Friday 2010-10-15 Dev. update and Discussion

[Skoshi Tiger]

Oleg!
How did your son go in his training? :)

Please ask him to go easy on me if he finds me online! ;)


Cheers!

PS. My son (6 yrs old) often sits on my knee as co-pilot when I'm flying!

[Skoshi Tiger]

There will be no sign posts, they were taken down during the war. You will have to ask locals which road takes you back to the airfield.
Maybe this could be a future mod - selecting a message to ask the way and getting an answer from them ....Farmer: 'carry on for 3 miles, then turn left at the crossroads'.

We will need a compass in the car!

No! Just a list of pubs between departure point and destination! ;)

"Drive down thar , passed the 'Fiddling Monkey' upto the 'Prince o'wales', carry on for a mile or two t' the 'Rampant Otter', then it's but a mile or two t' the RAF Base!"

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg!
How did your son go in his training? :)

Please ask him to go easy on me if he finds me online! ;)


Cheers!

PS. My son (6 yrs old) often sits on my knee as co-pilot when I'm flying!

He got sick... yesterday. So we didn't fly with him.
I'm at home with him today, its why I'm answering at the moment.
He is sleeping right now.

[Spudkopf]

Oleg!
How did your son go in his training? :)

Please ask him to go easy on me if he finds me online! ;)


Cheers!

PS. My son (6 yrs old) often sits on my knee as co-pilot when I'm flying!


So it seems to me everybody kind of missed out on the major point in of this update, so Oleg did you keep your promise and have a successful training session with your son and what was the aircraft in question? Also I’m quite curious to know your son's favourite plane?

By the way the He-162 is one of my all time favourite aircraft both in and out of the game and with Canon’s skins is a real joy to look at as well, although I must admit most of my in game play is dedicated to ground attack (with the odd bomber intercept thrown every now and again) and with a slight lean towards the aircraft of the axis, so I am now eagerly awaiting 4.10 so I can get my hands on the Hs-129 .

On that note it would be nice to see the Hs-123 and the Hs-126 in SOWBOB however I guess we may have to wait until the series heads east again for those two planes.


Yes as I posted earlier, I'd like to know as well?

[SlipBall]

And, again, if all is Ok... then I should say that we already started together with third party team the third sim... and the name of this this probably will be anounced next month.




I read this as next month will be a very important time for us, with a release date announcement for SOW as well...correct?:grin:

[Spudkopf]

Sorry Oleg you beat me to it.

So what is he trainig on and what's his favourite?

[Oleg Maddox]

Hi Oleg, thanks for the great update.

1. Not sure if this has been asked, but please can we have the option to display units in feet or metres? This would be in the speedbar, AI speech, gun convergence etc. In IL2, we are fixed with metres only?

2. Also, with the speech, it would be great if the term 'angels' was used, as it was in 1940 e.g. "climb to angels 10" = "climb to 10,000 feet"

Cheers

PPanPan


1. Should be done. It was in plan and my personal request in the past. Was repeating this request about month or sop ago. Will check later.

2. I gave all the terms in the past. what is used I didn't check yet for all features. I'm busys with overal picture and checking planes and other visible bugs.

[pupaxx]

...Just to say a word..
I like so much Mr Oleg is so loquacious and inclined to conversation!!!
It seems more relaxed, maybe SOW is really near to come!

Thanks again Oleg for your work and your interacting with us
Keep up!!!:) Great update!

[PeterPanPan]

1. Should be done. It was in plan and my personal request in the past. Was repeating this request about month or sop ago. Will check later.

2. I gave all the terms in the past. what is used I didn't check yet for all features. I'm busys with overal picture and checking planes and other visible bugs.

Excellent news Oleg, thank you so much :). Now, it's Saturday, so please stop working soon and have a rest!!

PPanPan

[major_setback]

I see a problem if everyone can set the colour to how they want it...we might get some very strange looking user-made skins and objects that won't blend well with the rest of the game. Maybe it is a feature that can wait.

Oleg - I hope your son gets well soon.

[dduff442]

Purple and pink tints would not be uncommon in England -- on heaths at least where heather predominates.

Yellow-tinted areas also would not be rare on uncultivated land (gorse), even very lurid yellows (rapeseed) would be seen occasionally on farmland.

dduff

[d165w3ll]

I see pink/purple fields that look strange to my eyes. Maybe there are parts of england where they can be seen, but i hope it won't be the full landscape colored like this.

Hedgerows are not there, there are highway wide roads instead, this does not look right either. If we can't have 3D trees on the edges, at least have green textures there, no grey highways.

:)

Indeed, lavender is a crop in some parts of England (particularly Norfolk), though it is something of a niche crop. Not sure how widespread it was in the 1940s. Given the pressure for food crops, I imagine its appeal at the time would have been more limited.
http://www.norfolk-lavender.co.uk/pages/lavender-fields.php
Flax is another colourful crop.
http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/flax-fields.html
Flax used to be more common in England than it is now.
So, while the bluish/purplish cast of some fields may appear odd, it is perfectly defensible.

The hedgerows, however, are a cucial part of England's landscape, particularly in the south (in the north dry-stone walls are more the rule (http://halfpie.net/article/152/dry-stone-walls)

Post-WW2 farming developments have resulted in the widespread 'grubbing-out' (destruction) of hedgerows, so what you see on GoogleEarth no longer represents the density of what you would have seen in the 1940s.

Being a relatively flat landscape, you don't often get the distant views in south-eastern England that you do in the mountains. One that struck me when I was about four is Farthing Corner just north of Hythe, in Kent. Here's am image I took this July (over forty years later). The role of hedgerows is unmistakeable. All over this part of Kent, the trees on both sides of the road meet overhead creating 'green tunnels' of surpassing beauty.

[Oleg Maddox]

Sorry Oleg you beat me to it.

So what is he trainig on and what's his favourite?


He like the plane where is following:

cannons,
rockets
bombs
rear gunner to keep his back :)
stable platform

In this case he fly for now Il-10 in Il-2 1946.

However he is not able to land yet. So he prefer to start in air and to finish there as well.

Hope in time he will understand the diffeences in planes and will learn other advantages for the different situations. He need to get experience.

At home I haven't yet PC that to run good FPS in BoB. Say RoF also can't run on my son PC in principle and my notebook - too slow.
I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.
Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home :).

[Spudkopf]

He like the plane where is following:

cannons,
rockets
bombs
rear gunner to keep his back :)
stable platform

In this case he fly for now Il-10 in Il-2 1946.

However he is not able to land yet. So he prefer to start in air and to finish there as well.

Hope in time he will understand the diffeences in planes and will learn other advantages for the different situations. He need to get experience.

At home I haven't yet PC that to run good FPS in BoB. Say RoF also can't run on my son PC in principle and my notebook - too slow.
I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.
Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home :).

Just realised that I've never flown the Il10, so I just quickly jumped over to 46 (it was running in the background while I was browsing the forum) and had a look, I totally missed the fact that it was added in 46 and with the later style of cockpit render, I'll now have to take it for a spin (figuratively speaking but maybe literally also) .

Thanks also for the unofficial specs you just let slipp ;)

[Sutts]

Thanks for stopping by today Oleg. Your responses are much appreciated.:grin:

[major_setback]

He like the plane where is following:

cannons,
rockets
bombs
rear gunner to keep his back :)
stable platform

In this case he fly for now Il-10 in Il-2 1946.

However he is not able to land yet. So he prefer to start in air and to finish there as well.

Hope in time he will understand the diffeences in planes and will learn other advantages for the different situations. He need to get experience.

At home I haven't yet PC that to run good FPS in BoB. Say RoF also can't run on my son PC in principle and my notebook - too slow.
I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.
Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home :).

I hope some big graphics card manufacturer is reading this...a very generous one I hope! ;-)

[PVT.Roger]

Thanks for another great update Oleg. It's always a great treat after a long week at work to see the images reflecting the progress you and your team are making on SoW.

PVT.Roger

[Oleg Maddox]

I hope some big graphics card manufacturer is reading this...a very generous one I hope! ;-)

On Monday we should compile the version for NVIDIA.
They will make/check separate drivers that to show their new equipment with SoW at exhibition in Moscow in the beginning of November in our showroom. That will be demonstration fro my hands and not for all yet.

[Oleg Maddox]

Thanks for another great update Oleg. It's always a great treat after a long week at work to see the images reflecting the progress you and your team are making on SoW.

PVT.Roger

Good to see old players/readers/helpers :)

[Hecke]

On Monday we should compile the version for NVIDIA.
They will make/check separate drivers that to show their new equipment with SoW at exhibition in Moscow in the beginning of November in our showroom. That will be demonstration fro my hands and not for all yet.

Awesome, will you show us some high-ranged DX 11, AA, All maxed out (if possible :grin:) of that event?

You said there will be seperate EXE for 64 bit support.
Will SoW BoB make use of for example 8 GB Ram?


Bye, Heck

[rollnloop]

Thanks for clarifications Oleg, quick recovery to son.

About subtitles, can you please have something done so they do not obscure the sky, and user can choose to have them down the screen instead of the upper part ? It is so mouch more immersive in my view when text is in its own window and not over main screen, i usually turn it all off in IL2 but then miss crucial info, so i have to keep 2 lines when flying finn' or german, i'd really rather have those in my lower screen and not where i search for the ennemy !

[philip.ed]

Oleg, did you seem my comment before about the peripheral arrows? I think they are a great idea, but maybe could look more aesthetic? Like, for the RAF, roundels could be used instead of arrows and for the luftwaffe crosses etc
This way, the icons could be smaller, but also look better ;)

[Oleg Maddox]

Thanks for clarifications Oleg, quick recovery to son.

About subtitles, can you please have something done so they do not obscure the sky, and user can choose to have them down the screen instead of the upper part ? It is so mouch more immersive in my view when text is in its own window and not over main screen, i usually turn it all off in IL2 but then miss crucial info, so i have to keep 2 lines when flying finn' or german, i'd really rather have those in my lower screen and not where i search for the ennemy !

The top position is the best. We tryed other in the past. Amount of lines should be adjustable like in Il-2

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, did you seem my comment before about the peripheral arrows? I think they are a great idea, but maybe could look more aesthetic? Like, for the RAF, roundels could be used instead of arrows and for the luftwaffe crosses etc
This way, the icons could be smaller, but also look better ;)

We prefer to use only own ideas. Also with further development of the sim just imagine how much then should be different icons of different nations....
The big arrow only when the plane is near you. The size and transparence of arrow depens of the distance to the planes

[Spudkopf]

Oleg, just took the Il10 for a QMB on an airfield, I forgot how the russian gunners tend to crack it when you do things like rolling inverted out of an attack run while trying to avoid the flakpanzers and other flak implacements, however the gunners tend do that a lot when I'm flying, strange though that the Stuka gunners never complain, maybe they are simply scared beyond speach ;)

Landed it first time as well!

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, just took the Il10 for a QMB on an airfield, I forgot how the russian gunners tend to crack it when you do things like rolling inverted out of an attack run while trying to avoid the flakpanzers and other flak implacements, however the gunners tend do that a lot when I'm flying, strange though that the Stuka gunners never complain, maybe they are simply scared beyond speach ;)

Landed it first time as well!

AI of gunners in any plane of Il-2 was absolutely the same.
Differences may happens only because of different possible angles of turret rotations and its speed. However the speed as I recall was a feature for differnert electrical drive of turrets in IL-2.

If only DT changet it and forgot about some planes. I don't know it.

If you mean speech of gunner. Yes, some are missed and even not used comparing to original first Il-2. With the changes of AI in time some speeches in Il-2 were forgotten by other than original AI programmer. I told him many times, but it wasn't corrected. Just in several cases for the speeches was correction comparing to original complex and some time random AI speech in Il-2.

[T}{OR]

Thanks for this great update.

You said there will be seperate EXE for 64 bit support.
Will SoW BoB make use of for example 8 GB Ram?


Bye, Heck

This is a good question. Especially since I am thinking about either 1156 (8GB) or 1366 (6GB) system for my next build. Depends of the CPU and RAM, what will SoW benefit from more.

Can you answer this for us Oleg?

[major_setback]

....The one part that is not particularly noticeable, and I have no idea how it may be achieved, is the overall pall of coal smoke that was general at the time. I guess it may be argued that the BoB took place in summer when coal-burning was at its lowest and that's fair. It is still important to remember the effect of 50 to 100 years of coal burning, which left it's mark on every building....



Like this?
:-)

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/major-setback/shot_20101014_235436d.jpg
original:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/major-setback/shot_20101014_235436small.jpg

[Oleg Maddox]

First of all, thanks for this great update.



This is a good question. Especially since I am thinking about either 1156 (8GB) or 1366 (6GB) system for my next build. Depends of the CPU and RAM, what will SoW benefit from more.

Can you answer this for us Oleg?

Thanks

I think yes. I will ask main programmer for sure.

[pupaxx]

At home I haven't yet PC that to run good FPS in BoB. Say RoF also can't run on my son PC in principle and my notebook - too slow.
I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.
Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home :).[/QUOTE]

Oleg please, how do you consider my q6600@3.0Ghz?
Is it comparable to your test-bed in office or your home PC?
...what effort is to extort infos about system specs!!!....

hush hush...perhaps he's rising at my bait!....

argh...nothing to to...:-P

[Gourmand]

Hello Oleg, i'm a "new" fan, but a big fan (screen are impressive and i'am disapointed for wings of prey, and all my hope are in SOW )...
i'm a recent (french) player of il2 1946 and i wait SOW with impatience

I have a suggestion, i hope it's simply to realise or already made for SOW, but if we can add our name and our kill in our plane on-press like IL2-1946 for the logo squadron, it's was fun ;)


and it's was fun if a collector version with a joystick, or toy plane was released too ;)

[Ctrl E]

hi oleg. will there be people in those beautiful vehicles ou have made? and troops on the ground?

[Hecke]

hi oleg. will there be people in those beautiful vehicles ou have made? and troops on the ground?

Good question. I am also wondering about this.

[Oleg Maddox]

Hello Oleg, i'm a "new" fan, but a big fan (screen are impressive and i'am disapointed for wings of prey, and all my hope are in SOW )...
i'm a recent (french) player of il2 1946 and i wait SOW with impatience

I have a suggestion, i hope it's simply to realise or already made for SOW, but if we can add our name and our kill in our plane on-press like IL2-1946 for the logo squadron, it's was fun ;)


and it's was fun if a collector version with a joystick, or toy plane was released too ;)

Really the system of markings even in Il-2 was so complex that never was done before in any game....
In Sow we did even more advanced and even mnore close to historical things.

But with Kill markings ... too many differences, too many locations etc... this means that for each plane we need to set the loacation in 3D model for thes markings and for different types. This would be increadible work from the beginning and in further development of the sim series...

Just one sample to understand... You fly La-7.... in German army online... then you fly Bf109 in British army or in Soviet army....

Hoep you understand that it is simply placement of the texture. This is developmetn of special areas on 3D model code were it should be located with its all varians coming with release and later with the development of the new aircraft, new nations, etc...

It is really not so complex work but too long and great in time of development and research of all various of markings.
Really hard and the result doesn't cost these expences.

You simply change the texture with these kills onboard. In Sow resolutions of textures is higher. They will be visible enough....

[Eki]

Hi Oleg,

Thanks for the regular updates and answers.

Wanted to ask a small question about in game player statistics: Is SoW going to have a pilot logbook, that will keep track of pilots flight hours (online and offline), flown sorties, air/ground kills, gunnery accuracy etc.?

It would be a nice feature and interesting to see how you have improved your flight skills after countless flight hours.

[Oleg Maddox]

hi oleg. will there be people in those beautiful vehicles ou have made? and troops on the ground?

In original plan they was. But for the release - will be just part of these plans. We need at first to animate and set all pilots and gunners. Then we will do in time ground humans
Maybe just some will be set in release. Ground human are unfinished yet. Too small amount of guys was able to work over it in our team. And no possiblility to add more due to limit of funds...
Maybe third party also will help to add a lot of life on the ground. That will be possible in future in our engine and coming in tim,e tools for thirs party. Of course if will not diew doing whzt already is programmed... :):):):)

[Oleg Maddox]

Hi Oleg,

Thanks for the regular updates and answers.

Wanted to ask a small question about in game player statistics: Is SoW going to have a pilot logbook, that will keep track of pilots flight hours (online and offline), flown sorties, air/ground kills, gunnery accuracy etc.?

It would be a nice feature and interesting to see how you have improved your flight skills after countless flight hours.

All these things I keep for answering much later. Bugs that we eliminating now with a limit of time to correct some time ask ask to skip one or other working not well feature. Better to put nothing than working bad - this is my principle in life and work.
So what we will keep in final - later will be anounced.

[philip.ed]

We prefer to use only own ideas. Also with further development of the sim just imagine how much then should be different icons of different nations....
The big arrow only when the plane is near you. The size and transparence of arrow depens of the distance to the planes

That is actually a very good idea. How will the size and shape of the arrows be affected by monitor/resolution size?

Oleg, how is the RAF flight kit coming along too? Did you see my posts from last-week or the week-before?

Thankyou as well for taking the time to reply to us; it really is better than any pictures and I mean this in a good way ;)

[Bloblast]

The top position is the best. We tryed other in the past. Amount of lines should be adjustable like in Il-2

Oleg, will there be an option to have no text? As a lot of us will understand English and German.

[Stachel]

Hello Mr. Maddox,

I'm a long time fan and customer. I wanted to express my respect and gratitude for your work. SOW will surely be a great success.

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, will there be an option to have no text? As a lot of us will understand English and German.

Should be. Like it was in original Il-2 as well.

[Oleg Maddox]

Hello Mr. Maddox,

I'm a long time fan and customer. I wanted to express my respect and gratitude for your work. SOW will surely be a great success.

Thnks. I hope for this.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Just sprung to my mind. In IL-2 you can edit the file what the HUD displays(on the right), like Power %, flaps, radiator position etc. Can this be customised in SoW too?

[Oleg Maddox]

S!

Just sprung to my mind. In IL-2 you can edit the file what the HUD displays(on the right), like Power %, flaps, radiator position etc. Can this be customised in SoW too?

Didn't check it. Must be. There is more advenced system of customization in principle. At home I have not SoW after attemp to stole it across internet from my PC.

[major_setback]

Didn't check it. Must be. There is more advenced system of customization in principle. At home I have not SoW after attemp to stole it across internet from my PC.

Then beware of people pretending to work for nVidea...they might be SoW thieves!!
:-):-)

[Flanker35M]

S!

Thank you. I edited power % etc. off my screen as I rely on the gauges ;) I only keep overheat there and some others to keep playability. Sounds good SoW will be customisable as I prefer less stuff on screen and eyes more in cockpit to see what is going on :D

[Oleg Maddox]

S!

Thank you. I edited power % etc. off my screen as I rely on the gauges ;) I only keep overheat there and some others to keep playability. Sounds good SoW will be customisable as I prefer less stuff on screen and eyes more in cockpit to see what is going on :D

You should write me to old address to know the new email.

I will check next week old one probably last time. Its overloaded with spam and still with the respond to linked to pacific address...

[philip.ed]

Oleg, with the ground-textures, will they be affected by the weather? It would be a lot for the game to handle, but would be great for dynamic campaigns.

oh, and a few of my mails may be sitting in that inbox, Oleg. Some of them may have more info for you; I can't remember.

[Ekar]

Great update Oleg, thanks! :)

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but for me- the main difference between the SOW terrain here and the landscape photos which have been shown in this thread, is that in the SOW shots there seems to be a lot (ie, too much) textural variation going on between each field- basically, from one field to the next, there is a difference in vegetation. In the photos on the other hand, you have quite a bit of uniformity across fields, which is broken up by variations in vegetation in different spots. The SOW terrain looks quite 'busy', while the photos look more placid or relaxed, to put it another way.

That's my only 'criticism' here, if you could call it that. On the positive side, it's great to see really nice resolution in the ground details.

Looking forward to purchase day Oleg- I'm sure you are too! ;)

thanks again for the update :)

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, with the ground-textures, will they be affected by the weather? It would be a lot for the game to handle, but would be great for dynamic campaigns.

oh, and a few of my mails may be sitting in that inbox, Oleg. Some of them may have more info for you; I can't remember.

Do you mean the changes in rain or in time depending of season of the year with smooth trasition?
No. it is possible to make on a small surface in some shooter or so..
So we wil have one the same looking map for the modelled period.

Later, with other version of the gameplay using this map for other periods of year and war is possible to load other(new, modified) map with changed and corresponding to that season textures, vegetables if is, looking by other way trees, etc.

[furbs]

So did you read Oleg's reply about this or did you just not understand a word of it?


It beggars belief. There are genuinely some people here that seem to be expecting real life with the imagery. I'm more interested in the FM and DM being accurate than whether or not the farmer has barley or potatoes in his fields.

As somebody already pointed out the real gems of information are not from the shots but Oleg's commentary this week, very exciting future but obviously dependent on finance. It makes me want to buy multiple copies just in case!!! ;)

I did understand Olegs reply, and i understand some of the pics i posted are not 100% the right colours but they are alot closer to what i see everyday.

Now if people think the colours in Olegs shots are closer to the colours of southern England than the ones i posted, thats fine with me... maybe they can find one real picture that matches that mix of colours and looks like Olegs screen shot, and then post it here.

[Oleg Maddox]

Great update Oleg, thanks! :)

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but for me- the main difference between the SOW terrain here and the landscape photos which have been shown in this thread, is that in the SOW shots there seems to be a lot (ie, too much) textural variation going on between each field- basically, from one field to the next, there is a difference in vegetation. In the photos on the other hand, you have quite a bit of uniformity across fields, which is broken up by variations in vegetation in different spots. The SOW terrain looks quite 'busy', while the photos look more placid or relaxed, to put it another way.

That's my only 'criticism' here, if you could call it that. On the positive side, it's great to see really nice resolution in the ground details.

Looking forward to purchase day Oleg- I'm sure you are too! ;)

thanks again for the update :)

We used photos from the air and space for the august-september time of the year exactly for modeling our set of textures.

They are not exact textures. But using as a reference professional photos, accessble info for locations of vegetables, rural zones, etc

Yes it is isn't exactly satellite map... but we should model 1940...
Direct satellite maps would be good for modern sims... however they should too much reworked in term to clean from all the objects, like cars on the roads, etc. Also they should be reworked in colors, contrast, etc because from the space they are looking not like on the ground or even not like from 10 km altitude.

So.. we really doing better than some offers.

[Flanker35M]

S!

Used the mail ;) How is ground modelled in SoW? As in many books pilots complain that when a grass field was used a lot it became dusty and during rain got soft and muddy. And are the grass fields smoother than in IL-2?

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Oleg, did you seem my comment before about the peripheral arrows? I think they are a great idea, but maybe could look more aesthetic? Like, for the RAF, roundels could be used instead of arrows and for the luftwaffe crosses etc
This way, the icons could be smaller, but also look better ;)

Oleg already answered it, but I would like to add this: I tried BOBII and didn't like the roundels at all. Yes, true they are more aesthetic. But I found it took me everytime a split second too long to identify if the roundel was british or german. Also, they give no info about distance if I remember correctly, like Oleg's arrows always have. In a combat situation I thought although they looked nice on screen, they were not very practicable.

The "3D" arrow cone in CFS3 was nice in the sense that it gave you a good hint on the relative angle enemy vs you, but it was always only activated for one enemy at a time (the selected enemy) and was ALWAYS in the dead middle of your screen -- an incredible stupid decision if you ask me.

Ideally I would like a combination of both...Olegs arrows and super quick identification with distance hints work just great, add to that maybe a 3D version of one of those arrows for the selected enemy giving you relative angle.

I don't know, just thinking loud here. :-)

[He111]

Alienware?
You do know they suck? Especially form the price.
Never buy a branded system.

Ok, I'm a bit of a Hardware Neanderthal, what should I have in my new system? the new ATI card and 3 monitors looks impressive, that's a must .. maybe even a 4th monitor for my 6 o’clock??:confused:

8G ram I assume and 64 OS?

Any help

[Flanker35M]

S!

I think the arrows work fine as we are "conditioned" in IL-2 to them. And easy to see blue or red as same is also in IL-2. Maybe you could have an option to just leave enemy arrows and discard own side etc.

[winny]

Great update Oleg, thanks! :)

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but for me- the main difference between the SOW terrain here and the landscape photos which have been shown in this thread, is that in the SOW shots there seems to be a lot (ie, too much) textural variation going on between each field- basically, from one field to the next, there is a difference in vegetation.


Heres a modern day image from the same area, around Deal in Kent.

There's an awfull lot of variation in the vegetation here and this is only a few square miles.

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz147/winistrone/SoW/kent.jpg

Coulours are always gonna be open to artistic interpretation.

[furbs]

Great update Oleg, thanks! :)

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but for me- the main difference between the SOW terrain here and the landscape photos which have been shown in this thread, is that in the SOW shots there seems to be a lot (ie, too much) textural variation going on between each field- basically, from one field to the next, there is a difference in vegetation. In the photos on the other hand, you have quite a bit of uniformity across fields, which is broken up by variations in vegetation in different spots. The SOW terrain looks quite 'busy', while the photos look more placid or relaxed, to put it another way.

That's my only 'criticism' here, if you could call it that. On the positive side, it's great to see really nice resolution in the ground details.

Looking forward to purchase day Oleg- I'm sure you are too! ;)

thanks again for the update :)

Agreed, the colours(and maybe not enough hedgrows) are the only thing that i think are not quite on the money, everything else looks great.
The shapes and textures of the fields looks spot on.

[Oleg Maddox]

I did understand Olegs reply, and i understand some of the pics i posted are not 100% the right colours but they are alot closer to what i see everyday.

Now if people think the colours in Olegs shots are closer to the colours of southern England than the ones i posted, thats fine with me... maybe they can find one real picture that matches that mix of colours and looks like Olegs screen shot, and then post it here.

You didn't understand my answer.

I will explain by a bit other way in shotest way.

1. The purpose of the shots was to show sharpnes of the ground image from altitude and on great distances.

2. Your posted photos are not like the human eye see it in real time

3. I answered you that the colors are not final.

For all:
Because we are fighting with HDR technology that damages some time real colors we tune the texture colors already long time. And now this work is close to final, but need to be tuned exact tint and saturation of textures color - one for all

HDR in its way how it is used by all (compression) - great mistake of someone...
We will use it minimal... close to zero. Because it is impossible already to remove. Just in cockpit it gives some advantage. But overal - it is global mistake of all developers. Probably main world developers understood it already too and tuned it to minimal.

I think many photographers will confirm my thought if the speech is about realistic lifelike photos and not about toxic colors that someone think is cool... (some time really cool if it is the art using this toxic colors especially :))

[Flanker35M]

S!

But you can adjust some of the colors in your GFX card control panel if needed to get a color suiting you, regarding the pics and terrain color discussion.. I use that if I want more color or less of it. I think the screenies really depend on how the system is adjusted etc. And with Final we will finally see it :D

[furbs]

You didn't understand my answer.

I will explain by a bit other way in shotest way.

1. The purpose of the shots was to show sharpnes of the ground image from altitude and on great distances.

2. Your posted photos are not like the human eye see it in real time

3. I answered you that the colors are not final.

For all:
Because we are fighting with HDR technology that damages some time real colors we tune the texture colors already long time. And now this work is close to final, but need to be tuned exact tint and saturation of textures color - one for all

HDR in its way how it is used by all (compression) - great mistake of someone...
We will use it minimal... close to zero. Because it is impossible already to remove. Just in cockpit it gives some advantage. But overal - it is global mistake of all developers. Probably main world developers understood it already too and tuned it to minimal.

I think many photographers will confirm my thought if the speech is about realistic lifelike photos and not about toxic colors that someone think is cool... (some time really cool if it is the art using this toxic colors especially :))

Thanks again Oleg, i know the colours will be tweaked until release and i hope you can get the closest colours to real as you can while fighting the tec problems.
Like i say...everything thing else is looking very good and i can see the improvement in detail even from last weeks shots.

[Oleg Maddox]

S!

But you can adjust some of the colors in your GFX card control panel if needed to get a color suiting you, regarding the pics and terrain color discussion.. I use that if I want more color or less of it. I think the screenies really depend on how the system is adjusted etc. And with Final we will finally see it :D

Buy this way you will adjust common colors but not the color of the plane corresponding to the ground suface.

So this is just possible way of small adjustment on user side but not the different details of overal image by different way.

[kendo65]

Hello Oleg, thanks for taking the time to answer so many questions.

It seems that we really are in the home straight leading up to release, with decisions being made on cut-off of features - ie included features will be tweaked in the time remaining, while features which are buggy or require more work are held back for later release.

Have all decisions been made yet on everything that will be included BOB? If so what percent would you say of what the engine is capable of will we see in first release?

Thanks.

[philip.ed]

Oleg, I too, flew over England this year and Furbs' shot is an accurate representation of the colours of the English landscape. I am not trying to be rude, but have you flown over England? I think, perhaps, we may be able to judge the best. Obviously as you say a camera won't give a 100% accurate representation, but from experience I think those of us who live in the country can give a good idea of how it looked.
The colours currently shown for SoW suggest a spring-look, where the fields are quite a lush green. In the summer of 1940, it was one of the hottest summers' on record, and the fields would have had a burnished look.
I do understand your theories of colour though; it will differen between each PC, but this is just my observation ;)



Winny, there weren't rape-fields in England in 1940. I know you weren't saying there are, but I'm just pointing it out. It's interesting to compare a modern-day picture with one from 1940.

[_AH_Prop]

Hello Oleg, thanks for this awesome update!

It might be too early to ask, but will multiplayer be handled in game or externally using a program like Hyperlobby?

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, I too, flew over England this year and Furbs' shot is an accurate representation of the colours of the English landscape. I am not trying to be rude, but have you flown over England? I think, perhaps, we may be able to judge the best. Obviously as you say a camera won't give a 100% accurate representation, but from experience I think those of us who live in the country can give a good idea of how it looked.
The colours currently shown for SoW suggest a spring-look, where the fields are quite a lush green. In the summer of 1940, it was one of the hottest summers' on record, and the fields would have had a burnished look.
I do understand your theories of colour though; it will differen between each PC, but this is just my observation ;)



Winny, there weren't rape-fields in England in 1940. I know you weren't saying there are, but I'm just pointing it out. It's interesting to compare a modern-day picture with one from 1940.

Yes I was in England say about 20 times and have a lot of my own photos, including from the air that I did myself.

[Oleg Maddox]

Hello Oleg, thanks for this awesome update!

It might be too early to ask, but will multiplayer be handled in game or externally using a program like Hyperlobby?

I will soon tell it. We integrating interface now. But its not a time to anounce. We are doing by reqest of publisher.
Anyway there will be still the possibility to integrate to another systems by creative users and third party.

Current limit is 128 players.
It will be finally decided later to cut the amount for the beginning or keep 128. Will let you all later.

[Hecke]

That sounds so awesome.

Having troops running around on the airport gives so much immerson.
Please don't hold that part back for the first addon. :)

[albx]

Oleg, one question, i don't know if it was already answered, will be in SOW a more complex movie player? i mean, we can go back, fast forward, pause, step by step ?

[Oleg Maddox]

That sounds so awesome.

Having troops running around on the airport gives so much immerson.
Please don't hold that part back for the first addon. :)

Troops actions are not planned yet. Just some amount of animated people miltary and civil.

Maybe later in time

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, one question, i don't know if it was already answered, will be in SOW a more complex movie player? i mean, we can go back, fast forward, pause, step by step ?

No. But there is completely new possibilities comparing to Il-2

[Hatch]

I remeber a particlarly hot period in '74 or '75 when I was on holidays in the UK.

The one thing that stuck me was the hedgerows.
And the speed at which a lot of the fields had turned yellow.

And the haze

Happy to know HDR will be toned to a minimum.
Perhaps I'm old fashioned that way but it looks too gimmicky.

Hopefully we'll get some gear in the future that can record 50 or a 100 stops and we'll see HDR for what it, is a stopgap solution.

[winny]

Winny, there weren't rape-fields in England in 1940. I know you weren't saying there are, but I'm just pointing it out. It's interesting to compare a modern-day picture with one from 1940.

True but if you then imagine all the yellow-y fields to be more like the surrounding ones then the SoW image starts to make more sense.

The problem is that all of the textures have to work together A/C, ground, water etc. The devs are recreating the world thier way. It has to be coherent as a whole, taking into account the average PC's capabilities.

For me WoP was getting close to photo realism in places (hell, I have screen grabs from the PS3 BoP that look so close to reality it's scary!) and I have no doubt that Sow will look far better than WoP.

Truth is no-one on here knows what it actually looked like flying next to a hurricane over England in 1940, it's all subjective because the colour film of the time was not 'correct' colour wise and the rest of it is all black and white.
There has to be some level of interpretation allowed to the developers that makes it all 'fit'

[Daniël]

A question about ships en submarines: Will there come oil slicks on the water when a ship or submarine is hit?
Have a nice weekend.

[Oleg Maddox]

I need some time to spend for my family.
So... its a lst post today. Sorry.
And I told already too much... that shouldn't really yet :)

[albx]

I need some time to spend for my family.
So... its a lst post today. Sorry.
And I told already too much... that shouldn't really yet :)

have a great weekend Oleg and thank you for your answers

:grin:

[Insuber]

Thank you Oleg for all your time spent with us, your answers are really interesting. I'm sure it will be the greatest game ever.

Cheers,
Insuber

[major_setback]

Troops actions are not planned yet. Just some amount of animated people miltary and civil.

Maybe later in time

Essential: We must have a farmer riding on his bike, and he has to fall off it (that will be the damage model) when we fly over him at 10 metres height. Please.

:-)

[T}{OR]

I will soon tell it. We integrating interface now. But its not a time to anounce. We are doing by reqest of publisher.
Anyway there will be still the possibility to integrate to another systems by creative users and third party.

Current limit is 128 players.
It will be finally decided later to cut the amount for the beginning or keep 128. Will let you all later.

That is excellent news. Any clues on who the publisher is, or better - is it at least someone else than UbiSoft? :)

Few questions about the MP:

Will there be an option to first load some custom made skins on the server, and then force players (server setting) to first download them before hitting fly or even joining the server. I am asking this because some time when many people load their skins all you see is blank skinned planes flying all over the place.

Also, I asked this once before - would it be possible (for servers with external views on) to disable the option to browse through enemy planes? More important - to prevent from seeing which type of planes is the opposite side flying (in IL2 this command was 'S')?

How is kill crediting implemented? Will we have shared kills and if so in which way will server determine when it is a shared kill and when it isn't? What about human manned gunners (if I remember correctly, humans will be able to join a human piloted bomber on dog fight servers)?

And last but not least - will there be an option to limit which countries or air forces can be selected per side? This would greatly help admins of the servers which try to simulate a certain scenario or battle - servers that are historically oriented (this goes for question #1 as well).




Thank You for your time.

[winny]

Essential: We must have a farmer riding on his bike, and he has to fall off it (that will be the damage model) when we fly over him at 10 metres height. Please.

:-)

Good idea.. Can we have frighten-able herds of cows too?

[Tempest123]

Great shots Oleg, thanks. Did you ever think back in 2001 that people would still be playing il2 10 years later? Or that it would remain current so long?

[Hatch]

Good idea.. Can we have frighten-able herds of cows too?


Ooohh and flights of birds so you can't fly too close to nesting area's for fear of hitting some and crashing:o:o

[blade122222]

Isn't it time for some real announcements soon, like system specs or release date?

Btw the shots are looking great ;)

[=69.GIAP=TOOZ]

Essential: We must have a farmer riding on his bike, and he has to fall off it (that will be the damage model) when we fly over him at 10 metres height. Please.

:-)

And he has to shake his fist angrily as we zoom away!!

And when we bail out some pitchfork wielding farmers should come and surround us as we struggle out of a hayrick or something...

[pupaxx]

I will soon tell it. We integrating interface now. But its not a time to anounce. We are doing by reqest of publisher.
Anyway there will be still the possibility to integrate to another systems by creative users and third party.

Current limit is 128 players.
It will be finally decided later to cut the amount for the beginning or keep 128. Will let you all later.

..So we got a publisher!!! Great news:-P

[vpmedia]

really awesome update :) thanks a lot!

[Flutter]

Hi Oleg, thank you for posting both updates and answers.

As far as I can see, the current ground texture system uses a network of borderlines that look organic but repeat fairly often over the terrain. The area within one set of borderlines is then filled with an appropriate texture (golf course / field a / field b / field c / farm / forest / village / city / industry ) and with the appropriate models (vegetation, buildings etc). Then the borders themselves are applied, these being hedges, paths, roads etc. For a quasi procedural texture system, I believe this is one of the best solutions available, and your results look overall very nice. However, the system does not look too good when such a field is cut by a railroad. Screenshot No. 3 illustrates my point. The REAL geometry (railroad lines, big highways) does fit badly into the texture when compared to the basic borderlines. The only solution I can imagine would be to treat such a road / railway line as yet another borderline, and apply different textures to the different segments that have been divided by this geometry. It would not be perfect, but it could be coded, and it would make these roads and railways fit better into the landskape, making them both blend better into it and be more visible in that they change the landscape around them.
The mockup picture below illustrates my point.
Flutter
http://www.lange-aviation.com/tmp/gndtex.jpg

[BadAim]

It was really great to hang out with you this morning, Oleg. Thanks for inviting us to your home!

[philip.ed]

Yes I was in England say about 20 times and have a lot of my own photos, including from the air that I did myself.

That's excellent then!
Did you fly over in summer? There can be a vast difference in the colours over a prolonged period of 'intense' heat (if intense can be used for England :D )

Have a great weekend.

Good point Winny as well.

[T}{OR]

Hi Oleg, thank you for posting both updates and answers.

As far as I can see, the current ground texture system uses a network of borderlines that look organic but repeat fairly often over the terrain. The area within one set of borderlines is then filled with an appropriate texture (golf course / field a / field b / field c / farm / forest / village / city / industry ) and with the appropriate models (vegetation, buildings etc). Then the borders themselves are applied, these being hedges, paths, roads etc. For a quasi procedural texture system, I believe this is one of the best solutions available, and your results look overall very nice. However, the system does not look too good when such a field is cut by a railroad. Screenshot No. 3 illustrates my point. The REAL geometry (railroad lines, big highways) does fit badly into the texture when compared to the basic borderlines. The only solution I can imagine would be to treat such a road / railway line as yet another borderline, and apply different textures to the different segments that have been divided by this geometry. It would not be perfect, but it could be coded, and it would make these roads and railways fit better into the landskape, making them both blend better into it and be more visible in that they change the landscape around them.
The mockup picture below illustrates my point.
Flutter

Nice observation! And a good idea for solving the problem if I may say.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Many thanks for all your answers Oleg. It was great to spend part of the saturday with you.
And also many thanks for your compliments on my art.

[jamesdietz]

I'm gittin' so as I can' stan' da wait!!!!!

[Splitter]

..So we got a publisher!!! Great news:-P

Yes, great news, but I found something that was possibly disturbing to a degree. Oleg said that they were integrating the MP at the request of the publisher (read his post to see exactly what he said). So here is my concern:

In another game where my gaming clan ran several servers, a fee from EA was passed along in the monthly charge for operating the server. It was simply a way for EA to get residual income and the fee was high enough to keep a lot of groups from running their own server. As a clan we operated on donations only but several times some of us had to kick in personal money to keep the servers up for the next month.

What did we get for the monthly fee? Nothing from EA that was positive.

I hated the way EA implemented the fee. It made running servers considerably more expensive, lead to compatibility problems, and actually ended up retarding the growth of the game online.

I am no longer in the business of running servers for a gaming group so maybe my information is a few years old. Things may have changed OR maybe this has become the accepted practice by publishers.

So if there is a fee (and I don't know if there will be one or not so don't flame me) I hope there is at least some "value added" benefit from the fee besides lining the publisher's pocket. I don't mind paying as long as I am getting something in return.

Splitter

[Hecke]

OMG. Hopefully it's not the DRM stuff they are including.

[Osprey]

Current limit is 128 players.
It will be finally decided later to cut the amount for the beginning or keep 128. Will let you all later.

Everytime I am away from the thread you are posting! I have such terrible luck. ;)

128 players is a lot :) however in several years time, the increase in internet development and with your plans for theatre and genre expansion I would like to ask if this is a fixed limit or possible to increase? If a Tank or Sub/Ship sim was realised and could be integrated then there would undoubtedly be far more players......may want to cluster those servers :cool: I'm probably getting way, way ahead of myself here :eek:

I have a separate question too. Is the speed of sound going to be implemented? In IL2 you drop a bomb from, say 5000ft, when the bomb goes off you hear the explosion as you see it. The explosion sound would be delayed. I have faith in your eye for detail Oleg :D

The updates are great, thank you for talking to us.

[Flanker35M]

S!

I think the sounds are better than in IL-2. I read the speed of sound is modelled so you should not hear instant boom if a bomb explodes far from you, Osprey.

About 128 players. That is a nice figure. It is hard to get a lot of ppl to get a good gameplay. Same is seen in EVE Online when there is like 200-700 players shooting at eachother in a fleet fight. There is lag and even sometimes server nodes crash. But the server has at peaks over 50.000 players online..on ONE and only server.

[jippy13]

Hello Oleg,

Maybe my suggestion has been already mentionned, but I d like that Bob includes a statitics module with graphical interface, giving you statistics with detailled information, at the end of your mission, to help you to evaluate.

Thus, for the same mission (coop or dogfight), we ll be able to know if we improve our accuracy of shooting, our flight strategy in dogfight (position etc).

In short, this statistics module will be very useful to progress and would help you to know your rank in the grading of the pilots of Bob

Thanks for reading me Oleg

And thanks for the update

[mazex]

I think the problem is the "blue" and "violet" colors in some of the parcels.
I also live in a green land and that colors are never in the country here.

original:
http://test.ailantd.com/shots/BOBGroundColors_2.jpg

whit only green parcels
http://test.ailantd.com/shots/BOBGroundColors_1.jpg

I really like your edit Ailantd. Even though this latest batch of shots is getting close to what I had hoped for in my dreams I also think that there is to much blue and violet like you say (and you show that with your edit in a great way - an image says more than a thousand words). As I'm already nit picking I also think that the landscape also feels a bit "over exposed". Go down 1/3 EV maybe? ;)

Oleg - please take our comments with a grain of salt as I really like the improvements you have made - and you have said many times that the textures and lighting is not final so...

Maybe the textures will be "open for modding" so we can download "Aliantd Greener Fields mod 0.1" a few weeks after the release? That would be a great way to handle it as there are so many different opinions here :)

Thanks again for taking the time to answer so many questions here! /Mazex

[Osprey]

S!

I think the sounds are better than in IL-2. I read the speed of sound is modelled so you should not hear instant boom if a bomb explodes far from you, Osprey.

About 128 players. That is a nice figure. It is hard to get a lot of ppl to get a good gameplay. Same is seen in EVE Online when there is like 200-700 players shooting at eachother in a fleet fight. There is lag and even sometimes server nodes crash. But the server has at peaks over 50.000 players online..on ONE and only server.

Good information, thanks.

[Blackdog_kt]

I will soon tell it. We integrating interface now. But its not a time to anounce. We are doing by reqest of publisher.
Anyway there will be still the possibility to integrate to another systems by creative users and third party.

Current limit is 128 players.
It will be finally decided later to cut the amount for the beginning or keep 128. Will let you all later.

Interesting.

On one hand, it seems that the multiplayer interface is decided by the publisher. I'm just theorizing here but i guess it will probably be integrated with a copy protection method and to be honest, i dislike mandatory online requirements unless they are a "once in a lifetime" online activation, or i get something worthy in return that enhances the gameplay experience. I want to be able to play a game i paid for whenever i want, not whenever my ISP or some cables allow me to.
On the other hand, since it will be possible to add 3rd party tools for online server browsing, maybe i'm totally mistaken (hopefully) and things are not that hard-coded. Maybe it's not DRM and multiplayer rolled into one, but just an integrated lobby browser for multiplayer, which would be fine.


The most positive note of course in all the above is the player limit. Having 128 players with that level of detail will be an immense experience :grin:

[Osprey]

As long as Punkbuster aren't involved. Awful awful software and hideous support and help from the vendors. You can have a legal game etc and still get problems because of innocuous programs which are nothing to do with the game.

[Ekar]

Thanks Oleg/Winny for your comments #page 31.


Cheers,
Ekar

[SlipBall]

Heres a modern day image from the same area, around Deal in Kent.

Coulours are always gonna be open to artistic interpretation.



Yes this is a personal perception for each of us. One in ten males have some form of color blindness. Men that are not color blind, see colors differently than the man standing next to him. Woman see colors much more accurately then do men, and women amongst themselves, also see colors differently. So you see the problems associated with true color interpretation, to each is different, even drastically so. I am red/green color blind, and am restricted to day light hours only piloting.:grin:

[Hunden]

Excellent news Oleg, thank you so much :). Now, it's Saturday, so please stop working soon and have a rest!!

PPanPan

OH sure get your question answered then tell him to take off:!:

[Raggz]

Great update and answers Oleg. Keep it up :)

[Skoshi Tiger]

Interesting.

On one hand, it seems that the multiplayer interface is decided by the publisher. I'm just theorizing here but i guess it will probably be integrated with a copy protection method and to be honest, i dislike mandatory online requirements unless they are a "once in a lifetime" online activation, or i get something worthy in return that enhances the gameplay experience. I want to be able to play a game i paid for whenever i want, not whenever my ISP or some cables allow me to.
On the other hand, since it will be possible to add 3rd party tools for online server browsing, maybe i'm totally mistaken (hopefully) and things are not that hard-coded. Maybe it's not DRM and multiplayer rolled into one, but just an integrated lobby browser for multiplayer, which would be fine.


The most positive note of course in all the above is the player limit. Having 128 players with that level of detail will be an immense experience :grin:

In principle I think I agree with you, though to be honest the online activation etc that has been put into titles from DCS and Rise of Flight havent really been too bad IMHO.

Cheers!

[Madfish]

Hi Oleg, thank you for posting both updates and answers.

As far as I can see, the current ground texture system uses a network of borderlines that look organic but repeat fairly often over the terrain. The area within one set of borderlines is then filled with an appropriate texture (golf course / field a / field b / field c / farm / forest / village / city / industry ) and with the appropriate models (vegetation, buildings etc). Then the borders themselves are applied, these being hedges, paths, roads etc. For a quasi procedural texture system, I believe this is one of the best solutions available, and your results look overall very nice. However, the system does not look too good when such a field is cut by a railroad. Screenshot No. 3 illustrates my point. The REAL geometry (railroad lines, big highways) does fit badly into the texture when compared to the basic borderlines. The only solution I can imagine would be to treat such a road / railway line as yet another borderline, and apply different textures to the different segments that have been divided by this geometry. It would not be perfect, but it could be coded, and it would make these roads and railways fit better into the landskape, making them both blend better into it and be more visible in that they change the landscape around them.
The mockup picture below illustrates my point.
Flutter
http://www.lange-aviation.com/tmp/gndtex.jpg

Excellent point. It sure caught my eye as well. Although I'm not totally ok with your solution yet it probably is a very good suggestion to improve upon. For example make a special railway border with hedges etc. - if it is wide enough it would look organic if the smaller "over-cut" vector of the field is not too small compared to it's total size.

[Blackdog_kt]

In principle I think I agree with you, though to be honest the online activation etc that has been put into titles from DCS and Rise of Flight havent really been too bad IMHO.

Cheers!

Actually, i don't have either one of those titles because of their activation methods and i haven't regretted it yet. If it takes 5 years of waiting before i can fly a sim the way i want to i'm perfectly content with it, assuming it hasn't been surpassed, i totally lose interest in it and end up not ever buying it by that point. I guess the effect on sales is obvious :grin:

There are a lot of arguments pro and con, but in the end when viewing entertainment software purely as a product and not something more (which is what the distributors do), i think we're entitled as users to apply the same criteria of judgement and kick up a storm if we're not getting value for money, added value to compensate for drawbacks of certain features or, as is more often the case, if the product's value is artificially diminished by features clumsily tacked on at the publisher's demand, long after the original coding work is done and usually with little thought on how it will affect the software's usability.

I think Oleg's mentality on the issue is pretty close to what most of the users agree with, as evidenced by one of his more recent interviews on SimHQ, but sadly these issues are usually a publisher decision. For now, i'm just being happy about the progress of SoW. If someone outside Oleg's team manages to screw things up for us it will really be a pity, both for us and for the developer team as sales do tend to suffer when the potential customer runs the risk of being locked out of a perfectly legally purchased piece of software. ;)

I'd hate to turn a perfectly good thread into a DRM flamefest (not implying anything about you, it just tends to happen a lot when things like that are mentioned), so i'll stop here. However, it's an issue that should be discussed somewhat as we near the release to get a feeling of the community's thoughts on the matter and avoid being faced with a "done deal, take it or leave it" scenario we might not agree with. Maybe a separate thread in free-form discussion to give us the main trends on what people think, so that we could then compile them into a poll would be a good idea.

[Foo'bar]

Sorry Mr.OLEG MADDOX but real pilots of ww2 not have red or blue arrows for search enemy in the sky.

Real pilot use your eyes for search enemy in the sky.

I hope that those arrows are optional or the game simulation transform to arcade simulation.

il-2sturmovik 1946 not have arrows.
i remember CFS3 have the arrows.


I can't believe that after all those years Il-2 is on market there's still someone out there who hasn't seen that arrows yet.

[150GCT_Veltro]

About landscape, we'll have the same textures for both France and England?

[T}{OR]

In principle I think I agree with you, though to be honest the online activation etc that has been put into titles from DCS and Rise of Flight havent really been too bad IMHO.

Cheers!

God I hope Oleg doesn't mess it up and follows RoF path. This was a terrible mistake and besides myself, I know a lot of people that skipped that game until the DRM was brought down with one of the patches. Having to pay for additional planes is also a massive PITA.

DCS used irritating Starforce with limited activations, but if I have to choose between the two - I would go with DCS.

[domian]

I play RoF and the protection is no problem at all.

Since the update to 1.12 or 1.13. you can play offline without internet connection. So i don´t know why people have a problem, with software developers, which only try to protect their intellectual property.

wake up buddy!

the time without any protection is over!

[Foo'bar]

http://www.lange-aviation.com/tmp/gndtex.jpg

Am I blind? Please can someone tell me what's the difference between those two pictures?

[Flanker35M]

S!

Really can not dislike RoF protection, zero inconvenience for me and there is the offline option as well now. Best is I do not need the DVD to be in the drive while I play so can keep it safe on the shelf.

[FG28_Kodiak]

@Foo'Bar: Die Farben der durch die Eisenbahn geteilten Felder wurden geändert. Das Problem ist das sich die Textur neben den Gleisen nicht ändert, momentan könnte man meinen die Gleise befinden sich auf Stelzen so dass der Bauer ohne Probleme unter ihnen mit seinem landwirtschaftlichen Gerät durchkommt, dabei stellen Gleise normalerweise ein großes Hindernis dar.

(Habs mal auf Deutsch geschrieben, mein Englisch ist für solche Fälle einfach zu schlecht)

[Daniël]

Am I blind? Please can someone tell me what's the difference between those two pictures?

The colors are a little different, but I don't see much difference.

[Foo'bar]

m( ok, now I see some little difference. Thanks for helping me, mates :) But to be honest, without help it hadn't sprung to my eyes.

Perhaps I am blind.

[Richie]

Hi Oleg:

Firstly I'm one of the biggest fans of the IL-2 series your good buddy Tree can vouch for that Ha ha ha! My handle is Hackl over in Simhq. Please look at this. Maybe you can make it more clear why this terrain in this weeks update looks the way it does.


http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3116077/5.html

[150GCT_Veltro]

Sorry if i'm going to broke some rules, but considering that RoF and SoW will be probably our toys for a while, i think we can't avoid this....

RoF has been released the last year, SoW will be probably released in the next one. As customer, i would like have a landscape at least with the same quality of RoF.

SoW is still WIP, but actually seems to be clear to me that the "critical point" of this sim is first of all the landscape (textures).

However, here we go.
http://www.150gct.it/users/150GCT_Veltro/2010_10_15__7_51_39_resize.jpg

[Richie]

I'm sure it will Veltro..I'm just confused over this weeks updates. I can't see SOW coming out with a terrain witch is posted up this week. I'm sure it will be totally different when released that's why I posted the link to simhq. Everyone over there are wondering the same thing.

[150GCT_Veltro]

I'm sure it will Veltro..I'm just confused over this weeks updates. I can't see SOW coming out with a terrain witch is posted up this week. I'm sure it will be totally different when released that's why I posted the link to simhq. Everyone over there are wondering the same thing.

+1, thank for the link.

[Tree_UK]

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

[SlipBall]

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.



I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me. Heck I would be happy if the terrain looked the same as in 1946, and that I could enjoy smooth game play with all of the new features in SOW.:grin:

[kendo65]

I've been following the SimHQ thread - have to say that I actually prefer how the terrain is looking in this week's update compared to the 'Spitfire from the Heinkel cockpit' pic.

For me the terrain in that shot looks over-saturated and 'cartoony' in comparison. The trees aren't integrated as well either.

I'm not saying that the current shots are perfect, but I see a process of improvement in how things are developing. While being too pastel-coloured, this week's shots are closer to real, photo-like colour balance than any I've seen so far.

(especially pic 2 - the Hurricane at medium altitude - when I first viewed it in a web browser on 1680x1050 screen it looked very close to photographic and I was very impressed. Viewed more closely at full-scale the pastel-tones become more apparent, but I really think that things are moving in the right direction)

[Richie]

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

I say the same Tree.

[winny]

I have a question about DRM.

I've been away from PC gaming for about 7 years and I was wondering what's so bad about the DRM in DCS and RoF? What's so wrong with it that it's actually putting people off buying the software?

I'm not trying to start a big DRM argument or anything I'm genuinely curious.

[BP_Tailspin]

I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me. Heck I would be happy if the terrain looked the same as in 1946, and that I could enjoy smooth game play with all of the new features in SOW.:grin:

SlipBall you nailed it … some one give this man a Cigar.

[Viking]

This is Oleg we are dealing with, do you seriusly think he would release a sim that he was less than 100 procent happy with? "I can do better than this but let them have it now!"?

Think not!

The real danger is that he might never be happy!

Regards

Viking

[kedrednael]

I made 2 changes 2 the pictures from the updates.
the first one changes a couple of colours (I'm not saying my version is better than the original).
the second one deletes almost all text and arrows . I also changed the botoms of some clouds a bit.
:grin:

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/6870/shot20101013201703bmp.jpg (http://img826.imageshack.us/i/shot20101013201703bmp.jpg/)

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/619/shot20101014234733.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/i/shot20101014234733.jpg/)

maybe the pictures are a bit too large...

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/619/shot20101014234733.th.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/i/shot20101014234733.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/6870/shot20101013201703bmp.th.jpg (http://img826.imageshack.us/i/shot20101013201703bmp.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[Sutts]

Hi Oleg, thank you for posting both updates and answers.

As far as I can see, the current ground texture system uses a network of borderlines that look organic but repeat fairly often over the terrain. The area within one set of borderlines is then filled with an appropriate texture (golf course / field a / field b / field c / farm / forest / village / city / industry ) and with the appropriate models (vegetation, buildings etc). Then the borders themselves are applied, these being hedges, paths, roads etc. For a quasi procedural texture system, I believe this is one of the best solutions available, and your results look overall very nice. However, the system does not look too good when such a field is cut by a railroad. Screenshot No. 3 illustrates my point. The REAL geometry (railroad lines, big highways) does fit badly into the texture when compared to the basic borderlines. The only solution I can imagine would be to treat such a road / railway line as yet another borderline, and apply different textures to the different segments that have been divided by this geometry. It would not be perfect, but it could be coded, and it would make these roads and railways fit better into the landskape, making them both blend better into it and be more visible in that they change the landscape around them.
The mockup picture below illustrates my point.
Flutter
http://www.lange-aviation.com/tmp/gndtex.jpg


I think half the problem here is the use of modern day tractor tramlines in the fields, which look odd when they are broken up by something like a railway line.

I'm from a farming background and at the risk of sounding like a stuck record:

1. The evenly spaced tractor tramlines that are apparent in these shots would definitely not have been seen - these are for the efficient application of fertiliser and sprays on a large scale with 15-30 meter booms. This technology has only been around since the 80s really.

2. Baled hay and straw would largely not have been seen, especially round bales. Loose hay/straw stacks and wheat stooks were the feature of the day.

3. Lines of straw in fields would only come later with the introduction of mobile combined harvesters which had only just been introduced to the states.

I haven't seen any evidence of the last 2 yet but maybe the textures are targeting the pre-harvest time when cereal crops are still maturing.

Now I agree, in the big scheme of things this is not an issue but it would have been nice to get it right when the textures were being created. I did point it out ages ago. In the Memphis Belle movie the modern day crop lines are a dead give away.

Standing cereal crops should be an even texture with no parallel tractor lines - these came much later as agriculture became more intensive. These simple textures would have been far easier to produce.

Also, at that time Linseed was grown (blue fields) but oilseed rape is a recent introduction (bright yellow fields). Kent was also full of orchards which have largely been uprooted now.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=3699&d=1287325120

[Xilon_x]

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
3700
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

[speculum jockey]

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps. In comparison, SOW's map goes from the north of France, to the midway point of England, with each town and city being rendered by hand. The size comparison alone means that not every little "texture border" is going to be perfect. You're going to have some railways crossing fields and such that are not going to look right, and you're probably going to have some field textures extending under houses, etc.

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

People who are posting pictures of modern england have to remember that much has changed since then. Air quality, weather patterns, field sizes, and even crops. Today farmers are all using Monsanto type crops that actually look different colour wise to their 1940's counterparts. Back then they were using heritage seeds, the real stuff. My father can tell the difference between crop colour now and 30 years ago, how about adding another 40 years to that?

All these things together make SOW (WORK IN PROGRESS SHOTS) look much different to what you see in WOP/BOP and what you see when your jet is coming in for a landing at Heathrow.

Oleg has said that he has flown in over England something like 20 times in the past while, plus he is a professional photographer (or at least is on a professional level). I'm sure he's much more qualified to tell you what will look right and what won't.

I'm not a fanboy, just someone getting tired of every 3rd post in these threads being about the same thing, when Oleg has said a hundred times that it's WIP and being changed all the time.

[airmalik]

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........

I noticed the lack of wind in that screenshot too. I hope wind, turbulence etc. are still within scope of the initial release.

[brando]

I think half the problem here is the use of modern day tractor tramlines in the fields, which look odd when they are broken up by something like a railway line.

I'm from a farming background and at the risk of sounding like a stuck record:

1. The evenly spaced tractor tramlines that are apparent in these shots would definitely not have been seen - these are for the efficient application of fertiliser and sprays on a large scale with 15-30 meter booms. This technology has only been around since the 80s really.

2. Baled hay and straw would largely not have been seen, especially round bales. Loose hay/straw stacks and wheat stooks were the feature of the day.

3. Lines of straw in fields would only come later with the introduction of mobile combined harvesters which had only just been introduced to the states.

I haven't seen any evidence of the last 2 yet but maybe the textures are targeting the pre-harvest time when cereal crops are still maturing.

Now I agree, in the big scheme of things this is not an issue but it would have been nice to get it right when the textures were being created. I did point it out ages ago. In the Memphis Belle movie the modern day crop lines are a dead give away.

Standing cereal crops should be an even texture with no parallel tractor lines - these came much later as agriculture became more intensive. These simple textures would have been far easier to produce.

Also, at that time Linseed was grown (blue fields) but oilseed rape is a recent introduction (bright yellow fields). Kent was also full of orchards which have largely been uprooted now.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=3699&d=1287325120

+1 Absolutely spot-on analysis!

The only bright yellow crop in those times was in fact mustard.
This is why I get tired of hearing the "I was out on my mountain-bike..."-type threads that keep coming up.
It's as Sutts says. Agricultural practice has changed drastically since 1940 and the landscape has drastically altered too, both in topography and colours. I used to do some farm work in my school holidays, back before haystacks were made out of bales, when the principal tool was a pitchfork. The horse was the main source of horsepower, for ploughing and carting.
Just a further example: the elm tree. This easily-recognised tree was an essential part of the English rural skyline until they were all cut down to prevent the spread of Dutch Elm disease in the 1980s. Now they are all gone.

[T}{OR]

I play RoF and the protection is no problem at all.

Since the update to 1.12 or 1.13. you can play offline without internet connection. So i don´t know why people have a problem, with software developers, which only try to protect their intellectual property.

wake up buddy!

the time without any protection is over!

Who said anything about no protection at all?

I am just saying, and many people will and do agree with me - that what RoF had at the beginning was a mistake. And the fact you have to pay for every additional plane? Thats just rubbish.

A bad decision like this can kill the sales. Just like it was with the last Silent Hunter. Fortunately for RoF players, they came to their senses and now the game can be played offline. I won't even go into 'the release without the dedicated server debacle'...

[major_setback]

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
3700
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

Google is the best, but not perfect. "Look at the direction of the house smoke..." is right.

Try this site...it lets you hear what you wrote too!

http://webtranslation.paralink.com/

[airmalik]

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps.

SoW may be making compromises because of it's much greater overall complexity but the fact remains that from a medium altitude, landscape visuals that we've so far haven't surpassed WoP. Ground level - no comparison, SoW wins hands down. But I think Oleg's dismissive remarks about WoP landscape in the past have raised expectations and we expect SoW's landscape to be better than SoW in all respects.

SoW landscape is still WIP and we've been told it's already been improved over what we've seen so I'm looking forward to these improvements.

BTW, my comparison of the two isn't based on filters in WoP which I'm not a fan of. WoP just seems to have better placement and density of trees and they integrate with the ground better.

[The Kraken]

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

If it looks natural, how can it be unrealistic? ;) Now I agree that WoP uses some very overdone filters and also some simple "cheats" like the secondary lightsource opposite of the sun (works great to give objects more depth on the unlit side even though it's not realistic at all). On the other hand computer graphics has always been about "smoke and mirrors" in the sense that the standard shading procedures are not based on real life, but rather happen to look nice.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

That's certainly true, but still the subjective impression about what matches people's idea of real life scenery is what counts in the end. I do think that overall much WoP is closer to this real life impression than the SoW images posted this week. At the same time some important aspects of landscape rendering are already way better here.

Personally I'm not too worried. I guess people are simply irritated that the SoW updates don't show constant improvements in every area; it's obvious that the team is still experimenting with many aspects. Most screens released so far focus on certain aspects, and many people fail to see this (usually ignoring the shown features and commenting on something else).

So far we have not seen a single screenshot that combines the best aspects shown in individual screens.

[winny]

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
3700
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

The smoke from the houses is rising straight up. (this would be the best way to say it)

It's irrelevant though because you don't know what the weather conditions are set to in that picture. It maybe that it is just not windy. You could only say this was incorrect if you knew what the actual wind speed was.

[furbs]

have a look at this vid, now it isnt great quailty and of course the colours might not be 100% true, but they show much closer what i see with my own eyes everyday than the screens from this weeks update.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=110363917701546539# (fast forward to 20 mins)

[Trumper]

have a look at this vid, now it isnt great quailty and of course the colours might not be 100% true, but they show much closer what i see with my own eyes everyday than the screens from this weeks update.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=110363917701546539# (fast forward to 20 mins)
Not a blue field in sight.:)

[ChrisDNT]

have a look at this vid, now it isnt great quailty and of course the colours might not be 100% true, but they show much closer what i see with my own eyes everyday than the screens from this weeks update.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=110363917701546539# (fast forward to 20 mins)


Very interesting and informative video : this is exactly what I want to see in the sim (1).




(1) to the fanboys, again, I'm not asking here a perfect photorealistic rendering of the reality in the sim (I know it's not technically possible with our PC's), but a good choice of the color palette for the described area. Basically, I want to see the green of England.




P.S. Is the above film available/buyable somewhere in good quality ?
Is this a doc from the BBC ?

[KG26_Alpha]

What you need is a scenery simulator.

SoW BoB wont be for you in this case .

[furbs]

What you need is a scenery simulator.

SoW BoB wont be for you in this case .

Alpha, i will say it once more, ALL im talking about is the colours.
everything else ive seen from SOW looks great, and im sure it will be great.

[domian]

Who said anything about no protection at all?

I am just saying, and many people will and do agree with me - that what RoF had at the beginning was a mistake. And the fact you have to pay for every additional plane? Thats just rubbish.

A bad decision like this can kill the sales. Just like it was with the last Silent Hunter. Fortunately for RoF players, they came to their senses and now the game can be played offline. I won't even go into 'the release without the dedicated server debacle'...

I think you misappropriated some facts.

Sure you have to pay in RoF for every single plane, BUT first of all, in RoF every plane has his own individual physics and progressive flight engines. In IL2 the difference between the planes are only atttributes. You could not compare apples to oranges.

Sure it is better to pay nothing, than a few bugs, but if the quality is OK, i will pay for DC.

[kendo65]

SoW landscape is still WIP and we've been told it's already been improved over what we've seen so I'm looking forward to these improvements.

BTW, my comparison of the two isn't based on filters in WoP which I'm not a fan of. WoP just seems to have better placement and density of trees and they integrate with the ground better.

Agree about the tree placement in WOP - it's one of the main elements in producing a realistic effect.

I had a look at some WOP screenshots again today - and while overall I think it does currently have the edge, I don't think the gap is that big - really, with some more incremental shifts I can see SOW getting there.

(that's without mentioning the filtering and other issues where SOW already is ahead)

This all does come down to the colour palette issue - I really do think that people will be surprised at just how much things will come together when they get that tweaked. Just take it as a given. They'll sort it.

Notice also that hedgerows are turned off in the current screens. Also haven't seen waves on the shoreline yet. It's Work in Progress - it'll be sorted.

[ChrisDNT]

"What you need is a scenery simulator."

You obviously missed my "fayboy post-scriptum".

I know my English is far from being perfect, but I think it's nevertheless easy to understand that I'm not asking for a perfect photorealistic rendering (which, I know, is still not possible with the current personal computers), but just for a correct color palette for the described area (here, England), what has nothing to do with the technical capacities of our pc's.

[Trumper]

On Monday we should compile the version for NVIDIA.
They will make/check separate drivers that to show their new equipment with SoW at exhibition in Moscow in the beginning of November in our showroom. That will be demonstration fro my hands and not for all yet.

I wonder what can be made of this comment,how far down the line would they have to be to get video card makers involved.

[Xilon_x]

Dear Oleg maddox if simulator SoW not have the wind is negative.
wind is a important physic factor.
EXAMPLE direction of wind.
GLIDER airplane not fly if not have Wind.
Wind cold or wind hot.
http://www.soaringwear.com/uploadz/02/images/ba8-Max34.jpg
glider airplane.
http://i87.servimg.com/u/f87/12/97/12/97/2009_059.jpg
instrument meteo for take direction and intensity of wind.

[Blackdog_kt]

Personally I'm not too worried. I guess people are simply irritated that the SoW updates don't show constant improvements in every area; it's obvious that the team is still experimenting with many aspects. Most screens released so far focus on certain aspects, and many people fail to see this (usually ignoring the shown features and commenting on something else).

So far we have not seen a single screenshot that combines the best aspects shown in individual screens.

I think the same too. It's just seems people worry so much about anything they might not like, to the point of completely missing other things that are in fact very well done ;)

[dduff442]

Well I was impressed by the difference between the dull-weather shots (this Fri) and bright-weather shots the other weeks. I think people forget how England in late August/September can look different from its normal self. My guess is that tuning everything to look good in different lighting conditions is sure to be a tough job.

I'd say let room for the critics so long as they're not obstinate or rude.

If I had to pick, I'd say go for a slightly unrealistic dark look purely so that really bright things like the sun and fuel explosions etc. create a dramatic effect. The eye quickly readjusts to a 'look' so long as its consistent.

The point about smoke-blackened buildings and streets is excellent, IMO. I suppose the fact that small towns and large cities use the same buildings would be a problem -- small towns in the country wouldn't suffer as much blackening.

Actual smoke over such a scene in winter time would be very atmospheric -- imagine the St Paul's looming out of the winter haze as you're on the tail of a 109, or on a 'tip and run' lone raid in a Bf-110. Something to look forward to!

dduff442

[kendo65]

...
I know my English is far from being perfect, but I think it's nevertheless easy to understand that I'm not asking for a perfect photorealistic rendering (which, I know, is still not possible with the current personal computers), but just for a correct color palette for the described area (here, England), what has nothing to do with the technical capacities of our pc's.

I've used the term colour palette myself, but I remember Oleg mentioning a while back that the situation in SOW is much more complex than it was in il2.

(I'll paraphrase from memory here - perhaps someone else can track down the original quote? And with apologies to Oleg if I mangle this...)
Because of the more advanced lighting model, it is no longer a simple task of just choosing the correct colours for the various textures. The lighting model used by the engine modifies and varies the underlying colour in a manner modelled on real-life physics. So, they may arrange something so that it looks perfect at low-level in bright sunlight and then find that it is way off in mist, or from a higher altitude. The difficulty lies in tweaking the parameters of the lighting model rather than in simply producing a 'once and for all' accurate colour palette.

I think this may be why the ground-level shots (Spit in field, trains, etc) are generally viewed as being very good while the medium-level shots are still off.

Once again, the word is 'WIP'.

[kalimba]

"What you need is a scenery simulator."

You obviously missed my "fayboy post-scriptum".

I know my English is far from being perfect, but I think it's nevertheless easy to understand that I'm not asking for a perfect photorealistic rendering (which, I know, is still not possible with the current personal computers), but just for a correct color palette for the described area (here, England), what has nothing to do with the technical capacities of our pc's.

Well, I think that Oleg does in fact "ask" his team for photorealistic final product...That was his goal from the very beginning of SOW and that is probably why the whole project took so long to complete...And I also think that what we see at every friday's update is in fact work from months ago and Oleg keeps the big "revelation" for an ultimate official release trailer...:rolleyes:

Salute !

[SlipBall]

Back in the day, we didn't need any stinking green:-P


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/grab0000.jpg

[zodiac]

wonderfull update... again :)

There is advertising in the streets! That is a very nice detail. As a graphic design student, I kind of love those old ads. Can't wait to take a closer look at them.

I suspect that during the lifetime of sow, these streets will really come to life. Soon we will have some missions like this:
objective 1: drive with your racing green sports car to the airbase exit.
objective 2: pick up your girlfriend at her home.
objective 3: find a way through London's traffic jams
objective 4: find a parking place near the cinema
objective 5: get her back home "safely" :grin:

Oh Oleg, I have one question:
Will there be churches in the towns? I don't remember seeing one in the updates. In Belgium (and I suppose in France and Britain to) there's a church in almost every village. sometimes even if the village only counts 10 houses. For regular Flemish towns, churches were the only tall buildings around. They really give image to a town.

[speculum jockey]

Dear Oleg maddox if simulator SoW not have the wind is negative.
wind is a important physic factor.
EXAMPLE direction of wind.
GLIDER airplane not fly if not have Wind.
Wind cold or wind hot.
http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/1373/ba8max34.th.jpg (http://img813.imageshack.us/i/ba8max34.jpg/)

glider airplane.
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/9994/2009059.th.jpg (http://img229.imageshack.us/i/2009059.jpg/)
instrument meteo for take direction and intensity of wind.

Dear Xilon_x, if spaghetti not have the tomato is negative.
Tomatoes are important factor to Italian food.
EXAMPLE look of tomato.
SPAGHETTI not exist if not have Tomato.
Tomato cooked or raw.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5648/tomatolydecker.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/i/tomatolydecker.jpg/)

Spaghetti pot
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9153/pastapot300.jpg (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/pastapot300.jpg/)

oven control amount and intensity of heat.

**back to normal**

You just called Oleg Maddox an idiot! Not directly, but you just explained to a guy making a flight simulator that WIND IS IMPORTANT! Then you went on to explain that gliders need wind to fly. Maybe next you could tell him how to dress himself or tie his shoes. I'm sure he'd appreciate that as well.

[Insuber]

Just in case you didn't know, gliders DON'T need wind to fly ... and also, be patient with Xifon ... he's ... well ,try to be clever also for him.

[Spudkopf]

If you mean speech of gunner. Yes, some are missed and even not used comparing to original first Il-2. With the changes of AI in time some speeches in Il-2 were forgotten by other than original AI programmer. I told him many times, but it wasn't corrected. Just in several cases for the speeches was correction comparing to original complex and some time random AI speech in Il-2.

G’day Oleg thanks for the clarification; yes the gunner speech was what I was referring too.

I’ve been a big fan of the Stuka ever since the B model became flyable as a patch to the original Il2 (as frankly my Dog-fighting skills suck), however I can’t say that I can ever recall the Stuka gunner AI being audible when jinking to avoid flak and seeing that the Stuka was not flyable from the outset out of the box this may explain why.

As I only rarely fly soviet aircraft it tends to be a little bit of a pleasant surprise when my gunner tells me off during my erratic evasive manoeuvres, but now that I know this I might just deliberately fly inverted at low level just to piss them off ;)

But most importantly I hope your son was feeling well enough to have been eventually able to get in his dive bombing practice over this weekend? I’m currently trying to convince my 13 year old to do some Il2 flying on the PC instead off those brain melting FPS games on his 360, so I bought him “IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey” to try help bring him across, but I’ll also now need to get a 360 compatible joystick instead of those game controllers.

[Spudkopf]

Dear Xilon_x, if spaghetti not have the tomato is negative.
Tomatoes are important factor to Italian food.
EXAMPLE look of tomato.
SPAGHETTI not exist if not have Tomato.
Tomato cooked or raw.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5648/tomatolydecker.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/i/tomatolydecker.jpg/)

Spaghetti pot
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9153/pastapot300.jpg (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/pastapot300.jpg/)

oven control amount and intensity of heat.

**back to normal**

You just called Oleg Maddox an idiot! Not directly, but you just explained to a guy making a flight simulator that WIND IS IMPORTANT! Then you went on to explain that gliders need wind to fly. Maybe next you could tell him how to dress himself or tie his shoes. I'm sure he'd appreciate that as well.

Not totally sure but could he be actually asking if the vertical speed as in VSI is going to be modelled?

[Romanator21]

Spec Jockey, I laughed so hard, you made my day. :grin:

[major_setback]

Dear Oleg maddox if simulator SoW not have the wind is negative.
wind is a important physic factor.
EXAMPLE direction of wind.
GLIDER airplane not fly if not have Wind.


There will be wind. Definately. There just wasn't any wind when they took the screenshot :-)

We have wind already in FB/1946; try to take off in a storm!

[Richie]

Back in the day, we didn't need any stinking green:-P


http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/SlipBall/grab0000.jpg



Hey that takes me back.....What fun days those were. Twelve hours straight flying till your butt hurt so bad it burned!!!

[robday]

GLIDER airplane not fly if not have Wind.

Gliders need forward motion through the air to generate lift, just like any other aircraft. They will fly in still air just as well as in a wind. Ultimately it's gravity that powers gliders.

[WTE_Galway]

Gliders need forward motion through the air to generate lift, just like any other aircraft. They will fly in still air just as well as in a wind. Ultimately it's gravity that powers gliders.

Unless you live in ubizoo land where apparently lift creates forward motion :P Warning the following thread is bad for your mental health ....

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/4721073388/p/2

Either way, gliders do not drop like a stone the instant the wind stops blowing :D

[swiss]

Dear Xilon_x, if spaghetti not have the tomato is negative.
Tomatoes are important factor to Italian food.
EXAMPLE look of tomato.
SPAGHETTI not exist if not have Tomato.
Tomato cooked or raw.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/5648/tomatolydecker.jpg (http://img217.imageshack.us/i/tomatolydecker.jpg/)

Spaghetti pot
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/9153/pastapot300.jpg (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/pastapot300.jpg/)

oven control amount and intensity of heat.

**back to normal**

You just called Oleg Maddox an idiot! Not directly, but you just explained to a guy making a flight simulator that WIND IS IMPORTANT! Then you went on to explain that gliders need wind to fly. Maybe next you could tell him how to dress himself or tie his shoes. I'm sure he'd appreciate that as well.


You soooo made my day! ROFL!


There will be wind. Definately. There just wasn't any wind when they took the screenshot :-)

We have wind already in FB/1946; try to take off in a storm!

You do realize he didn't even know about the arrows in IL2, right?

Maybe I should send Xilon the sturmovik.de pilot training night (thunder-)storm?


Unless you live in ubizoo land where apparently lift creates forward motion :P Warning the following thread is bad for your mental health ....

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/4721073388/p/2:D

If you're not familiar with vectors, you'll have hard time studying aerodynamics...

[Friendly_flyer]

Yes, we model subtypes. Including types of props.

Yessss! Hurries with watts and DeHaviland spinners! Absolutely great news, Oleg!

[Xilon_x]

i remember during ww2 use glider airplane for night attak.

3706


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal

physic factor wind and thermal.


i remember FSX use glider and thermal.
and also
CONDOR http://www.condorsoaring.com/

[Insuber]

Xifon,

Stop panicking. Calm down. Relax, everything goes well.


WIND is already modeled in Il2, no reason that it is not in BoB
TURBULENCE is already modeled in Il2, no reason that it is not in BoB

Oleg said that turbulence and wind gusts will be present in BoB.

OK?

[Romanator21]

You soooo made my day! ROFL!

It's even funnier the second time! I'm laughing so hard, my roomate shut the door! :eek: :-P *wipes tear*

[Xilon_x]

ok ok i understand oleg use the Wind and turbolence and thermal tank you.

[Sutts]

We must remember, this is a program. Just because smoke is rising straight up doesn't mean it isn't windy - the team probably haven't implemented wind affected smoke yet. Smoke is just another special effect...it isn't automatically moved by the wind - that has to be programmed in and I suspect that is on the to-do list.

[Xilon_x]

this is a real hause smoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjI_nW-C880&p=4A16D524DA8D0138&playnext=1&index=17
American flag not move because to the moon not exist wind.
in il-2 sturmovik the american and japanese flags not move why?
in future the BoB the flags move? england Flag move?
italian flag move?
german flag move?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdMvQTNLaUE&feature=related
normal flag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1wt_ynFu8

ATTENCTION:i not whant offend OLEG MADDOX and 1C company this is just my observation.
and normal in a forum to criticize members can observe and then improve in the future

I know the game 'in the developing world.
you can not 'criticizing on a product not complete.
if Oleg Maddox puts photos of BOB in the forum can be viewed by many and criticized by many the goal is not 'offend.
the scope and improve.

[Sutts]

this is a real hause smoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjI_nW-C880&p=4A16D524DA8D0138&playnext=1&index=17
American flag not move because to the moon not exist wind.
in il-2 sturmovik the american and japanese flags not move why?
in future the BoB the flags move? england Flag move?
italian flag move?
german flag move?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdMvQTNLaUE&feature=related
normal flag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1wt_ynFu8

ATTENCTION:i not whant offend OLEG MADDOX and 1C company this is just my observation.
and normal in a forum to criticize members can observe and then improve in the future

I'm sure most of us would like to see flags and windsocks blowing in the wind and smoke being moved by the wind. I'm sure that is part of Oleg's plan but it may not have been programmed yet, simple as that.

[Oleg Maddox]

this is a real hause smoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjI_nW-C880&p=4A16D524DA8D0138&playnext=1&index=17
American flag not move because to the moon not exist wind.
in il-2 sturmovik the american and japanese flags not move why?
in future the BoB the flags move? england Flag move?
italian flag move?
german flag move?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdMvQTNLaUE&feature=related
normal flag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1wt_ynFu8


In games the flag is possible to make with movement without any wind... And it will be only animation of the flat surface.
Sample: You can't say that you gave the life to 3D model of human because it seems in game movable....
Same with wind. The wind can be modelled as reaction of FM for this case. But this modelling will not have any effect on the flags... it would be separate modelling of animated flag, even if we have two main things for wind in code as the wind direction and its force (like in Il-2 original with this simplified explanation).

[Xilon_x]

animation separated smoke house is separated flags movement is separated to all games. i not like this.
i like if all games engine have the wind direction vector and force intensity wind.
I would love if the wind and thermal forces of gravity and 'interact with all types of objects that goes into the air like smoke airplane kite etc. ecc flag.
a simulator professional to these forces and interactions.
tank you OLEG MADDOX and 1C company.
you please loock this game and after you have another IDEA.
CONDOR
http://www.condorsoaring.com/
http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

[Triggaaar]

I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.Classic. You realise there's going to be a worldwide hardware shortage when everyone here rushes to the shops.

Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home :).Oh I see (surprised you didn't say before). For those of us who don't work in a software house it's difficult to picture the scenario. I can appreciate you wouldn't know for sure until you built a full version (with everything in it), and you don't need customers having a go at you in a few months when they find that the system you recommended isn't quite enough, but I would have guessed that with all the PCs used by the team, someone would have a good idea of what spec would be needed.

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me.Same here. If the game play wasn't as good as IL2, all the graphics in the world isn't going to help. And if the game play is as good, or better, then we'll have an improved IL2 regardless of how far they've taken the graphics. Happy days.

I'd look at the water in IL2 when setting it up to run, but once I was flying online, I never really noticed it again. When flying a mission it's nice for things to look good, but you don't have time for pixel peeping.

[Oleg Maddox]

animation separated smoke house is separated flags movement is separated to all games. i not like this.
i like if all games engine have the wind direction vector and force intensity wind.
I would love if the wind and thermal forces of gravity and 'interact with all types of objects that goes into the air like smoke airplane kite etc. ecc flag.
a simulator professional to these forces and interactions.
tank you OLEG MADDOX and 1C company.
you please loock this game and after you have another IDEA.
CONDOR
http://www.condorsoaring.com/
http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

I know this game and would say you that it is the same that I told alredy...

[furbs]

Oleg, is there a chance of hearing some sounds from SOW in this weeks update? And how did your sons training go this weekend? :)

[albx]

animation separated smoke house is separated flags movement is separated to all games. i not like this.
i like if all games engine have the wind direction vector and force intensity wind.
I would love if the wind and thermal forces of gravity and 'interact with all types of objects that goes into the air like smoke airplane kite etc. ecc flag.
a simulator professional to these forces and interactions.
tank you OLEG MADDOX and 1C company.
you please loock this game and after you have another IDEA.
CONDOR
http://www.condorsoaring.com/
http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

ti ha detto che sarà simulato il vento... non chiederglielo più o si incazza :)

[Xilon_x]

Dedicated to speculum jokey

sorry S.J. my i prefer the GUITAR SPAGHETTI (spaghetti alla chitarra) simple mediterrain kichen
spaghetti with tuna and parsley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR_SkyfBkes


:):):)

[HB252]

Hi Oleg and teamwork guys!!

Nice update! :grin:

Just one question:

I readed in this book:

"Luftwaffe test pilot: Flying captured allied aircraft of word war two"

Author: Hans-Werner Lerche

and I would like highlight two things:

British planes throtles: the author said that when the pilots hand is off on it, the throtle come back to 0% power. (I think that it happen in Wellington plane)

German planes throtles: to the athor said that when the pilots hand is off on it, the throtle keep about 50% power.

This featured is modeled in the sim?

By example: if a british pilot died (only in the sim :grin:) when a power is on 100%, in the dive to the ground the power must reduce progressivevely and his plane must crash whit 0% power. Isnt it? And 50% power in german plane.

A greeting

[Sutts]

Hi Oleg and teamwork guys!!

Nice update! :grin:

Just one question:

I readed in this book:

"Luftwaffe test pilot: Flying captured allied aircraft of word war two"

Author: Hans-Werner Lerche

and I would like highlight two things:

British planes throtles: the author said that when the pilots hand is off on it, the throtle come back to 0% power. (I think that it happen in Wellington plane)

German planes throtles: to the athor said that when the pilots hand is off on it, the throtle keep about 50% power.

This featured is modeled in the sim?

By example: if a british pilot died (only in the sim :grin:) when a power is on 100%, in the dive to the ground the power must reduce progressivevely and his plane must crash whit 0% power. Isnt it? And 50% power in german plane.

A greeting

The german pilot obviously didn't read the handbook:grin:. Every throttle I've seen has some means of adjusting the friction to keep the throttle from doing this.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

animation separated smoke house is separated flags movement is separated to all games. i not like this.
i like if all games engine have the wind direction vector and force intensity wind.

When I was working on a 3D animated feature film back in 2007, I once got a 3D model for a car sent to me for approval. (i was art director). We opened the car in Max and saw an insane amount of polygons. After some searching we tracked that amount down to the little metal tube which attaches the rear mirror to the door of the car. That little tube had 40,000 polygons.

What you are asking with your flags moving due to wind is the equivalent of the little tube. An insane amount of processing power concentrated in an insanely small spot.

[kedrednael]

Dear Oleg maddox if simulator SoW not have the wind is negative.
wind is a important physic factor.
EXAMPLE direction of wind.
GLIDER airplane not fly if not have Wind.
Wind cold or wind hot.
glider airplane.
instrument meteo for take direction and intensity of wind.

:confused:
We fly without wind.
Did you mean:
Dear Oleg Maddox, if simulator SoW doesn't have thermals that's negative.
thermals are an important physic factor.
gliders won't fly verry long without thermals.
I think you meant that right? otherwise it is just complete nonsense, even now it's stupid.
hot air rises, so can we thermal above burning factories, cities?

[kedrednael]

i remember during ww2 use glider airplane for night attak.

3706


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal

physic factor wind and thermal.

i remember FSX use glider and thermal.
and also
CONDOR http://www.condorsoaring.com/

At night there is no thermal because the sun ain't shining. Or you should thermal above factories. Or were the gliders towed towards their target?

FSX gliding is terrible, you can pull the glider up 300 metres or something by pulling the stick, if you land (In FSX you just point the glider down and hit the ground... landing!)you won't fall on 1 wing tip, the glider just stands on the ground on 1 weel, etc. The glider flight in FSX is just not realistic.

[Oleg Maddox]

:confused:
Dear Oleg Maddox, if simulator SoW doesn't have thermals that's negative.


Did I say it anywhere?

[Insuber]

xifon,

stop panicking. Calm down. Relax, everything goes well.


Wind is already modeled in il2, no reason that it is not in bob
turbulence is already modeled in il2, no reason that it is not in bob

oleg said that turbulence and wind gusts will be present in bob.

Ok?

bump

[Insuber]

Hi Oleg,

Could you tell us something about training?

Also, last year (or two years ago? :D) you confirmed that the air gunnery training will be helped by having a "predictive pipper", a sort of red point showing at all moments where to aim. It looked a great idea for novices. Is it still in your plans?

Cheers,
Insuber

[Splitter]

:confused:
We fly without wind.
Did you mean:
Dear Oleg Maddox, if simulator SoW doesn't have thermals that's negative.
thermals are an important physic factor.
gliders won't fly verry long without thermals.
I think you meant that right? otherwise it is just complete nonsense, even now it's stupid.
hot air rises, so can we thermal above burning factories, cities?

I think there is a big language barrier being experienced here :). May I try to sum things up?

In IL-2, there is wind and turbulence but it is not modeled "well" (the game is 10 years old after all). Flying in a real light aircraft or in a more modern sim dedicated to flight (not combat), the effects of wind are more apparent.

These things (wind and turbulence) will be modeled better in SoW if I have read past postings correctly. Crosswind landings may take some extra skill.

How did I do? :)

Thermals: I don't know of any general aviation flight sim that models thermals "well" for gliding. What I do know is that programming for such things and doing it well takes a lot of resources (from what I have heard from developers of other flight sims). It would not surprise me that a dedicated glider sim does the best job. But we don't do a lot of gliding in combat sims :).

Splitter

[T}{OR]

I am quoting myself from the other day as I believe my post (questions) was missed. :)

That is excellent news. Any clues on who the publisher is, or better - is it at least someone else than UbiSoft? :)

Few questions about the MP:

Will there be an option to first load some custom made skins on the server, and then force players (server setting) to first download them before hitting fly or even joining the server. I am asking this because some time when many people load their skins all you see is blank skinned planes flying all over the place.

Also, I asked this once before - would it be possible (for servers with external views on) to disable the option to browse through enemy planes? More important - to prevent from seeing which type of planes is the opposite side flying (in IL2 this command was 'S')?

How is kill crediting implemented? Will we have shared kills and if so in which way will server determine when it is a shared kill and when it isn't? What about human manned gunners (if I remember correctly, humans will be able to join a human piloted bomber on dog fight servers)?

And last but not least - will there be an option to limit which countries or air forces can be selected per side? This would greatly help admins of the servers which try to simulate a certain scenario or battle - servers that are historically oriented (this goes for question #1 as well).




Thank You for your time.

[kedrednael]

Did I say it anywhere?

I was just changing Xilon_x post because it made no sense, I thought he meant what I said, bacause a lot of people mistake thermals for wind.
I knew there would be wind, it was even mentioned in the pre-alpha video on youtube, sorry for the confusion.

[chiefrr73]

hi Oleg,
thank you for answering questions!
Will the people/soldiers in BOB run out of their vehicles, when we are attacing them, like it was in IL 2. Sorry if this was asked before.

[kedrednael]

hi Oleg,
thank you for answering questions!
Will the people/soldiers in BOB run out of their vehicles, when we are attacing them, like it was in IL 2. Sorry if this was asked before.

In the vehicle updates we saw that the doors were openable... So it might be possible people will run out.

[philip.ed]

http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

The clouds here look awesome.

[kedrednael]

[IMG]

The clouds here look awesome.

-.-

I'm sure SOW's clouds look better. They only have to change their botoms! ;) The clouds of condor are to far away from eachother and they are a bit too big, And they accually have no textures, they aren't shiney.

[edit] I looked again at condor clouds and I have to say SOW already has better clouds.
hmmm, they look better than I thought.... from up close.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpsxk8y9mDM

[an other edit] I really don't understand what you want Philip, one update you want a pretty picture of a cloud hanging in the sky (REX like), and this update only thing that matters about the clouds is the flat botom (condor).

[Sutts]

http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

The clouds here look awesome.

You're kidding right?:shock:

[Insuber]

http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

The clouds here look awesome.

C'mon, are you serious????? Those clouds come from a walt disney movie. If Oleg showed those here, he would have been flamed to death. :D

[Dano]

The clouds here look awesome.

We can wad up some cotton wool and stick it to your screen if you like?

[kedrednael]

In almost every game you get a white cockpit when flying into clouds, this always irritates me, also in ROF.

as you can see here: you can see the top of the mountain clearly, but when you get there everything becomes white, because they think you are in the cloud :mad:

2:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AXEURuSZdM&feature=related

I really hope it won't be like that in SOW..

[philip.ed]

I stand by my opinion; notice the shadows on the cloud-bottoms. This is lacking in SoW and really adds to the realism. I can see what you mean though; they do look a bit cartoony, but the general shape looks more realistic to me.
It's a mixed bag really. It's just my opinion; SoW has the ground to have awesome clouds, but to me they just look a bit like cotton-balls.

[ATAG_Dutch]

The clouds here look awesome.

Yes, I also think that the landscape in SoW should take its lead from the teletubbies.:rolleyes::grin:

[Qpassa]

http://www.condorsoaring.com/media/screenshots/scndr01.jpg

The clouds here look awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

[Hatch]

The spitfire vid of SoW shows some nice clouds.
And it can only have gotten better.

Same goes for the scenery.

Only thing I'm hoping for is some less hard defined edges between buildings and earth.

And some grime so you escape to the clear blue skies with a sigh of relief

[philip.ed]

Yes, I also think that the landscape in SoW should take its lead from the teletubbies.:rolleyes::grin:

Teletubbies had a huge sun. You've clearly missed out on a childhood :rolleyes:

Apart from a certain cartoony-nature, what is wrong with the cloud models in that game? The shape is certainly more realistic than SoW, and consider this the lighting is too.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Apart from a certain cartoony-nature, what is wrong with the cloud models in that game? The shape is certainly more realistic than SoW, and consider this the lighting is too.

Aw, and I went to all that trouble of posting pictures of real clouds without flat bottoms!:)
Here are some clouds from IL2.
(See PM BTW)

[Chivas]

I stand by my opinion; notice the shadows on the cloud-bottoms. This is lacking in SoW and really adds to the realism. I can see what you mean though; they do look a bit cartoony, but the general shape looks more realistic to me.
It's a mixed bag really. It's just my opinion; SoW has the ground to have awesome clouds, but to me they just look a bit like cotton-balls.

I certainly hope SOW doesn't have clouds that look exactly those in the Condor screenshot. That said I'm also certain we will be seeing many different types of clouds some of which could look similar. Clouds shapes can be almost infinite, and the person Oleg dedicated to modeling weather and clouds has his hands full.

[Qpassa]

Aw, and I went to all that trouble of posting pictures of real clouds without flat bottoms!:)
Here are some clouds from IL2.
(See PM BTW)
Il2 with Mods Clouds
http://i52.tinypic.com/2arzus.png

[Abbeville-Boy]

The shape is certainly more realistic than SoW, and consider this the lighting is too.


have you played sow? you are beta tester? good for you if yes






(quote)Dutch_851
Aw, and I went to all that trouble of posting pictures of real clouds without flat bottoms!:smile:
Here are some clouds from IL2.


flat cloud base in il2 without somebody telling oleg years ago? wow

[philip.ed]

Il-2's flat-cloud base is partially there, yes ;)

I'm not a BETA tester; I'm just basing my (limited) knowledge on shots shown. ;)

[ChrisDNT]

Have a look at this :

http://www.youtube.com/user/orbxtube#p/u/4/fQ2kyHmXTss

Of course, I know we can't ask for the same levels of details in a combat sim (with all the other parameters to compute outside the graphical aspects), but something heading this way, at least for the color palette and the natural implantation of the elements.

[Hecke]

Oleg:

Will we have waving gras according to the prop wind?

[ChrisDNT]

For instance, look at the greens here...

http://fullterrain.com/product_aublue.html
http://fullterrain.com/product_ymav.html

... they just look right (even if a few of them are a little bit on the "Velvia" side, but nevertheless quite natural).

[whatnot]

Dear Xilon_x, if spaghetti not have the tomato is negative.
Tomatoes are important factor to Italian food.
EXAMPLE look of tomato.

I lolled at this, thank you for the chuckles mate! :)

[ATAG_Dutch]

Of course, I know we can't ask for the same levels of details in a combat sim (with all the other parameters to compute outside the graphical aspects), but something heading this way, at least for the color palette and the natural implantation of the elements.

Well, that looks like what it is, a promo vid. Impressive one too.

Mr Maddox has made it quite clear, on more than one occasion, that we have never seen the final result of what SoW will look like.

I've posted a few comparisons myself, but this week he's been quite emphatic about the screenshots being old ones, they're building a new version, and we'll have to wait to see the real final result.

I really don't see any mileage in continuing to post comparisons, whether clouds or landscape.

Once we do see the final result, then we can post comparisons, if we can tear ourselves away from our joysticks.;)

[KOM.Nausicaa]

The whole "terrain colors bla bla" discussion is completely fruitless. Apart from the fact that Oleg said himself THE COLORS ARE WIP, it's obvious in the last screenshots that the terrain is not rendered as in the final product, meaning missing global illumination, lighting, HDR, haze and what not and that it has been rendered differently in almost every update. That is when people claim to notice "progress". Nonsense, it's nothing else than different machines and specs in the studio and different rendering and lighting stages with some tweaks here and there. Who knows, there may even be a second or third or fourth texture layer missing in the terrains. Early Oleg interviews indicate just that. The planes work that way -- why not the terrain? What do we know about it? Zip, that's how much.
Give it a rest already. You can't change zero with all your I-linked-to-a-photo-from-the-internet-screenshots and youtube videos. Oleg has thousands of photos of England taken by himself on his hardrives and he will do what he thinks looks correct.

[Flutter]

Hi Oleg,
I posted the comment below this weekend, and assume it got lost in the backlog. I do not need an answer, but would appreciate it if you considered doing something like it or better in a patch / future release (fear it may be too late for launch).
Others have commented, and I believe rightly, that fields of the era did not show wide tracks from tractors. Reducing or removing these would also reduce the "I plowed, and then there came a railroad" effect.

Aerodynamically: Will ground effect be modeled? I have not been able to detect it in IL2, and it definitely should be there. The effect was discovered in WW2 by shot up bomber crews who miraculously stopped sinking when reaching wave-top altitudes. Managing to get over the white cliffs could be difficult, but I believe few cared.

Finally: Will aircraft tow a wingtip vortex field and a prop-wash field? These could easily be modeled using time-dampening potential flow elements (adapted panel method), and would also add substantially to the immersion for aircraft flying close to one another.

Flutter

Hi Oleg, thank you for posting both updates and answers.

As far as I can see, the current ground texture system uses a network of borderlines that look organic but repeat fairly often over the terrain. The area within one set of borderlines is then filled with an appropriate texture (golf course / field a / field b / field c / farm / forest / village / city / industry ) and with the appropriate models (vegetation, buildings etc). Then the borders themselves are applied, these being hedges, paths, roads etc. For a quasi procedural texture system, I believe this is one of the best solutions available, and your results look overall very nice. However, the system does not look too good when such a field is cut by a railroad. Screenshot No. 3 illustrates my point. The REAL geometry (railroad lines, big highways) does fit badly into the texture when compared to the basic borderlines. The only solution I can imagine would be to treat such a road / railway line as yet another borderline, and apply different textures to the different segments that have been divided by this geometry. It would not be perfect, but it could be coded, and it would make these roads and railways fit better into the landskape, making them both blend better into it and be more visible in that they change the landscape around them.
The mockup picture below illustrates my point.
Flutter
http://www.lange-aviation.com/tmp/gndtex.jpg

[AndyJWest]

Will ground effect be modeled? I have not been able to detect it in IL2, and it definitely should be there.
Actually, it is modelled in IL-2, though it is subtle, and perhaps not modelled entirely accurately. There was a long discussion of this on the Ubi forums: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/3121062458/p/1

[furbs]

The whole "terrain colors bla bla" discussion is completely fruitless. Apart from the fact that Oleg said himself THE COLORS ARE WIP, it's obvious in the last screenshots that the terrain is not rendered as in the final product, meaning missing global illumination, lighting, HDR, haze and what not and that it has been rendered differently in almost every update. That is when people claim to notice "progress". Nonsense, it's nothing else than different machines and specs in the studio and different rendering and lighting stages with some tweaks here and there. Who knows, there may even be a second or third or fourth texture layer missing in the terrains. Early Oleg interviews indicate just that. The planes work that way -- why not the terrain? What do we know about it? Zip, that's how much.
Give it a rest already. You can't change zero with all your I-linked-to-a-photo-from-the-internet-screenshots and youtube videos. Oleg has thousands of photos of England taken by himself on his hardrives and he will do what he thinks looks correct.

And who made YOU olegs spokesperson?...you havnt a clue what Oleg thinks or if he wants input on the updates. If Oleg says nothing we post here will make any differance to what he does with SOW, then thats fine with me, i will stop posting.

This is a discussion thread on this weeks update if you havnt noticed, im always polite in how i post and until told by Oleg or the mods here to not to, i will carry on.

[Flutter]

Actually, it is modelled in IL-2, though it is subtle, and perhaps not modelled entirely accurately. There was a long discussion of this on the Ubi forums: http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/3121062458/p/1

Thnx Andy, That's indeed a more subtle than I would expect it to be. I shal go and look for it myself :) (Tend to lose an engine or ten when I go flying).

[GT182]

As always, Oleg and crew are doing some great work with BOB:SOW. The wait will be worth it IMHO. :-D

Besides, there's no sense in rushing things only to have the need for several patches made to fix things that weren't finished for the release. They are doing the right thing no matter how impatient some are.

[SlipBall]

(quote)Flutter
Others have commented, and I believe rightly, that fields of the era did not show wide tracks from tractors.


I'm not sure why you think a field with wide rows indicate a tractor passed over the field. Some crops demand a greater distance from one another, and so "wide"could have been made using a horse back then. One thing though, is that most farm field rows are plowed running north/south to allow for maximum sunlight exposure, east/west at times to control erosion.:grin:

[d165w3ll]

The whole "terrain colors bla bla" discussion is completely fruitless. ... You can't change zero with all your I-linked-to-a-photo-from-the-internet-screenshots and youtube videos. Oleg has thousands of photos of England taken by himself on his hardrives and he will do what he thinks looks correct.

I'm perfectly sure that Oleg will use his judgement - and not yours.

[Zoom2136]

This is possible in Il-2 original. And everybody will see you own skin. Why not in BoB?
Il-2 still has a lot of things that in many games simply absent. Why not in BoB?

I understand the use of custom skins... but most online server do not allow custom skins...

I'm thinking of a selectable option (i.ex.: red, blue, yellow, orange, white, etc. rudders), like choosing a squadron (or nose art) in iL2. This would be nice as most of our flights are arranged in colors (white flight, orange flight, etc.).

Anyway thanks again, and keep up the good work!!!

[KOM.Nausicaa]

I'm perfectly sure that Oleg will use his judgement - and not yours.

I totally agree.

[kendo65]

The whole "terrain colors bla bla" discussion is completely fruitless. Apart from the fact that Oleg said himself THE COLORS ARE WIP, it's obvious in the last screenshots that the terrain is not rendered as in the final product, meaning missing global illumination, lighting, HDR, haze and what not and that it has been rendered differently in almost every update. That is when people claim to notice "progress". Nonsense, it's nothing else than different machines and specs in the studio and different rendering and lighting stages with some tweaks here and there. Who knows, there may even be a second or third or fourth texture layer missing in the terrains. Early Oleg interviews indicate just that. The planes work that way -- why not the terrain? What do we know about it? Zip, that's how much.
Give it a rest already. You can't change zero with all your I-linked-to-a-photo-from-the-internet-screenshots and youtube videos. Oleg has thousands of photos of England taken by himself on his hardrives and he will do what he thinks looks correct.

+1 (even though I suspect I may be one of those seeing (illusory?) 'progress' - lets call it 'difference' instead then. ;)



The clouds here look awesome.
Other people have already said it, but I just can't believe you're being serious here. They look like archetypal cotton wool, fluffy cliches! il2 is 50 times better already!

[Bolelas]

Sorry to ask again...
Can Mr. Oleg tell me if BOB SOW will have the possibillity of adding on/of switches instead of having only the momentary switches like the ones on the keyboard? Or it will only be possible to do it by using a program to map keys?
I know some games that have it, some RC games (radio controled sim.)
Its very usefull to people who want to build pannels and stuff like that. I hope it includes that possibillity...
I enjoy all your team work, and tank you for the updates.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

+1 (even though I suspect I may be one of those seeing (illusory?) 'progress' - lets call it 'difference' instead then. ;)

I didn't mean to say that the progress is completely illusory. Of course stuff is happening. However most here do not have any knowledge of 3D modeling pipelines and misjudge the shots or make wrong interpretations. They see progress were there isn't any (machine was just more powerful, or AA was just switched on) and don't see the progress which actually happened. Me, for example: I don't know how it will look in the end, but I know how incredibly different something can look by simply, say, pushing the button of some lighting features in Max. People underestimate that the shots can change dramatically by a series of simple features we are not seeing yet.

[kendo65]

Yes, I was attempting to say something similar in a previous post.

[Sutts]

(quote)Flutter
Others have commented, and I believe rightly, that fields of the era did not show wide tracks from tractors.


I'm not sure why you think a field with wide rows indicate a tractor passed over the field. Some crops demand a greater distance from one another, and so "wide"could have been made using a horse back then. One thing though, is that most farm field rows are plowed running north/south to allow for maximum sunlight exposure, east/west at times to control erosion.:grin:


Not talking about plowed fields here SlipBall. Please look again at the image linked here.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=3699&d=1287325120

Those lines are 100% modern day tractor tramlines for the application of sprays and fertilisers without damaging the developing crop. I should know...I've spent hundreds of hours making them!

I've noticed that the majority of textures associated with cereal crops shown so far have been incorrectly given tramlines.

The following link provides all the details you need to know including how they are produced. If you scroll down you'll notice the second to last photo matches what we see in the SoW fields. This is all modern day agricultural practice.

http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/tramlines.cfm

Interestingly, I've just noticed this quote in the article text:

"Tramlines became widespread in their use in the agricultural revolution of the 1950s and 60s. Tramlines are of vital importance in the modern farming environment because they prevent overlapping applications of fertiliser and pesticide and because they allow spot or selective treatments to be carried out accurately. Nowadays tramlines can be seen throughout most of the western world and are often inaccurately present in films about the past, watch Gladiator carefully next time!"


Ploughed fields will contain furrow lines and these will be identical whether produced by a horse or tractor drawn plough. Cut hay and other crops may also appear in roughly even lines. It is the tramlines only that is being debated here.

[furbs]

Careful Sutts, dont point out anything that might be slighty not correct, even if you have spent 100s hours making them yourself. ;)

[Sutts]

Careful Sutts, dont point out anything that might be slighty not correct, even if you have spent 100s hours making them yourself. ;)

Yeah, not a big deal in the great scheme of things....but easily fixed in a future release hopefully. I think many of these textures are shared.

[SlipBall]

Not talking about plowed fields here SlipBall. Please look again at the image attached to this post. Those lines are 100% modern day tractor tramlines for the application of sprays and fertilisers without damaging the developing crop. I should know...I've spent hundreds of hours making them!

I've noticed that the majority of textures associated with cereal crops shown so far have been incorrectly given tramlines.

The following link provides all the details you need to know including how they are produced. If you scroll down you'll notice the second to last photo matches what we see in the SoW fields. This is all modern day agricultural practice.

http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/tramlines.cfm

Interestingly, I've just noticed this quote in the article text:

"Tramlines became widespread in their use in the agricultural revolution of the 1950s and 60s. Tramlines are of vital importance in the modern farming environment because they prevent overlapping applications of fertiliser and pesticide and because they allow spot or selective treatments to be carried out accurately. Nowadays tramlines can be seen throughout most of the western world and are often inaccurately present in films about the past, watch Gladiator carefully next time!"


Ploughed fields will contain furrow lines and these will be identical whether produced by a horse or tractor drawn plough. Cut hay and other crops may also appear in roughly even lines. It is the tramlines only that is being debated here.


OK...I'm not knowledged enough on this subject, to argue any points you made in your post.:grin:

[Insuber]

So we have here:

- experts of WWII fields
- experts of BOB country colors
- experts of RAF flight goggles
- experts of flight suits
- experts of clouds (not so many thou ... :))
- experts of 110 antennas
- experts of locomotives
- ... I can continue ...

Chapeau ... personally I just want an honest combat flight simulation and I feel so lonely ! Hey anyone else out there like me ?

;D

[Baron]

Seriously, some of u people need to take a biig step back and start living.


Jesus H.....


Edit: from another forum, im suprised noone has commentet on the wrong type of rooftiling used in olegs screens. Im sure though someone will be here shortly doing just that. Flight sim community just blows my mind over and over again. (not in a good way mind u)

[peterwoods@supanet.com]

Thank you Sutts for that. Aware of from observation but not the detail or technicalities. Most enlightening.

[Sutts]

So we have here:

- experts of WWII fields
- experts of BOB country colors
- experts of RAF flight goggles
- experts of flight suits
- experts of clouds (not so many thou ... :))
- experts of 110 antennas
- experts of locomotives
- ... I can continue ...

Chapeau ... personally I just want an honest combat flight simulation and I feel so lonely ! Hey anyone else out there like me ?

;D

Yes, isn't that a good thing? Lots of knowledge brought together can produce one hell of a sim don't you think?

These are little details but they do matter. What is the point of Oleg getting the buildings, boundaries and roads of 1940s Britain bang on when 1000s of acres of agricultural land proves that this is in fact a modern landscape? Kind of kills the illusion I'd say.

All we're talking about is making the cereal textures plain instead of tramlined, that's all. I bet there's only about 5 textures to change.

[furbs]

i think ALL of us want that Insuber, IL2 is with out doubt the best sim(or game for that matter) that ive ever owned.
We all prob have 1000s of hours flying IL2 thanks to Oleg, i know i have.
And we all want the best for SOW, now if some of us spot things that we think could be closer to the real thing, then why not point them out?

Now if Oleg then agrees and changes these small things then whats the harm?
If he doesnt agree or hasnt time to change them, thats his choice, its his sim, he can and will do what he feels is right, its not going to make any of us not buy the game.

[Sutts]

i think ALL of us want that Insuber, IL2 is with out doubt the best sim(or game for that matter) that ive ever owned.
We all prob have 1000s of hours flying IL2 thanks to Oleg, i know i have.
And we all want the best for SOW, now if some of us spot things that we think could be closer to the real thing, then why not point them out?

Now if Oleg then agrees and changes these small things then whats the harm?
If he doesnt agree or hasnt time to change them, thats his choice, its his sim, he can and will do what he feels is right, its not going to make any of us not buy the game.

Nicely put furbs. My intention is not to ruffle feathers, just contribute to the knowledge base. I can't imagine many Sim folk are involved in farming these days.

[Sutts]

OK...I'm not knowledged enough on this subject, to argue any points you made in your post.:grin:

Fair enough but please look at the article all the same, the evidence is all there.

[mazex]

A small comparison with WoP that has been mentioned here (got in a bit too low and some guy in a spit joined my 2 player host while going on my photo run and shot me down so no second attempt ;))

It's getting hard to say which one is best now...

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9885/bobcompare2.jpg

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3022/wopcompare2.jpg

[Sutts]

Seriously, some of u people need to take a biig step back and start living.


Jesus H.....


Edit: from another forum, im suprised noone has commentet on the wrong type of rooftiling used in olegs screens. Im sure though someone will be here shortly doing just that. Flight sim community just blows my mind over and over again. (not in a good way mind u)


With respect, these things are a lot more obvious than a darn roofing slate. They literally shout MODERN TECHNOLOGY BELOW.

Now, it may not seem important to many but just wait until people start producing the historically accurate movies that Oleg hinted at. It was bad enough watching Memphis Belle with all those modern fields in the background. If Oleg has a chance to make the environment historically correct then I think he will choose to do it, I don't care when.

[ATAG_Dutch]

So we have here:

- experts of WWII fields
- experts of BOB country colors
- experts of RAF flight goggles
- experts of flight suits
- experts of clouds (not so many thou ... :))
- experts of 110 antennas
- experts of locomotives
- ... I can continue ...

Chapeau ... personally I just want an honest combat flight simulation and I feel so lonely ! Hey anyone else out there like me ?

;D

Yep.

[WTE_Galway]

Just an observation as a former freelance photographer.

Many of the photos people are preferring as "more correct" have clearly been taken with a polarized lens. Polarised lenses with landscape photos give a more dramatic result. From an observers point of view the effect on the image is similar to putting on a pair of high quality sunglasses on a sunny day.

[ATAG_Dutch]

A small comparison with WoP that has been mentioned here (got in a bit too low and some guy in a spit joined my 2 player host while going on my photo run and shot me down so no second attempt ;))

It's getting hard to say which one is best now...

I don't think it is.

Just look at the aircraft.
Then look at the water.
Then look at the towns.
Then look at the overall 'mood' of the shots.

The blokes at 1c Maddox games will produce the goods.
As I said earlier, given the news we've been given this week, it's too late for comparisons or recommendations for the initial release.
We're on the home stretch.
Have a bit of faith, and remember the initial release is only the initial release.
If recommendations and comparisons are necessary after release, so be it.
That's what the forum is for.

I'm really looking forward to the next ten years, when all these 'games' that the screenshots have been compared to have all been forgotten, and we'll all be wondering why on earth we moaned.

Like Insuber said, we just want a good combat flight sim.

I think we're going to get a terrific one.

[Foo'bar]

So we have here:

(...)
- experts of locomotives
(...)

Err... more than me? ;)

[Chivas]

I'm blown away by the thought of the developer actually saying they're modeling all of 1940 London.

[lbuchele]

Err... more than me? ;)
Sorry,Foo' bar.
I don't consider you an expert in locomotives.
You are god.

[KG26_Alpha]

Another God is the person who has done the weather modelling :)

[airmalik]

A small comparison with WoP that has been mentioned here (got in a bit too low and some guy in a spit joined my 2 player host while going on my photo run and shot me down so no second attempt ;))

It's getting hard to say which one is best now...


I was curious what WoP would look like without the colour cast:

Original:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3022/wopcompare2.jpg

Colour Corrected (Only colour balance changed. No contrast, exposure changes made):
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7465/wopcompare2cc.jpg

[Oleg Maddox]

Just an observation as a former freelance photographer.

Many of the photos people are preferring as "more correct" have clearly been taken with a polarized lens. Polarised lenses with landscape photos give a more dramatic result. From an observers point of view the effect on the image is similar to putting on a pair of high quality sunglasses on a sunny day.

I would add - polarized sunglasses :)
Yes you are perfectly right. Not all but many was done by this way if it was professional photograper.
In my photos that I was shooting from the air myself I didn't use polarizer, however in a soft I was removing the effect what is doing the glass of windows and canopy.