Oleg, on formation topic, will it be possible to connect 2 or more flights for some time and disconnect them? Like RAF squadrons in big wings.

Another excellent update and some interesting discussion going on.

The first thing that came to my mind about that smoke is "hmm, maybe it's WIP, it's look a bit too big", but then it seems perfectly fine in that rear quarter picture with the flames. I was thinking that this kind of smoke would be fine for slow moving or stationary objects (eg, ground targets, parked aircraft, etc), or even when close to the fire it originates from, but it seems a bit thick when extending further behind a moving aircraft.
Then i started thinking that it's all a matter of relative airspeeds, viscosity (ie thickness) of smoke depending on what kind of materials are being burnt and dispersion...and a few posts later, Oleg himself confirms they have taken this into account. It's simply amazing that half of the times that i'm thinking "it would be neat to have this feature in the sim", the developers confirm it as something they have already worked on! This is why i trust the final produt will be excellent, because these guys are right within our heads and know how we think and what we want to see :grin:

Another thing to consider is that seeing something in motion conveys a better experience. Some bits and pieces of what we see in these updates seems a bit weird sometimes, but i always keep in my mind that we're seeing static shots with no AA/AF, i'm sure seeing it all move and change in high resolution will be something completely different.
For example, the flak bursts in this update are just a time-frozen screenshot of irregular black smoke, but seeing it animated might include an initial flame/flash/shockwave effect from the burst and the abrupt but gradual forming of the black puffs of smoke around it, so that as the flash dies down the smoke is formed. We'll have to wait for a video update before we can really judge this aspect of the sim. Who knows, it might look even better in video.

As for the fuel leak streams they do seem a bit out of place (Oleg said they are WIP after all), but notice how they start narrow at the point of the leak and gradually grow wider as they move to the back of the airframe, even if it is still WIP. It's the small details like these that make it awesome in the long run and the more of them you have in any game, the longer it takes before it starts looking repetitive.

In any case, brilliant update. I can't wait to fly this and i'm also itching to show it off to a few friends who are into WWII history but have never tried flight sims.

knowing oleg i bet the smoke size depends on the size of the leak feeding it, whats burning, and the weight of the oil being burned and a few other factors :-P

The exhausts are shown exactly this way in this photo.
The caption is - "An early production Sunderland I".

Screenshot.

Oleg! Seeing all these great shots of the Ju-87s and Bombers got me wondering...

What is view from the rear gunner and turrent positions going to be like? Will we get guns with more animation than IL-2? Seeing rounds in the gun and ammo belts move, shell casings flying everywhere?

I love being a gunner on a bomber and really looking forward to flying as a gunner online in Storm of War!

further to kestrel79's comment, if you're a gunner in a JU87 or JU88, will you be able to slide the gun around the canopy frame housing rather than just have it just fixed & aimed with the mouse?
At the moment you can seen the grab handle to swing the gun housing round, but can't.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. Bump and specular as well, as they change the surface details depending on the light angle. It took me a bit of study of these shots to confirm whether the planes have normal/bump maps- I'm still not entirely sure for most of them. They definitely appear to have some nice spec maps already. And the modeling really is fantastic.

Can't wait to see it all moving... :)

The Stuka crew seem very undisturbed about their Stuka being shot to pieces.
One would expect the crew to at least look at the aircraft attacking them and show some sign of panic or emotion. These germans don't seem to care.
I'm sure this will be fixed in the final product but now they look a bit uninvolved.

Dynamic aircraft
 

Wonderful pictures Oleg!

Two questions which cannot be answerd by analyzing static screenshots:
1: Will there be wing-flex?
I know that WW2 fighters had very stiff wings, but ALL wings flex, and seeing this flexing from the cockpit adds seriously to immersion (optical feedback for g-load, turbulence and atmospheric effect induced by high speed combustiuon of airborne munitions (Flack). For an example of extreme wing flex, see below at around 3:50: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de54Rg30tGI
I believe that the simplest way to introduce wing flex would be to add a gpu vertex translation, warping the complete aircraft slightly.

2: Will the damage visuals include semi-attached bits and pieces (flaps /ailerons antennas) fluttering in the slipstream?

Looking forward to the reply.

Flutter

(which could also be visualized nicely using wing flex geometric modifier, although only if combined with motion blur, since wings of WW2 stiffness are reduced to a blur (high frequency flutter) just before they disintegrate completely)

Nothing you will notice when flying anyway.....