Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[luthier]

Originally Posted by HFC_Dolphin

I once kindly asked Oleg to have a view of the airport and our plane's position when we get into the mission. Something like a fly-by/helicopter view, where we see where we are and where should we go to get into take off position.

That's actually a cool idea, but we probably can't do it at this point. We do plan to expand the pre-flight experience a lot either in day-1 or the first immediate patch. We'll keep it in mind.

Originally Posted by klem

By the way the A2A actually models engine wear against the use and abuse it gets (and gear etc) and it is carried over to the next flight unless you repair it. I can imagine it would add a big new dimension to fighting in the aircraft.

This was all planned as part of our dynamic campaign - mechanics, repairs, etc. Most of the components needed for it are there, it's just there's no top-level repair functionality or wear carry-over.

Originally Posted by Heliocon

As for the smoke vortexes, isnt it a similar mechanic to water physics/movement which is in alot of games, direct compute could hack it (it was made for that type of simulation).

Well that would require a completely different visual technology for smoke and clouds. Clouds obviously get the same exact wake vortex as a smoke column.

Right now our clouds and smoke are just big puffs, either 2D circles, or 3D spheres. They're pretty large. You can only turn a puff into a smoke vortex if the plane flies directly through a predetermined point at its center or at its edge, only if it flies wings level, and only if only one plane flies through that puff at one time. That, of course, is never going to happen.

To allow for dynamic vortexes anywhere the plane flies, and that interact with each other if more than one plane flies there, would require us to break the puffs into tiny parts hundreds of times smaller than our current puffs. That means that each smoke column and the edge of each cloud would be a thousand times more resource-intensive, i.e. it just can't be done. Or at the very least we can't think of a way to get it done.

Originally Posted by Chivas

I wonder if the LOD of objects (buildings) will be about the same as IL-2? The pop up buildings are an immersion killer, but I understand that its sometimes necessary for fps issues. Will there be a user option to increase the LOD distance. In IL-2 right now a high end system can get many hundreds of frames per second, so it would be a nice option to have, when the new IL-2 series goes forward and people have strong enough systems.

It's hard to imagine a system in which we can have unlimited building visibility coming in the next 3 to 5 years. You'd need to constantly resort the relative positions of millions of objects.

Originally Posted by Zorin

1. Regarding the Bf-108. As you concieved it as a AI only plane so far, is its internal model inferior to a flyable plane?

All external models are built to the same standard. All are potentially flyable with no changes to the outside model.

Originally Posted by Zorin

2. If that should not be the case and I would pay someone to build the cockpit to your standards, how long would it take you guys to get it implemented? I believe that is a crucial questions for all third party developers who want to have their work approved and implemented by you.

The plan is to allow 3rd party developers to approve, implement and release their own work once we release the SDK. We do not plan to implement anyone's work before or after the SDK is released.

Originally Posted by Zorin

3. Can you estimate the number of planes that will be missing from CoD when it reaches IL-2s current stage? Are we realisitically looking at 1/3 of the number of flyables or even less?

What do you mean by IL-2's current stage? 10 years after release? Hopefully with the 3rd party SDK it will be much bigger than Il-2.

Originally Posted by Zorin

4. On the Bf109 screens you posted, the markings are not part of the weathering process. Is that about to change in the future?

Maybe.

Originally Posted by Zorin

5. Oleg mentioned some time ago that the organisation of ground units, vehicles columns etc, is entirely up to the mission designer. For example, being able to recreate a typical "leichte Panzerkompanie c" and saving it as a preset for future missions. Is this still the case for CoD on release?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Chivas

Will we be able to map Zoom View to a Rotary. I find the Wide, Normal, and Gunsight view less than ideal.

We have smooth POV zoom, but right now you can only adjust it to a button. We'll see if we can make it an axis as well.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by luthier

...The plan is to allow 3rd party developers to approve, implement and release their own work once we release the SDK. We do not plan to implement anyone's work before or after the SDK is released.

Thanks for all your answers.

Yet this one raises another two questions.

1. How will 3rd party developers know if the plane they want to bring to the game is already worked on either by 1C or another 3rd party developer?
2. You have said before that the 3rd party tools for the implementation of planes will be limited and simplified so will that always result in 3rd party developed planes that are less complex than the official 1C developed ones?

[JVM]

Originally Posted by Zorin

Thanks for all your answers.

Yet this one raises another two questions.

1. How will 3rd party developers know if the plane they want to bring to the game is already worked on either by 1C or another 3rd party developer?
2. You have said before that the 3rd party tools for the implementation of planes will be limited and simplified so will that always result in 3rd party developed planes that are less complex than the official 1C developed ones?

I would like to know more on these subjects myself as this position is somewhat contradictory with what I hd understood (from OM inputs) so far:

- OM would like to create a business around COD similar to what exists around FSx...
This means that the SDK and FM tools would need to be complete, otherwise what's the point?

- To be allowed online (that I translate by integrated in the official game/patch whatever) any third party work (at least the A/C) would need to be vetted by OM's team.
This would probably mean only this, vetting, no completion/modification error correction: I understand OM's team will not reproduce the Il2 problems there...

In any case this a policy matter, and some time (an the SDK) will probably pass before some final decisions are made in this domain, and this can always change later on...I would stay optimistic!

JV

PS Zorin you never told me if you were interested by the (french) magazine dedicated to the Nord Pacific?

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Zorin

....About the Bf-108

About the BF-108.
Maybe we can somehow convince Mathias from Classic Hangar to make an addon to turn the 108 into a flyable plane.
He's working on it for FSX right now:

http://www.classics-hangar.de/phpBB3...&sd=a&start=40

And it looks bloody gorgeous.

[Wutz]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

About the BF-108.
Maybe we can somehow convince Mathias from Classic Hangar to make an addon to turn the 108 into a flyable plane.
He's working on it for FSX right now:

http://www.classics-hangar.de/phpBB3...&sd=a&start=40

And it looks bloody gorgeous.

That looks really nice!

[CharveL]

Looks good until he has to make a damage model for it too.

[fireflyerz]

blimey

[Luftwaffepilot]

Luthier,

how goes the process of editing the dev videos and translating it?
Will you get it done til friday?

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

About the BF-108.
Maybe we can somehow convince Mathias from Classic Hangar to make an addon to turn the 108 into a flyable plane.
He's working on it for FSX right now:

http://www.classics-hangar.de/phpBB3...&sd=a&start=40

And it looks bloody gorgeous.

Yeah...It does..But this image looks way better than the in-game one !



Salute !

[jspec01]

Has anyone else's ignore list been growing lately?