Friday 2010-08-06 Dev. update and Discussions

[robtek]

@swiss
for a pilot in command the usual way to communicate his orders to another crew-member
is by using the so called INTERCOM, short for "INTERnal COMmunication".
That is also used by the radio-man to communicate external communications to the pilot in command.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

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

Clever way of playing with words, but I do believe you know what I meant.

In short - special features and a video would "qualify" as the shortest answer.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by swiss

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?

I don't have historical records for all kinds of bombers, i was just giving an example as to what constitutes a "drooling" example of game mechanics that doesn't have to do with graphics. It's just an example of things that people would go "ooh....ahhh....niiiice" if they saw the new engine able to do

What few things i do know about commanding a crew has to do with the B-17. Correct me if i'm wrong but most of the multi-crewed planes like bombers had separate channels for voice communication and i can't imagine a 1940s era bomber without at least an intercomm.
For example, on the B-17 the radio operator would set a frequency to talk with the rest of the flight/bomber group, or anything else the captain ordered him to do (eg, talk to the escort fighter leader, home base and so on).

I think that only the pilots and radio operator could talk on that frequency, or maybe the bombardier too (ie, radioman and officers only). There is a switch in the B-17 cockpit that toggles between intercomm and radio, so that if the pilot wanted his microphone output to be directed to the bomber group he would switch to radio, but if he wanted to talk to the crew he would switch to intercomm.

I guess that gunners couldn't talk to other bombers and they only had intercomm output. As for incoming sound, i don't know for sure. What is almost certain is that the gunners could certainly hear the intercomm of their own plane all of the time, as they used it out to call out contacts and coordinate their defence. For example, a fighter moving from left to right aft of the bomber's wing line...the left waist gunner would call it out and shoot at it, but he would also alert the tail gunner that the fighter is about to enter his field of fire so that he could fire at it too. Maybe they could also hear radio calls from the captains/radiomen of other bombers as well, maybe not, or maybe the radioman could control what the non-officer members of the crew would hear, but intercomm sound was on 100% of the time between all crew members to help them defend their aircraft and coordinate in the mission.

So, in that sense, all it took to command a gunner 30 yards away (for example, if the pilot wanted to talk to the tail gunner), is flicking the switch to intercomm and speaking on the microphone.

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by swiss

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?

I know of at least one case where a frustrated Lancaster pilot dove to attack an anti-aircraft battery and ordered his gunners to start strafing via the intercom.

Similarly, in night-ops it was the gunners who gave the order on when to initiate or halt evasive maneuvers (as it was the gunner who could see the enemy after all).

I suspect that most aircraft had considerably co-ordination between pilot and gunners (and navigators who would spot enemies and keep track of them etc. etc.)

[Jimko]

Originally Posted by dali

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"

Absolutely agreed!
This is not a ground-based FPS sim, it's a flight sim. If compromises have to be made in the visual eye-candy to protect the overall quality and the delivery of decent frame rates, let them be made in some ground details.

Great work, Luthier and team!

[tourmaline]

Originally Posted by NSU

how your Team make the trees?

i like this way

a photo from a tree, cut out with Alpha


two planes (low polygone)


and the low poly tree look good (ok i make it fast)


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

They are using special software that can animate trees and grass, no photoshop textures!

The game is really nicely comming together.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

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

Yep, never fails.

Luthier and Oleg are tough skinned. They'll do with it as they will and we will all love it when it is released.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by kendo65

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.

For the record, I've checked out the pics on my home PC monitor (Samsung 2232BW) and the trees in Pic 1 look fine.

Of course, the rest of you already knew that

Strange, viewed on 15" bog standard monitor earlier, the foreground trees at bottom of Pic 1 really did look like they were floating 'magic carpet'-like 50 feet above the ground

Very excited about the work being done with crew animations. Can't wait to see the videos.

Have to respectfully disagree with those who voice the opinion that graphics don't matter too much, or matter less than FM, DM, AI, etc, etc. For me graphics are just as important in creating a realistic and believable experience.

Il2 already does a pretty good job in FM, DM, AI and is being improved again in 4.10 (and beyond). Where it falls down (by 2010 standards) is graphics.

Also - at the risk of reigniting a recent discussion/argument - SOW will not be fulfilling the same function as a military-grade training simulator, where the trainee's appreciation of the environment's graphical quality is not an important issue. Let the die-hards scoff, but I and many others 'play' flight-sims and computer games primarily for enjoyment and relaxation and only secondarily as a 'serious' learning tool, though that is a great aspect of the experience as well.

To release a technically superb but graphically compromised game/sim in 2010 is commercial suicide and a mistake that the developers will not make.

[NSU]

Originally Posted by tourmaline

They are using special software that can animate trees and grass, no photoshop textures!

The game is really nicely comming together.

we talk about last LOD3 size 1000 to 10000m
not LOD1 the 3D Tree

i think he will make 3 LODs for the Tree


close LOD1 ca. 100 polygones
medium LOD2 ca. 20 polygones
far LOD3 ca. 4 polygones

for LOD3 i think Storm of War have no more than 4 poly`s, the point is the Texture, it must look like a Big Tree.

sorry for my bad english

[CRO_Adriatic]

In IL-2 I liked a lot how you can feel the ground, mountain, distance...

I'm sure & hape they will find again right way to tune the game for high end optic users, and people like me who dont care about trees. Beatween fps and threes I wil allways chooze fps...