Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: LivetoDie on June 28, 2005, 01:48:27 AM
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(Previously posted in Aircraft and Vehicles)
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=153989
I was out in a Tiger and was sneaking up on an Ostwind hiding in the trees peppering the base. The only thing between me and him was some low brush type stuff. no trees. I fired round after round only to see explosions of brush between us. He in turn swiveled his turret and proceded to take out my tracks. Eventually I was able to get a clean shot when he moved slightly.
Mighty tuff stuff that grass.
My suggestion is to make the bush and grass modeled without collision detection. Leave the trees as they are. You would still be able to be visually hidden but vulnerable to attack. This would be much more realistic.
Very frustrating the way it's modeled now.
How hard would this be AH?
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You CAN shoot through trees. The round originates at the end of the barrel. Spin your gun so the tip is out and voila; sniper.
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That may very well be true but if you understand my post the problem is simply that when shooting at another GV hiding behind bushes,the rounds explode when they hit the bushes before even reaching the intended target.
This is just wrong.
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Originally posted by LivetoDie
That may very well be true but if you understand my post the problem is simply that when shooting at another GV hiding behind bushes,the rounds explode when they hit the bushes before even reaching the intended target.
This is just wrong.
Unfortunately the overall quality of the "GV" aspect is still lacking. Since I'm not a programer It wouldnt be fair to comment on technical capabilities....but it seems like alot of current games dont have these issues. So it could either be technical aspects related to MMP games on the net. It could be the "engine" itself, all games are written using some type of graphics engine. Many of the top ones are propriatary....simply may be beyond the capabilities. It's pretty obvious that AH is "graphically challenged" at this point....
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Originally posted by humble
Unfortunately the overall quality of the "GV" aspect is still lacking. Since I'm not a programer It wouldnt be fair to comment on technical capabilities....but it seems like alot of current games dont have these issues. So it could either be technical aspects related to MMP games on the net. It could be the "engine" itself, all games are written using some type of graphics engine. Many of the top ones are propriatary....simply may be beyond the capabilities. It's pretty obvious that AH is "graphically challenged" at this point....
.... or HT, Sudz, and crew are up to their collective arse in TOD development and ... in due time ... will get to these issues when time and development schedules permit.
I am not a game developer, but I am a software developer and I can picture the HTC crew coming up with some pretty snazzy stuff that will eventually be beta tested in the MA before being let loose in TOD. TOD is #1 priority and I doubt very strongly that HT will drop what he is doing to address these nits anytime soon. He is probably listening and addressing these issues in the code that he is currently developing and we will see them emerge in time ... HT's time ... HTCs' development schedule time.
HiTech has done some pretty slick watermelon over the years, and as far as I am concerned, he hasn't even scratched the surface ... he hasn't even flexed his programming muscles yet and with the addition of Sudz ... things can only get better ... faster. If you think that HT has reached the end of his programming abilities with todays technology ... your in for a surprise.
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I'm guessing HT's the kinda guy that when he's not sitting here reading these overly-reposted bug reports or working on TOD, he's talking with cronies about that brand new coad that one of them just read about. :D
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Originally posted by SlapShot
.... or HT, Sudz, and crew are up to their collective arse in TOD development and ... in due time ... will get to these issues when time and development schedules permit.
I am not a game developer, but I am a software developer and I can picture the HTC crew coming up with some pretty snazzy stuff that will eventually be beta tested in the MA before being let loose in TOD. TOD is #1 priority and I doubt very strongly that HT will drop what he is doing to address these nits anytime soon. He is probably listening and addressing these issues in the code that he is currently developing and we will see them emerge in time ... HT's time ... HTCs' development schedule time.
HiTech has done some pretty slick watermelon over the years, and as far as I am concerned, he hasn't even scratched the surface ... he hasn't even flexed his programming muscles yet and with the addition of Sudz ... things can only get better ... faster. If you think that HT has reached the end of his programming abilities with todays technology ... your in for a surprise.
Like most of us, I dont know where "technical capability" ends and "development focus" starts....the entire "big island" was at a crawl last night..almost unplayable for most of us (from what I got over vox)....
How much is Savis, how much is server capacity, how much is "overload" at the CPU level I dont know....Personally I'd rather see multiple ~250 person arenas then a 500+ one right now...
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Originally posted by humble
Like most of us, I dont know where "technical capability" ends and "development focus" starts....the entire "big island" was at a crawl last night..almost unplayable for most of us (from what I got over vox)....
How much is Savis, how much is server capacity, how much is "overload" at the CPU level I dont know....Personally I'd rather see multiple ~250 person arenas then a 500+ one right now...
Oh ... I hear ya humble ... and I suffer too ... even tho I do have a kick arse machine with a kick arse card.
I flew one sortie there last night and it was a slide show ... went and found fun elsewhere.
I guess cause I am in the same line of work ... I am more patient ... and trusting (at least for now) ... ;)
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Originally posted by SlapShot
Oh ... I hear ya humble ... and I suffer too ... even tho I do have a kick arse machine with a kick arse card.
I flew one sortie there last night and it was a slide show ... went and found fun elsewhere.
I guess cause I am in the same line of work ... I am more patient ... and trusting (at least for now) ... ;)
He he, thats why I am not. They are rolling out more graphics before fixing the curent problems. I wont even mention FPS (ok I just did), but how hard is it to fix those invisable flaps? Has it been 3 years yet? It was fun fighting you last night but it would have been better at more than 10FPS, and that has nothing to do with the nework (oh well, I mentioned fps again)
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Originally posted by SlapShot
Oh ... I hear ya humble ... and I suffer too ... even tho I do have a kick arse machine with a kick arse card.
I flew one sortie there last night and it was a slide show ... went and found fun elsewhere.
I guess cause I am in the same line of work ... I am more patient ... and trusting (at least for now) ... ;)
I think thats what I find so frustrating right now. I have a AMD 3200+ with an X800pro and a gig of ram (pc3200) and still have times where my computer decides the outcome. I literally have died more often do to "pop up" tree's or what I call "lag death"...where you get behind the plane in a stall fight on the deck so that your "correcting" where the plane was and recorrecting as the slide show catches up....at beast you lose your angles...but often you auger on the over correction.
I honestly wish they'd just roll the 99 beta back out and call it "AH classic" :)
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These aren't "trees".....
They are stainless steel structures painted to resemble trees.
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that would be nice , destructable vegatation and stone walls ect.
I also see a need to be able to load out the c47 with defoliant (Round-up or Agent Orange)and snapper mowers and bush trimmers, how about drunks armed with chainsaws?
seriously trees n stuff that can die is a good idea.
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There is just no way to code destructable vegitation considering the massive ground area, it would be impossible to do this with current computer tech....call back in 10 years. I would like 3 levels of vegitation density coded though. Tree trunks and the like should be unpenetratable. Dense folliage (like tree canopies and dense bushes) should be partially penetrable, with rounds losing a random amount of energy as they pass thru. This would allow easy shots to kill a tank behind a bush, but make shooting an arcing round though a tree nearly impossible, as the trajectory cannot be predicted. This would also allow bombs to kill thru trees. And of course the 100% transparent grasses and such that we have today should remain.
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To me trunks should be "indestructable"....but the "foliege" should be a visual hinderence but not effect AP ahells otherwise. The big problem now is we seem to have a "hit bubble" effect with it....
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seriously trees n stuff that can die is a good idea. [/B][/QUOTE]
just what he said n stuff:aok :aok
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Originally posted by ALF
There is just no way to code destructable vegitation considering the massive ground area, it would be impossible to do this with current computer tech....call back in 10 years.
Here is another one, lol. Why do you say that? Not only it is possible, it is not even hard to do. I can understand not being important since they have other things they are working on, but impossible? Thats just funny.:rolleyes:
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Although I sometimes wonder what COAD stands for, I still occasionally put on the ole thinkin cap, "Correcting Obsolete Applications Daily.":D
I have to agree that saying something is impossible, over simplifies the task at hand. What used to take 10 years to accomplish in development now takes about 10 days of serious commitment (go figure).
Where HTC decides to place their priorities, must be a delicate balancing act. In terms of innovation, they have nothing more to prove to me personally. I am confident that one by one the "squeaky wheels" will be quieted.
:aok
Just close your eyes and invision the battlefield explosion, resulting in the smoldering crater, littered with charcoaled branches that just previously was your well disguised cover. No, not every blade of grass needs to be independently destructible, but a blast of certain stregnth could possibly effect terain changes.
:cool:
Is this effect worth the amount of resources :confused: Then the all important question, "What is the most efficient use of code?"
I am just grateful that others are on the same page. That means that eventually it WILL happen.
:p
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Let's see, one tree about every 100 feet is 528 along an east west line x 528 trees along the north south line equals 278,784 trees per square mile and 512 x 512 terrain equals 262,144 square miles gives 73,081,550,000 objects to track as alive or dead. Add bushes...
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One fly lands on a smelly pile and mates with another fly. Now lets see that fly laid 56 eggs that all hatched and those 56 maggots sooner or later got it on to produce 1568 other maggots and in no time you wouldn't be able to see the pile for the maggots.
Don't bother me with the details. Git R Done:cool:
Not to sound negative, we need a more positive approach. Like maybe every dead area remains dead until reset and in the long run the battlefield is stripped of vegetation and no terrain to track at all.
Not every area needs to be covered. If you want to start streamlining, just include the area near spawn points and bases. If you wish include a reasonable trail that tracks from spawn to base.
I am sure that programs use similar strategies to streamline elsewhere. We need ways to do it man not reasons to sit on our hands.:D
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Originally posted by Easyscor
Let's see, one tree about every 100 feet is 528 along an east west line x 528 trees along the north south line equals 278,784 trees per square mile and 512 x 512 terrain equals 262,144 square miles gives 73,081,550,000 objects to track as alive or dead. Add bushes...
If you are a programmer, do your company a favor and quit your job. :D You don't trak anything. You just transmit changes.
Arguing this is pointless. Nothing is impossible. Its a question of do they have the time and how importand it is.
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:rofl
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Wait!
Don't quit yet! Some of my best thinking has been provoked by those that have a different point of view other than my own. Everyone's opinion is valuable and I have noticed that the more banter involved in a real discussion, the quicker solutions are developed.
don't trak anything. You just transmit changes
:aok
For the sake of arguement, we forget about the limitation dependent on the number of objects, okay. Is there something else that we are missing that makes this idea of "destructible foilage" ridiculous?
My final comment:cool: In such a great WWII, Flight and Fight Simulation, I just have an overwhelming desire to destroy objects: boats, planes, trucks, tanks, buildings, sheep, and if not asking too much a dang tree or at least that darn Johnny Appleseed buggar that is to blame for it all:D
P.S. Easycor's avatar is making my avatar horny
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Originally posted by Chilli
P.S. Easycor's avatar is making my avatar horny
LOL, it's the nose art on my B17 skin so you'll be distracted while I shoot you. :)
I've played with the terrain editor a little and learned enough to know we have a limited number of objects we can place. I can't remember the maximum object count on a terrain at the moment but it's less then a quarter million IIRC so placing objects on the scale suggested above is out of the question.
It's not just destructible trees I want to place, there's also bushes and farm buildings as well as stuff we haven't even thought of yet. There's no real stopping point once you get started and I like the idea of coming up with things that will improve things within the framework we have now, not in 10 years.
On several AH1 maps in the past, Guadalcanal and Okinawa for two, we had small numbers of destructible trees scattered around the bases where the count could be kept reasonable. It was nice, but in AH2 we have many people complaining about frame rates so additional objects on the scale suggested above will upset those people no end. I say this because currently, the trees are made using large textures which are visually pleasing and allow you to pass through except where the trees show. To allow you to destroy one of these tree, you'd have to destroy an entire row up to a quarter mile long and this would be unacceptable IMO.
I've thought about placing grass tiles at the spawn points and setting trees/farm buildings etc there but that's a lot of hand work and I think it could break the map if not done perfectly (remember the spawn into the trees bug, that could become a common problem again) so clearly, filling whole terrain tiles by hand would never work.
An alternative that might work:
I've been thinking about experimenting with a grouped object of around 100 trees as a grove or hedge row, with a farm building or two, to be placed near the GV spawn points on maps for the SEA. That's still up to 51,200+ destructible objects for 512(?) spawn points and may not be worth it considering the size of the groves and how quickly they would be destroyed. I haven't had time to do any more then think about it, but I'm going to try it on an ETO terrain I'm planning. Maybe someone else will get to it before I do.(hint)
Edit for spelling
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Would someone from Hitech PLEASE pipe in on what has become a technical issue. It has been established that a majority of the responses to this post favor modification of some degree to the armor clad foilage which is totally unrealistic.
It seems the discussion has leaned toward the programming ramafications involved and if it is indeed possible to accomplish this at this time. Understandably the AH team is busy with the TOD work and we do appreciate their efforts to provide even more already state of the art gaming fun. Thanks AH. Now how about a comment from the our Hitech experts, the only ones that really matter in this issue.
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quote:
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Originally posted by ALF
There is just no way to code destructable vegitation considering the massive ground area, it would be impossible to do this with current computer tech....call back in 10 years.
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Originally posted by dedalos
Here is another one, lol. Why do you say that? Not only it is possible, it is not even hard to do. I can understand not being important since they have other things they are working on, but impossible? Thats just funny.:rolleyes:
Current bump mapping technology (I think that's what they call it) could do this kind of thing. Some FPS games have the ability to blow out walls and blow craters in the ground/floors and such. So, I see no reason why killing a tree would be that hard to do BUT implementing this in a hi quality flight simulator would most likely kill all of our frame rates except those running the absolute highest powered systems. I doubt whether the community would want to trade frame rates for penetrable foliage.
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Originally posted by Clifra Jones
quote:
implementing this in a hi quality flight simulator would most likely kill all of our frame rates except those running the absolute highest powered systems.
Why? Just asking.
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Originally posted by dedalos
Why? Just asking.
The sheer number of objects is huge. The average sector likely (I havnt counted) has several hundred thousand tree/shrub objetcs....That a tad high on the overhead side. Thats why I favor an 'inbetween' level of penatrability.
We have 100% penatrable....bullets dont even know they exist stuff like grasses
We have 100% inpenatrable (everything else)
Why not have randomly penatrable or partially penatrable so that you cant fire an accurate arcing shot thru it because the shots trajectory will be significantly shortened by a randome amount, but you can still fire at a tank on the other side of a bush, and have some chance of a good bomb strike thru a light tree canopy.
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Originally posted by dedalos
Why? Just asking.
Any destroyable object must have a "dead" version of the object or it disappears altogether from a terrain when it's destroyed or damaged.
Terrain tile objects currently also have LOD objects that would need a 'dead' version. That's a whole bunch more objects that need to have textures cached.
The base size for textures is 512x512 which is 258kb in size (give or take). If for example, you've got 20 default terrain clutter objects, each with 4 levels of LOD. That's 80, 258kb files or roughly 20-ish Mb you need to have on hand somewhere in the cache for the video card to grab and draw when the need arises.
Also, HTC would need to change the draw properties for terrain clutter objects in the code, and plug it in to AH's changed-state routine(s) for the list of things the game has to keep track of during game-play.
Done right, I don't see this being a problem for medium-high or high end systems but the low end systems could get hit hard.
My SWAG.
cheers,
asw
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Originally posted by Clifra Jones
Some FPS games have the ability to blow out walls and blow craters in the ground/floors and such. So, I see no reason why killing a tree would be that hard to do...
You have that now with somewhat comparable numbers of base and strat objects.
asw I was hoping to build the distant LODs out of 128x128 textures and only use two or three variations of trees rotated to look different and grouped with field ownership. You have more experience then almost anybody I know, what do you think, can I make it work well?
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Hiya's Easy,
You should be able to use a 128x texture for long distance LOD without any trouble - details count only when you get up close. There are quite a few texture files for default AH objects that are 256x and they work fine, even up fairly close, so...
:Drevising my previous post - using 256x textures, that's a cache requirement for ~5Mb - definitely doable if HTC sees value in it, but still an extra draw on system resources for low end machines.
Cheers,
asw
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Thanks asw - if nearly all the basic tree objects are the same, one of two, wouldn't that lighten the load on the players FE? Then my thinking is the HTC server would be doing the work of tracking the individual trees as field objects and so long as the total count of objects stays below the maximum it should work. If the load is too great for the server, then we'd cut down on the number of hedge rows but it'd make for a nice ETO feature, or on kanttori's Fin Russia terrain.
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Sorry - I have to give you a two-part answer: first, the short answer on the loading of a player's fe - you're essentially correct. Each of the polygons still have to get drawn on the screen. You'd save on video memory with using the one or two texture files on more polys but the polys still need to be processed and drawn. The front end is where the video crunching is done, regardless of the origin of the instruction to make the change in object state. It makes no difference whether the origin is on another pc or on the particular user's pc, the change instruction will come from the user's processor, based on the latest game-state information on the user's system. That game state information is the current state of the game at the last frame updated and qualified by the last game-state info packet recieved from the server and (maybe, depending on how HTC have written that end of it) the game-state changes initiated on the user's pc since the last frame.
I can't speak to exactly what the AH server does and doesn't look after because I'm not privy to that information, but it would make sense to me that the AH server is more or less analogous to something like a fedex hub that collects changed-state messages it recieves from each of the pc's connected to it, logs them and collates them, and then transmits the collated changed-state (or game-state) info packages to all the pc's connected to it. Tanslation of those game-state messages happens on the system processor end of a users system so it shouldn't have any on affect on frame rate at all. The AH game server likely only tracks game-state information and only sends out changed-state information.
Anyway, I hope my explanation is both fairly accurate and makes some sense. I don't have access to HTC's methodology so I'm basing my answer on what I've read and found out on my own about building multiplayer twitch games.
Cheers,
asw
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Thanks, that's about how I see it too. Point is, by moving the groups of trees away from the field, you reduce the load on video processing to something similar to being at a base so I think my plan should work well on a ETO map.
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All I can say is Speedtree. Google it. ;)
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Easyscors number assessment is correct. Simply the number of total objects prevents damaging trees.
Detch01: Assesment of how our servers function is fairly correct.
But a lot of state information is only retransmited on a "If player is in view" criteria.
As to a 3rd collied critera , I have considered that previously and it might apear at some later time.
HiTech
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As to a 3rd collied critera , I have considered that previously and it might apear at some later time.
Thank you for the feedback Hitech. Could you please explain what that means to the uneducated such as myself?
From your response I do sense some kind of a fix for this in the future....and where do I find that book, Gaming Programming for Dummies?
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Not even an "Easter Egg" Hitech? :p Several posts here to contemplate ways to reduce the numbers to a doable state. Heck, it would be worth it IMHO jsut to have one or two prime hiding places near maprooms, or spawn camps that could be defoiled. Too many times I have augered into a "treetanium" while trying to kill a gv placed right outside of the maproom. :confused:
Just for once, I would like to turn the tide on that "treehugger" and drop a bomb on his little cosy cover, and watch him scramble to run for cover when he is suddenly in the open:aok
You don't have to blow up every dang tree in the forest, just a few that count:cool:
But collision modeling is not really a big issue with me. I think that area is done very well. :aok
If the answer is still no, then I must demand that sheep must be brought back!:lol