August 6 2011 Development Update

[skouras]

Originally Posted by DUI

After reading for months in this forum this update news was enough of a reason to register finally.

Even I am already quite content with the current status of CoD I am really looking forward to the update. It probably will be the first time that I will also try the beta version!

Thank you very much for the good news and great work so far and yet to come!

Best regards
DUI

Welcome to the club

[Le0ne]

Thank you a great improvment

[zxwings]

- In the BEFORE screenshots, the sun that shines on the landscape is not the same sun that lights up the cockpit. In the BEFORE cockpits the light-and-shadow contrast is so strong that the sun creating this effect must be very bright. Yet the landscape is not bright enough to have a very bright sun above it: in fact it looks like the landscape of a wet and cloudy day.

If your eyes jump between the gloomy landscape and the strong light-dark contrast cockpit, you tend to think that the cockpit is lighted by a 200 watt bulb.

- On a sunny day, it is always both the sun and the sky that light the cockpit - the sun's light creates the shadows, whereas the sky's light, very bright too but from no specific direction, illuminates the shadows.

- The AFTER screenshots are absolutely much better, but are not without its drawbacks: the woods and the shadows in the cockpit should be minutely darker - but still, of course, considerably brighter than those in the BEFORE screenshots.

[LoBiSoMeM]

Originally Posted by zxwings

- In the BEFORE screenshots, the sun that shines on the landscape is not the same sun that lights up the cockpit. In the BEFORE cockpits the light-and-shadow contrast is so strong that the sun creating this effect must be very bright. Yet the landscape is not bright enough to have a very bright sun above it: in fact it looks like the landscape of a wet and cloudy day.

If your eyes jump between the gloomy landscape and the strong light-dark contrast cockpit, you tend to think that the cockpit is lighted by a 200 watt bulb.

- The AFTER screenshots are absolutely much better, but are not without its drawbacks: the woods and the shadows in the cockpit should be minutely darker - but still, of course, much brighter than those in the BEFORE screenshots.

+1 to that.

[zxwings]

Originally Posted by JumpingHubert

the ligthsource of the sun IS a (not moving) pinpoint. Direct sunlight at clear weather makes harsh shadows. Only at distance the contrast may be washed out..

Well the lightsource is not only the sun. One does not have a bright sun around which there is pitch black sky everywhere. The BEFORE shadows are somewhat too dark (see my explanations above).

[zxwings]

If it's possible to simulate the sky's illumination effect on the cockpit shadows, their darkness will vary inside the cockpit. This is absent from the current creenshots.

In the AFTER screenshot attached below, the long narrow shadow enclosed by red lines ought to be darker than the shadows enclosed by yellow lines, because much less light from the sky (not the sun) will reach the red-line shadow's surface.

[albx]

Originally Posted by zxwings

If it's possible to simulate the sky's illumination effect on the cockpit shadows, their darkness will vary inside the cockpit. This is absent from the current creenshots.

In the AFTER screenshot attached below, the long narrow shadow enclosed by red lines ought to be darker than the shadows enclosed by yellow lines, because much less light from the sky (not the sun) will reach the red-line shadow's surface.

do you know how many calculations are needed to do what you say? This is a flight simulator, not a 3DS Max to render photorealistic scenes.

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by albx

do you know how many calculations are needed to do what you say? This is a flight simulator, not a 3DS Max to render photorealistic scenes.

He is right though.

Imo to me it just looks very washed out, its less of a lighting problem and more of a contrast one. However it pays to remember that we are looking at a digital image with little differance interms of actual light output between dark and light areas (if the screen is on and dark it is still emiting light, thats why you cant get a "real black" on a LED screen, got to switch to OLED) where as in real life where its all light from the sun bouncing around, there is a bigger ratio although it is ofcourse differerd.

[150GCT_Veltro]

Landscape is still horrible for my opinion, my personal opinion but this is a dead horse i think. It will never be reworked from scratch as it should be for a DX10 game.

It seems that textures has been recolored with a new layers instead of a new palette.

Lights and shadows are gone (?), and this was on of the best feature of this game.

Originally Posted by 150GCT_Veltro

Landscape is still horrible for my opinion, my personal opinion but this is a dead horse i think. It will never be reworked from scratch as it should be for a DX10 game.

It seems that textures has been recolored with a new layers instead of a new palette.

Lights and shadows are gone (?), and this was on of the best feature of this game.

Well Luthier has stated that DX11 will be introduced and it was a very high priority, so i would imagine they have had someone working on it since release, so this could be any time soon.