Friday 2010-10-15 Dev. update and Discussion

[Xilon_x]

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
shot20101014234733.jpg
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps. In comparison, SOW's map goes from the north of France, to the midway point of England, with each town and city being rendered by hand. The size comparison alone means that not every little "texture border" is going to be perfect. You're going to have some railways crossing fields and such that are not going to look right, and you're probably going to have some field textures extending under houses, etc.

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

People who are posting pictures of modern england have to remember that much has changed since then. Air quality, weather patterns, field sizes, and even crops. Today farmers are all using Monsanto type crops that actually look different colour wise to their 1940's counterparts. Back then they were using heritage seeds, the real stuff. My father can tell the difference between crop colour now and 30 years ago, how about adding another 40 years to that?

All these things together make SOW (WORK IN PROGRESS SHOTS) look much different to what you see in WOP/BOP and what you see when your jet is coming in for a landing at Heathrow.

Oleg has said that he has flown in over England something like 20 times in the past while, plus he is a professional photographer (or at least is on a professional level). I'm sure he's much more qualified to tell you what will look right and what won't.

I'm not a fanboy, just someone getting tired of every 3rd post in these threads being about the same thing, when Oleg has said a hundred times that it's WIP and being changed all the time.

[airmalik]

Originally Posted by Xilon_x

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........

I noticed the lack of wind in that screenshot too. I hope wind, turbulence etc. are still within scope of the initial release.

[brando]

Originally Posted by Sutts

I think half the problem here is the use of modern day tractor tramlines in the fields, which look odd when they are broken up by something like a railway line.

I'm from a farming background and at the risk of sounding like a stuck record:

1. The evenly spaced tractor tramlines that are apparent in these shots would definitely not have been seen - these are for the efficient application of fertiliser and sprays on a large scale with 15-30 meter booms. This technology has only been around since the 80s really.

2. Baled hay and straw would largely not have been seen, especially round bales. Loose hay/straw stacks and wheat stooks were the feature of the day.

3. Lines of straw in fields would only come later with the introduction of mobile combined harvesters which had only just been introduced to the states.

I haven't seen any evidence of the last 2 yet but maybe the textures are targeting the pre-harvest time when cereal crops are still maturing.

Now I agree, in the big scheme of things this is not an issue but it would have been nice to get it right when the textures were being created. I did point it out ages ago. In the Memphis Belle movie the modern day crop lines are a dead give away.

Standing cereal crops should be an even texture with no parallel tractor lines - these came much later as agriculture became more intensive. These simple textures would have been far easier to produce.

Also, at that time Linseed was grown (blue fields) but oilseed rape is a recent introduction (bright yellow fields). Kent was also full of orchards which have largely been uprooted now.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...9&d=1287325120

+1 Absolutely spot-on analysis!

The only bright yellow crop in those times was in fact mustard.
This is why I get tired of hearing the "I was out on my mountain-bike..."-type threads that keep coming up.
It's as Sutts says. Agricultural practice has changed drastically since 1940 and the landscape has drastically altered too, both in topography and colours. I used to do some farm work in my school holidays, back before haystacks were made out of bales, when the principal tool was a pitchfork. The horse was the main source of horsepower, for ploughing and carting.
Just a further example: the elm tree. This easily-recognised tree was an essential part of the English rural skyline until they were all cut down to prevent the spread of Dutch Elm disease in the 1980s. Now they are all gone.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by domian

I play RoF and the protection is no problem at all.

Since the update to 1.12 or 1.13. you can play offline without internet connection. So i don´t know why people have a problem, with software developers, which only try to protect their intellectual property.

wake up buddy!

the time without any protection is over!

Who said anything about no protection at all?

I am just saying, and many people will and do agree with me - that what RoF had at the beginning was a mistake. And the fact you have to pay for every additional plane? Thats just rubbish.

A bad decision like this can kill the sales. Just like it was with the last Silent Hunter. Fortunately for RoF players, they came to their senses and now the game can be played offline. I won't even go into 'the release without the dedicated server debacle'...

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by Xilon_x

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
Attachment 3700
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

Google is the best, but not perfect. "Look at the direction of the house smoke..." is right.

Try this site...it lets you hear what you wrote too!

http://webtranslation.paralink.com/

[airmalik]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps.

SoW may be making compromises because of it's much greater overall complexity but the fact remains that from a medium altitude, landscape visuals that we've so far haven't surpassed WoP. Ground level - no comparison, SoW wins hands down. But I think Oleg's dismissive remarks about WoP landscape in the past have raised expectations and we expect SoW's landscape to be better than SoW in all respects.

SoW landscape is still WIP and we've been told it's already been improved over what we've seen so I'm looking forward to these improvements.

BTW, my comparison of the two isn't based on filters in WoP which I'm not a fan of. WoP just seems to have better placement and density of trees and they integrate with the ground better.

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

If it looks natural, how can it be unrealistic? Now I agree that WoP uses some very overdone filters and also some simple "cheats" like the secondary lightsource opposite of the sun (works great to give objects more depth on the unlit side even though it's not realistic at all). On the other hand computer graphics has always been about "smoke and mirrors" in the sense that the standard shading procedures are not based on real life, but rather happen to look nice.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

That's certainly true, but still the subjective impression about what matches people's idea of real life scenery is what counts in the end. I do think that overall much WoP is closer to this real life impression than the SoW images posted this week. At the same time some important aspects of landscape rendering are already way better here.

Personally I'm not too worried. I guess people are simply irritated that the SoW updates don't show constant improvements in every area; it's obvious that the team is still experimenting with many aspects. Most screens released so far focus on certain aspects, and many people fail to see this (usually ignoring the shown features and commenting on something else).

So far we have not seen a single screenshot that combines the best aspects shown in individual screens.

[winny]

Originally Posted by Xilon_x

you loock whit atenction the direction of smoke hause smoke.........
is perfect direction not wind interference. (my personal translation)
Attachment 3700
look at the direction of the smoke houses ...... perfect.
There is no wind interference.(google translation)


watched the direction of the smoke of the houses ...... is perfect. Not c' it is no interference of the wind.(yahoo Bable fish translation).

what is english correct?

The smoke from the houses is rising straight up. (this would be the best way to say it)

It's irrelevant though because you don't know what the weather conditions are set to in that picture. It maybe that it is just not windy. You could only say this was incorrect if you knew what the actual wind speed was.

[furbs]

have a look at this vid, now it isnt great quailty and of course the colours might not be 100% true, but they show much closer what i see with my own eyes everyday than the screens from this weeks update.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...3917701546539#

(fast forward to 20 mins)