Level Design My map idea/question about low lying fog

[Shurek]

Hey folks,

I am finally getting around to developing my first map after playing around with UnrealED for about a month or so. How exciting!

The map will be a combind arms assault on the city of Voronezh in July '42 by elements of the GrossDeustchland Division backed by panzers from Hoth's 4th Panzer. The scale will be approximately 3/4 the size of Orel. I'm hoping to create a nice synthesis of warfare in both rural and Urban settings. The objective of the Soviets will be to hold the city and keep from being pushed back across the Don river. The Germans must take all of the Russian forward spawn points in three locations in the countryside (crossroads, tank park, and airfield) before advancing into the city (railyard and stavka), and then to the river (bridge). The ultimate goal for the Germans will be to blow the bridge on the west (left) bank trapping the Russian reinforcements on the other side. The Russians will win either by running the Germans out of reinforcements or running them out the time. I hope I'm up for this one guys and gals!

Anyway, the scenario takes place in the dawn hours and I need to know how to reproduce low-lying fog that hangs about waist to shoulder high, and that's slightly opaque. Can you imagine the drama of 12 German StuGs creeping cannon-high out of the fog right at you!!!!

Any help or suggestions, or inspiration are much appreciated. If I get well enough along in the development, I'll post some screenies and open an official thread about the map.

Thanks in advance

 

[WickedPenguin]

Well, there multiple ways to create ground fog, and each has its definite pros and cons:

1) Emitters: Have emitters generate large, semi-transparent sprites of white fog/smoke. This can look pretty convincing depending on the speed and texture used.

2) Volume fog: While you're inside, it looks good. Things fade in and out of the fog well. The problem is that once you're outside, the fog disappears. For instance, if you're infantryman crawling in the fog, everything is foggy. However, from the outside it looks like you're crawling in plain air.

3) Static meshes with moving textures: I tried this method on Mga. The basic setup is create a large static mesh and then apply a panning, foglike texture to it to simulate slowly moving fog. The problem is, due to engine limitations, certain static meshes as well as players models will partially disappear below the fog SM. For instance, if your fog is at knee height, your legs below the knee will disappear.

4) Combination Method: To create effective fog, you'd probably be best-off using methods of all three. Create some SMs for very low-lying (grass-height) fog. If it's dense and basically opaque, you can lay that on top of volume fog so that you can't see below into what's in the volume fog. Use emitters to bring depth and motion to it. Use zone fogs to close in the level and create occlusion.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Has no-one else spotted the thing that is going to make this impossible?

He said a BIG map - even with culldistance on the fog mesh(es) set so low that the fog is basically pointless, a big, flattish map covered in emitters is going to murder fps on anything south of a supercomputer.

 

[worluk]

a fluid surface with the properties set right and a fitting texture could do it too. Not sure how convincing it would look though.

 

[WickedPenguin]

BTW, if anyone still has the mod installed, take a look at the map RO-Rueckzug_SO (sp?). It has excellent fog effects by Monk.

 

[Monk]

Yes, Monk rules! That guy should make some maps for RO:Ost.

Oh, yeah, low lying fog can be done all the ways WP said. I tried them all. Best I found was a mixture of many pieces and the performance hit in Rueckzug is pretty much zero.

The thing about parts disappearing can be resolved. I won't tell you how. =) It's hella buggy in UED.

Monk

 

[Ghad]

The thing about parts disappearing can be resolved. I won't tell you how. =) It's hella buggy in UED.

Monk

 

[Shurek]

Hey guys, thanks again for all of the great advice. I'm still a noob at this so I expect many botched attempts well before perfection is achieved

Mak, I think I'm only going to use the fog in the rural portion of the map in the cornfields and along the dirt roads, and perhaps across the surface of the Don. The city portion will have the usual distance fog.

Well, looks like I better get back to the drawing board if I expect to have a Beta out anytime before Christmas

 

[Monk]

Heh, sorry Ghad. It's been so long I'd have to do some major research to figure it out. It's all about alpha layers and the way that Unreal organizes etc. So the short of the solution is you have to muck around with some crazy settings using final blends or the like until you find a combination that will allow you to see both above and below. I did it so I know it IS possible, but I can't remember if I ended up using it in Rueckzug or not. I seem to remember thinking in the end that it was just too big of a problem and not using it...but maybe I did. You can check that old map's fog and you might find some secrets. Maybe not. Hard to say - been too long.

Monk