Friday 2010-07-02 Dev. update and Discussion Thread

[the Dutchman]

Smoke and fire are affected by speed,right?
So shall we see different looking types of smoke and fire?

In the screenshot where the Hurri does a near pass of a Stuka,wouldn't it be obvious that the Stuka's gunner and/or pilot will have there heads turned towards the Hurri,looking at it?
Would be a nice touch................

It all looks great!

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Sutts

I see quite a few comments on the dense smoke effect. Over the years I've watched hours of combat footage and tend to agree with Philip that grey or white smoke is most commonly seen when aircraft are going down. However, after a quick trawl of the web I've found a few original shots which back up the effects we're seeing in SOW.

What I don't fully agree with is that burning high octane fuel always produces billowing black smoke. I've seen countless images of torching bombers with absolutely no smoke at all (see images below). I think this may be due to:

a. Air speed - this creates a bellows effect and supplies enough oxygen to the fire to burn very cleanly. I think when bombers explode or spin and fall and large quantities of burning fuel is dumped into the air, the reduced speed creates a less efficient burn and the black smoke becomes more evident.

b. Other materials burning with the fuel. If rubberised fuel tanks or oil from ruptured tanks burns with the fuel then the smoke will be much darker.

I'm including lots of piccies below so you can form your own opinions. I've grouped them according to how dark the smoke is.

First The Dark Smoke: I think the 4th one is a particularly good match for what we've seen today.

What you have to bear in mind from that 4th shot is that all the engines may be on fire (or if fuel had leaked across the whole wings surface then that may be on fire too) so this thick black smoke may just be all the smoke-trails merging together. It does show, though, that what Oleg has shown is not neccesarily wrong, but the size IMO is wrong. I mean, even the smoke in this shot is not as thick as the one in Oleg's shot, and that one only has one engine on fire!
It also shows the size of the flame.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

What you have to bear in mind from that 4th shot is that all the engines may be on fire (or if fuel had leaked across the whole wings surface then that may be on fire too) so this thick black smoke may just be all the smoke-trails merging together. It does show, though, that what Oleg has shown is not neccesarily wrong, but the size IMO is wrong. I mean, even the smoke in this shot is not as thick as the one in Oleg's shot, and that one only has one engine on fire!
It also shows the size of the flame.

so now you have looked a little deeper into the facts of the matter and found out what actually happened in real life ww2 aviation, we'll just interpret that last statement from you as a retraction from your earlier hasty and inappropriate harsh criticism which called the work-in-progress BoB smoke/fire screenshots "wrong"



disclaimer: lighthearted jibes are at risk of incorrect interpretation in net posts even with the use of emoticons. access internet at your own risk and if required use appropriate medical assistance to manage potential disruptions to personal comfort zone and wellbeing.

[socorrista22198]

Hi

I see the smoke has benefactors and retractors about the thick, will be a difficult decission. You know from what side I am and what is my opinion about this smoke. Can I make a suggestion? In some ocassions of high velocity, the particles of smoke will be so much separated as you can see in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IEewyz7dXg

For that I suggest add another .eff for the smoke, one with TSmokeTrailParams system for the first part of the smoke for cover the holes between smoke particles. Would be nice, thanks for this games

[David603]

Originally Posted by Ekar

http://forum.yuplay.com/index.php?ac...pe=post&id=575

However you'd rate WOP in terms of its flight simulation, graphically it is a powerhouse. Just look on that last shot, where the outside moisture creates a reflective sheen over the metal. I've never seen that before, it's truly gorgeous. And WOP is full of these little touches... Speaking graphically, it's kind of a shame to me that for some this game already seems to exist in the shadow of SOW.

The effect with light reflecting off the aircraft in the rain is easy to do. Since the lighting model already has a reflective sheen to it, similar to the one in Olegs pictures, all you need is a line of code that says something to the effect of "when weather conditions are rain, reflective value is increased to X".

Combined with the bump mapping that Wings of Prey uses to create panel lines, (and which SoW also uses, but without overdoing the effect like WoP does) and you have the same effect.

[Intz]

Tnx Oleg and team!
Great pictures and i have a new screensaver now!
This game wil be superb!
When we get info about release date?

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by zapatista

so now you have looked a little deeper into the facts of the matter and found out what actually happened in real life ww2 aviation, we'll just interpret that last statement from you as a retraction from your earlier hasty and inappropriate harsh criticism which called the work-in-progress BoB smoke/fire screenshots "wrong"



disclaimer: lighthearted jibes are at risk of incorrect interpretation in net posts even with the use of emoticons. access internet at your own risk and if required use appropriate medical assistance to manage potential disruptions to personal comfort zone and wellbeing.

No, it matches my earlier point exactly. It can happen, but from all the evidence I have shown it is not very common (depending on the type of damage to the aircraft. Certainly to the extent shown in the pictures Oleg posted it is wrong). So yes, my earlier point, despite being harsh, stands. Oleg's smoke is wrong. It might be that thick, but not that large and long (although from digging into this further it depends on the amount of fuel left in the tank.) In any case, the smoke is wrong if it is larger than the same smoke from all 4-engines of a bomber. I will remain thinking this until someone posts a complete video showing a stuka being shot down with smoke looking exactly like the pictures we've been shown. I'm not trying to be mean and nasty, but if we have the option to make SoW an outstanding product the moment it is released then that should be in Oleg-&-Co's best interests

EDIT-and yes, I would happily be wrong in everything I have said above as it would mean less work to be done on SoW, but I need to see proof first

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

Incredible Oleg. Have not posted in some time - BUT I've followed all the updates.

Smoke, fire and reflection effects are stunning. Good scale to them too.

Soon, soon I think

S!

Gunny

[Ekar]

Originally Posted by Splitter

Not saying you are wrong, but I decided against downloading WoP. I read too many negatives, didn't like the "YuPlay" thing, and wasn't sold on the realism...


...So...take my enthusiasm for what it is worth. I am basically neutral in all of this because I come from older flight and combat sims while mainly researching the current (few) flight sims. That research is what drew me to C1's new release.

Splitter

Hi Splitter
That's fine. I understand your enthusiasm well. I don't want to sound like I'm pushing a wheelbarrow for WOP (not sure if that's even a proper idiom or not ). As I said previously, SOW is the real reason I've garnered a new interest in WWII combat flight simulation. There's no doubt in my mind that when released it will likely blow everything else out of the water. All I'm trying to express is- credit where credit's due. WOP is still a fine game/sim in its own right, even as it falls short of some of the expectations of the discerning hardcore flight sim community (no mission builder for instance). But it does happen to have lovely graphics, and since a large part of what we're talking about in this thread is cosmetic details, I thought it relevant to bring up. That's all.

Right, back to SOW.

[AC_Black]

~S~

Bring it ON !!! I cannot wait to get in and fly SOW for myself, the looks are fantastic Thank you for the updated pics... (wipes gruel away and off key board)