When Combined Arms looks like that down low, I'm picking it up and grabbing an M1. Looks great. Hope it's soon, but considering how long everything is taking, who knows.

Hubba hubba hubba!

I took a screenshot in the current version, under the same conditions, for comparison:

Gosh, like that is even clearer.

I am ready to wait the for the release!

What a difference self shadowing makes on the terrain.

I don't think terrain self-shadowing has been implemented in the Georgia map - what you're seeing is higher contrast shading, which still looks great.

Look at the hills in the middle of your screenshot. On the top, the left half of the hills is shadowed. The same part in the bottom picture doesn't have any shadowing at all, so it shouldn't be just more contrast.

Besides, shaders and shadowing is one of the features that shouldn't need a new map to implement. Disregard.

Wow! I was thinking it was self shadowing too...

I'm respectfully asking- honest, no sarcasm- how can you tell it's high contrast shading... and... what the hell is high contrast shading!?

Thank you in advance for your patience!

That's because the left half is facing away from the sun. Simple gouraud shading would also give this effect, and it has nothing to do with self-shadowing.

There are a few other hints that the terrain isn't self-shadowing (take a look at all the areas that are in shadow and compare them to the sun angle - if the terrain slope is facing away from and steeper than the sun angle, it should be shaded anyway), but one area in particular stands out:



That little bit technically shouldn't be lit at all since it would be in the shadow of the taller hill.




I'm just referring to the fact that there's more shading contrast than what we currently have.

The key term here is shading, which in computer graphics is a way of lighting an object based on the angle of the face relative to the sun. If the face is perpendicular to the sun, it is fully lit, and if it's parallel or facing away from the sun it's fully shaded. It doesn't take into account any objects which may be blocking the sun. It looks identical to self-shadowing in all cases except at very low sun angles and very rugged terrain.

Self-shadowing, on the other hand, projects a shadow bitmap against the terrain from the sun's point of view and is much more cpu/graphics intensive. In the screenshot I posted, and in Remon's screenshot, shading is used because it's still pretty effective (ie. it fooled two people on this thread into thinking it was self-shadowing).



[created with Blender]

Of course, any of this is an improvement over the existing graphics engine where there's hardly any shading at all. The greater variation in tone in DCS World 2.0 is what makes the terrain 'pop' and I'm pretty excited to see it in game.

Ah! Got it! Now it's crystal clear!

I love rendering technique terminology. EDGE + CA looks prettier to be sure.

More from russian forum, new M-1 Abrams sights (Translate by google)

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2164301&postcount=138

More than any other part of DCS World, CA needs EDGE and Nevada.




The Jedi Master

Wowza! You got me there... two platoons of tanks versus two other platoons of tanks around the Nevada desert!

DCS CA had my curiosity, now it has my attention!

Agreed. It's the ground units who suffer most from the low-res terrain mesh. It's like fighting on a series of vast, 1km wide triangular parking lots.

The CA updates look great, but there are no news concerning all this 3d models? Hope they are added soon, and crewable!!

Video of some upcoming features.

Stratos, that models coming on future updates.

Thank you Remon for the YouTube, it is nice to see what's coming to CA

Any official word? And they will be crewable?