Did this forum suddenly turn into the Met office or something?

Go here and look at some clouds, then stop generalising.

Exactly.

I work on software, not games, but it's the same story.
When we review customer feedback we probably spend 5% of the time on the "good" feedback (yeah, we know that's cool or at least working) and 95% on the NEGATIVE one.
Heck, we probably spend more time *getting* into the meeting room, taking seats and setting up the projector than on the positive things!

Personally I don't care about how harsh the feedback is:
I'm a professional, I'm paid to do my job so I sit down, set aside feelings and try to filter and elaborate on the good input, that is, anything that I can use when I get back to my desk to improve stuff.
Sure, there are times when you read a sentence and all you can say is "this guy's an idiot, he didn't even understand the feature!" but it still leaves you with something to think about...

What's different on a forum compared to "static" customer feedback is interactivity.
People answering back to others that made negative/bad/harsh comments are just polluting the good info, that is, again, stuff that *might* make the product better.
In this thread there are already more than 200 posts and probably only 20 or so that contain anything the team working on SoW can find useful!

One last thing and then I'll finish with this whining.
Stop talking like you were in Oleg's brain!
"I'm sure they will do it" / "It's certain they will change it"
No, you can't be sure or certain about anything and, once again you pollute the forum with nothingness.
There can be one godzillion (which is a godzilla followed by a lots of zeroes) reasons why that specific thing you are sure about in a piece of software cannot be changed with reasonable effort.

That's all, good night!

Now only you would claim to be able to see those cloud's base, are you going mad?;):-P:-P...you would need to be at a reasonable similar altitude, not thousands of feet above, as is the view in those shots.:confused::confused:

It's one thing to offer constructive criticism (best supported with documentation/photos, etc).

It's quite another to say that the entire effort looks like some child painted it with water colors. This is where the frustration is coming in to play.

Non-meteorologists looking outside their window and commenting on the inaccuracy of clouds isn't quite constructive either, though the intentions may be good.

Lastly, the whining attitude is not exactly welcome to people who are working their asses off 13+ hours 6-7 days a week. ("We should be seeing videos at this stage, why are you still showing screen-shots, this is a boring update"). Have you noticed how many times Oleg has gotten sick this past year? I assure you it's not at all from sleeping in.

Gosh I feel like Chris Crocker when I say, all you people want is MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!!!

All things considered, I don't think it looks too bad:

http://www.islandbreaks.co.uk/xsdbim...nesaerial2.jpg

Sorry for the small pic, best I could find! This is St.Catherine's on the Isle of Wight; you can just make out how steep it really is and the 'double step' up from the sea.

I think you understand my point Foo'bar. Oleg could have waited until just before the release date and published a fantasy video like the one I posted. Instead he's chosen to show us the "real deal."

CFS3 was highly criticized after release and you could say it really hit the shelves. My copy is still on the shelf after several frustrating attempts to enjoy it. SoW will be a different story. After its release there might be a few growing pains but I believe it will another long-running playable and re-playable sim like IL-2 Sturmovik.

Thank you Mr. Maddox for the update pictures and especially for your comments about the progress to date!

I have very few posts on this forum, as you can see. Usually I have had only compliments for the updates and for that I am labeled a ‘fanboy’. But, I also had only one criticism in the past, and that was agreeing with some others about the size of the Hurricane pilot. For that I am labeled a “stupid troll, ignorant terd (or was it turd), etc. :lol:

There is no winning! Either I am whining or I am groveling like a dog for approval!

But do not be discouraged. I think that some people do not even read all the previous posts in a thread and they ask for things that you have already spoken about. People are like that.

And others have a double standard. The Hurricane pilot size is not to be mentioned ‘on peril of death’, but the leaf colour, tree trunk sizes, road widths, tracer appearance, colour of the tires (just kidding) and who knows what other details, are ok to criticize…??

This is all very puzzling for someone relatively new to this forum. I think that it demonstrates the old adage “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”. We will never agree on all points!

I, and many others, still look forward to the release of this combat flight sim.

Good luck!

For starters, cliffs erode, and sometimes rather quickly. Today's landscape isn't going to match 1940's landscape 100%.

Allow me to respectfully disagree with you here and say that there is nothing out of the ordinary with these clouds, and in fact they are quite realistic as I see these types quite often. I have also flown very close to clouds (but not in them as I'm not IFR certified). Theses are already rather flat in appearance, but you shouldn't expect to see table-tops except for under certain conditions.

Tracer color, leaf color, etc are subjective based on our experiences and monitor calibrations. Pilot size is scaled in the 3D engine along with every other object. It's impossible to make a pilot which is shorter than you scale it to be. If it's 175cm, it's 175cm, no speculation necessary.

B.R.20...Magnifico!!!!

Excellent work! but did i see an italian fighter attacking a wimpy from behind?? .. not the best tactics, maybe an inexperienced pilot?

My $100 is burning a hole in my pocket!

He 111.

The Terrain and Clouds are looking really good in todays screenshots. I'm ecstatic that the developers didn't go the route of some IL-2 map modders who went with satellite photographs to develop their terrain. Satellite photo realistic terrain looks decent at high altitude, but its total crap when flying at lower altitudes.. SOW terrain can be steadily improved upon in future updates, while satellite terrain will always look like crap.

Nicest clouds we've seen yet!

Look at the bullet/canon damage in screen shot number 4 and then compare it to this, something has gone very wrong here IMHO. The damage in screenshot no: 4 looks like a black bitmap splodge over the top of the skin.




http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4971/spitdamage.jpg

Looks awesome to me 0leg. Can't wait to play this baby.

I've never been so disapointed in a product in all my life. I took it back to the EB an hr. after I bought it...what a joke.

Another prime example of constructive criticism. Way to go Tree!

I have a question about the damage model.. I know that leaks and such will be modeled... and I expect them to be well done.. but in the case of say an oil leak.. as in I am shooting a bandit.. I hit his engine and he starts to spew oil... or even if I get hit and I spew oil.. those leaks should only last for a limited duration and shortly after they stop one would expect the engine to seize up correct? I am also thinking that whatever the effect is it will be animated... yes?

Stop worrying woman. :grin:

I agree - a lot of people are pretty blind. They don't see the changes (or what is implied by them). They'd be happier with pre-rendered intro videos.

I don't think Oleg should really post update. I show up every friday for them though (but if I were him I'd have called it quits a while back). I'd say burn the forum to the ground! Leave nothing standing!

It seemed different in the old days (before Il-2 was released) - there were other WWII flight-sims in existence. If people were there it was because Il-2 had a novel environment (Great Patriotic War) and because Oleg was responsive and innovative.

IMHO, I think a lot of the whining demographic was on the CFS2 and CFS3 forums. Sure, we begged for features (politely) and there was even some groveling - but it wasn't this level of entitled bullshitting. Remember that it was a time period when only TK/EAW really consulted with fans and the Flanker team occasionally commented, but it was rare and a little aloof).

Looking very good
 

Thanks Oleg,
Good to see the Italian Airforce represented. Liked the shots of the Wellington (hope you are working on a future four engined British heavy).
I am reading lots of Library BOB books in anticipation of working in the new FMB. The more you read about the 'Battle of Britain' the more you see the mission building possibilties. I am really hoping for a vast improvement on IL2 in this area - lots of trigger point scenario's.
Hope you can fix the 'bad weather' bugs soon and show us some pics.
Finally, how was your move?
DFLion

LMAO you just made every whiner cry.:grin:

Folks, it's also quite obvious that the machine utilized to snap these screenshots is not running any form of Anistrophic Filtering, or Anti-Aliasing.

Those will make an incredibly massive difference in improving the quality of the ground textures.

It has also been stated multiple times that the ground textures are not set to the maximum setting.

Please wait for some definitive screenshots before ripping it apart ;)

Ahh..and so you are saying that road width, tree trunk size, and all other sizes are not scaled like the pilot size or in your words "every other object"?

Strangely, some others noticed a discrepency as well, when it came to pilot size...

Nevertheless, all opinions and observations should be accepted without malice which was more to the point of my post.

Cheers!

You see what all you whiny retards did.:evil:

I think this is because we don't have a dedicated moderating team. Nearmiss is just one person and he can't be everywhere all the time.
The double edged sword about forum moderation however, is the fact that those who spent a lot of time on a forum and could possibly moderate are usually also the same people who can't keep a level headed attitude and totally lack the qualities of a good moderator :grin:

I commented on the update previously but in an effort to get things back on track i'll just say that i can't wait to see the multi-engined birds in action, that wellington is making my hands sweat :-P
I usually fly 190s in IL2 but since there's no focke wulfs in BoB i'll have to choose a different ride.

Sure, i'll fly the fighters too, but with the improvements in FM/DM and systems modelling that are coming along i think i'll greatly enjoy flying a more complex aircraft on a regular basis. If this is coupled with improved multiplayer capabilities for online flying and a "smarter" dynamic campaign engine that can maintain a good balance between triggered events and free flowing action, i think we'll be in for a treat.

Just think of the kind of missions available to twin engined aircraft for the timeframe that SoW will focus on, there are some unusual mission types that have almost never been done properly so far.

Me 110s: Starting with the more common stuff here. Apart from the usual air combat, during BoB Erprobungsgruppe 210 (is that even the correct spelling? :-P) pioneered some experimental and very effective ground attack tactics in the Jabo role. If the AI in single player is multi-layered as has been told in some old interviews and we can be vectored by radar in multiplayer, then things will be pretty much interchangeable between offline and online with regards to the amount of cool tricks we can do.

Here you go then, jump in that 110 and fly at wave-top height across the channel without the advantage of increased visibility range that high altitude flying gives you. You can't fly by the landmarks and map if all you see around is water. Draw up a flightplan that you can distribute to your wingmen (AI or human), view and edit in flight so that you know what the route legs are. Then after take off, tune that direction finder antenna or have your navigator do it and vector you (either a human navigator in multiplayer or an AI one, i wonder if there will be some scripting support so that we can create crewmen functions). Just as you pass over the radio beacon you can see the needle in the instrument reversing. You call up your inflight map and take a look at your notes, the target is at a bearing of 300 from the beacon so now you know where to fly. Nearing the coast you lose signal reception but it's almost time for the pop-up anyway. Merely miles from the radar towers you are targetting, you climb up to 2000-3000 feet to take a look at the landscape and orient yourself. Your squadmate calls "there it is, 10 o'clock low", you instruct full military power and go on a shallow dive, the entire flight releasing bombs in a single shallow pass, leveling off at tree top level to dodge the flak. Swinging around in a wide arc you settle on a south-easterly heading and cross the coast outside the range of the flak batteries. A few miles later your navigator's voice crackles in your headphones "we've got reception from the NDB again, follow the needle and it'll take us straight to it, then after reaching the beacon vector 120 for home base". For extra cool points, do it with a single 110 as a pathfinder leading a flight of Jabo 109s.

Do17: Not flyable initially, but famous for its low level attacks.

Ju88/He111: Apart from day bombing raids the 111 was also heavily involved in the night pathfinder role. Try to fly a precise heading, altitude and airspeed, because the points where the radio beams intersect to signal bomb release are fixed and don't account for different altitude and speed. The rest of the formation drops on your command.

Blenheim: Good old suicidal low-level bombing runs across the channel, targetting occupied ports and airfields. Flak bursting all around, 109s whizzing by and you're stuck with one of the most vulnerable aircraft of the time. You'll have to rely on some pretty clever routing and high speed, low level flying to maintain the element of surprise and ensure survival, but that makes bomb aiming a bit difficult. Quite the nice challenge. Need i say more?

Bristol Beaufort: I don't even know if there are plans to include it at some point, but the type flew a lot of mine laying, torpedo/anti shipping and bombing sorties during BoB. Similar missions for the beaufighter and mosquito (if and when they are included) with the addition of night fighter sorties.

Avro Anson: It could make for a cool twin engined trainer and light attack aircraft in coastal command colours.

Hampden/Wellington: The start of bomber command's offensive. They too could be used for mine laying and anti-shipping strikes, but longer ranges and heavier payloads make for some pretty daring raids if a map is released to support them at some point.

Various types: Photo reconnaisance work.

I'm not going to lie. If the aircraft systems are sufficiently modelled then 5 years down the line i'm looking forward to a big enough map so that i can get a couple of mustang escorts to scout out ahead, assemble my flight of twin engined bombers and tear across occupied Europe at tree-top level, all the way from Norway to the Ruhr valley. And that's coming from someone who spends most of his time in IL2 flying luftwaffe birds :grin:

Everyone that is what I would call a viable member of this forums wants the updates and discussions with Oleg or Luthier. That is the crux of the matter that has been bantered around a good part of today.

The developers don't have to post updates or respond to anything on this forums. I don't think any of us wants to have a repeat of the old ORR days at Ubisoft.

Moderators have tried to keep On topic discussions in the update threads, but discussions get side tracked. After the first few hours it is very rare for Oleg or Luthier to make additional responses. IMO, I don't blame them.

Regardless, from a moderation standpoint all the fire is out after the update has been posted for a couple of hours...everything else afterward is just so much "smoke" and verbs.

It is important to have on topic discussions as long as Oleg or Luthier are posting the thread. When the negative stuff starts in they get back to work, which is more productive than trying to answer nonsense whines.

Report the junk postings, especially when the updates are fresh posted. Moderators get immediate email notifications and can usually deal with the trouble postings very quickly. Otherwise, we don't always hang on the forums... we have things to do as well.

Thanks for the pictures of the Italian aircraft! Very much appreciated.

Thank you very much Oleg and team for this weeks update despite the move and all.

P.S. The extra vid was in my opinion way beyond nessesery.


If u think about it, 95% of us enjoy the hell out of friday updates and relize its a work in progress. Consructive input is one thing but we also know you and the team actually knows what u are doing, please keep that in mind and keep up the good work.


Thx.

Haven't posted on the update before now as I was just too pissed off with the attitudes of some people here to be bothered.

As others have already said, to get such a level of ungrateful whinging after being told we may not even get an update at all made pretty bad reading. No wonder Oleg got annoyed.

I suspect part of the problem we're hitting now is a growing mismatch between what people have been able to imagine the game would be and the approaching reality of what it actually is. You can detect an air of disbelief in some posts - "that isn't the 'real' terrain/smoke/texture/clouds - Oleg's holding it back to nearer release date..."

We've all had plenty of time, unencumbered by too many inconvenient 'facts' to create a fantasy of complete perfection - a cinematically-perfect recreation of 1940 aerial combat in which every facet that is most important to us is perfectly recreated - be it 100% accurate fm/dm, cinematic terrain, perfectly reproduced clouds, totally accurate aircrew uniforms, etc.

And we've been able to get away with this for so long because we didn't have evidence to the contrary.

Now the release date is getting closer and we find that all we are going to get is a very good flight sim! The best on the market no doubt and with room for growth and improvement, but falling short of perfection in areas where we'd begun to feel a sense of entitled certainty.

And so the disillusionment kicks in.

Anyway, I'm sure things will continue to improve up to release (and beyond). As others have said, until we really see this nearer to final production release on high settings without jaggies, etc it is next to impossible to judge its overall quality anyway - personally I am already pleased with what I've seen - it won't take too much more tweaking to get it very, very good.

But maybe we'd better get used to the idea that 'perfection' might have to wait a little longer?
-------
MD_Titus said it pretty well...
...while also claiming the record for the longest forum post I've ever seen (narrowly beating Blackdog_kt's recent efforts. Blackdog always puts in well-reasoned and interesting posts, but God, they're long. One of these days I hope to read one all the way through ;) )

Yes it looks differant and while we are at it, tell me, what graphics setting is used in those last screens in this weeks update.

Im just asking since u seem to know something/alot the rest of us dont.

Will be a pleasure.

Oleg.

Good job. I believe the final product will be great.

Please no more friday updates becouse there is so many trols and spamers.


rgr.

No! Please friday updates to anybody but me :D

Nah.

Tree is just very thoroughly when it comes to find something negative.

And very creative to make an oddity a big life-threatening issue.

Well thats just my point Baron, we have not seen any high res screen shots with aircraft over terrain, the only high res aircraft we have seen are the ones against a standard blue WIP background. It would be nice to have just one screenshot with everything in high res and in DX11, considering that the game is effectively finished according to Oleg, with just bugs to iron out you would think that such a screen shot wouldn't be a big ask. It just seems strange that the subject as been ignored or swerved.

In reality im just asking the question that most of you want answered.

In what sense is this "strange"? It's consistent with the apparent way Oleg and Luthier prefer to release progress updates. Just because you think they have to prove something to you doesn't mean that's really the case.

Well said Kendo, i think you may have hit the nail on the head here.It is a bit like Christmas, world cup final, [whatever you find that fits the idea] ,all the build up,all the hype all the tension and then a big let down at times.
I do also have to say that MAYBE Oleg has had a bit to do with it as well by drip feeding and hinting it is all WIP and not near finished so people assume there is still 50% more improvement to come,possibly on some things but i doubt it on all.
He does need now to make a decision on starting to show what is actually going to be a finished result OR maybe leave a few weeks until he can.
I daresay we will all buy the product anyway.
An easier idea is for Oleg to post any developments as he does now BUT then it is locked and all discussions about it are deleted,if there are any obvious problems that Oleg and his team need to know [ie accuracy ] they can be sent via PM or via moderators.

(Sorry to start the swastika discussion again.)
Wouldn't it be possible to make a downloadable patch for the realistic markings with swastika's? The Internet is 'intercontinental water' so laws don't really matter. (Or am I wrong?) So the people who want realistic markings can download it.

...




A floral study (I know, just starting to talk about tree again :grin: :grin:)

The Undercliff and the surrounding countryside;

Then and ...

http://www.back-of-the-wight.shalfle...liff_motor.jpg




http://www.back-of-the-wight.shalfle...cliff_fall.jpg




http://www.back-of-the-wight.shalfle...cliff_1904.jpg



... Now.

http://www.wight-cam.co.uk/WightCAM/...ang/Pana04.jpg



...

I think its more to do with some of the things Oleg has said, for example Oleg was very dismissive of the 'Wings Of Prey' terrain, claiming that SOW would be far better, to date its simply not unless of course Oleg is holding something back which seems bizarre if we are as close to release as they would have us believe. Cinematic, and real time weather have been promised along with manning AA guns and DX11 etc , but so far we have not seen anything of these at this late date, so i think a lot of expectations have been brought about by the devs, who it seems maybe struggling to live up to them. If Oleg says listen guys the terrain has had to be scaled down in order to make the whole thing playable then thats fine with me, but im still taking his last word on the subject in that it will be a lot better than WOP/BOP and until i hear or see otherwise I can only measure what i currently see with his last statement.

This is at least the 8th time you've mentioned the terrain in this thread. What is your point? Why can't understand that what you are seeing is unfinished. Oleg has already said he doesn't want the competition to see it too early.

Now it's the devs fault?

Are you saying that Oleg is a liar? Are you implying that they are not going to have better terrain than BoP/WoP? Have you seen this game running at max settings? Or maybe you think you could do a better job?

I'm not saying you can't point out what you like/don't like. But you have to take the updates in context. You simply cannot compare these rough screenshots to the final product. You should take this into account before you decide to keep on and on about something that is basically irrelevant.

My question was directed to Oleg, not to you. I have no need to explain myself to you. I have supplied evidence, and posted calmly without whinging or whineing. My original post was nicely structured, and simply asked whether these clouds models were still WIP. You blew my post way out of proportion. yet why should I have to explain myself to you every week? Are you Oleg's sacred messenger? Have you spoken to him personally and do you know what kind of realism he is aiming for? No.
Not that I am doing you a discredit, but your constant belittling of simple posts is just boring, Winny. It happens most weeks and just leeds to flame wars. I know I add to it by replying to you, but it's just boring now. I am not some cloud nut. I based my observation on what I see most (summer) days in kent, and even throughout the year the type of clouds un question (cumulus off the top of my head) will form quite profoundly. The clouds in SoW currently look like cotton-balls, and have no profund shape.
Read this:

Cumulus clouds are a type of cloud with noticeable vertical development and clearly defined edges. Cumulus means "heap" or "pile" in Latin.
As air rises, warmed up by the ground, the temperature falls by adiabatic effect (fall in pressure) to an average rate of 0.65 C per 100 m of altitude.

At 15 C (the average temperature worldwide) a cubic meter of air can contain 14 grams of water. No more.

As the rising air cools down, it has less and less place for water vapour and soon the temperature reaches what is called the dew point, i.e. when the air is 100% saturated and cannot cools any further without condensing in droplets; the cloud.

The base of the cumulus is flat because it is exactly the place where the air reaches the dew point.

But once 'in the cloud' the air cools down at a lower rate because the condensation of water creates energy released as heat. Because of that, the air inside the cloud continues to rise until, eventually the temperature becomes even with the surrounding temperature and the convective rise stops.

The reason the top of the cumulus is cauliflower shaped is that, each 'bump' is in fact the top of one cell of warm air that has been rising.

Such cells, often called thermic cells are what glider pilots are looking for because they use it to circle in and climb. You will also see birds like seagulls and eagles taking those 'elevators' to gain altitude without effort.


Thankyou Winny. I researched it for you, and I think this answer answers the question ;)


@Slipball: you may be right about seeing the bottoms of the clouds, as the view in the shots is slightly above them. Nonetheless, there is no defined shape that leads to the bottom of the clouds, as one might see when flying above clouds. It is hard to explain, but my quote (I feel) gives a good explanation of this paticular type of clouds ;)

Does anyone know if Oleg has shown anything in DX10 or 11 yet? or has he said what settings his screenshots are taken at?...that would at least give us some context to put the shots we have seen so far into.

Oleg has never said he doesn't want the competetion to see it, anyway , what competetion? If what we have been told is true the game is all but finished other than bugs, so the imaginary competeion will see it soon anyway? Doh!!

My post above answers this quite well. They may look good to you, but please, post a photo of clouds that look exactly like this (over England). Then I may begin to believe that these look realistic.
It's just like the smoke issue. When I first said the smoke didn't look good, people started saying I was wrong. I was called a moaner, and a whiner and I think you were one of the people you said that to me, Romanator. Then Luthier and Oleg replied by saying they hated the smoke more than the minority who had truthfully expressed their opinions. So here we had it; I was right in this instance.
Until Oleg replies, you can be as fan-boiish as you want, but it won't change the fact that Oleg and Luthier have proved you wrong in the past. That's why my original post was in good taste. It just got blown way out of proportion.

;)

He posted some DX10 shots of some trees a while ago. :grin: They'll be on Foobars site. They have DX10 printed on them.

you got a link to them DX10 trees? :grin:

Here you go ;)

bottom of the page:
http://fooblog.mexxoft.com/category/...s/2010/page/5/

Yes he did.(look back through his posts, he said that when they showed IL-2 originally some of the competitors 'borrowed' the ideas and he wanted to avoid this happening again). And that wasn't really my point. Why would Oleg lie to us as you seem to be accusing him of? No competition? So there are no other flight simulators available? You'll say anything in order to add to your 'point' won't you?

I'll ask you again, we all know you think the terrain is poor, what's your point?

Wrong again, maybe you should take the time to review Oleg's postings before spouting rubbish. Oh wait, you couldn't even be bothered to read what he said about the bonus video this week let alone anything he's said in the past so I guess that's not going to happen.

Tree's point is, simply, that he feels it isn't up to 2010 standards. Ideally, Oleg would reply to this and say whether they are still working on it or not. Read between the lines, it isn't hard.

cheers :)

Hahahahahahhaha! This from somebody who can't even read what Oleg actually posts? LMAO!

Well...im also dissapointed "so far" with the landscape that we have seen. im hoping it will be much better by the time i get to play the game myself.

Like ive said before...we dont know what settings or setup Oleg is running to take screenshots, so its hard to judge the final look of the landscape.

Everything else Oleg has shown, from aircraft, ground units, clouds, damage model and crew has been fantastic and will set a new standard for flight sim.

The stuff he hasnt shown like, flight model, sound and others stuff im sure will also be great.
Taking all that into account, for me thats why im dissapointed "so far" with the landscape.

I think that's a fair point, but the main thing is that we've all filled in the blanks where there was a lack of information. We've assumed standards that maybe were just too high.

The reality was always going to have a hard time matching the dream we've all built up about this. It's inevitable given just how sky-high the expectations were. In our dreams it really was perfect.

A few months back people were resisting the idea that when they bailed out over England they wouldn't be able to interact in a completely life-like way with a fully realised miniature 1940s world - with cars, buses, cows in the fields, people walking around, etc as they made it back to their airfield on foot or swam the Channel.

Now Oleg did mention buses and traffic on the roads, also animals - but not in the way that some people latched onto it.

In truth, the landscape isn't scaling the heights that I'd hoped for (dreamt of...?) yet either, but unlike some others I don't think it's that far off. A little tweaking of colours / lighting to get away from the pastel effect - some of the 'polishing' that Oleg referred to, and some higher quality settings, AA, etc.

This thread needs cleaning up.

Oleg

99% are grateful for your time and hard work giving us an update on Friday's.
1% are never going to be grateful or appreciative of your unique approach as a developer.

Keep smiling :)

Ah, well......:rolleyes:

Show me. What have I done to upset you? I posted saying I wasn't happy with the clouds, and I think they could do with a bit of work to look 2010 quality.
I have always been grateful of Oleg's work; if I wasn't, I wouldn't send him dozens of research pages that he asked me to send him. What have you done to help him? Nothing.
Thankyou.

My original post. What is ungrateful about this:
Oleg, are the clouds shown final? They look quite nice, but IMHO are a bit grey? Also, they still look quite cotton-ballish. I hope this makes sense. I am sure it can be a feature that will always be tweaked from release, but this is just my two pence. Have a great weekend

Just my honest opinion from looking at the shots. No-one can tell me otherwise what I will think, or indeed try to put words in my mouth. Oleg has not said much on the clouds, other than the fact it won't be a cloud sim. I agree with him here, but I think they could be refined.
I posted a quote about this type of clouds. If you take my humble question, and try and twist it and laugh at me, then I will always reply to you. Can't we just enjoy the updates in our own way? I'd rather write a few lines on aspects that I feel need a bit of work compared to essays of praise (which I could easily write BTW).

Nearmiss,

I suggest to limit these threads to 10 pages. IMHO 90% of posts beyond page 10 aren't worth reading, or are simply private quarrels between the usual people, repeating again and again the same 3 concepts and polluting any interesting debate.

Cheers,
Insuber

With all due respect and no offence intended (of course) but im 100% sure iv never asked u to speak for me, not in the past, present or the future.

U do know that there have been attempts at hacking Olegs computer, trying to steal, in essance SoW right? Or didnt u bother to read that either. And yet u still wonder why he doesnt show u what u whant.

We/I know what u (and others) think and i am just simply asking u nicely (for the love of good) not to repeat it 18 times in every threadh about SoW known to mankind. (no offence intended, of course)

At least, today, read what Oleg has posted in this threadh and get it into your head (same goes for your peers) that he is fed up with this whole bullsh*t from that 5% who is unhappy whatever he throws at them while ther rest of us will pay the prize (no more updates) and relize that they will release the game in any state they see fit, wether u or anyonelse like it or not.

Iv said it before and ill say it again, many people exspects waaaaay to much from SoW, its a flight sim, not the second comming. (well in a sence it is :), but u know what i mean.);)


No offence.


P.S Feel free to delete this post along with others since it doesnt add anything of value to the friday update, thx.

Btw Philip, I wasn't calling you rude earlier. You're not! (just to be clear)

OK, thankyou ;)

I hate having to split hairs. All I'm saying is just let me be me. I love these updates that Oleg posts as they are all coming together to show me the sim I dreamed of flying when I was a kit. CFS1 answered that prayer, then Fighter Squadron, then CFS2, then Il-2, then BoB2 and now this.

:D

I understand I must sound like an old record, as I have mentioned the clouds a number of times, but Oleg seemed to be replying quite a lot so I thought he may decide to answer the question ;)

Good Grief.
Is anyone prepared to have a sensible discussion at all?

Do you take 2 sugars with that?

Usually just the one, but I've got to go to work for a couple of hours, so I'll catch up with the latest episode of 'Soap' about six-ish.

Fair enough then.

I wonder how DX-11 could affect clouds/terrain.

Ok.. here's my attempt.

2 SoW shots, Saturation and contrast increased. (just to see what's there colour wise)

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/SoW/sow2.jpg

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/z...e/SoW/SoW1.jpg

More fantastic work by the Devs. Thanks for sharing some "work in progress " material. Its rare that developers share developments and WIP material. Most of us are appreciative and certainly looking forward to SOWs release.

-Eries


Wow , what a coincidence....because it looks like your posts were written by a child. Go figure.

Terrain looks a lot better in your shots. Do you have the possibilities to only change the color of a certain part of an image? If so, could you leave the planes colors how they are and change the terrain colors like you have done?

Would look awesome I think.

Perfect example of how some "problems" doesnt have to be corrected at Oleg&teams end.

P.S. I shudder when thinking what the threadh will look like when oleg posts a vid with sound in it.


OMG.

Could it be that the damage in picture 4 is texture overlay whereas this picture shows modeled damage?
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/4971/spitdamage.jpg


Maybe they've not yet implemented this damage feature.

These are also for the most part "texture overlays" (alpha, specular, diffuse, normal maps). Same approach.

Thx for the lesson. I think people know what i was trying to say.

Damage hole in Picture 4 looks painted on and in other picture it looks like real holes.

Most probably not at all, as textures usually don't care much what DirectX version they're rendered with. DX11 could provide some performance improvements that would allow increasing the view distance of landscape objects (vegatation, buildings) which would certainly improve the appearance. Otherwise, as someone has already mentioned, increasing the texture filtering setting will make a major difference (and the fact that it's set so low is a clear indication of detail settings used).

Otherwise DirectX 11 should primarily help with smaller details like shadow quality. It will not provide a completely different look to the environment unless Oleg has decided to code a completely separate 3D engine for DX11.

Nice work. The landscape looks really good there (although obviously the filter isn't realistic). :D
I think that, from seeing this, the terrain may be too green for Summer. I know this is WIP, but this shows what can be done ;) Cool work
Have you lot heard of an application for Windlight? Check it out.

A shameless bump , it looks like from pictures that there will be
possibly fuel leak and some other aircraft smoke damage in 2D
in 2010/2011 release :roll:
Not even one member picked up on this concern including clouds
flicker and any jerking movements when flying around them
since video clearly show clouds flicker behind the He-111 .
Please , tell me I am jerk for asking such questions :cool:

I am waiting for this release us much as anyone else but these things are
my concern at this point in time and would love to know what to expect
as the development is in much further stage progress .

Thanks Winny, that's precisely what I was hoping someone would do.
I've no idea how to do it myself.
As we can see, simple alterations make a huge difference.
If DX11 also improves definition, the disparaging 'watercolour' comment also reduces in significance.
I've said from the outset that we should trust the dev's to do a sterling job, and they know more about it than most people here put together.
Good post mate, thanks again.

HG, I think when Oleg said there were fps issues with the video, he meant that not all the frames were translated, which causes the clouds to flicker. I'm hearing you though mate, I thought that too when I saw it ;)

Ok, I'll bite :)

You were asking about what's missing from SoW's landscape that makes it look strange. Above all it is texture resolution: as displayed the textures are extremely blurry, and in contrast you have the relatively sharp edges of the tree lines. There is a mismatch in detail which is something the human eye is quite good at realizing. The impression is that the trees a somewhat detached from the landscape.

As for the trees themselves, there are repeating patterns in the forest areas; yet again a focus point for the eye and something we aren't used to from reality, so it looks out of place.

These are the main issues I can see. I'd expect that in motion, the tree rendering as shown on that screen (which is already a bit older) could also result in some flickering.

Note that none of these issues are unsolvable (it's possible they were already non-issues when that image was taken, just not in that detail level). The colours and lighting themselves look spot on to me, and the atmospheric model is way beyond what Il2 provides. The same goes for the view range which is exceptional (most sims have a much closer horizon).

In the Il2 image you posted, the main drawbacks are the colours (see above) and the fact that a lot of the vegetation is only part of the texture, although that's not too apparent from a still shot at that altitude.

A final point: we haven't seen medium-distance shadows in any SoW screen yet. Shadows are very important to generate the impression that objects are placed within the landscape (and not "floating"; partially an issue with the trees). Il2 can create some very good images because every object up to a certain distance casts a nice shadow. Seeing a higher shadow distance (probably a quality setting) would also improve the SoW scenery a lot.

The problem is they expect something else than Sow will be.

They expect a movie-like game, "photorealistic".

As far as I can tell, that's not going to happen.
This will be a Sim with a very complex engine focused on mechanics rather than just optic appearance, although I'm sure they try to make as photorealistic as possible, it's just not 1st priority but 2nd.
That's ok for me, I share this opinion.

I could be wrong though.

That's very useful info, thanks. I'm aware of the visual perception type stuff.:grin:
It's technical things about programming, DX this and that, AA, AF, or anything to do with computers I'm rubbish at.
Thanks for responding!

So you just delete the posts you don't like?
This is the Internet and I am free to to give a shit about someones opinion - I hope that's what Oleg does.
Censorship is very bad idea.

Nearmiss is doing a good job.

Still you can't use them on servers which are located in a country with swastika ban.
I thought I need swastikas for a quite some time - but spending most time on German servers I learned that I in fact don't, I even deleted most of the skins with it, just to avoid confusion.
Try to fly without 'em, you'll get used to it very soon. ;)

Ya wa weee waaa
 

This week I am going to take out umemployment insurance. Cause I am almost certain that when this beautiful sim comes out I am gonna get my ass fired.

This sim almost makes that Fiat look pretty. Trust the Italians to turn a fighter plane into a cabriolet. Shhesh

Oleg - I am not certain what the issue is with the numbers on the plane - They look fantastic just the way they are now. And the weathering on the fuselage is simply brilliant.

Maybe you should just release the sim as arial photography software... Its that good.

It was a rush job but I did it originally for my own peace of mind a few weeks back with the spitfire over the sea screenshot and was impressed with how it looked. I didn't post that pic because I feel slightly wierd 'touching up' someone elses work.. but seeing as you asked :)

Thank you Oleg for all the efforts in keeping us up to date with all these updates. Please know that there are lots of people watching these and discussing them in our squad forums and we are all very appreciative of all you do to keep us informed. Our resident former RAF pilot is chomping at the bit to fly a Hurri!

As to this edition's turn for the worse.

Some of you should be thankful I'm not a moderator here, and even more thankful that I was not your school master in the lower grades. Your parent's failure to inculcate tact, manners, and decorum would not have gotten past me.

BE VERY SURE.

Can you post it Winny? I hear that WoP looks pretty bad without filters, so I imagine that if the clouds were defined more and the terrain had higher-res-textures than a filter could make it look awesome (so long as it was realistic...)

pray they dont sound like flying lawnmowers this time, il2 was terrible in prop audios. however saying that theres some very nice audio mods that corrected a lot of the stock sounds.

really hope they study audios and sound dynamics this time and use real aircraft samples.


hardest audio to emulate in a game is flyby audio effect distant sounds
reverbs.

what kind of soundcard/speakers were you using?

Wow, I'm late to the party on this one, excellent update!! Love the weathering on the italian planes. Looks like real progress being made, can't wait!

That said, having flown in both Britain and the U.S. I'm amazed by the variety and complexity and variety of clouds in Britain. The reason is indeed geographical - all of that dry arctic air is continually colliding with the warm water moving up from the Gulf Stream and all sorts of interesting things happen.

Just to add to that (and this was in a past thread), Oleg and company will likely not be including anything that allows swastikas out of the box. No "hidden" settings where you can flip a switch and get them. Someone tell me if I interpreted that wrongly.

Eventually I am sure that third parties will develop those skins but you would probably run into the issues Swiss mentioned.

If Oleg and company allowed an "out of the box" switch for those symbols, it might be construed as a no-no by his own government. And of course, there are other countries that would consider it a no-no.

Stupid laws with dubious motives? Sure. But that's neither here nor there, they exist some places and there's no reason for the developer to put out two versions. I personally find the lack of swastikas a small detail that I have not bothered to correct as the absence is really of no importance to me.

I hope I touched on all sides of that issue as a summation so we don't need to further derail this thread lol.

Splitter

This all heavily off topic.
I've seen only Italian Axis.
But these updates are my weekly fix so dont wine them away or stop Oleg giving any to us by off topic posts.
Btw If i good get the sim looking like it is presented here ill go for it.
Full real wil never happen as one can press replay in this day and age.
Niels

I agree 100% with what you say about expectations and reality. It's not bad to imagine and want things, that's what brings advancements in every field of technology. What's bad is to demand things on a short time frame no matter what, while also expecting them to work flawlessly as if they had been tested and put through their paces for years. These two are just incompatible.

I expect a lot of things too, i just happen to know that many of them will not make it into the first version and some might even not make it in the series at all during its entire life.
I think the difference between constructive input and whining is not what you ask for, but how you ask for it.

I'll use myself as an example, as i've had loads of ideas about things i would like to see in SoW and none of that concerns graphics or sounds. They are all things that i believe would improve the gameplay first and foremost, in a way that combines extra realism with the capabilities of PC software.
If i went about saying that the ability to edit scripts for AI crew members is the cornerstone of this sim, that we haven't seen anything about it and hence the sim is a failure, while i woudln't really know if such things are possible on the new engine, and demanding to see it on the initial release version, then it would classify as whining. I still want these features, but i understand it might take a while before they make it into the sim, if they make it at all.

Just think about it, if i campaign these ideas in an obnoxious manner it doesn't really help my cause, does it now? People would be all like "it's this know-it-all and his impossible ideas", so i woudn't have any support from other community members and by irritating the devs i would only serve to put my ideas in the end of the very long line of features that are planned or requested for this sim. If on the other hand i simply describe what the implementation of these ideas would do to enhance our gameplay, it's much more likely to gather support from other community members and then the devs will take notice and think "there are quite a few people who like this guy's ideas, maybe we should look into it sometime".

To put it shortly, i prefer providing ideas and asking if they are possible to implement, than giving orders to professionals while being an amateur myself. It's not only about what we say, but also how we say it. Keep that in mind people ;)

This scripting thing i mentioned is one of my far-fetched ideas. Maybe SoW could at some point have an interactive, virual co-pilot that you can assign specific subsystems of the aircraft to monitor, or support for user-made scripts to do the same. For example if you are flying complex aircraft like twin-engined light bombers or four engined heavies, it might be possible in the future to select certain subsystems for the co-pilot to monitor, similar for the navigator or the flight engineer.

So, you could be flying a Lancaster at night and have your AI navigator giving your vectors to follow, while the radio operator is taking care of electronic equipment like radars and countermeasures and the flight engineer is adjusting intercoolers and cowl flaps to keep the engines within operating limits. This way, the aircraft would still function to a higher degree of realism but you wouldn't have to do everything on your own (there's a reason they were multi-crewed after all). You would simply concentrate on flying the aircraft, following the route given by the navigator and having to worry only about the fundamental engine controls like throttles and prop pitch, but the aircraft would still be highly detailed and not simplified in the way its functions are modelled. Of course, if you wanted you would switch between positions and do things manually.

This is basically a shameless rip-off from what i've seen in some FSX add-ons (one for the B17 and another for the Boeing Stratocruiser, which is essentially an airliner conversion of the B29), where you can either work everything by yourself or designate certain systems to be monitored by the co-pilot. The thing is, it adds quite an air of authenticity and the illusion of having a live crew with you when
a) in these multi-engined aircraft the performance of individual engines actually varies from one to the other
b) you have to make sure you synchronise them to prevent asymmetric thrust and
c)you have a virtual crew to help you do it, with your co-pilot informing you that "captain, the turbos on engine 3 are running a bit hot".



I didn't say that. A good moderator doesn't delete the posts he doesn't like out of spite, in fact that's the perfect description of a bad moderator. What a good moderator does is enforce the forum rules, which the participants implicitly agree to follow by posting here in the first place.

So, if forum rules say "it's ok to go off-topic in every thread except the update threads", then in the case of this thread the moderatior deletes the posts that are dragging everything into off-topic grounds, like this one of mine and the one of yours that i'm replying to and many others in this thread, or posts that create flame wars.
Some forums have stricter moderation than others, some communities manage better with slack enforcement of forum rules because the members can contain themselves and not descent into chaos and some communities can't contain themselves and need someone to separate the brawlers so the rest don't have to watch a repeat of the same fight each Friday, that's all.

It's perfectly fine for eveyone to say their point, it just makes it too low on the signal-to-noise ratio scale to have the same people fighting among themselves each week. There's no reason to delete their posts either, just move them to an official big off-topic post and they can continue their fight there ;)

Oleg's words...
 

Hello Swiss...You are right about our high expectations....But photorealistic is exactly what Oleg spoke about when he was asked at what level he was hoping to get SOW...He was also building his new code to be integreted in hi-tech cinematic process...
Well, maybe after the release , if it is not already there :rolleyes:, he will have time to push his engine to the limit ?...:grin:

Salute !

+1

Thx Oleg for the updates! The vast majority of the community apreciates your work.

I think the moderartors should make a list of this guys (is allways the same short list of kids without manners), and just ban them every friday by default. This would make the interaction with the developers A LOT more positive and Oleg would have the dialog with the 99.99% of the community not with the 0.001 this people represent.

Ignore
 

Logon - click User CP near top of page - click edit ignore list at left side. Type in user name to ignore and don't forget underscores, they kind of hide in the user's sig.

Thanks for the reminder BadAim. This thread is improving with each choice. It's against my nature to ignore people but Friday updates was becoming something less than a positive experience lately.

So for you interaction between developer and potential customer means to constantly say:

Awesome ...
Appreciate ...
Excellent ...
Can't wait ...
Thx Oleg ...
Wonderfull ...
Everything is coming together nicely ...
...

I don't think Oleg can make any use of this sort of comments.
Has Oleg ever answered a post which contains only such phrases? No ...