Friday 2010-10-08 Dev. update and Discussion
 

Don't post please before you'll see two parts of screen shots.

Pilots are sitting at the moment a bit lower moved a bit back in cockpit, than should be. But its what is in correction plan. Anyway you may see some details that heads of pilots are moving... not like in IL-2.

Also you may see some nice details on the airfields that makes it looking lifelike. Some of details with the future development of the series we plan to use as active (say training targets for the training novice mode or for the user made story like scenarios...)

Differneces of the sides ratio due to different resolution or aspect ratio of monitors.

Second part.
 

Some nice details of the _flight sim_ that help to feel the flight at some altitude like you see real picture (repeat, from altitude).
Would like to point for your attention that smoke and water steam from the tube of steam looks isn't correct (will be more dark and present more black at the acceleration of the steam. It is working, but smoke dencity isn't right yet. We put such things and other similar "bugs" to tune in final).
I think such details would show already now how the series maybe branched(or united) in future.

wauu it this Foo.bar`s work?

The side panels of the spit looks nice, (some emboss) and the grass seems more integrated on the ground.

what is the plane on the third screenshot ?

Nice reflection on the spit.

The grass and the runway are excellent!

Yes, German steam, etc is his work. Superb isn't it? ;)

Great pictures!

BP

Thanks so much for the update oleg what terrific detail:):)

Obviously some can't read!
Anyway,now you have posted both parts,I think it is looking great Oleg! :)

Maybe you should put it in bold and bigger font, it looks like some people need reading glasses when it says 'wait for part 2'. :)

In any case, nice update. I am eager to see how will it look when it is polished for the final thing.

Reading comprehension on these forums if pretty bad, sorry about that Oleg!

Question: In the head-on view of the locomotive engine there is a reddish brick building in the background on the left. The first floor wall texture is blurry while the second floor texture is crisp. They seem to be the exact same distance away, what is causing this? Usually you see a difference on buildings closer and further, not the same distance.

Thanks.

Looks like AA on a couple of shots :)

Bloody marvelous!!! I'd quite like to drive that train around for a bit myself :)

So many different types of vegetation on the ground, it'll be a real shame if we don't get some sort of ground action at some point :)

Thank you Oleg and have a great day.

Looking very nice.

Some people will always complain about the resolution or the blurriness of the ground or objects - it must be a toss up between performance and looks. The "gravel" rail embankments for example.

Oleg - are they archery targets in image 4? I saw an image saying that archery was a popular pastime for pilots between missions. Might well just be propaganda.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...5&d=1286542873


OMG, this scene is stunning!!
Maybe I will get the game just tp play trains!! ;)
Once again you surpass expectations!!1!one!
Thank you. :D


Oleg, did you consider my offer?
It is a very sincere offer.

See this site for more info:
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/n...le%20to%20View

nice to see the train rails now raised above the ground, will make it look much better from the air !

will rail lines be 2 way rails next to each other like it is in modern times, or a single rail line ? (i would have suspected in 1940 to have 2 rail lines next to eachother in england, but not sure what is historically correct)

the train looks great :)

I'm so amazed by lighting and shadows in this sim!

And the level of detail is ashtonishing!

I'm going to spend days just flying around low and slowly, taking in the beauty of it all!

Skarphol

The Spitfire and steam engines are great! The trains will look fantastic going down the tracks.

Very nice! I love the shadows.
A few questions:
Will pilots, but also other people change expression? Like scared or happy?
Will your flight leader tell in the debriefing what you did good or wrong in a dogfight?

I want to say that's a Beaufighter? Not sure...

Oleg great images! The Hurri parked next to the hanger looks great, that was my fav from the first batch.

Second group I really love the elevated train tracks! That is so cool, and makes the ground seem less flat.

I'm sure seeing this in motion is just amazing. Witht he smoke billowing, the trees slightly blowing in the wind....can't wait to play this team keep it up.

The second part is the most important i think BoB will have 10 times more immersion than il2.

It would be very difficult to find bombing position for train running through a forrest.
Is there going to be smoke form the train at least Mr Maddox ?:grin:

Holy cow! This is all looking soooo good now. All too exciting IMHO!

Given you can actually see different type of leaves (e.g. the oak leaf) I wonder if the FMs of ladybirds and other insects will modelled!?!

Thanks Oleg

PPanPan

Very very nice pics. Those trains are gorgeous and very real looking.

Notice the real oak leaves too and varied vegetation.

I'm sure that Spit must have AA turned on now, very smooth outline.

Thanks for update Oleg, made my day.:)

It looks like a Beaufighter in nightfighter camouflage to me.
Great prospects for some night flying.:grin:

As always the shots show some superb aspects of the sim.
The ground details astound me more each time I see them.
Target training at an OTU anyone?

Sorry forget that didnt notice trhe photo!!

Can´t believe it! Awesome work!!!
Thanks! A new era is coming!
PD: Oleg can we see (if possibly) in next updates some mission builder features?

:o
awesome :)

Those arrows, pointers to enemy units?
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...4&d=1286542020


And I see one of the difficulties of rendering smoke, or maybe bad design of the British carriages ;) , smoke inside.
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...8&d=1286542919


I don't mind, unless I was a virtual passenger, LOL

Wow, looks fabulous. I love the last shot of the train with the steam coming off, excellent!

Right... Oleg... you know many of us don't believe you on this one point. ;)

Anyway, I'm astounded by the new shots (in particular the variation in ground cover - implying some vaguely ecological approach to the landscape - even though we've been told that the trees will be uniform).
However, I'm not surprised by them given Oleg's track record of having astounding details appear unexpectedly. :D

Oleg can you please tell us if theres AA on in some of the shots?

Goggles! yay!

It looks like a Bristol Beaufighter MK IF to me.

That Spitfire looks incredible, the reflections look spot-on.

Fantastic shots, thank you. Was wondering if you could elaborate on the structure of a typical "day" in the game? For example, if not at dispersal, will there be the option of "free time" to just fly about or practise aerobatics, separate from the QMB?
Thanks again. :)

Isn't Spitfire sshot was made under DirectX10?
And i noticed some square shadows from wing on bottom Spitfire's radiator - bug?

Awesome!

Thanks Oleg, thanks Foo!

S!

Thank you for the update, things seem to shape up nicely :D HAve a good weekend!

My first impression of the pilots was "they look like kids".......but then they were, weren't they?

This update is most impressive. Your really creating a world here, one to which we shall bring much destruction.

I can feel a prolonged illness coming on, I think it will strike the moment the mailman brings my copy of SOW. I'm afraid I'll be laid up for weeks!:P

Its looking great.
The quality of the train models is tremendous.

The raised ballast under the track rails looks just right on level ground but much of southeast England has tracks on embankments or cuttings to cope with the hills.
Will these features be modelled too?
Will there be realistic looking rail bridges -- not like IL2 with steep ramps.
Will there be rail tunnels?

Most tracks in the southeast were at least doubled and as you approach London there would many more as the tracks merged together to approach the rail terminals. Only the smaller branch lines were single track.

It's beginning to look really good, even the colors, the green which looks much less vivid.

Yes on the planes. It was done on the card that has such a feature. Other shots on another PCs with the old cards.

I simply can't do it all the times. Due to the fact that these PCs are overloaded by programmers... My target today was to say that we have it as it was promised more earlier. But it doesn't means that I will post such shots all the time.At least untill the time when my or some other PCs will have the same type of cards.

Btw, what impressed me really on this update are the shadows here...

http://i51.tinypic.com/20b26gm.jpg

... with their smoothness : this seems to indicate that the render engine is very capable.

I can't wait to see more screenshots with a graphic card of this century ;-)

I would say stop......
 

Oleg please,
Stop the Friday dev. update...my heart can't sustains the waitin'.
how many fridays ahead until SOW release? it's a drip!

yes I know, my request will costs to me a FATWA from the community!!!:-P

Another GREAT WORK!!!' for you and your team!
Thanks again! Ciao

Thank you!
 

What can I say?

Viking

Thx Oleg.

Looking good. The planes details is amazing.

Some are too vivid anyway. Simply painter see it by other way than photo. Here were a lot of discussions in that theme. Now we are correcting them all step by step.
As it was promised in the past we will get all them in time more close to photorealistic than fancy colors.

And you all should understand that with thousands such small details even some small change of one texture may have effect on the overal image... that is a huge work to tune all things that should look like photorealistic (at least from the bird's flight!)

FATWA?
Just wait for the car bomb...:mrgreen:

I cant stand I will ask.
Do you now (with all the bugs of the game) play
dogfights inside the office through LAN and who is the best dogfighter among you ? :-P

Hi Oleg,
Thank you another excellent update - Fridays are good.:grin:
Hurricane screenie is my favourite - shadows on hangers are excellent too.

Most of the lines were single tracks in France or Belgium. Only the main ones were double tracks.
In England, I suppose the situation may have been similar.

JV

IMHO the steam from the train already looks good, for a train that was using no fire in the boiler.

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

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

Mr. Maddox please answer this question
 

I have one development question / wish / request that has always been on my mind, and I have never come across anyone else asking about it... So here it is

Full cockpit vs Wonderview:- In IL-2 there is either Full cockpit or gunsight and sky. Nothing inbetween. It would be so good if there was a third option.

To Oleg- Will/can there be a player defined option to set the in-cockpit view at 65% (or so) opacity, to make it semi-transparent?
So pilots can still have more "sky" but also can have the feeling that they are still flying in a beautifully rendered fighter plane?

The cockpit opacity settings would be amazing to have... No longer will we have to choose between dynamic gameplay (Wonderview) and immersion (In cockpit)... We could have both.


ADDITION: I asked the the guys on the forum to give suggestions and Xnomad made a simple and clever one... There were concerns that an inbetween view would cause less FPS... Xnomad suggested that we keep the cockpit on 100%
and keep tracking the ememy ID through the cockpit... I have made samples of both suggestions and I'd like to ask you Oleg and team to PLEASE answer this question/ request.

I have also added some direction and lead markers...
Notice how the direction and lead markers fade the further distance
away the target gets...



I'd be happy with an answer like:-
1. Yes, we have planned something like that
2. No
3. Maybe, in a future update

Not too sure what the technical implications of this request is but I had to ask anyway.

The updates are looking better and better every week.Have a great day and
thanks you for making this sim happen...

Oleg,

Thank you for your dedication. I appreciate your work. I'm sure that when it will be out it will be the best video game ever, all categories.

As far as the screenshots, they start to give a lively feeling of immersion in a real world.

Cheers,
Insuber

Oaaggghafafafafanaghabaaaa!

Can waiting for a game to come out cause seizures or other medical emergencies? I can't stand much more of this!!

dduff

Hello Oleg!

I like very much what you have shown us today...but I cannot help wondering if the track ballast would be candidate for use of tessellation in DX11 mode?
I understand showing ballast and sleeper relief is exactly what tessellation is useful for and the rail track would look stellar instead of just great (knowing about the ensuing drop in performance in such mode if you do not have the proper hardware!)..

Thank you for everything!

PS

I hope being able to supply the full set of 1940 Pas de Calais K5/K12 military tracks as well as the Calais and Dunkerque harbor networks this week end. I still hope you will find a way to use this, at one time or another...It is not lost data anyway! :-)

If this sim gets any more realistic people will be afraid to fly in it :grin:

Seriously, Oleg, you rock! Thank you for posting the updates so consistently.

Thank you.

Oleg and team,
thank you very much for the update, we do appreciate it a lot!!
It s nice to see that you have a lot patiance with us. The pictures are looking very nice, and i am sure that this game will be a new good aria, like IL 2 was and still is. I have a lot of confidence in the work you are doing, you proved it allrady with IL 2.

oleg, why not just tweak saturation as a post-effect? to do it on texture level is a huge job i guess.

My dreams are coming true right before my eyes

Oleg and your team: You guys are incredible..

For the future of this game.. Do you think you will add more of the first kind of Jets?

We have really better option of half trasparent gauges customizable by position and size. We have 3 sets at the moment of such indicators - British, German and Italian types.
User may select which are important for him... say depending of difficulty settings...

As for the transparent cockpit... say it is possible to make with 2D cockpit... But with our technology where all is 3D just making trasparent textures of the panels and frames will make visible other details behind them - structure of the nose with all its details in 3D, including details of engine and propeller, etc... Then we should make them also trasparent... etc... this means great impact to the frame rate and it became not interesting for the implementation due this fact.
And it isn't interesting to add special 2D half trasparent cockpt - this will be looking like the game cockpit of 80th or beginning of 90th.... due to the switching of views.. or wird moving of 2D frames of polygons.

Excellent update, again! And this is a flightsim...?! :confused: I am starting to believe that flying a Lysander low between these trees and and hopefully not hit a train would be a thrill... :grin: I know Oleg will not go Gold before he feels ready, but these shots look really ready to me. Its a game, not reality, and I believe some "of us" are asking for too much. If the smoke from the lokomotive doesn't look absolutely right when it leaves the train, who in his RIGHT mind cares? Sort out the BIG bugs that can hamper gameplay and ignore the ignorable ones at this stage, is my opinion. It's not possible to get everything perfect anyway, no matter how much you try and how much time you spend trying. And someone will allways "complain" and point out that this and that should be better. I can imagine Oleg is really looking forward to a well deserved vacation now. I hope it will be a x-mas vacation... :grin:

Thank you
 

I like the Spitfire. I like the update Oleg thank you very much and we love you for giving you time for us to enjoy :grin:

Colors of the vegetation are reading from the texture where they are... :) oops... I said some secret. So some time they originnal basic color maybe incorrect and looking vivid. Its what we are tuning.. relly ins't easy some time to get all looking right. But I hope we will get it finally... too many new technologies that were developed intially for this projet are going now at once.... Same was with Il-2 where about 20 new technics and technologies were presented for the first time in the world working right and without bugs.... :)
Hope to get the same with this project... but its more harder to to greater overal complexity...

It certainly is! The detail in that side on shot of the M7 is fantastic, right down to the sanding pipes. I've seen examples of Foo'bar's work before but I thought he only did European railways. He must have done a hell of a lot of research to get it so good.
BTW Oleg, it was a legal requirement right from the start of railways in Britain that their boundarys were marked by a fence. I would guess that it's too late to add them now?

It may not be possible to get everything perfect, but if your a perfectionist.. you will try really really hard to make it perfect and will not ignore anything.

Its not ignored... simply too much details... for the render.

Thank you Oleg for the update! It's a happy thing to see the new screenshots every week!

Like Oleg said I did only german railway vehicles with some exceptions: LNER A4 steamer and french SNCF 040.D steamer. Feel free to check all SoW dedicated stuff on my blog, just click my sig.

Collecting all required references was a heavy (and a expencive) job indeed.

The majority of railways in britain were double track, even down to secondary routes. Single track lines were mainly rural branch lines

This is not a complaint, or a nitpick, just a question.

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3905/shot1f.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

In this pic, you can see the difference in detail in the house texture. The top floor is more detailed than the bottom floor. This is usually a result of draw distance of Level or Detail (LOD) settings dictating the detail dropping off at a distance, like in the below shot.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4336/shot2o.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

As you can see, the detail in this shot is dropping off the further away you get from the building and the texture.

My question: what is causing the lower LOD in the first shot? The top floor and bottom floor appear to be the exact same distance away from the camera, so why the two different levels of detail? Does it have something to do with the shadows being cast on it by the building itself?

Thanks.

One problem is when it looks *real* it won't look *right*. 1940 was a hot summer and SE England doesn't look very English in late Aug - early Sep. The faded, brown-tinted colours are just right for leaves in September.

dduff

Many thanks!

Hi Oleg update looks great. One question will aircraft VORTEX be modelled?

Understood. Thanks for the reply.

Regarding single and multiple tracks.

The 1940's Ordnance Survey maps show which lines are single track.
The majority in SE England are multiple tracks
Maps can be viewed here http://visionofbritain.org.uk

On single track lines the track would usually be doubled through the stations to enable trains to pass.

Sorry, where is such leaves?

Foo'bar thanks for your contribution to the sim.
Will we also see your Kubelwagen in SOW?

This all means that is done on low power PC. Program try to optimze for the acceptable frame rate and good overal picture around.
However second shot maybe from early shots. Do not recognize this.

EXCELLENT WORK, Foo'bar!!

Those trains are anything BUT FUBAR! ;)

Heh heh .. cheers Oleg.

Actually I think red points to british (allied) units and blue will be axis. That would be like it was in IL2.

Awesome update -- it looks all superb. Many thanks Oleg.

OMG ! OMG ! OMG ! OMG !

<reaches for paper bag to reduce hyper-ventilation>

- raised railway bed!
- train engine steam which changes colour from sooty black to water vapour white as it gets going! (and the reference to it's opacity as a "bug", LOL)
- sweeeeeeet looking trees!
- issue of hurricane pilot head position being addressed...
- bushes, grass next to the tracks, shadows... all these things are adding to a very "real" virtual world experience where the objects look natural rather than plopped onto the screen.

I no longer have any doubt that my present computer is not going to be up to the task of rendering this at it's full potential...
I also no longer have any doubt that SoW:BoB is going to be a quantum leap ahead of IL-2 '46 and that I'm going to be BLOWN AWAY by it!

Am I in the throws of full-on fanboyism? You better believe it!

Special thanks to Foo'bar for expending his time and money to assist Oleg...

C_G

True. If Oleg was not a perfectionist, this sim would probably not be nearly as great as it most likely will be. But a perfectionist must some time in time tell himself, in time: "This is it". If not, perfectionism will be diagnosed as an obsession. But as I also said, Oleg is ready when HE is ready :) I read he has skipped the British railroad-fences. Good! But someone is complaining that the grass in Britain was more yellow in 1940 due to the dry summer. If this is a "bug" that HAS to be corrected, I am truly starting to see obsession. (Please Oleg, don't get me wrong... you're the boss :cool: )

I think it's not so much a lower texture quality as an effect. Look closer at the building, the second floor is actually overhanging the first, so it seems the lower detail is more due to lower lighting/shadow than a texture issue.


Edit: Woops, Oleg posted while I was typing. It does seem though that the engine chose to use a lower texture to save frames on surfaces that are lower lighted or in shadow. Nice work if so.

Welcome to the new fanboy. I've been an unapologetic fanboy for 8 years. SoW will take many years to explore but IL-2 will never die :-)

Yes, like in Il-2. Some of features that we think was very good done in Il-2 are going to the new one, however I would say that any of such things anyway has own changes. Probably in better side. :)

Probably you are right. Il-2 looks now like flying encyclopedy... But I hope that Sow will be the same in future but on another level.
But it will be possible only with the help of thid party, fans of aviation and users of the sim...
I hope all understand what this means.

Our team is still small. Way smaller than some of the teams making more simple games.

ha if i get you right you are pulling the overall colors of vegetation from an underliing orthophoto or from a custom painted map? ...thats brilliant! (lets keep this a secret :) )

:) shouldn't say it... but anyway all will understand it when will begin the research of features in nearest future.... :)

On one of exhibitions in the past, when Il-2 was shown one of the first times one guy was all the time crashing in the forest... I was asking why he is doing it... the answer was simple: would like to understand the technology (he was developer of other flight sim).

"I think such details would show already now how the series maybe branched(or united) in future."

Yes I can see it, and when you post the interior of a panzer III, it will be confirmed.

So, we will do a lot of crashing on the forest then :)

It looks like you and the team yourselves are not yet fully aware what your engine can do. Which is very good thing and promises very good simulation IMO.

Great update!

I have a question, would the pilot turn his head as we do using TrackIR. Would it be implemented in the future if not already?

Thanks.

Thanks Oleg! These screen shots are excellent.. !!!!!!!! :)

Thks for the update :D , i only have one question, can we see if the pilot is hurt ex: blood or somethink like that ?

did know that sow is train sim lol, look really great :)

Oleg, can you tell something about the campaign in the game?
Will it be like the dynamic campaign in IL-2 ?

One question Oleg,
you said that the quality of graphics of BoB will be like cinematik. So it will be possible for moviemakers to make dokumentations for example Battle of Britain?

What happend to him ? :rolleyes: ;)

I mean like dokumentation on History Channel?