrah !

Just because a feature wasn't included in the February preview build, doesn't mean they weren't already working on it. It may have simply been too buggy to implement. For all you know they may have been working on it for months. Wait until the game is out before you start whining. :)

I don't think it's impossible that BI fix such things after the game is released. While they don't look or feel good, they certainly do not make ArmA 2 unplayable. It's the publishers fault pressing dev teams to deliver within a short time frame. Hopefully after ArmA 2 is released around the world they will give us "realism freaks" our fix through patches. (;

The tank itself does not move an inch, nor does it nod. my.

Lol, are you sure? Take a look at 1:38 :D

As it was said before its from the february build and there is a notice that the bad performance come from the build itself.