Why are ground objects transparent?

[Kryote]

Hello....

 

I have been thinking about buying this game, but I noticed in the pictures on the screenshot section of the website, that objects on the terrain become more transparent with distance. Why would this be? I included a picture as evidence of my concern. Notice how you can actually see the lake through the building? and see the ground through the buildings? I cannot believe that this is normal, but this picture was posted by the developer of this game, and is in the screenshot section. I would imagine that this transparency on every object must result in many meaningless calculations that need to be performed by the CPU and GPU, as well as it looking silly and unrealistic. Please let me know if this is normal behaviour for this game. Thanks.

 

[SwingKid]

In order to let the scene be drawn quickly enough to permit acceptable frames per second (FPS) performance, objects beyond a certain distance are not drawn.

 

This once caused a problem of buildings "popping up" into view when they came into the drawing range, that looked very distracting and unrealistic for many users, especially when flying over a city. So, to alleviate this problem, now the objects "fade" into view. Cosmetically, it's less distracting to the eye.

 

What you see in the screenshot is a "zoomed view" manipulation, like looking through binoculars or a telescope from a large distance, so that distant objects look much larger and closer. These distant objects are still partly transparent. This is not the default view for the simulator and it is usually not so noticeable.

 

-SK

[Guest Cali]

It is very noticeable for me, but it doesn't bother me that much. You get use to it, I would get the game anyway, you will love it. I hope your computer isn't too old...

[BOPrey]

Like SwingKid said. That was the reason for distant objects like transparent so they can fade. However, it does not have to be done this way. If you look at how fog is implemented, you know what I mean.

[JaBoG32_Viper]

Btw. i have a problem like that too, but not with ground-objects, just with the KI-f18.

All the other planes look ok, but the f18 is transparent (look like the ground-objects in the screenie)

I dont think, that this based on my grpahiccard (GF 4 MX 440 Go on a laptop) cause all the other models are quiet correct.

[britgliderpilot]

What was that one again . . . . alpha channel in the Hornet skins?

 

You need to edit the properties of the skins to get that fixed - tricky to do, and I can't remember the exact process.

 

It's a problem with the more budget cards, certainly. You do get bonus points for enthusiasm if you're playing Lomac successfully on a laptop with that graphics card, though ;)

[JaBoG32_Viper]

Btw. i play it online with middle settings, offline with full effects and high textures and i have ~15-20 fps than.

Maybe the CPU is the point that it works (AMD 64Bit 3200)

Yeah it works good and I'm a freak. If theres something, that seems not to work, I try everything to get it workin and most of the times i can make it.

 

Alpha-channel..hmm..sounds that this could the point. I look at the textures and see if i can correct it.

 

Thanks

 

Viper

[britgliderpilot]

Btw. i play it online with middle settings, offline with full effects and high textures and i have ~15-20 fps than.

Maybe the CPU is the point that it works (AMD 64Bit 3200)

Yeah it works good and I'm a freak. If theres something, that seems not to work, I try everything to get it workin and most of the times i can make it.

 

Alpha-channel..hmm..sounds that this could the point. I look at the textures and see if i can correct it.

 

Thanks

 

Viper

 

The Advanced Search on the Ubi Lomac forums still works - it's been brought up countless times over there, go see if you can find the details for the skin tweak :)

 

Dedication, dedication, dedication . . . . grin.

 

I'm beginning to really want more CPU power for various games - I'm on a P4 2.8 at the moment, and want to go to a AMD 64 3500. I even have sufficient funds to hand, but it's a question of whether I want to spend them on that, a trip to the states to see family, or other expensive hobbies . . . . sigh.

[Kryote]

Thanks for the replies. Indeed, objects popping up out of nowhere would be annoying, but I must confess that I find making an object transparent as a substitute seems like a rather odd solution. In fact, I have never seen such a solution implemented in any game before, including F4 and FS2004. Objects fade into and out of view, but at no point do they actually become "see through".

 

In order to let the scene be drawn quickly enough to permit acceptable frames per second (FPS) performance, objects beyond a certain distance are not drawn.

 

I don't quite understand how making the object semi-transparent would actually result in fewer calculations, and thus result in greater FPS. The object still exists, and has to be rendered, but now the CPU and GPU have to alter it's transparency and render it accordingly. To me, this would result in more intense CPU/GPU usage. I think using a haze method to hide distant objects from view, (and rendering) as used by F4 and FS2004 looks realistic, occurs in nature, and in my mind at least, is probably much more efficient for the CPU/GPU to process. I guess what bothers me the most is that a solid object becoming invisible is such an impossible and unnatural occurence, that I would find it hard to ignore while actually playing the game. I will probably go ahead and buy 1.02 and 1.1 anyways, but I sure hope ED changes the way distant objects become viewable.

 

[SwingKid]

I don't quite understand how making the object semi-transparent would actually result in fewer calculations, and thus result in greater FPS. The object still exists, and has to be rendered, but now the CPU and GPU have to alter it's transparency and render it accordingly.

 

Making the object semi-transparent does not improve FPS. Making the object "invisible" (i.e. not drawn) beyond a certain distance is what improves the FPS.

 

What making the object semi-transparent does is to smooth the sharp transition between "visible" and "invisible". The pop-up effect is something you can't see in a screen-shot, it only becomes apparent when you are actually moving over a city and suddenly see these numerous 3D buildings seeming to pop out of the ground one by one as you move towards them.

 

I tend to agree with you though, the pop-up effect never bothered me and I preferred it to all these semi-transparent buildings, because it actually let me see my targets out to the maximum possible "drawn" distance. The fade is by comparison a purely cosmetic effect, at the cost of combat effectiveness IMHO. But it seems we have a lot of people who like to do cosmetic "look at the scenery" flying in this sim.

 

-SK

[BOPrey]

Kryote is not talking about the pop up effect. He is talking about how the transition should be done differently. Instead of making objects semi-transparent, use a haze effect or fog effect. Both IL2 and FS2004 uses either fog or haze to make distant objects blend in with the ground texture and gradulely fate in. It works out nicely.

[SwingKid]

Kryote is not talking about the pop up effect. He is talking about how the transition should be done differently. Instead of making objects semi-transparent, use a haze effect or fog effect. Both IL2 and FS2004 uses either fog or haze to make distant objects blend in with the ground texture and gradulely fate in. It works out nicely.

 

Wouldn't the such haze obscure the terrain surrounding the building, as well as the building itself? How would you aim a Maverick or Karen without any references?

 

-SK

[BOPrey]

Wouldn't the such haze obscure the terrain surrounding the building, as well as the building itself? How would you aim a Maverick or Karen without any references?

 

-SK

 

No. The effect of fog and haze only reduce the over all contrast of the terrain texture and the objects at a particular distance. The way I look at it is. You add a layer of fog every 2 to 5 km, and they are only facing the camera. For the terrain and objects at 2km, nothing is affected. However, for the terrain and objects at 50km, the contrast is almost reduced to 0 because you have quite a few layers of fog between the camera and the terrain and objects.

[SwingKid]

No. The effect of fog and haze only reduce the over all contrast of the terrain texture and the objects at a particular distance.

 

Considering that you describe reducing terrain contrast as well as object contrast - how is that a "no" to my question?

 

More to the point - drawing objects out to 50 km? I wish. Lock On cities are so dense the buildings need to become invisible already at 2-6 km. :(

 

-SK

[BOPrey]

I rest my case if the original goal is to make objects invisible within 2-6km. I always thought that the transparent technic is to make objects to blend with the ground texture so they can have a more natural look. Hence the "no" answer to your question.

[SwingKid]

I rest my case if the original goal is to make objects invisible within 2-6km.

 

Yes, it's a major grief for me, to not be able to see buildings that I'm shooting at. The only compromise is that if an object is designated as a target or mission goal, then it gets drawn a little farther out. But I think such an object should simply never turn invisible at any range. Individual objects were never the cause of the fps problem to begin with.

 

-SK