Graphic Limitations In Game

[Paper Tiger]

I guess it all boils down to whether you want to play a FPS game or a wargame. You can't have both the graphical excellence of a FPS and the Battalion+ sized actions.

[RockinHarry]

I owe and play both, CMBN and IFL44. They´re not that much comparable and while IFL44 is termed FPS, it can also be played in sort of high command mode with a multitude of play modes, both vs. AI and in multiplayer.

I like both games, although neither is at its peak of development yet, with IFL44 having some more problems, that are not actually the developers faults.

[Col Deadmarsh]

Now if CM and WoT could look like this (Iron Front using the ARMA2 engine)

Amazing! Hopefully one day we'll see those graphics in CM.

[CanuckGamer]

The biggest problem and disappointment I currently have with the graphics in CMBN is when I turn on shadows. I get a lot of cross hatching on my tanks and vehicles. I hope this is corrected in the upgrade. My video card is a HIS 1GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6870 which I bought earlier this year so its not like I have an old video card.

[sburke]

That bridge have a gap in it right at the far end shore?

[Paper Tiger]

Funny, the original King Tiger model that came with the Commonweath module already looks like the KT in that picture. CMx2's vehicle models stand right up there with the tanks in those screenshots. Now the trees, and their level of detail models (LOD) are better in those screenshots but that's about it.

[noob]

Funny, the original King Tiger model that came with the Commonweath module already looks like the KT in that picture.

I hope you don't work for air traffic control

[Guest]

Do you always play with lighting (shadows) turned off, noob? That could cause some attractiveness issues, right there. Not quite apples to apples (or cricket), either.

And the 2.0 KT will feature per-pixel lighting, normal maps, and improved shadows. My bet is that CM will inch just a bit closer to that shot on the left, while still being capable of doing much more as an engine, and while being programmed by two guys.

[Guest]

The biggest problem and disappointment I currently have with the graphics in CMBN is when I turn on shadows. I get a lot of cross hatching on my tanks and vehicles. I hope this is corrected in the upgrade. My video card is a HIS 1GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6870 which I bought earlier this year so its not like I have an old video card.

Have you tried CMFI? If so, have you tried the improved shaders included in the hotfix? If not, would you mind giving it a run and see if shadows look a bit better?

[noob]

Do you always play with lighting (shadows) turned off, noob? That could cause some attractiveness issues, right there. Not quite apples to apples (or cricket), either.

And the 2.0 KT will feature per-pixel lighting, normal maps, and improved shadows. My bet is that CM will inch just a bit closer to that shot on the left, while still being capable of doing much more as an engine, and while being programmed by two guys.

Lol...i didn't realise about the shadows, so here's a new version.

I'm not sure why you are getting defensive with me, i was just demonstrating to PT that he was wrong about his statement about the vanilla CW KT, i wasn't criticising CMBN, far from it, if you read my previous responses to this thread, you will see that i was defending it against CD's assertion that the graphics in WoT are superior, which then led me, as an afterthought, to point out to CD the best looking WW2 graphics i had seen so far in a WW2 PC game.

I don't expect the look of CM to be on a par with ARMA2 (yet), but it is closer to it than any other game on the market IMO, and as you point out, it can only get closer.

[noob]

Have you tried CMFI? If so, have you tried the improved shaders included in the hotfix? If not, would you mind giving it a run and see if shadows look a bit better?

Yes, and it looks better than CMBN

[Guest]

I'm not sure why you are getting defensive with me

Errr... because I wasn't being defensive? I offered a constructive hint - if you want to compare screenshots with a game that has lighting, turn on the lighting!

There was also the very real possibility that shadows in CMBN don't work for you at all, so you didn't know better lighting existed. Until we improved the rendering engine in CMFI that's how things were for a number of people with older video cards. One of my testers had never seen CM's lighting until the shader system came to full fruition. As far as I could tell it was a fairly revelatory moment.

And then I made a cautiously optimistic statement about the future... I guess *that* might have come across as being defensive? I dunno, when you're two programmers being compared with budgets and teams a few dozen times your size (the WoT team, for instance, is so incredibly large it's nearly unfathomable) you do tire of the cat and mouse after a bit. But it wasn't meant to be defensive.

So... no. I was attempting to be constructive and happy. As you say the comparison will keep on improving. But to make sense to everyone it does need to be apples-to-apples... so if need be I *will* continue to offer advice as to the best methods for making said comparison, otherwise I wouldn't be doing our work a bit of justice.

Thanks for posting the revised screenies. I look forward to a CMFI version in a future thread.

[noob]

Errr... because I wasn't being defensive? I offered a constructive hint - if you want to compare screenshots with a game that has lighting, turn on the lighting!

There was also the very real possibility that shadows in CMBN don't work for you at all, so you didn't know better lighting existed. Until we improved the rendering engine in CMFI that's how things were for a number of people with older video cards. One of my testers had never seen CM's lighting until the shader system came to full fruition. As far as I could tell it was a fairly revelatory moment.

And then I made a cautiously optimistic statement about the future... I guess *that* might have come across as being defensive? I dunno, when you're two programmers being compared with budgets and teams a few dozen times your size (the WoT team, for instance, is so incredibly large it's nearly unfathomable) you do tire of the cat and mouse after a bit. But it wasn't meant to be defensive.

So... no. I was attempting to be constructive and happy. As you say the comparison will keep on improving. But to make sense to everyone it does need to be apples-to-apples... so if need be I *will* continue to offer advice as to the best methods for making said comparison, otherwise I wouldn't be doing our work a bit of justice.

Thanks for posting the revised screenies. I look forward to a CMFI version in a future thread.

Sorry Phil, you are right, when i re read your post you weren't being defensive, i'm the one being defensive, too early in the morning here

[Macisle]

Hey, the CW King Tiger is essentially an unfinished vehicle (texture-wise). It's not even close to CMBN standard. Many/most other vehicles are downright awesome.

I've seen gameplay vids of WOT and IFL44, and frankly, I'm not that impressed. WOT has those classic billiard table maps (slight of hand use of high detail here and there to mirror away how much is left "flat") and with mods, IFL44 doesn't look that much better for most things--save some terrain/building details here and there (talking ground-level, here).

Gameplay looks same-old-same-old in both. I'll take CM any day.

Oh, and I actually dislike the WOT graphics in that they give off an "illustration" vibe, rather than going for a photo-look. -Makes it look even more like an arcade game.

I'm not saying CM can't improve--just that, as things stand, the graphics cup is far more than half-full and the gameplay cup is overflowing.

Note: I'm basing my comments on being pretty close in. I play WEGO and tend to command from a fairly low level, with lots of replay viewing at ground level. Players who play from a high camera view obviously aren't going to experience the full "meat" of what CM has to offer graphically. I've noticed this with many YouTube vids. Some people don't seem to ever zoom beyond a general command overview.

[sburke]

Some people don't seem to ever zoom beyond a general command overview.

Damn that's like buying a cake and letting someone else eat it, you miss out on like 90% of the game there.

[Paper Tiger]

I don't believe it! I appear to have lost every screenshot that I took while I was working on the Commonwealth module. I had some cracking pictures of the KT which are much better than the one you've posted above. I play the game with the Best quality models and when I'm playing for screenshots, I have shadows turned on as well.

Perhaps the KT is not the best vehicle model in the game to make comparisons with though. I doubt that any other game has better Tigers in them, especially after Aris has modded them. I only single out the Tiger because he's posted some cracking screenshots of his Tiger mod for CMFI.

[noob]

Hey, the CW King Tiger is essentially an unfinished vehicle (texture-wise). It's not even close to CMBN standard. Many/most other vehicles are downright awesome.

I know that, but that was the specific vehicle PT claimed looked like the IF44 KT, other vehicles do look good, that's why i stated that CM was second to IF44 in looks.

IFL44 doesn't look that much better for most things--save some terrain/building details here and there (talking ground-level, here).

IF44 uses the ARMA 2 engine which IMO, gives the most natural lighting i have ever seen in a PC game, add to that good textures, and you have the best looking game in the business, and that's a view based on actually playing it.

Gameplay looks same-old-same-old in both. I'll take CM any day.

IF44 is an FPS, so it's gameplay is not comparable to CM, also gameplay is not the issue here.

Oh, and I actually dislike the WOT graphics in that they give off an "illustration" vibe, rather than going for a photo-look. -Makes it look even more like an arcade game.

My opening posts on this thread were saying that same thing.

Note: I'm basing my comments on being pretty close in. I play WEGO and tend to command from a fairly low level, with lots of replay viewing at ground level. Players who play from a high camera view obviously aren't going to experience the full "meat" of what CM has to offer graphically. I've noticed this with many YouTube vids. Some people don't seem to ever zoom beyond a general command overview.

I too play WEGO, and one only has to watch the linked video of the Pz II and the Pz IV's at 1:40 to see what CM can look like in certain situations, and as Phil said, it can only get better.

[noob]

Perhaps the KT is not the best vehicle model in the game to make comparisons with though. I doubt that any other game has better Tigers in them, especially after Aris has modded them. I only single out the Tiger because he's posted some cracking screenshots of his Tiger mod for CMFI.

I agree, some of the CM vehicles look good, and some look excellent, but the lighting of the CMx2 engine is not on a par with the lighting in the ARMA2 engine, so if two identical vehicles were viewed in both games, the IF44 vehicle would have the edge in looks IMO.

[Paper Tiger]

I know that, but that was the specific vehicle PT claimed looked like the IF44 KT, other vehicles do look good, that's why i stated that CM was second to IF44 in looks.

Well, my bad because my post wasn't clear. There's no doubt that the original screenshot doesn't look as good but I have (had ) much better ones and that was what I had in mind when I posted. The KT I see in the game is better than the one your screenshot shows.

[Paper Tiger]

I agree, some of the CM vehicles look good, and some look excellent, but the lighting of the CMx2 engine is not on a par with the lighting in the ARMA2 engine, so if two identical vehicles were viewed in both games, the IF44 vehicle would have the edge in looks IMO.

I haven't seen the new shaders in CMFI yet so I don't know if they've improved the look of the game or not. But, agreed, improvements to the lighting would bring out the beauty of the current set of models. The models themselves are beautiful. (Personal favourite was CMSF's Jackal)

I edited my post just to add this one screenshot that was taken while testing the Commonwealth module. This is a 100% untouched screenshot and I think it's not too shoddy.

[noob]

When you get the opportunity, i would love to see a screenshot of the CM KT you mention, the one that came with CW is below par by CM standards, as others have mentioned, and as i do not play QB's, i never use it, so has someone modded it ?

BTW, your screenshot of the Panther is excellent, but i still maintain that IF44 is the benchmark for looks, with CM a close second.

However if the vehicles in CM could look like this !

[noob]

Well, my bad because my post wasn't clear. There's no doubt that the original screenshot doesn't look as good but I have (had ) much better ones and that was what I had in mind when I posted. The KT I see in the game is better than the one your screenshot shows.

I should hope so, otherwise i would think you are either a troll, or on drugs, or both

[CanuckGamer]

Have you tried CMFI? If so, have you tried the improved shaders included in the hotfix? If not, would you mind giving it a run and see if shadows look a bit better?

Haven't tried CMFI yet as I understand that Arnhem will be out shortly and will include the upgrade to 2.0. I plan on getting Arnhem. Where do I get the hotfix with the improved shaders? Thanks.

[nik mond]

Another don't forget about the troops pic. CM has great detail in that regard and the animations now are much more natural.

[Paper Tiger]

noob

Okay your Panther pics beats my Panther pic hands down. Your other 'cat' picture is better IMO though. If only we could persuade them to take off their glasses so that we could see their eyes.