Friday 2010-09-03 Dev. update and Discussions

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Romanator21

Luthier, the problem is that you designed your pilots to look like this:









However, these are elite midget pilots. Their tiny size makes them more tenacious, and hardy.

You should model your figures on people with more normal skeletons.

Like this:

Hahaha, excellent

I think pilots are modelled with their seats lowered, in "combat mode" as Chivas said. A lot of modern and wartime photos show them sitting higher in the cockpit and that's probably accurate as well, but i think it has to do with personal preference of the pilot and what's happening during that time.

Remember, these planes are taildraggers with long cowlings. My guess goes like this:
Taxi, take off, landing, maybe even cruise to assist in situational awareness and formation flying--->seat adjusted to the high position for extra visibility
Combat, in order to align your head with the gunsight and put as much of the body inside the "hard" parts of the airframe--->seat adjusted to the low position.

That being said, the guy's head looks a bit small but Romanator's pics look no different. I mean, how come they never appear out of scale in bombers but they only look small in fighters? We know for a fact it's the same size model.

Aircrew animations in the He111 are just right and damage modelling seems superb, especially the dented and deformed metal plating. Planes look awesome as usual too.

The only issue i have is with the 1st picture. Lot's of people have commented on it and they said it better than me, as i couldn't initially pinpoint what it was that i found strange.
In short, the planes looks so damn perfect that the terrain seems somewhat out of place and that comes down to two things. First, maybe it just needs higher resolution textures, i don't know. Second, the trees also look like they are made to a higher spec than the rest of the terrain, so they somewhat "stick out" of it. If the trees were not so highly detailed or the rest of the terrain was upgraded a notch or two, they would probably blend in just fine. Maybe the tree detail level in the graphics options could be tied to the terrain texture detail level? Just an idea.

The funny thing is that i have seen screenshots in previous updates where the terrain textures seemed absolutely fine, so maybe it's just a case of tinkering with different settings and resolutions.

However, there's a silver lining in every cloud and in this case, the first screenshot shows its biggest redeeming quality. That draw distance is huuuuuuuge and the way the details fade into the distance is very gradual and well done

All in all, another promising and very appetizing update and yes, i stand by my assertion that as far as graphics are concerned i'd buy it this instant. They are good enough for me, if the rest of the title (FM/DM, campaign engine, sound, etc) is up to the job i can wait for the details (like pilot head size, road size, etc) to get fixed in the patches following the release.

P.S. The 1c guys may not answer much, but they sure are listening. All this talk about death animations and what did we get in this update? Animations of dead and injured crewmen. It's not even the first time it happened, a member with a good eye for details and knowledge of airframes talked about the size of trim tabs on the 110, guess what? They were corrected too.
The team sure do keep an eye on things and react to what gets discussed around here, just ask nicely about things and it might pop up in the next update

[dali]

Originally Posted by Flutter

Philip.ed:
The word you are looking for is wingtip vortices.

A wing creates lift by pushing air downwards. Behind the wing tip there is an interface between air that has been pushed down, and "untouched" air. This shear results in a vortex flow trailing behind the aircraft.
Flutter

actualy lift is created by air being forced to flow over two different distances. since all things in nature which were disturbed in their original flow try to restore order and harmony, this is also valid for air > thus air from lower part of the wing, which has higher pressure wants to balance with air on the upper surface which has lower pressure > and so creating lift force. since the wing is not indefinite, but very finite plane, air from bellow and above do meet in one point, and this point is of course the wingtip. The drag produced is called induced drag, and there are some vortices, but their force depends on weight. In airplane of such relatively small size the vortice is so weak, that it is almost non existant. On the pilot size debate > I would agree that the a) head is too small (we would need to see the whole body i.e. the 3d model of the pilot) or b) the team has used the lowest position of the seat (this happens when you have original drawings of the plane and some information are missing). I tend to go with the small head...here is the example. Please note, that the seat was adjustable for height, so we were always looking through the centre of the gunsight, which was actualy good old K-14 from the P-47 also used in Yugoslav air force.



on the scale debate - I would suspect that the roads have only one LOD, and that this is the problem (they seem to have same size regardless of the distance). I will stand corrected by Oleg or Luthier if I'm wrong.

EDIT - I did some quick check in the Corel Draw. I compared two known sizes, i.e. the head and the wheel. It seems that the head in SOW as it stands now is aprox 1/2 too small.



or closer





note> the lenght of the line is same on the head of the pilot and wheel on each individual shot.

[David603]

Originally Posted by kedrednael

I don't think the roads do not look too wide, I flew an ask-23 today at around 350 metres altitude right above a 2 roads I was circling there so I had a lot of time to look at it .I didn't see any hedges, only tree lines on both sides of the road. although I don't see them on both sides quite often.
maybe I could post some pictures of roads seen from the air?

Its hard to estimate out the size of objects seen from the air or a distance unless you have an object of known size to compare them to. If it wasn't for the train in that picture I would not really notice how wide the roads are.

1940s British roads in the countryside tended to be single lane, but wide enough that two vehicles could squeeze past each other. Hedges were used on most fields, with drystone walls and post and wire fences being less common. Today most roads are double lane and fences are the most common borders for fields, but there are still areas such as near the English-Welsh border where countryside such as you would see in the 40s still exists.

It is a little frustrating, because this effect would be quite possible to achieve, but I do not know if the team would be willing or able to rework the textures at this point, and since a third party tree and vegetation engine is being used it may not be possible to obtain a convincing hedge effect.

Still at least the next instalment in the series will look very convincing on the ground, British countryside may be hard to recreate accurately but the deserts and towns of the Mediterranean should be right up this game engines alley, and hopefully there will be drivable vehicles by that point. Fighting as or against Rommel's Afrika Korps could be as much fun as flying

[Romanator21]

I did some quick check in the Corel Draw. I compared two known sizes, i.e. the head and the wheel. It seems that the head in SOW as it stands now is aprox 1/2 too small.

Maybe you shouldn't compare to a guy who has a hat on with padding underneath. Just look at the back of the helmet and see how there is a 2-3 inch step from the back of his neck. I don't think his skull is jutting out like that. Also consider that the photo was shot with a telephoto lense (narrow FOV) while the screenshot is taken at closer to normal FOV. This will affect relative sizes of things.

I don't think our pilot encountered voo-doo head-shrinkers, he looks well proportioned in every other shot.

[Ekar]

Originally Posted by dali

After seeing this, I reckon we need a black and white gfx option, preferably with nice film grain, for that extra historical 'realism'.

[AdMan]

if the scale in this:


and this:



look the same as this:


you need your eyes checked

[McHilt]

Originally Posted by *Buzzsaw*

Image

This is obviously a little cartoonish, but in fact WWII aerial combat could be pretty gruesome.

'Buzz' Beurling described shooting down an Italian pilot in a Macchi.

Although he seems to be laughing it off in this quote, in fact Beurling had nightmares about this incident for the remainder of his life, his girlfriends described him waking up screaming in a cold sweat.

Why still coming up with the gore thing?????
This thread is about: grass, trees, pilotsize, and scale issues, for your information.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

so, basically, pretty much what i said. that he-11 looked to have been attacked by a hurri - rifle calibre bullets. not cannons, not flak. so therefore that blood splatter effect is ott. maybe it would be more similar in a fighter hit by cannons, but then the canopy is a lot closer to the source of splatter. and buzzsaw - yeah, if you took someone's head off it'd make a bit of a mess. apparently the blood vessels in the neck can produce enough pressure to spray 20 odd feet.

19th squadron barely used their cannon spits, due to the unreliability of the early cannons. modelling the blood spatter effect on that would hardly be representative. maybe have different kinds depending on what caused it, but then it seems rather a redundant option if it would prohibit sales by pushing the certification up. the slumped crew works fine for determining if you've hit crew or not.

Hmm, .303's at the rate the brownings spat them could still do some messy damage.

But Oleg said, no gore, so maybe we shouldn't talk about it?

[Freycinet]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

interesting aircraft in 4.02. not a clue what it is though.

Looks to me like a Siebel Si 204.

http://www.aviastar.org/air/germany/siebel-204a.php

[Skoshi Tiger]

Hi Osprey, congratulations on your first post!

Originally Posted by Osprey
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fire effects, at present they look poor (check the aircraft on fire @ 2:11 in the video) - but I think it's too early though and will get fixed.

Maybe you should read some of the older update thread. You may actually be surprised how often it has been mentioned. But it is nearly impossible to make a judgement of something that is so dynamic as fire from a static screen shot.

To be honest I'm not sure if grainy over exposed gun camera footage would be a good thing to use as a comparison. I found it hard to see much detail of the fire in the video you linked to. (unless you are trying to promote a grainy over exposed atmosphere in the sim?)

Cheers!