Civilians?

[SlipBall]

I had a favorite mission that I had made in IL2. It was a ground based mission that had 50 vehicles on the road. They were jeeps, buses, fuel trucks all on the roads as singles, through out the scope of the map. My machine seemed to handle it well, but I had a hell of time finding many of those moving possible target's. Its a big map, with lots of roads and eyestrain, looking and searching non stop. But when one was found, it sure was fun to make an ID with a low pass, and if one of ours I would tip my wings and move on. If Oleg could offer human figures in the objects list, I think it would add a lot to the map, while not causing too big of a PC hit. The vehicles could always be just added by the mission designer.

[artjunky]

I think it was about 4 or 5 years ago that I brought this up last time...it seems to have a better reaction this time.

To add to what others said, having no life in the game is a killer and with how beautifully this sim looks, it's too bad that it's not complete.

I've heard Oleg's remarks about the buses and I'm TOTALLY for keeping the number of "civilians" to a minimum. Of course it would be great if they were actually 3d with natural movement on paths like the buses but even if the are stationary, I think that would work pretty well.

I also think humans would help put things into better scale. When flying over cities, at times, the buildings seem somewhat out of scale and to have people near them, it might make it more natural.

I would really like having people out on farms.

It would also be interesting to be able to build columns of refugees leaving battle areas. Of course, in WWII Concentration camps put people on Death marches and it might be interesting to be forced, as a pilot, to pay attention to details and not just shoot everything on the roads.

Again, I keep coming back to the using civilians to make it a more interesting by creating an incentive NOT to kill civilians.

I've been reading "The Monuments Men." It's a historical book about the Soldiers who were put into action to guard the irreplaceable monuments and artwork of Europe. As The Allied Soldiers move in through Europe, the Germans were moving artwork out of France and then through Germany. There was actually a Burt Lancaster movie called "The Train," that followed part of this story. In this case, it was a train and the French underground (in the movie) painted the top of the cars with artwork, white so as to warn the Allied bombers.

Anyways, I think it would be VERY interesting to set up scenarios like this.

Oleg, please make this available.

[Novotny]

Originally Posted by artjunky

it's too bad that it's not complete.

It'll never be complete, old bean. When someone finally builds the absolute-universe emulator, you and I will both be dead and will not care for one.

Why do people find it so impossible to understand that at current technology levels, we cannot implement the world, or even a fraction of it.

What we do is reproduce enough in a player-experience to try to give that person the impression they are, for instance, flying a plane. Over England, say.

For the love of God, would people please stop asking for detail that is beyond this decade's processing power?

[AndyJWest]

Originally Posted by Novotny

It'll never be complete, old bean. When someone finally builds the absolute-universe emulator, you and I will both be dead and will not care for one.

Why do people find it so impossible to understand that at current technology levels, we cannot implement the world, or even a fraction of it.

What we do is reproduce enough in a player-experience to try to give that person the impression they are, for instance, flying a plane. Over England, say.

For the love of God, would people please stop asking for detail that is beyond this decade's processing power?

Well said.

And can people also note that just because a feature could be modelled in SoW:BoB, that doesn't mean it will. It isn't just a question of processing power, other resources are finite too.

[zauii]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

Well said.

And can people also note that just because a feature could be modelled in SoW:BoB, that doesn't mean it will. It isn't just a question of processing power, other resources are finite too.

Exactly
People need to realize that because something is possible doesn't mean its gonna be implemented. Any engine of any game has endless more possibilities than what's actually included in a specific game, unreal , cryengine.. (aka It's a ******* engine)

Besides why would we be interested in a simulated world, we are here for a flight sim.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Of course there are other ways of developing an immersive environment for a combat sim experience. But for the life of me I cant bring myself to ask my wife to get up at four o'clock, dress up as my batman, polish my boots wake me up with a cup of tea before cooking me a hearty meal of kippers prior to my first mission of the the day!

Personally I think it would be more likely to get Oleg to include civilian targets!


Cheers!

[fireflyerz]

Hmmm , I seem to remember another groupe of people who went around telling others what they could and couldnt say and how they should and should'nt be thinking... now what were they called , oh well perhaps it will come to me later.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by zauii

Besides why would we be interested in a simulated world, we are here for a flight sim.

Perhaps because airplanes are flown in the world? .......Just sayin'.

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by Novotny

When someone finally builds the absolute-universe emulator, you and I will both be dead and will not care for one.

But, at least you'll be emulated...

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by artjunky

I also think humans would help put things into better scale. When flying over cities, at times, the buildings seem somewhat out of scale and to have people near them, it might make it more natural.

agreed ! the good news is:

1) oleg seems to have listened/been-aware of the large amount of "feedback" about the problem with incorrect proportional sizes in the il2 series (buildings / vehicles / humans / pilots / objects). i think some were "out" by around 30% iirc. for BoB the rules are much stricter, and all indications are that proportions/sizes will now be correct (i have seen screenshots of foo'bar the german modeler using human figures next to the buildings he created for BoB, but cant see them on his website anymore)

2) most of us really should only fly 95% of the time in il2/BoB with the correct FoV setting for our individual monitor sizes, so it is set to the exact field of view the monitor occupies. that way you would get the correct/realistic "sensation of speed" when flying at low altitude over the scenery. with many people flying in a more zoomed view (to compensate for the severe "distant object" visibility problem in il2), this completely distorts the sense of distance to objects, and our aircraft speed in flight. by all indications this will be resolved for BoB

Originally Posted by artjunky

It would also be interesting to be able to build columns of refugees leaving battle areas.

the more i think about this, i cant really figure why modeling groups of "individuals" moving together would be such a problem (to keep it simple, lets say an infantry group of soldiers on a road). surely modern game engines for fps/driving/flying sims dont constantly draw/display each individual object no matter how close/far it is to the player/viewer.
for ex for the group of 50 soldiers marching i would have expected a game engine to use
- in close up, display/draw/calculate each individual soldiers skeletal movements
- at medium distance: have the soldiers together displayed as a single object for which only one position/movement is calculated (similar to what is done for an aircraft)
- at far distances, use the old "dot" method

iirc in the old 486 cpu days, one gfx card (powerVR) had as its great strength that it only used gpu power to draw/display what the player could physically realistically see from the position he was in on the "game map", it wouldnt waste gpu power on drawing objects and scenery "over the horizon" or out of view. most other cards at the time (3dfx voodoo etc) would actually draw the whole game world iirc, yet the player was only in one part of the map. and that is over 10 yrs ago.

surely in 2010 most modern gfx cards do something similar to that powerVR card now, so having 30 or 50 soldiers marching on a road should not be a waste of cpu/gpu when you are flying an aircraft miles away. the game engine should imho only keep track of the overall game plan and mathematical position of variables inside the game world, and objects would be grouped into a single variable once out of view.

as one poster mentioned in another recent thread here, one core of the cpu could deal with the campaign engine, another core draws the game world we see etc...


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