Non Friday 2010-04-15 Development Update :)

[Chivas]

That all depends if there is a wind present. The parachute is never free from the pilot in this short video and won't billow down unless there is no wind.

[Insuber]

+1

Originally Posted by GADGET

Sorry to add a discrepancy note, but I do not find the parachute behaviour realistic, once the pilot is on the ground.

I am really impressed by the pilot animation, a real textbook landing acording to 1940's doctrine.

Nevertheless, once the parachute is not suporting the pilot's weight, it should float on the air as a silk scarf would do (a parachute is nothing more than a huge silk scarf in the wind) and fall over the pilot. If wind is present, the parachute keeps its bell-like form and falls aside the pilot and, if the wind is suficiently strong the parachute drags the parachutist around. The procedure then is to pull the bottom parachute lines to desinflate the canopy and let it fall, or get up and run to either side of the lines so the wind incides the canopy sideways and it collapses.

Here in the animation, the parachute canopy appears to be a heavy object that falls to the ground like a rock, instead of floating once free of the weight of the pilot.
Mi respects for the developers, but as former paratrooper I strongly believe that this animation should be corrected in pro of realism, if that is the original objective.

Either way, I can't wait for SOW:BOB to come out.

[I/ZG52_Gaga]

Looking great there !!!

Very nice tumble action and all ...

does the airspeed play any role on how fast the pilot puts away his parachute?

Are we going to see pilots or gunners being draged away by strong surface wind blowing?

Does the pilot cary a sidearm he can shoot with?

Are we almost done?

Can we have the game this year?

[furbs]

just what i was thinking Gaga...jeez...its a flight sim and i want to play it sometime before i pop my clogs

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by jameson

Had a good laugh at the thought any bailed out pilot/aircrew would be "roaming around" in Southern England in 1940. For people who don't live here, we are talking of only 27 miles to England from France at the narrowest point, add another 70 miles and you're more or less in the centre of London. Same distance wide, no, say 100 miles square, and that's where nearly all of the BOB took place. Only 2/3 of that was land.

The British had 9 divisions (900,000 troops!) in Southern England, add to that The Home Guard, local police, farm workers and finally the local population, and any wandering would have been minimal at best.

Often the locals, if they got there before the army, administered first aid and tea, to aircrew, or something stronger. Bomber crews who crash landed were often in bad shape, broken limbs and bullet wounds, etc., and were probably just glad to get out of the plane before it blew up, and grateful for any assistance offered. Even if they made it to the coast, they'd have had to be good swimmers! Given the British sense of humour they have let them swim out ten miles before collecting them.

Originally Posted by AdMan

so?

then roam around in the center of London, I'd love to take the time to see the building/city modeling from close up from ground level

as someone mentioned before it would be handy for movie making too

stuffy in here

So? Someone gives a barrel-full of great reasons why your preferred choice is unrealistic, and your response is "so?".

And what you describe as "stuffy" is the desire of some of us to have the game actually reflect the reality of the situation.

It might be fun to have a pilot stroll around the English countryside avoiding strafing planes, commandeering passing vehicles, swimming the channel back to France - it might be fun to have invisibility shields and F15s in 1940, but it isn't realistic.

People need to make up their minds whether they want a SIMULATOR or a first person shooter.

[He111]

looking great Oleg and team.

This debate about what a pilot does after they parachute to land is getting stupid, if it's friendly, they're ready for the next mission, if it's enemy, they're a POW. The real debate should be what happens when they land in water, remember many brave and skilled pilots were lost to Poseidon. The Germans put a lot of effort into rescuing downed pilots with sea planes and ships but Britain kept trying to destroy them.

I have an old book on the BOB, printed just after it happened, it shows the methods British coastal command used to rescue pilots. Here's a picture of a "rescue station" and patrol boat.

(I cannot load the picture, I don't have a Photobucket account, but I can email it if someone’s interested?)


And another thing, a good alternate mission might be to fly a lysander into france one moon lit night to supply arms to the resistance. Lets see who can land onto a small field at night?

He111.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by He111

l
And another thing, a good alternate mission might be to fly a lysander into france one moon lit night to supply arms to the resistance. Lets see who can land onto a small field at night?
He111.

ahh and maybe so we can also pick up the 2 British airmen from allo allo ?

[Baron]

Originally Posted by GADGET

Sorry to add a discrepancy note, but I do not find the parachute behaviour realistic, once the pilot is on the ground.

I am really impressed by the pilot animation, a real textbook landing acording to 1940's doctrine.

Nevertheless, once the parachute is not suporting the pilot's weight, it should float on the air as a silk scarf would do (a parachute is nothing more than a huge silk scarf in the wind) and fall over the pilot. If wind is present, the parachute keeps its bell-like form and falls aside the pilot and, if the wind is suficiently strong the parachute drags the parachutist around. The procedure then is to pull the bottom parachute lines to desinflate the canopy and let it fall, or get up and run to either side of the lines so the wind incides the canopy sideways and it collapses.

Here in the animation, the parachute canopy appears to be a heavy object that falls to the ground like a rock, instead of floating once free of the weight of the pilot.
Mi respects for the developers, but as former paratrooper I strongly believe that this animation should be corrected in pro of realism, if that is the original objective.

Either way, I can't wait for SOW:BOB to come out.

Finally some consructive critisism pertaining to the actuall update.

+1

Other than that it looked great.


I can however imagine it to be very difficoult and takes a lot of work getting it to look realistic (affected by wind and so on). Hope not.

[Novotny]

@Gadget: your criticism is polite, however I think you may not realise the complexities of what you're asking for.

Have a glance over this article discussing cloth simulation within a 3d title:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/arti...-for-3d-games/

Whilst it's certainly technically possible, it's very difficult, so we once more come round to the problem of finite resources. Making a game is all about balancing compromises. I'd be extremely surprised if SOW is not feature-complete at this stage. if Oleg is still deciding on implementing possible features at this stage then I couldn't possibly see the game coming out within the next year or two.

You've got to decide what sort of features are most important for a flight simulator. If this was a game about the linen industry, then accurate cloth physics would probably be high up the list of important effects. I want almost all of the development work to go into the feeling of flight, the representation of terrain and the believability of the AI. I wouldn't be prepared to sacrifice any development time from these areas for what I feel are less important factors.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

. However I don't knopw yet how to finish the scene

That's easy...the pilot kisses the ground