The "clean" looking graphics?

[aka_Hawk]

Is there some form of view distance setting which gives a fog'ish like effect? I can't remember if that existed in CMx1 or if I'm just remember the effect of fog in foggy weather scenarios.

[Flanker15]

Best example is in console games, texture and polygon quality is pretty low due to tiny RAM amounts but ten tonnes of light and shadow rendering means they can still look great.

Have a look at ToW2 shots which uses heavy light and shadow rendering but has lower quality models, most people would say it looks better though.

[Lt Bull]

Best example is in console games, texture and polygon quality is pretty low due to tiny RAM amounts but ten tonnes of light and shadow rendering means they can still look great.

Have a look at ToW2 shots which uses heavy light and shadow rendering but has lower quality models, most people would say it looks better though.

Great example! Yes I think ToW2 looks more appealing despite lower grade 3D models (btw: the screenshot of the Humber on page 2 is from ToW2).

[LJFHutch]

I haven't got any issues, in fact I loved the textures in CMSF, that has to be one of the best looking games I've seen for ages and Normandy looks almost as good.

Edit: http://www.battlefront.com/images/stories//CMBN/Gall4/1cm-normandy-tiger.jpg Ok, prize goes to CMBN

[Ryujin]

I'd bet a ton could be done to improve the look without adding much performance overhead. However with this being a proprietary engine from a small team aiming at lower end PCs (i.e. no support for multicores and such), any new functionality has to be added in and that sort of thing is pretty tricky. It then has to be optimized and tweaked (and performance is already a bit of an issue).

To be honest many other games run bigger environments with more detail and more stuff than CMSF and look better. They're also made by big companies with a highly tuned engines built for high end PCs. It's not a trade off of scale or quantity in the case of CMBN/CMSF, but of development priorities and resources as far as I can tell. These companies have teams of programmers and artists several times the size of battlefront that just do graphics. Your just not going to see the same thing in CM unless that was the only aspect they worked on.

With a big budget and team, I'm sure you could make CM:N look as good as Company of Heroes and probably run better than it does now. Given the team size I'm very impressed with what they have as a homemade engine. I have enough trouble making crappy graphics for school projects .

[Kelzhat]

Hi all,

i love the combat mission series and with the new engine it looks pretty good but it is possible like theatre of war that you can see the hit´s on the vehicle like bullet holes or grazing shots??

[Cameroon]

I haven't got any issues, in fact I loved the textures in CMSF, that has to be one of the best looking games I've seen for ages and Normandy looks almost as good.

Edit: http://www.battlefront.com/images/stories//CMBN/Gall4/1cm-normandy-tiger.jpg Ok, prize goes to CMBN

You know, looking at that screenshot and at others - and thinking back on various times playing - it almost feels that the camera has a light right behind it. So maybe it's that there isn't (much) of a positional light source or rather that the camera's "personal" light source is too bright?

Anyway, I primarily play CM for the gameplay and not the eye candy. I like the way CM:BN looks a lot - wouldn't complain if the lighting improved though

[Cameroon]

Hi all,

i love the combat mission series and with the new engine it looks pretty good but it is possible like theatre of war that you can see the hit´s on the vehicle like bullet holes or grazing shots??

Not at launch - they've stated that hit decals are something they intend to add later.

[Kelzhat]

Not at launch - they've stated that hit decals are something they intend to add later.

Hi Cameroon,

thx for the fast replay - that sounds great but it will add to the combat mission battle for normandy or the next addon or?

I hope not for the next series

[Cameroon]

Hi Cameroon,

thx for the fast replay - that sounds great but it will add to the combat mission battle for normandy or the next addon or?

I hope not for the next series

The impression I got was for CM:BN "sometime", but I don't think I've seen anything saying when/how that will come about. You could probably do a search for "hit decal" and find Steve's comments (I, on the other hand, am off to work ).

[Lt Belenko]

I noticed that the tanks, especially the Americans, looked like they had just been driven off the boat. Don't get me wrong, I think the artwork is terrific. They just don't look like they have seen any combat or even been driven very far on dusty roads. But I am confident that the modders will soon take care of that.

Michael

It was a little known fact that the 413th Vehicle Washing Battalion was embarking from England to Normandy on the 26th of June. This was the time of the storms that destroyed the Mulberry Harbors. The entire car wash (or tank wash, if you prefer) facility was destroyed. Thus the Allied tanks, armored cars and trucks remained dirty thru the balance of the war.

I believe BFC is trying to depict a scenario in which the tank wash facility landed safely and kept the Allied AFVs in spic and span condition just as Generals Patton and Montgomery had ordered.

[LongLeftFlank]

Just imagine my response to this question.

A "blackwash" or "brownwash" aftercoat much like kit modelers use to "weather" their models will do wonders. I have no doubt the modding community will soon be busy at work and the kit will shortly look very lived in. No worries.

Being a terrain grog (in case you haven't noticed), I will be taking a "butchers" at the buildings myself -- a little water damage and moss on the slate roofs plus some stains on the facades and Bob's yer uncle....

The stuff on the rendering and shadows is interesting, but yeah, there's only so much a small shop can reasonably expect to do. Look for progressive improvements over time though (e.g. Bulge).

[panzermartin]

I think world graphics are an improvement over CMSF. Better tree modelling is an obvious difference. Sometimes I like the sharper looking graphics of CMx2 compared to the over blurry/over effected console style 3d games. It Just makes it have a unique look, the CM look where crisp detail is priotrity.

But, there are still things that can be made to improve the looks, as Lt Bull noted.

*A touch of bleeding/softening the light/shadows but not to the point to make them look like an XBOX game.

*Additional ambient lighting to make terrain elevations more noticeable.

*Depth of field. Even in clear weather a very slight fade out of distant objects. (Not in extreme FPS style of course). Looking at the screenshots, a 1+KM map feels only as big as a football field.

*SFX. Explosions/Flames/smoke look identical to CMSF. Which is a bit of a let down. I dont really like the "candle" smoke columns. An engulfing fire/smoke effect coming from the heart of the hit vehicle will look more solid.

Got to add that most visuals look great, the flowers and the grass, the dense forests and of course the inf/vehicle models. New inf animations are also awesome.

[LJFHutch]

Actually that's a really good point Ali, why don't they bake ambient occlusion to the textures? It be a massive improvement I think and at absolutely no hit to performance.

[para]

Isn't MikeyD a genius when it comes to GFX mods? I would imagine adding wear n tear,dust and a multitude of other FX changes would be very simple to him and the multitude of brilliant modders within this community.

[Wodin]

Sure enough mods will be made...so nothing to worry about...I think mud splatters if over done look far worse....wheels and tracks I like a bit of dirt on and thats it...

[Paulverisor64]

Best example is in console games, texture and polygon quality is pretty low due to tiny RAM amounts but ten tonnes of light and shadow rendering means they can still look great.

Have a look at ToW2 shots which uses heavy light and shadow rendering but has lower quality models, most people would say it looks better though.

Great example! Yes I think ToW2 looks more appealing despite lower grade 3D models (btw: the screenshot of the Humber on page 2 is from ToW2).

One thing that is a curiousity to me is how a company as short staffed as Battlefront is able to produce 2 essentially similar types of games concurrently. Here is an example of how the blending of the 2 games could produce a better product. It would seem that combining resources between TOW and CM could yield greater production value in a shorter amount of time. I also don't really care for how Combat Mission makes you feel like you are playing on a table. You can zoom out of the map to where you essentially don't see the map anymore. TOW at least gives you the illusion that the scenery continues off the edges. The perfect game might be the combination of visual dynamics from TOW and game mechanics from CM.

[akd]

Battlefront does not develop the ToW series.

[rune]

Paul,

Because the game is being made by two separate companies? CMBN by Battlefront itself with their engine, and tow from 1c with their engine. Charles is in a jar on the East coast while 1C is in Russia. You are mixing apples and oranges.

Rune

[Paulverisor64]

Battlefront does not develop the ToW series.

Paul,

Because the game is being made by two separate companies? CMBN by Battlefront itself with their engine, and tow from 1c with their engine. Charles is in a jar on the East coast while 1C is in Russia. You are mixing apples and oranges.

Rune

I'm sorry; I guess I jumped to a big conclusion since I ordered both products from the same company.

I'm glad you straightened me out.

[MengJiao]

It's all a matter of personal taste. Some people prefer the clean look, others don't. Some of the "dirty" mods I've seen over the years are absolutely terrible IMHO because they look like some sort of cartoon impression of what the battlefield looks like. But each to his own

Almost all the graphics seen at this point are final and will be in the shipping game. Theres still a few rough edges that we're ironing out, but then again these are the things you guys aren't likely to see in screenshots at this point.

Steve

I agree. Unless the game dynamically puts dirt onto the tanks, dirtying up the tanks seems like putting on decorative touches where they are not needed.

[akd]

I'm sorry; I guess I jumped to a big conclusion since I ordered both products from the same company.

I'm glad you straightened me out.

Battlefront is also a publisher.

[MengJiao]

The point I am trying to make I suppose is that high grade 3D models don't by themselves make graphics in a game look any more realistic or pleasant to look at.

I've played ToW2 and I think the better 3D models in CMBN really do look a lot better. I've never understood why there's a general opinion that glare and murk using the same thick textures over and over makes things look more real. I don't see the real world as full of oscuring stuff and I don't have problems with glare.

[sawomi]

I like it that CMBN comes with 'sub-optimal' textures. I see CM as a virtual supersession of a basement hobby-room for wargaming. Part of wargaming fun is figurine-painting. A part of the Combat Mission long-time experience is making and collecting of improving graphical mods for the game. If CM would look like ToW there would be no real point in this.

[Greup]

Edit: http://www.battlefront.com/images/stories//CMBN/Gall4/1cm-normandy-tiger.jpg Ok, prize goes to CMBN

Regarding that picture you (or at least the person naming that picture) really do try to think as the american soldier in Normandy 1944, don't you? I appears as if you see Tigers everywhere although the tanks might just be Panzer IVs like in the above picture...

That being said let's not make this little ligthing deficiency a Big Thing. It could have been even better looking in our mind's perfect WWII sandbox worlds.

I'm sure we will love the game no matter what.

Looking at the (war) gaming world of today I think this is in many ways typical. On one side there are mappers and modders who creates the setting for whatever game/simulation there is. On the other hand we have 3D artists who - in the WWII simulation scene - do the 3D models of tanks etc. While these people are often addicted to the detail of the vehicles and other military hardware, they might be less interested in the actual environment their creations are to exist in.

What's can be a problem in smaller productions teams is the overall view of all components that makes up the simulation environment. Vehicles, people, buildings, lighting and sound need to "fit together" to make a credible impression of a the simulated world. A mismatch in the amount of detail breaks the spell of reality (if that is what's required).

There are lot's of ugly things out there: The running soldier animations in CMSF and in particular ToW springs to mind, where the pace of bodily movement more often than not doesn't correspond to the actual space travelled. In my favourite FPS Red Orchestra the most severe problems is asociated buildings and man-made equipment: air conditioning units in wartime Soviet, 1960's style hayrolls in rural WWII Germany & Soviet.. oh and don't forget helmets with built-in lights (see pic)

There are always things to pick on, but those games are still great games and I am sure CMBN will become one of them. I think it looks like a great improvement over the CMx1 games.

Enough ranting...

Just let me pre-order the mac steel box soon!