Friday 2010-08-06 Dev. update and Discussions
 

Hello everyone,

Some fresh shots for this week. Keeping it very brief because I had very little time to work on these. Just like last week, we're not showing any WIP effects, so the skies are briefly peaceful yet again.

Awesome :D, Too bad you're not showcasing SoW at gamescom? :(

Coming closer to reality :!::cool:

Yeah ... great!!!!! :grin:

Some great shots there. Pics 1 and 2 should encourage a lot of people regarding the terrain / scenery - nice to see it coming together.

Great lighting and nice to see the crewman in the Blenheim shot.

Saw my bathroom window in the second pic! Amazing!:o

Good shots Luthier.

Could you answer me these questions?


1. Aren't the trees in picture 2 maybe a bit too high?

2. Will we have like dynamic ground so that bombs will make deep craters or is it again just texture overlay?


Thx, Hecke

Very nice!...I'm happy to see some sand beach area in the 3rd shot:grin:

Wow... amazing, simply amazing... how im ever gonna run this on my rig, I dont know... but still, amazing.

Yeah, see what you mean. Hadn't noticed that - using crappy work PC.

WIP..?

Too many trees in second shot! Either side of the roads = an avenue and this is ok, but when such built up areas were being built any tree would have flattened and new trees added later. Trees are regulated in the UK regarding distances to houses and the amount of light they prevent entering the dwelling.
Landscape still doesn't look quite right to me, not green enough, lol! Fields look a bit small and repetitive, perhaps for different locations the size could be varied? How are we going to land in those! In the countryside they would have been bigger, but probably tend be smaller between or near towns.
The planes look great and I can't wait to be flying them. All the best!

The trees are all a standard size, inside cities or outside. We can either have tall trees in cities, or tiny regulated runts in the woods. If we had to have different types of trees and check where they grow, we'd lose way too much FPS.

I thought it looked fine in this respect. Considering it is high summer. Summer 1940 was hot afaik - by English standards :)

What struck me Luthier was in the lower part of Pic 1 the trees look a little like they're 'floating' in the air. No trunks visible (as is probably correct given perspective) but they do look a little 'high' and 'floating' above the landscape?

Edit: seems that Hecke and myself are talking about different things here. I was referring to an apparent 'floating' effect visible on the foreground trees in Pic 1. Pic 2 trees look fine to me

But the trees have double the height of a high building? That's very confuse. And too many trees.

Will there be Craters or just overlay textures?

I think some 80 foot trees are about right:grin:

the Trees look like to hard, make a little transparens so look like softer and better in the landscape.

Do all trees have density (in sense, that you can collide with them)?

Those are 2 and 3 story buildings. I'm sitting on the third floor right now, and I'm looking UP at a bunch of trees.

And I think there's just enough trees for the kind of town it is. It's supposed to be a light green suburban-type area. There are fewer trees in heavier downtown areas, and fewer still in industrial ones. Seems perfectly fine to me.

Thanks Luthier. Nice update, and I'm really liking the terrain through the He111 pit. Good job to the crew.

Luthier,

The 2nd picture is it above a coastal city?

Excellent pictures, thanks!

I like very much. thank you.

Pic 1 - the window bars look raggerdy. Is this normal?
Pic 2 - I see their is smoke out of chimney. Wow. Will wind direction blow smoke?
Pic 3 - will crew member in front move a little or be stil?

barndoor

It's called LODs :) At that distance our airplanes lose their gear legs and canopy framework and flaps, buildings lose their chimneys, tanks lose their gun barrels, and so why should the trees keep their trunks?

We still live in the age where computers have limited resources. Some day PCs will become powerful enough to render a fully modeled tree with every twig and every leaf all the way to the horizon, and that'll be a very happy day for everyone in game development, but the way things are, if we were to splatter a bunch of tree trunks everywhere around the player, you'd be looking at an extremely pretty picture that runs at about 1 frame per minute.

Yes, there's the bit of the Channel in the top left corner. The rest is morning fog.

What's raggedy, do you mean jagged? Yeah, I don't have AA turned on.

Crew members will move, and how! This was actually the first in the series of screenshots showing him move around, but after I took them I realized that it just doesn't have the same effect on static screenshots. It's just so lifelike to see the guy get thrown about by your maneuvers, almost adds a slightly sadistic elements to the game. Make a pinata out of the navigator! Boom, slam, bang! Uh oh, a flat spin.

That's understandable, yes, but will you improve it, because now it looks like green oil film swimming on the ground surface. Unfortunately, the trees don't seem to be any voluminous from that altitude.

Superbe!
 

Unbelievable good update. I am beginning to be afraid of the altitude...Looks damn real.

~S!

Hope you are all right, all the staff, and all the people in Moscow,
I mean the forest fires, what a mess...

Best wishes.

if anyone of you is going to notice the exact height of the trees during the flight or even fight, I buy him a pint. At 400 mph you notice details only for fraction of the second, the mind is capable of quick focusing in dynamical environment, then the focus is again quickly widened. You would know exactly what I'm talking about if you were a pilot, because distribution of attention is vital in flying, especialy military. I still remember some tiny details from my low-level flights 20 years ago, like man riding a bike, woman walking across the square and such... but generaly, you more sense the ground bellow than actualy "see" it. The lower you go, the further on the horizon one tends to gaze, because visual clues are disapearing too quickly bellow the plane and mind needs at least some stabile visual clues in the distance to keep the situational aweareness.

Screenshots of course capture the moment and you see all the details.

I think it is more important to enable visual clues than give you 30 types of trees. For me it is much more important to have real 3d tree in Bob, compared to quasi 3d trees in Il-2, which were not adding, but substracting from the feeling of depth and height. Judging from the screenshots from Ilya, I can already see, that the low and mid-level flights will be a real joy, since there are enough visual clues to maintain the field of vision depth.

In this sense, Bob has already fulfiled my "dreams" :)

Looks very nice, the landscape's really populated and, even at this stage, quite good looking, and we'll have crew to keep us company which is a step up from Il-2 (there were a few planes with crew if I recall, but mostly you were on your own in there). Having them animated will really add to the immersion, be like a mosh pit in the glass house of a Ju-88. Thanks again.

This looks really fantastic!
And the trees are exactly the height of trees outside mye office window.

One thing puzzlez me though: It looks like the cockpit of the Heinkel has no glass in the windows. Nor the framing around them. Only the window on the left of the pilot seems to have some frame to attach the glass to the fuselage. How are those glass panels attached to those bars?

Skarphol

Screenshots look amazing, thank you for yet another great update.

how your Team make the trees?

i like this way

a photo from a tree, cut out with Alpha
http://www4.pic-upload.de/thumb/06.0...4amxdfnaf1.jpg

two planes (low polygone)
http://www4.pic-upload.de/thumb/06.0...lz517oovkh.jpg

and the low poly tree look good (ok i make it fast)
http://www4.pic-upload.de/thumb/06.0...u5hp4e4rwm.jpg

you need tree photos, please call me i make many pictures.

So,Luthier,if gunners will be throw around in high G manouvering,
is safe to say that they will be no more capable to shoot at us
in those situations too?

Here is what they use NSU. http://www.speedtree.com/trees/

i know speed trees, but a flightsimulation need low polygone trees

I agree there's a little problem with tree's scale. I understand that some trees are higher than houses but these ones look like big shrubs. Big trees are far more complicated. Look at the leafs. Some are as big as windows or doors of houses.
With textures, these are the last worrying points for me. I trust Oleg for the rest !

Thanks for the update !

Seriously give it a rest man.

Tree-whining, this week's flavor of criticism. :-|

pic1: has poor textures in Heinkel cockpit... outside is different than Il-2... better maybe... but far from "reality". In a glance I cant spot any reference. I wouldn't normally compare it to other existing sims (like DCS) but we have to wonder... DCS Black Shark (LO FC2) has a game engine quite old but with a bit of moding (hi rez textures) looks quite believable... and in December A-10 module will come with even more improvements...

pic2: way too many low poly low rez cartoonish trees. yes... far better than Il-2 but... it's 2010...

pic3: Still a bit of low rez/cartoonish looking cockpit textures and outside... "place holder" basically.

Why I say this?

I am not a fan of world of warcraft coming here daily almost to bash what developers of Battle of Britain does. But I want to tell that at least me.... and I believe many others think similar to me but maybe don't voice their thoughts... don't like to fall on my back to anything a developer throws at me as a teaser bone. Especially when my feed back can actually help him spot some possible improvements in their work.

So... please... this community is really starved and anxiously waits the gem, it will take anything as a "Wow!"... many going to fanboysm similar in manifestation to the hilarious characters from "The Fift Element" movie that accompanied the radio DJ... if people remember them... :) .

Pictures without anti-aliasing for a WIP game in 2010 looks like lack of care... like walking with unpolished shoes in front of women.
Low rez terrain and features should be hidden as much as possible.... especially if they will improve in the final product...

You better show some short animations or multi-player/ map building/ mission creating features than debatable pictures.




To all fans here... like me. Don't jump on my criticism... it's true... I didn't made any sim in my life... but... I just voice a fear that all of us share.

I don't want SoW Battle of Britain to disappoint. I am not easily disappointed... i am not a fan boy of CS that can't adapt at new features and bash the new product as "disappointing" for trivial reasons. I just believe that SoW BoB should kick major arse being so much time in development and some of the image updates from WIP worries me.

In the end... take a look at a promo of current Lock On 2... platinum... an old game... (I picked LO FC2 - DCS BS cause is the other sim I play and cause its developer (ED) is very close to Maddox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99_hoJNj3ys&fmt=22

And for comparison to pics from moded pit by RICHARDO (for free):

Well said!

Well, zaelu, that's the difference between a 2DOF and a 6DOF full geometry cockpit. Maybe you can figure out yourself, which one is easier to render. And even then, you always have an option to increase or decrease level of detail. I don't know what detail level the cockpit is set to - how do you know?


Hopefully the animated crewmen will do their part to stop the dogfighting Bombers as they are common in IL2 - LOL.

Maybe i´m just to easy to convince, but IMO the terrain on the first screenshot looks excellent.
Beside, now we know we will not have "ghost" gunners and copilot on bombers. Long time ago it was said that we would have "ghost" planes for saving resources and because of all the animations required. Now we can see gunners, is a new adition, and only Maddox Games know what else they have in reserve for us.
Thanks for the update.

Fantastic - morning fog! Will make landings and takeoffs good!

Yes, jagged, sorry. OK, I understand. Can we see with AA on?!

Wow, am sooooo exited about the crew moovments. Sounds fantastic!!

barndoor

well, as far as your "criticism" goes, I can say only this - Bob is still unfinished and as Ilya pointed out several times, he has visual settings set somewhere in the middle, even AA is off. Talking of LO FC2 - I was beta tester for LOMAC, so I know the series quite well. LO FC2 has some amazing details, like perfectly readible service labels on the skin, but is this contributing to the overall feeling? I would say no. If you want eyecandy for screenshots, then details you are describing are of course on the top of the list. If you want something else from the sim, than eye candy is somewhere in the middle of the "desireable features". For instance - inertia modeling in the LO FC series is far, far from something beliveable. One small detail - braking on the ground - there is one old A10 sim called A10 Cuba!, which has that feeling of weight coded much better than LO FC. I haven't seen or tried Bob yet, but judging from that Ilya's video with spit in major role the inertia modeling is far the best I've ever seen in general public simulator so far. I think that Oleg and team have chosen the correct set of goals (at least those they are sharing with us) for their sim. For me the feeling of mass (weight of the airplane) and intertia, correct dynamics of bullets, aerodynamics, weather, field of vision and AI are the most important for combat sim of this kind. Ilya and Oleg are showing us the visual parts only, which is nice, I like to watch Friday updates, but they don't reflect the qualities behind. That rests to be seen in the near future.

Luthier, Oleg...

It's looking fantastic. Lighting really adds to everything quite nicely. The landscape is really coming together.

I went back to the old Spit Video released a few months back and noticed how well made the cockpits were and how well detailed and real the lighting looked. It's obvious this sim will take the best IL-2 ever was a multiply by 4 or 5.

Excited to see the crew animations too... Can't wait to fly this beast...

I utterly detest trees done via this method, they look absolutely awful.

Hee hee! Now THAT I can't wait to see.

Amazing update! Some issues with trees (scaling, as leaves seem a bit too big compared to building features in the town shot and the "floaty" patches of green) but we all know we can't have perfect visuals without perfect supercomputers.

In fact, looking at it a bit closer it's not so much that the trees are "floating" per se, so i'd say it's not about the lack of trunks. Trees are there, shadows are there for depth perception and there needs to be some FPS optimization too, so i'd say they are as good as can be.

The one bit that sticks out in my eye is the patch of trees visible near the yoke and left rudder pedal through the cockpit glass. Trees in the distance look great and they probably even have a lower LOD detail model, because when viewed from an angle their difference in height and shape gives a sufficient impression of volume. It's only the ones that are viewed at an almost vertical angle that look a bit weird, because the top of the entire tree patch looks like it's the same height, giving the false impression of a flat/2D surface.
Of course, the trees are still 3D and different in size and their closer distance to the player means they use higher detail LODs, so i'm curious as to why. Maybe the upper layer of tree patches in near range LODs just needs a bit more contrast or "jaggednes" to accentuate the feeling of it being a non-uniform surface.

In any case, just like i always say seeing it in motion will be better.

I like details like the chimney smoke a lot, especially if it can be used as a wind indicator for us to make dead-stick landings in the fields after receiving battle damage. With the improved FM and and the dynamic weather knowing which way the wind is blowing will be crucial, especially when emergency landing a damaged plane.
The buildings look great and the fog near the sea is a very nice touch.
Terrain on the whole looks very good to me, despite the debates about the proper shade of green for English grass.

I think that terrain colour in general just has a lot to do with the amount of ambient light and shadowing and the way they affect color perception and in that sense, i find it sufficiently realistic. I mean, on one hand we have people who like WoP-style shadowing and lighting effects on the landscape and on the other we have people who expect to see the same vibrant shade of green in every screenshot, regardless of surrounding weather and light conditions.
I think the terrain we see in the updates is somewhere in the middle between these two extremes and that enforces my belief that it is in fact realistic. We have shading and light effects without them being overdone.

Finally, the aircaft models look great as always, but what really gets my blood pumping is the cockpits and the animated crew members.
I can't wait to "sit" in one, press every button, flick every switch and watch those needles move on the instruments :grin:

As for the first shot, it just looks like something out of a movie, or a wartime photo album. It looks somewhat majestic, but only because there is no gunfire. If there was gunfire coming from that Spit it would simply be scary, sitting in that glass nose and all :grin:
I agree with what's been said that the glass might seem a bit too transparent, but if you look a bit lower and to the right from the nose gun the reflections are apparent. So, i'm guessing that both the lack of reflections in the rest of the cockpit glass and the not-so-green landscape has to do with the fact that there's some moderate cloud cover. Seems that the amount of ambient light and shadows has a wide and profound effect on how everything is diplayed without being overdone, i like that a lot.

Hi Ilia! Nice sceenshots. I want to ask you about lighting inside cockpit. At the screenshot we see aluminum metal without paint. I think? what Aluminum must reflect much more than paint. So on these sceen's we don't see the difference in reflect paint and aluminum. Is it optimization for FPS or still WIP?

Agree. I've been simming for 28 years and can attest to the fact that graphics, while important, are down the list of desireable priorities relative to flight modeling, damage, etc... All the fantastic moments in IL-2, or any other sim have come from those moments of "wow, that behaved so realistically". The mind tends to "fill in the blanks" a bit easier on graphics than roll rates, air densities, etc...

Thanks for the update Luthier, looking good! I'm dying to see what the shots will look with final AA's and effects in place and crew bouncing around like crazy as I throw some G's to my crate.

If i recall correctly from the days i was building model airplanes, all of the luftwaffe aircraft interiors (cockpits as well as the landing gear wells) were painted in RLM 02 colours, which is matte light gray paint. As for RAF aircraft, i think instrument panels were black and the rest was interior green. So, since it's not bare metal but a surface painted with matte colours, i think it's safe to say that they wouldn't reflect too much light.

If you think about it a bit, it makes perfect sense. Why have bare metal cockpits that reflect light and hinder the pilot's vision? ;)

Luthier,

Thanks for the pics. The last one has me very excited to see crew members in bombers!

Hopefully I hope to be able to fly my bomber over target while seeing my crew turning, moving, and firing the guns while I fly! Talk about immersive! Seeing shells fly, flash of the guns, this would be so cool.

Before this gets clogged with people who will diss the WIP screenshots I just want to say I trust you and Oleg and going to deliver whenever this comes out. I know you guys are holding all the good stuff back :) And whenever the time comes to show off the "good stuff", no doubt in my mind you guys will blow us all away with the best flight sim ever.

look at the picture. Paint relfect same as aluminum... We can see only diffuse map, without reflect map.
For compare some picture from Wings of prey...

Will we be able to turn to the co-pilot and say "take over for a minute, I'm gonna go for a wiz and a cup 'o coffee" ? ;) Seriously though, it's looking nice, I just can't wait to see this thing rendered in it's full DX11, tesselated, HDR'd, and AA'd glory!

Thanks a lot for the update!It looks amazing!the models are just stuning considering it WIP!!!
i have one concern, but it could be from my lack of info and experience, because i don see it in motion!
But on picture 2. the tree leaves look very big, compare to a window it looks like same size as 1.5 m window?i know you have limitation and you have only one size of tree, but is itnt the size of detail things like leaves what makes the feelings of scale?maybe in motion we wont see it and maybe this size is perfect for flying around in a cocpit, i just hope that it wont cause the feeling we fly above toy city with toy tree :) when we go low,
thanks for your hard work

D

Hallo,

concerning the trees I wonder what results could have been achieved if Oleg's team joined their powers with another very experienced (with large landscapes) team most of you know - Bohemia Interactive. Their software known as Linda: http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/se...generator.html appropriately used and optimised for the purposes of flight simulation might have done intresting things. Speedtree looks too like from coloring book, but it is perhaps only my opinion and the final result is going to be excelent. :cool:

O.

All of the spots you show are in shadow, except the part that's reflecting perfectly. I mean, can we be serious here? Paint certainly doesn't reflect the same as aluminum, and all aluminum doesn't reflect the same. None of that even takes into account the fact that this is all rendered on what Ilya has admitted to be a "crappy computer". It's already been stated that they are putting the game together on lower range computers on purpose to ensure the highest level of compatibility.

Shall I remind everyone again that this is WIP?

I probably didn't express myself well enough. I wasn't criticising the absence of tree trunks - completely understand the situation re resources, etc.

I was referring to an apparent 'floating' effect on the trees in the foreground in Pic 1 - viewed on my work pc they look slightly as if they're suspended in mid-air. As no-one else seems to have commented on it , it may be down to viewing it on low-spec machine / screen.

I'll check it later on my LCD at home.

Impressed with the pics though :)

How do u know that, maby its the houses thats to small?


Like some others have said i can look out from the second floor window and look UP at a gigantic cherry tree in my garden.


Thx for the update, coming along nicely and when people get their hands on BoB and relize it will look awsome in DX11 with AA and AF and have thire pc`s for lunch on high settings there will be hell to pay Luthier....be warned. ;)

no you are right it looks like thr tree trunks are missing but its still WIP so maybe with all the effects on it will look fine!

cheers

No they aren't.

Ashe

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/...111-006sow.jpg

Seem like it looked that way in real life too:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/.../he111-006.jpg

Skarphol

He, he, simply outstanding! Love the cockpits, the Blemheim's gunner's neck and the trees. What a gift to my eyes!

Engadin

@luthier
Can we see a detail picture of this console:
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/6...10304detai.jpg
seems there is a misspelling.
As a german i dont know the word "Höchenfl"

I'd love to see a penalty for whining.

Tree-whining = plant 20 seedlings

Building/vehicle whining = contribute $5 to National Heritage

Pilot-whining = contribute $20 to a war widows fund

Cockpit-whining = build your own damn plane.

Wonder how many of you would have the balls to stand up and say in front of BoB veterans, "Sorry, that smoke is way too black!"

Absolutely beautiful shots Luthier! The Spitfire comming in low and fast under the He 111 nose looks frightening! If these are peaceful skies, I fear what warlike skies will look like ;)

A small comment on British markings (again, if you will forgive me):

The standard RAF colour for squadron codes in 1940 was "dark sea grey" for Hurricanes and "sky grey" for Spitfires. The dark sea grey colour is markedly darker than the white used in the roundels, as seen in this photo:

http://www.strijdbewijs.nl/top/p/HUR21.jpg

This restored Hurricane showing the same colour:

http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace...-hurricane.jpg

The sky grey too was darker, though not as dark as the sea grey series of colours. The only figther squadron I have found that used white for codes in 1940 was No 261 Squ, operating Hurricanes from Malta.

There were exceptions to the "dark sea gray for Hurries, sky grey for spitties" policy. Here's the exceptions according to Ward, Cooksley and Shores, Aircam Aviation Series No S1, battle of Britain:

Hurricane squadrons:
* No 56 Squ: Sky grey
* No 111 Squ: Medium sea grey
* No 145 Squ: Sky grey
* No I51 Squ: Medium sea grey
* No 242 Squ: Sky grey
* No 257 Squ: Sky grey
All other Hurricane squadrons used dark sea grey

Spitfire squadrons:
* No 66 Squ: Changed from dark sea grey to sky grey in late september
* No 72 Squ: Dark sea grey
* No 92 Squ: Changed from dark sea grey to sky in october
* No 152 Squ: Dark sea grey
* No 609 Squ: Dark sea grey
All other Spitfire squadrons with sky grey codes.

I think we probably are not seeing what SOW is really capable to show regarding graphics.
We have to wait for the release to see with Dx11 and AF/AA on to really compare with other sims.
My bet SOW will be the winner...

Thanks my friend.

I agree by far the best screen shot we have seen of the terrain and a nice update, thank you.

The first pic prompts me to ask - will the trees be invisible when viewed from below as in IL-2? I really hope not!

Sorry, but the landscape still looks cartoonish to me.
I know it's WIP, but the colors are still strange, the trees "so-so" and their implantation on the terrain not very natural.
I would have found these screenshots good four years ago, but not in 2010.

Thanks for the update, love the shots. I for one think that they are great, better yet - outstanding, but I won't be saying "wow" on just the graphics update.

When will we see some features and possibly new videos? Graphics are IMO second important here, game play and rock-solid AI is what matters the most in this kind of software. I for one don't care if the graphics are "so 2009." and similar... Give us some proper drooling stuff. :grin:


Hopefully after summer holidays are over so you guys will have more time.

there will always be some who complain no matter what, nature of people. i like the pic's they look great and thanks :-)

Interesting. How do you present "drooling-stuff" without using graphics?

[grabs red marker and heads to calendar]

I wet myself laughing. Oh....man.

lol the beers are on me..... :grin::grin:

What are you comparing it to? The only Flight Sims that have been released in that time are Black Shark, and Rise of Flight. (correct me if I'm wrong) If you're considering First Person Shooters, then you don't understand the complexity of flight sims verses FPS.... or any other genre for that matter.


There's only so many CPU cycles to go around. Some not quite perfect looking trees that won't get too much of a notice in the heat of battle GLADLY take a back seat to my airplane's FMs and enemy AI.


I fly RoF, and while I'm very pleased with the terrain and cityscapes the buildings have a tendency to look like paper cut outs. The trees rotate as you fly around them.

IOW. No game will master every detail. For 2010, I think this looks great. Perfect? No. But it's called a WIP for a reason.


I'd like to be a fanboi extrordinaire, but I find I'm only a fanboi fair to middling.

agree 100%

S!

Cockpit of that He-111 and Blenheim look very nice. Thanks for the update and have a nice weekend.

Guys even the lower LoD trees have trunks - they just happen to be realistically thin trunks. There is something of an issue with the tree textures though (I guess this will be like in RoF - stunning graphics except for the trees which look like cut-outs due to having to turn down the settings?)

It is actually very hard to assess the height of a tree from the ground. Talk to any forester and get them to show you their tools.

I (and most other people) used to be under the rather silly impression that tanks were larger than fighter aircraft. I say - go outside and compare the heights of building to the heights of trees - if your in the desert or on the plains your trees will be short - if your in a wet environment your trees will be four times higher than in a relatively dry one.

I live in a mesic (ie. not dry, but not wet) environment and one tree species (under ideal conditions) can reach 70 metres!

Hi Luthier,
some people are complaining about the trees,
well I think their are ok, just the shadows of the trees seems to be of a solid object, some rays of light usually passes thru the leaves and the spots on the ground make the shadows less dark...
Just my 2 cents....
Derzasi

I think he means videos showing off the technical aspects of the simulator. Things like operation of the aircraft, AI command system and the like.

For example, a video where a flight of blenheims is skimming the deck on the way to a low level run against a luftwaffe airfield in occupied France. The gunners call bogies (ie, unidentified contacts), but the player doesn't want to give away his position just yet. The command menu pops up: entire flight->gunners->hold your fire. The enemy interceptors fail to spot the low flying bombers.
A few miles down the road, another flight pops into view and the AI gunners again call bogies. As the contacts move closer the AI gunner screams on the intercom "bandits 6 o'clock high, closing fast", so he's identified them as enemy. Depending on crew experience or a randomized script, he might even identidy the type.

The player keeps on, until the AI gunner cuts in again "bandits on attack run,permission to open fire?". The player pops up the command menu again and selects entire flight->gunners->fire at will. He could order aimed fire, so that gunners only fire when they are sure they'll score hits, but that lets the enemy get closer as well, or he could even order barrage fire, so that the gunners try to deter the enemy from getting closer by spraying up a wall of fire.
On top of that, you could have short/medium/long range fire orders of each of the above modes, or you could instruct each gunner, from the entire formation down to vics, finger fours, elements and individual aircraft to do a different thing. So, there would be 3 different fire modes that could be combined with 3 range modes and a global hold/open fire toggle order. You could have the gunners throw barrage fire at close range, or aimed fire at medium range and you would be able to set you preference in advance and control when they start doing it all by issuing open/hold fire commands.

Personally, i would be drooling quite a bit if i saw something like this :grin:

Everything I see in these screen shots requires no extra work in my opinion and is more than ready for version 1.0. The terrain especially is very rich looking and I would be more than happy if my retail version of SOW had the terrain looking like that. It goes without saying that the cockpits in SOW are just absolutely incredible.

Nice work guys, and anxiously awaiting the release!

:wink: If you didn't say it I would have.

Thanks for the great shots and careful explanations Luthier. Despite the criticisms SoW will be studied and copied by future sim developers IMAO.

I guess Luthier will have to remove the trees for next week (just like the effects for this week) ;)

Everything is looking better and better.
Thanks for showing us these.

Criticism needs to become more constructive and I'll let an old Taoist parable explain why:
So next week, no tree, after that, no more Friday Updates!:cry:

that would work for FPS, but it is utterly too detailed for the flight sim. And to those whining about the trees - have you noticed at all tilled textures and tree lines? Cartoonish? this is by far the best terrain I've ever seen and I've seen many, also professional simulators.

The 3 sreens are fantastic. I love that screen take it from the pilot of the he111 regardless i dont like the he111 plane in the reality

And I love too the hurri pic suburban area. The trees are fantastic, and the more important, is good effect the terrain far away close to the horizon. I read in some places that the Germans have, in some bombers, a pair of binoculars. Will be?

I like the environment of the pilot in the Bristol Blenheim. Is a Mk IVF, right?
(you miss the girl pic in the instrument panel;))

those regulations are in force now. i doubt they weer in 1940.

also you're thinking of industrialised farming field sizes.

You've just outed yourself as being clueless beyond belief.

This sim has been in development for the last 6yrs - of course this is still visible.
If you try to stay up to date during development your product will never be finished.
(Military equipment is such an example, once it's delivered the electronics are already outdated by 3 years - at least)

Plus, if you haven't realized already, this sim is focused on immersion, FM and the like.

If you ever had the chance to examine a professional military simulator you would know they DO NOT focus on fancy graphics - but physics.

Switzerland just finished a $300million tank sim - the graphics are SB PE like - at best.
But then again, they weren't looking for a Playstation game.



http://www.vlist.eu/downloads/cluepon.jpg

You got historical records to back that up?

How should the Captain command a gunner 30 yards away?
I would think it was up to the gunner to decide when to open fire on enemy planes.

Maybe s.o. knows how this worked in RL?

lmao!!!!!!

@Swiss

Usually, I don't answer to fanboys, as what they say is always totally useless for a dev team.

But just to say that I play IL-2 since day one, that I have sent along the years enough documentation to the dev team for being written in the game credits and that, of course, I still think IL-2 is the best WWII aviation simulation up to now.

So no need for me to be cheaply patronized by some unknown a**licker like you to be taught about what this sim is.

I've been thinking about the criticisms of some of the forested areas in pic one, and I think I have actually hit on a possible explanation of why they don't quite "look right". Forested areas tend to have bushes weeds and smaller trees filling in their edges, except on the north side where they tend to be more "scruffy", I think this may be a case of something that we see but don't really notice.

Thinking about this and driving around Connecticut (they don't call this place New England for nuthin') really brought this to my attention. I'm not sure this could be helped without punishing the framerates to much though.

fanboy?
me?
lol

So I guess I'll have to address you with "Sir" from now on.


Obviously: You don't. You wouldn't complain if you did.

I still fail to see the relationship of sending in historical documents and basic knowledge of programming.
Oh, and don't forget to move rock back over the hole when crawl back in.

Thanks for another great update!

Also on the third floor but looking trees which goes up to the 8th.

And I think that comments like "Ohh, that tree wasn't there in 1940, it was planted in october of 1942!" are not constructive at all (if not even idiotic).

I believe that we are privileged to see real development screenshots and not "CG trailers" and screenshots with a lots of make up, like most of other developers are showing.

Also this is incomparable with lock on or wings of prey, lock on looks like 2D photograph, and wop are strong just in efects, and thats all. Effects are something that comes on the very end. Anyone can made effects screenshot with photoshop and 5 minutes spare time.