increasing the Level of detail

[HerrTom]

Yeah, telling someone they don't care or aren't doing their job (especially when they certainly are!) isn't going to win you any favours or trust.  I know if I read that directed at me my first thought is "what a jerk" and not "he's got a point."

14 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

Further, most feedback on bugs has been very polite and professional, and I think we have done a good job of responding and addressing these issues.

You guys are certainly polite and professional, though if I were to criticise one thing it might sometimes be transparency (in the loosest sense).  Call it a nice-to-have, though, knowing what are known bugs and are being looked at might help some of us focus what we chat about here?  I know it's a tall order for a small team, but some of the ire might come from having to search through a year or two of forum posts to find out if someone mentioned it.

16 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

A patch is being worked on as we speak that will fix these issues, and some other issues that were the result of very constructive feedback. 

Are you referring here to just the LOD bugs specifically or the render distance as well? Thanks!

[Kevin2k]

Just now, IICptMillerII said:

You’re wrong. And being antagonistic does not help anyone or anything, especially yourself. 
...

I am aware what I just wrote was negative feedback. But it is factual. And I made sure to add constructive advise. Maybe such advise was out place to a game developer. But honestly, from what I saw in CMCW v1.00 it seemed like someone should say it.

So I am wrong you say, because of "techno-wizardry you don't understand" Fine.   (do understand that answer leaves some doubts.)

I really want CM games, and especially CMCW, to be in the best state they possibly can. And I see the quality in the engine and in the missions and TO&E. And I appreciate that people put in personal effort to make CMCW happen, as you said you did, despite Battlefront working on other things as well.

 

 

[Thomm]

I have a feeling that my graphic card could handle rendering high-res ground textures at (far?) greater distances than it actually does, but since the user does not have any control about it, I cannot prove it.

Shrug.

Best regards,
Thomm

[IICptMillerII]

3 minutes ago, HerrTom said:

You guys are certainly polite and professional, though if I were to criticise one thing it might sometimes be transparency (in the loosest sense).  Call it a nice-to-have, though, knowing what are known bugs and are being looked at might help some of us focus what we chat about here?  I know it's a tall order for a small team, but some of the ire might come from having to search through a year or two of forum posts to find out if someone mentioned it.

Good point, duly noted!

3 minutes ago, HerrTom said:

Are you referring here to just the LOD bugs specifically or the render distance as well? Thanks!

Just the LOD bugs mentioned that are specific to CW, as well as other bugs specific to CW, like the QB TOE and others noted in the bug thread. The render distance is an engine limitation as far as I understand, so that has more to do with the engine than any specific title. For engine issues, all we can do is make requests/suggestions. Sometimes it works out, like getting DPICM in, and sometimes we get told no or not possible. 

 

[CaptainTheDark]

I think of the graphics implementation as a plus, for me, because I don't usually get to choose the computer I play games on. It's just whatever I had to use for work stuff, and isn't ever prioritized for 3D games. Usually a Mac. I was pleased to find I could load CMSF2 on my wife's little Dell convertible PC.

I do kinda wish I could have some of that fancy shader stuff I see the Windows users mentioning, but only because I love digital graphics. The game's fine as far as I'm concerned.

[IICptMillerII]

15 minutes ago, CaptainTheDark said:

I think of the graphics implementation as a plus, for me, because I don't usually get to choose the computer I play games on. It's just whatever I had to use for work stuff, and isn't ever prioritized for 3D games. Usually a Mac. I was pleased to find I could load CMSF2 on my wife's little Dell convertible PC.

I do kinda wish I could have some of that fancy shader stuff I see the Windows users mentioning, but only because I love digital graphics. The game's fine as far as I'm concerned.

Oh trust me, I would love to see graphical and optimization improvements for CM. It's just that for the most part it is completely out of the hands of the module/title developers. 

[Thewood1]

It should be pointed out that almost every 3D game I play has the LOD issue.  In some its more apparent than others.  Steel Beasts has it, but at the highest settings it almost goes away.  But at the highest settings, my old 1660 struggled.  MS Flight Simulator has raging arguments on its forums about tree and building LODs in multiple ongoing threads.  But some of the 3D games I play, while still having a few LOD issues, have found creative ways to hide it.

Back when CMSF was being worked on, there were discussions about BFC's choice of sticking with older OpenGL graphics libraries.  It was predicted by more than a few that these graphical and performance issues would eventually manifest themselves.  And they have.  But the issue is not unique to CM games.  Its just starker because of the graphical engine choice and that way the game was developed.  At one time, I used to dwell on it.  But at this point, I would rather BFC spend their time finally getting modules out for some of the orphaned games.

[Kevin2k]

2 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

It should be pointed out that almost every 3D game I play has the LOD issue.  In some its more apparent than others.  Steel Beasts has it, but at the highest settings it almost goes away.  But at the highest settings, my old 1660 struggled.  MS Flight Simulator has raging arguments on its forums about tree and building LODs in multiple ongoing threads.  But some of the 3D games I play, while still having a few LOD issues, have found creative ways to hide it.

Indeed. In flights sims it is even more relevant.

In games in general there are two kinds of Lower Detail Model issues:

1- The one where the transition to a lower detail of the 3D model, the switching, is too visible, or shows artifacts.

2- The one where 3D models are supplied without sufficient, or any, lower detail model variants: The model itself looks perfect all the time, but it drags the frame-rate of the engine down. Then people may complain about the engine, but it is actually such models giving the engine too many polygons to render, when unnecessary.

[Thomm]

Over the years I keep wondering how much more the terrain engine could have been optimized if the requirement for the terrain being deformable had been dropped.

Best regards,
Thomm

[Mord]

Well, Steve said that the Engine 5 upgrade was going to focus on performance issues so here's hoping something can be done about performance.

 

Mord.

[dbsapp]

Was googling possible solution for the issue of LOD and disappearing trees and found this thread.

Sad that there is no mod\magic trick to fix it. It spoils the overall impression indeed.

[chuckdyke]

If you work with pixels, it eats data if you work with vectors, it doesn't. But than it looks like a cartoon. Do we need cinematic quality in our animations? 

[Bulletpoint]

On 5/5/2021 at 7:11 PM, HerrTom said:

I would think it really hasn't been an issue until we started getting these (awesome) big maps in CM:CW.

Lots of other big maps in the other titles too though. Blur and lack of detail has been a constant issue with these games since I started playing about 8 years ago. Lots of posts about it too. It's not something that started with CMCW.

[domfluff]

It's not a CMCW thing, but it'll be a lot more apparent there because the maps tend to be larger, and also full of trees, which are the most obvious symptom.

[Bulletpoint]

5 hours ago, domfluff said:

It's not a CMCW thing, but it'll be a lot more apparent there because the maps tend to be larger, and also full of trees, which are the most obvious symptom.

I don't have CMCW, but I see many huge maps full of trees in CMFB.

[mbarbaric]

38 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I don't have CMCW, but I see many huge maps full of trees in CMFB.

i only have 2WW titles and the difference is staggering.

[dbsapp]

Are you sure that there is no simple solution? 

I guess it's only a matter of chaging some .ini file from "lod=1000" to "lod=3000" 

The truth is out there

Edited June 7, 2021 by dbsapp

[marais]

The last information to go away, as the game strips out detail, is the color of the ground. I've appreciated maps where the designer used ground color not just to represent terrain naturalistically, but as a signal to the player. I'll tend to line edges of wooded areas with light or heavy forest; to mark breaks in fences and walls with gravel or red earth; to use brown grass on high elevations and green grass on low.