Friday 2010-07-02 Dev. update and Discussion Thread

[philip.ed]

Sorry Oleg, I was getting oil mixed up with fuel...

but have a look here; some excellent footage. As can bee seen in a number of cases here, like in the picture you posted, the fire is quite large and violent, but there is little smoke.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...30/y6qyG4kTebE


This one is much more interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...27/Go6jwR5-nho

In many cases, the fire is as violent and explosive, but also in some cases the thick black smoke can be seen. However, this is quite rare to last for a long time, and in most cases the smoke is not too thick and large.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by ECV56_Lancelot

Uhmm, i dont understand well your answer, but since i´m also very interested on the question made i refrase the question.

I beleive David asked if its a single flight of 12 bombers, or if its three flights of four bombers?. He ask if you can now increase the number of planes of a single flight, insted of having a limit of four planes per flight like we do have now in IL-2?

We have many types of formations. the amount in one formation may depends of historical setting. In general currently AI engine in that part of code support up to 40 aircraft in one formation. In future we may change it for more if neccessary.
Inside the one big formation we may have different types of small formations (don't know how to say it right in English).

Enough said for now... too early to open all playing cards

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Ekar

I'm not sure I can see any evidence in these screens that the smoke is volumetric- looks more like your standard textured smoke (which looks fine in most games, and looks fine here too). I imagine a genuine volumetric approach would really grind processors down and would probably not be worth the expense...


"I wonder which programming tricks there will be in SoW:BoB to create a believable world. There will be many and they'll be very clever I think!"


...that is, unless Oleg and the team have figured out or can figure out a way to render true volumetric smoke/clouds, etc.. at low cost. That would be a very neat trick. I'm sure they could do it if they really wanted to. Perhaps it's already done.

Hmm, I thought BoB2 had/has volumetric smoke? If so, it certainly is possible

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

Sorry Oleg, I was getting oil mixed up with fuel...

but have a look here; some excellent footage. As can bee seen in a number of cases here, like in the picture you posted, the fire is quite large and violent, but there is little smoke.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...30/y6qyG4kTebE


This one is much more interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Champion...27/Go6jwR5-nho

In many cases, the fire is as violent and explosive, but also in some cases the thick black smoke can be seen. However, this is quite rare to last for a long time, and in most cases the smoke is not too thick and large.

No one sample of low octan fuel that was common for German planes of that time.

We have diferent dencity of smoke for different situations. You will see it in future.

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

We have many types of formations. the amount in one formation may depends of historical setting. In general currently AI engine in that part of code support up to 40 aircraft in one formation. In future we may change it for more if neccessary.
Inside the one big formation we may have different types of small formations (don't know how to say it right in English).

Enough said for now... too early to open all playing cards

This clarify a lot. For what i understand, now on the FMB we can put in a single flight up to 40 aircraft, and the aircrafts will automatically separate in diferent types of formations.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by zapatista

Hi Oleg,

thanks for the new screen shots, the planes are looking very good (love the detail and sharpness in the 109 closeup)

can you plz give some insight in the dynamic campaign engine the way it is being finalized right now ?

1) can a campaign server run 24/7 for several months with people joining for a few hrs to fly missions and then rejoining a week or 2 later again and see how the campaign itself has progressed with other gamers having played on it ?

2) when we join a server will the choice of missions have a similar interface to falcon-4 where you see a listed of "tasked missions" and you can choose a specific one you like (for ex: combat patrol, bomber escort, enemy fighter/bomber intercept, "free flight" from any airfield, etc..).

3) will blowing up bridges and railways reduce the supplies reaching the enemy front lines and reduce their fighting ability (including supplies to airfields, preventing enemy planes from refueling and rearming there)

4) can we later on also expect to fly cargo planes in BoB ? so that airfields or troops that are low on supplies can be resupplied by players ? (might not be immediatly important for BoB, but will be for Stalingrad, italy, and north africa campaigns)

5) you mentioned before your dynamic campaign server will have a semi-rigid progress sequence where the eventual outcome of the BoB is predetermined for the english side to "win" (or germans failing would be more accurate), will this campaign server program be open to 3e party editing so we can make servers with an uncertain outcome ? (this would not be for every player action to have a different battle outcome, but big issues like "keeping the english airfield south of london closed due to sustained heavy attack for 2 months", or "enemy looses 80% of their combat aircraft and resupply can not be done fast enough with new pilots and aircraft" etc, and another 5 or 6 pivotal events like that could be listed/triggered like that which alter the outcome of the BoB)

thanks for all your effort and perseverance with this project, cant wait to start flying in the new scenery and environment

When we will be ready to say final details of campaign, you will know it. Untill it is not final, I dislike to promise anything that may not go in final.

Usually I ignore the questions that I can't answer yet. Just to remind my principles for all.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by ECV56_Lancelot

This clarify a lot. For what i understand, now on the FMB we can put in a single flight up to 40 aircraft, and the aircrafts will automatically separate in diferent types of formations.

Something like this

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

No one sample of low octan fuel that was common for German planes of that time.

We have diferent dencity of smoke for different situations. You will see it in future.

OK, thanks But at least, is there evidence of smoke looking like what you have shown for a continued period of time? Perhaps, i think, it is best to go by what is available in video form until some more evidence appears to show that there are other circumstances where different things can happen

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Philip.Ed:

I am almost sure most of the shots are done in tele objective. (maybe Oleg can comment on this)
Using tele objective (or other extreme lenses) distorts your 3D world to a a point like you wouldn't believe. In the movies I worked on, some sets build in 3D were one day approved, the other day rejected -- the exact same sets! Just because they were filmed one day with this lens, one day with the other. The client thought we had build something new or so--but not at all in reality. This is very hard to understand for someone that has no experience in virtual building -- and filming it for the public.
The smoke is about right in my opinion. It's heavy, but ok. It looks massive in some shots because of image composition and lens. You should wait to judge it until you see it in game.

repeatable patterns: except a solution for this when the first quantum computer comes out

[Zorin]

Hi Oleg,

I'm glad you took my Bf110 corrections seriously. As far as I can tell the loop antenna and antenna racks are now positioned correctly. I can't see the pitot tube, so can't comment on that. Yet there are still the large trim tabs(=wrong) of the 1941 E series present.