Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[Former_Older]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Chris,

I cannot wait till you get your hands on this, even if it isn't "our" favorite theater, your abilities will really shine with these new tools. Heck, even my little single missions will become even more alive.

Cheers,

Terry


P.S. Triggers. *Insert drool smilie here*

Hiya Terry!

Yes, triggers. Maybe even better than triggers, if we can run scripts when a certain event happens. I don't want to wish too hard but I'm already wondering if the scripts might do what I think they might do- imagine instead of just a trigger that spawns X number of planes when the player flies over point A, a script that runs, changing AI behavior based on where your flight went, and possibly triggering other scripts. If it's like I hope it is, this just scratches the tip of the proverbial iceberg! Fingers crossed

Since I took the plunge with UP, I have been finding myself looking at the lower Burma map and...then closing it before I start an adaptation of WSBS. But I have been working on my last set of skins for the 2nd Sqdn AVG. I just can't seem to get the time to wrap it up. I only have three or four planes left. I only took two years...is that bad?

[nearmiss]

Most mission builders are probably like myself... very excited about this update.

The scripting ability is very important.

I recall trying to build missions campaigns using Pokryskinin air tactics in 1943 flying the P39. I could not do it because all flights would attack en masse. Pokryskinin's tactic was to maintain aircraft in altitude tiers until the air combat advanced. The upper altitude flights would incrementally drop into the combat with greater E onto the 109s and 190s destroying them with the P39 cannon.

This is just one example of course. The AI performance package should have some scripting options as well, to create tactical encounters.

The ability to arrange objects then group and store them as files would be a great help. Groups that would allow including objects with waypoints and other data would make mission building much more efficient. A further help would be to have timing you could set for certain objects within groups of objects at one time. Example : If you are setting delay time and direction for Flak guns at one time for all flak guns.

It would be a great help to have explosions and and other such objects on waypoints so you could build battles in process as you fly into combat areas.

Very important to have navigation ability for player to fly without having to follow waypoints. No matter if AI aircraft fly waypoints. Player flight should not be restricted to flight paths or altitudes. Autopilot for player should be determined with individual player settings on-the-fly.

Most programming tools developed for IL2 were just text editor tools that worked with the *.mis files. The QMT is a good example.

I can go on for pages and pages like many other mission builders.

One thing that would be awesome... to know the FMB will get periodic updates to further facilitate mission builders as new patches and addons are made available.

Thanks Oleg, I'm printing out all the screenshots and carefully studying them to get a more thorough understanding. Oleg there are some excellent mission builders who have posted this thread. It is good to see them here responding to your update.

[MD_Titus]

Originally Posted by swiss

+1

I probably spent over 1000hrs with IL2, but I've never touched the FMB and intend to keep that way(for BoB too).

Although this seems to be a highly interesting update for the mission builders, to me, well, you could as well show me a black square, lol

Just add a few pics for us action porn lovers, lease. Thx.

we've had how many months of action porn shots? good to see the guts of teh game imo, and the thing that gives the majority of players (off-liners) a reason to play the game and promote it to others. having played some fine scripted campaigns, where there were events that you could tell were a bit of a skilful compromise on what they really wanted the game to do...

this is a great update.

Originally Posted by Seeker

Dissapointed.

Sure, there's lot's of great new functionality that those that mastered the current FMB will love.

I'm sure it'll produce great missions. But it's still the FMB! It's just been modded a bit.

And that's the problem, while being undoubtedably powerfull, the IL-2 FMB is a sucky program with a horrible interface and lousy documentation.

Yes, dedicated users can do wonders with it, just as they can in Unix apps.

But if that was enough in the 21 century there'd be no ipad.

I hope the rest of the game interface is better than this.

Nothing in this week's update makes the mission building functions more accessable or welcoming.

That, coupled with rumours of static campaigns only; will severely limit SOW's replayability in my view.

A modern game should be able to generate it's own content (dynamic campaigns!), and content generation should not be this complex at the lower levels.

It seems DCG will still be the way to go, which is sad after so much time in development.

the fmb in il2 takes a bit of getting used to, but frankly compared to other games mission builders it is a piece of cake. i could use the fmb within a couple of hours of fiddling to create passable bomber stream intercepts. the things that will be very useful is being able to state a formation and number of planes, such as the luftwaffe vee, and plonk it on the map, then have it change course without a tonne of carefulm tinkering.

also, speed variations with altitude - whilst realistic, it does make for a bit of complication when setting large bomber formations that vary a lot in altitude from highest to lowest - will this still be in effect, or will speed be settable at some kind of universal, regardless of altitude, value? or will that be utterly irrelevant as you can, say, set a b17 box with so many aircraft as a single unit?

[bf-110]

You can customize airplane!Cool!
Also,the FMB looks quite the same of IL2.The classic design.

What those white airplanes in circles mean?

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Very important to have navigation ability for player to fly without having to follow waypoints. No matter if AI aircraft fly waypoints. Player flight should not be restricted to flight paths or altitudes. Autopilot for player should be determined with individual player settings on-the-fly.

The way I look at that is that the (single player) player should be able to change waypoints for his/her own aircraft/flight while the mission is in progress.

In fact, that's a wish for general single player play, not mission building.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Schallmoser

Hi everybody,
Thanks for the great update!
But I'd like to second what ivagiglie said. The major reason why I didn't use the IL2 mission builder much over all these years was the interface.

I know that right now all development effort is on much more important things but I think it would be worth to re-think the GUI.

I've been working as a software architect for 20 years now and in most of my projects the GUI was or is one of the key elements that are very important.
The way I would go, would be Qt4. Qt4 is a set of C++ libraries that are available for windows, linux, Mac and even embedded platforms. They include everything to make highly ergonomic and modern GUI applications with just a few lines of code.

If you provided some kind of front-end library in C++ for all the functionalities of the FMB, we (the community) would be able to give you a hand or even develop a standalone application that has all that ergonomic appeal and bells and whistles that would make the FMB an even more outstanding tool.

cheers,
Schallmoser

Probably the stand alone would be a great mistake. Like did it some others in the past. Also you will need to write so many other tools that to display the map, in 2D and 3D, all 3D objects and its options, change the features that render the engine, etc then you should be able to make BoB 3D engine. Don't you think so?

And if you can't use so simple in use tool..... just because you are thinking that it should have other interface and even didn't try to read instruction... translating your words why you didn't use it ever...

Who understand architecture of Il-2 builder begin to think by other way.... If my 6 year old son can use it easy, then i'm "sure" something wrong ..... When my older son (he was 10 years old) begun to use FMB, he also didn't read any instructions, but after a couple of hours try, he did the first his mission. The only one thing that I was need to say him - use button Ctrl...

The goal to keep the Il-2 looking new builder is that to get involved in mission building right from the release day a lot of people who was able to make it with Il-2 in the past. This is the most fast way to invite the other wide auditory of players to new missions and features right from the beginning... Ist it the right way?

If to speak about other way looking colors etc... then proably it may happens.

I know a lot of people photographers, that can't learn simple Canon's Digital Photo Professional program... I really learned it for 30 min...
I know the people who make really great photos, but can't learn simplest program Adobe Lightroom to make theri photos even more greater looking...
I know a lot of people who know well Adobe Photoshot, but can't use very simple for understanding Adobe Camera Raw module integrated in Photoshop.

In all these cases the problem is not in interface, but in understanding of process, sequence and principles.

And finally I did in the past the poll to keep ot not to keep the interface of Il-2 FMB...

I don't remember now exact digit, but more than 90 or 95% said to keep.

And we did it, adding a lot more features.

How it looks and how it works - it is too different thing.


PS. You may do a lot more nice buttons, including popup help(which sorry we can't produce with the small team for every feature of FMB), etc, but probably you can't make the other archtectiure of the FMB that is using BoB 3D engine. Trust me.


PS2. I know another one guy who was speaking many times that he is great specialist in Interface... I found then other... and many other people think the same now about him.... comparing with the old design that was...

[fruitbat]

i'm glad the GUI is the same.

for those who are familiar with the il2 FMB such as myself, it will make the transition very easy, and it seems as though my wish list for the FMB is complete, so i am very happy.

for those who are complaining about the GUI of the il2 FMB, and its difficulties, you obviously haven't bothered to spend more than 10 mins on it and gave up, its very easy to use if you can be bothered to spend a couple of hours learning it, and is far easier than other mission building stuff I've used.

A funkier GUI won't change the fact that you will still have to take some time to learn how to use it....

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

the fmb in il2 takes a bit of getting used to, but frankly compared to other games mission builders it is a piece of cake.

Agree.
Some has nice picture but don't give any real fun as the result...

Pinnacle Studio has simplest for understanding interface... But can't be even comparable in quality of output to Adobe Premier Pro...

[Trooper117]

I have to admit, the first thing I thanked the gods for when I saw this update was the fact that the man has kept the FMB very close to the original.. that will make the transition for people like me to leap straight in and virtualy create missions from day one, even without learning all the new features.
The thing I would like to ask is that will there be some sort of pdf or booklet on release to directly explain all the new features?.. Thanks in advance!

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Don't know if that has been asked before Oleg, but is still possible to zoom into the map and switch automatically to in game rendered view? I loved that in IL2.