Is there anything i can do in single player or campaing missions to affect the fog and get a longer view distance?
My system can handle it and i'd love to be able to see way off into the distance.
Knight.
Sky.visibilityrange xxx
Sky.fogrange xxx xxx
in the console, where xxx is your new ranges.
Thanks Slaor,
sorry for the noobism but how do you bring the console down and does x represent meteres? So would 1000 be over the top?
Knight.
most stock maps run 400 going over 700 is not recomended
Console is enabled via " ctrl ` " (w/o double quotes of course & the single quote is the one below the tilde ~).
Yes, those x's are in BZ meters. Additionally, for fogrange, the 1st set of x's is the inner radii and the last set of x's is the outer range. You can always flip them, i.e. 1st set > 2nd set, but you'll get undetermined results, such as maybe a thick wall of fog, I forget. Also, the farther the distance between both sets will create a more translucent fog gradient, which can give more realistic results than if they were closer together. Experiment. Also note that you can no longer change viso and fog parameters in 1.3 MP. You can go as far as you can with viso ranges, but will be determined by lag. I've gone as far as 3k.
Shouldnt it be decided by the map maker first, and the CPU's abilty second? What if someone on something like a ZE map has thick short range fog? Would that give the larger computers an unfair advantage?
Range of visibility is what determines lag, not fog. The farther out you extend viso, the more of the world the computer has to construct in real time. Fog is more of an added luxury to create the illusion of depth all the way to the extension of the visibility range. If you do the fogging right, you won't see the cut off of the world from the viso range. Why? Cuz it looks unrealistic. That's why most maps cut off the fog's outer range by 100 or 200 meters below the viso range. When we finally get to computers in the 10+ GHz region with wider video and system memory bandwidth, we should be able extend visibility by a factor of 2 or 3 easily, using the stock grid system. Then again, the OS's of the future may not entail legacy systems we have today, unless marketing permits OS devs keep it for downward compatibility. What I'm saying is that several years from now, we may not be able to play BZII on hardware that only works on a 64+ bit OS that could be totally different from Win98/XP OS' of today. Well, that last part is OT, but just something to think about.
okay...most of that went straight over my head so ill take your conculsion and word for it...
however, i am asking a scenario thats set in the now.
A ZE (lets say for the sake of argument: Venus, BZI style) map comes out, and the visabilty maxrange is like 100m normally, and the fog starts at the cockpit, and ends at roughly 100m.
Someone comes along with an uber-powerful computer. Do they get enhanced visabilty? Or does everyone (as they should IMO) get the same visabilty range.
As technoid & Slaor said: Everyone is free to set those values as high as their computer and the BZ2 engine can handle and I think that won't and should not change. Whereas in MP, it is no longer possible to override the settings that came with the map.
I think having the settings changeable in Single player is great. I get all of my 'ingame screenshots' from single player, its much easier to do and looks far better.
However, in MP the settings should be locked in ridged with the map-creators desires.
So your saying this is the case? and a ZE venus style map would appear the same reguardless of how powerful a PC is?
As far as I know, everyone will be at the same viso and fog parameters, as determined by the map (and mapmaker). This is relevant from patch 1.0 to 1.3, though you cannot adjust those parameters in 1.3 multiplayer, as aforementioned. Thus, this is not reliant and self-adjusting to weaker systems. So if the [1.3] mapmaker extended the viso range of his map that worked decently framerate-wise on high-end Pentium4-Geforce4 systems, then an old low-end P3 system will most likely gag on it. SilverB1rd's mentioned ranges are considered the norms that MOST systems can work on. SP and IA aren't hindered by the visibility lock in MP. I believe GamePrefs.ini is able to adjust viso/fog ranges for below the maps ranges, but I haven't fooled around with that. So yes, it is possible to limit those ranges, if the map's ranges are too high for your system.
I set vis to 800 and fog to 750/850
if i go any further with the vis setting i get major glitches and clipping.
Im running 1.3 on an AMD Athlon 2.4, 512 megs DDR, GeForce4 4600 (128meg)
I ran that test in 1024 768 but usually like to play in 1600 1200 32
Technoid how did you get 3km without clipping?
One interesting note is that the setting does not effect the sniper scope which cuts off at the usual 400 meters or so.
Knight.
"Normal" BZ2 visibility range is about 400 metres. If you double it you effectively quadruple the amount of terain polygons that need to be rendered, not to mention the extra units/trees/props etc that need to be drawn also. You need to do some serious adjustments to the whole system to reliably push those kinds of ranges.
I play SP BZ2 at 4km visibility these days, but it's taken a lot of modding to make that possible.
I grew up with miles so 4km is 4000 meters isn't it? I get major glitches witht hat.
What fog setting do you use and what modding did you do to get it to perform like that.
Knight.
If you go above around 700, then any complex terrain, and if there are any buildings in view as well will increase this happening, polygons will start disappearing, landscape will star flickering, this is by BZ2, not computer. BZ2 still does its TnL on the CPU so it has some very hard restrictions on the amount of polys it can do.
Knight,
Yes, I will get clipping, moreso in MP, than in SP/IA.
You can convert km and miles with a factor of km = 1.61 x mi. And yes, 4km is 4000m, which is ~2485mi. (base starter is 1 inch for every 2.54 cm)
one vary importent map making tid bit.
For a normal map this should always be true
Visibilityrange > Maxfogrange
If its not vary strange cliping and even map instability may result.
Visibilityrange > Maxfogrange
That's what I stated in my 2nd post, but I guess I'm too wordy. :D
After testing; my upper limit is 800 meters for vis ranage and i set the fog at 780 850.
It's not infinite range but it's quite far and i end up being surprised how close i am to things such as my base or the enemy's. I guess the fog makes you feel the maps are bigger than they actually are.
Are there any other cool console commands (not cheats, i hate them)
Knight.
Yes those only work for single player.
You worry me when you say you set the vis range to 800 and then max fog to 850
you just broke the rule I stated above. Max fog should always be lower the visrange.
I worry myself sometimes Silver,
I'll re set my fog to my vis.
Wierd how it now makes the maps look a lot smaller.
Knight.