Friday 2010-09-03 Dev. update and Discussions

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

The pictures do look good, the planes to my not particularly knowledgeable eyes look good, but the lack of proper railways is terrible.

If we'd seen railways sooner, it could have been said sooner.

This is not in my view fixable before release, unless release is already set to be in the third quarter of 2011, and there is already someone working full time on nothing but railways.

Most places where rails crossed roads, there were bridges. Often railways were raised above the level of the land (called embankments), often railways were below the level of the land (called cuttings), sometimes if there was a long hill in the way there was a tunnel cut through the hill. This made it possible to keep the levels of the railways fairly flat, which in a hilly country, which Britain is, meant that the trains could travel faster and more efficiently. Railways were not new in Britain in 1940, the locomotives and rolling stock were fairly modern, but the railways were mostly laid out before 1900.

The various rail system's, were built that way here in the State's as well...I'm not sure that any thing could be done at this point, or should I say I doubt.

Let me add that we have not seen what rails lie in other portions of the map

[Jimko]

First, great update pictures! Thanks Luthier!

Next…Does the pilot look a bit small to me in Luthier’s picture? Yes…

Is this a great issue for me? No…but I would prefer him to be a bit larger or higher.

I have seen many pictures and photos of pilots in Spits and Hurriys, and with no offense to Luthier, many of them had their eyes above the gunsight and they would stoop forward and down when using the sight.

I have read many biographies of BoB pilots and some of them were 6’ 4” tall, so even with lowered seats, their heads could be almost touching the canopy. Others flew with raised or lowered seats, depending on their preferences.

Here are a couple of pics, the first is Stanford Tuck in his Hurry, and the second is from the war. They give some good idea of pilot scale. Notice that their line-of-sight is just above the gunsight, but leaning foreward a bit would put their eyes a bit lower and in line with the sight. I have better pictures, but I would have to dig them out and scan them and no time for that project right now.

Is this an issue that is life-changing for me?

I hardly think so, but I think that it’s fair to present ideas and different opinions in a courteous and tactful manner.

[brando]

Originally Posted by David603

Now the rest of the landscape is out of scale with the train and the roads. Look at the trees, and there are two crossings with the length of the train. I am still convinced the problem is that the roads are too wide, the train was almost certainly to scale.

This is unfortunate in that no English railway would have road crossings with no gates or signals, whatever class the roads were. This kind of arrangement was in place by the late nineteenth century, keeping roads and rails entirely separate for safety reasons. As mentioned, trains ran on embankments or in cuttings and the bridge was the most common form of crossing, rail over road or vice versa. Most of the railway system was fenced, to keep the public and farm stock off the lines - in fact this separation was enforced by laws laid down in the 19th century - and are still in place in modern times.

Maybe it's expecting too much from a game that is really devoted to flight and aerial combat for the railway system to look authentic. It's not going to put me off buying or flying SoW-BoB, because so much of the rest is looking so good.

[_RAAF_Stupot]

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

On the first pic, it looks like the country road is about 7 or 8 times larger than the locomotive !!! Strange.
Frankly, the screen is good, but I don't understand how you can find it "awesome", when the trees are not ok, the colors not right and the texture resolution not there ? A good WIP, ok, good but still very WIP.

That's what I was thinking. Those windy country lanes in the UK are often only about 4 or 5 m wide between the hedges (sometimes cars can't pass) - that means that last carriage in the pic is pretty small! Alternatively, if the road is meant to be a main trunk road say 15 m wide, then probably it shouldn't be quite so twisty.

Another thing regarding the railway track that I think would be an improvement. I think there should be hedges, trees, perhaps even sheds, signal boxes etc etc along the railway easement. Often you can't see the actual railway track itself from high altitude, but you know it's there from the linear patterns of vegetation it forms in contrast to the more random pattern of fields.

I don't know how the landscape is put together. Maybe this is difficult because the track route is 'laid over' the background landscape, but perhaps it would be possible for the 'railway trees' to be part of the track route, rather than the background landscape so they would the follow the railway wherever it goes.

Anyway, it's all nitpicking really for a flight-sim, the pictures in general are great!

EDIT: well what you see above is the result of me reply to a post before reading the whole thread through, I see that others are raising the same questions!

[bf-110]

Definitely,SoW won't run in my poor machine...

[tourmaline]

Originally Posted by luthier

Part two.

Edit: a little explanation

Screen 1 - pilot dead, bombardier dying. Top and waist gunners alive.
Screen 2 - same moment from another angle
Screen 3 - another short burst kills the rest of the crew
Screens 4 & 5 - Heinkel slowly keels over

First pic, exactly what i was expecting of strapped in die-ing pilots...

pics are looking awesome.

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by Bloblast

This makes things clearer:

Ah, that is a more relevant picture! The pilots in the two modern Hurricanes look larger because they are wearing modern flying helmets, which almost double the size of the head.

[Friendly_flyer]

Thank you for the pictures, Luthier! The flames in that Heinkel looks downright scary!

I have a small comment on the British markings:

The colour of the squadron code is too bright. It was in a grey shade, not white. The below picture is a comparison with a modern interpretation and may be affected by ambient light, but I think it shows quite clearly that the codes ought to be a bid darker.

The font for the serial looks very strange. Please compare the numbers 3 in the two picture below. In earlier screenshots, the font for the serials looked right.

Originally Posted by Abbeville-Boy

you and philip.ed have not worked a day in your life's your both here 24/7 --- no offence of course

lol good one mate, that made me laugh

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

I agree. We are much to influenced by the ketchup scene in the "Battle of Britain" movie.

Later in the war 30mm explosive shells might do a lot more damage to a human body, but the colour would be different and most of the displaced remains would likely be on other places than the windshield.

We should all be really impressed by the gunner moving around btw.

LOL! My first reaction to those shots (entirely tongue in cheek of course) was "where's the ketchup?" No matter the Gore/No Gore controversy, It's 100% better than IL2.