What bother you in current CMBN graphics?

[medlinke]

Supreme Commander had many many more units on a much bigger (and more detailed) map in a much bigger and more detailed engine.

The engine for SupCom is DEFINITELY not more detailed. The graphics might be, but the behind the scenes calculations are not more detailed than this. It tracks hits, misses, and damage for the most part. It's not tracking ammo, tracer rounds, armor penetration, obstructions, elevation, and the thousands of other smaller things I'm not considering like all the vehicle systems damage modeling!

[Lucky_Strike]

On the whole I think BFC have done sterling work on the graphics and interface. Yeah I think the landscape is a tad bright for my taste and I sure would like my tanks dirtied up a bit, but I think these things will come from the community eventually.

The biggest bugbears I have are with shadows and distance. The shadows, especially of the vehicles and tanks, could, IMHO, all be improved by adding a secondary shadow under the vehicle that is much darker than the cast shadow. It only needs to be in the footprint of the vehicle and would, I feel, anchor the vehicle to the ground a bit more. At the moment we have 30-, 40- or 50-tons of armour with just a whiff of shadow underneath. Take a look at a parked car on the street and you'll see what I'm getting at, there's not much light under there. This would especially help on dull overcast scenarios where there's not much light to cast those high-noon shadows we have at present.

My other gripe is with distance, or the lack of depiction of it. IRL the colours in a landscape change with distance, greens shift toward the bluer end of the spectrum and become less distinct. Other colours merge into each other and things like white and yellow can stand out a bit more. Atmospherics also come into effect, heat-haze on sunny days can look like a light mist in the distance, whilst on dull days greens can almost become greyish blues. It would be great if this could somehow be modelled, at least at ground level, so that the overall look was less flat. It's one of the cues that we humans use to judge distance after all.

My tuppence

LS

[Bridger15]

The engine for SupCom is DEFINITELY not more detailed. The graphics might be, but the behind the scenes calculations are not more detailed than this. It tracks hits, misses, and damage for the most part. It's not tracking ammo, tracer rounds, armor penetration, obstructions, elevation, and the thousands of other smaller things I'm not considering like all the vehicle systems damage modeling!

I didn't mean to say that the mechanical calculations were more detailed, but I do know that all of the projectiles are calculated using an physics engine. It's not just a % chance to hit or miss, the projectiles are fired at a specific angle with a velocity and their ability to hit or miss is based on how the physics models the shot.

That said, CMBN certainly does have a lot of other things to keep track of (individual ammo capacities, unit morale, C2 status, etc.). I'm still not sure that keeping track of all those statistics is enough to make the engine the way it is though. I bet you could dedicate one of my 3.0ghz cores to AI, one to keeping track of all the statistics, and one to physics, and you'd still have the GPU which could render a lot more quality than what's in CMBN now.

I think the real problem is man-hours. BF probably just isn't a big enough company to have enough coders to put in all the shiny production quality that you see in AAA titles. I'm still quite put off by the lack of tooltips though. that's my only major concern. Everything else is just me picking nits.

[Lt Bull]

When assessing the 3D graphics in a game, it's helps to talk about the different aspects of 3D graphics individually:

# 3D model detail-how detailed are the 3D models?

# 3D model content-how many objects are actually represented?

# Texturing-the colours that "paint" the 3D model surfaces. Can make up for lack of detail in the 3D models (see CMx1 modded)

# Lighting- critical and underrated in determining how good (or bad) the 3D models and textures actually look rendered in the game. Affects shadows/shading etc. This is more responsible for how "real" the graphic look than anything else.

You can then consider the "non-static" stuff like:

#Animations and effects-how well/realistically is the motion of the 3D content captured, the variety of animations and it's appropriateness, effects such as explosions/smoke. Obviously having good 3D models helps in creating the associated animations.

Some might want to also include the GUI in the game as a part of the graphical assessment, after al, it does add to the "look" of the game.

#GUI/menus-not just how they look aesthetically, but also includes how well they function in their role

Having considered all the above, you can now make a more general evaluation of the graphical content based on how well all those elements work together in the package that is delivered to you buy the game.

#Overall graphical package-generalised assessment on how well they all work together

I assess CMBN as follows (0-10 best) on current industry standards:

# 3D model detail-9 for vehicles, 9 for infantry, 7 for foliage, 4 for buildings (essentially just plain roofed rectangles).

# 3D model content-8

# Texturing-8

# Lighting- 3 (amateur by today's standards, could it have been any simpler?Tell me if you know of a comparable game of today with worse lighting than CMBN, reduces the impact of the 3D models and textures significantly)

#Animations and effects-8 vehicles, 7 infantry, smoke 9, explosions 7

#GUI/menus-3 (amateur by today's standards, unconventional low efficiency at transmitting key information to the player detracts from playing enjoyment)

#Overall graphical package-5

The most annoying thing about this assessment is the total IMBALANCE between the high quality of some of the 3D modelling (especially of the vehicles) and the ridiculously unflattering basic lighting used in the game. I wonder if BFC lost sight of the forest for the trees. High detailed 3D models does NOT equate to good 3D graphics if the lighting is crap. I essentially see most of the good work that has gone in to both the 3D model and textures being lost and wasted because of the basic lighting effects (essentially one big harsh spotlight).

Would be great to see this game rendered with anything but the lighting used in the game.

[Offshoot]

# Lighting- 3 (amateur by today's standards, could it have been any simpler?Tell me if you know of a comparable game of today with worse lighting than CMBN, reduces the impact of the 3D models and textures significantly)

There can actually be some overlap between 'apparent' model complexity, textures and lighting when normal mapping is used. To perhaps answer the original poster's question about what might be missing compared to other games, normal mapping is pretty common in current games but I don't think it is used in CMBN, probably for good reason (although I think it would make a world of difference for the buildings, which I think are the weakest aspect with respect to the graphics).

But personally, gameplay ueber alles, and I like the graphics just fine, especially looking down tree-lined avenues at ground level.

[easytarget]

I'm disappointed that BFC killed off the need for hexes in ww2 simulations.

That was harsh. Put some people out of jobs it did.

[Lt Belenko]

Not really a graphics issue, but I'd like to see a 4th option on trees.

All trees show as trunks.

[tecumseh]

Would love to see a user controlled LOD distance. Editing a 'use at own risk' config file to do it would be fine.

I think my machine could draw out a lot further.

[Bastables]

The engine for SupCom is DEFINITELY not more detailed. The graphics might be, but the behind the scenes calculations are not more detailed than this. It tracks hits, misses, and damage for the most part. It's not tracking ammo, tracer rounds, armor penetration, obstructions, elevation, and the thousands of other smaller things I'm not considering like all the vehicle systems damage modeling!

They simplified things in Sup com compared to Total ann, for instance like CMBN total ann had veh's rocking back and forth as it took the recoil of shooting a "solid" shell. Sup com also made all planes hover more meaning less of the insane acrobatic dogfights that took place in total ann.

All spider infantry bots look the same as do all the UEF tanks. CMBN has identical model shermans with different outside stowage, sand bagged, sand bagged partially or not.

A soldier in an infantry section might have a k98, mp 40, mp44, mg 42 a panzerfaust strapped to their backs. UEF version of the peewee had two chain guns, always and they all looked identical. Their is no way sup com is more detailed, and personally total ann had better animations, nicer maps too. As medlink states there is no way the calculations of sup com even come close to CMBN, closer would be the fantastic men of war, but it compresses long range tank combat to 200m (and infantry combat to sub 100m) and kludges armour penetration.

[Sixxkiller]

We are extremely proud of how great the atmosphere in CMBN is. I am pretty sure even the big budget games such as say Call of Duty do not track every single bullet in the same manner as this game does thats why they can devote so much to the graphical representation.

As far as it being a modded CMx1 LMAO!!!! Thanks for insulting the excellent staff that does all of the art here.

[WineCape]

Also, the closer I get to a ? icon the smaller it gets. This often results in the icon being buried in a hedge/bocage when i get close enough to give orders.

It can be difficult to see, at times, if the "?" icon does not stay big/large as you scroll the camera, but the reason why it's IN the bocage is to indicate where and near what part of the bocage an enemy unit was spotted. Again, this might have been (elegantly?) accomplished by keeping the "?" icon slightly oversized the nearer you scroll to it to make it easier to see among the hedge/bocage foliage.

[MengJiao]

Sure a big AAA title RTS or FPS that limits the unit sizes and puts them on much smaller hand crafted maps looks better.

Exactly. If the function of the graphics is to wow an audience that apparently rarely looks at the real world, then, first of all those graphics are not really functional as representations and second they could not deal with representing a complete, battalion-size action with all the functional details -- which is what CMBN's graphics do.

[AstroCat]

@Lt Bull Well said... I really enjoy the game but unfortunately as well know keenly what it is lacking and what it could be.

[panzermartin]

Got to agree with Lt Bull. Lighting is a bit primitive. That makes distant terrain looking like a flight sim from the 90s. When in ground level things look really nice because of the well made textures and the crisp details. When lods kick in and the basic shadows in the distance disappear maps look quite flat. Compared to CMSF trees look a LOT better, and the addition of extra dimensions to the tree lods adds volume to woods. But again there is no effective lighting/atmospheric depth for them and distant terrain features stand sharply like simple silhouettes from a kid's drawing.

I dont know, I would trade those super detailed tank interiors (they do look super cool though) for a more effective distant terrain drawing/LODs system and some extra environmental lighting.

[Wodin]

The graphics are infinately better than CMx1...modded or not...I have shadows off as I'm not keen on them...but I find the games graphics very good indeed...and as with CMSF someone will come along and do Hi res mod...

Graphics are the least of my worries with this game...A couple of more orders is way more important...and some clipping and pathing issues...

[McAuliffe]

It's actually comforting to read that other players are experiencing this loss of detail after a couple of meters as well and it seems that high end hardware users are experiencing the same problem.

What's the use of these great textures and details, if you cannot see them anymore after scrolling not that far up. I lose even sight of the units.

The most annoying is that when you go down to ground level, the detailed textures are filled in tile after tile and this takes a couple of seconds, a bit like zooming in on google-earth at low bandwidth.

Maybe I have settings wrong, can someone advise ideal setting for below system?

Lenovo Thinkpad T520

Processor: Intel Core i7 2620M / 2.7 GHz

Display-type: 15.6" TFT

Max Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz

Multi-Core Technologie: Dual-Core

64-bit Computer: yes

Chipsettype: Mobile Intel QM67 Express

Intel HD Graphics 3000 Dynamic Video Memory Technology

[panzermartin]

It's actually comforting to read that other players are experiencing this loss of detail after a couple of meters as well and it seems that high end hardware users are experiencing the same problem.

What's the use of these great textures and details, if you cannot see them anymore after scrolling not that far up. I lose even sight of the units.

The most annoying is that when you go down to ground level, the detailed textures are filled in tile after tile and this takes a couple of seconds, a bit like zooming in on google-earth at low bandwidth.

Maybe I have settings wrong, can someone advise ideal setting for below system?

Lenovo Thinkpad T520

Processor: Intel Core i7 2620M / 2.7 GHz

Display-type: 15.6" TFT

Max Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz

Multi-Core Technologie: Dual-Core

64-bit Computer: yes

Chipsettype: Mobile Intel QM67 Express

Intel HD Graphics 3000 Dynamic Video Memory Technology

I think you have to use something more powerful than an onboard graphics card.