Particle engine

[DMarkwick]

Although I am pretty certain that no great shake-up of the particle system will be on the cards, I wonder if there's not room on this forum for a discussion

First of all - my personal bugbear - I'd like to see the overdraw limit removed/increased that causes particles to render no larger than an arbirtary maximum size, causing the familiar particle "shrinkage" as you move through, or zoom into, a smoke cloud.
Perhaps have this overdraw limit, if it is absolutely to remain, to be configurable via addon/config file?

Anyway. Particle engine. I wonder if a PhysX mechanism can be applied to particles on a per-particle basis. So smoke grenade smoke would follow the terrain and building walls etc. Helos could push smoke columns aside as they hover nearby etc. Not too much practical use for that last one, just an example of what could be achieved by hooking some PhysX functionality into particles.

With the default option that particles get NO PhysX functionality.

The functionality could be based on nothing more complex than allowing the particle to have a PhysX distance value, essentially giving the particle a sphere of interaction. So if a particle gets within X distance of a collision LoD, it goes along it not through it. Doesn't need to be over complicated

For the helo example, a "cushion" of repelling force could be attached to the whirling blades LoD, so that only when the blades are rotating does the repelling force act on any PhysX-enabled particle.

I'm not suggesting that last is a game-changing design element, but you'd be incredibly impressed by ingame footage that shows helo-affected smoke and I think it'd be quite cheap, compared to non-PhysX implementation. Especially when they eventually patch hardware PhysX acceleration into ArmA3 (oops )

[Aussie_Osiris]

Anyway. Particle engine. I wonder if a PhysX mechanism can be applied to particles on a per-particle basis. So smoke grenade smoke would follow the terrain and building walls etc. Helos could push smoke columns aside as they hover nearby etc. Not too much practical use for that last one, just an example of what could be achieved by hooking some PhysX functionality into particles.

I'm pretty sure that this can be done on the CPU. (trying to think of how to explain this to people who don't understand game engines, sorry if it's difficult to understand) But instead of individual particles you could just have the physics applied to the group of particles which the game would have displayed as a decently large single puff of smoke/dust/whatever.

I'm going to put up a thread on how DirectX 10/11 effects stuff but I'll say this in here. DirectX 10/11 can give you priority over particles in what they display over. To avoid particles clipping through objects
Here is a perfect example to help my explanation

Bioshock DirectX 9/10 comparison

Notice how those particles don't clip the object. That's what I'm getting at

[EDcase]

DMarkwick: I agree that the max particle size in annoying when zooming in and seeing them appear to shrink.

Nice idea linking to PhysX.
It would be great if objects had even a simple influence on particles. Just a repel force around vehicles would be great.

AussieOsiris: Yeah, thats opacity occlusion and I'm sure that will be included in A3 since its using DX10/11. The clouds in the game footage are already much better.

[RobertHammer]

Yes - i like to see proper 3D smoke , mean to be moving by wind or plane/helicopters and also that dx10 don't cliping thing

[DMarkwick]

While I'm about it, there is a rather strange positional scaling error that affects particle visual position when they are big, close, and you are turning. It's a little difficult to describe, but it's like large particles will slide left or right depending on which way you turn.

---------- Post added at 04:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:00 PM ----------

I'm pretty sure that this can be done on the CPU. (trying to think of how to explain this to people who don't understand game engines, sorry if it's difficult to understand) But instead of individual particles you could just have the physics applied to the group of particles which the game would have displayed as a decently large single puff of smoke/dust/whatever.

I'm going to put up a thread on how DirectX 10/11 effects stuff but I'll say this in here. DirectX 10/11 can give you priority over particles in what they display over. To avoid particles clipping through objects
Here is a perfect example to help my explanation
Notice how those particles don't clip the object. That's what I'm getting at

That's also a nice improvement, not exactly physics but definately within the realm of particle improvement

[RobertHammer]

btw look this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yxnETZ6RZk

thats very nice particle system on GPU - i could only wish to have that in ArmA 3 , to have nice looking Rain

[PuFu]

btw look this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yxnETZ6RZk

thats very nice particle system on GPU - i could only wish to have that in ArmA 3 , to have nice looking Rain

download here: http://developer.download.nvidia.com...mples/Rain.zip

all sample available DX10 dev zone

[Aussie_Osiris]

That's also a nice improvement, not exactly physics but definately within the realm of particle improvement

It's not so much physics but it just helps the game render particles better and also assists with half a dust cloud suddenly appearing through a wall

[wolfbite]

Does the volumetric clouds not suggest this is probably in? Or is that something totally unrelated?

[DMarkwick]

Does the volumetric clouds not suggest this is probably in? Or is that something totally unrelated?

I don't know what they mean by "volumetric cloud", my understanding is from a CGI point of view, and is actually volumetric and rather expensive to render. Game volumetric clouds are more likely to be intelligently layered 2D elements.