Special Effects

[Itael]

Hi All,

First of all congratulations on the new Website! it looks fantastic.
I was wondering if there are any updates on the special effects in the game.
A quick search dug up old posts about various lighting effects and muzzle flashes.
I would appreciate it if we can have more information about what kind of detail we can expect from the final product.

Thanks in advance, I am looking forward to this game!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I too am very interested in this. I know I shouldn't but I would just love to see good looking tracerfire arcing back and forth. Bouncing upwards on occasion would just be too much to hope for, I'm sure.
And explosions ...if they look good enough I might not even bring up the shockwave. ;)
I can't wait to see flares and other lighting efects. Burning vehicles? w00t!
I do hope dust gets done way different then CMAK, it looked good on occasion but generally didn't work well gameplay wise.

[Ali-Baba]

Me too smile.gif I hope that in the future CM will also have secondary lighting sources from street lights, explosions, muzzle flashes, tracers, flares etc. I think full day/night circle will be in, not just the CMx1 midday/dusk/dawn/night right?

Btw, I really like the idea of the shrapnel effect in CMSF explosions, as seen in the screenshots. Hope they keep the earth shakin effect too.

[ February 19, 2007, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: panzermartin ]

[Itael]

Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those "arcade" and first person shooter guys, I am for realism all the way and special effects can really rise the realism.

[Cpl Steiner]

It would be really nice to see some drifting dust here and there a la "Call of Duty 2", especially given the Middle-East setting. As these sorts of effects seem to be very common in games now maybe it is something modern graphics cards handle well enough now that it doesn't involve much programming or computer resources, but what do I know?

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Itael:
Don't get me wrong, I am not one of those "arcade" and first person shooter guys, I am for realism all the way and special effects can really rise the realism. Top, top notch lurking. Really, you're kind of an anti-Dorosh, and that can only be a good thing.

[Alan8325]

Originally posted by panzermartin:
Btw, I really like the idea of the shrapnel effect in CMSF explosions, as seen in the screenshots. Hope they keep the earth shakin effect too. Can you please link to one of these screenshots? I haven't found one yet with explosions.

[Ali-Baba]

Some early shots here:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=001151#000000

and here:

http://www.battlefront-newsletter.com/Blogfront/tabid/55/EntryID/63/Default.aspx

[Itael]

Thanks for the pictures panzermartin.
At least now we have an idea how it looks like.

[MikeyD]

Hah! By coincidence I had just moments ago relinked to the explosion-over-trench screenshot in the trenches thread. Looks like that old "Artillery in action" thread is being well utilized today.

Looking over the screenshots you do see a few 'effects' like lens flare when the camera's pointed into the sun. You also see dust being kicked up by guns firing like in CMx1. I think they said the current style of rifle flashes in the screenshots might just be placeholders. It sounds like they're still in the process of plugging things into the game engine. I have yet to see any night time or overcast screenshots, though they do claim the night sky will have proper constellations overhead!

I'd be surprised if they do fancy secondary lighting like overhead streetlights at night - Not to say they won't. I'll just be surprised.

[Ali-Baba]

City lights will be really nice, but it can also be assumed that there is a general black out due to weeks of bombardments so there goes our midnight atmospheric illumination smile.gif

[juan_gigante]

I think that dynamic lighting could really improve the many night battles I expect to face. The advantage US guys get from NVGs might not be quite as big if there are flares, explosions, and fires everywhere, providing light for the Syrians and blinding or hampering the vision of the NVG-equipped US forces. Of course, this is probably a big enough thing that if they haven't done it already, they probably won't. And if I were developing CM:SF with a feature like dynamic lighting, I'd have been bragging about it already. So I bet they won't do it, or at least not to the extent where it would have much gameplay effect.

[aka_tom_w]

um

" And if I were developing CM:SF with a feature like dynamic lighting, I'd have been bragging about it already."

They have it covered!

Stunning high resolution graphics featuring dynamic lighting and object self shadowingfrom the features section of the new CM:SF web site (its there).

this thread is old news from Sept 2005

Steve says Dynamic light is in, captured in the massive Winecap synposis thread. (http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000124)
Dynamic lighting
Yes, dynamic lighting has been in and working great for a long time. Time of day is set by the scenario and that changes, obviously, how things are lit up. Dynamic lighting game effects -> honestly I don't know. Not sure what Charles is planning on doing. It likely is something that can be improved upon even if we don't do much with it right away.