Friday 2011-01-28 Dev. update and Discussion

[Cobra8472]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

1. Most people are interested in COD because it's striving for accuracy instead of "looks more interesting". They want accurate FM, accurate damage, and accurate lighting as opposed to a bag full of effects to get an atmospheric feel and still run on consoles and midrange PC's.

2. I don't know where you're going with the middle portion. I know that "accurate" is somewhat relative and that no game has a perfectly accurate colour for it, but I think that Oleg and Co. are trying for it instead of "washed out" like WOP.

3. Using Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers as an example works perfectly since that's that the WOP guys were going for. Spielberg washed out the colours and used steadycams since that's what you see in archival footage. He toned it down for the movie so the audience would be immersed more in the time period since everyone has seen a WWII clip. WOP went for the same thing, trying to get people to identify the same way since most people who are going to buy a WWII flight sim have watched archival footage as well.

If you prefer the cinematic look, I wouldn't be surprised if there were options in the config file or maybe even the graphics panel to get closer to what you want. And ATI/Nvidia also have soem rendering options that will help out as well if you get the full driver/suite downloads or aftermarket add-ons for their driver suites.

Isn't that what we're all aiming for? Immersion?

"accuracy" is - as you mention, a relative term. To me, the current screenshots of CoD are not exactly the epitome of realism either.

You seem to have this arbitrary conviction that "effects" are bad. Why the hell is this? The color correction used in WoP works absolute wonders. It provides a sense of immersion, and sets a mood to the mission/area in which you are flying.

The rendering of trees, clouds, atmosphere and terrain by WoP is unmatched, even by CoD. As someone else mentioned, it has a bag of tricks to make it look good, and as long as it looks good, who cares how many shaders they use, or how they page their terrain.

And no, that is not what the WoP devs were going for. Some of the maps are pushing the colors towards bronze/beige, some are diffusing the whites, but none that I have seen try to emulate the bleach-bypass method utilized by the colourgrader in Band of Brothers/SPR.
Band of Brothers and SPR are very unique films - considering the fact that they do very minimal colour correction.

If you mean to say that they were trying to achieve a cinematic effect by color-correcting the screen, then yes- they were, alas so does every other film in existence.

And that is exactly my point, you say "the same way since most people who are going to buy a WWII flight sim have watched archival footage as well."

Isn't that the whole point?
To immerse ourselves, suspension of disbelief, etc.
Cinematic effects help with this, simple as that.

[robtek]

The idea, above all "immersion" intentions, is, as i see it, to simulate reality as perfect as possible, not a movie!

Originally Posted by Cobra8472

Lots of words

You bring up good points, but what Oleg is trying to do (might be the photographer background there) is recreate the lighting and colours your eye sees in real life as opposed to a colour-corrected/altered version you'd see in the movies or other games.

The point of him taking that direction (I'm guessing) is that if you have a somewhat realistic starting point or "base" then you can more easily move from there. If he created COD with all the settings and tricks that WOP has then it would be much harder for someone to get it to look like FSX or X-Plane, or any other "non-styled/colour-corrected" sim. It's a lot eaiser to add in the vingette or the heavy-handed colour-correction, or the fog seen in WOP than it is to try and remove it.

It's all up to people's preferences, and it seems that most people like what Oleg is going for rather than what WOP already has. I'm not knocking WOP. It does what it wants to really well, but I'm guessing most simmers interested in the type of sim COD is shaping up to be want what Oleg has in mind for the visuals.

As for the visuals/style/colour-corrections found in WOP and Saving Private Ryan, that was just a rough comparison. After SPR was released a lot of people probably thought that real-life colour wasn't as vibrant as it is today. When I look out the window of a small aircraft I don't usually see a "pea-soup" film over everything like I do when playing WOP or watching a SPR.

You're entitled to your opinion, and so am I. But it looks like Oleg and I are on the same page given the direction the screen shots have been/are going.

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by Cobra8472

Isn't that the whole point?
To immerse ourselves, suspension of disbelief, etc.
Cinematic effects help with this, simple as that.

The problem is that immersion is completely subjective, and what works for one person can be a deal breaker for someone else. And that's where things get complicated.

For example, here are some opinions that I personally don't agree with:

- Il2 lacked "soul" and thus immersion
- dynamic campaigns are more immersive
- all WW2 sims should have EAW-style menus for increased immersion
- plane skins should have lots of weathering
- tracers should show a zig-zag pattern like in gun cam footage
- multiplayer is more immersive

[Xilon_x]

DEAR OLEG MADDOX I REQUEST FOR CoD one expecial option for mission builder.
include traces of planes are not drawn on the map using the mouse, but .....

tracks recorded on a flight that is not realistic in the game in the map.

example: I fly from the coast to the island track is recorded and entered in the mission builder can also shoot in the air but still the track is recorded and included in the mission builder.

ie instead of using the mouse manually insert a track I use a piece of tracks recorded in the mission builder.

I used google translator to translate Mr. Oleg Maddox now I am writing in Italian and you try to translate myself.



Signor Oleg MADDOX richiedo una speciale opzione nel mission builder.
Precisamente richiedo di avere un opzione che inserisce anche le tracce registrate in tempo reale di volo oltre che le tracce inserite manualmente tramite il mouse nel mission builder.
ESEMPIO:
1)TRACCIA registrata in tempo reale : io effetuo un volo dalla costa all'isola posso sparare nel vuoto posso schiantarmi o posso atterrare il tutto viene registrato e inserito nel mission builder.
2)TRACCIA inserita manulmente con il mouse con dati di velocita' armamento carburante altitudine e vettore.

[Heliocon]

Problem here is you two are arguing over what immersion is when you have two different opinions as it applies to COD.
Immersion as a emotional response that draws you into the enviroment/battle and makes it feel engrossing + incredible.
VS
Immersion that draws you into the game with the feeling off: so now I know how these pilots felt when they looked down and saw the landscape below. This is as close as I can get to flying a spitfire without actually physically flying one...

Two different definitions and I would argue "genres".

Also the CRT monitor comment is probably right, I noticed RT (russia today) did a segment on COD awhile back, dont know if other saw it or when it was from. Anyway the whole team were using what looked like 19/17 inch CRT monitors...

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Problem here is you two are arguing over what immersion is when you have two different opinions as it applies to COD.
Immersion as a emotional response that draws you into the enviroment/battle and makes it feel engrossing + incredible.
VS
Immersion that draws you into the game with the feeling off: so now I know how these pilots felt when they looked down and saw the landscape below. This is as close as I can get to flying a spitfire without actually physically flying one...

Two different definitions and I would argue "genres".

Exactly!

Immersion is something that is different for every individual. The way Oleg is doing it allows for the easiest path to customizing it for the individual since he is trying to accomplish "real world accuracy" instead of "cinema accuracy" like WOP.

[winny]

Firstly I'm not doing this as a 'I think it should be this way' thing.

It's purley to illustrate a point.

All I've done to the bottom pic is increase the contrast.



My point is that all of the CoD screenshots have felt slightly 'lightweight'. The reason for this is that they contain very little true black, and the eye sees a lot of black in shadows in RL.
The effect you end up with is a slightly super-real look where you can see details in shadows that you wouldn't be able to in RL.

[SQB]

Originally Posted by winny

Firstly I'm not doing this as a 'I think it should be this way' thing.

It's purely to illustrate a point.

All I've done to the bottom pic is increase the contrast.


My point is that all of the CoD screenshots have felt slightly 'lightweight'. The reason for this is that they contain very little true black, and the eye sees a lot of black in shadows in RL.
The effect you end up with is a slightly super-real look where you can see details in shadows that you wouldn't be able to in RL.

This man speaks the truth, the contrast was slightly overdone (giving a bit of oversaturation to the cockpit) but by god, the shadows, the FIELDS! it looks AMAZING!

[Freycinet]

Originally Posted by winny

Firstly I'm not doing this as a 'I think it should be this way' thing.

It's purley to illustrate a point.

All I've done to the bottom pic is increase the contrast.



My point is that all of the CoD screenshots have felt slightly 'lightweight'. The reason for this is that they contain very little true black, and the eye sees a lot of black in shadows in RL.
The effect you end up with is a slightly super-real look where you can see details in shadows that you wouldn't be able to in RL.

That effect is in Rise of Flight and is called HDR (High Dynamic Range). It is applied in your game graphics options. It will surely be in CoD too.