Friday 2010-08-06 Dev. update and Discussions

[Bloblast]

Luthier,

The 2nd picture is it above a coastal city?

[HFC_Dolphin]

Excellent pictures, thanks!

[barndoor]

I like very much. thank you.

Pic 1 - the window bars look raggerdy. Is this normal?
Pic 2 - I see their is smoke out of chimney. Wow. Will wind direction blow smoke?
Pic 3 - will crew member in front move a little or be stil?

barndoor

[luthier]

Originally Posted by kendo65

What struck me Luthier was in the lower part of Pic 1 the trees look a little like they're 'floating' in the air. No trunks visible (as is probably correct given perspective) but they do look a little 'high' and 'floating' above the landscape?

Edit: seems that Hecke and myself are talking about different things here. I was referring to an apparent 'floating' effect visible on the foreground trees in Pic 1. Pic 2 trees look fine to me

It's called LODs At that distance our airplanes lose their gear legs and canopy framework and flaps, buildings lose their chimneys, tanks lose their gun barrels, and so why should the trees keep their trunks?

We still live in the age where computers have limited resources. Some day PCs will become powerful enough to render a fully modeled tree with every twig and every leaf all the way to the horizon, and that'll be a very happy day for everyone in game development, but the way things are, if we were to splatter a bunch of tree trunks everywhere around the player, you'd be looking at an extremely pretty picture that runs at about 1 frame per minute.

[luthier]

Originally Posted by Bloblast

The 2nd picture is it above a coastal city?

Yes, there's the bit of the Channel in the top left corner. The rest is morning fog.

Originally Posted by barndoor

I like very much. thank you.

Pic 1 - the window bars look raggerdy. Is this normal?
Pic 2 - I see their is smoke out of chimney. Wow. Will wind direction blow smoke?
Pic 3 - will crew member in front move a little or be stil?

What's raggedy, do you mean jagged? Yeah, I don't have AA turned on.

Crew members will move, and how! This was actually the first in the series of screenshots showing him move around, but after I took them I realized that it just doesn't have the same effect on static screenshots. It's just so lifelike to see the guy get thrown about by your maneuvers, almost adds a slightly sadistic elements to the game. Make a pinata out of the navigator! Boom, slam, bang! Uh oh, a flat spin.

Originally Posted by luthier

It's called LODs At that distance our airplanes lose their gear legs and canopy framework and flaps, buildings lose their chimneys, tanks lose their gun barrels, and so why should the trees keep their trunks?

We still live in the age where computers have limited resources. Some day PCs will become powerful enough to render a fully modeled tree with every twig and every leaf all the way to the horizon, and that'll be a very happy day for everyone in game development, but the way things are, if we were to splatter a bunch of tree trunks everywhere around the player, you'd be looking at an extremely pretty picture that runs at about 1 frame per minute.

That's understandable, yes, but will you improve it, because now it looks like green oil film swimming on the ground surface. Unfortunately, the trees don't seem to be any voluminous from that altitude.

[BG-09]

Unbelievable good update. I am beginning to be afraid of the altitude...Looks damn real.

~S!

[mark@1C]

Hope you are all right, all the staff, and all the people in Moscow,
I mean the forest fires, what a mess...

Best wishes.

[dali]

Originally Posted by luthier

Those are 2 and 3 story buildings. I'm sitting on the third floor right now, and I'm looking UP at a bunch of trees.

And I think there's just enough trees for the kind of town it is. It's supposed to be a light green suburban-type area. There are fewer trees in heavier downtown areas, and fewer still in industrial ones. Seems perfectly fine to me.

if anyone of you is going to notice the exact height of the trees during the flight or even fight, I buy him a pint. At 400 mph you notice details only for fraction of the second, the mind is capable of quick focusing in dynamical environment, then the focus is again quickly widened. You would know exactly what I'm talking about if you were a pilot, because distribution of attention is vital in flying, especialy military. I still remember some tiny details from my low-level flights 20 years ago, like man riding a bike, woman walking across the square and such... but generaly, you more sense the ground bellow than actualy "see" it. The lower you go, the further on the horizon one tends to gaze, because visual clues are disapearing too quickly bellow the plane and mind needs at least some stabile visual clues in the distance to keep the situational aweareness.

Screenshots of course capture the moment and you see all the details.

I think it is more important to enable visual clues than give you 30 types of trees. For me it is much more important to have real 3d tree in Bob, compared to quasi 3d trees in Il-2, which were not adding, but substracting from the feeling of depth and height. Judging from the screenshots from Ilya, I can already see, that the low and mid-level flights will be a real joy, since there are enough visual clues to maintain the field of vision depth.

In this sense, Bob has already fulfiled my "dreams"

[Ploughman]

Looks very nice, the landscape's really populated and, even at this stage, quite good looking, and we'll have crew to keep us company which is a step up from Il-2 (there were a few planes with crew if I recall, but mostly you were on your own in there). Having them animated will really add to the immersion, be like a mosh pit in the glass house of a Ju-88. Thanks again.