Why so many new vehicles are low res?

[unrealalex]

Especially the Israeli humvees, they seriously look like they are from Battlefield 1942

[Rudd]

erm....seriously? thats a modified USI humvee, whats low res about it? the texture? it certainly does not look like its from 1942



Bit more US lovin... - Project Reality Forums

[Ford_Jam]

If you're talking about the images such as the first one in the Highlight that Rudd linked, I can see what you mean.
In-game however the model will have a much higher detail than the one pictured in the Editor. This is because BF2editor doesn't render models in the highest possible quality it can and doesn't include more fancy effects such as anti-aliasing.

If you're talking about models ingame then I have no idea, maybe your video settings are just low because PR is perdy

[unrealalex]

The model you posted looks fine. The model in game looks very low res. The wheels and the body are pretty much monotone.

It's not only the humvee. I've noticed some other models and I was just wondering if that's something you guys do on purpose to reduce stuttering or something? I've seen so many high res models posted on forums but in game they usually never look as good.

Another low res vehicle that comes to mind is the canadian LAV.

On the contrary the new Abrams looks very high res and detailed.

[Rudd]

It's not only the humvee. I've noticed some other models and I was just wondering if that's something you guys do on purpose to reduce stuttering or something? I've seen so many high res models posted on forums but in game they usually never look as good.

max renders always look better than the ingame counterparts, you know how it works alex...

[Brummy]

I do not think that this:





looks like something from this game:

[Tim270]

What do you mean by 'rez'?
The resolution of the hmmw textures are a pretty standard 1024x1024 (I think some larger vehicles even use 2048x2048 ), which is not low 'rez'.

Sure there are some parts where a chamfer would be nice (Looking at the up-armoured hummer that has already been addressed), but everything has to be within limits. The hummer is a pretty common vehicle on maps, thus more than most objects it needs to be keep within reason (polycount wise).

I certainly cant see anything wrong with it. Sure its in a pretty old engine, that was never graphically ground-breaking to start with, but it still looks decent. Are your settings on high?

[Gammlgandalf13]

Especially the Israeli humvees, they seriously look like they are from Battlefield 1942

Did you ever think about setting your graphic settings to high + 8x AA?
For me it works, and PR looks as good as possible with BF2 engine.

[Drunkenup]

Not that I'm a expert on textures or anything, but I have seen better textures in the BF2 engine than that of the ones on the Canadian LAV-III, the IDF HMMWV, and especially the IDF Merkava Mk4. As much as it isn't horrible, it could be better, but as it is now, IMO, it shoots the immersion in the foot.

[unrealalex]

I do not think that this:

Idk it still look pretty akward to me. Look at the wheels. they look like burnt pancakes.

look at this one, its so rich with detail


Same thing goes for the interior of a few new vehicles (cant remember which off the top of my head but I think one of the new logi trucks).

[Rudd]

Look at the wheels. they look like burnt pancakes.

thats a specific and useful observation, I agree the wheels look a bit odd.

the rest of your feedback is pretty dire

[Spec]

Think of us people with less than optimal computers, too. I have not yet been on a computer that could handle for example Dragon Fly with it's static fields, loads of trees and buildings and the vehicles without problems.

[Rhino]

This is mainly because pretty much all the textures where lowered before the .9 release as we had some huge textures like a 2048x2048 textures for the insurgent bike... Thou pretty much every single vehicle ingame had there textures lowered.

[Katarn]

The vehicles in PR are a huge mishmash from different mods and artists so it's hard to maintain a standard of quality. Many of the vehicles in PR are below the ideal or what I would consider acceptable quality but replacing them would be a significant workload and we just don't have the personnel to do it.

Technically, a lot of this stems from poor workflow that does not coincide with the industry standard of today. And, you are right, these vehicles actually do have qualities similar to and in some cases worse than that of battlefield 1942. Cutting triangles to a bare minimum, especially with regards to interiors, low res and grainy textures all contribute to the problem. Most of it comes down to insanely low poly modeling and poor texturing, really. It's nothing we are in a position to fix at this point in time though.

[=Toasted=]

I only play PR on med/low, and to me, everything in it still looks great. I play this game for the awesome gameplay, teamwork, and community.

I think that outweighs a "pancake" looking wheel. Of course, if the DEV's are willing to make some changes to the textures to satisfy those who are obsessed over graphics, more power to them.

[Nebsif]

Agree, the texture on T-90 looks lower than 0.8, the interior of the BRDM and the insurgent supply car makes u wanna puke, same for all US vehicles, any chance some of the textures will be high once again in the next patch?

This is mainly because pretty much all the textures where lowered before the .9 release as we had some huge textures like a 2048x2048 textures for the insurgent bike... Thou pretty much every single vehicle ingame had there textures lowered.

why lower all textures, some vehicles are bigger and need bigger textures.. 0.9 is like playing 0.8 in low detail (in terms of vehicles)

[AquaticPenguin]

Agree, the texture on T-90 looks lower than 0.8, the interior of the BRDM and the insurgent supply car makes u wanna puke, same for all US vehicles, any chance some of the textures will be high once again in the next patch?



why lower all textures, some vehicles are bigger and need bigger textures.. 0.9 is like playing 0.8 in low detail (in terms of vehicles)

Well, I think Rhino meant lowering all textures in proportion to each other, so larger vehicles would still have fairly high resolution textures.

IMO a lot of the brand new models made are of fantastic quality, and the textures are very sharp. There are a few, like the IDF humvee which you highlighted where the texture looks quite flat, I think that's down to there not being many textured details, or because a lot of the models don't have normal maps (also the normal maps are only on highest texture setting iirc). The BF2 engine doesn't help much, an absence of dynamic light on lower settings and the flat ambience mean there aren't a lot of highlights on the models and in the end it adds to them looking very flat.

Something to remember, each faction has a lot of assets each of which has a unique texture, and textures take up a lot of video memory. Some rough (and probably wrong) calculation:
Each channel of a texture is 1byte per pixel
25% extra added for mipmaps
1024x1024 texture maps each with 4 channel texture takes up 5MiB raw data
2048x2048 textures with 8 channels (RGBA, 1 Specular + 3 Normal Map channels) uses 40MiB raw data
Given each faction needs at least 25 unique textures for various assets (like rifle models/vehicles)
25*5 = 125 MiB per faction
that excludes textures larger than 1024x1024, normal maps, map statics, deployable assets, graphics overhead (framebuffer, shadow lamp, Z-buffer etc) and all of the vertex data.

If i'm being silly someone please correct my maths, also I'm not sure if this is exactly how textures are handled on video cards, They can be compressed a bit iirc, and can also be streamed from main memory but I'm not sure how effective either of those methods are.

[unrealalex]

The vehicles in PR are a huge mishmash from different mods and artists so it's hard to maintain a standard of quality. Many of the vehicles in PR are below the ideal or what I would consider acceptable quality but replacing them would be a significant workload and we just don't have the personnel to do it.

Technically, a lot of this stems from poor workflow that does not coincide with the industry standard of today. And, you are right, these vehicles actually do have qualities similar to and in some cases worse than that of battlefield 1942. Cutting triangles to a bare minimum, especially with regards to interiors, low res and grainy textures all contribute to the problem. Most of it comes down to insanely low poly modeling and poor texturing, really. It's nothing we are in a position to fix at this point in time though.

Ok, well thats understandble. It doesn't bother me too much really, but good to know I'm not crazy lol.

[Bazul14]

Its probably because high res textures might cause lag for the users that play PR on their brand new Commodore 64 E. I guess that the lack of time to create the high res textures also plays a role in this.

[Claymore]

The previous version of PR was slow on a 3.4 ghz Quad + 4870x2 + 8gb mem. And lowering details didn't help very much. I very much prefer a smooth game with lack of texture details over a photorealistic slideshow. The gameplay of PR is so great that it deservers to run without lag.