Friday 2010-10-29 Dev. update and Discussion

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by JAMF

There are other ways to achieve craters. A basic double pyramid with 6 sides only costs 16 triangles. Inverted, that looks like a hole. Graphic cards of today have a trick called tessellation. If the crater object was marked as an object that would receive tessellation, the card would increase that 16 triangles to 48, fo example. The crater now looks much smoother and the circular hole will have 12 sides.

Now add another trick, normal mapping (Dot3 bump mapping). Simplified, it's a texture, which tells the card to add extra height/thickness to a point on a model. Say white is very high/thick and black is nothing/zero. Lay a black&white noise texture over the crater and you get the inside surface to look like it's just exploded and it's covered with clumps of dirt and sand.

These effects should have little effect on the frame rate, as they can be distance-indexed, so they start to show only when you get closer. Similar to the LoD models aircraft have.

Bump mapping is an optical illusion, normal mapping really adds surface detail.

Left is bump-, right is normal-mapped. Notice the visual edge of the spheres:

.


Oleg said a couple of times that craters will be bump mapped or similar (tessellation maybe), hopefully using the latest graphics technology for DX11.
I find it amazing what the new techniques can add to a flat modelled surface:


Video of tessellation on/off, a comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvZPIQpsQo

Tessellation explained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPQ5Vy_5MP0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uavLefzDuQ

OFF/ON

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by JAMF

There are other ways to achieve craters. A basic double pyramid with 6 sides only costs 16 triangles. Inverted, that looks like a hole. Graphic cards of today have a trick called tessellation. If the crater object was marked as an object that would receive tessellation, the card would increase that 16 triangles to 48, fo example. The crater now looks much smoother and the circular hole will have 12 sides.

Now add another trick, normal mapping (Dot3 bump mapping). Simplified, it's a texture, which tells the card to add extra height/thickness to a point on a model. Say white is very high/thick and black is nothing/zero. Lay a black&white noise texture over the crater and you get the inside surface to look like it's just exploded and it's covered with clumps of dirt and sand.

These effects should have little effect on the frame rate, as they can be distance-indexed, so they start to show only when you get closer. Similar to the LoD models aircraft have.

Bump mapping is an optical illusion, normal mapping really adds surface detail.

Left is bump-, right is normal-mapped. Notice the visual edge of the spheres:

My understanding is that normal mapping is simply bump mapping with higher precision (explicit vs. implicit surface normals) but you still don't change the polygon shape of the object, and the shading is confined to the polygon area (no additional detail visible at the edges). That's where tesselation would come into play, I think that's what would be required to get the result on the image to the right. Could be wrong though; I've done some graphics programming but it's been a while

Using displacement mapping could work nicely with craters, as this adds more depth than bump or normal maps and there'd still be one flat texture per crater like in Il2. Using actual 3D objects is still difficult because they have to go through a separate rendering pass or they'll interfere with the land surface (the crater surface has to be under the ground level). And making the landscape itself deformable with the resolution to render craters would be even more difficult. But who knows, Oleg may yet surprise us. I guess he's already chosen a technique so it's a bit late anyway to give suggestions

[Richie]

Originally Posted by Chivas

FSX clouds are poorly done with little substance. FSX terrain ground textures are worse. FSX water textures are worse than the terrain. If SOW looks anything like FSX I will throw up on my keyboard.

Me too

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by mark@1C

for example, when in a german plane, it can use a Gothic font, some Gothic patterns, and with an eagle symbol by it.

The luxurious seats are stuffed with eagle down and the dashboard inlaid
with the beaks of a thousand eagles. Also, there are some eagles under the
floorboards.

[airmalik]

Originally Posted by Osprey

Don't be such a drama queen ST,

Originally Posted by Osprey

all it does is make life unbearable.

ahem!

[bf-110]

But this DX 11 isn´t available only for Vista and 7?

[baronWastelan]

Originally Posted by Chivas

FSX clouds are poorly done with little substance. FSX terrain ground textures are worse. FSX water textures are worse than the terrain. If SOW looks anything like FSX I will throw up on my keyboard.

Clouds & terrain look good on my install. Water: so-so. Granted I do use some 3rd party add ons. Take's more work to get it looking like this than a normal user would subject himself too...

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=146

[334th_Gazoo]

http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Download this proggy. Its called Youtube downloader. It does just that. Right click on the url of the video you want to download. Then copy and paste it into the down load bar of the app. It'll ask you where to save it and you tell it .
It does some simple file conversions. So far anything that i've downloaded using this app, from Youtube is playable on the i pod and iphone.

[28_Condor]

Originally Posted by peterwoods@supanet.com

Further to the Moscow event referred to earlier.
I noticed that one of the Russian Web sites, after translation, referred to
"Total War - IL-2 - Battle of Britain" .

Maybe Ubi is giving Oleg problems with using "Storm of War"

What price "Total War" as opposed to "Storm of War"?

Yes,

This is the translation by Sokol1:

Company "1C-Softlab reports that the studio 1C: Maddox Games is developing a computer game" IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Britain ".

Continuation of the famous flight simulator "IL-2 Sturmovik" covers events in the largest air battles of World War II, will run from July 9 to October 30, 1940. During this period, the sky rose a thousand aircraft of the Royal Air Force and squadrons of the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. Now every fan of flight simulators will be able to become the hero of the Battle of Britain, and change the course of a great battle!

The game has been recreated in great detail the huge territory - from London to Normandy from Southampton to Dankerka. Online training allows beginners to quickly master the management of combat aircraft, and flexible settings - to optimize the gameplay depending on skill level user. In addition to the single-player campaign that includes a variety of tasks - from assaults and interception missions to rescue comrades, the game will include multiplayer modes - in one battle can take part up to 128 pilots.

From 3 to 6 November, visitors of the exhibition "IGROMIR - 2010" in Moscow will have a unique opportunity to become a pilot of the legendary aircraft and take part in the Battle of Britain. Everyone will be able to play the sequel of IL-2 on the stands of 1C-Softlab, but also learn more about the project. Presentations will take place on 4, 5 and 6th November at stands C1 and B4."

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...f_Britain.html

Direct source:

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=65108

[Bearcat]

Oooo that must mean it is getting close..