Grass and other vegetation issues

[Steakslim]

An issue that some have already brought up I'm sure, and if not I'll do it now.

Grass, and pretty much other plant life but lets start with the basics. In the past games this has affected us in several ways. With high grass we had AI picking us off that could see through it better than we could, and that is true for a lot of the foliage in the game. It doesn't render out far enough to properly conceal objects at a distance, and while we having a rising ground texture to compensate for this, it still isn't quite right.

So.....grass. Do you think we'll see these plant related issues finally taken care of? Do you think BIS finally have a solution of rendering a more realistic, or at least a more convincing method of hiding someone hiding in a high grassy field at a fair distance? Do you think the AI, will be more impaired in a proper sense, when trying to detect and track an enemy player's movements or where-abouts through dense vegetation?

[Flyweight]

It's a challenging dev question - if you have high grass/terrain obfuscation you need to spend the CPU cycles to support it. If you do, then do you raise the minimum system req's in order to incorporate it and make it mandatory for everyone.

If you make it a toggle-able option it suddenly becomes an 'eye candy' feature and anyone doing MP will toggle it off in order to see you snaking through the grass thinking nobody can see you.

[Steakslim]

Regarding toggle-able options. Often in MP, if it's a player vs player mission, the settings would be forced on. Much like view distance and in many cases the terrain quality settings (which I believe controls the grass rendering currently) would be determined by the person running the server/mission. That way, like it is now, no unfair advantage is given over other players. Everyone has it, or no one has it.

[Flash Thunder]

Maybe they have found a way to render more grass efficiently, that or we will get more the option to have it draw out even farther than in arma 2, most likely the grass layer will return since its already established code.

[Enad]

A Grass Draw Distance scroll bar type thing would be nice.

More graphics options in general would be nice.

[NordKindchen]

Ok i allready postet this twice, but as i layed some effort in writing it i will just post it again, as it fits perfectly into this theme.

so here we go:


The Vegetatin in Arma 2 looks really nice - no question. In particular from near.

But it has a lot of negative aspects.

FIRST of all: We all know the gras problem. If u lie in the gras u cant see anything, but the

enemy from far can see u clearly. The procedure of letting u slide into the ground which we all

know is just a workaround.

My idea is following:
If we look at the gras which prevents us from seeing our enemy it strikes, that its these
big brown bushes on tschernarus that blockade the view.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/gras_1.jpg

How about declaring them as bushes, so that they dont disappear but become sprites with

different level of details?

I think this could work out fine.

Second: The bushes in Arma 2 online serve as cover in near environment. The farer u are away the

better you can see the soldier behind them. But in return u HAVE NO good view from behind the

bush to the other side.
Come on BI! Thats as if u were hiding in a bush and the farer your opponent is away the better

he can shoot u and the lesser u can shoot him...thats ridicolous...

Examples:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/example_1.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/example_2.jpg

This could be resolved EASILY by adjusting the Level of details correctly. So that the tree LOD

is a little bit wider than normal and ready we are.

And! You remember the bushes from OFP? They were a good hiding place.
Now try to hide behind an Arma bush:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/Buesche_1.jpg
They definetely look nice no question, but they serve as no cover!
I would like to have bushes in form of this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/bushes.jpg

Then there is the chance of hiding again.

And one third thing: From near the soldiers fit perfectly into the environment, but from far

away they can easily be spotted thanks to the contrast of the ground and soldier.

Cant there be found a solution? MAybe like making the soldiers a bit transparent when standing

in front of vegetation? Maybe let them online get transparent on their clothes with camo?


I think this would get the game to a completely different level.


Best Greetings


*You better go read our forum rules regarding imagesize. Thanks. /Alex72

[Archosaurusrev]

Ok i allready postet this twice, but as i layed some effort in writing it i will just post it again, as it fits perfectly into this theme.

so here we go:


The Vegetatin in Arma 2 looks really nice - no question. In particular from near.

But it has a lot of negative aspects.

FIRST of all: We all know the gras problem. If u lie in the gras u cant see anything, but the

enemy from far can see u clearly. The procedure of letting u slide into the ground which we all

know is just a workaround.

My idea is following:
If we look at the gras which prevents us from seeing our enemy it strikes, that its these
big brown bushes on tschernarus that blockade the view.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/gras_1.jpg

How about declaring them as bushes, so that they dont disappear but become sprites with

different level of details?

I think this could work out fine.

Second: The bushes in Arma 2 online serve as cover in near environment. The farer u are away the

better you can see the soldier behind them. But in return u HAVE NO good view from behind the

bush to the other side.
Come on BI! Thats as if u were hiding in a bush and the farer your opponent is away the better

he can shoot u and the lesser u can shoot him...thats ridicolous...

Examples:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/example_1.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/example_2.bmp

This could be resolved EASILY by adjusting the Level of details correctly. So that the tree LOD

is a little bit wider than normal and ready we are.

And! You remember the bushes from OFP? They were a good hiding place.
Now try to hide behind an Arma bush:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/Buesche_1.jpg
They definetely look nice no question, but they serve as no cover!
I would like to have bushes in form of this:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4934308/Arma%20TEst/bushes.jpg

Then there is the chance of hiding again.

And one third thing: From near the soldiers fit perfectly into the environment, but from far

away they can easily be spotted thanks to the contrast of the ground and soldier.

Cant there be found a solution? MAybe like making the soldiers a bit transparent when standing

in front of vegetation? Maybe let them online get transparent on their clothes with camo?


I think this would get the game to a completely different level.


Best Greetings

I agree with pretty much everything in this statement.

Only one thing, the grass should be very very very very very very low detailed if it's gonna be rendered very far.

[Steakslim]

heads up Archo you need to fix your post. You're quoting images which is a no no here.

[maturin]

They definetely look nice no question, but they serve as no cover!
I would like to have bushes in form of this:

Then there is the chance of hiding again.



I disagree. Bushes are highly effective as concealment, and even cover because the AI is often reluctant to shoot through them. In my experience bushes have larger and better viewblock geometry than their actual visual geometry. IE, you can usually see through and around bushes better than the AI can. There are some exceptions, of course, and some bushes will not hide you if you are prone. But the shape of the bush usually justifies this.

The only major viewblock problems this game has is with canopy leaves and pine needles on full-sized trees. The AI can sometimes see through entire forests because the viewblock is inaccurate.

[PurePassion]

Archosaurus and maturin might want to unqote those images ;) and NordKindchen remove the 1.400+ KB pictures in all of your copied posts!! 100 is the limit.

otherwise it can get you in trouble.

Not trying to be a moderator here but just giving advice cause you might not now the rule

[.kju [PvPscene]]

Sprites (2d textures) for vegetation or clutter at distance sound like a good idea to me.
Especially if the game could generate them on the fly based on the angle to the player
or generated as part of the texture or as a special format derived from p3d + texture.

[ghostnineone]

i find the terrain raising to be very lame, the only thing that changes is you see a dark green dot against a light green hill vs a dark green dot clipped halfway into a hill.

edit: which is why ghillies are pointless in most video games because they are either the wrong color for the environment or the grass disappears at a distance

[NordKindchen]

@<hidden> Maturin
I didnt mean the effectiveness against AI but against humans who can clearly spot u at the sides of the bush;)

@<hidden> Passion
Thanks for the advice! Going to fix that.

[Alex72]

@<hidden>
Please read our forum rules (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=55418) on imagesize now.

@<hidden>
Do not quote images.

Carry on.

[DMarkwick]

I've posted about this before, but one solution is rather than render clutter at impractical distances, to alter the unit in such a way as to simulate his partial obscurance. The most effective way to do this would be to render the unit to a separate buffer and composit it into the scene, but I doubt this is a possibility for the RV engine yet.

Before altered compositing:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v15/DMarkwick/Comp2.jpg

After altered compositing:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v15/DMarkwick/Comp1.jpg

You can clearly see that fuzzy compositing won't cure either inappropriate camo, repeating patterns on camo, or an un-camoed face. Just as it should be :) But hopefully you can see that a suitably camoed unit would be very difficult to spot.