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

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by furbs

yep...those trees look much better...so i wonder why they dont look as good in the last few updates?

anyone have a idea?

i suspect, and hope i am wrong here, that oleg in the last months completely switched his tree modeling from his own creations he made previously in the last few years (seen in your post of old screenshots), to now using the new generic "speedtrees" (which some game manufacturers purchase as a 3e party element from a separate company, you can google it to find more info, there is webpages with all the tree models they make)

most likely oleg's only reason for this is that the scenery vegetation and trees he initially made (which look much better !) were to much of a cpu and gpu hog. when in the last 6 months oleg started integrating all the various sub components to put his modualr game design together, he might have found he couldnt get the frames per sec he hoped for. it would have been one of the most simple things to replace the trees/shrubs, while keeping all the other elements he made for the game which also drain cpu/gpu (dynamic campaign engine, weather modeling, flight physics for aircraft, etc..)

if that is the compromise needed to get the finished sim out the door this year, so be it imo. hopefully later oleg can replace the speedtrees with his own creation once they have the luxury of time to make further refinements for game efficiency later

all this is pure speculation on my part

Originally Posted by zapatista

i suspect, and hope i am wrong here, that oleg in the last months completely switched his tree modeling from his own creations he made previously in the last few years (seen in your post of old screenshots), to now using the new generic "speedtrees" (which some game manufacturers purchase as a 3e party element from a separate company, you can google it to find more info, there is webpages with all the tree models they make)

most likely oleg's only reason for this is that the scenery vegetation and trees he initially made (which look much better !) were to much of a cpu and gpu hog. when in the last 6 months oleg started integrating all the various sub components to put his modualr game design together, he might have found he couldnt get the frames per sec he hoped for. it would have been one of the most simple things to replace the trees/shrubs, while keeping all the other elements he made for the game which also drain cpu/gpu (dynamic campaign engine, weather modeling, flight physics for aircraft, etc..)

if that is the compromise needed to get the finished sim out the door this year, so be it imo. hopefully later oleg can replace the speedtrees with his own creation once they have the luxury of time to make further refinements for game efficiency later

all this is pure speculation on my part

Surely if that is the case though he could simply get his tree's back from WOP, they seem to look better at the moment and the fps is fine, obviously some have issues with the colour of WOP terrain but on the whole it still looks better than the WIPs we are seeing from SOW.

[Sturm_Williger]

To be honest, as long as we have moved on from the Side-on-Invisible-trees(tm) of IL2, I'll accept pretty much any compromise regarding trees.

I'm happier with FM, DM & AI hogging my cpu/gpu cycles.

[AndyJWest]

Originally Posted by Sturm_Williger

To be honest, as long as we have moved on from the Side-on-Invisible-trees(tm) of IL2, I'll accept pretty much any compromise regarding trees.

I'm happier with FM, DM & AI hogging my cpu/gpu cycles.

Exactly. +1 to that.

The obsession with eye-candy shown by some on this forum could be counter-productive if Oleg and co were to take it too seriously. Yes, I want SoW:BoB to look good (and from what I've seen it will), but that isn't what is going to determine its long-term viability.

[lbuchele]

Originally Posted by AndyJWest

Exactly. +1 to that.

The obsession with eye-candy shown by some on this forum could be counter-productive if Oleg and co were to take it too seriously. Yes, I want SoW:BoB to look good (and from what I've seen it will), but that isn't what is going to determine its long-term viability.

That´s why I said in another post that is easy to sims like WoP to do the best eye-candy possible.They don´t have to compromise anything.
I drop it in less then a week as a result and I believe that most of people here eventually do the same with arcade games like that.
All we want here is to be challenged , the most, the better and doing a sim capable of challenge us is something that Oleg, Ilya and team are masters.
I truly believe that this will be a masterpiece, my real concern is about my real life ...

But hang on a minute, when people on here were getting excited about the terrain in 'WOP' Oleg stated that we could be sure that the terrain in SOW would be a whole lot better, at this moment in time I am not seeing that, ok maybe in 2 months time when SOW is released it will look a whole lot better.

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

But hang on a minute, when people on here were getting excited about the terrain in 'WOP' Oleg stated that we could be sure that the terrain in SOW would be a whole lot better, at this moment in time I am not seeing that, ok maybe in 2 months time when SOW is released it will look a whole lot better.

Yes he "promised" that so I expect a bit more. Hope the ground graphics at the moment ar far away from the final look.

[Richie]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

But hang on a minute, when people on here were getting excited about the terrain in 'WOP' Oleg stated that we could be sure that the terrain in SOW would be a whole lot better, at this moment in time I am not seeing that, ok maybe in 2 months time when SOW is released it will look a whole lot better.

Just wait ...you'll see


aka Hackl

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Surely if that is the case though he could simply get his tree's back from WOP, they seem to look better at the moment and the fps is fine, obviously some have issues with the colour of WOP terrain but on the whole it still looks better than the WIPs we are seeing from SOW.

iirc oleg only provided the code for the flight modeling to WoP, nothing else. the scenery and all other parts are of their own creation

having looked at video's of WoP gaming (but not played it), i'd say that sim has significant problems of its own in the way it represents scenery. from a few specific distances/altitudes the scenery looks very good, other times it doesnt, and at times it even looks very cartoonish. overall visually (to me) it very much gives the impression of a console game from 5 yrs ago.

[Chivas]

The SOW engine has been developed not only for a combat flight sim but possibly for CGI generated movies. Hence Olegs attempts to make the SOW graphics cinematic. I like the graphics we've seen so far, but it isn't cinematic YET, and it may not be cinematic in the initial release of BOB. That said, I have no doubt that the graphic engine will be capable of becoming cinematic at some point during the series.

Hopefully Oleg will be able to generate much greater funds with the SOW engine, other than the relatively small flight sim community. It could bode well for all of us.