6 replies to this topic

[SgtMac]

Is there a valid reason the IR scopes do not work right. Heat sources are white hot, non sources vary from white to black. River City, should look like Frozen City in IR and vice versa. Theres plenty of real world footage that shows this concept from the recent wars. Just curious why a simple technology isnt represented correctly.

[9erRed]

Greetings,

The effect (heat-vision) we see in-game is only the artists coding the objects faces to represent a heat change surface.
- It's not dynamic or altered by gameplay changes. (although it could be!)
- It's not related to 'anything', or effected by any change to the environment. (sometimes, dependent on 'other materials settings')
- There is no effect from any outside source, or change of 'daytime'. (not implemented yet.)
- Objects and surfaces we know that hold, radiate, absorb heat in our verse, may not do the same things in the BattleTech verse. (building materials, vegetation, trees, fauna all good examples)

Yes, the artists can and do 'get it wrong', in what should or does 'generate' a source for this vision mode. (or should not)
( I have IRL used IR, Thermal, Starlight, and other night vision devices, they are not doing it correctly.)
- If we were to take our current 4th or 5th generation optics and advance it to this timeline, it should be capable of near/true virtual reality with a thermal overlay view. (near daylight image with heat overlay.)
- The Tech specs and Lore state that 'Mechs use numerous sensors and vision modes combined. And filter what's needed or called for by the Pilot.
- Just some of the sensors mentioned, radar, LIDAR, FLIR, thermal, magnetic, proximity sensors, laze range finding.
- That would be pages and pages of code to implement any one of these correctly, and most/some objects in-game may not be susceptible as solid objects that can be used. (visuals may not be solid objects, like trees.)

If heat vision was working correctly, the 'Mech should be glowing so brightly they would saturate our optics and blot out all other sources. If it's 'auto tuned' by the 'Mechs sensors so we can see the rest of the environment, fine.
- But there should still be a white/black hot switch we could use, or turn up/down the brightness controls.
- As I mentioned, it's not a real representation of what's hot or not. More like a snap shot of all the objects that is 'one time set' in the code. The chances to the 'Mechs is a different code, 'the glow settings' from weapons fire.

The coding within CryEngine to allow for an object to have 'Thermal' is rather intense, quite a few settings change what the player see's. All requiring the engineer to set correctly for every object created. The better the engineer, and more time using the CryEngine, and artistic understanding of what the settings will produce, the closer to 'real' effects we get in-game.
- Here's 'one' page from the CryTech settings to enable parameters that effect Thermal:
http://docs.cryengin...e+Editor+Params
(and that's for each object placed within a map location.)

Conclusion: Yes, PGI could produce a better render of what this vision mode 'should' look like. Given more engineers, artists, time $ we probably will see better coding of the environment.
- Is it playable? Yes.
- Is it true to life or realistic? Not yet, but it works for what we need.
- Is it game breaking in it's current state? No, but does need more work.
Seeing a real life thermal image or environment, and being able to create that in-game are two very different things. The Engine is fully capable of producing the effect, it just needs to be told how to do that for every object.
Russ did mention that they are working of adding 'time of day' effects to the game, perhaps we'll see more work in the Thermal rendering of the environment with this work. It will/should effect all surfaces and objects when light cast and heat direction is a changing source? We'll see.

9erRed

[Koniving]

Old thermal.

Thermal settings was never properly set to map objects, just particle effects and mechs back when we had the more dynamic settings.
Back when night vision was black/white, the mechs on thermal could almost completely disappear while powered off.

The two things affecting heat shown in that video is 1) surface heat from impacts [more of an effect than anything else], and 2) mech heat in relation to the mech's heat bar (as you can see even my own mech changes colors based on the temperature gauge I have).

Sadly because they never bothered setting up the map's temperature settings, all you had to do was look for those heat sigs and blast 'em against a black background.

[ThrashInc]

9erRed, on 01 March 2015 - 11:15 AM, said:

Greetings,

The effect (heat-vision) we see in-game is only the artists coding the objects faces to represent a heat change surface.
- It's not dynamic or altered by gameplay changes. (although it could be!)
- It's not related to 'anything', or effected by any change to the environment. (sometimes, dependent on 'other materials settings')
- There is no effect from any outside source, or change of 'daytime'. (not implemented yet.)
- Objects and surfaces we know that hold, radiate, absorb heat in our verse, may not do the same things in the BattleTech verse. (building materials, vegetation, trees, fauna all good examples)

Yes, the artists can and do 'get it wrong', in what should or does 'generate' a source for this vision mode. (or should not)
( I have IRL used IR, Thermal, Starlight, and other night vision devices, they are not doing it correctly.)
- If we were to take our current 4th or 5th generation optics and advance it to this timeline, it should be capable of near/true virtual reality with a thermal overlay view. (near daylight image with heat overlay.)
- The Tech specs and Lore state that 'Mechs use numerous sensors and vision modes combined. And filter what's needed or called for by the Pilot.
- Just some of the sensors mentioned, radar, LIDAR, FLIR, thermal, magnetic, proximity sensors, laze range finding.
- That would be pages and pages of code to implement any one of these correctly, and most/some objects in-game may not be susceptible as solid objects that can be used. (visuals may not be solid objects, like trees.)

If heat vision was working correctly, the 'Mech should be glowing so brightly they would saturate our optics and blot out all other sources. If it's 'auto tuned' by the 'Mechs sensors so we can see the rest of the environment, fine.
- But there should still be a white/black hot switch we could use, or turn up/down the brightness controls.
- As I mentioned, it's not a real representation of what's hot or not. More like a snap shot of all the objects that is 'one time set' in the code. The chances to the 'Mechs is a different code, 'the glow settings' from weapons fire.

The coding within CryEngine to allow for an object to have 'Thermal' is rather intense, quite a few settings change what the player see's. All requiring the engineer to set correctly for every object created. The better the engineer, and more time using the CryEngine, and artistic understanding of what the settings will produce, the closer to 'real' effects we get in-game.
- Here's 'one' page from the CryTech settings to enable parameters that effect Thermal:
http://docs.cryengin...e+Editor+Params
(and that's for each object placed within a map location.)

Conclusion: Yes, PGI could produce a better render of what this vision mode 'should' look like. Given more engineers, artists, time $ we probably will see better coding of the environment.
- Is it playable? Yes.
- Is it true to life or realistic? Not yet, but it works for what we need.
- Is it game breaking in it's current state? No, but does need more work.
Seeing a real life thermal image or environment, and being able to create that in-game are two very different things. The Engine is fully capable of producing the effect, it just needs to be told how to do that for every object.
Russ did mention that they are working of adding 'time of day' effects to the game, perhaps we'll see more work in the Thermal rendering of the environment with this work. It will/should effect all surfaces and objects when light cast and heat direction is a changing source? We'll see.

9erRed

Actually, no.

Thermal in the game is mechs, heat sources = white hot

All other objects greyscale, drawdistance reduced.

[SgtMac]

Physics dont change in the MW universe. Except for black holes, physicis is so far the same the universe over. Having used IR in real combat and military exercises(yes you can see a pee stream if you catch someone) to this game. Mechs and weapons fire are the white hot, buildings, trees and even ground do withhold heat. A temperate map River City, the buildings should be much better grey scale, and the streets,(its should look like the frozen city map in IR) Frozen City should be almost black as that its freezing and subzero, the buildings should be almost black due to not holding much heat, and the mechs should as usual look the white hot scale. Forest colony is another one where its off from what the physics should be. All man made structures retain heat or generate heat more so then nature. PGI did pretty good wiht most of it, but some maps it seems they just said hell with it we're done, and let stuff go. Going back and spending time to tweak it to specs wouldnt be time consuming. Even if they only went through and fixed the maps where its not right. I know they wont, but this is a suggestion thread, so heres mine. Which leads me to wonder when the IS gets to Rotary ACs, how will those be done, the clan acs already do that.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Thermal dynamics, as has been stated, should be universal for real and this games verse.

- Now the material properties of the MWO verse could be just about anything they (PGI) want, the advanced Ferro-crete used in most construction (BattleTech verse) may not retain heat as todays concrete does.
- What we see as 'glass' in structures and objects may not have any similar properties to common glass. Either heat reflecting / transparency or strength.
- Armour on 'Mech's may be designed to dissipate heat at an astonishing rate. Similar to how foamed ceramic did on the 'shuttle underside' at re-entry.

Short story, what we know as thermal imagery and how objects react in that vision mode may not be how this verses objects and surfaces properties appear. Saying 'that's not how it looks' requires knowing the material properties and if indeed it is influenced the same way.
- I can show you two windows, one normal and the other thermal coated. Each will have totally different images in thermal vision mode, but may look exactly the same. (just an example)

Sidenote here: The rotary AC's are the fastest firing weapons in the BattleTech verse, almost/near a constant stream on rounds.
- The tracked vehicle that mounts 4 of the RAC2's or RAC5"s is a fearsome beast to try and face down, you normally die trying.
- Normally dedicated to air defence, but can effectively be used as long range suppression.
- One of the few weapons that the crit slot space is 'lower' for the IS than Clans.

Rotary AC5: it is capable of firing up to six times as many rounds as its standard cousin, allowing it to deal up to three times the damage of even an Ultra AC5. (Fielded by the FC in 3062/ Clans in 3069)
RAC2: it is capable of firing up to six times as many rounds as its standard cousin, allowing it to deal three times the damage of even an Ultra AC2. At the same time, each extra shot increases the amount of heat the autocannon builds and increases the chance for a jam. (so a heat scale indicator may be what PGI will include for the Pilot to control the possibility of a jam?)
RAC's have the ability to 'unjam' the weapon, but an overheat will need to cool before firing resumes.

Just some info,
9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 02 March 2015 - 07:54 PM.

[SgtMac]

Im one of those old guys who played battletech since th early 90s on tabletop, and every version of MW on computer since they started. The guy who have done the imaging for all the games have kept a fairly standard universe in regards to the physics. As materials advance do does the combat technology. So saying ferrocrete, or mech armor have a different heat signiture is irrelevant, the combat tech has taken this into account. Now saying PGI can do what it wants with its poperty is one thing, but its not consistent across its use in all maps is what I am pointing out. So ferrocrete on Frozen city retains heat better then ferrocrete on River city? im using these 2 maps because i seem to get them the most. But if we dropped on every map in a training room, and started taking notes wed probably see the physics are not the same across all the maps in regards to heat. Granted this is mostly a minor thing when compared to nerfing mechs up or down to make people happy, Id rather have a solid environment to run around in, and work on my combat and team skills. They at least removed those evil statues on RC, now if they could do something with the light posts on Terra Therma.. As for the RACs, the first ones were on Davion mechs nad tanks, and were impressive pieces of work. On Table mine always jammed, in MW4 they ran like a dream, 6 RAC5s on a Fafnir looked like my current build of 5 CUACs on a Direwolf in this current game. Clan ACs is another complaint but for a different post. Like pulselasers, blah Im too old I think. Anyow it will be interesting to see which way they take the comments and tweak things, or ignore them. Thanks for the reasoned discussion.