Friday 2010-03-26 Screenshots and Discussion Thread

[Freycinet]

Originally Posted by 13th Hsqn Protos

Doofus.
Now anyone that posts an opinion contrary to yours is a troll .....

Nobody takes you serious in here or ever will again... You asked for it, you got it.

Too bad you have sullied the good name of the 13th Hsqn. I think everybody in here will think of you when they see it mentioned, which is really too bad for the good people that flew honourably in the squadron.

[ChrisDNT]

Originally Posted by Richie

It's a WWII Combat Flight Sim not a WWII Tree Sim

Yes.

I'ts an aviation sim, no need no model realistically anything except the aircrafts.

Please, no landscape at all (good for fps)

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by major_setback

Can you explain how it will be 'alright'?
Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but I can not see more than a couple of native British trees in that listing! Most trees are American and would look totally out of place!!!


There isn't even an English oak!!

This means lots of development time is needed for them if they haven't already been modelled. I hope Oleg isn't trusting that there will be enough default trees in that program to suit SoW:BoB, because it looks as though there aren't.

There are more European trees, including an English Oak, in the 4.2 version of Speedtree - their home page lists version 5 by default.

To see them click the 4.2 box top left on http://www.speedtree.com/trees/

Unfortunately, I don't think their English Oak is one of their best!

If Oleg's reading, I'd like to put in a request for some of their Granny Smith apple trees - should be just coming into their best around September

-----

OK. Nix the apple trees! Before I get pulled up for incorrect research - apparently they're not native English and they come into season later than September. Got to watch your back when posting on these forums

If only SpeedTree did a nice Cox's Orange Pippin or Laxton's fortune

Damn this game and damn Wikipedia!!!

I agree that the pics of the 'typical english village' are far from perfect i.e roof angles too sharp etc, but is this amount of detail really relevant, to me the most important detail is what it all looks like from the air, and if the buildings/trees at airfields are in much higher detail then that would be a considerable bonus because obviously you will be seeing a whole lot more of these.

[mark@1C]

The ground environment still need enhance, the impression of artificial work still comes to me immediately, again. It is so impressive that I begin to believe it may well be done in this way intentionally, considering the purpose of optimizing, and we do not spent most of our time on the ground in this game. The engine itself looks like using a cartoon rendering technology while the groundscape open out to me. But the cockpit samples are really fine. I don't know why the staff/or the engine can not carry this FINE into the groundscape.
The first three screenshots look like some place in the fairy-tale, an artificial landscape. It has been said before, looks like a real aeroplane flying over a LEGO city, a Disney theme park. It's hard to tell what's wrong, because they are nice as some people said, in a sense. But the feeling of something wrong does exist, it is not the correct atomsphere fit for the war, it's not a battlefiled, it's a place for afternoon tea...

[kendo65]

Ah, Tree UK - surely the perfect person to put us right on these matters! ... or is your name just an empty boast

Hesitated to say this before as I'm sure those shots are thrown together WIP demos but, for me what was most off was the positioning of the trees and houses. Looked like a random scatter. Needs to be more integrated around roads, fields, etc. (See real photo a few pages back.). Hedgerows will help when they are put in.

Again, maybe a bit OTT to criticize, . Suspect they are already aware of this.

[imaca]

Originally Posted by mark@1C

It's hard to tell what's wrong, because they are nice as some people said, in a sense. But the feeling of something wrong does exist, it is not the correct atomsphere fit for the war, it's not a battlefiled, it's a place for afternoon tea...

Im beginning to suspect this is the reason WOPs overly dark and grungy look is popular with some.
It seems many people can't get their head around the fact that "battlefields" and "afternoon tea" take place in the same time space continuum.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

The impression of "wrong" arises because you look in close up at chunks of generic created landscapes. This can hardly be avoided - after all it's a flight sim.

The problem with trees and other vegetation is, simply said, that they are very hard to be done right in 3D. It's an insane amount of work to do a good looking tree (from afar, but even more so from up close) in 3D, and it becomes very quickly polygon hell. Unacceptable polygon numbers for a game that has to render things in real time. Hence the popularity of optimized libraries like Speedtree or other tree generators. There are lots around for just that purpose. I am quite frankly rather impressed by those trees - they look really convincing for a tree that is obviously heavily simplified in polygon complexity. It should be no problem to put other species onto the map. The question is just how many Oleg is willing to buy for diversity purposes. (and maybe they are already there, you just don't see them on the selected screenshots).

[KOM.Nausicaa]

PS: I forgot to mention that Oleg and team have without doubt to modify the trees after purchase. I am fairly certain they are not usable as they are "out of the box". They just deliver a good template. So it still stays work.

[RedToo]

Originally Posted by mark@1C

... it is not the correct atomsphere fit for the war, it's not a battlefiled, it's a place for afternoon tea...

The long hot summer of 1940. England on the ground was for many people a place for afternoon tea. The battle was going on up above. Many RAF pilots commented on this contrast after parachuting out of the battle. Until the Germans switched priorites and began the blitz the Battle of Britain was in the air not on the ground and unless you lived close to an aerodrome you were not directly affected.

RedToo.