Friday 2010-07-16 Dev. update and Discussions about the update ONLY!

[Immermann]

I don't think there's any AA on these screen shots. It's just the blue-greys of the sea that sometimes gives the same effect on the edges of the planes.

[imaca]

Originally Posted by Immermann

I don't think there's any AA on these screen shots. It's just the blue-greys of the sea that sometimes gives the same effect on the edges of the planes.

Yes there is.
If you right click - open in new window - you get the full res. Zoom in on the shots and it is obvious to see.

[Immermann]

No there isn't.

[philip.ed]

The birds in that video look really good. I'd love to see something like that in SoW.

[tagTaken2]

I'd just like to see SoW.

Seriously, aren't a lot of us losing sight of the bigger picture? A next gen combat flight simulator with realistic flight models, modd/expandability and a good campaign?

I have to assume some of the requests, such as falling leaves and different bird types, are taking the piss. If you want to pay for fripperies such as these in an addon, fine. But if details like this are causing release delays, I wouldn't want to be an investor in 1C.

[scrope]

At last, someone with a ton of sense, and these are the members that keep moaning about release dates. Good on yer tagTaken2.

[Viking]

Oleg is the man to have both the vision of the next gen flight sim as well as the ability to make a sound economical decision when to quit and publish.
He’s been around long enough.

Keep this tread clean for update discussion only please.
Regards

Viking

[constant]

The screenshots are overall decent, I love the burning planes. ++

However, the specular affect on the planes is severely dissappointing, having the same flat-"plastic" look as in IL2, instead of metallic.

With the new technology, and computers moving to the 64bit bandwidth platform, 1c should not be afraid to move to bump-mapping + environment mapping (reflective) for a more authentically "metal" look.

Notice the minute details of the highlights in the planes construction, the shine on the underside of the wing and on the lowered flap. (Even the orange paint on the tail has a good shine to it!)



Now notice how the plane basically looks flat IL2:



Now look in SoW how well still have the same basic flat look, with what looks like a failed attempt to bump-mapping or a poor version of a bump mapped plane:

(image was too big to leave in a post..)

SoW Screenshot

Producing a properly skinned plane with bump-mapping and environment mapping (even realtime) is not a difficult task these days. You could even generate an environment map for all planes using one render of the environment, say from the players plane position, to a texture, since any plane that will have this reflectivness will need to be within some distance to be noticeable anyway, much too close to notice the lackof diffierence in environment mapping. Even in non-commercial 3D engines such as Irrlicht, this is possible in as few lines as 20, I believe. And second-rendering the environment (not other planes, no ground objects, just ground, water, sky..) should not be a big performance hit either. This second render could then also be used for other things like reflectiveness of the environment off the water.. Not that the water looks bad at all.

However there is probably just too much for these guys to fix to even bother attempting to reproduce that wonderful realistic look that planes have at this point in development. I am just sorely dissappointed they could not address this major peice of the sim as it has plagued the realism in il2 and sorely hampered my willingness to make skins for planes, especially those like the p51 who have had polished metal panels instead of paint.

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

The birds in that video look really good. I'd love to see something like that in SoW.

With birds and the mocking deer (seriously, they look at you and smile) in X-Plane, there is a bit of a performance hit. And they are a little too common as I took three bird strikes in 10 flights which is statistically REALLY bad luck lol.

I wouldn't want the performance hit that comes with tracking bird's positions and then the graphical representation of flapping wings. I guess it would be cool to be able to switch birds on though.

Also, as good as X-Plane's flight model is, it isn't perfect. Better than any combat sim I have played for sure, but not perfect. Graphics for X-Plane 9 would be TERRIBLY disappointing to what the folks are expecting with SoW. Lakes with sharp corners, no real ground detail, randomized buildings in cities, etc.. Of course, X-Plane covers the whole world (and Mars lol) while SoW will have MUCH smaller maps.

Having said all of that, the only thing that X-Plane is really missing is combat. The flight model is so good that I could live with the graphics if they incorporated a good combat sim. The good news with all of that for companies like 1C is that the owner of X-Plane has no interest, apparently, in producing a combat sim.

So if you want a really good flight sim with a tremendous flight model, check out X-Plane. If you want a really good combat sim...like I do...well, here we are waiting anxiously for SoW. While I enjoy and have learned a lot from flight sims, there is nothing like a good air combat sim .

I guess my prejudice toward gameplay, damage models, and flight models over graphics comes from my interest in flight sims.

Maybe Laminar and 1C should merge just to make me happy? lol

Splitter

[whatnot]

Originally Posted by Splitter

With birds and the mocking deer (seriously, they look at you and smile) in X-Plane, there is a bit of a performance hit. And they are a little too common as I took three bird strikes in 10 flights which is statistically REALLY bad luck lol.

This was a real downer for me in X-Plane for when I first tried it. Birds everywhere flying irradically and hitting ground and environment randomly without much bird-like behaviour. Even a bigger setback were the 'airportdeers' running around around the planet finding the green grass of the airfields. One would assume that if a deer hears roaring engines it'd run 10 miles non-stop instead of enjoying the sight of airplanes operaring while having a snack in the middle of all that.

I assume you can set them off etc so it's not that big of a deal overall, but the overall takeaway is that if you don't plan to do it properly in par with all the aspects of the sim don't do it at all. But knowing the quality of work so far with Maddox releases I have no fear of that.