Constructive Critics for the Russian Villages

[Kupsised]

To be honest, I'm living in Estonia at the moment and there are a lot of small villages, particularly out East near the Russian border, that look a lot like what the dev updates show. Baring in mind these were probably built in the times of the Russian Empire I can guess they're pretty much similar. In these cases, yes, the churches a lot of the time are on the outskirts of the towns, not necessarily in the middle. The gardens look pretty accurate, even though this isn't a garden sim as Corto said. The houses actually look bang on right, even the colours just look spot on.

Otherwise though, if there's one thing I think we can certainly trust 1c to do well, it's model the countryside around their offices. There's a big difference between the amount of money, time and resources it'd take to go and recce and get an idea of 1940's Britain than it is to get an idea of 1940's Russia for them, and from what I have seen they have it pretty much right in my eyes.

[Tavingon]

I want to see wild horses dashing around, and flocks of birds.

[priller26]

Ample photographic evidence of SS units winding their way through Russia and Ukraine with churches literally out in the middle of almost nowhere. They look fine. Most Russian villages today look very similar to what they did in 1940, only the tanks are missing. If you have seen a half dozen, you have seen them all. I've been to a couple dozen.

[priller26]

Originally Posted by Kupsised

To be honest, I'm living in Estonia at the moment and there are a lot of small villages, particularly out East near the Russian border, that look a lot like what the dev updates show. Baring in mind these were probably built in the times of the Russian Empire I can guess they're pretty much similar. In these cases, yes, the churches a lot of the time are on the outskirts of the towns, not necessarily in the middle. The gardens look pretty accurate, even though this isn't a garden sim as Corto said. The houses actually look bang on right, even the colours just look spot on.

Otherwise though, if there's one thing I think we can certainly trust 1c to do well, it's model the countryside around their offices. There's a big difference between the amount of money, time and resources it'd take to go and recce and get an idea of 1940's Britain than it is to get an idea of 1940's Russia for them, and from what I have seen they have it pretty much right in my eyes.

Spot on comment. I Trust the devs have a fairly accurate idea of what Russian villages looked like in 1940-45, pretty much same as today. There at thousands of books with pics, and they can go to them. Five miles outside of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) today and you think you have been transported back in time. The drive to where the encirclement was broken in Leningrad is like time traveling, and its right outside the city.

[kestrel79]

Are you talking about the update pictures from last week? I thought everything looked great, except to me the scale looked off.

Either the houses are too big or the tanks are too small. I remember IL2 had the same problem. Those tanks look like little toys parked next to the houses.

Models and textures look good, but scale looks strange. Maybe it's the FOV (wide angle?) that's giving this impression.

[Friendly_flyer]

My personal beef is the houses looks to lined up. This is mainly a critique of the Britain-map (I have seen a few English villages both from the ground and the air. I don't know about Russia though, perhaps they did line everything up there. Here's a comment of the matter I posted earlier:

Type of improvement: More natural placement of buildings
Explanation: The extremely lined-up feeling if villages in much of CoD is very artificial. Buildings do not normally line up perfectly, particularly not in less built up areas. (see some pictures below). Recent development shots shows some extremely nice Russian farmland buildings, again with the mathematical (and quite unnatural) precise line-up.
Benefits: Environment, navigational (buildings/quarters as landmarks easier to spot)


Small village (the size that's all over the place in IL2 maps), England. Notice the houses align to the roads, not to an overall line-up:


Small scale industry, London. Notice even adjacent houses don't allways line up:


Large scale industry, Hungary. Notice several lines of line-up:

[JG26_EZ]

Did anyone read one of Luthier's responses in the update thread regarding placement of towns?

Do you know how long it would take to add a bush or tree to (even) one out of ten backyards? Perhaps the designers should branch this game to have a gardening section, and we'll have people planting tulips and shrubs 24/7.

Fly faster.

[Meusli]

That was a hope of mine, release the map to the community or allow the us to build up the CLOD map ourselves. I would find it quite therapeutic myself, like when I sort out my music collection on my PC.

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by JG26_EZ

Did anyone read one of Luthier's responses in the update thread regarding placement of towns?

I did. My comment about the lined up houses can be solved by programming the auto placement of houses. I don't think anyone believe they are going to hand-place all objects for maps at this scale.

[SQB]

I love the look of the Russian landscape, but just to confirm, the trees are getting their colours changed right? They look like oak trees or something, quite out of place with their bright foliage.

Also, any word on tree collision? We had that in il2 so (forgive my ignorance) shouldn't we be able to have it in CloD?