Trees and all of the details look really great.

I've mentioned before but it mostly comes down to resolution now (not that you really need to hear this), the terrain textures are very washed out in the first shot atleast. I think SOW will have the best cockpit graphics and aircraft models seen in a flight sim yet- I'm hoping the terrain will match these other elements in quality. The trees and grass are really looking quite stunning now. :o

I'm sure you guys are working hard on it- wonderfully textured terrains are quite rare in flightsims,.. you have the ORBX stuff for FSX, and WOP does a pretty decent job of things as well. The terrain has always been a bit of a weak spot for the average flight sim, I guess because most time is spent up in the air- but we also have the computing power and gfx memory now to bring in much crisper terrain graphics. Low flying can be exhilarating, but only if the detail holds up at these low altitudes. Blocky terrains ruin the immersion.

Great job!

http://a.imageshack.us/img826/3782/s...0901112504.jpg
First off, let me say I love the rest of the update, and I'm fully aware this is WIP.

However there are some problems here. The roads are much too wide, at least 2-3 times as wide as they should be, judging by the scale of the train. In general, trains dwarf crossings, not the other way round. Period roads in the countryside would be narrow, usually around 12-15 feet wide, designed so it is possible for two oncoming cars to pass each other with care. Try placing a car on one of the roads and having a look at the width. If it isn't possible to place at least 4 cars side by side on those roads, I will eat my metaphorical hat.

Hedges are also a problem, you clearly need a hedge type of vegetation that can be placed along the sides of the road, because achieving a satisfactory look with individual bushes is going to become prohibitively expensive in terms of numbers needed, and at the moment the hedges look like individual shrubs placed at intervals along the side of the road.

To end my comments on a positive note, the way the trees and landscape work together at a distance (on the hills in the background) is fantastic and bodes well for the way the SOW will look from altitude

Compared to what we have been used to, this is a quantum leap forward in appearance, despite being a WIP. Well done!
What would be nice would to see a lot of ground activity. Yes, yes- framerates. Oh well.

Actually, zoomed in like that, i think the team have done a good job on the pilot model. The angle of the picture, with the reflection on the back of the canopy, can create the illusion the canopy is a lot bigger than it really is.


And regarding landscape; guys, this is soooo WIP :D Oleg said that the terrain would be almost photorealistic, and I just think this shows the team messing with textures before increasing their resolution...In any case, the terrain in WoP can look very good (debateable?) but I am sure that the textures from WoP could be placed into SoW in some form. I don't say this to say that this should happen, but to show that these txctures are far from final as the SoW has a lot more to offer. ;) I'm confusing myself here; but I think I have made my point credible in one form or other...

I was wondering if this shot was using a 'low detail' setting with only sparse trees/hedgerow details - like in Il2 which has a config.ini setting for trees. At the lowest level you get next to nothing - maybe this fits in with Luthier using a low-powered PC for testing purposes? It looks to me as if it may just be giving an 'indication' of tree and hedgerow density - the wooded areas look very 'thinned out' too compared to some shots we've seen before.

Tend to agree with your comments about the road / train though.

edit: the more I look at that picture the more I think that it is actually the train that is the problem. It's too small compared to the road AND the trees - maybe a lod issue ? - surely the passenger carriage should be much longer than the width of a country road!?

But I'm just going to remind myself of what is said on Page 1 - EVERYTHING IS WIP!!- and apologise for whinging :)

Compare Il-2 on first release to now...that, for me, is a thought that makes me know that SoW will be awesome.

The top part of the canopy, between the 2 lines, seems to be too large in comparison.
The difference is clear: it's the pilot and the canopy imho.

David603 makes some valid comments. If its possible to have hedges or small tree lines along roads and railways it will significantly enhance the appearance of the landscape.

I notice that the railway is single track. Although many branch lines were single track the majority might be better represented by twin tracks. Also if this allowed trains to be routed in both directions that would be great. Are cuttings, embankments, tunnels and level bridges being modelled. In IL2 railways never look quite right with steep bridge approaches and extreme track gradients in hilly country. --- Ok, I know its not a railway sim, but it would be good if it was possible.

With roads if convoys are routed in two directions will they pass each other on the left, as is correct for England, and on the right in France?

Overall I am hugely impressed by what is being achieved. Looking forward to its release.

+1

Ok, look at this...

http://i51.tinypic.com/2f04sk6.jpg

... don't you see the differences ?


P.S: of course, I'm not speaking here of the über-ugly filtering of WOP, just of the geometry of the landscape and the implantation of the trees, fields, roads and rivers.

luKe, we are trying to make the game better for you me old duck, I bet your one of those guys who would never go on strike for more pay, but take the same payrise as those that did make the effort. :grin: No offence of course.

Yes this is really so! I have to say the same...and that kid in to the cockpit...it destroys everything...very, very small! Oleg, make the pilot higher, with smaller shoulders in order to fit the cockpit. The other things just surpass my expectations. Really!

Cheers!

Forget how tall the pilot is. It is the headsize (with or without helmet) that is so wrong.

Compare this upscaled version with the original. This is far from perfect but should serve to illustrate what many are saying. And, for Luthier, the pilot's eyeline is pretty well centred on the the reflector sight.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/u...otupscaled.jpg

You really astonish me with this discovery!

you and philip.ed have not worked a day in your life's your both here 24/7 :grin::grin::-P:-P:grin::grin:---:-P no offence of course

The only way to check the size of the pilot is to see a pic with him standing next to the hurri...luthier?? :grin:

landscape looking better but..and i know its WIP before anyone chips in...but the colours still off for the fields...looks more like france than southern England.

Everything else looks great to me.

cheers.

Agree with comment elsewhere that:
1. The train is out of scale with road(s) which are at best B class but probably C.

Compare this rather crude edit with original.

http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/u...BTrainSize.jpg

2. Train tracks crossing roads always have what is known in UK as "Level Crossings" if not bridged.

lovely update, ground is looking great
still not sure about the smokes and fire
let's see a small video of it, damage planes
looks great too, just bullet holes looks quite
wrong, but i asume that are still wip, human
figures looks exelente same as RoF.

But as many says here don't pay me atention
I'm a modder ;)

Now the rest of the landscape is out of scale with the train and the roads. Look at the trees, and there are two crossings with the length of the train. I am still convinced the problem is that the roads are too wide, the train was almost certainly to scale.

Well these photo's vindicate luthier, for all we know, it could be a ground crew member in the pit, thanks for clearing that up:grin:...

---------------------------------------------

Great up-date, thanks!

Yeah, WOP seems to have a much more natural/organic/diverse clumping arrangement of trees than SOW currently. This might be a low settings thing again, but I also think WOP still looks pretty good on low settings from memory.

SOW definitely has the better colour palette here. Most of the other WOP maps fare better in terms of the colours, but the English one is quite bad, imo. Of course, it all depends on the weather. Natural lighting is incredibly changeable.

Second time I can only say very nice pics!

Nice update! (and testing my new Avatar ;) )

Hey Vanderstok, red 13 is my number :D

I see things a little differently. I'm now convinced the pilot is the correct height but his head is too small. Perhaps this was the result of scaling the pilot's entire body down instead of just shortening his legs? One person might have shorter legs and narrower shoulders than another but their head will usually be about the same size.

Try this.....open the following images side by side and fully zoomed. Take a ruler and measure the depth of the real guy's head and compare this measurement with the depth of the real hurris lower perspex panel in the front windscreen and the initial lower perspex panel in the sliding canopy. The guy's head is approx. the same depth as both these clear panels.

Now do the same with the sim pilot and sim hurri. You must allow for the portion of the chin hidden by the collar though. You'll find you need to add at least 2mm to the guys head to match the scale found in the real picture. This makes the head at least 20% too small.

I have no doubt the sim hurri dimensions are spot on. It's the pilot's head that is out of proportion. Try it for yourselves.

I hope this can be seen as constructive rather than just wining. I'm just trying to explain the gut reaction of several observers on this forum including myself. I'm extremely impressed with what I've seen so far and I can live with little issues like this.

The pictures do look good, the planes to my not particularly knowledgeable eyes look good, but the lack of proper railways is terrible.

If we'd seen railways sooner, it could have been said sooner.

This is not in my view fixable before release, unless release is already set to be in the third quarter of 2011, and there is already someone working full time on nothing but railways.

Most places where rails crossed roads, there were bridges. Often railways were raised above the level of the land (called embankments), often railways were below the level of the land (called cuttings), sometimes if there was a long hill in the way there was a tunnel cut through the hill. This made it possible to keep the levels of the railways fairly flat, which in a hilly country, which Britain is, meant that the trains could travel faster and more efficiently. Railways were not new in Britain in 1940, the locomotives and rolling stock were fairly modern, but the railways were mostly laid out before 1900.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History..._Great_Britain

It was a lot of work, but workers were cheap in those days.

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

I used to think Tree was a pessimist, but if this is going to be fixed before release he's now looking very optimistic indeed. :cry: :shock:

The atmosphere causes substantial filtering. It's not ugly, it's just the way it is. Light waves pass through a profusion of gas molecules and other terrestrial particles. Yeah, I understand WOP's excessive sepia hue doesn't agree with everyone. But you can't deny that it looks effective. It seems the mob's foremost qualm with the visuals is the terrain, and it is obvious that filtering occurs in reality much more so than what we have seen. I believe this would vastly improve the current visuals. And it seems that it would be simple to pull off. Also, it would mask low res textures. Good for FPS perhaps.

But what do I know.

very nice, looks much better

WoP's use of sepia and other image filters doesn't have much to do with atmospheric filtering. All SoW screens we've seen have pretty much the same atmospheric conditions which are pretty clear and allow for extremely far view range, but that doesn't mean the game won't have different conditions modelled in the end.

Also you can't hide low res textures behind haze. Low resolution is an issue close to the camera, so you'd need a thick fog layer to hide that... so if you want high-res textures, ask for high-res textures - not a way to hide low-res ones ;)

I agree that colour/filter and scene complexity issues aside, WoP does a lot of things very well when it comes to artwork. The ground textures are great and the whole scenery looks consistent; nothing looks out of place. I hope SoW's landscape moves a bit more in that direction while the team is working on it. Not that I can't live with what's being shown so far.

Great update again, thanks for taking the time to keep us in the loop.

No , no , that picture looks almost funny comparing to reality .
Have you watched " The Fighting Lady " documentary ? , there you can see badly injured WWII U.S. pilot returning and landing on the aircraft carrier deck and look at his canopy , you won't see anything through the blood splatter everywhere all over the glass , how he managed to land that bloody crate is beyond me , they even tell you how that happened .
I will make HD DVD quality video of it tomorrow .
It's the only color footage I know of which shows such devastated blood canopy and pilot is not only alive but also managed to land his plane .
One of the well know Japanese Zero pilot hero in another documentary " Wings of Defeat " is talking about flak exploding close to his cockpit ripping off the whole bottom of his leg , I am sure that must have been wonderful inside cockpit yet he managed to tighting up and choke temporarily leg blood artery and returned for a landing .
Human being is capable of an amazing things in order to survive .

Thank you luthier for nice update , once there is BoB:SoW video available , we will all talk more in detail .

S! HG :cool:

The various rail system's, were built that way here in the State's as well...I'm not sure that any thing could be done at this point, or should I say I doubt.

Let me add that we have not seen what rails lie in other portions of the map

First, great update pictures! Thanks Luthier!

Next…Does the pilot look a bit small to me in Luthier’s picture? Yes…

Is this a great issue for me? No…but I would prefer him to be a bit larger or higher.

I have seen many pictures and photos of pilots in Spits and Hurriys, and with no offense to Luthier, many of them had their eyes above the gunsight and they would stoop forward and down when using the sight.

I have read many biographies of BoB pilots and some of them were 6’ 4” tall, so even with lowered seats, their heads could be almost touching the canopy. Others flew with raised or lowered seats, depending on their preferences.

Here are a couple of pics, the first is Stanford Tuck in his Hurry, and the second is from the war. They give some good idea of pilot scale. Notice that their line-of-sight is just above the gunsight, but leaning foreward a bit would put their eyes a bit lower and in line with the sight. I have better pictures, but I would have to dig them out and scan them and no time for that project right now.

Is this an issue that is life-changing for me?

I hardly think so, but I think that it’s fair to present ideas and different opinions in a courteous and tactful manner.

This is unfortunate in that no English railway would have road crossings with no gates or signals, whatever class the roads were. This kind of arrangement was in place by the late nineteenth century, keeping roads and rails entirely separate for safety reasons. As mentioned, trains ran on embankments or in cuttings and the bridge was the most common form of crossing, rail over road or vice versa. Most of the railway system was fenced, to keep the public and farm stock off the lines - in fact this separation was enforced by laws laid down in the 19th century - and are still in place in modern times.

Maybe it's expecting too much from a game that is really devoted to flight and aerial combat for the railway system to look authentic. It's not going to put me off buying or flying SoW-BoB, because so much of the rest is looking so good.

That's what I was thinking. Those windy country lanes in the UK are often only about 4 or 5 m wide between the hedges (sometimes cars can't pass) - that means that last carriage in the pic is pretty small! Alternatively, if the road is meant to be a main trunk road say 15 m wide, then probably it shouldn't be quite so twisty.

Another thing regarding the railway track that I think would be an improvement. I think there should be hedges, trees, perhaps even sheds, signal boxes etc etc along the railway easement. Often you can't see the actual railway track itself from high altitude, but you know it's there from the linear patterns of vegetation it forms in contrast to the more random pattern of fields.

I don't know how the landscape is put together. Maybe this is difficult because the track route is 'laid over' the background landscape, but perhaps it would be possible for the 'railway trees' to be part of the track route, rather than the background landscape so they would the follow the railway wherever it goes.

Anyway, it's all nitpicking really for a flight-sim, the pictures in general are great!

EDIT: well what you see above is the result of me reply to a post before reading the whole thread through, I see that others are raising the same questions!

Definitely,SoW won't run in my poor machine...

First pic, exactly what i was expecting of strapped in die-ing pilots...

pics are looking awesome.

Ah, that is a more relevant picture! The pilots in the two modern Hurricanes look larger because they are wearing modern flying helmets, which almost double the size of the head.

RAF markings
 

Thank you for the pictures, Luthier! The flames in that Heinkel looks downright scary!

I have a small comment on the British markings:

The colour of the squadron code is too bright. It was in a grey shade, not white. The below picture is a comparison with a modern interpretation and may be affected by ambient light, but I think it shows quite clearly that the codes ought to be a bid darker.

The font for the serial looks very strange. Please compare the numbers 3 in the two picture below. In earlier screenshots, the font for the serials looked right.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a37...mparison-1.jpg

lol good one mate, that made me laugh :grin::grin:

LOL! My first reaction to those shots (entirely tongue in cheek of course) was "where's the ketchup?" No matter the Gore/No Gore controversy, It's 100% better than IL2.

Thanks Luthier - good update
 

All pics looking great. As you mentioned this is still a WIP and their will be many more tweaks before the first release.
I am just grateful we have the basis for a very worthy successor to IL-2 Sturmovik and as SOW develops over the years ahead we will see many graphic improvements which will eventually stop all the 'whining' (I hope?).
Keep up the good work, hope Oleg is back on deck soon. I would be interested in seeing some more FMB tools in future updates and of course a video.
DFLion

Is this map 1:1? Does anyone know? I hope it's not one of reduced ones "for playability". It might explain a few things though.

The third picture in the first set is simply amazing, Thank you for the update.:grin:

Oleg's goal
 

If I remember correctly, Oleg stated in an interview or in few threads that he was building a new engine (SoW) that would be so good it could be used as a tool for movie production, and that he was aiming at nothing less than photorealistic results in BoB:SoW...
I do believe he will succeed. My feeling is that he is showing us wip that is few weeks or even few months old.
Remember the "leaked" cockpit video ? That was pretty amazing....And then only one cockpit screen with instruments with glass and reflections... ANd what we've got since few updates ? Only few screen shots of the same thing with only very small improvements...
He is pulling our legs guys !!!! :rolleyes:
Sow will be fabulous !!! :-)
Can't wait !

My two cents - it looks bloody brilliant.

Any chance of having a squadron dog? A collie I think :-)

I believe the pilot is being modeled in combat mode. I know while flying combat I would shrink the size of a walnut behind any piece of armor plating . ;)

Yes, I believe the map is 1:1.

Hehe! Good one Chivas ... I would shrink behind the armourplate too!

I'm "taking the bait" by commenting on the pilot size issue - Luthier's got it right no doubt, and I therefore think that it must therefore be the size of the head etc that should be looked at.

Anyway, brilliant screenshots as usual.
Oleg and team, I think that you've got the fire/flame effects looking 100% - fantastic!

My only slightly negative comment would relate to the scenery which clearly is still WIP - more scrubby bush and toned down greens - but I'm sure that's all still to be addressed.

The waiting is "killing me" - hehe!

I just want to say that you guys are INSANE.

After deep thought and contemplation I have come to the same conclusion. It gets worse as each day goes by.

I am, however, completely lucid and sane. Unfortunately I cannot comment on any of my other personalities! ;)

Cheers!

Yup, total fruitcakes. Utterly nuts...

All we want to do is fly our imaginary aeroplanes over imaginary Kent fields, while admiring the imaginary scenery and hoping the imaginary bandits don't bounce us from the imaginary sun. As long as we can't do this, we'll carry on finding imaginary faults in whatever morsels we get to see. The only solution is to make our imagination real, so come on Oleg and company, let's see what we can expect: “What is now proved was once only imagined.” – William Blake

After ten years you're still surprised? ;) :mrgreen:

Some posted comparison pics of WOP landscape to SOW. I also like the WOP-Terrain, it is very convencing, but do not forget that those maps were very small (to small in my view) and that is the problem: Quality costs frame rates: Priority should be the feel of flight (FM), damage model and a good campaign system. I doupt that you can have fun with SOW during an aircombat with 9 fps!!!

Will buildings cast drop shadows inside? I was looking at picture two and was wondering why I can't see any drop shadows at the left inside walls/floor of the hangar building.

In picture 1 there's a train crossing a road. Given that the last coach is about 20 meters long then the road's width seem far to wide. Such road should be about 5 meters wide imho.

Hopefully on better pcs you can adjust the grass to higher distances.

I think the terrain would look much better if there would be "little forests" not only single trees.

You know just as much as we all do Dafunkfire,
I agree with this post... WOP might have undersaturated landscape palets but it sure looks fantastic...

Luthier, the problem is that you designed your pilots to look like this:

http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/213330-1/Finnish++Hurricane

http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acimages...stephenfox.jpg

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/unitedki...fighter-01.png

http://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploa...-hurricane.jpg

However, these are elite midget pilots. Their tiny size makes them more tenacious, and hardy.

You should model your figures on people with more normal skeletons.

Like this:

http://i984.photobucket.com/albums/a...k/bigpilot.jpg

The people in this forum just demand the impossible!!

And i'm afraid that OM will deliver. :-D

Another new rig, for shure.

...


Leading Aircraftman: ' Come on Chaps, Hurry up ! Get those Ladies warm and ready for the next scramble. '







http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39...tterRigger.jpg





http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39...terRigger1.jpg



...

It's looking great especially as a WIP. It must be remembered that its rendered not real life. The photo of the spitfire looks washed out (is it an old photo?). Most of the people in this forums baby photos would look like that as the image breaks down with age. Also the lenses used is not of the same quality as a good quality lens camera and film of today.
Personally I'm more interested in game play and user interface. I find I have very little time to enjoy the scenery when flying on line as if I do I usually end up as a burning wreak.

Here's a "reminder" of a long forgotten update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj7nE...layer_embedded

and a comparison showing midget pilot and ground crew:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/i...00/g302108.jpg

LoL.


"Problem" with screenshot updates is that people dont see the whole picture (game running) so they nitpick at what they actually see. Doing that nothing will ever look perfect.

When the game do get here im sure everything will be forgotten and replaced with a whole new set of threadhs. (good luck with that btw;))

P.S. Not saying u should stop the updates, just keep posting and ignore the incomming s**tstorm.


Thx for the update. :)


Edit: I dare anyone to go to a Crysis Warhead forum (or the like) and find a threadh where people complaine about the sice of foliage. LoL

We are insane? Who created, runs and updates this asylum? Who is in charge, the inmates or carers?

And, who has dedicated a large part of his adult life to producing a product that he knows, before the conception is even announced, will be ridiculed, slandered and rerided before its birth? And still, in your self-inflicted torment, you still show us the grimy, poor resolution ultrasound images of your yet to be born infant.

Sir, it is you who is clearly, certifiably insane.

And yet, we, the imploring inmates (or should that be ingrates?), will bill and coo, oooh and aah, say what a lovely baby, once it is born.

We are all insane and don't we love it?

Long live the asylum.

PS. for those that are unsure, all of the above is meant to be humurous and is written by someone who downloaded the first IL2 demo far too long ago and fully expects SoW to play a part in his life for at least a decade to come. You see, I'm also certifiably insane.

Me: "Nurse! Can I have my medication now please?"
Nurse Luthier: "No! You know you have to wait until Friday"

All we can say is this; we were sent from a future and this future did not have SoW.

lol :grin::grin:

If I recall correctly, you were once one of "us", weren't you? ;) Now wipe that drool off your chin and get back to work!

The Hurricane on that image seems to lack self-shadowing as well. Maybe still Luthier's low-end system at work as mentioned some months ago.

I still can't get over how good those trees look close up :o If you can nail how that look from a distance, luthier, then you're sim will be futureproofed for years to come. I mean, those planes look photo-realistic. I think the only aspects of the sim which may need more work are the terrain and the smoke-effects, and I know that you will be able to nail these two aspects anyway.

So Luthier; will smoke change and move in the wind? I was watching a scene from Piece of Cake (not a cooking program BTW) and also Apocalypse Now where one can see the smoke swirling when the planes/helicopters fly through. I know there is a word for this, which I think begins with a 'V', but my memory fails me at this point. Seeing as this sim will be able to have the features of DX-11, I wondered if an effect like this would be possible? I'm sure it could be.

But Luthier; please, don't trouble yourself trying to nail every bit of detail. Stuff like this can appear in patches for the game in the future. I'm sure SoW will have a long future and so these things can come later.
Look at Il-2 or BoB2. Both those games have come leaps and bounds from the initial release.

I wonder if the buildings windows behave the same way the canopy windows of the planes do when you shoot at them? Will the windows of buildings burst?

Would love to have an answer on philip.ed's question, too.

And also on the question sombody else already asked:
Will the grass be effected by the prop wash?

There are two types of windows: "real" glass ones and painted. Please see the hangar in picture #2: the big transparent windows of the main hall "could" burst, in technical matters. The lower side buildings only have painted widows wich couldn't burst.

“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.” ~ Oscar Wilde

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." ~ Edgar Allan Poe

“Insanity is my only means of relaxation” ~ Author Unknown

I meant the real windows not the painted ones for sure.

Is that word you're looking for "vortex"? As in this vid from 1:25?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA2FU...eature=related
It sure would look really good :)

Insane?

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a23/bloblast/bert.jpg

Sorry I'm a bit late, but this effect would be pretty realistic in RAF's planes which were shot by cannons, or bombers attacked by 19th squadron. Or flak, of course

Yes, Vortex is the word I was looking for :D

Annoyingly, I can't find the videos on youtube that I wanted to post. :-x But a youtube search of Vortex (or smoke vortex, aircraft vortex etc ) will show the effect quite well too ;)

Boblast, nice one ... LOL!

This reminds me of my childhood......

Me: I want, I want, I want
Parents: You'll have to wait & see what Father Christmas bring you.

Unfortunately, they didn't say which Christmas......

I think that's what the real windows have been made for ;)

Dunno if it has been mentioned before but many of the photos show ground personnel or pilots sitting in aircraft without parachutes on (as they where used as a seat cushion), so they are a lot lower in the cockpit than a pilot suited up to fly the aircraft. When you sit in the metal bucket designed for the parachute you're gonna sit pretty low.

I don't think the roads do not look too wide, I flew an ask-23 today at around 350 metres altitude right above a 2 roads :) I was circling there so I had a lot of time to look at it :P .I didn't see any hedges, only tree lines on both sides of the road. although I don't see them on both sides quite often.
maybe I could post some pictures of roads seen from the air?

Vortices
 

Philip.ed:
The word you are looking for is wingtip vortices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VChN...eature=related

A wing creates lift by pushing air downwards. Behind the wing tip there is an interface between air that has been pushed down, and "untouched" air. This shear results in a vortex flow trailing behind the aircraft.

It should be possible for Oleg and friends to let each aicraft flying trail such a vortex field, which would then affect other game physics. Smoketrails and clouds would curl, Aircraft in formation would "feel" the other aircraft, V1s could be tipped over etc. The strength and dissapation of wingtip vortices is a very well understood science (if the aim is only for a reasonable degree of realism)

I would NOT be surprised if we will see vortex effects in SOW.

Something else that would be interesting is fire and damage control. Will each aircraft have a "surface material map" that defines which materials are in use (fabric, fabric with stringers, aluminum, aluminum with stringers, etc etc) that would determine type of bullet holes, fire propagation etc...
Or does SOW have a much smarter solution?

Flutter

I just started a new thread on this subject, welcome or not.
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=16233

Hopefully we will have some wellinformed member to sort it out.

Viking

I'm going to be bursting into tears everytime I see my enemy slouching over in a fire burning to a crisp like that LOL.

Flutter; that is excellent! Thanks so much :grin:

Thank you for your informed opinion, it is much appreciated. It's good to hear from someone who knows about such things.

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2997/82699757.jpg

This is obviously a little cartoonish, but in fact WWII aerial combat could be pretty gruesome.

'Buzz' Beurling described shooting down an Italian pilot in a Macchi.

Although he seems to be laughing it off in this quote, in fact Beurling had nightmares about this incident for the remainder of his life, his girlfriends described him waking up screaming in a cold sweat.

Although i'm very much looking forward to SOW I am in agreement with some of the other chaps here about the landscape, and I hope it'll get updated, i'm sure it's a long way from complete. Those screenshots from WOP look far more realistic to me. British country roads are mostly single lane with passing places and lined with hedgerows, or hedgerows and trees. Spots of bushes from time to time just don't look realistic at all.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fire effects, at present they look poor (check the aircraft on fire @ 2:11 in the video) - but I think it's too early though and will get fixed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbUYaYjx2Xk

Check out the way trains explode - the power of .50cal rounds - fuel tanks going up on static and flying aircraft - the 'sparkle' as rounds hit the target - deflected tracer from the ground - the dust and smoke thrown up on the ground from the rounds that missed - the bits falling off the aircraft in flight as it is torn apart. All of this is done pretty well in IL2 now with the effects pack mod, but we want more ;).

so, basically, pretty much what i said. that he-11 looked to have been attacked by a hurri - rifle calibre bullets. not cannons, not flak. so therefore that blood splatter effect is ott. maybe it would be more similar in a fighter hit by cannons, but then the canopy is a lot closer to the source of splatter. and buzzsaw - yeah, if you took someone's head off it'd make a bit of a mess. apparently the blood vessels in the neck can produce enough pressure to spray 20 odd feet.

19th squadron barely used their cannon spits, due to the unreliability of the early cannons. modelling the blood spatter effect on that would hardly be representative. maybe have different kinds depending on what caused it, but then it seems rather a redundant option if it would prohibit sales by pushing the certification up. the slumped crew works fine for determining if you've hit crew or not.

interesting aircraft in 4.02. not a clue what it is though.

Hahaha, excellent :grin:

I think pilots are modelled with their seats lowered, in "combat mode" as Chivas said. A lot of modern and wartime photos show them sitting higher in the cockpit and that's probably accurate as well, but i think it has to do with personal preference of the pilot and what's happening during that time.

Remember, these planes are taildraggers with long cowlings. My guess goes like this:
Taxi, take off, landing, maybe even cruise to assist in situational awareness and formation flying--->seat adjusted to the high position for extra visibility
Combat, in order to align your head with the gunsight and put as much of the body inside the "hard" parts of the airframe--->seat adjusted to the low position.

That being said, the guy's head looks a bit small but Romanator's pics look no different. I mean, how come they never appear out of scale in bombers but they only look small in fighters? We know for a fact it's the same size model.

Aircrew animations in the He111 are just right and damage modelling seems superb, especially the dented and deformed metal plating. Planes look awesome as usual too.

The only issue i have is with the 1st picture. Lot's of people have commented on it and they said it better than me, as i couldn't initially pinpoint what it was that i found strange.
In short, the planes looks so damn perfect that the terrain seems somewhat out of place and that comes down to two things. First, maybe it just needs higher resolution textures, i don't know. Second, the trees also look like they are made to a higher spec than the rest of the terrain, so they somewhat "stick out" of it. If the trees were not so highly detailed or the rest of the terrain was upgraded a notch or two, they would probably blend in just fine. Maybe the tree detail level in the graphics options could be tied to the terrain texture detail level? Just an idea.

The funny thing is that i have seen screenshots in previous updates where the terrain textures seemed absolutely fine, so maybe it's just a case of tinkering with different settings and resolutions.

However, there's a silver lining in every cloud and in this case, the first screenshot shows its biggest redeeming quality. That draw distance is huuuuuuuge and the way the details fade into the distance is very gradual and well done :grin:

All in all, another promising and very appetizing update and yes, i stand by my assertion that as far as graphics are concerned i'd buy it this instant. They are good enough for me, if the rest of the title (FM/DM, campaign engine, sound, etc) is up to the job i can wait for the details (like pilot head size, road size, etc) to get fixed in the patches following the release.

P.S. The 1c guys may not answer much, but they sure are listening. All this talk about death animations and what did we get in this update? Animations of dead and injured crewmen. It's not even the first time it happened, a member with a good eye for details and knowledge of airframes talked about the size of trim tabs on the 110, guess what? They were corrected too.
The team sure do keep an eye on things and react to what gets discussed around here, just ask nicely about things and it might pop up in the next update ;)

actualy lift is created by air being forced to flow over two different distances. since all things in nature which were disturbed in their original flow try to restore order and harmony, this is also valid for air > thus air from lower part of the wing, which has higher pressure wants to balance with air on the upper surface which has lower pressure > and so creating lift force. since the wing is not indefinite, but very finite plane, air from bellow and above do meet in one point, and this point is of course the wingtip. The drag produced is called induced drag, and there are some vortices, but their force depends on weight. In airplane of such relatively small size the vortice is so weak, that it is almost non existant. On the pilot size debate > I would agree that the a) head is too small (we would need to see the whole body i.e. the 3d model of the pilot) or b) the team has used the lowest position of the seat (this happens when you have original drawings of the plane and some information are missing). I tend to go with the small head...here is the example. Please note, that the seat was adjustable for height, so we were always looking through the centre of the gunsight, which was actualy good old K-14 from the P-47 also used in Yugoslav air force.

http://avijacija.net/airplanes/big/galeb13.jpg

on the scale debate - I would suspect that the roads have only one LOD, and that this is the problem (they seem to have same size regardless of the distance). I will stand corrected by Oleg or Luthier if I'm wrong.

EDIT - I did some quick check in the Corel Draw. I compared two known sizes, i.e. the head and the wheel. It seems that the head in SOW as it stands now is aprox 1/2 too small.

http://avijacija.net/slike/heads.jpg

or closer

http://avijacija.net/slike/head1.jpg

http://avijacija.net/slike/head3.jpg

note> the lenght of the line is same on the head of the pilot and wheel on each individual shot.

Its hard to estimate out the size of objects seen from the air or a distance unless you have an object of known size to compare them to. If it wasn't for the train in that picture I would not really notice how wide the roads are.

1940s British roads in the countryside tended to be single lane, but wide enough that two vehicles could squeeze past each other. Hedges were used on most fields, with drystone walls and post and wire fences being less common. Today most roads are double lane and fences are the most common borders for fields, but there are still areas such as near the English-Welsh border where countryside such as you would see in the 40s still exists.

It is a little frustrating, because this effect would be quite possible to achieve, but I do not know if the team would be willing or able to rework the textures at this point, and since a third party tree and vegetation engine is being used it may not be possible to obtain a convincing hedge effect.

Still at least the next instalment in the series will look very convincing on the ground, British countryside may be hard to recreate accurately but the deserts and towns of the Mediterranean should be right up this game engines alley, and hopefully there will be drivable vehicles by that point. Fighting as or against Rommel's Afrika Korps could be as much fun as flying :grin:

Maybe you shouldn't compare to a guy who has a hat on with padding underneath. Just look at the back of the helmet and see how there is a 2-3 inch step from the back of his neck. I don't think his skull is jutting out like that. Also consider that the photo was shot with a telephoto lense (narrow FOV) while the screenshot is taken at closer to normal FOV. This will affect relative sizes of things.

I don't think our pilot encountered voo-doo head-shrinkers, he looks well proportioned in every other shot.

After seeing this, I reckon we need a black and white gfx option, preferably with nice film grain, for that extra historical 'realism'. ;)

if the scale in this:
http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/acimages...stephenfox.jpg

and this:
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/unitedki...fighter-01.png


look the same as this:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...5&d=1283522572

you need your eyes checked

Why still coming up with the gore thing?????
This thread is about: grass, trees, pilotsize, and scale issues, for your information.

Hmm, .303's at the rate the brownings spat them could still do some messy damage.

But Oleg said, no gore, so maybe we shouldn't talk about it?

Looks to me like a Siebel Si 204.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/germany/siebel-204a.php

Hi Osprey, congratulations on your first post!

Maybe you should read some of the older update thread. You may actually be surprised how often it has been mentioned. But it is nearly impossible to make a judgement of something that is so dynamic as fire from a static screen shot.

To be honest I'm not sure if grainy over exposed gun camera footage would be a good thing to use as a comparison. I found it hard to see much detail of the fire in the video you linked to. (unless you are trying to promote a grainy over exposed atmosphere in the sim?)

Cheers!