Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[Schallmoser]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Probably the stand alone would be a great mistake. Like did it some others in the past. Also you will need to write so many other tools that to display the map, in 2D and 3D, all 3D objects and its options, change the features that render the engine, etc then you should be able to make BoB 3D engine. Don't you think so?

And if you can't use so simple in use tool..... just because you are thinking that it should have other interface and even didn't try to read instruction... translating your words why you didn't use it ever...

Who understand architecture of Il-2 builder begin to think by other way.... If my 6 year old son can use it easy, then i'm "sure" something wrong ..... When my older son (he was 10 years old) begun to use FMB, he also didn't read any instructions, but after a couple of hours try, he did the first his mission. The only one thing that I was need to say him - use button Ctrl...

The goal to keep the Il-2 looking new builder is that to get involved in mission building right from the release day a lot of people who was able to make it with Il-2 in the past. This is the most fast way to invite the other wide auditory of players to new missions and features right from the beginning... Ist it the right way?

If to speak about other way looking colors etc... then proably it may happens.

I know a lot of people photographers, that can't learn simple Canon's Digital Photo Professional program... I really learned it for 30 min...
I know the people who make really great photos, but can't learn simplest program Adobe Lightroom to make theri photos even more greater looking...
I know a lot of people who know well Adobe Photoshot, but can't use very simple for understanding Adobe Camera Raw module integrated in Photoshop.

In all these cases the problem is not in interface, but in understanding of process, sequence and principles.

And finally I did in the past the poll to keep ot not to keep the interface of Il-2 FMB...

I don't remember now exact digit, but more than 90 or 95% said to keep.

And we did it, adding a lot more features.

How it looks and how it works - it is too different thing.


PS. You may do a lot more nice buttons, including popup help(which sorry we can't produce with the small team for every feature of FMB), etc, but probably you can't make the other archtectiure of the FMB that is using BoB 3D engine. Trust me.


PS2. I know another one guy who was speaking many times that he is great specialist in Interface... I found then other... and many other people think the same now about him.... comparing with the old design that was...

Hi Oleg,
thank you for answering my post. I really did not want to say that the old or new FMB was not good. It is the ergonomics I was talking about.
Things like when you open for example the object window to modify plane settings then you go fly the mission and come back to FMB it would be nice to see tha same window with the same size at the same position.

Another great feature would be to be able to register macros to do repeating tasks. for example:
1.select a flight
2.<hit start macro button>
3.set certain army, altitude loadout and other settings.
4.<hit stop macro button> FMB asks you for the name to register the macro under.
then you can select another flight and apply the same macro. This could save a lot of time.

Concerning the rendering in 2D and 3D, this could be done by your library for example in form of an ActiveX control that has its COM interface to control the functionalities from within QT. QT would only invoke well defined functions to create objects, delete them, controll zooming, panning etc. but all the real work would be done by your engine.

Anyways I did not intend to criticize your work but just give my thoughts. I'll be happy with whatever you decide

cheers
Schallmoser