Frost, mud and the Bulge

[Heirloom_Tomato]

Currently in game we have changing ground conditions based on rain, ie a damp battle field will become wet after certain amount of time has passed if it is raining.  I am wondering if the same will hold true for frost in the upcoming Bulge game. To be specific, will ground that is frozen and hard at 8 am gradually become soft and muddy at around 10 am as the sun warms up the ground?

 

This is something we count on happening in the late fall and early spring.  We farm some wet ground and just about every year we have a major rain storm in the fall and the ground becomes very wet and impossible to work or to harvest.  So we wait for the days when we get a good hard freeze over night and then head out to those fields early in the morning and work there until late morning and the frost is coming out of the ground and the fields become impassable again.  In the early spring, we use the early morning frost to help carry our equipment as we try and frost seed spring grains or to underseed clover into winter wheat.  There is usually a couple of hours each morning where the ground can carry the heavy farm equipment without making too many tracks.   As the sun warms up the ground we need to stop or risk making a mess. In the span of an hour, the ground conditions can go from leaving a light track to making deep ruts.

 

Given that the Bulge title is supposed to cover the war from October through to the end of the war, this is a weather feature the battalion commanders on the ground would have encountered.  I would expect to see many maps in the Bulge title loaded with muddy sections and areas of maps impassible to tanks.  As much as I don't like having my tanks get bogged down, I expect to see it happen with far greater frequency in the Bulge game. The tactical challenges of facing thawing ground will certainly be interesting.

[womble]

That seems like it would be a lovely touch: get where you're going before the mud comes and you sink in... It works the other way at night, too, as the ground refreezes.

[umlaut]

I agree this would be nice (especially if we could have changing weather conditions), but my guess is that BFC would reply something along these lines:

 

The timespan of a normal CM game is generally too short to allow for weather changes. We don´t have rain showers or snow flurries beginning or ending during a CM battle either. It could surely be done, but we would rather spend our limited coding resources on game features that we consider more important.

[kohlenklau]

Good proposal Matt!

But Dennis is probably on the money with what BFC will reply.

Edited July 14, 2015 by kohlenklau

[Sublime]

on the other hand as it rains during missions the ground does get progressively muddier

[umlaut]

on the other hand as it rains during missions the ground does get progressively muddier

 

Are you sure about that?

[kohlenklau]

Somebody test it. <at work or I would test it>

[RockinHarry]

As related feature I could imagine changing appearance of object and terrain textures in wet weather conditions. Soaked uniforms, earth and brickworks appear of darker color. Some smooth surfaces become shiny. Some water puddles here and there support the impression. An alternate texure set would do generally (or mod tagging as workaround), but maybe a different shader setting would do even better? Is the *.frag and *.vert files moddable btw?

[mjkerner]

on the other hand as it rains during missions the ground does get progressively muddier

 

 

Somebody test it. <at work or I would test it>

 

I recall reading that a long time ago, I believe in the CMBN Manual, but maybe on here.  Either way, I've always operated on that assumption, and (without testing it) it appears to be the case.  In a longer battle, say after maybe 45 min/hour, bogging and immobilization seem to start happening more. 

[mjkerner]

PS, Hey Jeff.  Hope all is well.

[womble]

As related feature I could imagine changing appearance of object and terrain textures in wet weather conditions. Soaked uniforms, earth and brickworks appear of darker color. Some smooth surfaces become shiny. Some water puddles here and there support the impression. An alternate texure set would do generally (or mod tagging as workaround), but maybe a different shader setting would do even better? Is the *.frag and *.vert files moddable btw?

Pretty sure that's beyond the capacity of the engine as-is. Can't even dynamically add a grid onto the surface. Though it would indeed be cool.

 

I reckon the progressive degeneration of thawing ground from "hard going" to "quagmire" is within the capabilities claimed by the engine: it's the same in principle as the degeneration due to rainfall, which I'm sure someone tested and found was a real phenomenon.

[A Canadian Cat]

This is something we count on happening in the late fall and early spring.  We farm some wet ground and just about every year we have a major rain storm in the fall and the ground becomes very wet and impossible to work or to harvest.  So we wait for the days when we get a good hard freeze over night and then head out to those fields early in the morning and work there until late morning and the frost is coming out of the ground and the fields become impassable again

 

Cool I did not realize your forum name was sooo significant.  Nice, mud and frost grog.

[Mord]

Are you sure about that?

 

Positive. I tested it out a long time ago. The ground condition heading went from dry to damp to mud if I recall correctly. Took about an hour with heavy rain.

 

Here's a question; Will we see ice? I think frozen water would be very pertinent to the setting.

 

 

Mord.

[Heirloom_Tomato]

I have to disagree that this is outside of the scope of a regular CM battle.  In real life, on the farm, in my fields, I can go from working ground at 0900 to being parked in the yard by 1100. Is a two hour battle really outside the timelines of CM?

 

A real life example: 

 

This fall we had a significant amount of rain and I was unable to work ground at my parents farm.  We waited until late November when we finally had an evening with temperatures dropping to -6C overnight.  In the morning I was able to start chisel ploughing at 0700 as the sun was coming up.  By 0900 the temperature had risen to +2C and the sun was shining brightly.  The top of the ground was starting to get slick but still held the tractor up without issue.  By 0930 the tractor was beginning to leave a small track and the wheels were wet. By 1000, mud was starting to stick to the tires but the tractor was still able to drive without leaving too big of ruts. By 1030, the back window was covered in mud, the tractor was struggling to pull the chisel plow and at times I had to lift it completely out of the ground to keep moving. After the third time of lifting the plough out of the ground to be able to keep driving, I called it quits for the day.

 

So even if we take the entire timeline into account, it is 4 hours or the maximum amount of time available for a CM battle. At the start of the battle the risk of bogging would be quite low but as the battle rages on the risk would rise rather rapidly. Now I know there are not many 4 hour battles but a battle fought anywhere in this timeframe will see the ground conditions changing and there will be an impact on how vehicles are able to travel.

[benpark]

As related feature I could imagine changing appearance of object and terrain textures in wet weather conditions. Soaked uniforms, earth and brickworks appear of darker color. Some smooth surfaces become shiny. Some water puddles here and there support the impression. An alternate texure set would do generally (or mod tagging as workaround), but maybe a different shader setting would do even better? Is the *.frag and *.vert files moddable btw?

 

I did a few tests tagged as "Rain" when Mod Tags were first added. I only tested the infantry uniforms to make them appear variably wet/soaked. It added greatly to the atmospherics. Someday I may get to finish the mod, but I seem to constantly be in a time-crunch.

 

As far as vehicles go, there is no way to change the specular effects in the model itself, but I suspect there could be a fair number of texturing methods to achieve something convincing for a "Rain" Mod Tag,

[Mord]

There is a dedicated mud tag already in the game that appears anytime the ground conditions are muddy. Would be interesting to see if the vehicles switched over from vanilla textures to mud tagged textures when the ground changes as in my example above.

 

 

Mord.

[womble]

I did a few tests tagged as "Rain" when Mod Tags were first added. I only tested the infantry uniforms to make them appear variably wet/soaked. It added greatly to the atmospherics. Someday I may get to finish the mod, but I seem to constantly be in a time-crunch.

 

As far as vehicles go, there is no way to change the specular effects in the model itself, but I suspect there could be a fair number of texturing methods to achieve something convincing for a "Rain" Mod Tag,

To be clear, though, those textures can't be dynamically changed over the course of the game, can they? As a tagged mod, the scenario as a whole would have to be tagged "Rain" too, and the texture differences would apply for the whole duration.

[rocketman]

Positive. I tested it out a long time ago. The ground condition heading went from dry to damp to mud if I recall correctly. Took about an hour with heavy rain.

 

Here's a question; Will we see ice? I think frozen water would be very pertinent to the setting.

 

 

Mord.

I hope we see ice, as well as really icy roads. Several accounts of Shermans, with their narrow tracks, actually sliding off the roads.

[umlaut]

Positive. I tested it out a long time ago. The ground condition heading went from dry to damp to mud if I recall correctly. Took about an hour with heavy rain.

 

 

Wow. Never knew that, I always thought the game was "static" that way. Great to know.

 

I have to disagree that this is outside of the scope of a regular CM battle.  In real life, on the farm, in my fields, I can go from working ground at 0900 to being parked in the yard by 1100. Is a two hour battle really outside the timelines of CM?

 

No, it isn´t outside the scope - I don´t disagree with you at all. My - erroneus - answer was based on the belief that nothing similar to this was already modelled in the game. Since it already is, we could hope that the next step wouldnt be that difficult for BFC to take.

 

 

There is a dedicated mud tag already in the game that appears anytime the ground conditions are muddy. Would be interesting to see if the vehicles switched over from vanilla textures to mud tagged textures when the ground changes as in my example above.

 

 

That would be really cool, wouldn´t it? Somebody test - or sumfink!

Edited July 15, 2015 by umlaut

[RockinHarry]

Current dynamic change of ground condition attributes works quite ok IMO. What lacks as said is dynamic visual changes, or at least another preset that supports different looks in rainy/wet weather. What already works in the game, is change of shader settings during game play (Movie lighting Alt-M and Artificially bright night Alt - B ). Maybe the use of additional shaders and switches does the purpose better than (pre-) loading hundred MB´s of altered terrain and object texture sets?

Edited July 15, 2015 by RockinHarry

[Sublime]

hey mark hope all is well.

yes im certain as the battle progresses the ground condition gets muddier

hows sgt saunders? i was watching old combat episodes the other day made me think of u and yours

Edited July 15, 2015 by Sublime

[Battlefront.com]

Just chiming in a bit.

The engine is not capable of dynamic weather. If it's raining at the beginning of the scenario it will be raining until the scenario ends. Ground conditions, can change from the simulation side of things in limited ways. Such as ground getting soggier as time goes on.

There is no ability to change the graphics dynamically. That runs into major issues with loading and unloading textures in/out of RAM. Huge potential for performance issues. We're not touching that one with a 10 foot pole.

As to Tomato's point, it's a valid one. Around where I am there's a lot of logging and in the spring it either happens very early in the morning (i.e. while dark and just after dawn) or it doesn't happen at all because the ground turns to snow soup. If you've ever tried to drive a vehicle or walk in 1m deep snow with the top 10cm melting, you'd know what I mean. Tracked vehicles don't do much better either as they tend to "belly".

Now, can we do this for Bulge? I don't know, but I have inquired!

Steve

[Heirloom_Tomato]

Thanks for responding Steve. I hope it is a simple addition to the game.

 

I was going to ask about dynamic weather as well but you have already answered that one!

 

Matt

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, I really would like to have dynamic weather... but hardware restrictions have conspired against us! At least in the graphics area.

Steve