Friday 2010-06-04 Dev. update and Discussion Thread

[Il2Pongo]

That is stunning Oleg, truly visionary, and I do remember il2s intro and beta.

[danjama]

Dear Oleg,

Thanks for the update! Just want to say thanks for giving us a sim that has lasted for many years now. Quite an achievement.

I'd like to know whether trees will be visible at ground level? In il2, as you know, some forests are almost invisible when low flying. Will we have 100% visi on trees in SoW? I like low flying.

Also, will He111's be flyable? Or Stukas? I'm a skilled, enthusiastic bomber pilot, and look forward to attacking the London docks in 1940.

Thanks for any reply.

[MD_Titus]

yum

[MikkOwl]

The thing that stands out in the cockpit is of course the reflections in the glass of the instruments. And in that, the thing to stand out the most is that the plane crew (well yes, only a one person crew) is missing.

1. Are these reflections real time calculated, or are they an environment map? Or a combination?

The propellers are rendered well now in screen shots (with motion blur). I can't see it in the 109 cockpit view, but I am sure it is fine.

In past images, a 'glow' artifact could be seen on the aircraft in many circumstances. I have seen this type of effect in so many games since I don't know how long ago. Even now it is common to see. The shaders can create them (the blue sky reflection on the wings). The glow can look unrealistic and strange. But it seems to be more under control now. Maybe they have been tweaked. Or maybe it is about the resolution and AA.

Shadow vs sunlight contrast ratio: In the cockpit view the shadow area (that is lit by the ambient light) is not much darker than the sun + ambient light lit areas. In reality it feels more sharp to my eyes. But maybe this is because the renderer has not been tuned to deliver an 'experience' suitable for a certain dynamic range monitor but instead the range of the human eye. Then it would solve itself by just using a display that is set to high enough brightness and contrast. I prefer this solution if that is how it is.

____

Does anyone know how the Luftwaffe pilots (109, 110) carried their maps, and how these maps looked like? I'm interested in getting something comparable when flying to more closely replicate how piloting was like for them. (Getting printable versions or pre-made nice quality ones bundled with the game would be most welcome).

Also, in the case of the Bf 110, did the pilot do everything except rearward gunning and reloading the weapons, or did the bordfunker help out with more duties, such as navigation and radio?

[AdMan]

Originally Posted by MikkOwl

1. Are these reflections real time calculated, or are they an environment map? Or a combination?

do you really think they wouldn't be? You can tell they are by the reflection of the sun and clouds etc they are in fact real time traced

[bf-110]

SoW will need a quite strong computer to run...

[Skoshi Tiger]

On the first picture of the 109, I make out about 27 aircraft in the background, mostly bombers. What frame rate would you get out of flightsim with 27 of those B17 in close formation?

Olegs job is NOT easy, trying to combine modern graphics, large plane numbers, special effects, the over head of a multipalyer game and still try to get playable frame rates.

Cheers and thanks for the great effort Oleg&Co!

[Blackdog_kt]

I'm sure the engine will be able to deliver 30 bombers with assorted escorts and interceptors in the mix at very high graphics quality, with pre-arranged expandability to accomodate even bigger formations in the future. I'm also sure that 99.9% of us will be forced to tune it down in order to maintain playable frame rates when closing in for the kill (European Air War is still unsurpassed in that regard, it could do 256 aircraft at once and in very good graphics for its time).

See, i used to have this problem with one of the IL2 titles in the past. It would run fine except everytime i fired rockets i had to be in the zoomed out view, otherwise i'd get a 1-2 second "freeze" thar resulted in crashing my plane on top of some Panzers, because my Geforce MX400 couldn't render the rocket smoke well enough.

In the same sense, i'm sure i'll be able to run SoW nearly maxed on an i7 with a 4890 in DX9 mode and maybe with 60-70% of the detail options enabled in DX10. That doesn't mean it will be playable too. LOD optimizing can go a long way, but in the end this still remains a combat sim of the "guns only" era. Sooner or later we'll have to get close to those 30 bombers and that's exactly the point where the worst thing to happen to you is FPS hiccups.

Short version, i'm sure we'll be seeing equal or better detail in SoW, i just don't think we'll have the hardware to run it for a few more years. I'm not really worried about this though, as the developers have proven in the past that their titles scale well across PC specs of varying power. I could be flying this sim in the no-AA mode i see in these screenshots and it would still be an improvement over IL2, so no worries from me.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Olegs job is NOT easy, trying to combine modern graphics, large plane numbers, special effects, the over head of a multipalyer game and still try to get playable frame rates.

Perfectly right.
In additional we made own very complex program engine(3D, physics, etc), but not using the engine that is impossible to use for the good combat flight sim.

To make just one aircraft with the teaching how to fly it using other (not own) 3D engine and to make combat flight sim with the superb details - the work is way different. In our case it is way more complex in total.
However our work as a basis in future perhaps will be using by third party for such and other modeling. But I hope they will use our features for more details of gameplay with new units than to make just one plane several years with training to fly it.

Our goal is other - superb looking and very good gameplay with the "basic" features in release and very much growing features in future with our new updates and new sims (like PF into all others previous) and updates from third party developers.

"basic" means that it will have way more things and more complex in programming that was in Il-2 in terms of features. But they are basic in a new sim.

[major_setback]

Interesting comparison:

I don't know if there is more wear on one shot, or if it's just the lighting. The wind-shield frame seems to have a different colour (green/black) at least.