Terrain Evolution: AH1.11, AH2.09, AH2.10

[Beefcake]

Hey Citabria I have a question. Is there anyway you can add "AAA Camps" to the map? Basically groups of 5-10 88mms off in the boonies with maybe 1-3 Field guns to protect them. The idea is for these Flak positions to give hell to incoming bomber raids to important areas.

[CAP1]

Originally posted by Widewing
You realize that the majority of terrains in AH1 and in AH2 prior to the breakup of the MA were player generated, right?

Nonetheless, let's compare the NDisles terrains from the same three versions of the game. I set gamma (not adjustable in AH1) to 1.0 for 2.09 and 2.10. This gives the the most honest comparison possible by avoiding custom settings. The field is A18.







My regards,

Widewing

are these pics all in the game's daytime? the middle one looks most like hwat ya really see from the air. the third one looks like night time. not tryin to complain, just offering my opinion........
also read yanks comments.....i also do get watering eyes when i'm airborn for more than 30 minutes.....on the ground not as bad. but on the ground, i keep hitting hills that i never saw though...but like the other additions, like tank traps, berms around the ground guns etc........

[yanksfan]

cap1
"also read yanks comments.....i also do get watering eyes when i'm airborn for more than 30 minutes.....on the ground not as bad. but on the ground, i keep hitting hills that i never saw though...but like the other additions, like tank traps, berms around the ground guns etc........"

    Yup, we are not alone, I have tweeked it as much as I can,...But! You know this is gonna get fixed, lighting textures,,,,, It's just gonna take time,,, and the game will be better then ever, and we will move forward as new maps are made useing the new textures and tiles and what ever other goodies they have for us.

  Have you noticed Bish pilots bailing out over the sheep????? Whats that about?

[SKurj]

Originally posted by CAP1
are these pics all in the game's daytime? the middle one looks most like hwat ya really see from the air. the third one looks like night time. not tryin to complain, just offering my opinion........
also read yanks comments.....i also do get watering eyes when i'm airborn for more than 30 minutes.....on the ground not as bad. but on the ground, i keep hitting hills that i never saw though...but like the other additions, like tank traps, berms around the ground guns etc........

Something really odd here if screen 3 looks to be night time...  

WHat video card and drivers are you using?  Pretty crazy if that shot looks like night and yet the game does as well....

I'm not sayin that the 3rd shot isn't slightly darker than the one above but on my system with gamma never touched and monitor not adjusted since before xmas .. its slightly darker not nighttime...

[715]

Originally posted by SKurj
Something really odd here if screen 3 looks to be night time...  

WHat video card and drivers are you using?  Pretty crazy if that shot looks like night and yet the game does as well....

I'm not sayin that the 3rd shot isn't slightly darker than the one above but on my system with gamma never touched and monitor not adjusted since before xmas .. its slightly darker not nighttime...

On my monitor I can easily distinguish ground details on the top two.  On the bottom one, on my monitor, the ground is almost uniformly black (super dark green).  When people say night time, I think they mean the ground looks like it would at night time, not the sky.

[CAP1]

[

  Have you noticed Bish pilots bailing out over the sheep????? Whats that about? [/B][/QUOTE]

i could name names, but in EW, i've been warned to not bother the sheep, as someone that's there on a regular basis would be very mad..and yes, they're bish:rofl

[CAP1]

Originally posted by SKurj
Something really odd here if screen 3 looks to be night time...  

WHat video card and drivers are you using?  Pretty crazy if that shot looks like night and yet the game does as well....

I'm not sayin that the 3rd shot isn't slightly darker than the one above but on my system with gamma never touched and monitor not adjusted since before xmas .. its slightly darker not nighttime...

i'm using a geforce 6800gt, with some modified drivers i think 19.83 version.....they work good on all other things, in my normal email programs the screen is great.......i don't play any other games to vcompare though.....i also have my gamma somewhere around 1.9 to 2.2  set through the options menu in the game.........

[CAP1]

Originally posted by 715
On my monitor I can easily distinguish ground details on the top two.  On the bottom one, on my monitor, the ground is almost uniformly black (super dark green).  When people say night time, I think they mean the ground looks like it would at night time, not the sky.

yes

[Old Sport]

The rendering of terrain is a significant resource hog during gameplay. You fly over a forest these days and frames start dropping cause there's a lot more detail in the new forests.

Moreover, to produce bright screen colors requires more hits on all the screen pixels - red, green and blue. That, one assumes, means that bright colored detailed objects are a greater resource hit than dark colored objects. Think of it like this – the max color resource hit for a graphics card is an all white object because you have to hit all the R-G-B pixels all the time, while the minimum color resource hit is all black because none of the pixels are hit any of the time. Graphics cards require more computing time for brighter objects. So if you have lots of bright objects, you have a graphic hit.

On top of that, when you increase the number of color variations of a terrain you take a further hit. Remember that several years ago there were a few dozen of what were called "html safe" colors that required a bare minimum of PC color resources. The idea is that if you start increasing the number of variations being displayed at one time then, again, your graphics card has to compute those colors and you increase resource requirements.

Looking at this all together, I'd guess the current release has increased terrain object detail at the expense to some degree of color and variation, all in the name of playability, and probably in view of CT. But there may be a compromise that could brighten things a bit more.

[ramzey]

I'm just wondering, why the heck new terrain looks like Warbirds3  about 4-5 years ago?

I don't feel like flying anymore, is that HTC joke?.
HT are you testing your loyal customers?

[Kweassa]

The rendering of terrain is a significant resource hog during gameplay. You fly over a forest these days and frames start dropping cause there's a lot more detail in the new forests.

 The forest is actually a less of a resource hog in the way they are handled.

Moreover, to produce bright screen colors requires more hits on all the screen pixels - red, green and blue. That, one assumes, means that bright colored detailed objects are a greater resource hit than dark colored objects. Think of it like this ?the max color resource hit for a graphics card is an all white object because you have to hit all the R-G-B pixels all the time, while the minimum color resource hit is all black because none of the pixels are hit any of the time. Graphics cards require more computing time for brighter objects. So if you have lots of bright objects, you have a graphic hit.

On top of that, when you increase the number of color variations of a terrain you take a further hit. Remember that several years ago there were a few dozen of what were called "html safe" colors that required a bare minimum of PC color resources. The idea is that if you start increasing the number of variations being displayed at one time then, again, your graphics card has to compute those colors and you increase resource requirements.

 I may not be a graphics expert, but this is total nonsense.

 Among some more than 60 thousand colors a graphics card can handle, a total black and total white pixel takes up as much 'resource' as it should. Any modern graphics card that can handle 32bit color settings is more than enough to run AH.

Looking at this all together, I'd guess the current release has increased terrain object detail at the expense to some degree of color and variation, all in the name of playability, and probably in view of CT. But there may be a compromise that could brighten things a bit more.

 It's got nothing to do with performance issues. It's basically a combination of old-version terrains being converted flat-out, a lack of sufficient ambient lighting, and miscolored texture tiles.

[Citabria]

Originally posted by ramzey
I'm just wondering, why the heck new terrain looks like Warbirds3  about 4-5 years ago?

I don't feel like flying anymore, is that HTC joke?.
HT are you testing your loyal customers?

its striking how much it does remind me of old warbirds from long ago hehe

but don't worry ramzey the issues are with the textures only. you have to understand the technology of the AH engine is derived from the same company that made the falcon 4.0 engine.

its only textures and bitmaps making it this dark not some sinister lighting problem...
don't believe me? go to the training arena real quick and you can see parts of the old terrain shining through in spots hehe.

i remember long ago waffle telling me he always used a boosted gamma. I think if this is the case I think he needs to use 1.0 gamma because hes not a player contributing art he is setting the standard for the art and gamma just alters that standard. I always thought HTC used the 1.0 gamma as their standard but i don't know anything.

its just a theory but it explains why all his stuff looks so dark. I know he likes dark skins and textures which is fine by me but the terrain needs to be bright and look like the sun is shining.

and I also understand about contrast and brightness for the terrain I have built arenas before and am very concientious of eye strain because I have astigmatism and am very suceptable to it.

but understand its the sky+ the terrain and large drastic change between the two is hard on the eyes.

in my mind terrain textures need to be bright but have subdued contrast. that means consistently bright across the board and matching the sky.


but i rambled off...

the 3d objects for the terrain are fantastic they are gorgeous and fully europified and accurate for the time period.

only problem is the textures and guess what... HTC allows map makers to change textures on their maps

but I may not have to from what it seems waffle said he would at least "change the tiles a little bit" in future patches.


I am hard core about terrain tiles and I know what I like and what I don't so this may or may not be enough for my tastes. if it is excellent... if not thats fine too I am building a main arena right now and will texture it myself either way even if its not necessary just to make the terrain unique.

[Saxman]

I'd like to know how things could be more Europified than they already were, other than removing the Blue Planes outright.

[Citabria]

I plan on making two main arena's saxman

I havent forgotten about the origional ah1 version of ozkansas and I still miss it

this eto map will have alterred textures but wont need new 3d objects like palm trees like a pacific map would and since they are nto allowing custom 3d objects there is only one option.. ETO or bust hehe

[CAP1]

Originally posted by ramzey
I'm just wondering, why the heck new terrain looks like Warbirds3  about 4-5 years ago?

I don't feel like flying anymore, is that HTC joke?.
HT are you testing your loyal customers?

i don't think i'd go that far......i do realize it needs tweaking(as yanksfan has repeatedly mentioned)

think we all just need to offer CONSTRUCTIVE critisim, and inpput so they can do this as fsast as possible.....before we all go blind from tryin to miss the hills and trees.

btw...i messed with gamma, brightness and contrast in my vid card's (geforce 6800gt 256mb) software.....improved slightly............no headaches or watery eyes now. still no depth perception either though.