Thanks Oleg for the update.

Mr. Maddox, I don't know if these questions have passed here already, or if they have been answered, so here they are:

- Will we see raindrops on the windscreen, like in the original IL2 demo?
- Will we see rivets on the wing and would they be bump- or normal-mapped?
- Is surround gaming (3 screens) being taken into account in development? Flexible FoV? Or will there be an option for users wit 3 screens, to render the view through 3 viewports, like it was done in the racing simulation rFactor?
- Is the SoW engine ready for future 64Bit development, so it can use more than 2GB and load everything into memory on systems that have the memory? Like load all LoD models and all textures into memory to fill up 8GB?

Understood, thanks for the reply.

I'm sure that when the time comes the community will be happy to help expand the variety of voices on comms.

Really looking forward to this, it's obvious your team is making great progress these days... seems like things are mostly being "tweaked" now rather than being created for the first time.

Cheers,
C_G

I was trying to explain with the sample for buildings. You said well about overal problem of compromisses. I would add also that all these things are happening on the great size visible surface and working simultaniosly...

Ok, I must run immediatly at home.
My son will kill me... I promised to teach him today to attack the ships and how right to recover from a dive that to do not put his nose in water.... :)

:cool:

If your son wants to kill you, make him do it in-game.

Looks great , thanks for the update. I think my job perfomance will suffer after release me think.........:grin:

Agree 100%.

I've just spent an hour trying to imagine shot 2 in motion.

Then I spent another hour trying to think of a good enough descriptive.

Couldn't think of one.

Then I saw the individual shadows of the buildings, the details in Andy's post, and remembered the ground detail from the previous few weeks.

How anyone can criticise these update shots is beyond me.

Superb.

Cruel ... think about us ;)

Nice week end :) :)

your son is beta tester? :grin:like father like son acorn stays close to the tree :-P
i like this update!!

Very nice update, thanks Oleg.:grin:

The towns are great, such detail..railings, lights etc. I'm blown away.

Clouds look fantastic too, and the coast with golf courses etc. Simply amazing.

I can't believe how your small team produces such a detailed product.

Well done and thanks for taking the time to keep us informed.

Looking better every friday...
Thx a lot as always Oleg, your dedication and willingness to post are very much appreciated!!!

Greetings

Looking great Oleg, thank you!

Next week could we see some bad weather? Maybe rain, and breaking out on top of an overcast?

Cheers!

Spinner

Well I hope DX11 Offers Oleg's team some performance improvement but not at the cost of eye candy. The promise of DX10 fell flat to be honest. Tesselation could be really help out with cockpit frames guages wheels etc at no extra cost depending on your hardware.

I will also be interesting to see how well multithreading and multicore could help out the simulation. That's no easy feat to pull off correctly.

Hello,

I believe the German equivalent of "Tally Ho" is "Horrido". This too is an old aristocratic hunting term and was used by Luftwaffe pilots in WWII in a similar fashion to British "Tally Ho". This said, I humbly request that the German speech pack be change to reflect this (if there is time).

From the Combatsim forums:

posted 12-12-2002 01:28 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Horrido is a Latin word meaning frightful or frightening. Perhaps the Luftwaffe meant for it to mean "Fear me!" You know, in a Samuel L. Jackson Pulp Fiction sort of way.
Ah, but alas, I really don't know anything . . . found this in (of all places) the EAW newsgroup:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Horrido is a hunting expresion used in [G]ermany. It is a greeting like "good afternoon or howdy...." and it is also used in letting someone live up (I think you don't say that in [E]nglish).... anyway , like the [E]nglish speaking say: "Hip hip" and the answer is "Hooray". German hunters say "Horrido" and the cro[w]d answers "Yo".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, there you go

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

Douglas Helmer
Forum Administrator
publisher@combatsim.com



Cheers and thanks for an awesome update,

Fafnir_6

Are you crazy Oleg? This is the best update yet! The landscape really starts to look great now - even at altitude!

All these pictures would be, I´m sure, awesome three years ago but today they are normal, very nice but normal.Sorry but it´s a long time.

How about comparing it with an actuall 2009 flight sim release instead of whats 2010 flight sim IN YOUR MIND.

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


Feel free to compare ground details.


Edit: In a sence i understand what u mean but u cant compare flight sims with FPS like Modern Warfare for ex.

What are you comparing them to?

You're entitled to your opinion of course but personally I think you're dead wrong and/or need your eyes checking.

Great pictures! It would be neat to see picture#3, but with some planes flying at low altitude. How visible are planes against the ground?

I thought the landscape looked nicer about 3 - 4 months ago.

OMG A golf course!!!


edit: It's "Walmer & Kingsdown GC"
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&so...32093&t=h&z=14

It's not all bang on but frankly only a moron would expect it to be, but worth noting are the Dover Road (A258 ) and Deal railway line are positioned correctly :D

Thanks Oleg for a delightful update. Have a good weekend.

A couple of replies to the thread.

Tally ho is indeed a fox-hunting term, and was used by the pilots to indicate visual recognition of enemy aircraft, as in "Tally ho, bandits at ten o'clock low" or whatever. It wasn't, however, an order to attack. That came after recognition, and came from the squadron leader, flight leader or section leader, with detail on what form the attack would take.
A little research will reveal that the make-up of the pre-war RAF contained many officers from the 'hunting, shooting and fishing' set, so it's really not surprising that they used a fox-hunting term.

As for similarities in the buildings, that's just how it was. The great Victorian expansion brought a systematic use of identical houses and roofs, aided by the use of the railway to import the materials. A trainload of slates from the Welsh mountains would mean hundreds or even thousands of similarly-toned roofs, so, if anything, there is still a little too much variation of colour rather than too little. Likewise for a trainload of bricks - all from the same brickworks - this would mean streets and streets of identically coloured houses. Of course there may be the occasional burst of orange, where some kind of tile has been used on a few houses; and one might expect to see cement rendering on the walls of more 'quality' dwellings. Occasional buildings might even still be thatched, though rarely in a town, and Welsh slate was the most common roofing.

These facts tend to dictate the colours and shades I guess. Slate roofs are a glossy dark grey when wet, but dry to a pastel grey when dry. They are sheets of stone after all, unlike tiles which are made of clay.
The average brick is generally matt too, with only 'engineering grade' bricks having a semi-glazed surface. These were most commomly used for tunnel openings, bridgeworks and railway buildings. Even after rain they are generally matt in appearance as towns and cities tended to be.

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.
It's probably something that most people born after the mid-Sixties (in England) cannot recall at all. In the time of the war it was a big factor as far as overall colouration is concerned.

Excuse me for rabbiting on. I'm over sixty and I have strong memories of the drabness that decades of coal use brought to the townscapes.

Could I humbly request that you don't go too politically correct and keep with language of the time? :) For example, I am also looking forward to the Peter Jackson remake of Dambusters but he's already had to change the name of Gibsons dog because some over sensitive pillocks can't handle the reality of life at the time.

thanks, it's all immersion.

I suggest to delete this member, must be an alias of s.o.

We will see what happens in a few months Swiss ;)

very nice !

and the icons are telling us that SoW:BoB will have a C-4 variant of the Bf110 , that means it has mineshell firing MG-FF/M canons :)

so the hopes for a 109E-4 are not dead ;)

well, 1 post and your nick also says all...

Theres another one (golf course) a little higer up the pic too.. maybe sandwich? but there's loads of courses out there..

LMAO. What a mug.

You don't have to be over sixty Brando! I remember it well. We didn't go 'smokeless' until the 70's. Many buildings still haven't been cleaned up.

I'm not sure if I'd want to see that kind of grime in a flight sim though, even if it did add 'realism'.
Having said that, the air pollution over cities would be a good addition.
Geoff Wellum called it 'Horrible, dirty yellow, curry-coloured smoggy smoke'.

Can't say I fancy the sound of what they passed off as curry back then though.:grin:

Well that's another two added to my ignore list. Some people will never be satisfied!

I had a good look but it's not there. This a definitely not a complaint or problem to me, indeed I'm delighted that detail like this is even considered but technically there are far more courses now than there were in 1940. The sport was pretty exclusive back then and only really played by the wealthy and posh like Doug Badar ;). These courses were mostly built when many sports and clubs formed up, late 19c and early 20c. I'm not convinced that a course would ever get turned over to the plough in 1940 given the wealth and power of the memberships.

One hook thrown by a troll with a brand new nick and we bite like crazy. Just like he wants us to do.

But fantastic update! The terrain now looks superb from high up too, thanks for tuning that Oleg!

They shouldn't be however I hope that the mission builders finally see sense and limit the LW to 30% ish E-1, 20% ish E-3 and the rest E-4. Same goes for the Spitfire/Hurricane mix too.

Your shouldn't be able to communicate with your bombers either ;)

These are great observations.

For years I thought Trinity College in Dublin was built of Limestone, until they cleaned the building -- a very painstaking and expensive chemical-leeching process so as not to destroy the stone. When the green-netted scaffolding came down I was astonished to see it was a very white granite.

dduff

Mostly its the difference between dull weather (today's update) and sunny.

Horrido was the code for Abschuß (=Kill) in the Luftwaffe, for example "Pauke, Pauke" was the code for attack, "Indianer" was the code for enemy fighter, "dicke Autos" stands for 4mot. enemy Bombers etc.
It was forbidden to use other codes.

Page from Deckwortverzeichnis Jägersprechverkehr (German Luftwaffe Brevity Code Handbook):
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/2...nisjaeg.th.jpg

"Simply you should understand that more visible at once _different_ objects on the ground - more power we need for calculation."


Of course, I know it, but I'm still playing IL-2 (even the latest maps, with settings just reduced a little) with an old Athlon3000 with only 1 giga of ram and an old Radeon 9700pro and the game still looks good and playable.

In the next months, I will have a pc which will be much more powerful (but not a "war machine", just a good current pc) and I think it's quite reasonable to expect that a 2011 game will, at least, support some more elements on it than its ten-years old, very good, predecessor.


P.S: note to the fanboys, I don't even read your posts, so no need to flak me, I'm totally indifferent to it.

yes, i know, i never will use that red arrows or any screen market or labels. but i want see MY Fridays screenshots without that.

you son will play SOW before my?! that is not fair, not fair at all.

i need to tell you something, ... i am your another son, oleg, the lost son. i was keeping this for myself too much time.

yes, that is right, you now need to send me SOW beta.
not excuse !:-P


lie, i am descendent of Ukrainians, not Russian people.

Cool! Thanks for the more detailed information. Hopefully the devs have included these in the communications of the new game .

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

Pointless.

What makes you think that it won't support more elements?
As for your last line.. is that the 'net version of sticking your fingers in your ears and la la-ing?

Actually, if you take the first shot you have there and place it next to the third shot from today's update (I think they are of similar altitudes), you'll see that the landscape is MUCH higher resolution/detailed in the new screen. The older shot looks nicer because of the ambient lighting and the large number of trees in the picture. If you look closely at the grass fields in the old shot you'll see the low-detail textures similar to IL-2. This is why everyone is so excited by today's update. SoW has come a long way since those old pictures (especially if you have the machine to take advantage of it).

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

Fighter Ace at six years old
 

Mr Maddox please be a good parent and forbid him from using the internet. If he does tell him he can only use Il2 1946 with no patches. How embarssing to our moral if we know it was Olegs son who just downed half of our bombers and all of the fighters. I hope you two have the best day possible. It is such a great feeling to be able to Sim with family and friends. Due to games like yours, my friends in my squadron are my best friends I have ever met.

Amazing!
 

The clouds, their shadows, the haze ... Amazing!

Funny, I just read that line in his book last night. Thoroughly enjoying it in preparation for SoW!! :-)

Thank you Oleg!

What a pleasure to see the implementation of features in BoB from the beginning to this day. It's like watching Rodin take a block of stone and create a wonderful piece of art..... all the while we're privy to the process. Thanks for the privilege.

I have my 12 year old nephew anticipating BoB. He's been playing IL2 since he was six and while he never cottoned to dog fighting, he makes one hell of a ground-pounder in a Jug or Sturmovik.


Have a good day.

The undulations in the ground in shot 2 are quite something. Subtle shadowing effects based on the angle of the sun. Can't get my head around the complexity of all this. I think those who complain just don't understand the technical achievements being presented in every subtle feature.

Very true...some I think don't take the time to consider the complexity, give/take to achieve decent game play on today's average PC.:grin:

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.
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...0&d=1287150715

1946 DOES have arrows & Oleg has already stated they are optional as they are in 1946, in this very thread.

I think you don't take in account much more details that are in calculation to get just "a bit better" overal picture.

Lets begin from polygon count.

Compare details of tank in Il-2 and in BoB. This was cost several times increment of using power for each unit.
Now compare cars.
Now compare bridges.
Now compare roads
Now compare ships
Now compare planes. The last one is the most important in the fligth sim and here again like it was in Il-2 we have not compromisses for the ratio how it looks.. modelled functions and its damage model and modelled internals with all the listed above things alltogether...
Instead of some using our old models from Il-2 for their own sims with the little bit increment of polygons and size of textures (and repeating the same things that we did oursevlves with no info for details, some time even known for us wrong details(!) we are going with another goal - we try now to recreate planes outside and inside so close looking to real, that never was done before in any sim (even in add-ons for MS FS). And the masterpice is that its already used as a reference in some sources.... yes some time we are making non principal mistakes, but most are eliminated... or some tiome especiall make "mistakes" due to limits of technology
And we don't use some overdone effects that to represent them as used technology and show full illiteracy in some real laws....
And lets say that from the beginning we will offer more than others... its not just 2 or six planes flyable...
Did you count the amount of already shown ground units with its quality? Ah... maybe you don't like our wheels cars? Ok.... then just imagine Kursk Battle and its common polygon and textures count...
We think already now (or really much earlier) about future battles in a series. We think about common development in future of online gameplay together with thrid party....

Continue counting:

new more complex calcualtion for FM not just for several aircraft in air simultaneously
new way more complex AI not just for several aircraft in air simultaneously
new way more complex AI for the ground units.... for the hundres visible at once. The war continues on the ground... massive war if to compare to any other sim... (however I still can say it about Il-2 as well)
New features of the ground units...
Special AI for the AA defence on the ground...

Ok, I'm tired... there is something more to count.... that maybe isn't going in final release but will be as addition in future.

All these things recall increment by exponent of power that we need to use.... Just think about it.

Il-2 inspired at least 3 other sims... with continues... more or less directly based on our Il-2 source code or learning our source code.... Il-2 created some amount of new teams and even new companies...

Should I say that we are thinking about future, about our experience with Il-2 (superb, good and sometime bad....)

Who remember how was developed Il-2 and its series I think understand what I would say now. Hint: we are not making one season game...






You like Il-2. Thats good. You like the amount of things that is done there by us and third party? Thats also good But please take in acount that all these things were developed after the first original Il-2....

Now will be the first new original sim that will be more open for increment....

This message isn't just for you... Its for all who doesn't see the difference now...

Very nice details there, thanks!

Luke

(He 162 Cockpit Modeler ;))

[QUOTE=Xilon_x;189994]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.
/QUOTE]

Like it was in original Il-2 of 2001, then in Forgotten Battles, Ace Expancion Pack, Pacific Fightes and 1946 - there always was these arrows. Please pay attention and use other difficulty settings.
And again... You may switch them off... using other than settings for novices for outside views

In CFS3 was just one arrow in the center if I recall right. And its working by other way. As well as "onscreen radar" , etc

We've had optional arrows in IL-2 since 1.0 ..

Hi, I was thinking that nickname is very known for me :)
You may write me on the old address and I will load the base from there and check it. Then you will know the new one.

And how about the new He 162 for the new sim? :):):):)

It's definitely looking like it's coming together! Not just some technology thrown in.. it's now looking like it's getting closer to being finished and rolling along.

Spectacular images. Keep it up! :)

Don't waste your quality time with your son, getting wound-up about our dumb questions. We'll take care of that:http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/...ault/shoot.gif

Some people just won't understand (chose not to understand?), even if you spell it out for them.

Now you're talking :D :D

Get cracking LukeFF :D

Wonderful update Oleg. Especially love the ground textures and the overall colors. The true feel of atmospheric perspective (especially in certain weather conditions) was what hit me immediately when I first started up IL2 back in 2005. It was a true shock after years of CFS3 and FS sims, and a realization how much they had failed in that department. I am confident to find all this again, and even better.

Messerschmitt 110th
 

We will have probably two versions from the beginning of release.

Ok OLEG MADDOX good the arrows are optional. tank you.

Thanks!
Your words as the ARTman and photographer I accept considerably (hope you understand what I try to say in not native language.... )

But be sure we will have it better :)

the quality of this screenshots, have increased a lot, thanks

I symply understand how busy he is and how much he will need to spend for a new way better model of this plane in free of work and family time....
When it will be ready... hope we will be ready with the new sim again.... about 1945 in Poland where it was met really for the first time in air battle.

But I'm serious. This guy (hope I can say it :)) did real nice job in the past that we didn need to rework like with most others...
There were just several top modellers of aircraft from third party of that level...

The Daimler-Benz 601A engine arrived after nearly eighteen months in time to be incorporated into the Bf110C when delivery was made in January 1939. The first, which was the Bf110C-0 had very few differences to its earlier variant, but in late January-early February the rear machine gun was fitted with a flexible mount and DB601A-1 engines delivering 1,050hp each and was designated as the Bf110C-1. Other variants of the Bf110 were the C-2 which had modified radio equipment, the C-3 which had improved MG FF cannon, the C-4 which had greater protection for the pilot and gunner with the inclusion of armour plating and the C-4B which had improved DB601N power units with each developing 1,200hp giving the Bf110 a top speed of 349 mph.
Bf110 C-3 or C-4
and?...
Bf110 C-4B?


and i want to see that He162, omg!:-P

Oleg..first thanks for the update...i can see the landscape is getting better week by week, but can i ask about the colour of the fields in this weeks update.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1146/land2.jpg
By furbs9999 at 2010-10-15

I live in England and some of the colour of the fields ive never seen before, and the mix of fields next to each other is also something ive never seen, if this is just testing, then thats fine, but to me it doesnt remind me of southen England.

http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/2...resizeraxd.jpg
By furbs9999 at 2010-10-15
This is goodwood airfield at 2000ft in july, the landscape looks much darker with dark borders around the fields and much more green than the SOW landscape.
Are the colours of SOW going to finish looking more like this?

Thanks.

Thanks Oleg. I'm very impressed with the city screenshots. These cities are by far the best I've seen in any flight sim. Is the new build to fix bugs or add/delete features or probably all of the above?

:)

I still have most of my resources from the project, including a copy of the original pilot's manual. Who knows, I may just have to make a new version for SoW. :)

Will e-mail you. :)

Voice Activated commands
 

Here's a question to anyone who may know...

Do you guys think that there might be some sort of voice activation programmed?


With all the new complex & specific commands we can issue, do you guys reckon there might be some off-line voice activattion. Hmm?

This weeks shots are simply brilliant, this sim is going to be epic...
Go team Oleg...

Oleg, great update, probably for me the best for many weeks and that's saying something! It's great to see how the game's developing.
I do agree with Furbs though, the landscape here has a saturated look to it IMO which is not a bad thing, but for Summer it looks quite green and lush.
Having said that, I can't wait to see what your ground-modeller will show us next week.

Oleg, the clouds look nicer too. Can I ask if they are final? They look awesome, but IMO would look a lot better if they had flat bottoms. Sorry if I sound like an old-record.

Oleg, with the arrows, I think it's a great idea but I prefer the system in the game BoB2 which shows icons instead of arrows (in the case of BoB2, a roundel for British planes and a cross for Luftwaffe ones) I can see, though, that if Italians planes are modelled, they'd need an icon too.
I find this system much more aesthetic, but perhaps you disagree? Just a thought ;)

great update, I can't praise this game enough.

:)

I owe a debt of gratitude to Ilya for being so patient with me. :-)

Not too sure about the photograph.

On my monitor(admittedly not calibrated for some time) the colours are slightly off.

It's allways a bit difficult to quantify perception, most people don't even know what they're seeing.
But often timesthey do know if something doesn't look right.
Or not if you judge by how awful the colours are on most TV sets LOL

Might be the time of day?

Look for the sample bellow. It was done from your sample using professiona photo tool Lightroom 3.2 which I trust very much.

By simple clicking of special White balance tool on the grey surface of this photo where it must be grey by definition of light laws we get more real picture that was when the camera did the shot.
I also can to restore contrast, but already this one action is enough to imagine...

The camera never get the right color. We may get it right only after we already did the shot by using some rules.
In the other hand the human eye never remember the right color...just close approxination... and when again we see the picture of the same place human thinking that it is right colors.... It is a nature of human eye to brain work.
I can't spend the time to teach for the laws in light and its representation from matrix of the modern camera (even professional). I would say only that thing: the shots that are done non in RAW format with using some rules that to restore later the right colors are always wrong. Be sure. JPEG opf cameras can't show right color in complex light conditions that are in the air on altitude comparing to the thing for which they are designed... (also even there are not right)

And answering your question I already told above - not final.

However looking for my sample how it was really (close to that sample) you should think about.... or take some tiome to search for the white balace and color/colorcontrast distortions in digital cameras (or film - some other sort but also with great distortions)

Only these developers that don't know these laws make the "right colors" of the world in their products :):):)... Hope you understand what I said.

Man, some real gold nuggets in there I think, both from what was said and what "could" be extrapolated.

Oleg, I shall take a shot of vodka now in your honor (real Russian stuff too!). This posting of yours is every bit as much appreciated as the screen shots.

Ok....three vodka shots, just to be sociable of course.

Splitter

Will we be able to adjust colour & whitebalance to adjust it our own particular distorted view of the world?

Thanks very much for the reply Oleg, i know the SOW screens are WIP and will be tuned until release, thats why im not too worried :)

Im just also thinking about the colours i see each day and when im out mountain biking through the countryside of southen England, to me it is much more green with dark colours.

Ive just never seen that mix of so many light and pastel colours of fields next to each other, the fields i see each day blend into each other more.

Anyway thanks again for the reply and looking forward very much to be flying over my home town.

Hi Oleg

I totally agree with C_G and it would absolutely be a pleasure to do it. I have access to many professional recording studios and talented voice artists... If you send sample scripts or proposed reads, I can certainly make them happen...
We can also do multiple varients on theme or even some specialist reads.
(How about some Arnold Schwarzenegger chatter or maybe some Sean Connery... Or even Nelson Mandela)

I'm in South Africa - So any english dialect is simple to get done well (SA, Aus, English, irish, scots, American etc) are no problem at all... If you want I can even get you some radio chatter in Zulu or Xhosa... Its also no problem to get english reads in different ethnics accents (English in a German accent or English in a Japanese accent etc) Just say the word.

I could probably convince a couple of Professional voice artists to sign over usage rights... The offer is there.

Bf110C-4 and C-7 ?! :)

There is the tool inside to adjust a lot of things in lighting and colors. The question is will be or not it fully accesible for end user. We will decide it after we will get all things in release of master.
On some of the early shots with the sky you may find the menu of this tool.

Ok thanks for answering.:)


Maybe a few presets like Real, Kodachrome or B&W

Different spinners ?
 

Thanks for another great update Oleg.
It may have been a bit smaller, but it was full of amazing and interesting content.:cool:

I really like the communications. Much more information being given, with the possibility of AI kill stealing (hopefully) being a thing of the past.

It also looks like the Hurricane in shots 2 and 3 has a large round type spinner, while the Hurri in shot 5 seems to have the smaller pointy type spinner.
We may well be getting multiple variants of the Hurricane as well as the Bf110.:grin:

I'm really looking forward to buying this game, but every update is making the waiting all the harder.;)

Once again, thanks Oleg and team.

Kent
 

Lovely screen-shots over east Kent. I just had a holiday there this July (grew up there too). All looking great - you can almost make out Walmer Castle, it seems. I wonder, is it actually modelled? A bit of a can of worms though, because there are dozens of castles in Kent. And ;) some amazing trees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB0UEgW3Yfw

Perhaps this has been asked and answered before, but I was curious about the overall plan for the whole SOW series.

First release is Battle of Britain, mid-late 1940. What comes next? Perhaps the Mediterranean/N. Africa? Late 1940-mid/late 1941 with the release perhaps centred around Malta? Then maybe late 1941-mid 1942 centred on perhaps the desert campaign? Etc, etc.

Basically, is it the idea to release "Campaign Packs" or whatever you want to call them, with maps and aircraft, etc, directly related to those campaigns, or perhaps the releases will based on a timeline, with a 1941 expansion, 1942 expansion, etc?

And how far apart would these releases perhaps be? A year, two years?

I'm not looking for exact answers, I'm just curious what has been envisaged for the overall strategy of game expansion particularly when you consider the possibility of 3rd party contributions. Perhaps it would help to focus the efforts of those particular individuals who are capable and want to get their contributions included in the game on working on relevant projects that will help "complete" a given campaign set, or whatever. This would be better than what happened in the past where people would create models of random aircraft that they thought were cool rather than look at the overall game and figure out what was perhaps needed.

Of course, the fact that there are people who are willing to devote time and energy to these projects is a great thing, and certainly most people would want to create their dream fighter plane, or their favourite oddity, or whatever, but a little co-ordination in the future would be nice!

One question i have not yet seen the answer: can we program the keys to do other things than just press and realese, like we do on the keybord, have we options to add switches on-off, so cockpit builters dont have to use programs to map keys ?

Other question i was long looking was answered last week: if other pilots see our head turning as we change the direction to where we look. Oleg told game is prepared for that, but BOB will not have it for now.

Thanks all.

Yes, we model subtypes. Including types of props.

Repetitive buildings are neccessary...

... and also realistic. There are some parts of England where housing consists od a large number of clones of a single design. I recall seeing a massive area of such in Preston, Lancs.

Mr. Maddox, I don't know if these questions have passed here already, or if they have been answered, so here they are:

- Will we see raindrops on the windscreen, like in the original IL2 demo?
- Will we see rivets on the wing and would they be bump- or normal-mapped?
- Is surround gaming (3 screens) being taken into account in development? Flexible FoV? Or will there be an option for users wit 3 screens, to render the view through 3 viewports, like it was done in the racing simulation rFactor?
- Is the SoW engine ready for future 64Bit development, so it can use more than 2GB and load everything into memory on systems that have the memory? Like load all LoD models and all textures into memory to fill up 8GB?

Hi Oleg,

Really nice screens. Love it.

Question: will you include a paper hardcopy manual, or just a pdf inside the DVD? A real book would be much appreciated ...

Cheers,
Insuber

Thanks for the reply Oleg.

This just keeps on getting better and better.:grin:

I can't tell exact things.
Even I wont tell it right now.
Everything will depends of success or not success of BoB... and income in both cases.

General: we plan next title that will use about half of the modelled units in BoB. It will be separate sim, self-sufficient sim, but with possibility to merge with BoB (Like it was with Pacific Fighters probably for the first time succesfull in the world practice of game development).
We also plan to expand by the same method in future with the third , etc... that to get then in future again large sim, that will play a lot of people opf different interest and some many years.

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. Why the third will be anounced earlier than the second... for this is many reasons... One of them the team must be educated before they really will have output.

And again if all will be Ok... there was Korea in plan with dozens of things already modelled.

In parallel - promised tools for third party.
If success of BoB - then I expect third party teams making:
Aircraft
Ground and sea units
Online maps

in time - controlable by user ground units... including for the online gameplay.

Ok.... this is dreams and possible ways.
Everything is very complex and need great investments.

maybe no manual at all?
I don't think we will have paper manual... novadays it isn't real things in most cases... we are in the niche where we need economy very much that to be in profit and to develop the series.

Roger Oleg tank you. No manual at all? I guess it is bit of late night humour, isn'it? :D

oleg - have been looking at some old pics of the tanks and vehicles you have made. they are spectacular.

i'm curious about the opening hatches on the tanks. are we likely so see soldiers as well? will there be people on the ground or will the vehciles be empty?

keep up the great work. very excited about this game

That all sounds very spectacular. Thank you for sharing what you can with us. I will have my fingers crossed for your success!

Thanks for the quick reply Oleg!! I'm very interested to hear the news of this 3rd title - is it perhaps Barbarossa?:grin:

Flight Leader orders
 

Thanks Oleg, for another excellent update.

Quote: From Mason Hurricane Leader in pic
"Attention! Engage Fighters
Spread out!
Attack Scheme: Section by section
Mission Leader speaking. I'm going for the leader from the second element.
Forming up on your wing. Mason two!
I'll fly your wing, Mason three!
Mason four. Attack the leader from the first element
I've got your six. Mason five!
I'll fly your wing, Mason six!"

For me, this is an exciting new development for the BOB-SOW fight sim over the old IL2 order menu.
The Flight leader now obviously has more control of his individual pilots which will make the 'game play' much more interesting and immersive.

Some questions Oleg.
As Flight Leader will you be able to create your own commands, using a list of words the flight sim can be programmed to recognize.
For example: "Mason six. You are trailing heavy smoke - return to base"
Leader this is Mason two - I am out of ammo! Mason two this Mason Leader - return to base to re-arm. etc. etc.
Will the flight sim eventually have a voice recognition program - built in?
DFLion

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