Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[Fafnir_6]

Originally Posted by KOM.Nausicaa

Fafnir, the most difficult thing in IL2 FMB is understanding the interface. But just sit down an afternoon with a good cup and coffee and go through great tutorials like Flying Nutcase's excellent site: http://www.il2-fullmissionbuilder.com/trains.php
...and I promise before the day is over you got it under your knee. Once you got that you'll see how very logic and simple it really is. I am confident that the basic philosophy of the FMB will stay the same in SOW, with added options, or interface commands for stuff that previously only existed in key board shortcuts (like the "rotate group" command I saw in the shortcuts in the screenshots I guess).
Trust me.....learning to fly your plane properly in the sim is a thousand times harder than the FMB.

Cool! Thanks for the link . My point in this thread is that this sort of tutorial should have been included with IL-2 (perhaps not in the original release but certainly in a later patch). Here's hoping this sort of tutorial will show up integrated with BoB either in the initial release or in some future update.

Cheers and thanks again

Fafnir_6

[zaelu]

The FMB should be more "available" to new players or players with less time to study it thoroughly.

IL-2 FMB had many many limitations that were bypass by experienced builders only or even with external tools.

BoB shouldn't have this. BoB should have an explosion of new missions created by as many players as possible. And this is not possible with a FMB that looks like the insides of a nuclear bomb.

Let me make a comparison,

First 3ds max versions were pretty capable in pro's hands... but a lot of creativity was held off by it's hard interface. Once the interface had became more intuitive a lot of new creations had appear from the hands of people that normally would do nothing in the first versions.

FMB should have more appealing interface... those old WIN95 style windows can be changed in few minutes by an artist so they look more 2010 and not like a "oops... this looks dangerous, let's close it".
FMB should have a lot of buttons visible for quick access and not the necessity to click 2-3 menus and tick cryptic options. Contextual pop up menus, buttons, etc.

Take a look at modern game sandbox editors... many are a pleasure to work with and inspire creativity... sure a craw bar can beat nails in the head like a modern colorful rubberized handle hammer... but the kid that would help you normally is just not attracted by the job.

A good starting point would be a merge between DCS "FMB" and IL-2 FMB.

[House M.D.]

Originally Posted by zaelu

The FMB should be more "available" to new players or players with less time to study it thoroughly.

IL-2 FMB had many many limitations that were bypass by experienced builders only or even with external tools.

BoB shouldn't have this. BoB should have an explosion of new missions created by as many players as possible. And this is not possible with a FMB that looks like the insides of a nuclear bomb.

Let me make a comparison,

First 3ds max versions were pretty capable in pro's hands... but a lot of creativity was held off by it's hard interface. Once the interface had became more intuitive a lot of new creations had appear from the hands of people that normally would do nothing in the first versions.

FMB should have more appealing interface... those old WIN95 style windows can be changed in few minutes by an artist so they look more 2010 and not like a "oops... this looks dangerous, let's close it".
FMB should have a lot of buttons visible for quick access and not the necessity to click 2-3 menus and tick cryptic options. Contextual pop up menus, buttons, etc.

Take a look at modern game sandbox editors... many are a pleasure to work with and inspire creativity... sure a craw bar can beat nails in the head like a modern colorful rubberized handle hammer... but the kid that would help you normally is just not attracted by the job.

A good starting point would be a merge between DCS "FMB" and IL-2 FMB.

A lot of valid points by zaelu, a man who knows what he's talking about.

I won't say more, because these screenshot don't tell us everything and maybe the release product is something different than what we think at this moment.

But yes, I think that all of us who've created missions in FMB know its problems and hope to see them solved in BoB.

Of course, we all know (and maybe Oleg and team use this advantage) that there are a lot of people who would spend hundreds of hours in FMB or developing 3rd party tools, in order to bypass original FMB's problems.

All in all, even if we only get the same 10+ years old FMB, there will be people willing to spend their time for the good of the community.

But, closing as started, we have to wait because these assumptions are based in a few screenshots and not a detailed analysis of new (hopefully) FMB.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by House M.D.

...

I won't say more, because these screenshot don't tell us everything and maybe the release product is something different than what we think at this moment.

...

All in all, even if we only get the same 10+ years old FMB, there will be people willing to spend their time for the good of the community.

But, closing as started, we have to wait because these assumptions are based in a few screenshots and not a detailed analysis of new (hopefully) FMB.

I think from reading Oleg's comments that any changes will be minor - colours and (maybe) the style of windows. The basic structure of the fmb will remain as shown - for reasons given already - familiarity and ease of adaptation for people experienced in il2 fmb.

I think also, that a change of gui to something very slick and modern looking will not reduce the unavoidable complexity that arises from having so many different variables to control - the underlying wealth of detail and options will still be overwhelming to some. A gui change is not a panacea. Probably more useful would be better documentation on how to use it.

Also, I personally don't want to wait another 6 months for the gui to be rebuilt from scratch.

[nearmiss]

A note on briefings

We have always needed a more structured approach to creating briefing documents. Having pre-sets on drop down entry selectors for time of day, weather, etc. Having a dedicated block for Mission ID, Mission description
In other words we need an efficient way to create briefings that have several consistent possible values, along with a lengthly description.

Combat briefings should be formatted wiht basic criteria to all missions, with a text box for elaborating on the description of the mission. Each mission briefing always requires specific information that pretty well applies to all mission briefings. A large text entry box could complete the briefing package,

This is an important issue. Any mission builder can tell you just how time consuming and tedious it becomes after spending so much time actually building each mission... then having to create briefing decriptions.

I see the briefing mentioned in the GUI, but I don't really know how far that goes or just what it means.

All it would basically require is a text editor with some pre-sets and a large text box to create consistent briefing documents.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

A note on briefings

We have always needed a more structured approach to creating briefing documents. Having pre-sets on drop down entry selectors for time of day, weather, etc. Having a dedicated block for Mission ID, Mission description
In other words we need an efficient way to create briefings that have several consistent possible values, along with a lengthly description.

Combat briefings should be formatted wiht basic criteria to all missions, with a text box for elaborating on the description of the mission.

This is an important issue. Any mission builder can tell you just how time consuming and tedious it becomes after spending so much time actually building each mission... then having to create briefing decriptions.

I see the briefing mentioned in the GUI, but I don't really know how far that goes or just what it means.

Yeah, It would be nice if the FMB just threw the basic info into the quick brief for us like no. of planes, basic types, etc. then we can always elaborate if we want.

[brando]

Originally Posted by BadAim

Yeah, It would be nice if the FMB just threw the basic info into the quick brief for us like no. of planes, basic types, etc. then we can always elaborate if we want.

Yeah, I gave up writing long and interesting briefings for the Co-op crowd 'cos hardly anyone reads them!

Personally it's gratifying to see the shape of the new FMB is not radically different from the IL2 original. Learning the new settings and applying them onto a well-known framework will be better than trying to learn a whole new system, and I hope to be writing missions quite early on.
Another point is that I expect to still be flying FB after Storm of War commences - specifically 4.10 and UP - which is another good reason to have a similar FMB setup.

Thanks for this exciting update,

Brando

[BadAim]

I'm with the guys who like the minimal changes to the GUI. It's really not all that hard to use the system in IL2 once you have built a few missions with it. It looks like SOW will be a real step up, remember guys, a familiar GUI does not necessarily mean familiar problems. Half of the trouble I've ever had was getting the AI to behave, and that really isn't an FMB problem anyway. It looks to me like a lot of the rest have been addressed. I'm looking forward to cut 'n paste, and it looks like we'll have a lot more interaction with the AI through the FMB (and I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll be smart enough to follow the instructions.

So far I like what I see, but please, please Oleg make sure we can see a description of the objects, and not just a number. I would also like to have infinitely nestable folders for missions, and not just a couple levels like we have in IL2. (as a matter of fact it would be nice if we could build our own folder structure for the objects and such)

[Flying_Nutcase]

Originally Posted by Fafnir_6

Cool! Thanks for the link . My point in this thread is that this sort of tutorial should have been included with IL-2 (perhaps not in the original release but certainly in a later patch). Here's hoping this sort of tutorial will show up integrated with BoB either in the initial release or in some future update.

Cheers and thanks again

Fafnir_6

Glad they've been useful. Whatever doesn't come in the Storm of War manual will soon be covered by the community, and a book will rarely better video to demonstrate how-to instructions IMHO, especially for beginners.


Flying Nutcase

[The Kraken]

Thanks for another nice update - very interesting and a welcome change from "yet another burning plane"

I'm also curious about the scripting possibilities, i.e. how much the behaviour of objects can be influenced and what triggers there are. Would be great to have fine control over the AI through the mission files through scripts. But I guess we'll all find out soon.

As for the interface, there is a certain complexity in mission making you cannot design away, but for sure the Il2 editor did have some drawbacks (no copy and paste, no filtering of lists etc.). It looks like at least some of those issues have been taken care of, and as long as that is the case I couldn't care less about how slick the interface looks.