Friday 2010-10-15 Dev. update and Discussion

[rollnloop]

Dear Oleg, thanks very much for this update, i appreciate especially the insight on AI dialogues. I would appreciate a lot to have the ability to read subtitles on the lower part of the screen instead of the upper part, in order to still be able to see the world outside. The possibility to have these displayed white on a darkened back (a la EAW, FS) would be much appreciated too.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1146/land2.jpg

There are four things obvious to me in this screenshot:

1/I see pink/purple fields that look strange to my eyes. Maybe there are parts of england where they can be seen, but i hope it won't be the full landscape colored like this.

2/Edgerows are not there, there are highway wide roads instead, this does not look right either. If we can't have 3D trees on the edges, at least have green textures there, no grey highways.

3/Reflection on the cockpit (and other places) looks overbright and artificial, makes the whole aircraft look like a model kit with a big flashlight pointing it from a few feets behind the photographer. Is it HDR ?


4/Generally there seems to be many details on the ground, tweaking the bad won't as long or difficult as building the good of the whole scenery has been.

IL2 is my favorite simulator, and BoB will most certainly be too, but let's not repeat the colors problem from the former to the latter, for flight's sake. And please, please provide inside the game a gamma/brightness/color saturation setting, and the ability to turn HDR off.

Looking forward to seeing your next update, have fun with your son this week-end !

[Skoshi Tiger]

Hmmm! Being Red-Green colour blind I don't know if I'm qualified to comment on this, but I cant see any real pinks and purples. Maybe they've got a touch of Patterson's Curse in their fields?

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by rollnloop

1. Reflection on the cockpit (and other places) looks overbright and artificial, makes the whole aircraft look like a model kit with a big flashlight pointing it from a few feets behind the photographer. Is it HDR ?


2. And please, please provide inside the game a gamma/brightness/color saturation setting, and the ability to turn HDR off.

1. Agree. This should read our programmer that all the times disagree with me and say me that all doing by this way then we must too.... For this statement I always try to explain that we are not like all... we should be better...
Don't worry. It will be tuned.

2... I hate called HDR compression.... But we must have it...
Tuned with HDR and then when you switch off the picture changes too much in colors. So probably toi switch this OFF is not the good idea. But maybe it will be saved in final.

[d165w3ll]

Originally Posted by rollnloop

I see pink/purple fields that look strange to my eyes. Maybe there are parts of england where they can be seen, but i hope it won't be the full landscape colored like this.

Hedgerows are not there, there are highway wide roads instead, this does not look right either. If we can't have 3D trees on the edges, at least have green textures there, no grey highways.

Indeed, lavender is a crop in some parts of England (particularly Norfolk), though it is something of a niche crop. Not sure how widespread it was in the 1940s. Given the pressure for food crops, I imagine its appeal at the time would have been more limited.
http://www.norfolk-lavender.co.uk/pa...der-fields.php
Flax is another colourful crop.
http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-ima...ax-fields.html
Flax used to be more common in England than it is now.
So, while the bluish/purplish cast of some fields may appear odd, it is perfectly defensible.

The hedgerows, however, are a cucial part of England's landscape, particularly in the south (in the north dry-stone walls are more the rule (http://halfpie.net/article/152/dry-stone-walls)

Post-WW2 farming developments have resulted in the widespread 'grubbing-out' (destruction) of hedgerows, so what you see on GoogleEarth no longer represents the density of what you would have seen in the 1940s.

Being a relatively flat landscape, you don't often get the distant views in south-eastern England that you do in the mountains. One that struck me when I was about four is Farthing Corner just north of Hythe, in Kent. Here's am image I took this July (over forty years later). The role of hedgerows is unmistakeable. All over this part of Kent, the trees on both sides of the road meet overhead creating 'green tunnels' of surpassing beauty.