Friday 2010-10-15 Dev. update and Discussion

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me. Heck I would be happy if the terrain looked the same as in 1946, and that I could enjoy smooth game play with all of the new features in SOW.

[BP_Tailspin]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me. Heck I would be happy if the terrain looked the same as in 1946, and that I could enjoy smooth game play with all of the new features in SOW.

SlipBall you nailed it … some one give this man a Cigar.

[Viking]

This is Oleg we are dealing with, do you seriusly think he would release a sim that he was less than 100 procent happy with? "I can do better than this but let them have it now!"?

Think not!

The real danger is that he might never be happy!

Regards

Viking

[kedrednael]

I made 2 changes 2 the pictures from the updates.
the first one changes a couple of colours (I'm not saying my version is better than the original).
the second one deletes almost all text and arrows . I also changed the botoms of some clouds a bit.






maybe the pictures are a bit too large...



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Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps. In comparison, SOW's map goes from the north of France, to the midway point of England, with each town and city being rendered by hand. The size comparison alone means that not every little "texture border" is going to be perfect. You're going to have some railways crossing fields and such that are not going to look right, and you're probably going to have some field textures extending under houses, etc.

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

People who are posting pictures of modern england have to remember that much has changed since then. Air quality, weather patterns, field sizes, and even crops. Today farmers are all using Monsanto type crops that actually look different colour wise to their 1940's counterparts. Back then they were using heritage seeds, the real stuff. My father can tell the difference between crop colour now and 30 years ago, how about adding another 40 years to that?

All these things together make SOW (WORK IN PROGRESS SHOTS) look much different to what you see in WOP/BOP and what you see when your jet is coming in for a landing at Heathrow.

Oleg has said that he has flown in over England something like 20 times in the past while, plus he is a professional photographer (or at least is on a professional level). I'm sure he's much more qualified to tell you what will look right and what won't.

I'm not a fanboy, just someone getting tired of every 3rd post in these threads being about the same thing, when Oleg has said a hundred times that it's WIP and being changed all the time.

[airmalik]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Those people who are comparing it to WOP/BOP have to remember that both of those games use maps that are the size of postage stamps.

SoW may be making compromises because of it's much greater overall complexity but the fact remains that from a medium altitude, landscape visuals that we've so far haven't surpassed WoP. Ground level - no comparison, SoW wins hands down. But I think Oleg's dismissive remarks about WoP landscape in the past have raised expectations and we expect SoW's landscape to be better than SoW in all respects.

SoW landscape is still WIP and we've been told it's already been improved over what we've seen so I'm looking forward to these improvements.

BTW, my comparison of the two isn't based on filters in WoP which I'm not a fan of. WoP just seems to have better placement and density of trees and they integrate with the ground better.

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Another thing to remember is that WOP/BOP cheats when it comes to graphics. It's really heavy handed when it comes to filters and different effects, which overall makes the terrain look more "natural in-game" to the user, but not realistic.

If it looks natural, how can it be unrealistic? Now I agree that WoP uses some very overdone filters and also some simple "cheats" like the secondary lightsource opposite of the sun (works great to give objects more depth on the unlit side even though it's not realistic at all). On the other hand computer graphics has always been about "smoke and mirrors" in the sense that the standard shading procedures are not based on real life, but rather happen to look nice.

Further more, what you are seeing when you take a picture with your camera and what you see posted on the net from people flying over is not an accurate representation of what real colour is. You need an expensive camera with a RAW output, then tweak it's colour levels in Photoshop before you ever get close to real/actual colours and lighting.

That's certainly true, but still the subjective impression about what matches people's idea of real life scenery is what counts in the end. I do think that overall much WoP is closer to this real life impression than the SoW images posted this week. At the same time some important aspects of landscape rendering are already way better here.

Personally I'm not too worried. I guess people are simply irritated that the SoW updates don't show constant improvements in every area; it's obvious that the team is still experimenting with many aspects. Most screens released so far focus on certain aspects, and many people fail to see this (usually ignoring the shown features and commenting on something else).

So far we have not seen a single screenshot that combines the best aspects shown in individual screens.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

I plan to buy for me new PC for home only when BoB will be released.

Classic. You realise there's going to be a worldwide hardware shortage when everyone here rushes to the shops.

Same I suggest to all users really. Its why I still don't tell any specs.
Because I'm waiting myself to get it running very good at least at home .

Oh I see (surprised you didn't say before). For those of us who don't work in a software house it's difficult to picture the scenario. I can appreciate you wouldn't know for sure until you built a full version (with everything in it), and you don't need customers having a go at you in a few months when they find that the system you recommended isn't quite enough, but I would have guessed that with all the PCs used by the team, someone would have a good idea of what spec would be needed.

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Oleg has promised that SOW will have far better looking terrain than WOP/BOP, I know we are not seeing anything like that yet but im in agreement with most on here that Oleg must be holding back showing us until final release.

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I know that this is very important to you and a few others. As for myself I could'nt care less, its all about game play for me.

Same here. If the game play wasn't as good as IL2, all the graphics in the world isn't going to help. And if the game play is as good, or better, then we'll have an improved IL2 regardless of how far they've taken the graphics. Happy days.

I'd look at the water in IL2 when setting it up to run, but once I was flying online, I never really noticed it again. When flying a mission it's nice for things to look good, but you don't have time for pixel peeping.

[kendo65]

I've been following the SimHQ thread - have to say that I actually prefer how the terrain is looking in this week's update compared to the 'Spitfire from the Heinkel cockpit' pic.

For me the terrain in that shot looks over-saturated and 'cartoony' in comparison. The trees aren't integrated as well either.

I'm not saying that the current shots are perfect, but I see a process of improvement in how things are developing. While being too pastel-coloured, this week's shots are closer to real, photo-like colour balance than any I've seen so far.

(especially pic 2 - the Hurricane at medium altitude - when I first viewed it in a web browser on 1680x1050 screen it looked very close to photographic and I was very impressed. Viewed more closely at full-scale the pastel-tones become more apparent, but I really think that things are moving in the right direction)