Friday 2010-10-01 Dev. update and Discussion

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=384

The pictures of translucent instrument faces on the HUD amuse me.

It is beyond me why the instruments are so big, real instrument views and have the mounting screw attachment brackets.

The instruments should be able to be placed anywhere on the screen, resized, with adjustable translucence and colors with no mounting screws. Then of course we could use some ability to create some highlight points on the instruments...i.e., mark for overspeed, mark for low fuel, low ammunition, no oil pressure,etc. or what about programmable idot lights that would come on at certain pre-set or range pre-set.

THe full real players naturally will want the old dull authentic instrument faces...placed on their wonderwoman views. Gotta get that full real feel. LOL

Then of course, it will be done as the developer wants it. LOL

I think they just wanted to create a look more suited to the time period in question for the instruments, as the IL2 no-cockpit instruments are too modern-looking.

I'd seen that picture when it was first released but seeing it again now got me thinking. Since it's been said that they will be resizable and able to be repositioned on the screen, it reminds me of the "panel" system in the MS flight sims. I fly FSX on a friend's PC every now and then and while i always use the virtual cockpit, in many cases of flying complex aircraft in MSFS there are either 2d pop-up panels or custom camera angles to assist with keeping everything into view. I don't think full switch servers would use 2d panels as it would permit players to keep an eye on both the instruments and the outside world during combat, which defeats the puprose of properly simulating a pilot's workload with the advanced systems modelling.

However, having the ability to define pre-set camera views in the full cockpit view would be useful and probably be used by full switch players, as it doesn't let you see the gauges while looking outside the cockpit the way 2d pop-up panels do. In fact, these views actually limit situational awareness as they usually consist of views fully zoomed in over a particular console or set of instruments. Their advantage comes from not having to bend your neck all over the place to pan to the right place with TrackIR, or fiddling with all sorts of keyboard controls, while still having the drawback of reduced SA to balance it out.

Of course nobody would fly the plane from such a view, but they are very useful for utility stuff and secondary controls. For example, i'm flying through clouds so i want to turn on my formation lights, check the outside temperature and possibly turn on the de-icing equipment. One way to do it is to pan with TrackIR or keyboard/joystick hats, then zoom in. The other way would be to save a pre-set of custom views for each aircraft (i think RoF does this too), so i could set them up once, map them to the numeric keypad and they'd be aircraft specific.

Cockpits are different and the cockpit side consoles would not be at the same coordinates for each aircraft, but with aircraft specific views (possibly saved as a coordinate set in the aircraft's .ini file or something similar) the problem could be overcome. This way, i could map keypad 4 to a close up of the left cockpit console and keypad 6 to a close up of the right cockpit console for all planes. I'd also add keypad 8 as the zoomed-in gunsight view, keypad 5 as the center/default view and keypad 2 as the zoomed-in instrument panel view. Then maybe they could work like IL2, where we can change from pan to snap views. In this way, you could take a quick look at your instruments by choosing snap views and pressing keypad 2 (the view reverts back to normal when you release the key), or you could choose pan views and press keypad 2 to fly by instruments for extended periods of time (the view doesn't revert back to default after releasing the key), for example when flying in bad weather.

I don't know how the view system will be in SoW, but i trust they've made several improvements. I think the one i described is a good mix of what's possible in RoF, IL2 and FSX and gives a wide range of possibilities without becoming so easy that it would clarify as a separate difficulty option. In fact, 2d pop-up instruments could be tied to wonder woman view in a common difficutly setting, while custom in-cockpit camera angles could function in conjunction with the closed cockpit view and we'd be set.

What do you guys think?

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by Rueckwaertsflieger

On my last trip to England I have done these photos.

That's nice but do you know where this is? We've also lost a lot of woodland since 1940

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by Hood

I live in the UK so I'm sick of clouds. Can we discuss something else please?

Hood

ps nice update, can't wait!

You welsh should be used to it by now

[JVM]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

Thanks for the answers.

JVM, how about when the A/C is static...? ...but when the A/C is static the rain will have an effect.

You are absolutely right...when static you should see plain drops and occasional rivulets...

Now I do not know if how far OM will be willing to push toward realism, and certainly not when...lot of food for future updates/patches!

[philip.ed]

+1 to that last comment. I am confident that even if the release of SoW doesn't contain everything that Oleg would have wanted, the game will be able to expand (amazingly so) via patches

[matsher]

I don't know how the view system will be in SoW, but i trust they've made several improvements. I think the one i described is a good mix of what's possible in RoF, IL2 and FSX and gives a wide range of possibilities without becoming so easy that it would clarify as a separate difficulty option. In fact, 2d pop-up instruments could be tied to wonder woman view in a common difficutly setting, while custom in-cockpit camera angles could function in conjunction with the closed cockpit view and we'd be set.

What do you guys think?[/QUOTE]


Hi Blackdog,
Thats sounds like a sound plan to me... Let me see if I got you right though. A predefined set of views for any or all relevant instruments - assigned to user defined button...

That doesn't sound too difficult to achieve... May I suggest a simpler (Hopefully) solution?

My issue with incockpit view is that when I look down to view instruments,
I normally have to also zoom in as well to clearly read them. This is because I usually have the widest possible incockpit view (90Deg) on so I can have the most Sit awareness as poss. thats why wonderview is so nice cause it totally eliminates that problem. SO in my mind, it needs a 2 stage solution.

1. Custom snap to view of the instrument panel AND,
2. Custom zoom function coupled with snap view...

So my recommendation is to be able to create a series of custom cameras.
For eg. I use my mouse to find the right angle I want and THEN zoom into desired distance from said instrument/s with the mouse scroll and hit the "Make custom camera" button which I can assign to either number keypad 2 or maybe the Joystick hat.

I hope I am making sense...

I am hoping Oleg has already thought of stuff like this, cause these kind of improvements (GamePlay), for me, is a million times more important than having silly freakin' flat bottomed clouds.

Also, having custom in cockpit cameras can serve another vital function.
And that is to be able to widen the Max FOV from 90Deg to 105Deg, which
would really really REALLY add to the Sit Awareness and give you a much greater sense of space and bring it all little closer to human peripheral vision.

Thank you by the way for your warm welcome... Its a shame no one else could give me an opinion about the semi transparent cockpit, it seems most people want to talk about clouds.

Maybe I'll try and create an example of what I mean and put it up so other can understand what I mean...

[Hood]

Originally Posted by Osprey

You welsh should be used to it by now

The only difference between those from Wales and those from Glaaaacester is that we wear wellies when chasing sheep.

And you can never ever get used to the clouds in the UK. To paraphrase what Clostermann said US pilots used to say - "If you get lost oer Europe just look for the biggest blackest cloud and that goddamn island will be right beneath it."

Thinking about it, if sheep aren't modelled correctly I'll have a hissy fit.

Hood

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by Hood

And you can never ever get used to the clouds in the UK. To paraphrase what Clostermann said US pilots used to say - "If you get lost oer Europe just look for the biggest blackest cloud and that goddamn island will be right beneath it."Hood

Not wanting to necessarily resurrect the cloud debate, but here's a Catalina in typical British cloudscape, plus a few shots I took at 5.45pm tonight over another famous English river estuary.
Whoops! The cat is sideways, sorry.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

Not wanting to necessarily resurrect the cloud debate, but here's a Catalina in typical British cloudscape, plus a few shots I took at 5.45pm tonight over another famous English river estuary.
Whoops! The cat is sideways, sorry.

Great pictures. Looking back at the previous updates, I think the really high clouds could do with some work too...

[matsher]

Right, onto the real reason I wanted to post. This posting thing is pretty new to me so please excuse any babbling...

I have one development question / wish / request that has always been on my mind, and I have never come across anyone else asking about it... So here it is

Full cockpit vs Wonderview:- In IL-2 there is either Full cockpit or gunsight and sky. Nothing inbetween. It would be so good if there was a third option.

To Oleg- Will/can there be a player defined option to set the in-cockpit view at 65% (or so) opacity, to make it semi-transparent?
So pilots can still have more "sky" but also can have the feeling that they are still flying in a beautifully rendered fighter plane?

The cockpit opacity settings would be amazing to have... No longer will we have to choose between dynamic gameplay (Wonderview) and immersion (In cockpit)... We could have both.

Not too sure what the technical implications of this request is but I had to ask anyway.

Please give me feedback guys, I am interested to know your opinions on this request...



HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT...


Please give me some opinions and feedback.