Friday 2010-08-06 Dev. update and Discussions

[luthier]

The trees are all a standard size, inside cities or outside. We can either have tall trees in cities, or tiny regulated runts in the woods. If we had to have different types of trees and check where they grow, we'd lose way too much FPS.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by luthier

The trees are all a standard size, inside cities or outside. We can either have tall trees in cities, or tiny regulated runts in the woods. If we had to have different types of trees and check where they grow, we'd lose way too much FPS.

What struck me Luthier was in the lower part of Pic 1 the trees look a little like they're 'floating' in the air. No trunks visible (as is probably correct given perspective) but they do look a little 'high' and 'floating' above the landscape?

Edit: seems that Hecke and myself are talking about different things here. I was referring to an apparent 'floating' effect visible on the foreground trees in Pic 1. Pic 2 trees look fine to me

[luthier]

Originally Posted by kendo65

What struck me Luthier was in the lower part of Pic 1 the trees look a little like they're 'floating' in the air. No trunks visible (as is probably correct given perspective) but they do look a little 'high' and 'floating' above the landscape?

Edit: seems that Hecke and myself are talking about different things here. I was referring to an apparent 'floating' effect visible on the foreground trees in Pic 1. Pic 2 trees look fine to me

It's called LODs At that distance our airplanes lose their gear legs and canopy framework and flaps, buildings lose their chimneys, tanks lose their gun barrels, and so why should the trees keep their trunks?

We still live in the age where computers have limited resources. Some day PCs will become powerful enough to render a fully modeled tree with every twig and every leaf all the way to the horizon, and that'll be a very happy day for everyone in game development, but the way things are, if we were to splatter a bunch of tree trunks everywhere around the player, you'd be looking at an extremely pretty picture that runs at about 1 frame per minute.

Originally Posted by luthier

It's called LODs At that distance our airplanes lose their gear legs and canopy framework and flaps, buildings lose their chimneys, tanks lose their gun barrels, and so why should the trees keep their trunks?

We still live in the age where computers have limited resources. Some day PCs will become powerful enough to render a fully modeled tree with every twig and every leaf all the way to the horizon, and that'll be a very happy day for everyone in game development, but the way things are, if we were to splatter a bunch of tree trunks everywhere around the player, you'd be looking at an extremely pretty picture that runs at about 1 frame per minute.

That's understandable, yes, but will you improve it, because now it looks like green oil film swimming on the ground surface. Unfortunately, the trees don't seem to be any voluminous from that altitude.

[zauii]

Originally Posted by Hecke

That's understandable, yes, but will you improve it, because now it looks like green oil film swimming on the ground surface. Unfortunately, the trees don't seem to be any voluminous from that altitude.

Seriously give it a rest man.

[LukeFF]

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

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Maybe i´m just to easy to convince, but IMO the terrain on the first screenshot looks excellent.
Beside, now we know we will not have "ghost" gunners and copilot on bombers. Long time ago it was said that we would have "ghost" planes for saving resources and because of all the animations required. Now we can see gunners, is a new adition, and only Maddox Games know what else they have in reserve for us.
Thanks for the update.

Originally Posted by LukeFF

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

If you didn't say it I would have.

Thanks for the great shots and careful explanations Luthier. Despite the criticisms SoW will be studied and copied by future sim developers IMAO.

[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.

[Blackdog_kt]

Amazing update! Some issues with trees (scaling, as leaves seem a bit too big compared to building features in the town shot and the "floaty" patches of green) but we all know we can't have perfect visuals without perfect supercomputers.

In fact, looking at it a bit closer it's not so much that the trees are "floating" per se, so i'd say it's not about the lack of trunks. Trees are there, shadows are there for depth perception and there needs to be some FPS optimization too, so i'd say they are as good as can be.

The one bit that sticks out in my eye is the patch of trees visible near the yoke and left rudder pedal through the cockpit glass. Trees in the distance look great and they probably even have a lower LOD detail model, because when viewed from an angle their difference in height and shape gives a sufficient impression of volume. It's only the ones that are viewed at an almost vertical angle that look a bit weird, because the top of the entire tree patch looks like it's the same height, giving the false impression of a flat/2D surface.
Of course, the trees are still 3D and different in size and their closer distance to the player means they use higher detail LODs, so i'm curious as to why. Maybe the upper layer of tree patches in near range LODs just needs a bit more contrast or "jaggednes" to accentuate the feeling of it being a non-uniform surface.

In any case, just like i always say seeing it in motion will be better.

I like details like the chimney smoke a lot, especially if it can be used as a wind indicator for us to make dead-stick landings in the fields after receiving battle damage. With the improved FM and and the dynamic weather knowing which way the wind is blowing will be crucial, especially when emergency landing a damaged plane.
The buildings look great and the fog near the sea is a very nice touch.
Terrain on the whole looks very good to me, despite the debates about the proper shade of green for English grass.

I think that terrain colour in general just has a lot to do with the amount of ambient light and shadowing and the way they affect color perception and in that sense, i find it sufficiently realistic. I mean, on one hand we have people who like WoP-style shadowing and lighting effects on the landscape and on the other we have people who expect to see the same vibrant shade of green in every screenshot, regardless of surrounding weather and light conditions.
I think the terrain we see in the updates is somewhere in the middle between these two extremes and that enforces my belief that it is in fact realistic. We have shading and light effects without them being overdone.

Finally, the aircaft models look great as always, but what really gets my blood pumping is the cockpits and the animated crew members.
I can't wait to "sit" in one, press every button, flick every switch and watch those needles move on the instruments

As for the first shot, it just looks like something out of a movie, or a wartime photo album. It looks somewhat majestic, but only because there is no gunfire. If there was gunfire coming from that Spit it would simply be scary, sitting in that glass nose and all
I agree with what's been said that the glass might seem a bit too transparent, but if you look a bit lower and to the right from the nose gun the reflections are apparent. So, i'm guessing that both the lack of reflections in the rest of the cockpit glass and the not-so-green landscape has to do with the fact that there's some moderate cloud cover. Seems that the amount of ambient light and shadows has a wide and profound effect on how everything is diplayed without being overdone, i like that a lot.