night time visability

[nathan]

just wondering how come fire doesnt put out any light. if a unit is next to a burning building or another burning unit it should be as visible as in the daytime. is this too hard to model or am i just missing it in the game.

thanks

[Dirtweasle]

Fire does not improve vision in CM, and actually the opposite is true. A burning smoking thing blocks LOS.

[Mannheim Tanker]

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

just wondering how come fire doesnt put out any light. if a unit is next to a burning building or another burning unit it should be as visible as in the daytime. is this too hard to model or am i just missing it in the game.

thanks<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A search on "Dynamic Lighting" should fill you in on all the details. In a nutshell (going from my swiss cheese memory here), it's too much of a hit on the hardware, and requires a super fancy graphics card. Therefore the hardware requirements needed to do this were deemed too steep by BTS.

[Pak40]

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

Fire does not improve vision in CM, and actually the opposite is true. A burning smoking thing blocks LOS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Uhh, the bulk of the smoke travels upward and the ground is relatively clear, maybe a little hazy, but clear enough to see that the entire area is lit up around the burning object.

[CMplayer]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mannheim Tanker:

A search on "Dynamic Lighting" should fill you in on all the details. In a nutshell (going from my swiss cheese memory here), it's too much of a hit on the hardware, and requires a super fancy graphics card. Therefore the hardware requirements needed to do this were deemed too steep by BTS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It wouldn't be necessary to use dynamic

lighting to implement this idea. Just

greatly increase the spotability of

units within x meters of a fire at night.

--Rett

[Tero]

On a related note:

Why is direct fire not allowed beyond LOS even if it would be physically possible ?

I am currently engaged in a night/heavy fog PBEM and the LOS is down to 20+ meters.

Is this yet another relative vs absolute spotting issue ?

[Andreas]

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

On a related note:

Why is direct fire not allowed beyond LOS even if it would be physically possible ?

I am currently engaged in a night/heavy fog PBEM and the LOS is down to 20+ meters.

Is this yet another relative vs absolute spotting issue ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IIRC - yes.

[imported_argie]

As much as I like night battles, there are some serious limitations in CMBO. The lack of dynamic light is one of them. It does not need to be done graphicly, as it has been said, would put a heavy load on the cpu. But I would like to see it implemented within the spotting routines.

An example: Say that the los is 50m at a night battle. You can have the bissare occasion where a inf unit and a tank are 55m from each other. The tank fires its gun, using area fire, right in front of the inf unit. But due to the limitations in the current engine, the inf unit won't see the tank, despite the muzzle flash, (that I imagine would be easy to spot for 55m range, heh).

This might be an extreme example, but it can be extended to mg's, etc, firing just outside los, and where one would suspect that they would reveal their approx position in RL. One solution would be to let the players use area target in the close proximity to where they spotted the muzzle flash. But then I am not a programmer.

But there are also so other strange things going on in night battles. I have had a couple of strange incidents with friendly fire. It seems to be too effective some times. Example: I had a german 81mm mortar unit surrounded in a small house. I had three squads positioned on three sides of the house, and approached with one of them. When I was 10m from the house, the approaching squad was cut down in half. But the "funny" thing was that it was the only squad firing, as it shot at the german unit. The two others where hiding and had no target lines, either to the german unit or the friendly squad. The mortar unit cannot use their pistols unless they abandon the mortar, (which they did the following turn). And there were no other german troops within 200m. So my conclusion is that there may be a bug where friendly fire effects the firing unit, and that this was an extreme example of it.

As far as I can reccal, BTS has not mentioned any changes in how night battles are done. So we will probably have to live with this until the engine rewrite. And I can probably do that as CMBB is not too far away.

Mattias

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: DrAlimantado ]

[Jeff Heidman]

Nighttime fighting in CM1 is definitely not very convincing.

To do it correctly, either graphically or just logically, will take some considerable work. There are a LOT of issues to address. Sound, muzzle flashes, flares (of varying type), shadows, friendly fire, jitter fire, silhouettes, lighting sources and directions, searchlights, etc., etc.

Hopefully this will get a full measure of attention in CM2 when they re-write the engine.

Jeff Heidman

[Leftwing66]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Hopefully this will get a full measure of attention in CM2 when they re-write the engine.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It seems to me that I have read several remarks by Charles to the effect that CM2 (CMBB) is NOT an engine rewrite, that will have to wait for CM3.

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Leftwing66:

It seems to me that I have read several remarks by Charles to the effect that CM2 (CMBB) is NOT an engine rewrite, that will have to wait for CM3.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can never remember whether CMBB is CM2 or CMII.

In any case, you are correct, CMBB will not have the engine re-write.

Jeff Heidman

[Dirtweasle]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pak40:

Uhh, the bulk of the smoke travels upward and the ground is relatively clear, maybe a little hazy, but clear enough to see that the entire area is lit up around the burning object.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In CM you cannot see through a burning vehicle. So if the burning vehicle is between the LOS, it is blocked.