Friday 2009-11-27 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[Oleg Maddox]

Don't post anything untill I'll finish uploading of the new developement update with interesting photos

[Lucas_From_Hell]

Great pictures, Oleg!

Holy hell, those briefings are insane!! Adds a whole new atmosphere to the missions.

Thanks for the update, loved the pictures.

(By the way, typo there on the "special" :mrgreen: )

[PeterPanPan]

Thanks Oleg - it's nice to see behind the scenes too!

The city textures in the 1st picture look fantastic - really detailed road and building layouts. Do these attempt to copy actual layouts?

Cheers

PPanPan

[Oleg Maddox]

Thanks Oleg - it's nice to see behind the scenes too!

The city textures in the 1st picture look fantastic - really detailed road and building layouts. Do these attempt to copy actual layouts?

Cheers

PPanPan

Some are copy. Some - generic

[Skoshi Tiger]

The mission briefings with recon photo's are going to add a lot atmosphere of the sim. :)

Is there any chance of having a few seconds of B/W footage of a target area in the briefing (maybe a track recording a flyby of the target?). I remember the sim B-17 II the mighty 8th that had this feature.

[Foo'bar]

Very nice to see that buildings will have real dark shadows inside :)
http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0240.JPG

[PeterPanPan]

Hi again Oleg

Just to let you know, some of your code is visible in the 'coding ships' image. Are you ok with that?!

PPanPan

[luthier]

Nice photographs. What stood out for me the most is that the team really needs a shave.

[PeterPanPan]

Nice photographs. What stood out for me the most is that the team really needs a shave.

... and that they are all really thirsty!!

(Oleg, I think you need a 'no drinks near keyboards' policy!!)

PPanPan

[genbrien]

wow, really impressive
What I like: shadow inside hangar and mission briefing!!!!!
The rest looks as good as those 2, but I like how much details there is. Good job team ! ^^

Question: Do we know if mission will start in the hangar or outside ?

[Oleg Maddox]

The mission briefings with recon photo's are going to add a lot atmosphere of the sim. :)

Is there any chance of having a few seconds of B/W footage of a target area in the briefing (maybe a track recording a flyby of the target?). I remember the sim B-17 II the mighty 8th that had this feature.

Probably final brief will looks by other way. It is just partially working model.

[Oleg Maddox]

Hi again Oleg

Just to let you know, some of your code is visible in the 'coding ships' image. Are you ok with that?!

PPanPan

Don't worry, its just so small part....

[Oleg Maddox]

wow, really impressive
Question: Do we know if mission will start in the hangar or outside ?


Possible both

[choctaw111]

Thanks again Oleg.
I love updates like this as I really enjoy seeing the people behind the product.
Perhaps when you release SoW:BoB you can include a photo of the entire development team.

[Baron]

Very nice.

And we even got to see the BR-20 cockpit. :)

[Feuerfalke]

That's great - I was already looking forward to those insights, the place where SoW is born and the people behind the scene. Thanks for all working on it.

They even don't take the time to eat, drink or shave other than on their workstations :D - do they sleep in the office as well? Do they sleep at all?



The ship looks great in the water and the briefing looks very promising.


What do you think about the camera? ;)

[AdMan]

will all the buildings be modeled rather than texture map with small amount of buildings?

will roads be detailed enough to see curbs, roadway markings, and textures like asphalt, brick, or cobblestone

[csThor]

Personally something irked me about the briefings. Of course the text is subject to change (would be strange if not), but from my POV it's a bit sparse for an environment that was already rather "thoroughly organized". For example I am missing information regarding waypoints, formation assembly (for bombers that's a must), altitude stuff, radio frequencies and callsigns, rendevouz points with fighter cover etc. Such things ...

[zapatista]

Hi Oleg,

thanks for further update pictures :)

[Bearcat]

Great stuff... I like the pilot template that I saw... The more detailed briefings are great too.. I imagine that online wars etc would be even better in SoW because of the greatly expanded options.. Will the brief be interactive.. as in being able to scroll through multiple pages and such and if so is that something that the host would do on the server end or each individual user on their end.

[mark@1C]

I wonder who the beautiful girl is?:cool:
Please give my regards to her.:grin:
I think something shoud be done to improve your working enviroment.A dimmer and not very spacious room,not very large screen,the bomb modeling programmer's keyboard really needs cleaning,or just buy a new one...(Don't give him permission to eat like others,while he is working,until he has got a new one...for his health...)
Can't imagine so great a game is made in such a studio...A little bit poor feeling...
Compared with the 2012 VFX team's,
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062441-09.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062355-06.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062343-05.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062242-01.jpg
You are really doing a hard work.
If only I could do more to support you!
At least,I will surely buy your new series.
Best wishes,and highest regard for all of your team.And do really hope you will have a more better working enviroment in the near future.

[BadAim]

Thanks for the tour of the "inner sanctum". This is cool stuff. It really looks like your team lives, eats and breathes SOW. That's good news for us fanbois.

[Mhondoz]

Thanks for the update. :-)

It seems like in this shot (http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0244.JPG) that you are using C# (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_(programming_language)). Can you share what technology you are using to develop the game? Thinking first and foremost on programming languages. Being a programmer my self, I find that very interesting. :)

Where I work (not game dev), we have two camps, - the C++ camp and the Java camp... me being in the C++ camp. And I was very surprised to learn that IL-2 uses Java, since we always play the performance card to the Java fans ;-)

I believe your choice of Java was quite unusual in the game business when IL-2 started development, when Java still was very young. Do you have any thoughts on technology choices like that, - did it for example play a role in being able to complete the game in time (the usual trade off performance vs time to market)?

[Pierre@]

Nice and interesting, as usual. Thanks.
Oleg, I can see your camera is a Canon S90. A good choice!

[erco]

Thanks for the look around your studio, Oleg! Looks like a fun place to work! I have a question, a suggestion, and an observation:

In the 'tuning bomb model' picture, is that a model airplane box we see next to the monitor?
(The bomb looks great, btw)

The next time you make a photo tour of the studio, it would be good if you named those good people who are working so hard- nice to put faces with names!

I think that your programmers look undermodelled. I expected great, heroic, men and women locked in battle to create glorious code! (Just kidding...!)

[Foo'bar]

Clean and tidy desks compared to mine :D

[luthier]

The next time you make a photo tour of the studio, it would be good if you named those good people who are working so hard- nice to put faces with names!

You're right.

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0237.JPG
Left: Marina Kurdyukova, 3D Modeler, Buildings
Right: Lesya Burykina, 2D Artist, Ground Textures

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0240.JPG
Andrey Petuhov, 3D Modeler, Ships, Vehicles and Buildings

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0244.JPG
Lesha Pervov, Senior Programmer.
He's the guy in charge of ground and sea objects and some graphic elements. Absolutely indispensable.

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0249.JPG
Partial view of Roman Deniskin, resident mad genius
He's one of the original members of the crew that made Il-2 what it is. For BoB, he is in charge of everything that has to do with aircraft: graphics, damage models, FM, cockpits, weapons, etc.

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0262.JPG
Sergey Karavaev, 3D Modeler.
Built a lot of gorgeous models for Il-2 and for BoB, including the BR-20 and the Bf-110

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0273.JPG
Anton Ioilev, 3D Modeler.
New kid on the block, in charge of our humans, in the air and on the ground

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0280.JPG
Some guy, who the heck let him into the building and who does he think he is?

Not shown: some of our even less attractive team members.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

I wonder who the beautiful girl is?:cool:
Please give my regards to her.:grin:
I think something shoud be done to improve your working enviroment.A dimmer and not very spacious room,not very large screen,the bomb modeling programmer's keyboard really needs cleaning,or just buy a new one...(Don't give him permission to eat like others,while he is working,until he has got a new one...for his health...)
Can't imagine so great a game is made in such a studio...A little bit poor feeling...
Compared with the 2012 VFX team's,
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062441-09.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062355-06.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062343-05.jpg
http://i982.photobucket.com/albums/ae301/mark9photobucket/16062242-01.jpg
You are really doing a hard work.
If only I could do more to support you!
At least,I will surely buy your new series.
Best wishes,and highest regard for all of your team.And do really hope you will have a more better working enviroment in the near future.

Well yeah Mark, I work in the movie industry too. But comparing a multi million dollar Hollywood production to a flight sim, niche product. Whats the point?

[SlipBall]

Looking very good for sure, and the ship has great detail, thanks

[luthier]

Personally something irked me about the briefings. Of course the text is subject to change (would be strange if not), but from my POV it's a bit sparse for an environment that was already rather "thoroughly organized". For example I am missing information regarding waypoints, formation assembly (for bombers that's a must), altitude stuff, radio frequencies and callsigns, rendevouz points with fighter cover etc. Such things ...

The waypoints are there, shown on the map.

Formation assembly, altitude, radio, etc - the text box is there. You can fill it in with whatever you like. Maybe I'm missing something - did you mean to say that we should automatically display text descriptions for every waypoint, all callsigns, etc, for every single group in every single mission?

The texts you see are just something I typed in in 5 minutes to fill in the box. It's just a test mission never in a million years intended to be a part of the final release.

[Tbag]

Thanks for the info Oleg, Ilya and team! When I see "Plane" in the mission briefing, a question comes to mind:

Will we have the option of viewing a little notebook in flight that shows us the most important data about our aircraft (stalling speed at various flap configurations, vx,vy, supercharger stages and altitudes at which to change etc?)

[HenFre]

Thanks for the update Oleg and Luthier.. The hanger model and the german pilot looks especially awesome :)

Good to see you are all still hard at work, but do dust off the flightcontrols and use them for having some fun now and then :grin:

[Zorin]

I only hope Sergey will have genuine meshes for every bomb type this time. ;)

[McHilt]

Nice bombmodelling and interesting to see some behind the scenes stuff.
Oleg, maybe it's been asked but I was wondering if you guys are planning to implement 'bomb art', to deliver a personal message behind enemy lines... :mrgreen:

Salut!

[Zorin]

I just have to shake my head at this point. Will this thing ever get done? Bomb textures? CODING ships? WIP Briefing UI? Welcome to a 2012 release date.

Nah, don't worry. At least in terms of the bombs it is not that time consuming. Once you have your references ready and start at 8 in the morning you can have the arsenal for one nation done by 8 in the evening. Excluding textures, of course.

[Zorin]

Nice bombmodelling and interesting to see some behind the scenes stuff.
Oleg, maybe it's been asked but I was wondering if you guys are planning to implement 'bomb art', to deliver a personal message behind enemy lines... :mrgreen:

Salut!

That is already available in IL-2, so only for a very limited number of bombs. So I should be surprised if it won't find its way into SoW.

[luthier]

I just have to shake my head at this point. Will this thing ever get done? Bomb textures? CODING ships? WIP Briefing UI? Welcome to a 2012 release date.

Welcome to game development.

Bomb textures, a multitude of ship models, and briefing interfaces are all pretty minor, late-stage kinds of things.

Things that take real time are graphic engines, physics, planes and cockpits, artificial intelligence, and so on. That's the bulk of the work, and you can build it all with a single placeholder bomb, a single ship, and no briefings at all.

[ECV56_Lancelot]

How old i Lesya Burykina, the girl working with the city textures? On the picture she looks like a twelve year old girl!. Noh offense here, just an impression.
Until you clarify the names, i thought she was the dotter of somebody playing in the pc! :)

That aside, Oleg, i would return the Cannon camera, didn´t like the quality of pictures, too blurry (i think this is the right term) in my opinion. The definition of the pictures is very poor, again IMHO.

Seeing the mission briefings picture, i guess that a virtual briefing room with a captain explaining the mission on a map and a 110-60-90 secretary serving coffe to the pilots will not be implemented, ................outregeous! :grin:

And writing this stupid post made me forget the real question i wanted to ask, so i will ask later. :-x

[luthier]

Seeing the mission briefings picture, i guess that a virtual briefing room with a captain explaining the mission on a map and a 110-60-90 secretary serving coffe to the pilots will not be implemented, ................outregeous! :grin:

There will be a briefing room with a secretary, but it won't be virtual, and the feature will only be available in the ultra-limited special edition.

Unfortunately, I already reserved the only copy for myself.

[Necrobaron]

This is possibly the best update we've had. It's great to see some of the people involved in development and really see some of the guts of SoW.
________
Lovely Wendie (http://www.lovelywendie99.com/)

[ECV56_Lancelot]

There will be a briefing room with a secretary, but it won't be virtual, and the feature will only be available in the ultra-limited special edition.

Unfortunately, I already reserved the only copy for myself.

I guess i will have to wait for the mods then! :mrgreen:

[13th Hsqn Protos]

Nice photographs. What stood out for me the most is that the team really needs a shave.

Some NEW hardware to work on wouldn't hurt either ...... those 17' monitors got to GOOOOOO

* Please make sure Logitech G940 FFB Hotas is supported.

[Abbeville-Boy]

very nice seeing inside the sweatshop factory they do hard work!

i must know now Lesya Burykina's hyperlobby sign in name

[zaelu]

Maybe before release you make a group picture with all men shaved and all the ladies dressed up for the big party.


..so we all can print it and have some target to whine about this and that :D .

[HFC_Dolphin]

Excellent update, though you shouldn't have included this n00b that plays with mission briefings :P

Congrats to the whole team and keep on working that focused.

PS. I told you that all aces use CH sticks, you wouldn't listen ;-)

[furbs]

luthier...some of the stuff in this update and other before looks fantastic and makes me feel we are in for something very special with SOW...but dear me it looks like a office from 10 years ago, 15 inch CRT monitors and XP systems ..it looks to me that SOW is being made on a shoestring budget and how much this affects the development worries me...anyway...great stuff as always guys.

[Tree_UK]

Are these pic's taken from the development of IL2?? Everything looks so dated, including all the pony tails!!

[genbrien]

Are these pic's taken from the development of IL2?? Everything looks so dated, including all the pony tails!!


you got debanned ?:rolleyes:

[SlipBall]

Is the office really an important observation here worth mentioning...its dry, its warm, and it looks good to me...:grin:

[furbs]

im just saying you would of thought in almost 2010 they would have more up to date systems...and less ponytails :)

[RedToo]

It's a place of WORK!

RedToo.

[ECV56_LeChuck]

Is the office really an important observation here worth mentioning...its dry, its warm, and it looks good to me...:grin:

Yeah!! I would love to work on SoW in that Office!

[GF_Mastiff]

Wow she's tiny, hope she loves this game I see you got her a joystick..

Thanks for the updates.. I hope she doesn't take offense to that I just mean she barely fits in that chair..

[furbs]

its a place of work yes...making state of the art flight sims for the PC market ....im just saying they might have moved on from XP and 15 inch monitors.

[dflion]

Thanks for the photos Oleg, good to see the team getting stuck into BOB.

I have a question regarding the Mission briefing screen - will you be able to transfer mission information into the cockpit after the briefing, to refer to while you are flying, for example, mission notes to remind you what are the key mission objectives, oblique target photos and what to be careful of (barrage balloons, AA concentrations, etc.)

DFLion

[ECV56_Guevara]

I loved the photos! Especially the briefings ones!

[fuzzychickens]

Much nicer and healthier than where I worked for 7 years.

[mark@1C]

Well yeah Mark, I work in the movie industry too. But comparing a multi million dollar Hollywood production to a flight sim, niche product. Whats the point?

Well,just a little misunderstanding.
I mean a comparison between their working enviroment.
Just like 2012 VFX team's work is an ace one in movie field,Oleg team's work is an ace one in flight sim field.
They deserve a better studio..
such as,
I can not watch a CRT screen as much time as a LCD one(it is said,CRT does more harmful than LCD?) .If I were their logistics manager,at least,I will change all the CRT monitors for LCD,I think....although it is also said CRT does more good in graphic drawing..

[mark@1C]

And maybe,
you can make a photo album with photos like these,and add it into SOW's bonus disc with the titile Daily life in our studio.:-P

[Skoshi Tiger]

its a place of work yes...making state of the art flight sims for the PC market ....im just saying they might have moved on from XP and 15 inch monitors.

I expect the development team that made MS Flight Sim X had lots of 30" LCD screens and Quad core systems that ran at 3.? GHz. At see what good that did them in the end.

Remember that we are enthusiasts! We lie and cheat and buy the latest hardware behind our wifes backs just to get those extra few fps from our sims! (well I do at least! Within reason ;) )

"Average gamers" have average systems and XP would be the most common OS out there at the moment and for a long time to come. Hell, if this sim was developed on the system and required the latest hardware the is no way that 90% of the "average gamers" will be able to run the thing without putting the slides down to minimum!

I expect developing the system on average systems will give the developers a reasonable understanding on how the system will run and when they get down to performance tuning.

Also, from my experiance in 3D modeling and image manipulation (very amaturish to say the least) I spend most of my time scratching my head and wondering why the thing on the screen doesn't look the way I want it! Machine performance isn't critical for some jobs!

Cheers!

[AdMan]

buying brand new OS' is for suckers

though I was surprised to see a CRT monitor, just looking at that gave me a slight headache

[luthier]

buying brand new OS' is for suckers

though I was surprised to see a CRT monitor, just looking at that gave me a slight headache

We have XP machines for a reason. We want to have this guy run on XP and DX9. We can't very well develop for XP without XP machines. That's why we have different OSs, different brand CPUs and video cards, etc.

CRT monitors? Well, somehow, every time we get a hardware budget, it seems to get spent on other things. We actually just did a major upgrade earlier this month. Those cases you see are pretty old, but they're filled with bleeding edge stuff. We bought lots of CPUs and RAM, terabyte HDs, latest video cards, newer bigger pen tablets, etc. Somehow, when we were done, we just didn't have anything left for monitors. Again.

[tagTaken2]

As long as CRT is running at decent refresh rate, it's not an issue. I'm still using mine.

Wonder if SoW will run faster on XP?

[csThor]

The waypoints are there, shown on the map.

Formation assembly, altitude, radio, etc - the text box is there. You can fill it in with whatever you like. Maybe I'm missing something - did you mean to say that we should automatically display text descriptions for every waypoint, all callsigns, etc, for every single group in every single mission?

The texts you see are just something I typed in in 5 minutes to fill in the box. It's just a test mission never in a million years intended to be a part of the final release.

I am aware that this won't be part of the final release, but I felt I needed to get my impression out ... make it known to you since you happen to miss emails concerning the topic ;)

I did not say that there should be a list of waypoints, but a much more in-depth description of ingress and egress for a formation which surely consists of more than just four bombers. Standard size for a german bomber attack was a Gruppe, and often more than that, so the briefing would have to contain information on take-off sequence of the Staffeln on the airfield (so that there's no major scrap heap in the middle of the runway 'cause 7. and 9. Staffel wanted to take-off at the same time), position of individual Staffeln within the Gruppe's formation, the Gruppe's place within a larger formation, locations, times and altitude for picking up fighter cover, information of advance sweeps and other operations in the area, stuff about emergencies (i.e. radio frequencies and callsigns for SAR) ...

Such stuff. IMO a briefing is more than a simple text saying "Fly there, shoot that, go back."

[mark@1C]

when I was reading Luthier's reply,it occurred to me suddenly,"luthier" in English pronunciation is a little bit similar to "russia" in Russian pronunciation .:eek:

[mark@1C]

Somehow, when we were done, we just didn't have anything left for monitors. Again.
Well,every pilot shoud learn that,
Take care of your eyes,just like your body and plane,and so on....

Take care of yourselves,all members of Maddox Team.

[Feuerfalke]

Using CRTs is hardly a hint for lacking behind modern hardware. Depending on what you are working on, old CRTs can present you a better idea of realistic colors than most common TFTs do. ;)

[Foo'bar]

In the end it should be the developer's decision to keep his old CRT instead of getting a new one. I think that those guys don't need our ideas to improve their environment.

[Feuerfalke]

In the end it should be the developer's decision to keep his old CRT instead of getting a new one. I think that those guys don't need our ideas to improve their environment.

Exactly ;)

[furbs]

thanks for the reply luthier...not moaning...just surprised me thats all.

if i had won the euro lotto this week i would buy the team all brand new kit!

[AdMan]

We have XP machines for a reason. We want to have this guy run on XP and DX9. We can't very well develop for XP without XP machines. That's why we have different OSs, different brand CPUs and video cards, etc.

CRT monitors? Well, somehow, every time we get a hardware budget, it seems to get spent on other things. We actually just did a major upgrade earlier this month. Those cases you see are pretty old, but they're filled with bleeding edge stuff. We bought lots of CPUs and RAM, terabyte HDs, latest video cards, newer bigger pen tablets, etc. Somehow, when we were done, we just didn't have anything left for monitors. Again.

sure, wasn't knocking anyone for developing on XP if I gave that impression, I use XP myself. DX10 isn't that much of an improvement to take the performance hit, Soooo glad I didn't get Vista when everyone else was upgrading.

[Insuber]

Hi Oleg,

I have a question regarding the max number of planes offline and online. Il2 in this is quite limited, in a mission you can have few planes at the same time, if compared to sims like BoB II Wings of Victory.
The historical BoB was characterized by massive raids of German planes, with sometimes 700 German planes at a time.

Q: Will BoB SoW be capable of managing some hundreds of planes in a map at the same time ?

Thanks,
Insuber

[mark@1C]

I think the key question is not Will their SOW be capable of,but Will our PC/Cable speed/and so on be capable of...
With varieties of player's gaming enviroment,it is still a big question for both programmer and player...
As you can see below,there are still questions like "What kind of a rig can run IL-2 with full details and high fps? " currently...
I haven't played that WoV.But I guess those huge masses are surely with non-AI.Doing a massive calculation really exhausts a poor PC,not to mention doing it online with a real time feedback needed...
but,
maybe there's still a little hope that they can do some improvements...Considering doing a truly realistic FM/atmosphere/and so on is already a hard work,and many fans need a Pilot in......
It seems that I tune the topic to a pessimistic one...God...

When we are talking about Massive,we are talking about Matrix..

[daHeld]

I haven't played that WoV.But I guess those huge mass are suely with non-AI.

WoV actually features the best AI in any flight sim there is (and it has to, since there's no (working) multiplayer mode).
As far as I know, there are two kinds of AI, one for fighters and one for bombers, with the one for bombers beeing less sophisticated...

[philip.ed]

WoV actually features the best AI in any flight sim there is (and it has to, since there's no (working) multiplayer mode).
As far as I know, there are two kinds of AI, one for fighters and one for bombers, with the one for bombers beeing less sophisticated...

WoV has mulltiplayer support with the latest patch ;)

[Necrobaron]

I can't believe folks are actually critiquing the work area. :lol:
________
ZX14 VS HAYABUSA (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_bike_is_quicker_kawasaki_zx_-14_or_suzuki_hayabusa)

[furbs]

cant help noticing if it looks like a office from 1995 :) (im sure they will work wonders though)

[mazex]

Definitely interesting that you are using C# for the collision detection code... I could understand it for the GUI, in the way Java was used for the old GUI, but for AI and collision detection?

I see some c++ file there too, and I guess the rendering part is written in c++? But that would mean context switches if the ai runs on C#? Sure MDX has eveolved but... Has It evolved so much lately that is is usable for a high performance game like BoB? It would naturally be great as no one likes to spend time om memory management instead of the actual code logic, but you don't want any GC popping in while lining up a fat HE-111 ;) Anyway - by seeing this we can be assured that the code has been rewritten!

Good luck!

[Insuber]

I think the key question is not Will their SOW be capable of,but Will our PC/Cable speed/and so on be capable of...
With varieties of player's gaming enviroment,it is still a big question for both programmer and player...
As you can see below,there are still questions like "What kind of a rig can run IL-2 with full details and high fps? " currently...
I haven't played that WoV.But I guess those huge mass are suely with non-AI.Doing a massive calculation really exhaust a poor PC,not to mention doing it online with a real time feedback needed...
but,
maybe there's still a little hope that they can do some improvements...Considering doing a truly realistic FM/atmosphere/and so on is already a hard work,and many fans need a Pilot in......
It seems that I tune the topic to a pessimistic one...God...

When we are talking about Massive,we are talking about Matrix..


Mark, the huge masses of BOB WOV are AI only, as that game cannot be played online. Moreover AFAIK IL2 cannot handle a lot of planes even with today's PCs, 100x more powerful than the ones we had back in 2001 ... so my question has exactly the sense that it appears to have.

Regards,
Insuber

[daHeld]

WoV has mulltiplayer support with the latest patch ;)

yeah sure - it's beta, e.g. not usable. That's why I used the word "working" in brackets ;)

[philip.ed]

yeah sure - it's beta, e.g. not usable. That's why I used the word "working" in brackets ;)

Ah I see ;) I think it can be used, but it's a complicated process. ;)

[BadAim]

I would like to remind my soft western comrades, that these are Russians, and as such don't require such cushy appointments as us effete Europeans and North Americans. Don't worry guys, they will do just as good a job with whatever they get, because they're tough. :P

[Old_Canuck]

I would like to remind my soft western comrades, that these are Russians, and as such don't require such cushy appointments as us effete Europeans and North Americans. Don't worry guys, they will do just as good a job with whatever they get, because they're tough. :P


Well said, BadAim. They've got talent too. Real talent can express itself through the crudest mediums but all the expensive hardware in the world doesn't make an artist out of a mere scientist. To save you nit-pickers the trouble, I checked it out and the word "scientist" is indeed the antonym of "artist."

Thanks for introducing us to the team Luthier. Oleg it's good to see back again.

My question is this. Was Oleg or any of the 1c crew flying on the Russian team that won the USL championship last season?

[mark@1C]

Well,in a sense,as we all know,"russian" means "low cost,but high performance":-P
but,it is still a question for me,
I think,broadly speaking,Meddox Team is an international one(just like many other studios)?Not a purely russian one?

[AdMan]

I would like to remind my soft western comrades, that these are Russians, and as such don't require such cushy appointments as us effete Europeans and North Americans. Don't worry guys, they will do just as good a job with whatever they get, because they're tough. :P

Well said, really the office looks just how I had imagined it, a little run down and post-communist-ish.

Just don't let the authorities find out about your capitalist operation...at least not before the release date :lol:

[C_G]

Sheesh! Luftwhiners, Spitwhiners, viewwhiners... now office-whiners :rolleyes:

[mark@1C]

Mark, the huge masses of BOB WOV are AI only, as that game cannot be played online.
Well,it's my fault for not having expressed it clearly.A non-AI in my words here means a simple one...sorry for that..
But still the question,
There's no doubt that nowadays PCs are more powerful than before according to Moore's Law.
However,not only the performance of PC itself,but the whole requirement of player's experience(as I mentioned in the reply,realistic FM/DM,atmosphere,and so on) is rising as well.
Considering both of them,there is almost no change,I think...
for example,how can it do a wonderful AI formation with different types of planes(Bombers and Fighters) in different altitudes with real time atmosphere engine available...(Every time,when encountering enemies in IL-2,the AI formation will become awful...B-29 descend their altitude to 2000ft or below incredibly...and then,there will be some direct self-crash,after the whole AI formation having finished a turn at such a low altitude...)
Many things need to be considered,so it's still a dream for me to have a massive formation...
not to mention a massive Vs a massive and make it online...
But,considering what a MMORPG can do,maybe a Flight Sim can do it in its Online-Mode as well.

regards:-)

[Feuerfalke]

Just that the MMORPG is rarely as detailed as a flightsim. ;)

Either you have a MMORPG that is focused on multiplayer experience like WOW, which looks pretty ugly or you have a limited scale like Warhammer or you have great graphics like Age of Conan but crappy gameplay and critical FPS drops with more players interacting.

Besides that, I'd like to mention that the 700 aircraft mentioned were not engaged in one single dogfight, but in raiding dozens of targets along all southern England. So it's not necessary to plot 700 aircraft + 700 interceptors in real time. ;)

[mark@1C]

....WOW, which looks pretty ugly....
It touches me!Your words.
You know many of my friends like WOW's character design...
Well,I prefer AION's and LineageII's,and features like these...

[BLR_Tonin_fr]

Sheesh! Luftwhiners, Spitwhiners, viewwhiners... now office-whiners :rolleyes:

you forgot treewhiners and releasedatewhiners !!!! :cool:

[Insuber]

Besides that, I'd like to mention that the 700 aircraft mentioned were not engaged in one single dogfight, but in raiding dozens of targets along all southern England. So it's not necessary to plot 700 aircraft + 700 interceptors in real time. ;)


Generally true, but concentrations of several hundreds of German planes on the same target are an historical fact. One for all, in the famous raid on London of Sep 7th, 348 Heinkels, Dorniers and Junkers and 617 German fighters came over London, starting in the afternoon. If I remember correctly Brian Kingcome's words, the German planes "stretched across the sky for one hundred miles". In reality the attack wave was 20 miles wide and 40 miles long, covering 800 sq. miles of sky...
So, if you want to recreate that very day, you have indeed to plot 950+ Geman planes flowing from 5 pm to 4 am, plus some Hurricane and Spitfire squadrons of course.

Another example, sadly famous, was the night of 14-15 september, when some 500 bombers bombed Coventry.

More in general, waves of some hundreds of bombers an fighters on the same target were quite frequent during the Battle of Britain. That's the reason of my question, because I see coming a "mini-BoB" with 20 or 30 planes for each side, either due to H/W limitations or for game engine ones.

Regards,
Insuber

[BadAim]

Well,in a sense,as we all know,"russian" means "low cost,but high performance":-P
but,it is still a question for me,
I think,broadly speaking,Meddox Team is an international one(just like many other studios)?Not a purely russian one?

Indeed, very insensitive of me, I should have said "Eastern European". That probably would have been much more representative.

I remember when I got the very first IL2 (the day it was released); It was half the size of CFS2 and had twice the content and performance and it even looked better! I said man them Russians write some tight code! I think always having the biggest and the best can easily contribute to the sloppiness we see in the big companies.

And I'll bet these guys (especially the older ones) appreciate the freedom to be creative a lot more than many of the rest of us could.

[CRO_Adriatic]

It is really nice to se people, and how do they work for this sim :)

[He111]

Definitely interesting that you are using C# for the collision detection code... I could understand it for the GUI, in the way Java was used for the old GUI, but for AI and collision detection?

I see some c++ file there too, and I guess the rendering part is written in c++? But that would mean context switches if the ai runs on C#? Sure MDX has eveolved but... Has It evolved so much lately that is is usable for a high performance game like BoB? It would naturally be great as no one likes to spend time om memory management instead of the actual code logic, but you don't want any GC popping in while lining up a fat HE-111 ;) Anyway - by seeing this we can be assured that the code has been rewritten!

Good luck!

.. a FAT HE-111!!! ..we ar not FAT, we are streamline challenged.

As to C# .. or C++ for that matter, only whooses use those languages, REAL men use standard 'C' .. or Clite.

for(; x<employee->MaxEmployees;x++)
{
switch (nMonitorEmployee(employee->x) )

case WORKING : employee->GreenTick++;
case DRINKING_COFFEE : break;
case DRINKING_VODKA : employee->GreenTick+++++;
case TALKING_AT_WATER_COOLER : ArmWaterCoolerDepthChargeMine();

default break;
}

.. or something along those lines .. it's been a loooong while! :grin:

He111

[Blackdog_kt]

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0249.JPG
Partial view of Roman Deniskin, resident mad genius
He's one of the original members of the crew that made Il-2 what it is. For BoB, he is in charge of everything that has to do with aircraft: graphics, damage models, FM, cockpits, weapons, etc.


Translation...he's the poor guy whose scalp everyone will be after once the sim has been released :grin:

Great update by the way and nice to see the people behind the product, it lends the feel of a living organism to it and not just a collection of pretty pictures and some thousands lines of code. I also like the fact that your workplace looks a bit "messy", it shows that things are getting done at a pace where you can't even afford to tidy up your desk. A workspace that's disorganized in an organized fashion is always better than a tidy one..."Hey, i know i have all this stuff lying around on my desk, but at least i have everything i need right in front of me", so don't worry about the people complaining about how it looks, some of us like it:

Is the office really an important observation here worth mentioning...its dry, its warm, and it looks good to me...:grin:




Using CRTs is hardly a hint for lacking behind modern hardware. Depending on what you are working on, old CRTs can present you a better idea of realistic colors than most common TFTs do. ;)

Exactly. I switched my trusty 17" CRT for a 22" Dell 2209WA a few months ago. Don't get me wrong, i love the bigger flat panel and it's a very close match to CRT standards at a very good price, but there's yet no way for a TFT to match CRT performance in its entirety. If it's got a good response time it will be a TN panel with horrible viewing angles and poor colour representation, if it's got realistic colours it will be a PVA with ghosting and gamma shift issues and if it's got good viewing angles it will be an expensive IPS panel monitor with inaccurate black colour, not to mention the chance of getting dead pixels, backlight bleed and so on regardless of panel type.

CRTs are reliable, can run all kinds of resolutions so you won't have to upgrade your graphics card because it can't run the latest new game at your TFT's native 1920x1200, and are not a strain to the eyes at all as long as you run them at decent refresh rates (85hz for example). The main issue is that due to weight and bulkiness you won't see many 22" and above widescreen CRTs, but if there was such a market at reasonable prices i would probably consider getting one.

Another thing to note is that movies and games might look good on those TFT wide-gamut monitors with glossy panels, but when you want photorealism you need a monitor that displays accurate colors and not enhanced ones. And for that, on a CRT you just have to open the on-screen menu and select "color temperature:5500 Kelvins".
To get the same on a TFT you have to pay for a factory pre-calibrated monitor like Eizo, which due to the increased work-hours per monitor means paying almost double the price of an identical non-calibrated one, or get a calibration kit and do it yourself,starting from $200. I'm not saying "death to the TFT", but when you factor in the cost and purpose of use it's much more cost effective to stick with the CRTs. TFTs are good for playing the game in all its widescreen glory, CRTs and standard-gamut monitors in general are good for making the game without spending extra money on getting accurate colors for your modellers ;)

[RedToo]

My 22 inch IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 510 which I bought from eBay for £15.00 sterling is brilliant. Great for gaming and Photoshop work. You can keep your flat screens for the moment.

RedToo.

[Tvrdi]

@Oleg - After I saw old CRTs and.....your "office"....Im even more eager to buy BOB SOW...I hope Oleg you would pay them as deserved and you will buy them a new LCDs soon....

this time Im serious....next year in january we will buy new hardware since we have old pcs (but we have LCDs heh)...I know how hard is to make a good work on old PC..old, for stuff wer doin....

your ppl have my support....

all the best

[Rebel Yell]

Glad those hangars are a work in progress. The shadows are nice, but the hangars themselves look like something out of Red Baron.

[JVM]

Why do you say so? Apart of the overdone weathering, there is almost nothing wrong on this hangar....

JVM

[AdMan]

*hangar whiners

[Eldur]

Where I work (not game dev), we have two camps, - the C++ camp and the Java camp... me being in the C++ camp. And I was very surprised to learn that IL-2 uses Java, since we always play the performance card to the Java fans ;-)

Java isn't that slow... it was like crap before 1.42 and since 1.5 (= Java 5) it starts being quite good in competition.

Clean and tidy desks compared to mine :D

The guys should clean their keyboards and mice more often http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/59.gif
Apparently the women have clean input devices http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif

I just have to shake my head at this point. Will this thing ever get done? Bomb textures? CODING ships? WIP Briefing UI? Welcome to a 2012 release date.

I prefer such details. Better it takes longer than to have a pay-beta release.

Are these pic's taken from the development of IL2?? Everything looks so dated, including all the pony tails!!

I like pony tails http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-surprised.gif

And maybe,
you can make a photo album with photos like these,and add it into SOW's bonus disc with the titile Daily life in our studio.:-P

Great idea! Or just put it somewhere in the program, credits screen or something like that http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/11.gif

It touches me!Your words.
You know many of my friends like WOW's character design...
Well,I prefer AION's and LineageII's,and features like these...

I hate those "ears sticking right out of the head" elves. I too can't understand why anybody likes this http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif
I prefer the "Spock style" http://www.ubisoft.de/smileys/3.gif

I can not watch a CRT screen as much time as a LCD one(it is said,CRT does more harmful than LCD?) .If I were their logistics manager,at least,I will change all the CRT monitors for LCD,I think....although it is also said CRT does more good in graphic drawing..
As long as CRT is running at decent refresh rate, it's not an issue. I'm still using mine.
Using CRTs is hardly a hint for lacking behind modern hardware. Depending on what you are working on, old CRTs can present you a better idea of realistic colors than most common TFTs do. ;)
My 22 inch IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 510 which I bought from eBay for £15.00 sterling is brilliant. Great for gaming and Photoshop work. You can keep your flat screens for the moment.

CRTs are still the better ones. They just give a better picture and don't need to interpolate lower resolutions. Run one at 85-100Hz and it's image is rock solid, no headache. I had a 22" EIZO S2232 worth 500€ for a very short time. But it still couldn't compete against my Vision Master Pro 514, although it was ages better than those cheap TN panel displays which are less than 200€. So I gave it back, still using my 5 year old tube. It's dark compared to flat screens (I often have to increase gamma just to see something on dark photos, screenshots etc), but its colors are awesome, at any viewing angle. Even on the S-PVA, which is probably the best panel type around, colors looked somewhat artificial, just not right. Especially dark colors which are still quite bright because of the backlight. It's like a crappy energy saving lamp compared to a good old light bulb. It just feels wrong.
They still have to get better... but I doubt there will be some "any resolution" flat screens soon, which is the main problem. I run things at 1280x960 mainly, but Il-2 at 1024x768, some older games like Baldur's Gate run at 800x600 etc. I can only get a perfect image in all these with a CRT. I tried to run 1280x960/1024 on that 1650x1050 screen and it was just horrible, although EIZOs have a very good low-res interpolation. At least it didn't stretch the image to 16:10. Not all wide screens have an option for not stretching the image across the whole screen.

[HenFre]

Glad those hangars are a work in progress. The shadows are nice, but the hangars themselves look like something out of Red Baron.

What in the world are you talking about :confused:

[Viking]

I’m happy to see so many young talented people working on SOW. Some can make music and other art and this “crew” can fill our computers with a history lesson never possible before. Almost like a crystal ball looking backward into time.

It fills me with envy to see them at work as I myself find it hard to handle a modern cell phone.

God luck to them all!

Viking

PS! Possible to see a He 111 next Friday?

[hiro]

thanks for showing us the workplace . . . and the crew working . . .


Good to see the game's coming along .. . . . and the mission briefing updates too.

[PeterPanPan]

Why do you say so? Apart of the overdone weathering, there is almost nothing wrong on this hangar....

JVM

I agree, the hangar looks virtually perfect.

However, there is definitely something not quite right with the grass. Look at it - the blades are ENORMOUS (http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0240.JPG)!! Quite the wrong scale. Still, I'm sure this is WIP. If not, I'd love to see the lawnmower that can hack through that stuff ;)

PPanPan

[mark@1C]

What in the world are you talking about :confused:
HAHA...
His meaning is that,
the hangar itself looks outmoded,just like a one built in WWI,when the well-known ace Manfred von Richthofen lives.
and fortunately,it's not a Work in Completion one.

[JVM]

HAHA...
His meaning is that,
the hangar itself looks outmoded,just like a one built in WWI,when the well-known ace Manfred von Richthofen lives.
and fortunately,it's not a Work in Completion one.

May I laugh heartily? Yes? Aaaah, thanks, it always feel so good...

1) The WW1 (fighter) hangars were mostly canvas over wood structure, sometimes wooden constructions, but not often...

2) The hangar shown is a very faithful reproduction of a Bf-110/Ju-87 class german hangar, as still (partially) existing in Rely/Norrent-Fontes airfield in North of France.

3) Its only caveat is the fact that it is weathered too much: this was not the case when this hangar was in use: it was brand new (camouflage paint instead of rust, no "old" interior paint...) and possibly that there was no white paint or whitewash in this class of hangar (usually the brickwork was apparent), but this could be construed as poetic licence...Nobody will come forward to say the opposite with any manner of certainty!

Many german fighter hangars are variations around this theme (and they were really many, many variations: out of my mind, only for France, at least 15/20 types just for concrete/masonry T-based hangars for Bf-110 or lower aircraft classes)...
Add to this fully wooden hangars, U-based hangars, simple revetments...then we could look into the bomber hangar variations then the workshop hangars variations...

These hangars were the real thing!

JVM

[AdMan]

May I laugh heartily? Yes? Aaaah, thanks, it always feel so good...

1) The WW1 (fighter) hangars were mostly canvas over wood structure, sometimes wooden constructions, but not often...

2) The hangar shown is a very faithful reproduction of a Bf-110/Ju-87 class german hangar, as still (partially) existing in Rely/Norrent-Fontes airfield in North of France.

3) Its only caveat is the fact that it is weathered too much: this was not the case when this hangar was in use: it was brand new (camouflage paint instead of rust, no "old" interior paint...) and possibly that there was no white paint or whitewash in this class of hangar (usually the brickwork was apparent), but this could be construed as poetic licence...Nobody will come forward to say the opposite with any manner of certainty!

Many german fighter hangars are variations around this theme (and they were really many, many variations: out of my mind, only for France, at least 15/20 types just for concrete/masonry T-based hangars for Bf-110 or lower aircraft classes)...
Add to this fully wooden hangars, U-based hangars, simple revetments...then we could look into the bomber hangar variations then the workshop hangars variations...

These hangars were the real thing!

JVM

This is the second time someone has brought up the issue of something looking too weathered for what is suposed to be new equipment/structures (the first being cockpit interiors). I wouldhave to agree this is a concern I share. Just saying.

[fuzzychickens]

This is the second time someone has brought up the issue of something looking too weathered for what is suposed to be new equipment/structures (the first being cockpit interiors). I wouldhave to agree this is a concern I share. Just saying.

That hangar has clearly been nerfed. I bet the Brits get nice shiny hagars.

I won't stand for this. I will bomb the Brit hangars first chance I get.

[mazex]

Oleg or Luthier... I understand you get annoyed by the embarrassing off-topic discussions about how your office looks etc, but is it possible to get some comments regarding the C# code we've seen on the shots? When did you start using that? As MDX is deprecated and does not support Dx10, are you using XNA (or even SlimDX), or does the render loop run on C++? What are your experiences? After writing some C# test game in Dx9 MDX way back when I gave up after they rewrote the API every release, with obvious lack of management backing. However, they seem to put a lot of effort into XNA now - and it feels like it has more internal backing etc...

I understand if you are not interested in commenting on this, and I suppose you regret releasing that shot where the code is visible ;) Just curious as the rumors about just some percent or two in performance loss compared to C++ on the latest iterations of managed DX sounds really interesting...

/Mazex

[Oleg Maddox]

Thanks for the update. :-)

It seems like in this shot (http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/IMG_0244.JPG) that you are using C# (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp_(programming_language)). Can you share what technology you are using to develop the game? Thinking first and foremost on programming languages. Being a programmer my self, I find that very interesting. :)

Where I work (not game dev), we have two camps, - the C++ camp and the Java camp... me being in the C++ camp. And I was very surprised to learn that IL-2 uses Java, since we always play the performance card to the Java fans ;-)

I believe your choice of Java was quite unusual in the game business when IL-2 started development, when Java still was very young. Do you have any thoughts on technology choices like that, - did it for example play a role in being able to complete the game in time (the usual trade off performance vs time to market)?

java was seected due to time of development. We spent more less time. Howwver later many things was moved in C++ iin original Il-2 as well.
However we were used Java in parts that are not FM or 3D engine.

C# we are using, yes. To early to tell in which part.

[Oleg Maddox]

Nice and interesting, as usual. Thanks.
Oleg, I can see your camera is a Canon S90. A good choice!

Its not my camera. I got this one in office of Canon for testing. Of course I was simply interested to test it. Sometime I do such tests and post then results on my photosite.
However I'm user of professional DSLR cameras, most often Nikons (currently D300 for undewater and more D700 for all purposes). Still using some time middle flim format Rollei twin reflex, which I have aleady more than 20 years in use.
Compact cameras ase not my choice :) I can use them occasionally only.

[luthier]

This is the second time someone has brought up the issue of something looking too weathered for what is suposed to be new equipment/structures (the first being cockpit interiors). I wouldhave to agree this is a concern I share. Just saying.

"New" stuff looks horrible in a video game, plain and boring, like something out of 1997 or a cell shaded cartoon.

That is all.

*weatheringwhiners

[Insuber]

Its not my camera. I got this one in office of Canon for testing. Of course I was simply interested to test it. Sometime I do such tests and post then results on my photosite.
However I'm user of professional DSLR cameras, most often Nikons (currently D300 for undewater and more D700 for all purposes). Still using some time middle flim format Rollei twin reflex, which I have aleady more than 20 years in use.
Compact cameras ase not my choice :) I can use them occasionally only.


Nikon D300 user here too :-D

Insuber

[Oleg Maddox]

Nikon D300 user here too :-D

Insuber

Right choice :)

[mazex]

Its not my camera. I got this one in office of Canon for testing. Of course I was simply interested to test it. Sometime I do such tests and post then results on my photosite.
However I'm user of professional DSLR cameras, most often Nikons (currently D300 for undewater and more D700 for all purposes). Still using some time middle flim format Rollei twin reflex, which I have aleady more than 20 years in use.
Compact cameras ase not my choice :) I can use them occasionally only.

He he, my father has an impressive collection of cameras - but he always talks fondly about his Rollei Reflex cameras (and for some reason his old Minox 1970:ies pocket cam) ;)

I'm a rookie user myself with a D80, but it fills my needs (a D300 would be nice though). I'm actually going to buy a new camera this very afternoon for party shooting and quick movies of my kids (going for a Panasonic Lumix TZ7 that seems like a perfect pocket camera with good movie/still combo). A fat SLR camera is not always the right choice :)

[Oleg Maddox]

He he, my father has an impressive collection of cameras - but he always talks fondly about his Rollei Reflex cameras (and for some reason his old Minox 1970:ies pocket cam) ;)

I'm a rookie user myself with a D80, but it fills my needs (a D300 would be nice though). I'm actually going to buy a new camera this very afternoon for party shooting and quick movies of my kids (going for a Panasonic Lumix TZ7 that seems like a perfect pocket camera with good movie/still combo). A fat SLR camera is not always the right choice :)

I have also good collection of old film cameras. Its a bit more than 100.

Panasonic Lumix TZ7 - is a good camera with loooong zoom. Many of my firends like it.
However, I presonally woud prefer Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 due to outstanding quality of the high ISO output with low grain. And as I understand you don't need RAW format or some manual modes....
Just try to compare images between two these cameras. The price for both is comparable.
I would by this Sony myself for the same puposes, but abcense of some manual modes and RAW format stop it.... HD movie for kids is also present in that sony

[furbs]

Stay on topic...post a shot of a hurricane :)

[Insuber]

Dear Oleg,

Just to get back to topic, I've asked back here about the max number of planes that will be handled at the same time on the map. I hope it will be in the hundreds, rather than in the tenths ...

Background:

- Historical BoB saw raids of some 950 German planes
- Il2 limitations do not allow to have more than few dozens planes on a map
- Games like BoB WoV did a good job in handling large masses of planes

Thank you,

Insuber

[Schuetz]

However I'm user of professional DSLR cameras, most often Nikons (currently D300 for undewater and more D700 for all purposes).
Compact cameras ase not my choice :)
Right, you have nice photos on your HP. I`m actually using a Nikon D200. ;)

[AdMan]

"New" stuff looks horrible in a video game, plain and boring, like something out of 1997 or a cell shaded cartoon.

That is all.

*weatheringwhiners

makes sense, without interesting textures might as well just apply standard materials/shaders to objects and be done with it, which would result in a very "Toy Story" look (plastic).

But there will be weathering of plane exteriors, so will you be able to repaint your plane or get new markings? Perhaps take it into the hangar and get some repairs? This would be similar to what most driving sims have.

[mazex]

I have also good collection of old film cameras. Its a bit more than 100.

Panasonic Lumix TZ7 - is a good camera with loooong zoom. Many of my firends like it.
However, I presonally woud prefer Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 due to outstanding quality of the high ISO output with low grain. And as I understand you don't need RAW format or some manual modes....
Just try to compare images between two these cameras. The price for both is comparable.
I would by this Sony myself for the same puposes, but abcense of some manual modes and RAW format stop it.... HD movie for kids is also present in that sony

Thanks a lot for your advice! The shop I went to this afternoon only had the TZ7 in red so no deal today. My old party/kid/hiking camera that I am about to replace is actually a Sony DSC-P200 - and I have been very content with that camera. A new Sony could sure be an alternative. The WX1 seems like the modern version of my old cam, and very comparable to the TZ-7 with long zoom and good video capabilities. What makes me want to replace the DSC-P200 is mainly the weak video compared to new compact cameras (though it was good in 2005), the still images as still OK. It has rather OK manual options, but I realize that with my pocket cam - it often goes on auto... To lazy I guess. Even though raw mode and more manual stuff would be nice, I have my D-80 for that - which even my wife has started to like! She finally understood this year that a DSLR is perfect for shooting kids with fast AF, autofocus and great portraits with millimeter thick focus...

Reading up on forums, the WX1 gets some bashing for flash shadows from the lens at max wideangle (24mm), that's a minus as many images indoors tend to go on maximum angle... Then it has a weight of only 129 instead of a hulking 229 for the TZ7... Add that you have great high ISO performance in the WX1 (which is not to be understated - my D80 does a great job compared to my old Canon 300d, but the D80 is getting old too...). And then the Casio Exlim Ex-H10 has got great reviews in the same category.

It's never easy to buy new hardware with all the information we have today ;)

/Mazex

[JVM]

makes sense, without interesting textures might as well just apply standard materials/shaders to objects and be done with it, which would result in a very "Toy Story" look (plastic).

I can understand that but it's a matter of degree: to put some dirtying, imperfections and oil spots is one thing, to get a corrugated sheet covering entirely rusted 2 months after installation is another...

JV

[philip.ed]

Stay on topic...post a shot of a hurricane :)

+1. I could kill for a beautiful shot of the hurricane........(now where's the drool emoticon?) :grin:

[RedToo]

I never reply to wish posts - until now. The Hurricane! Some preview shots would be wonderful. Sydney Camm's finest. The plane that for me perfectly catches the evolution from biplanes to monoplanes.

RedToo.

[AdMan]

I can understand that but it's a matter of degree: to put some dirtying, imperfections and oil spots is one thing, to get a corrugated sheet covering entirely rusted 2 months after installation is another...

JV

I admit I'm on the fence with the whole weathering thing, the hangar doesn't bother me really. I understand this is likely not going to be but it would be damn cool if the cockpits slowly showed wear and tear over time, every scratch would be a badge of honor and I would imagine endear you to the plane.

just thought I'd indulge myself for a moment

[Oleg Maddox]

Right, you have nice photos on your HP. I`m actually using a Nikon D200. ;)

Good camera. I was using this one almost 3 years.
If to shot in RAW - is possible to get simply outstanding quality of images on relatively low ISO.

[Oleg Maddox]

I never reply to wish posts - until now. The Hurricane! Some preview shots would be wonderful. Sydney Camm's finest. The plane that for me perfectly catches the evolution from biplanes to monoplanes.

RedToo.

Ok, Today will be Hurricane, however a bit unfinished.

[Oleg Maddox]

Thanks a lot for your advice! The shop I went to this afternoon only had the TZ7 in red so no deal today. My old party/kid/hiking camera that I am about to replace is actually a Sony DSC-P200 - and I have been very content with that camera. A new Sony could sure be an alternative. The WX1 seems like the modern version of my old cam, and very comparable to the TZ-7 with long zoom and good video capabilities. What makes me want to replace the DSC-P200 is mainly the weak video compared to new compact cameras (though it was good in 2005), the still images as still OK. It has rather OK manual options, but I realize that with my pocket cam - it often goes on auto... To lazy I guess. Even though raw mode and more manual stuff would be nice, I have my D-80 for that - which even my wife has started to like! She finally understood this year that a DSLR is perfect for shooting kids with fast AF, autofocus and great portraits with millimeter thick focus...

Reading up on forums, the WX1 gets some bashing for flash shadows from the lens at max wideangle (24mm), that's a minus as many images indoors tend to go on maximum angle... Then it has a weight of only 129 instead of a hulking 229 for the TZ7... Add that you have great high ISO performance in the WX1 (which is not to be understated - my D80 does a great job compared to my old Canon 300d, but the D80 is getting old too...). And then the Casio Exlim Ex-H10 has got great reviews in the same category.

It's never easy to buy new hardware with all the information we have today ;)

/Mazex

I don't know any compact camera that would wortk with internal flash gently.

My wife simply don't take in hands compacts and using DSLR only. Even when it is 2,5 Kg of weight (with heavy battery vertical grip) she takes it in a trip for everyday shooting.

[RedToo]

Ok, Today will be Hurricane, however a bit unfinished.

Brilliant! Thanks Oleg.

RedToo.

[GF_Mastiff]

"ONCE AGAIN THIS IS ALL WORK IN PROGRESS, EVEN THE LAST PHOTO "

lol

That was funny tell her to quit smoking its really bad.... I know; I did it for 15 years and quit at 31..now 43, and smoke free..

[Windturbin]

All kinds of devices.............

http://download.softclub.ru/pub/il2pict/IMG_0249.JPG

Will device link be continued?

Or to be more specific, will there be a new method for exporting gauge data to 3rd party software/hardware?

[AndyJWest]

Will device link be continued?

Or to be more specific, will there be a new method for exporting gauge data to 3rd party software/hardware?

This is a rather old thread you are posting in, Windturbin. Oleg has more recently made the situation clear:
In device link we plan to give alsmot any information. And now we wouldn't limit it only for single play. I do think now that it was my little mistake to listen user's votes to prohibit it for online gameplay. To know G loading or to have separate normaly visible gauges on other panel isn't a cheat. We simply closed the development of some small industry around Il-2 in this case. it was really some mistake.
Not I think by other way. Experince of Il-2 gave me a lot of things to think .


From here: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=118395&highlight=devicelink#post118395

[MikkOwl]

All kinds of devices.............
Will device link be continued?

Or to be more specific, will there be a new method for exporting gauge data to 3rd party software/hardware?
Continued, improved (many more things through devicelink) and allow more things in multiplayer as well. Oleg mentioned this some weeks ago.

[Windturbin]

Thanks Guys, I only drop by here every couple months, so is hard to find and read everything.

To continue device link is good news, I figured they would, but was thinking \ hoping it might be incorporated into the game menu section for some sort of plug and play perhaps.

I recently picked up some Flight Illusion gauges, and even with device link it is work to get them to work.