How will grass be made into an advantage in the SA?

[themurdertrain 33]

Grass is drawn client side, 50m away from your character in all directions.

Currently if someone snipes at you from greater than 50m and you go prone while they stand, you are at a significant disadvantage. The lack of a line of sight due to the grass being in your face, while they can clearly see some or all of your body even as close as 50-75m away, the player who stands up to take a shot is more likely to win the fight than the player who stays prone.

Look at how easy it is to see someone in a ghille suit from a distance than it is close up and you'll understand my point. Fire a shot at people crossing a field, and watch how easy it is to see them crawling on a flat texture while they can barely see past their hands.

Regardless of everything else, putting giving yourself a lower profile is the first thing you do while being shot at. The second is identify the target and return fire if possible. It's psychologically ingrained in most people to get down when you're being shot at, but in the current game that will just make you an easier target.

[BSB Jimmy 360]

if i get shot at in a field i run, only go prone if you have low cover around you

[SmashT 10907]

Q: Are you aware of the issues with rendering vegetation, obscuring items, tents and players at close range while they remain visible at long range?

A: It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.

[beastoverlord 574]

Dem quotes.

[themurdertrain 33]

Q: Are you aware of the issues with rendering vegetation, obscuring items, tents and players at close range while they remain visible at long range?

A: It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.

Totally didn't see that! I needed to look harder, my bad!

[(OLT) Tom 15]

Q: Are you aware of the issues with rendering vegetation, obscuring items, tents and players at close range while they remain visible at long range?

A: It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.

such as?

[enforcer1975 1111]

LOD issues, no computer can render that far to cover everything but they already introduced a "cover layer" where when you go prone and the vegetation is high enough you will "sink" into the textures a bit. But it doesn't stop you from sticking out like a sore thumb if the distance is great enough...much farther and they can't see you anymore.

"Blending in" doesn't really work in the game as it does IRL. The only thing you can do is take cover behind concealment if you don't want to be seen.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i'm asking myself, if this is just the case with lower performance settings, or even with ultra settings? ubiquitous so to say.

[SmashT 10907]

such as?

I don't know. Rendering vegetation distance based on graphical settings doesn't work since people will use lower settings so they aren't disadvantaged. Simple solution would be to offer low-quality versions of grass/vegetation under low graphical settings and better looking ones under high but have them both offer similar cover and render at a longer range then we have currently, but as long as developers are aware of the advantage and do something to balance it, I'm sure there's a lot of ways to go about it.

Edited January 23, 2013 by smasht_AU

[dgeesio 1034]

I don't know. Rendering vegetation distance based on graphical settings doesn't work since people will use lower settings so they aren't disadvantaged. Simple solution would be to offer low-quality versions of grass/vegetation under low graphical settings and better looking ones under high but have them both offer similar cover and render at a longer range then we have currently, but as long as developers are aware of the advantage and do something to balance it, I'm sure there's a lot of ways to go about it.

like you said rendering draw distance and so on will make this a pointless excercise and waste of time. more grass you add or cover people will just lower settings . also remember the effect people this has on peoples pc.

[enforcer1975 1111]

Just remove the ability to remove grass with lower settings. Render vegetation and vegetation layer with decreasing detail level up to 500m. Vision should be blurry after 200-300m anyway because nobody can really see any small details beyond 200m, if we could we wouldn't need magnification. It would also solve the sticking out problem when hiding.

[SmashT 10907]

like you said rendering draw distance and so on will make this a pointless excercise and waste of time. more grass you add or cover people will just lower settings . also remember the effect people this has on peoples pc.

I think you missed my point, lowering settings would have no effect as render distance would be the same (reasonably long range) for everyone, they would just get ugly looking grass/vegetation.

[enforcer1975 1111]

I think you missed my point, lowering settings would have no effect as render distance would be the same (reasonably long range) for everyone, they would just get ugly looking grass/vegetation.

You just have to make it so if they try to lower the settings they won't be able to see anything anymore because the textures are all blurred.

[nerd3d 3]

How about this option? Calculate a players "visibility" (already being done) by considering clothing, surrounding vegetation, and distance to target.. then apply a "transparency" to their character model reflecting the result. I'd probably limit this to beyond the clients vegetation rendering range.

[janus0104 212]

At least with a ghillie suit, it's really not that hard.

Let's take this shot I found online:

Everyone can spot him easily. Now say he remains within ~2m of that position for 2 minutes or so, you take away self-shadowing and simply overlay the current ground texture:

Still visible, right? Now you render him brightness-adjusted to the surrounding light environment:

Almost invisible, but he still stands out against the ground. Now we cut off 10% of the brightest and darkest parts:

Invisible, all thanks to deactivating some of those fancy shmancy algorithms you pay so much money on your gfx cards for and adding 2 post-process effects (texture overlay and lighting adjustment).

Now this goes a little far for your average joe, but it's possible in real-time as long as the target remains stationary.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

How about coming up with a "mid level" non modifiable vegetation setting that is forced on everyone?

[janus0104 212]

How about coming up with a "mid level" non modifiable vegetation setting that is forced on everyone?

Doesn't matter how high or low vegetation is, you can't render it up to 1km distance and look good. You need to cull it at some point, that's what LOD managers are for.

The problem is that from a distance you stand out like any old artifical object. Now you could render thick vegetation around the area where a player is, but that only makes it more obvious. As I described above, the only real solution for far-distance is to stop rendering every object lit like a test scene from any old 3d suite and make it as flat and bland in terms of brightness and shadow range as possible.

[B00tsy (DayZ) 19]

The problem is the whole dynamic LOD thing on the vegetation which makes it laggy as hell. If the grass would be fully rendered for everyone in a 1KM radius you need to ask NASA if you can borrow their super computers if you want to play dayz/arma. Dynamic LOD is cool in theory, but I would switch it back for the old way of rendering vegetation any day. Other games don't have it and it still looks great and you have an awesome FPS too.

[janus0104 212]

The problem is the whole dynamic LOD thing on the vegetation which makes it laggy as hell. If the grass would be fully rendered for everyone in a 1KM radius you need to ask NASA if you can borrow their super computers if you want to play dayz/arma. Dynamic LOD is cool in theory, but I would switch it back for the old way of rendering vegetation any day. Other games don't have it and it still looks great and you have an awesome FPS too.

Uh, what are you proposing exactly? Flat grounds? Brute rendering? I'm confused what you're suggesting. And yes, every other game that uses 3d rendering also applies some sort of LOD management, or you would be playing them at single digit FPS counts...

I'm not trying to be condescending or anything like that, I'd just like a clarification of what you're proposing.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Elvaron

[Talibambi 119]

Q: Are you aware of the issues with rendering vegetation, obscuring items, tents and players at close range while they remain visible at long range?

A: It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.

For the stand alone can you guys just give an option to disable all grass and stuff in the immediate area around a character? You can change it when a solution is found maybe?

[B00tsy (DayZ) 19]

Uh, what are you proposing exactly? Flat grounds? Brute rendering? I'm confused what you're suggesting. And yes, every other game that uses 3d rendering also applies some sort of LOD management, or you would be playing them at single digit FPS counts...

I'm not trying to be condescending or anything like that, I'd just like a clarification of what you're proposing.

I am just stating the problem of how arma renders vegetation, it is what it is. In other games it would be easier to get a whole lot of vegetation rendered over a long distance (like farcry with dense jungles and grass as far as you can see), but that is not possible with arma unless you want to play with 1 fps. And on a side note, I like how the vegetation looks in other games more then the dynamic LOD crap in arma with ugly bushes if you are more then 10 feet away.

[Sutinen 635]

Wanna buy some grass?.. My computer would blow up if grass was visible for long ranges.

[janus0104 212]

I am just stating the problem of how arma renders vegetation, it is what it is. In other games it would be easier to get a whole lot of vegetation rendered over a long distance (like farcry with dense jungles and grass as far as you can see), but that is not possible with arma unless you want to play with 1 fps. And on a side note, I like how the vegetation looks in other games more then the dynamic LOD crap in arma with ugly bushes if you are more then 10 feet away.

Well, to be fair, FarCry 1 was a banner ad turned video game for the CryEngine, much like Unreal Tournament is a showcase for the Unreal Engine. Those developers are first and foremost engine developers that make their money licensing their engine to other companies. If their engine weren't outstanding, their game wouldn't have been noticed as much.

Anyhow, even those engines have limitations and use a lot of LOD management. Look at this screenshot: http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/www.ign.com/11156/2010/12/crysis2009042022434915-1.jpg

You'll notice that in the distance, there is no distinguishible vegetation on the ground, it's just the floor texture. A proned player would be just as visible as he is in RV3.

[B00tsy (DayZ) 19]

Well I have no problem walking in FC2 with max settings and looking at grass and other dense vegetation from 1 mile away, I am not even gonna try that with ArmA/dayz! And look at your screenshot, how nice all the vegetation looks from a distance, instead of arma where all the details unloads even from a short distance. Also with seeing grass from a long distance with again for example farcry it would not cause such a big hit on performance as with arma, as the LOD stays the same all the time, no constant calculating on the background in what detail level something needs to be rendered.

[janus0104 212]

Ok, I'm not sure you understand what LOD even means at this point, so I'm going to stop discussing this.