Friday 2010-10-15 Dev. update and Discussion

[=69.GIAP=TOOZ]

Well, regarding the colour of the fields, they might be representative of lavender fields? And I'm sure I've seen crop fields of lettuces or cabbages or something that have that kind of blueish colour. But I'm no expert on the english countryside in 1940!

[Blackdog_kt]

Yay, i'm having reason to repeat myself again, like i do every week during the past month or two: this update is even better than the previous one which was better than the one before.
Also, what are you doing mr Maddox, revealing to the world your son is flying SoW? Hordes of flight sim fans are so jealous, the poor kid might get the evil eye.

On more a serious note now. I read the entire thread and saw all the interesting and encouraging comments made by almost everyone, it's actually a very refreshing change to see it all come together and everyone voicing their opinions in a civil manner, even if we (naturally) can't all agree with eachother.

It also seems that mr. Maddox is on a good roll and feeling talkative today. Lot's of very good snippets worth their wheight in gold if you ask me, seems that whenever i think of a feature and go "nah, it's too complex or too small to do for the first release" the guy comes up and confirms it's already in the game engine

Some things that got my attention, based on previous posters and comments.

First of all, the terrain. Well, the thing is, we've seen so many variations over the past few updates that i'm sure they will be able to come up with the real deal, mix-and-matching the good points of each individual set of textures they've shown us thus far. I'm not worried, as colour and filters can probably be tuned ad infinitum during the life of the simulator. What i care about is having a robust foundation on which to build the terrain and it seems we have that.

The old terrain in the shots posted by Richie seemed right, maybe even a bit EAW-ish. Maybe that's why it seemed nice to me, i've been conditioned through years of flight simming to think that WWII Europe looked like this, so it could just be the familiarity factor kicking in. Apart from the obvious low resolution/WiP textures used, the colours seemed right, but the old terrain had one marked weakness: the trees didn't blend in right, maybe because the terrain was low-res and the trees were high res.

As for the new terrain, it now blends with the trees properly. Also as Sutts said, terrain undulations are visible from higher altitudes. I haven't lived in England, but from what i know the south of it is nowhere near an Alpine landscape, neither is it totally flat. In fact, this would make it harder to spot slight undulations or small rolling hills than it would be to distinguish boundaries between flat and mountainous terrain.
The fact that it's visible from moderate altitudes in the screenshots makes me believe they got it right.
As for colours they can always be tweaked. Heck, it could be a function of time of day and atmospheric conditions that creates such differences between the tilesets we see each week.

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

I think you don't take in account much more details that are in calculation to get just "a bit better" overal picture.

Lets begin from polygon count.

Compare details of tank in Il-2 and in BoB. This was cost several times increment of using power for each unit.
Now compare cars.
Now compare bridges.
Now compare roads
Now compare ships
Now compare planes. The last one is the most important in the fligth sim and here again like it was in Il-2 we have not compromisses for the ratio how it looks.. modelled functions and its damage model and modelled internals with all the listed above things alltogether...
Instead of some using our old models from Il-2 for their own sims with the little bit increment of polygons and size of textures (and repeating the same things that we did oursevlves with no info for details, some time even known for us wrong details(!) we are going with another goal - we try now to recreate planes outside and inside so close looking to real, that never was done before in any sim (even in add-ons for MS FS). And the masterpice is that its already used as a reference in some sources.... yes some time we are making non principal mistakes, but most are eliminated... or some tiome especiall make "mistakes" due to limits of technology
And we don't use some overdone effects that to represent them as used technology and show full illiteracy in some real laws....
And lets say that from the beginning we will offer more than others... its not just 2 or six planes flyable...
Did you count the amount of already shown ground units with its quality? Ah... maybe you don't like our wheels cars? Ok.... then just imagine Kursk Battle and its common polygon and textures count...
We think already now (or really much earlier) about future battles in a series. We think about common development in future of online gameplay together with thrid party....

Continue counting:

new more complex calcualtion for FM not just for several aircraft in air simultaneously
new way more complex AI not just for several aircraft in air simultaneously
new way more complex AI for the ground units.... for the hundres visible at once. The war continues on the ground... massive war if to compare to any other sim... (however I still can say it about Il-2 as well)
New features of the ground units...
Special AI for the AA defence on the ground...

Ok, I'm tired... there is something more to count.... that maybe isn't going in final release but will be as addition in future.

All these things recall increment by exponent of power that we need to use.... Just think about it.

Il-2 inspired at least 3 other sims... with continues... more or less directly based on our Il-2 source code or learning our source code.... Il-2 created some amount of new teams and even new companies...

Should I say that we are thinking about future, about our experience with Il-2 (superb, good and sometime bad....)

Who remember how was developed Il-2 and its series I think understand what I would say now. Hint: we are not making one season game...






You like Il-2. Thats good. You like the amount of things that is done there by us and third party? Thats also good But please take in acount that all these things were developed after the first original Il-2....

Now will be the first new original sim that will be more open for increment....

This message isn't just for you... Its for all who doesn't see the difference now...

Tremendously encouraging message. Take note, this is the real meat of the update.

I know these guys can do pretty graphics, i'm not worried. Even if SoW released with 1990s vector graphics and they told us "you'll get your real graphics in a month with the first patch" i would still buy it, because i know they can do them right eventually

It's the other things that i want to know more about and that's why i like this post. When they say the aircraft will be done with more complexity than 3rd party MSFS add-ons, it's music to my ears.

Also, i like how Oleg Maddox is so focused on the application of the laws of physics, not only with regards to the aircraft and the other units, but also the entire environment.
I think we won't be able to have 100% identical ingame and real life photo shots, because probably they are modelling this based on the way they average human eye sees it and not the average camera (as evidenced by his earlier reply with the attached photo comparison).
I guess it will become much more apparent if there are in-game filters that simulate different camera settings, so we could for example capture screenshots in natural view, 1940s kodak film view, modern digital camera view, etc.

There you go, the man pretty much confirmed there are plans to make it into a combined arms simulator later on,with the possibility of running massive online battles. Of course, all of this rests on how well BoB will sell, but the plans are there and the foundations have been confirmed to exist.

I'm guessing the first expansion will be mediterranean or an early battle (France or Poland), since he said the planeset will be very similar. When he mentioned the second expansion made by another company i thought he meant Korea, but later on he mentions it separately, so i really don't have any idea what the second expansion is going to be about.

The med should definitely be interesting. Maybe it's time to make some use of my contacts from the time i served my conscript duty in the air force and try to get access to some historical data...after my country was occupied, we had a few Squadrons operating in the desert under RAF command and taking part in all the major battles. Too bad i usually fly Axis planes and will be shooting my own countrymen down when the time comes to fly in that expansion

I hope the Over Flanders Fields team will switch to SoW and create a new WWI simulator. They have an enormous amount of research data stockpiled, which sadly the old CFS3 engine can't do justice.

Also, Korea would be a blast, especially if we had things like forward air controllers, dropping on smoke markers and such...but what i'm really hoping for that nobody has done to a high level of detail for years, is a Vietnam sim. There's such a great mix of different aircraft there, from late WWII to early jets, from Phantoms, Skyhawks, F-105s and helicopters down to C-47s, A-26 invaders, Skyraiders and even small, fragile Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs. Of course, i'd be flying the prop birds

Anyway, i'm getting ahead of myself here so let's get back into focus. Roll on SoW:BoB

I also have some interface questions/suggestions. Mainly, will it be possible to assign complex functions to key presses or even have some of them hard-coded according to aircraft specifications?
An example of this is the landing gear mechanism. This also exists in IL2, where in aircraft with manual gear operation the pilot has to repeatedly press the key combination to extend/retract the gear.
In a similar fashion, some aircraft have gear that operate with a single lever. In that case, pressing "G" once would move the lever, again just like it happens already in IL2.

What i'm interested to know is if we could have a "send command until released" function, or a "command A on button press followed by command B on release" function.
This would be very good for simulating spring-loaded switches, or even for the player to be able to apply a continuous input without having to repeatedly tap the required key combination, but simply keeping it pressed and stopping the action by releasing it.

For example the Catalina used three way switches for the carburetor heaters, which were very prone to icing and needed constant monitoring. If you increased power they got too hot and you had to lower the heaters, if you decreased power they got too cold and you had to increase the heat, and so on. If we had these commands, i could map a key to function as "carb heat: switch to increase upon button press, switch to normal upon button release".

This could also work with things like the Cat's float retraction motors, or even the flaps on the P47 which also featured a 3-way control as far as i remember. This had 3 positions, up, down and neutral. There were no pre-sets to choose degrees of flaps, the pilot moved the lever aft to the "down" position and as long as he kept it there the flaps kept lowering. When he had dialed in the correct amount of flaps, he mover the lever back to the neutral position to stop them from extending further. For retraction, it was the same but this time moving the lever forward to the "up" position.

This is the reason the flaps on the P47 have clearly visible sencils near the wing root/fuselage, demarkating the amount of flap extension in degrees: the pilot would set the motor running, look out the canopy towards the wing roots and when he could read the correct amount of degrees on the flaps he would set the motor back to neutral.

Small details on the grand scale of things, sure, but it's these details that lend each aircraft its own particular feel and sense of character

[pete410]

Ok So where do I pre-order this ? Steam ?

[He111]

OMG!! I'm IN LOVE!!

What super computer will I need to run this? Dell Alienware? i need to upgrade so give the command sire!


He111.

[LJ371]

This is awesome. As a Cinematographer I am fascinated with all the details, big and small, and especially with all the colors/lighting that will vary with the weather and time of day. I know how hard it is to understand colors and lighting, which is why I understand some people becoming so frustrated from week to week (but not all of them). However, I am very pleased with Oleg and team's evolution of gaming over the years. When I look at these screen shots, I am extremely impressed - especially because I am thinking of the big picture, the moving image.

From my good old memories of Dynamix's Aces over Europe (and Pacific), B-17 I and II, CFSs, Il2 onward, I'm more anxious than ever for BoB. And just when I get settled with the game i'm sure Oleg, his team, and 3rd party will be releasing ever more material. I cant wait to join everyone in the skies.

[AWL_Spinner]

Some interesting comments about tunable filters. For me I'd love to have the option of desaturating things from "real life" a bit.

That may sound a bit counter-intuitive but the WWII I know is the WWII from the movies, the Battle of Britain, Where Eagles Dare, guncams, old film stock, and that's the 1940s "world" I'd feel most familiar inhabiting. Just a tangental thought

I'm happy with whatever daytime palette Oleg serves up though, I watched First Light today and did note a couple of shots of Kent that looked very close to what we see in the SoW screenshots.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

"Simply you should understand that more visible at once _different_ objects on the ground - more power we need for calculation."


Of course, I know it, but I'm still playing IL-2 (even the latest maps, with settings just reduced a little) with an old Athlon3000 with only 1 giga of ram and an old Radeon 9700pro and the game still looks good and playable.

In the next months, I will have a pc which will be much more powerful (but not a "war machine", just a good current pc) and I think it's quite reasonable to expect that a 2011 game will, at least, support some more elements on it than its ten-years old, very good, predecessor.

Huh?

You don't even know what IL2 looks like "all-out", yet you ask for more details in SoW, which again you won't even be able to enjoy, due to your future only midend PC?

Smart.

edit: haven't read OM's response when I posted.

[Spudkopf]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Ok, I must run immediatly at home.
My son will kill me... I promised to teach him today to attack the ships and how right to recover from a dive that to do not put his nose in water....

So it seems to me everybody kind of missed out on the major point in of this update, so Oleg did you keep your promise and have a successful training session with your son and what was the aircraft in question? Also I’m quite curious to know your son's favourite plane?

By the way the He-162 is one of my all time favourite aircraft both in and out of the game and with Canon’s skins is a real joy to look at as well, although I must admit most of my in game play is dedicated to ground attack (with the odd bomber intercept thrown every now and again) and with a slight lean towards the aircraft of the axis, so I am now eagerly awaiting 4.10 so I can get my hands on the Hs-129 .

On that note it would be nice to see the Hs-123 and the Hs-126 in SOWBOB however I guess we may have to wait until the series heads east again for those two planes.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Insuber

Hi Oleg,

Really nice screens. Love it.

Question: will you include a paper hardcopy manual, or just a pdf inside the DVD? A real book would be much appreciated ...

Cheers,
Insuber

A 500 pages book? Uh...

You know, there are some print shops who can turn a .pdf in real book.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by He111

Dell Alienware? i need to upgrade so give the command sire!
He111.

Alienware?
You do know they suck? Especially form the price.
Never buy a branded system.