Friday 2010-03-19 Screenshots and Discussion Thread

[Freycinet]

Originally Posted by Abraxa

Moreover, there are few details of the fuselage of the model that may be improved.

Feel free to contact me via email, if you need some help.

Cheers

Andrea aka "Abraxa"

This is the place to mention your comments Abraxa.

[jocko417]

Oleg, here's some printed examples of what I was talking about regarding the 'shadow compensating scheme' on biplanes:

First example is from CAMOUFLAGE AND MARKINGS No.2: The Battle for Britain - RAF May to December 1940 ISBN 0-9539040-0-8



Note that this version also takes into account the shadows on the fin and lower fuselage, something never compensated for on monoplanes, and wasn't as popular as just changing the colours on the lower wing.

Next is from BRITAIN ALONE June 1940 to December 1941 ISBN 1-904643-06-X



Again, lower wing finished in lighter versions of the top surface camo colours.

Originally Posted by MikkOwl

I find it very unlikely that any colors would accomplish much between upward facing clear sky and surface facing, even less that it would make the upper and lower meld together. The sky is REAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLY bright, and the whole upper hemisphere illuminates the upper surfaces. It only helps a little bit. Works better with camuflage painted on faces..

It is important to note that the Temperate Land scheme used by the RAF from the Munich Crisis until after the BoB was not intended to help the aircraft blend in while in flight - it was purely a defensive paint scheme to make aircraft less visible while parked around the airfields during refuelling, etc. It wasn't until 1941 and the adoption of the grey/green Day Fighter scheme that the camo was meant to make aircraft less visible during flying operations.

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by Sutts

I'm not after functioning farms guys and I don't dispute
the fact there were plenty of tractors working the fields in those days.

All I'm saying is that:

1. Baled hay and straw (round or square) would largely not have been seen
2. Lines of straw in fields would only come later with the introduction of mobile
combined harvesters
3. The evenly spaced tractor tramlines that are apparent in the Blenheim shot would definitely
not have been seen - these are for the efficient application of fertiliser and sprays on a large
scale with 20-30 meter booms. This technology has only been around since the 80s really.

There were machines that could help with the harvest but they were very different from today.

Binders would cut the wheat/barley/oats and tie it up into neat bundles which were dropped on the ground.
Workers would then stand a few of these bundles together to form stooks which would aid further drying and keep
some of the rain out. These stooks would have been a major feature in fields around harvest time
(see picture in previous post).

A static threshing machine (powered by steam or tractor) would then be pulled to the field and the stooked
crop would be untied and thrown into the top of the machine. The grain would be threshed out and poured
out into sacks while the threshed straw would be dropped out and piled up loosely into pitched stacks
(see picture in previous post). These loose stacks would also have been a common sight.

It is possible an odd early baler may have come over from the States but this would have been very rare indeed.


I know some of you could care less about such details but I think it makes a big difference, especially for those
interested in producing period correct footage. The enlarged, neatly tended, tramlined fields in the Memphis Belle
movie were a dead giveaway. Using plain fields instead of tramlined ones has got to be easier anyway hasn't it?



This really isn't a criticism, it just may not be obvious to people who haven't worked in agriculture.

The texture shown in the first screenshot looks like it is from an aerial photograph. I imagine that the textures
used in BoB might be similar to those used for VFR scenery for FSX. If that is the case then each texture square
will be individual, and it would take forever to change them, and also would be difficult to make changes look
natural.

I agree - I would prefer not to have those tyre lines in the fields, but it wont matter much if they are there.




VFR scenery for fSX:






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A question to Oleg:

Will the textures be repeated tiles, or all individual (from aerial photos of the area)?






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[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by Sutts

I'm not after functioning farms guys and I don't dispute the fact there were plenty of tractors working the fields in those days.

Come on now! If we don't have working farms, how will we have farmers with pitchforks greeting baled-out German and Polish pilots???????

But your points are taken that we don't want evidence of modern argricultual practices onwards on the landscape and the textures used should reflect the practices appropriate to the times.

From the photo's shown (and we don't know when during the war the various photo's were taken ) it is apparent that a) There was an mixture of traditional techniques and equipment with more modern equipment being introduced, and b) Land Army women on tractors were fairly hot.


Cheers!

[Richie]

"Let's got for a roll in the hay". Did that come from Britain??

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by Foo'bar

Nice tractors. I hope we will be able to drive them to a pub if we are downed in a field!

[Flanker35M]

S!

So we are getting Storm of War: Battle of the Fields?! Drive the most devastating crop choppers of the era and annihilate your opponents with superior harvesting and fine tuned machinery! Let that neighbour behind the stone wall taste the bitter taste of failure against your perfectly honed farming skills and state of the art farming equipment. Now in DirectX 11 in a shop near you!

Errrm..I thought this was done already

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Come on now! If we don't have working farms, how will we have farmers with pitchforks greeting baled-out German and Polish pilots???????

But your points are taken that we don't want evidence of modern argricultual practices onwards on the landscape and the textures used should reflect the practices appropriate to the times.

From the photo's shown (and we don't know when during the war the various photo's were taken ) it is apparent that a) There was an mixture of traditional techniques and equipment with more modern equipment being introduced, and b) Land Army women on tractors were fairly hot.


Cheers!

LOL

[Sutts]

Nice shots Rodolphe, thanks for posting.

I wasn't against all lines in fields since tractors/horses cutting hay, turning hay, binders cutting cereals etc., would all produce straight lines and blocks of colour in the landscape.

My main issue was the wide spaced uniform tramlines that could only be produced by modern agricultural methods. I think the appearance of round and square bales would also be a killer.

Now, this was all based on the assumption that fields would be put together from a standard set of textures. If this isn't the case and modern aerial photography is being used to put together the landscape then the effort required would be way too much and I'll just live with it.

The trouble with modern aerial photography is the fields have been enlarged and "squared up" considerably since the war and a good percentage of the hedgerows and lanes have been destroyed to cater for modern machinery. This results in a very different looking landscape to that which pilots of the day would have seen.

Anyhow, I think the points are clear and I'll shut up now.

[Abraxa]

Originally Posted by Freycinet

This is the place to mention your comments Abraxa.

Hi Freycinet.
I already gave some help for the camo of the Br 20 and the exchange went fully via email, after collecting the info with the help of few qualified friends.
Quicker and easier. I'm sure I'm not the only one who worked that way.

Comments, suggestions, exchanges of documents, picts and screenshots on specific details would be slow, boring and essentially unfit for a forum.

It's up to Oleg anyway. However he decides is fine for me.