terrain ray tracing not seen in pics

[Redjac]

The one negative aspect of the combat mission series has been the lack of ray tracing on the ground maps emphasizing slopes and dead ground by the angle of the sun and its shadows. The only negative thing about CMAK was the lack of point of view POV ray tracing.

The pictures for this game don't show off the map ray tracing very well. Please tell me the terrain contour is there and you chose High noon maps for the pictures.

[gibsonm]

Please tell me the terrain contour is there ....

No, sorry.

[panzermartin]

Isnt the terran shaded differently now emphasizing hills/slopes etc?

[Thomm]

Isnt the terran shaded differently now emphasizing hills/slopes etc?

Yes, it is. Differently from CMx1, that is. Definitely easier to "read".

Best regards,

Thomm

[panzermartin]

I thought Steve had said that CM:BN uses an improved shading engine compared to CMSF, thus making elevation differences more noticeable.

[MikeyD]

CM:Afghanistan, CMSF several patches back, and CM:Normady all got improved 'ground illumination' compared to CMx1 and early CMSF. Its been awhile since I've heard anyone complaining about not making out ground contours. Sure it can still be tough to make out contours for broad nearly flat desert on overcast afternoons. But that holds true for real life too! Especially when you're magically suspended 30 feet over the desert looking down on a 2kmx2km patch of ground... on an overcast afternoon.

[Redjac]

OK that's fine then. In "gamelife" there should always be some contour recognition no matter time of day or weather. We'll see.

[panzermartin]

I'm pretty sure Steve said CM:BN uses a different shading engine compared to CMSF. There was definetely some problem with overcast maps in CMSF. I had to put all battles around early morning/early afternoon to achieve a better countour contrast. And not enough of you think RealTime and online gaming and you assume that players have all the time in the world to study the terrain. That's the case in single player with pause. Not in online. Game should be equally playable in all modes.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, the CM:BN lighting model is basically the same as what is in CM:A and recent CM:SF. Might be some tweaking I'm not remembering, but certainly nothing significantly different.

This is one of those perpetual problems with computer graphics. Fidelity comes with a performance cost, so it's always a compromise. And the further out you zoom the harder fidelity is to achieve because the pixels available for any given spot become fewer to the point where 1 pixel might be representing several 8x8m Action Spots. Not much we can do with 1 pixel

What computers need for truly realistic looking terrain is a 300 dpi screen and hardware capable of pushing that many pixels. I'd say that technology is still in the very far distant future.

Steve

[panzermartin]

I've seen some distant haze almost in all pictures. Is this default on all maps regardless of conditions? This can help a bit with elevation differences, at least on ground level POV.

[Battlefront.com]

Distance "haze" is a performance cheat that works pretty well for FPS and RTS games, but doesn't work for Combat Mission. Therefore, we don't use it. If you see haze in the distance it is because:

1. The game's setting is for a hazy day

or

2. You're looking at the 2D horizon artwork which is naturally fuzzy looking.

I suspect it's #2 that you are seeing. Since this isn't a part of the playing area it's not relevant to terrain feature resolution.

Steve

[panzermartin]

Ok, thanks for clarification. Well, the terrain is far richer than CMSF's, so elevation spotting might not be such a problem as in CMSF's open desert.

[Pandur]

i have to say i never had any problem with the elevations. not in CMx1 and not in CMx2. elevations are easy to see and mostly simple to pick up in the distance.

it gets a little problematic for me when it is a large map with just a few similar ground textures and minimal elevation differences like +/- 1 or 2 meters. these are tricky to spot from a distance but everything else is straight forward.

i did not expect any change for CMBN as CMSF was good already. i dont know what game mode people play when they say elevations are hard to see. i play WEGO and nothing is passing my eyes unnoticed, so i wonder what people do in order to miss all the stuff they say they do.

[panzermartin]

Well, you answered yourself. You play WeGo, and you can spend a day on ground level examining the countryside and the poppies.

[MikeyD]

About haze. There are, I think, eleven weather settings in the game. One of them is a clear blue sky day. When the series moves from summer into winter in the Bulge and Eastern front titles even more weather settings will come.

[Steiner14]

Would it be complicated to implement an artifical (low standing) "sun", that can be activated with a hotkey?

[Mord]

I personally think it was easier to tell elevation at a glance in CMX1 mostly because you had way more tiles for grass which varied in color depth...I think it went darkest (low elevation) to lightest (high elevation) giving you a keener idea of the ups and downs of an area. There were at least 8 variations of green if memory serves me correctly. In CMSF 1.00 we had one tile for each type of grass...then around 1.04 we got 3 tiles with varied shades for each type but I don't know if they are placed according to height.

The draw back with CMX1 was you had those big square patches of shade that didn't look as natural as the bleed over we have now with tiles. And we didn't have as many choices for grass types either. The pro was you could tell where the rise and falls were much easier.

That being said I don't have that much of a problem because I do play WEGO exclusively unless I am mod testing...and I much prefer the CMX2 terrain over CMX1's...not that it couldn't be tweaked of course...but it feels much less artificial than it did in COMBO...then again so does the rest of the game.

Mord.

[gibsonm]

I'm sure someone will bring out a "grid mod" or somesuch about 30 sec after the thing's published.

[Redjac]

Yes, the CM:BN lighting model is basically the same as what is in CM:A and recent CM:SF. Might be some tweaking I'm not remembering, but certainly nothing significantly different.

This is one of those perpetual problems with computer graphics. Fidelity comes with a performance cost, so it's always a compromise. And the further out you zoom the harder fidelity is to achieve because the pixels available for any given spot become fewer to the point where 1 pixel might be representing several 8x8m Action Spots. Not much we can do with 1 pixel

What computers need for truly realistic looking terrain is a 300 dpi screen and hardware capable of pushing that many pixels. I'd say that technology is still in the very far distant future.

Steve

You make it sound like computing power is not at a level to acheive this:rolleyes:. It is and has been already your comment is funny in that respect.. Sorry I'm not being confrontational its just I have seen some nicely simulated light declinations in 3D tactical wargames. Don't get me wrong , I can't wait to pick this gem up. This little nag is not that big of a deal.