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Armchair General interview: CMSF, Dropteam and... oh my!


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Hi Guys! A few very quick answers...

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

About the graphics ... guess those are renders at the moment, not in-game.

Somehow I cannot believe the slat armor will cast shadows on itself in the real game

Hi Thomm! Yup, these are still renders...Chalres is still working on the engine but we have tied down the 3D side of things to a point where I can start making the models and getting them in game. Actually the slat armor does cast shadows onto itself at the moment but there are some limiting factors with even current 3D graphics cards and shadow mapping that may cause problems here (self shadowing that is), more so with ATI cards, so we are testing this some more.

Originally posted by MikeyD:

They nailed that Slat cage EXACTLY!

And thanks again for the diagrams Mikey, they were a great basis to work from!

Originally posted by John Kettler:

think the renderings are too shiny and clean. As the Brits say, they seem to have most of their shop varnish still.

*kick* ;) Seriously dont worry about this stuff until you see in game shots John, Im just sticking all these items in the same scene with the same lighting at the moment to save time.

Originally posted by LtCol West:

It looks like the game is coming along great and it is a huge leap forward from CM.

Actually I had the gear on there but had to take it off as we were in a rush for these and they were giving me a problem...hopefully in game most vechiles should have varying degrees of geared stored on them smile.gif

Originally posted by First Sergeant:

Is tan the correct colour? I thought they all had a greenish tinge as in the photo Ltcol West posted.

I cant see the image above at the moment but colour should be just about spot on as I was able to pixel match it to photos from Iraq. The vehicle above is definately more tan than what youd except to see, but Im pretty sure that this is becuase of the sunlight in that render was later in the afternoon and had a yellow tinge to it and thus giving the entire scene a more warm feel to it.

Dan

[ July 18, 2006, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

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Originally posted by KwazyDog:

The vehicle above is definately more tan than what youd except to see, but Im pretty sure that this is becuase of the sunlight in that render was later in the afternoon and had a yellow tinge to it and thus giving the entire scene a more warm feel to it.

When you combine that statement with what was said months ago about CMxII being "astronomically correct", that's an interesting bit of news.

Michael

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Also guys, Dan is being modest. The texture set on the Stryker is basically a "first pass" smile.gif

I can confirm what Dan said about the slat armor shadows in the game itself. I've got a [deletes unkind words before posting] ATI card. There are some inherent problems with the ATI shadowing that are presenting us problems right now. On non-ATI cards they look beautiful, but right now on ATI cards they are "jittery". Charles is going to fiddle with some settings, but he's not all that confident that they will do much. Kinda like fiddling with the amount of water in a gin and tonic. There shouldn't be ANY water in there, so the fact that there is water in there kinda limits the quality of the end product.

Steve

P.S. I tried an analogy that doesn't involve cars or beer. Not sure it worked, but at least I am trying to broaden my horizons tongue.gif

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Originally posted by Loki:

I have to say the screen shots look amazing. They look so good I am worried if my system will be able to handle it. :(

What are the system requirements looking like? What card did you use for those shots? I want one. smile.gif

Loki as I mentioned above these are renders at the moment, out of our 3D modelling software. in game shots will be coming in the not too distant future with a little luck smile.gif

Dan

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Kwazydog,

Point taken! Was merely trying to improve on your stunning work. If you give some the spit mod (a CM first) they seem to crave, then I confidently predict not one but a series of discourses on the properties of spit: viscosity, density, splatter pattern, as well as a ballistic analysis of loogie spitting: trajectories, range, and a demand for a hawking sound .wav file, complete with appropriate Arabic overtones.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Hehe, ctually Im sure Chalres already had the engine coded up to handle the ballistics of spit, Ill pass it on!

The reason Im not too worried about it at this point is that graphic cards render lighting quite differently in game than you see in these renders, so Im going to have to adjust the lighting either way once they get in game and Ill be sure to look at some more reference shots when I do smile.gif .

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...I tried an analogy that doesn't involve cars or beer. Not sure it worked, but at least I am trying to broaden my horizons tongue.gif

I tried. Honestly, I really, really tried. Oh well, can't win them all. At least the jug is filled in that liquid ...
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Wein auf Bier, schadet Dir. (Brewer's wisdom)

Bier auf Wein, das lass sein. (Winemaker's wisdom)

I would never drink beer after having had one of WineCape's fine wines. But there are many days in the year, so mixing is not a requirement.

All the best

Andreas

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Originally posted by Andreas:

Wein auf Bier, schadet Dir. (Brewer's wisdom)

Bier auf Wein, das lass sein. (Winemaker's wisdom)

?? tongue.gif

That's a bit wrong, i'm afraid:

Bier auf Wein, das lasse sein,

Wein auf Bier, das rat' ich Dir!

Always start a nice evening with beer, and switch to wine later. No problems. Never vice versa. Deadly. :D

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

There are some inherent problems with the ATI shadowing that are presenting us problems right now. On non-ATI cards they look beautiful, but right now on ATI cards they are "jittery".

Define "jittery". Are the shadows aliased, or "blocky", or both?? Aliasing can be alleviated (without too great of a performance hit) with hardware filtering (Nvidia via pcf, ATI via fetch4) -- and there are better techniques out there that can yield even better results (but bigger performance hits). Blocky maps are probably due to low resolution shadow maps. Anyhoo, not to sound condescending, but if you need some advice, I could help. Just gimme a holler.
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The Armchair general interview got me thinking -

How much of a 'household name' is Battlefront.com in gaming circles?

I ask this out of real ignorance. I know no pimply teenage gamers to ask. I know of few people outside of the cloistered CM circle that are aware of BFC... but then again the people I know have hardly heard of Xbox either! :rolleyes: In my own limited circle BFC is seen as something of a 'boutique' game outfit, a place to go for something other than the mass appeal lowest-common-denominator junk out there. Are they still considered a 'boutique' gamer? I'm just wondering, is CMSF destined to make a big splash in a decidedly small pond, or is word finally getting out to the masses about BFC's playability?

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Jittery... what I mean is that in the slats the shadows turn on/off as far as the eye is concerned. Charles knows exactly what the problem is, but it is an inherent limitation with the ATI hardware. The way I understand it is that they implemented routines that are very fast, but rather poor quality. Unlike the other cards, the ability to tweak things is extremely limited because the tools at his disposal are simply too constrained. On a nVidia card the shadows look fantastic. Totally different methodology, totally different results.

Mikey, we think CM:SF will get us more cross over than CMx1 games did. But we're still aiming for our core audience in terms of gameplay. Fortunately, our core audience also likes purdy stuff :D

Steve

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Looks to me like progress is being made, as usual I dont post here often, being UK mil and being over there a few times and seeing the Stryker in action though, I do have to agree that I've never seen a Desert Cam one. It looks good though, just a suggestion that Syria wouldnt need a Desert Cam anyway.

From the snippets so far its feeling good and I hope that after you do the expected marine Module, you may think about doing a UK one, although this may be tricky as we dont really have comparible vehicles!

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Jittery... what I mean is that in the slats the shadows turn on/off as far as the eye is concerned. Charles knows exactly what the problem is, but it is an inherent limitation with the ATI hardware.

Yes, just to add to this I beleive it is becuase of the 16 bit shadows ATI cards use. When a light strikes an object at a sharp angle it causes artifacts across the objects surface with the particualar algorithm we are using. Chalres is still looking into the issue and we are working on a couple of alternatives, but unfortunately it has been a problem.

Originally posted by GSX:

Looks to me like progress is being made, as usual I dont post here often, being UK mil and being over there a few times and seeing the Stryker in action though, I do have to agree that I've never seen a Desert Cam one. It looks good though, just a suggestion that Syria wouldnt need a Desert Cam anyway.

To be honest we were just discussing this and are looking into it deeper. Currently no, I cant say Ive seen any in desert cam yet either, but it is an assumption we are making that they will move to it sooner rather than later. We have a few people we can ask about this and will try and dig up more info!

Dan

[ July 20, 2006, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: KwazyDog ]

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I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but there is also a screenshot in the new Armchair General (Rommel) that shows two US soldiers at a mortar, while a third soldier oddly points his M-16 at one of the two mortarmen.

Anyway, the soldiers look good. It's obvious at this point that there will be a lot of detail in the weapons also.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Originally posted by KwazyDog:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Jittery... what I mean is that in the slats the shadows turn on/off as far as the eye is concerned. Charles knows exactly what the problem is, but it is an inherent limitation with the ATI hardware.

Yes, just to add to this I beleive it is becuase of the 16 bit shadows ATI cards use. When a light strikes an object at a sharp angle it causes artifacts across the objects surface with the particualar algorithm we are using.</font>
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