More atmosphere for towns: commercials, propaganda posters, arabic slogans etc

[Molotov Cocktail]

More atmosphere for villages, towns, cities

First I have to say vehicles and figures look great!!!! And countryside also ok.

But urban landscape is dull looking

Some pictures about town look quite desolete like from former East Germany. Too square too socialist or communist looking urban planning without cars. Yes those town screenshots look like from East Bloc "modern" town planning or desolete construction side or demolishing site.

I have not been Syria, but I think towns and cities are there more complex I mean narrow streets and not straight and maybe example stairs and so on maybe that kind of town is too hard to model.

But what about coffee houses, commercials, propaganda posters, arabic slogans and maybe trees to give atmosphere

Your opinions about this

[ February 13, 2007, 02:05 AM: Message edited by: Molotov Cocktail ]

[panzermartin]

Couldn't agree more. I recently saw some documentary about syria and the first thing that strikes you are these chaotic colorful narrow alleys with heavily decorated shops, beautiful (but filthy) old buildings, posters with portraits of Assad, and lots of history present in every corner and street. LOTS of cars as well and zillions of worn out satelite dishes on building roofs.

I can understand that this is a lot of work beyond CM goals, but some "doodad" additions here and there would be possible to liven up the scenery. Hoping that these would be easy to add with the help of the modding community.

[Kong]

I also must agree, and by no means am I complaining on how CM:SF looks. The building/towns just look too clean and sterile, IMHO.

[Cpl Steiner]

Have to agree at present. They remind me of pictures I've seen on the news of US urban combat training centres. Just empty-looking shells of buildings.

All buildings need a bit of "skinning" with arabic-looking signs and posters. We need parked cars in the streets. Maybe some of the terrain "tiles" used in the map editor can have simple, low-polygon-count vehicles instead of the usual trees, scrub etc.

Having said all this, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was not already in the pipeline, given BFC's track record!

[Madmatt]

Which is why you guys have to remember that everything your seeing (and we aren't showing much compared to what is still secret!) is all still in flux and basically placeholder textures.

Our final version towns and cities have plenty of visual upgrades planed for them which will make them far more gritty.

Madmatt

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, Matt is right on the money.

Keep in mind, though, that CM:SF will never look as varied and detailed as some of the other games out there today. Reason is they are very much hardcoded. CM:SF, on the other hand, is fully customizable by the end user. This means some degree of tradeoff of for flexibility.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

"CM:SF, on the other hand, is fully customizable by the end user. This means some degree of tradeoff for flexibility."

it also means the artist/modder community can make it look better and more varied over time.

[ February 12, 2007, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Battlefront.com]

Modders can't change the sorts of things we're talking about since they aren't textures but rather poligonal structures. If you look at the uban environments in some of the big buck FPS games out there you'll see a ton of stuff in their games that we will not have. These things are customized for a particular map and consumer a ton of polygons. CM:SF will have more varied stuff than what you are seeing now, for sure, but no where near the extent of these other games. Partly for performance reasons, partly because we don't have a $2m art budget. Modders won't be able to change that.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

OK

I was just referring to this comment:

" heavily decorated shops, beautiful (but filthy) old buildings, posters with portraits of Assad, and lots of history present in every corner and street"

and figured modders could fill in more varied art work later, but that had nothing to do with shapes or polygons in the game engine

-tom w

[Battlefront.com]

The problem with that is repetition. The more unique you make a building texture set, the more "odd" it will look when repeated. On the other hand, a more generic look per texture set means that when there are 10 or 20 of them in a particular scenario you won't have that deja vous feeling

It's all a balancing act!

Steve

[panzermartin]

Is there a way to include some kind of added "decal texture" feature so as to overcome odd multiplying skins on buildings? In a way similar to the emblems and numbers that appear on 1C's IL-2 aircraft skins perhaps?

[Battlefront.com]

We are working on something like that, but we'll have to see if it makes it in or not.

Steve

[M1A1TC]

Great idea. There could be like 10-20 different "decals" (signs, posters, bullet holes) that can be placed randomly at certain parts of buildings

[Hans]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

OK

I was just referring to this comment:

" heavily decorated shops, beautiful (but filthy) old buildings, posters with portraits of Assad,

Actually posters and painting of Hafez Al-Assad, Bashir and even dead #1 son Basel. In a mixture of settings and clothes.

Syrian's to whom I've shown these pictures to have said the same things, their comments and mine have been forwarded to the gentlemen running the show.

As Madmatt and others have said there are some limits on what can be done but I suspect it will look "Syrian" if a bit cleaner and better organized than the original.

[ February 15, 2007, 04:41 AM: Message edited by: Hans ]

[panzermartin]

If the "decal" thing works it will multiply the textures of buildings available by a huge degree. Decals can be as small as some commercials or graffiti, or random damage (bullet holes etc) and as large as a garage station or a grocery's front. It wont be uncommon to see painted propaganda images on the sides of a whole building block. Problems may rise with the visual damage modelling though.

Since cars are included as uncons vehicles perhaps it wont be difficult to simulate parked cars along the streets. Some more urban objects like traffic lights/signs, dumps, fences, bus stations, kiosks, statues/fountains

would be cool too.

[Battlefront.com]

The problem with parked cars is the volume of polygons. Having a few won't make much of an impression, having a ton will kill the framerate. This is why game designers have stayed faaaaaaaaar away from urban environments up until recently. In fact, CMBO was one of the first 3D games to simulate large urban areas. And we only had, what, 2 different types of buildings?

Steve

[Sequoia]

I would assume, with the exception of perhaps a very few abandoned vehicles left by some really bad procratinators, the only parked cars left in a potential battle zone would be those not in working order as any one else would have the sense to get the cars out of there before hand.

[panzermartin]

I guess with the map editor you will be able to place some unarmed and immobile sedans here and there to simulate parked cars... There must be something to break up these perfectly clean and flat streets, visually and tactically(cars for cover/roadblocks etc)

[nijis]

No chance of allowing modders to create their own 3D doo-dads, I don't suppose? I can think of dozens of reasons why BFC wouldn't want to take the extra time to code this in as an option, but it would still be fun to try and model and texture all the bric-a-brac on the rooftops and streets around my Cairo flat in Wings 3D or something.

[mazex]

Hi!

I realize that your budget makes it rather hard doing the fancy stuff seen in the block buster games of today. Don't take this as critisism as you are doing a great job with the size of your team, but have you ever thought of using someone elses 3D engine to focus on the gameplay and research work where you are market leaders?

/Mazex

[jeffsmith]

Originally posted by mazex:

Hi!

I realize that your budget makes it rather hard doing the fancy stuff seen in the block buster games of today. Don't take this as critisism as you are doing a great job with the size of your team, but have you ever thought of using someone elses 3D engine to focus on the gameplay and research work where you are market leaders?

/Mazex

Not the case

In Gaming their is a limited "Budget" of computing power

FPS games have plenty of computing power to spare for visuals

Games like CM use that computing power to make accurate & complex simulations possible

there is more going on in a single CM turn that in many entire FPS games

So its not the BFC team that isn't up to making a good 3d engine (I'd say there are few better than BFC in true 3d not just eye candy)

BFC prioritizes Gameplay and Realism over eye candy within the limitations of the computing power Budget

don't believe me?

Try a search on the subject

(of course the views expressed in this post are my own

and do not necessarily represent the views of BFC)

[ February 18, 2007, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: jeffsmith ]

[mazex]

Originally posted by jeffsmith:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mazex:

Hi!

I realize that your budget makes it rather hard doing the fancy stuff seen in the block buster games of today. Don't take this as critisism as you are doing a great job with the size of your team, but have you ever thought of using someone elses 3D engine to focus on the gameplay and research work where you are market leaders?

/Mazex

Not the case

In Gaming their is a limited "Budget" of computing power

FPS games have plenty of computing power to spare for visuals

Games like CM makes use that computing power

to make accurate simulations possible

So its not the BFC team that isn't up to making a good 3d engine (I'd say there are few better than BFC in true 3d not just eye candy)

BFC prioritizes Gameplay and Realism over eye candy within the limitations of the computing power Budget

don't believe me?

Try a search on the subject </font>

[jeffsmith]

the only reason that I suggested a search was NOT to suggest you don't know what you are talking about

But because BFC has Already explained about the graphics tradeoffs

Having just brought Realtime into the CM code

I think its unlikely they will abandon it for more graphics

and you stated yourself that rts games give good framerates

but Without the under the hood detail that make a BFC game

the day they sub-out coding work will arrive someday

(they have said it could happen in certain situations)

but i dont expect it to be any time soon

however they have surprised us before

and we all WILL someday have Brilliant Games

with the Best graphics

when the "Computer Budget" allows it

(10 Ghz systems with 7 Megs of Ram & 2 Gig of video ram)

adding smiley because its an International Symbol

[ February 18, 2007, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: jeffsmith ]

[MikeyD]

"The problem with parked cars is the volume of polygons."

If they're just being dropped in as 'flavor' doodads I suspect people would be willing to accept VERY simplified non-functional car/truck/van/bus polygons. Just something to wrap a convincing Toyota texture around. Heck, I'd even do without rendered wheel polys if its the difference between having and not having scattered abandoned/parked vehicles. I can imagine the map maker with a "Place Sedan (12 Vehicles Max)" insertion tool. And a few topics over Moon's claiming to be VERY happy with the game's current frame rate.

Yeh yeh, I know, its a bit late in engine development to talk them into new features.

[panzermartin]

Yeah, I'd love to see some old yellow school buses, abandoned bullet ridden VW vans etc..Their polys can be simpler than that of a CMx1 kubelwagen..Nobody will really notice and they'll add at least the feeling that the deserted towns were once alive. And some color as well to break up the sand/gray urban picture.