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New Fire! Comments?


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Guest PeterNZ

Might be one of those things we really need to see moving and doing before can judge. I kinda liked it, had more 'volume'

PeterNZ

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Agreed, i'll have to see it churn and hear it crackle before i give it the big thumb up.

In the meantime i like what i see in the POTD.

If you compare the two burning buildings up front you'll notice the building on the right has flames sprouting out much higher then the one on the left. Does that mean the one on the right has been on fire longer ? Or do flames sprout out at random locations (as fire tends to do)?

Back in Feb I listed three things which could raise the acceptance of non/semi wargamers if CM came out:

1 better smoke

2 better fire

3 nicer textures

It seems that BTS is raking up the score, good work guys biggrin.gif.

Grtz S Bakker

PS: on the nicer textures bit, it would be nice if some AFV's had more of an 'battlefield look' for example a Sherman with sandbags on the glacies and tracks and spare roadwheels on the turret. It seems most AFV's from CM have that 'fresh from the factory look'. Minor point redface.gif

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Guest Madmatt

Let me make some quick comments about the fire. To my knowledge, the fire does not 'grow' as such in buildings, it justs seems to be 'bigger' fire for big (multilevel) buidlings, and a smaller amount for the single floor structures. What I like, although its VERY hard to make it out in the POTD, is that fire actually 'archs' out of some of the buildings and is not just 'painted' on the sides.

The terrain fire looks very cool but I will have to have a dedicated picture of just it soon. In my POTD the focus was much more on the buidling fires (and the Wirblewind!) and the terrain fire was somewhat obscured by the smoke and all. It does really give a sense that the area is a blazing inferno and I espically like how the pattern (refered to some as a star) does appear to be random with each fire segment being a differing size. The result is it looks like no two terrain fires tiles ever looks quite the same. I will be testing this extensively this week and report back what I find.

Madmatt

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If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 03-27-2000).]

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Guest Big Time Software

Fire and smoke are the two hardest things to simulate graphically. They are chaotic "organic" elements and that means lots of polygons, quite a bit of programming, and noticable hits to the CPU. While the new fire looks better than the old, it still looks artificial. It probably always will too.

Check out video of fires (like on the news when a house burns down), and you will see that its very shape changes milisecond by milisecond. It "mass" is not organized and also changes milisecond by milisecond. And until that is done in the computer it will never look "realistic", yet to come up with the code to make this happen... oh boy! And don't even get me started on framerate issues smile.gif

As for building details, there have been no functional changes in about a year. We have changed the textures and tweaked the look of some of the models, but nothing beyond that. What Matt was talking about are tweaks to the way fire graphically works when in a building.

Steve

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I think the textures and the "tweaked" look are the improved details that SS_Panzer is referring to. I noticed them too, much better "European" feel - I especially like the shutter hanging askew (sp?) on one of the one story buildings - sort of reminds me of my place redface.gif

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Since Fionn never had the chance too show us howe flametrowers work in the alphabattle smile.gif

Can you preflame a terrain/building to stop enemy units from entering or will units ignore flames and walk right trough ala CC ?

Björn Elfström

ohhh and by the way i have knead together a homepage with a CM section. Very much under Construction so far..... http://www.ite.mh.se/~elfbj97

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Guest Madmatt

Bamse let me answer that question with one of my own. Do you see any enemy in that picture? No? Thats right! I just went ahead and decided to flame those buidlings and the terrain. So 'pre-flaming' CAN be utilized as a tactic.

As to how units react to flame..Errr... they don't take to it so much! wink.gif Something about the human body being flammable. Seriously, units will NOT run through fire and I have even noticed flame capable units being a little reluctant to flame a target that is too close themselves. The times I have seen and used flamethrowers in battles, the units being flamed tend to run pretty darn fast OUT of the way once the ground goes up.

Now getting the flamethrower INTO the fight in one peice is the real hard part. biggrin.gif

Madmatt

------------------

If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

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I've noticed new roof top texture. While it looks nicer, its very realitsic, most houses in Europe have Tiles not shingles

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CCJ

aka BLITZ_Force

My Hompage ----> http://www.geocities.com/coolcolj

Double your immersion with my Tweaked Textures and Saving Private Ryan sound set mods for CM!! Check out my new Textures V2.0 photo Gallery and my music while your there, or grab a CM Wallpaper! :P

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Guest Big Time Software

Lee, there is no "low" option for fire. The reason we have it for smoke is because smoke is transparent in "high" mode. Due to CPU hits and horribly buggy drivers being common place, we had to offer a low version.

Fire shouldn't be all too common in most scenarios. It will happen probably one or two times in the average scenario, and that isn't enough to really hurt the CPU.

Steve

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I hope graphics are not being sacraficed so CM can be played on my old grandpa's 486.

Games drive the hardware industry!

If we want good graphical games, people got to fork out the bucs for the hardware, it's that simple.

BTS, hit my CPU all you want to. If it can't take the heat, I upgrade til it does.

The gamers holding out on old ass hardware shouldn't be driving this train!

------------------

Better to make the wrong decision than be the sorry son of a bitch to scared to make one at all

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I was just curious if there would be two versions. Don't worry

DEF, I'm sure my new 1100 mghz Athlon system I'll be getting soon

will handle anything CM can throw at it just fine. wink.gif I'm all for

great looking graphics, it's just nice to have an option to turn

some graphical options down to suit slower machines. smile.gif That

won't stop you from cranking up the resolution and turing on

transparent smoke if you want. smile.gif

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lee:

Don't worry DEF, I'm sure my new 1100 mghz Athlon system I'll be getting soon

will handle anything CM can throw at it just fine.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hehe... now THAT'S keeping up with the industry!

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Better to make the wrong decision than be the sorry son of a bitch to scared to make one at all

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Hell, I test CM on a 333 Mhz AMD. You all are making me feel ancient.

It's gonna be a while before I can upgrade too (probably nearer the end of the year than the beginning ;( ). Anyone want to help a beta tester out ? wink.gif

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Qoute Fionn:

____________________________

It's gonna be a while before I can upgrade too (probably nearer the end of the year than the beginning ;( ). Anyone want to help a beta tester out ?

_______________________

Hmmm .... meet me at the docks tonight and i'll swap you mine 500mhz system for the latest build of CM wink.gif.

Oh, and did i mention i was sorry ? WOMB*squish*.

Grtz S Bakker.

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