Friday 2010-10-22 Dev. update and Discussion

[mark@1C]

Cockpits has always been your strength in accordance with those previous updates. It's no doubt...

[trumps]

looks bloody fantastic, it always strikes me the difference between the functional offices of the luftwaffe fighters, built obviously as a machine of war, and the nearon kit plane cockpits of the british fighters, they definately have that cottage industry feel to them. it may only be me that sees them in this light but who cares, all that matters is that these screen shots convey that feeling to me perfectly, as if i was sitting in them!

Great work
cheers
Craig

[mark@1C]

In my opinion, there can be a little enhancement with the additional control description/instruction,
for example, the font can be gothic when in a german plane, and this "Instruction words" layer needs some decoration I think, just a blank/white colour is too dull, some pattens may be good foil to those "Words".

[Kurfürst]

Hi Oleg,

Absolutely stunning to see the thing "in action"

However since you asked us to pick errors... I think the pilot seat adjustment lever (to the left of the sear) is wrong. I've seen the original one. Its a shiny piece of finely molded aluminium, with a black rubber grip.

So I think there are two problems with it:

- the end of the lever misses the rubber grip
- the colour doesn't seem to be right either. On your picture it has grey primer as the rest of the cocpit, but the original piece I have seen was polished aluminium. I didn't see any traces of paint on it, it probably wasn't painted originally. I tried to find a picture, and I managed to find this:

This is picture taken by the French (or the British) of a 109E-3 (WNr. 1304) in the end of 1939, when the plane was captured. It seems the original lever and the rest of the assembly was unpainted, natural aluminium finish. Note also the black rubber grip.



via: http://kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/...ls/Morgan.html

The second thing I don't like so much is the weathering inside the cocpit. All planes look like as they have seen many, many years of use. Some pre-war manufactured planes might have, and looked this way, but in reality, losses were such that fighter planes did not have much time to age. Avarage lifespan of a Bf 109 was like 4 months and about 40 hours in 1942, from RLM records... then it was wrecked or shot down in avarage. Most planes were still had the factory smell in them and no wear on the cocpit when they went into the trash can. As it is, it looks a bit strange, the wings are all new and shiny, but the cocpit looks 500 years old...

So, since the externals of the plane "age" already, I wonder if it would be possible that the internals would have less "beggarish", with less or no paint chipped etc. Perhaps a multi-layered texture with transparency set according to the age and use of aircraft?

Or some random effect, that at start of carreer, you get a well worn airplane, get higher in rank, crash the previous aircraft etc., and get a new one fresh from the factory, with no wear in the cocpit at all?

I can send you some accurate Russian drawings of 109E seat adjustment system too.

[rakinroll]

Thank you Oleg, impressive cocpit detais.

[kristorf]

Absolutally beautiful, many thanks

First update with no mention of being WIP....

Very good job...Imagine when all this will be in motion...

Dear Oleg : would you say, at this stage , that you have reached you own expectations from your original goal regarding the developpement of SOW ?... Did you even surpassed them ?

Beautiful job !

SAlute !

[smink1701]

Oleg,

Beautiful is the only word that comes to mind. Now that I can really get a sense of where your efforts are going...I say take as long as you need.

My personal vote would be to see the pilots wearing masks all the time. I believe that's the way the pilots were most of the time unless they were posing for pics.

Thanks for the update!!!

[Osprey]

Awesome, awesome, awesome

I don't want to be forced to use the mouse to operate the cockpit controls for everything though, I use a dual control set up and would rather map keys. I am sure this is configurable regardless.

I love that final shot, something to really fatally ram into one of Tree's orifices.

[Romanator21]

First update with no mention of being WIP....

It's a given - Oleg and his team are going to be working right up to "X-day" like they did with the original IL-2.

However, if I'm not mistaken, he's compiling a version to demonstrate at a tech show. They could sell the game now - but they are still tuning and de-bugging.

+1 I can't imagine the damage is operate with this beautiful realistic cockpit

Thanks for the update Oleg - the terrain shot is especially impressive.