Friday update and discussions 2011-02-25

[Skarphol]

Originally Posted by Freycinet

In flight they of course sat lower to line up with the gun sight...

My thought, too.
Wouldn't the pilots have some way of ajusting their seat or position so that their eye was ligned up with the gun sight, ant thus every pilot would sit at aproximately the same height in the cockpit? Then it would be just the size of their head and helmet wich differed? I don't know. But I will never think of it during gameplay, be sure..

Skarphol

Originally Posted by B25Mitch

Hi everyone. I see there's been some discussion about the gap in shadows, close to the base of the object casting them.



This is an inherent limitation of texture-projection type shadowing. Here is a quick example I did in Blender, also using a low-resolution texture projection shadow:



Notice how the light creeps underneath the wall (yes, the wall is attached to the ground). This can be reduced using a 'bias' factor, however this of course will drain more resources from the system. The simple fact is that this sort of effect will always be present to some extent when using texture-projection shadowing.

Now take another look at the first screenshot. The planes that are further away have a worse gap in the shadow and lower shadow map resolution than the plane in the foreground. This indicates that the team are well aware of the issue and have done everything they can to minimize it.

Well done Mitch. You're a guy worth listening to.

[zakkandrachoff]

loock at this link.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...id=13883518665

will be great have take off in a raining day (not hazy) and that willl be wahter in the airfield.

by the way, i dont see soo much raining pics of Cliffs of Dover. !!!

will be nice fly over england whit finest rain (not strng wind)

[McHilt]

Originally Posted by domian

The thing with the shadows do not care! Such a nitpicker xxxx...

Might be domian, but bringing it up (in a positive and constructive way like Skarphol) is also a way to learn things, like in this case
Mitch explains something many people didn't know. It gains a better understanding of what Oleg and crew are doing which hopefully leads to a lot less whining... hope folks understand that.

Cheers

[Sauf]

Originally Posted by McHilt

Might be domian, but bringing it up (in a positive and constructive way like Skarphol) is also a way to learn things, like in this case
Mitch explains something many people didn't know. It gains a better understanding of what Oleg and crew are doing which hopefully leads to a lot less whining... hope folks understand that.

Cheers

Well said Mr McHilt

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by B25Mitch

Hi everyone. I see there's been some discussion about the gap in shadows, close to the base of the object casting them.



This is an inherent limitation of texture-projection type shadowing. Here is a quick example I did in Blender, also using a low-resolution texture projection shadow:



Notice how the light creeps underneath the wall (yes, the wall is attached to the ground). This can be reduced using a 'bias' factor, however this of course will drain more resources from the system. The simple fact is that this sort of effect will always be present to some extent when using texture-projection shadowing.

Now take another look at the first screenshot. The planes that are further away have a worse gap in the shadow and lower shadow map resolution than the plane in the foreground. This indicates that the team are well aware of the issue and have done everything they can to minimize it.

Originally Posted by Skarphol

Thanks for your explenation Mitch! I found that gap in the shadow peculiar. As this gap has not been seen on other pictures, I guess the problem occures when the light hit the joining of those to surfaces at very special angles.

Skarphol

It has shown up in quite a few of the earlier pictures. I've noticed it quite a lot. It shows where the aerial mast joins the fuselage (look at the big/close 109 screenshot in this weeks update), and on exhaust covers for example. You can see it on an opened spitfire door, and under the Hurricane tail too.
It looks like they (understandably) try to avoid taking screenshots from certain angles because of it.



Aerial and 'floating' engine intakes:



Exhaust cover and tail:

[major_setback]

I'd say that the pilot here is the right size. I can't imagine he could be much bigger:



It looks an improvement on this:

[Sutts]

It does look better but could just be the angle of the shot. He sure looks like he's just had a broom shoved up his a$$ in the second shot.

I'd love to see some oxy masks too. Goggles down without a mask was not a common sight from all the evidence I've seen.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Sutts

It does look better but could just be the angle of the shot. He sure looks like he's just had a broom shoved up his a$$ in the second shot.

I'd love to see some oxy masks too. Goggles down without a mask was not a common sight from all the evidence I've seen.

+1
also, few wore these mark IV goggles

[Biggs]

many pilots flew without goggles because they weren't the greatest quality back then and would distort the pilots vision. this effect was compounded when adding to the regular amount of distortion that the cockpit glass already created.

they figured it was best to have the least amount of material between the pilots eye and the sky.

I think Bob Doe wrote/said something to that effect at one point.