Sarge6754
Jun 15 2005, 21:17
BIS, I hope you're reading this, these changes could mean the difference between an 80% and a 90% review score for Armed Assault. Implementing these features will really improve Armed Assault by a lot.
1) Player-editor Application: An external .exe that would allow the user to modify their player's look in multiplayer and singleplayer. Sortof like a simplified Sims 2. You could import photos of your face and the program would help you to wrap them onto your character, you could even slightly morph the skeleton and change the height, fatness, gender, and race of the player model.
2) Mission Editor Unit Customization Feature: A button in the mission editor that would allow you to change the weapons loadout, camouflage type, AI scripting, gender, and race of the friendly or enemy infantry unit that you spawn in the editor.
3) Simple Wildlife: Add animated 2D sprites for birds/butterflies/flies/dragonflies/glowbugs. This would be similar to Battlefield 2's bird system and have very limited speed reduction. (Flies swarm around dead bodies)
4) Dynamic Buildings: Just like in the VBS 1 video.
5) Interactive 3D waves: A bomb goes off in the ocean, and waves will change and get bigger at the coast. Waves should also affect the angle of ships at sea.
6) Simple Artillery: AI will fire mortars at your last known position if they have mortars. Please add some sort of rudimentary system that is like the Chain of Command addons, but is more polished and better integrated into the game engine.
7) Extreme and Smooth LOD: By "extreme" LOD I mean that if you are flying a jet REALLY high up, then the view distance should increase, but the terrain should get really low-detailed, like a flight simulator. By "smooth" LOD, I mean that the transitions between distance LOD models should be more smooth, not blocky and rough like in OFP 1, where trees "snap" into figure.
8) Ability to command more units, ability to add more units into squads or "groups" in the mission editor.
9) Smoother and more realistic animations for infantry, no more retarded running for units without guns. I like the way that you can control your arms independently from your body, just refine this more, and add an OPTION to play with "stuck" crosshairs, like regular fps games. Again, I love the arms moving, but some of my friends can't stand it, you will get more fans and money if you add an OPTION to keep the crosshairs in the middle of the screen.
10) Slightly deformable terrain: Add craters that are dynamically sized from the strength of the explosion, that you can also crouch and take cover in.
11) Better explosion physics: Make it so that if you stack a bunch of ammo crates next to eachother in the editor, and you blow them up, then the explosion is bigger and is properly and smartly adjusted dynamically to the amount of explosive material prior to the blast. This way, a truck that the player has put RPG's into, will blow up with the power of all of those RPG's.
12) Ragdoll physics (if it's not already in)
13) No more crappy deformation of buildings and cars when they explode! Instead you should make the different sections of vehicles become "loose" and detached from eachother when a vehicle explodes, so that wheels can fly off, doors can come off, and the back (if a truck) can be independent and fall off from the front (engine area).
14) Make humans EXPLODE when they are blown up by landmines or tanks! It should be like "Saving Private Ryan" where the guy puts the sticky bomb on the tank at the end...
15) *REVOLUTIONARY* In 3D games up to this date, humans have ALWAYS been more visible than their surroundings for some reason, especially when they are moving around. BIS should implement some type of blending code so that people are not as visible because of what is known as aliasing (jagged pixels on edges). In real life, you can't see a guy in camouflage standing infront of trees a half mile from you, not even with binoculars! In games, you can easily spot the person. Here are the reasons:
A) Aliasing
B) Unrealistic lighting
C) Lack of animation in foliage (plants).
Solution A) Add 3D "blending" to infantry, smooth the edges.
Soluton B) Make the infantry, vehicles, terrain, and plants, be lighted by a common light source.
Solution C) Make all the plants sway in the wind! If everything is moving, it will be harder to find infantry moving!
---End of 15)---
16) Add more realistic smoke, just take a look at guncamera footage from vietnam, smoke from explosions should last a long while, and big explosions should kick up a lot of dirt and dust particles that create shadows on the terrain. This should be reduced in multiplayer for lag reasons.
17) Better infantry movement and handling: Make it so the player can actually reload his handgun (not rifles) while walking (not running), this way, CQB can be survivable if your moving and not just waiting in the closet. And it will make pistols more effective weapons. It will also make the controls a bit less "clunky".
18) "Normal Maps", "Parallax Mapping" on certain textures, such as roads, water, and the interiors of buildings.
19) Heat effects, look at the sunset in summer, and the horizon should be a little blurry. When you look at the exhaust of a jet, it should be blurry, etc...
20) Rain effects, don't make it just a texture overlayed on the screen anymore, make them like most games do. Also, when it's raining, you should hear the rain sounds hitting the ground, and thunder should sound better. Rain drops should also change direction with the wind, and the surface of ponds/lakes/ocean should have little splash effects when it rains.
21) Streaming terrain, see other thread about this.
22) Better object positioning/scaling in the mission editor, for making more detailed maps.
23) More ambient noises, forests should feel 'alive' with sounds, like birds chirping and the sound of the wind in the tree's leaves. Maybe if it is really windy, the trees might shed some of their leaves (sprites).
24) Better collision detection on everything.
25) If there are over a certain number of ammo shell casings on the ground, then the game should start deleting them, plus, all shells should automatically go away after a certain amount of time.
26) Better EAX features: combat inside houses should sound muffled from the next room, etc...
Conclusion: I think that if all of these features were implemented, and that there was also "streaming terrain", combined with more effcient engine programming, then Armed Assault could run even smoother than OFP currently does!
1) Player-editor Application: An external .exe that would allow the user to modify their player's look in multiplayer and singleplayer. Sortof like a simplified Sims 2. You could import photos of your face and the program would help you to wrap them onto your character, you could even slightly morph the skeleton and change the height, fatness, gender, and race of the player model.
2) Mission Editor Unit Customization Feature: A button in the mission editor that would allow you to change the weapons loadout, camouflage type, AI scripting, gender, and race of the friendly or enemy infantry unit that you spawn in the editor.
3) Simple Wildlife: Add animated 2D sprites for birds/butterflies/flies/dragonflies/glowbugs. This would be similar to Battlefield 2's bird system and have very limited speed reduction. (Flies swarm around dead bodies)
4) Dynamic Buildings: Just like in the VBS 1 video.
5) Interactive 3D waves: A bomb goes off in the ocean, and waves will change and get bigger at the coast. Waves should also affect the angle of ships at sea.
6) Simple Artillery: AI will fire mortars at your last known position if they have mortars. Please add some sort of rudimentary system that is like the Chain of Command addons, but is more polished and better integrated into the game engine.
7) Extreme and Smooth LOD: By "extreme" LOD I mean that if you are flying a jet REALLY high up, then the view distance should increase, but the terrain should get really low-detailed, like a flight simulator. By "smooth" LOD, I mean that the transitions between distance LOD models should be more smooth, not blocky and rough like in OFP 1, where trees "snap" into figure.
8) Ability to command more units, ability to add more units into squads or "groups" in the mission editor.
9) Smoother and more realistic animations for infantry, no more retarded running for units without guns. I like the way that you can control your arms independently from your body, just refine this more, and add an OPTION to play with "stuck" crosshairs, like regular fps games. Again, I love the arms moving, but some of my friends can't stand it, you will get more fans and money if you add an OPTION to keep the crosshairs in the middle of the screen.
10) Slightly deformable terrain: Add craters that are dynamically sized from the strength of the explosion, that you can also crouch and take cover in.
11) Better explosion physics: Make it so that if you stack a bunch of ammo crates next to eachother in the editor, and you blow them up, then the explosion is bigger and is properly and smartly adjusted dynamically to the amount of explosive material prior to the blast. This way, a truck that the player has put RPG's into, will blow up with the power of all of those RPG's.
12) Ragdoll physics (if it's not already in)
13) No more crappy deformation of buildings and cars when they explode! Instead you should make the different sections of vehicles become "loose" and detached from eachother when a vehicle explodes, so that wheels can fly off, doors can come off, and the back (if a truck) can be independent and fall off from the front (engine area).
14) Make humans EXPLODE when they are blown up by landmines or tanks! It should be like "Saving Private Ryan" where the guy puts the sticky bomb on the tank at the end...
15) *REVOLUTIONARY* In 3D games up to this date, humans have ALWAYS been more visible than their surroundings for some reason, especially when they are moving around. BIS should implement some type of blending code so that people are not as visible because of what is known as aliasing (jagged pixels on edges). In real life, you can't see a guy in camouflage standing infront of trees a half mile from you, not even with binoculars! In games, you can easily spot the person. Here are the reasons:
A) Aliasing
B) Unrealistic lighting
C) Lack of animation in foliage (plants).
Solution A) Add 3D "blending" to infantry, smooth the edges.
Soluton B) Make the infantry, vehicles, terrain, and plants, be lighted by a common light source.
Solution C) Make all the plants sway in the wind! If everything is moving, it will be harder to find infantry moving!
---End of 15)---
16) Add more realistic smoke, just take a look at guncamera footage from vietnam, smoke from explosions should last a long while, and big explosions should kick up a lot of dirt and dust particles that create shadows on the terrain. This should be reduced in multiplayer for lag reasons.
17) Better infantry movement and handling: Make it so the player can actually reload his handgun (not rifles) while walking (not running), this way, CQB can be survivable if your moving and not just waiting in the closet. And it will make pistols more effective weapons. It will also make the controls a bit less "clunky".
18) "Normal Maps", "Parallax Mapping" on certain textures, such as roads, water, and the interiors of buildings.
19) Heat effects, look at the sunset in summer, and the horizon should be a little blurry. When you look at the exhaust of a jet, it should be blurry, etc...
20) Rain effects, don't make it just a texture overlayed on the screen anymore, make them like most games do. Also, when it's raining, you should hear the rain sounds hitting the ground, and thunder should sound better. Rain drops should also change direction with the wind, and the surface of ponds/lakes/ocean should have little splash effects when it rains.
21) Streaming terrain, see other thread about this.
22) Better object positioning/scaling in the mission editor, for making more detailed maps.
23) More ambient noises, forests should feel 'alive' with sounds, like birds chirping and the sound of the wind in the tree's leaves. Maybe if it is really windy, the trees might shed some of their leaves (sprites).
24) Better collision detection on everything.
25) If there are over a certain number of ammo shell casings on the ground, then the game should start deleting them, plus, all shells should automatically go away after a certain amount of time.
26) Better EAX features: combat inside houses should sound muffled from the next room, etc...
Conclusion: I think that if all of these features were implemented, and that there was also "streaming terrain", combined with more effcient engine programming, then Armed Assault could run even smoother than OFP currently does!