Do they have x-ray glasses?

[Scipio]

I wonder why a tank/wreck don't block LOS, and why can a tank/wreck not used for cover?

Will this be changed in CMBO?

[Schrullenhaft]

It's called 'dynamic LOS' and it is far too costly in terms of the number of calculations and the subsequent hit in game speed to put into CMBO or CMBB/CM2. The 3D model for CM has to change in order to use this in an accurate manner. Many objects in CM (to my understanding) are not defined in a very exact manner - i.e. they don't have exact measurements as to their height, width, etc. This is primarily true of vehicles/AFVs. This would have to change in order to utilize dynamic LOS.

Maybe CMII will have dynamic LOS, but I think it is something that will more likely be considered for the generation of engines after CMII (uh... CMIII ?). This in combination with Relative Spotting would be quite a bit of work (and require quite a bit of horsepower from the CPU).

[ 08-31-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]

[Scipio]

Mmmh - I sometimes think the 3D engine of CM isn't so high end as the gameplay of CM. If I compare it with other games which displayes much more details and 3D objects... I can play most 3D games with full details smooth in 1600x1200x32, while I still have small problems in CM at 1200x1024x32 and below.

Maybe it's because CM was originally written for Macs?

[109 Gustav]

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

Maybe it's because CM was originally written for Macs?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good way to touch off a flame war, but I doubt that's the case. I think the real reason was because CM displays more polygons on the screen at a time than most 3D shooters do. Can anyone confirm or elaborate on this?

[Diceman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 109 Gustav:

Good way to touch off a flame war, but I doubt that's the case. I think the real reason was because CM displays more polygons on the screen at a time than most 3D shooters do. Can anyone confirm or elaborate on this?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's the official line, and going by how slow the frame rates can get on my machine with a realy large map with lots of smoke, I believe it. CM can simulate truely huge environments, and that requires a tremendous amount of polygons.

[russellmz]

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/013585-2.html

Just to make things official...

Do check out the Method 1, Method 2 bits. They are the most detailed answers available on this subject from us. The upshot is that no vehicle blocks LOS *or* LOF. Pillboxes and bunkers are in fact vehicles as far as the code is concerned.

And yes, this is a limitation of the system. Untill we have CPUs that are disgustingly fast (i.e. a 1MHz chip can dream on!) this is the way it will remain for the most part. We might be able to tweak out a couple of the side effects, but not until we rewrite the game engine. Processors will certainly be much faster when we do that so another look will be taken at fixing this shortcoming.

The Porche turreted Tiger II (there were only 50 made) is indeed simulated. The graphical model might look like a standard Tiger II, but the underlying data is of the earlier model. We just didn't have time to make a seperate model for this rather rare vehicle.

Thanks,

Steve

[Ben Galanti]

Just a quick note. The speed problem with having vehicles block LOS would not be in displaying the movies, it would be in generating them. So screen resolution and what not wouldn't affect it. It would just take forever for the computer to compute each turn.

Ben

[Scipio]

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

That's the official line, and going by how slow the frame rates can get on my machine with a realy large map with lots of smoke, I believe it. CM can simulate truely huge environments, and that requires a tremendous amount of polygons.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure if it can be compared, but - if I take a look Operation Flashpoint with similar (and gigantic) maps/landscape, more detailed buildings, also lot's of units running around...and it's running mutch better on my machine at the same graphic settings as CM. Even if I only play a very small scenario. And CM displays 'only' a precalculated movie, not a real time action.

[Incredible Microbe]

Sometimes I ask myself, why tanks can shoot through houses... f.e. when a tank moves behind a house, and in the meanwhile a enemy tank fires a shot, my tank can still be hit, even when he is behind the building in the meantime. This is a lack of realism that i can't understand, because a house doesnt need a dynamic LOS, or???

[Andreas]

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

I'm not sure if it can be compared, but - if I take a look Operation Flashpoint with similar (and gigantic) maps/landscape, more detailed buildings, also lot's of units running around...and it's running mutch better on my machine at the same graphic settings as CM. Even if I only play a very small scenario. And CM displays 'only' a precalculated movie, not a real time action.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So what does Ops Flash do under the hood? Damage model, Tac AI, all that stuff?

Well, just checked out the (p)review at Gamespot... Seems it has a non-locational armour model, so that will make things easier, and funnily enough as soon as you get into an overview perspective on the screenshots you have fog in the background. Hmm, I wonder why that is... Could it be that they would not be able to portray the whole map? Nah, not possible - it must be able to sing and dance as well, since it was not programmed on a Mac.

'Similar maps/landscape' uh, not the ones in the screenshots, sorry. CMBO maps are more detailed than that, much more. Also, what is maximum size you can go in Operation Flashpoint regarding units?

Bad graphics because it is programmed on a Mac - that is a classic.

[tecumseh]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ben Galanti:

The speed problem with having vehicles block LOS would not be in displaying the movies, it would be in generating them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And in the orders phase. When targeting or using the LOS tool every vehicle's dynamic location would have to be considered. i think maybe this is where the real problem is.

[Scipio]

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

So what does Ops Flash do under the hood? ... Seems it has a non-locational armour model, so that will make things easier, and funnily enough as soon as you get into an overview perspective on the screenshots you have fog in the background. Hmm, I wonder why that is... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Under the hood, OpFla has the base grid for the hole landscape in system memory. And that the landscape disappears in 'fog' make it very realistic. When I setup a QB, I have no infos about the enemy nor the map when I purchase, but then I have full visible, detailed map that can be explored from one end to the other! That's so realistic!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Damage model, Tac AI, all that stuff?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Indeed is CM much better in damage model, and the TacAI can't be compared for some resons. But all the calculations are made independent from the 'movie'. So that should have absolutly no influence on the graphics.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> 'Similar maps/landscape' uh, not the ones in the screenshots, sorry. CMBO maps are more detailed than that, much more. Also, what is maximum size you can go in Operation Flashpoint regarding units?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I propose that you don't assess OpFla with screenshots. The CM screenshots wer absoluty deterrent for me, it takes some weeks til I was willing to download the demo. You have very much units running around, and they look much more realistic. So please don't come up with the number of poligons.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Bad graphics because it is programmed on a Mac - that is a classic.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who said that? I meant the 3D engine was originally programed on a Mac - or is this wrong? And the CM 3D engine is not the best in the world.

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: Scipio ]

[Scipio]

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

And in the orders phase. When targeting or using the LOS tool every vehicle's dynamic location would have to be considered. i think maybe this is where the real problem is.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, I agree. But that don't make it better - in the order phase we have no moving units. So once calculated, the position of the vehicel is 'fixed'. And especially a wreck is a fixed object.

And I want to say, we don't talk about something that once maybe could have happen in the war. It was a common pratice that infantry approach behind the tank.

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: Scipio ]

[Andreas]

Whether that is realistic or not is debatable, I for one don't think so, but YMMV - having a fog cut-off point to visibility certainly helps making the game display faster though. Does that have LOS implications?

Also, what are the system minimum requirements for Op Flashpoint? I can't find them on their website, they are either not there or damn well hidden.

CMBO can run on an iMac A, w/2MB graphics card. It ain't pwetty, but it runs. I ran it on a 4MB card with no problems, and now fully modded on an 8MB card. I notice that the Normandy mod seems to slow things down on the very detailed maps (which are a lot more detailed then anything I saw in the screenshots, BTW). Can't test it myself, don't even know if it is available for the Mac, have a 31.2k connection, and am simply not interested.

[The Commissar]

Scipio,

Say this with me:

1)OP Flash is an Action Game

2) CMBO is a wargame

Two very different things. How different, you ask?

Well, Germanboy already brought to light some of the features that distinguish the two.

You said that the fog is realistic. Uh, not unless the whole game takes place on the outskirts of London.

You said that there were "very many units on the map" in Flashpoint. No, sorry. I played the demo quite a bit, and at any one time, I believe the maximum for smooth PC rates was a company. Only about 30 people. Double that for an enemy company.

AFV's are total crap, and part of the reason I did not buy the whole game.

Now, another difference is that in CMBO, I can zoom out and view the whole map, with all the hundreds of units, at one time. In Op F, I am always restricted to a view right in front of me, or slighty more in a 3rd person POV. Thus, at any one time, CMBO has a hundred times more polygons displayed then Flashpoint.

I don't think the Mac is to blame. As far as I know, Macs are the choice for prgrammers and designers. The blame is that of current machines and the time you can allocate to programming such quirks as dynamic LOS, with only 2 programmers in your whole design team.

I hope we're all clear now.

*Edited for spelling*

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: The Commissar ]

[Schrullenhaft]

Incredible Microbe - the edges of buildings can be 'seen through' which was intentionally programmed to simulate windows and other things. The intention was to make cover a bit inexact.

One current problem with CM's WEGO architecture is that LOS is calculated at the start of the turn. So if you have two AFVs with LOS/LOF to each other, and one is going to take a shot at the other, the LOS/LOF is calculated at the beginning of the turn; if either vehicle moves behind cover (typically the targetted vehicle) it can still be hit despite the LOS/LOF being blocked by the time the shot actually occurs. There was a huge thread about this last year I believe. CMBB/CM2 may try to alleviate this effect a bit, but it may still occur.

Scipio -

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Yes, I agree. But that don't make it better - in the order phase we have no moving units. So once calculated, the position of the vehicel is 'fixed'. And especially a wreck is a fixed object.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know how hard it is for an object to 'change' into something else in the code for CM. An AFV would go from being a unit to a piece of terrain in order to become part of CM's LOS model. The engine rewrite (CMII) will be the only way of addressing this, especially with a change in the 'granularity' of the terrain (5m x 5m or 10m x 10m tiles instead of the current 20m x 20m) which would make converting an AFV from a unit to a piece of terrain for cover a little more realistic in its effect (hiding behind an AFV won't be the same as hiding in a full building which would be the effect with the current engine).

You also should remember that BTS has only one programmer (Charles) and that the groundwork and initial programming for CMBO occured almost four years ago. While it was originally programmed on a Mac (with the QuickDraw RAVE API for the 3D battlefield) it was meticulously ported over to the PC in DirectX (which has seen quite a few changes in that time frame too). A task that many programming teams rarely attempt in today's market.

I personally haven't played Op Flashpoint myself, so I can't relate any first-hand experience with it. As other people have pointed out this game will have its limitations too. The graphics are the primary concern (as it is with a majority of today's games, regardless of genre) and therefore most of the routines and CPU horsepower are geared towards the display (which does look nice). I suspect that there isn't a whole lot of physics calculations going on under the surface of the game - just routines geared towards the graphical display (which are the attention getters in games). In my opinion the game has the appearance of an extrapolated FPS where you can control a number of units. That number will be very limited in comparison to CM and will probably remain that way for playability purposes and quite possibly due to limitations with the game engine.

Anyway, CM would have to change its level of scope and type of play to be directly comparable to Op Flashpoint. I'm sure many CM players would love to have some of the graphical detail and interaction that Op Flashpoint offers, however that would involve sacrafices some details and capabilities that CM offers instead.

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]