Dust from GUA 30MM HE

[coconutjo]

Random thought -

 

Could ED implement some form of dust cloud over gun runs? I notice in RL vid on Youtube that a heck of a lot of dust & debris is raised when strafing open ground. Any thoughts? This could possibly apply to all other ordnance too...

 

A random first post but there you go. Better than inevitable bleating on about Mavericks anyway.

 

Just wanted to say to ED - this is the best piece of sim software I've ever owned - love it :)

 

...oh and the online community are bl00dy excellent - thanks to all of you for your vids, posts, uploads, rants & raves!!!

Edited April 1, 2012 by coconutjo
thanks to the community!

[EtherealN]

Technically yes, but at the price of a serious performance hit. Early versions of the simulator had much more dust/smoke than in release if I recall correctly, but this had to be scaled back because the cumulative impact of the dust/smoke in large battles brought any system to it's knees.

 

But I agree that dust and smoke is an area that could use some beefing up, just has to be done in a performance-friendly manner. (And how to do that goes above my head.)

[MTFDarkEagle]

I suppose it should be possible to make it a "slider"-option?

[coconutjo]

..or configurable only for client GAU? Not realistic but hey, you'd know where you missed!

[Demongornot]

Before that wait the new graphic engine cause MAYBE ED have decide to considerate visual effect like other than only eyecandy and he explosion/smoke effect and other will be improved (i want mean TOTALLY changed), first rule of the simulation world : don't hope anything about visual rending...

[coconutjo]

It'd be hard to do, and I've not seen it done convincingly elsewhere I concede. The type of effect I mean, when visible from the air, appears 1-2 minutes after a gun pass. It wouldn't appear immediately or be triggered by each round impact. Kind of a cloud effect.

 

Making it drift with the wind - now that would be tough!!

[EtherealN]

The underlying capability for making it drift with the wind is already there actually, AFAIK, but again it carries with it a risk of having a serious impact on performance in larger battles.

 

That's the devil of these things - what works fine in minor engagements might end up making large missions impossible - and you won't find out your settings are too high until you're in the middle of that battle, and if that's in the campaign that might not be much fun.

[Demongornot]

Its funny cause in DCS we have just 10 aircraft and 30 effect in the same time and we loose half of performance, when i play game like Supreme Commander with an addon who unlock the unit number capacity i can have 2000 !!!! unit in the same time with a lot of explosion, fire, shock wave and a lot of things + !!! unit from enemy (and i'm nice i talk about only 1Vs1 and not 4vs4) and with the maximum of possible number of effect, nuclear bombs, impact of the ground, on the water, on unit, on shield, unit explode and more and more (including the perfectly beautiful flame effect of the Cybranasaurus Rex that i really what to see in DCS, cause this effect DON'T take any CPU or GPU power and are SO BEAUTIFUL 10000 time more than ugly explosion of DCS who take incredible power from our PC), and i still have less FPS loss compare to empty map -> max graphic stress than DCS with empty map -> 50 unit, ground and air maximum and a little number of effect.

Why effect look better in Supreme Commander 2 and take 2000 time LESS performance than a single explosion in DCS ?

Look this effect with the flame, the light, the heat blur

Power consummation of 10 of them firing together = same power consummation than a SINGLE effect in DCS like a single explosion or a single Heat Blur for the SAME resolution at the scree finally and a 1000 time more beautiful effect in SupCom2, include : flame effect (perfect) heat blur (a little effect but still here) a really realistic smoke effect, two missile with light effect, smoke trail and explosion effect and a lot of little projectile with light tail and in flight explosion effect and ground explosion with a PERFECT impact where it can be perfect to see in DCS.

 

So please stop to say that its not possible to IMPROVE TOTALLY graphic rending AND visual effect, its 100% possible.

Another example here : with a incredible number of effect in the same time and a really poor FPS loss

or here

with the biggest and the worst effect for computer power, nuke and a incredible number with a big loss of FPS but don't still here long time with a lot of smoke and particle...

Only one nuke like that in DCS will simply make the game unplayable...

With the small size effect in DCS and the fact that the simulator MUST BE optimized for a cockpit view (including TGP) i don't know why the SAME effect can't be implemented in DCS (not the nuke but every other like flame, smoke, heat blur, particle and ground impact)...

Why ?

[coconutjo]

A bit off-topic but would an FSX-style visibility slider help improve performance and immersion? Where I live VFR visibility is typically 10nm - 20nm, and it seems much more in A10? I haven't read all of the dynamic weather thread so forgive me if the answer is in there...!

[Pyroflash]

Have you ever taken a close look at any of those SC2 effects Demongornot? Up close, they look really bad. The textures aren't something to marvel at, neither are the models to any specific degree. In fact, most of the new DCS models are far more detailed than anything you will see in most games.

 

Not to mention that there are a number of things present in the DCS world that the Supcom 2 world lacks. The environment modeling probably contributes to a large degree in the problem of lower FPS on blank maps for example.

 

Also, you have to take into account how exactly these effects are achieved. I can guarantee you that SupCom 2 uses a LOT of tricks to achieve those fancy visuals, tricks that would simply not work in DCS.

 

Lastly, the DCS world is a lot bigger. When you talk about view distance, that is the most horrid killer of FPS that exists. Having to render even landscape at far enough distances will kill a good computer.

 

Actually, one more thing. Can you try and be constructive? Simply pointing out things that you don't agree with isn't going to help get them fixed or looked at. If you really feel strongly about this stuff, you need to do some research into books, papers, and journals. Give the devs something to work with. Maybe it's a rendering algorithm that they haven't heard of, maybe it's a new procedural system. Lighting effects, it could be anything. However it is probably all stuff they have been working with for multitudes of years. Do you even know how difficult it is to program a fully functional engine? A lot of people would gawk in horror at the sheer amount of effort required to do so.

Edited April 3, 2012 by Pyroflash

[SmokeyTheLung]

Remember that most videos of a10s strafing are shot in a dry desert environment, where a lot more dust gets kicked up. When a 30mm API hits wet green soil, it's actually a little underwhelming IRL.

It'd be really cool, imho, if there were modified effects for the Nevada theater to reflect this reality.

[EtherealN]

Demongornot, I thought we had already established that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to programming? All you do is look at the most superficial of eyecandy a little here and there and, without any idea how they are achieved and what consequences they have in the context of a given type of application, go on long tirades about it.

 

RTS != Simulator. This carries a lot of consequences, and until you start to understand how these things work under the hood you are just wasting time.

 

That said, this is not YET ANOTHER thread for you to carry on your vendetta on. You have started several threads of your own. Please stick to them. Your complaints have already been responded to several times by several people who know more than you about this, and you can't just ignore that and move to new threads.

 

EDIT: Oh, and the nuke in Supreme Commander 2 isn't actually a complex thing. Yet even then it killed his computer... :P (Oh, and the smoke effects there is actually a type of particle effects, if I recall correctly, and fairly simple ones at that as well. The things you believe are particle effects, however, are not, AFAIK. They are particle effects the same way the floating 2D sprites of spent shell casings in DCS are particle effects... :P )

Edited April 3, 2012 by EtherealN

[Pyroflash]

..and you can't just ignore that and move to new threads.

 

How else is he supposed to trick people into thinking that he is actually doing something constructive? :P

 

Didn't like my old book? Here's a new one that I wrote, containing the same information with a different cover :)

 

They are particle effects the same way the floating 2D sprites of spent shell casings in DCS are particle effects...

 

ED should make these into 3d models. Especially for the P-51D and AH-64 (eventually).

Edited April 3, 2012 by Pyroflash

[EtherealN]

They become 3D models when LODed to close range, unless my memory is broken. :)

[Pyroflash]

Cool, I've never been close enough to notice it then :)

[Tracer2k]

in most games smoke is made from multiple 4 sided polygons (planar 2D objects) which have a texture map and occupacity map and then coded so that they are always facing the camera.

[EtherealN]

in most games smoke is made from multiple 4 sided polygons (planar 2D objects) which have a texture map and occupacity map and then coded so that they are always facing the camera.

 

Yeah, you can then treat each object like a particle - so the object's position is governed by a particle engine. (Though, again, I'm not a programmer so parts of this is magic to me. :P)

[Speed]

Demongornot, I thought we had already established that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to programming? All you do is look at the most superficial of eyecandy a little here and there and, without any idea how they are achieved and what consequences they have in the context of a given type of application, go on long tirades about it.

 

RTS != Simulator. This carries a lot of consequences, and until you start to understand how these things work under the hood you are just wasting time.

 

That said, this is not YET ANOTHER thread for you to carry on your vendetta on. You have started several threads of your own. Please stick to them. Your complaints have already been responded to several times by several people who know more than you about this, and you can't just ignore that and move to new threads.

 

EDIT: Oh, and the nuke in Supreme Commander 2 isn't actually a complex thing. Yet even then it killed his computer... :P (Oh, and the smoke effects there is actually a type of particle effects, if I recall correctly, and fairly simple ones at that as well. The things you believe are particle effects, however, are not, AFAIK. They are particle effects the same way the floating 2D sprites of spent shell casings in DCS are particle effects... :P )

 

You could have saved yourself a bunch of time by posting this:

Just kidding... I do like that pic though :D

 

I think ED might be able to do some things to give us dust. What about something like this?:

 

When weapons of sufficient energy hit the ground, they create some kind of flag in the graphics engine- a weapon impact flag. The weapon impact flag stores information like impact point, time since impact, dust cloud type (randomly chosen so all dust clouds aren't the same shape) and total ordinance energy contributing- which determines the dust cloud's size.

 

When a weapon impact flag is created, a dust cloud is also created. Now here is where it's different- If another weapon impacts within a certain amount of time, and within a certain radius, of an already existing weapon impact flag, then the total ordinance energy contributing variable of the already-existing weapons impact flag is increased, simply increasing the size of the dust cloud. You could also adjust the centroid of the dust cloud to match the average position of all the weapons impacts. There would obviously also need to be some transition animations so that the dust cloud doesn't instantly teleport around and make obvious, discrete increases in size when more weapons impact into it.

 

So, the basic idea is rather than create a new dust cloud effect for every single weapons impact, we simply "compress" the dust cloud effects of weapon impacts that are closely grouped in time and space into a single effect.

 

And no need to model dust kicked up by 7.62X39 rounds or anything like that. Remember, this is limited to weapons of sufficient energy. Maybe only 20mm and up.

 

Anyway, I get a bad enough frame rate as is... personally, I know I'm not ready for dust effects yet.

Edited April 4, 2012 by Speed

[EtherealN]

Hm. I like that idea Speed. Not sure how feasible it is to get it implemented, but it does sound like an interesting concept.

[coconutjo]

Speed..!

 

This is exactly what I meant - an effect derived from the delivery of ordnance but not an individual round strike. The performance saver would be that this could appear after weapons delivery, not at time of impact causing stutter. It could be rendered as per the existing, fast conventional clouds, though with some differences to shape/density etc. Cloud height / colour & shape could vary according to munition, target or land class (if DCS retains land class concept after Nevada).

 

I think that having achieved such stellar immersion within the cockpit, it would be great if Ed would incorporate some more environmental tweaks to up the realism even further. :)