Quote:
Originally Posted by speculum jockey
WOP uses a lot of cheats to trick you into thinking that the terrain is good, when in fact it's pretty fake. First they use that annoying vignette to make it look like an old film, you can turn that off. Next look at the view distance. Looks like you're flying over modern day Beijing with all that fog. Next the colours are exagerrated and in some cases washed out to look (at the same time) more vibrant and toned down.
It also relies on the FSX terrain trick of having the "ideal" altitude for terrain detail. The textures you will find look best at the altitude you spend 90% of the game at. When you get lower they look all stretched and very low detail. Load up the Slovakia map in IL-2 and start buzzing around at 200 feet. Doesn't look so good now does it? Same thing with WOP.
All flight sims suffer from this exact same problem. Even COD to a certain extent. In order to get rid of this issue you'd need ground textures to be a lot larger and more detailed. This would be both extremely time consuming and also it would really tax your system or require LOD settings that would really break immersion when changing altitude.
Look at this pic I'm posting below: It's the first pic that would load properly in GIS when typing "wing of prey terrain" with large pic settings.
Do I really need to explain why this is does not look good?
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NOOOOO I lost my post by accidently clicking ctrl... wtf
Jockey, you are brilliant I actually never noticed the things you pointed out before myself. Maybe on comps, with maxed settings they removed it? Next time I play I will have to check, but the fact that its their discretly in the background is why it is very clever.
So why isnt the SS on max or high settings? Its like an artist who has a gallery but only displays their mediocre/lunch time scribbles in the window. When you pass by they say: Hey, come inside I have some amazing paintings. Only $60 for entrance to see my good art, all this stuff in the window for show is just the below average work, but imagine how great the "good" paintings will look!
It makes no buisness sense, it makes no sense as a professional dev team and it makes no sense to put out images of the game which are inherently visual advertising/sampling, yet giving us only the mediocre scenes which strikes me as a quality issue (like take pride in your work, always present the best etc). It just doesnt "add up" and makes even me even alittle skitish when combined with the vids we have seen and the horrible performance at the show...
It looks like an engine from 5-10 years ago when you couldnt use HDR and AA at the same time, its absurd and jarring.
Also I dont have a problem with the pallete, but I think the colors look "washed out" and kind of pastel...
Its not my monitor ever so dont even suggest it, I own 4 LCD monitors where 3 of them are different (1 Dell, 2 Samsung + another Samsun of different model), as well as old crt's for when I am working. Its not a monitor issue.