More detailed building interiors, doable?

[Valmont]

There is no denying that PR devs and artists have made constant and impresive improvements to the visual department of the mod in terms of detailed assets, better textures, outstanding map layout, much better animations and models etc over the years so currently, PR with the help of some overlays like Reshade and/or SweetFX can really make the whole experience a lot more immersive than BF2 and in fact most current FPS could ever be.

One thing thou... that does not seem to improve much over time... or at least version from version, is the interior of buildings, houses etc.

So the exterior keeps improving and looking better and better but as soon as you go inside structures you cannot help but to realize just how old the engine really is. It is like playing two different games at times.

So since some time ago (and since I'vent found any post related to it) I wanted to ask the community and specially the devs:

Is the lack of better, more realistic or at least more detailed interiors because:

- Technical/performance/engine related issues?
- Amount of work required to do such thing?
- A combination of both
- Cosmetic things such as detailed interiors get in the way of the desired PR gameplay and generally don't add to much to it anyways so the devs opted not to dedicate any resources to it.

PS: To be somewhat more clear, when I say more detailed interiors I mean things like tables, chairs, carpets, radios, tvs, debree, broken things like bricks, bottles etc, anything that would make the place feel less barren and more real life like. Very often it is not even a question of assets inside interiors but even the wall textures look a quite worst inside of builings than what they look like on the outside.

PS2: For some reason I was playing a PR:WWII sub mod last night and I realized that the building interior details in the mod feel somewhat better than in most current PR maps. I know that WWII maps are newer but are a good example... for example on the trenches you find lots of barrels, pieces of wood, boxes, crates of different sizes and colors, tables, ammoboxes and some other stuff that really add to the immersion inside extructures.

But, since I haven't seen any other BF2 mod even attempt to do interiors right I would teorize that it is more of an engine issue rather than not having resources or the intentions to do it.

EDIT: Forgotten Hope 2 seems to do pretty good and detailed interiors... I haven't played the mod myself but I've seen videos recently to confirm this.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, looking forward for 1.4 and to keep playing PR for the next 10 years or so

[Valmont]

Alright I can confirm it... in WWII maps the interiors are much more detailed.

For example I found beds, tables, chairs, bathtubs, bookshelves with books!, pictures and some other furniture in the Omaha and Caretan maps. Even the interior texures are better for example there is a clear differentation between Floor, Roof and Wall textures and their materials are easily distinguishable (Dark Wood Roofs, white walls and light wood floors etc).

So I can now change my assumption and say that it is NOT an engine limitation?

[Ason]

It's mostly up to the mappers, but also depends on the type of map, work required and performance.
There is mostly just interior stuff for ww2 and afghan/middle-eastern maps, and most modern maps have way more and bigger buildings than ww2 maps.
Decorating each room on Dragon Fly or Grozny for example would require an insane amount of work and would also affect performance quite a bit.

FH2 maps are really awesome in terms of details, but they are also alot smaller than PR maps.

[Valmont]

Thank you Ason.

Would be great if the mapers could add some finishing touches for some building interiors so they don't look so sub par in comparison to the other parts of the mod.

Just like some vehicle interior's textures and models look really sub par to others.

I understand that these finishing touches require a lot of work but please consider improving this as much as you can in your spare time and while you are making map revisions.

[TheWankBank]

It's just like in AC: Unity or a modded GTA V, the more the world is detailed from inside and out, the more the input lag is present along with shutters.

[Valmont]

It's just like in AC: Unity or a modded GTA V, the more the world is detailed from inside and out, the more the input lag is present along with shutters.

But interior assets are mostly hidden (If a wall is in the way) so it is not rendered unless you are in the room... right... or that is for modern engines only?

I think they would use more RAM (as the asset gets loaded into the RAM) but not necesarily generate an impact on FPS (since you are not seeing more things simultaniusly) but correct me if I am wrong...

Also, like I said before, some interiors would feel much much better just by improving their room's textures so in many cases there isn't even a need to add more assets to them just better textures.

Other work arround is having less rooms and bigger hallways in most buildings so you don't have to decorate so many of them but modifying the bigger buildings to have fewer rooms would be lots and lots of work so I don't think it would be posible.

[ZektorSK]

You can't have everything in your game... something just have to stay in box, so the game is optimalized and playayble...


Ryuko dismiss this post, as bad idea

[Outlawz7]

You can't have everything in your game... something just have to stay in box, so the game is optimalized and playayble...

Yes you can, you just need to do it right.

[Rhino]

It's mostly up to the mappers, but also depends on the type of map, work required and performance.

Well, currently its up to the mapper to place down lots of individual props inside each building, which not only takes for ever to place every single table, chair, pot, etc, but is also seriously bad for performance with all the individual objects, each with their own drawcalls, textures and unoptimized lightmaps...

I was working on a new "Interior Prop Template" system for the afghan v3 statics but stopped working on them, but some other devs have been looking at it for other buildings more recently, although you do see some of the props I made on some of the deploayables, mainly the Road Blocks. But the point of these "Interior Prop Template" or ITP for short, was that they where lots of props, all exported as one static, that would snap onto a building and/or room of a building, and this would mean far easier for mappers to place (and the potential for them to be automatically placed and even randomised by code/tools once the buildings where in the map), making them far easier and faster to fill a room with props, with even the option to have different prop layouts per the same building/room or no props at all in it (no props = much easier to render all round, or even hand placed props over them if really needed), and also much fewer draw calls since all the individual props, are grouped into one static, using mostly common textures, so much fewer draw calls, and also far more optimized lightmaps since they are all packed together into one.





But ye, so far, not been able to use this concept on any of our statics but maybe some point in the future

[Valmont]

But the point of these "Interior Prop Template" or ITP for short, was that they where lots of props, all exported as one static, that would snap onto a building and/or room of a building, and this would mean far easier for mappers to place (and the potential for them to be automatically placed and even randomised by code/tools once the buildings where in the map), making them far easier and faster to fill a room with props, with even the option to have different prop layouts per the same building/room or no props at all in it (no props = much easier to render all round, or even hand placed props over them if really needed), and also much fewer draw calls since all the individual props, are grouped into one static, using mostly common textures, so much fewer draw calls, and also far more optimized lightmaps since they are all packed together into one.

But ye, so far, not been able to use this concept on any of our statics but maybe some point in the future

Thank you for such detailed answer as always Rinho.

Really looking forward to the future with "Interior Prop Templates" then, when props are optimized, varied and even randomly generated. WOW! 2018 can't get here fast enough!

Keep it up Rinho and devs!

[ZektorSK]

Yes you can, you just need to do it right.

But then you are responsible for big FPS drops, and bugs, glitches

[Mats391]

But then you are responsible for big FPS drops, and bugs, glitches

Can confirm. Outlawz is responsible for all FPS drops, bugs and glitches.

[Panzerfire]

So if he is "taken care of"... does that mean the game gets optimized?

*_*