Friday 2009-12-25 Screenshots AND Discussion Thread

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

War is a bleak, black, smoky, cruddy, nasty, dirty, muddy, bloody business.

All that nice green grass... LOL

When it rains all that plush green grass should turn into a mud bog.

I careless for the grass, because the first sentence above describes the battlefields and airfields.

What planet are you livng in? The Battle of Britain was one of the hottest summers Britain had had for years and the british made sue their grass on their airfields was kept in perfect condition where possible. Now of course grass would be affected by weather and the constant movement of aircraft, but due to the hot summer the grass would be extrememly dry and so cut ver short. The grass in any of the shots we've seen is nothing like how it would look. British airfields were not like bogs duing the BoB, in the autumn months when it rained they might have become muddy, but nothing like the conditions you describe. Of course though if people decide to make a BoF campaign then the conditions you describe would be appropiate, bu for the BoB then it is far from that

[mano]

Hi!!

you have done a great work.

I cannot wait for that !!!

the screenshots are absolutely fantastic (sorry for my english)


I have a little question:
there will be, during play time, the possibility to save the game status?

it would be a nice feature.
when I come home at evening, after a job day, i would love the possibility to resume the game status

that could make possible to learn and achieve enough skill to take a good fly and engage a dogfight without restart every time from 00:00 tempo

( i remember in IL2 Sturmovik the possibility to time stretching: absolutely a good "tool",
but I think a "save game" possibility also should make a big difference)



I thank you for all your posts and your good work.
I'm sorry if this was not the right place to ask that question
and i'm absolutely sorry for my "random" english!!


cheers from Italy

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

Nice shots, but still I wonder when we will be able to have all this.
I have stopped now with IL2 since many months after nearly 7 years of use.
Visual quality, sound and graphics seem really something of the past.
Playing with games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (CODMW2) for sure has spoilt me, and having seen demos of Metro 2030. BoB will be against a terrible competition in terms of visual quality, effects, sound, and also physical behaviour of the environment.
Quality design of objects and planes is fine, but the visual quality of the environment, animations of characters will also be important. Pilots must be modelled like the soldiers in CODMW2, with facial expressions.
On the ground same for the soldiers. There must be an animated background of people in the airports or on the ships. Over the many years that IL2 has strived with many little improvements here and there, but now the visual gap is starting to become wider and wider.
Will BoB use DirectX11 features, the power of the latest generations of GPU's, multicore 64bit machines etc. etc.
All my hopes are yes. But the development takes so long and seems to have concentrated too much on the object details (at least from what is shown to us) that I am afraid when it comes out the visual engine may look already something of the past and there will be no time for animating properly the world around.

[MOG_Rumboy]

Originally Posted by Golden_Eagle_FM

Pilots must be modelled like the soldiers in CODMW2, with facial expressions.

Why?

IMHO I seriously hope time is not being spent giving pilots facial expressions. If someone rocks up in my six blazing fire, I'm guessing I'm going to want to manoever, not change my view setting to see if my eye brows are up in surprise.

a flight simulator or human simulator? As an IL2 player, I'd be quite happy with just seeing a pair of legs on the rudders and a hand on the stick!

Great looking WiP - looking forward to this.

[Qpassa]

Originally Posted by MOG_Rumboy

As an IL2 player, I'd be quite happy with just seeing a pair of legs on the rudders and a hand on the stick!

Great looking WiP - looking forward to this.

Agree 100%

[Flanker35M]

S!

In flight sim genre the graphical eye candy is not on the top of the list. Most of the time graphics are very good, but also practical. Too much eyecandy takes a lot of power to process and then what is left for physics or damage modeling? IL-2 is maybe a bit dated in graphics department, but some user made content has changed this as well, especially in cockpits, textures, maps and external appearance of planes.

SoW's biggest catch will be the FM and DM being even more complex than IL-2. And now DirectX 11 coding so no more silly "one graphics card pony" game like IL-2 is causing ATI users to spend a lot of time tweaking. Today both Green and Red team offer a lot of power for games so discriminating either of them is just like sawing off the branch you sit on

So until release have time to upgrade HOTAS etc..

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

S!

In flight sim genre the graphical eye candy is not on the top of the list. Most of the time graphics are very good, but also practical. Too much eyecandy takes a lot of power to process and then what is left for physics or damage modeling? IL-2 is maybe a bit dated in graphics department, but some user made content has changed this as well, especially in cockpits, textures, maps and external appearance of planes.

SoW's biggest catch will be the FM and DM being even more complex than IL-2. And now DirectX 11 coding so no more silly "one graphics card pony" game like IL-2 is causing ATI users to spend a lot of time tweaking. Today both Green and Red team offer a lot of power for games so discriminating either of them is just like sawing off the branch you sit on

So until release have time to upgrade HOTAS etc..

I 100% agree with you on the FM and DM being the most important part of any sim Flanker, and DirectX 11 is a positive. Obviously for successful sales and public interest the eye candy surely plays a major factor as long has it does not significantley effect the 'playability'. Lets hope SOW meets our expectations on all these counts. S!

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

And now DirectX 11 coding so no more silly "one graphics card pony" game like IL-2 is causing ATI users to spend a lot of time tweaking. Today both Green and Red team offer a lot of power for games so discriminating either of them is just like sawing off the branch you sit on

So until release have time to upgrade HOTAS etc..

You mean ATI's lack of driver support surely.

Nvidia was originally used as they had the most stable drivers and support , iirc over 9 years ago the decision was to code with Nvidia in mind because of this fact.
You cant blame Oleg for the poor driver support from ATI even nearly 10 Years later !!!!!

ATI had it right with the X1950 pro and driver 7.11, I had 2 in Crossfire config for a while.

Seems they went chasing numbers to make sales and lost the plot.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

What planet are you livng in? The Battle of Britain was one of the hottest summers Britain had had for years and the british made sue their grass on their airfields was kept in perfect condition where possible. Now of course grass would be affected by weather and the constant movement of aircraft, but due to the hot summer the grass would be extrememly dry and so cut ver short. The grass in any of the shots we've seen is nothing like how it would look. British airfields were not like bogs duing the BoB, in the autumn months when it rained they might have become muddy, but nothing like the conditions you describe. Of course though if people decide to make a BoF campaign then the conditions you describe would be appropiate, bu for the BoB then it is far from that

Interesting... Let's see if Oleg models the correct weather for each day I would not be surprised

So that we all can prepare to analyze this, here is a weather summary I found for London in 1940 (at http://www.london-weather.eu/article.81.html). I will be very disappointed if july 24:th is hotter than 16.4 degrees and the effects on engine output due to air density is not correct

July - Cool with above average rainfall and sunshine.
Mean Temperature 16.1°C Monthly Highest 25.6°C Total Rain 68 mm Monthly Lowest 8.2°C Total Sun 207 hrs
The beginning of July was warm and sunny, and the afternoon temperature on the 2nd rose above 25°C. It then became cooler and changeable as Atlantic fronts crossed the country. A few dry and fairly sunny days occurred, and occasionally temperatures approached normal. Generally, however, it was cool and showery, with some longer spells of rain. On the 21st, over 10mm of rain was recorded, and on the 24th, the maximum temperature was only 16.4°C.

August - Very dry with above average sunshine and slightly below normal temperatures.
Mean Temperature 16.9°C Monthly Highest 26.5°C Total Rain 2 mm Monthly Lowest 6.8°C Total Sun 208 hrs
High pressure over, or to the west of, the British Isles, dominated the weather throughout the month. It was warm at first and the temperature exceeded 26°C. on the 4th. However, winds from the northwest or north gave many rather cool days with cloudy afternoons. Showers produced over 1mm of rain on the 10th, and at the end of the third week there were several cool, cloudy and breezy days with a little rain. On the 23rd, the afternoon temperature only reached 16.5°C.

September - Rather cool, dry and sunny.
Mean Temperature 13.9°C Monthly Highest 26.4°C Total Rain 35 mm Monthly Lowest 4.4°C Total Sun 164 hrs
The first week of September was dry and warm with sunny periods. On the 4th it was sunny all day with the temperature rising above 26°C. The second week was rather changeable and cooler, but amounts of rain were small. After mid month, although several dry days occurred, Atlantic weather systems became more active. On the 19th, over 18mm of rain fell, and towards the end of the month it became very cool.. The maximum on the 29th was only 13.1°C.

October - Rather cold with above average rainfall and slightly below normal sunshine.
Mean Temperature 10.2°C Monthly Highest 17.3°C Total Rain 61 mm Monthly Lowest -0.2°C Total Sun 94 hrs
The opening 4 weeks of the month were changeable with temperatures mostly near, or slightly below, normal. There were some dry days, and on the 7th, it was sunny all day. Much of the rain was light, but on the 16th, over 17mm fell. On the 20th, the temperature rose above 17°C., but during the last few days of October winds blew from the north and it became much colder. On the 29th, there was a frost early and late, and the maximum temperature was only 8.6°C.