no update today (yet)?

i'm tense

this update was posted : 10-15-2010, 03:53 PM

so.. wait,... wait...

Sorry to bump up a topic from previous pages when we're expecting the new update, but to be honest modelling thermals and ridge lift in a sufficiently accurate manner is already possible and done by freeware 3rd party applications for the MS flight sims.

To Xilon: Most of what you ask for is included in the description of a dynamic weather engine. Oleg said a lot of times in the past that SoW will have dynamic weather. Relax and don't worry so much :grin:

To the people shouting at Xilon: No, you don't need a supercomputer to run thermal, ridge and wave lift simulation in real time, as long as you are willing to maintain some approximations to cut down on the CPU load.

In FSX the stock thermals are simplified and ridge/wave lift needs you to specifically place "lift boxes" in the mission editor (aka they are not dynamic, they only work in pre-made missions). However, there are external tools that do all of it on the fly.

Some concessions still have to be made but on the whole it's pretty good. For example, the tool i'm familiar with places thermals in random cells around the map and uses a randomized atmosphere texture method, but it still manages to include thermal life cycles, thermal strength is dependant on time of day and season that the flight takes place, ridge lift depends on wind, there's also combined ridge and thermal lift when a ridge is heated by the sun and so on. And this is a freeware tool (recently a payware version with some extras was released, but the free one still works fine)...take a look here if you want, grab the download and have a brief read through the manual just to see what's possible with an external program: http://luerkens.homepage.t-online.de/peter/

If it's possible for FSX with all its shortcomings and in some cases shabby coding to do it by communicating with an external tool running on the background without any loss of frame rates, i'm willing to bet it's possible for SoW since it will be handled by a built-in part of the engine that's seamlessly "plugged-in" to the rest of the software.

Thermals in BOB ? Do you think that Oleg will include a Standard Cirrus in the game ?

Or, technically speaking, If a had an enemy on my six and if I was flying around the inversion line (unfortunately, Oleg has never heard about the ‘inversion’ in aerial meteorology, phenomenon that forces the bases of cumulus to be flat like my ex-girlfriend – (but she had an ass like a cumulus ;-)), I think that I would try to fly under some cumulus. As they are the top of a thermal, maybe the turbulences they indicate could prevent the enemy from shooting … this is the only reason for thermals or ridge wind to be modeled in a combat flight simulation game.

By the way I would like to put in evidence the big lack of realism as far as clouds are concerned. The don’t look realistic at all ! Their look is unacceptable in a simulator that will be released in 2011-2012 !

Look at the difference of clouds in FSX and BoB ? Sometimes I wonder If Oleg has ever risen his eyes to watch the sky (although I now he is not a pilot and for a simple pedestrian admire a cloudy sky for hours is not a priority) ! For a guy who pretends to be a photographer and to focus on photorealism, he makes his game look like a cartoon or a painting from the impressionist period … everything but photorealistic !!!

Only the planes look good but the rest gives the impression of a simulator developed by some passionate guys but who don’t have a single idea of a way to make all this green salad look realistic.

In a flight simulator I don’t care if the ground doesn’t look so good seen from very low altitude because what is important in a Combat FLIGHT Sim (behalve the flight dynamics and shooting ballistics of course) is the realism of the sky and the clouds … ground and water must look photorealistic only from a certain altitude.

In BoB it’s the contrary! From close, things look good but on long range and landscape views it looks like a cartoon.

Look how some other products model the clouds.
1=BOB naïve cartoon clouds (I expect to see the plane of Mickey Mouse flying under)
2=FSX something more sophisticated.
It is clear that Microsoft had a real goal of photorealism but they had the capacity of a very large company and a shitload of devlopement teams to make it look good as the team of Oleg is too small, experience too thin, the budget too low and the time too short to produce something convincing.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7344/bobfsx.jpg

Maybe Microsoft will produce a new version of it’s Famous CFS4 ? Even if they start to work on it from scratch now they might finish before B0B is released ;-)))))))))

Cheers

FSX uses photographs and only needs to be seen from one point of view... Multiplayer clouds are much more complex.

Sorry Redwan but that is incorrect the base of a cumulus seems to be flat
really it isn’t.
But from some distance the appearance is indeed flat.
This is because the rising ait has cooled so much it can no longer contain the moister in it which then condensates.
But the air still rises so the condensation also rises so creating an accumulation of condensate water on top of each other.
This forms the cumulus cloud.
Inversion is a thermal state of the atmosphere where the temperature rises with the altitude so effectively stopping air to rise.
Basically the dead of any thermal ;)

:grin:

I'm sure an out of engine sound file (wav,mp3,youtueb clip, etc.) is going to give us a really good idea what it will be like to play the game. :rolleyes:

How about Oleg posts whatever he wants and then you comment on it.

Please don’t teach me the shape of a cumulus or about aerology. I’m a glider pilot for more that 15 years …

Photos taken a couple of days ago in flight over the south of Belgium.
The inversion is a straight line, clearly visible and all the cumulus’s are above. I have never seen this effect modeled in the BOB preview screen

Inversion at 1200 m.
Pictures taken at around 1000 m

From close you don’t see the shape but only mist:
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4988/85082710.jpg


But from far you can see the flat base:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3721/33791683.jpg

To Winny: from which planet do you come dud ? You think that FSX is using photograph to model the clouds ? Nope, they are 3 D objects ! I think you make a naive confusion with ground textures.

FSX clouds: (for me the minimum quality of coulds that a sim of 2011 needs to have):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v73FuuP4NM8

I hate Microsoft and its commercial monopoly and I’m a fan of Il2 since it’s been out but now I have to say that I’m disappointed by the quality of BOB graphics. Although based on IL2, WOP looks much more professional.

I think that Oleg had a lot of success with IL2 because at that time people were not too demanding on graphics but in 2011 it’s another story and I’m afraid that good graphic environments are for professional companies and not for small teams’ like BOBs’ with small budgets … and no pilots (as graphic advisor) in the team.



http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/381/cheersk.jpg

Cheers.