Friday 2010-08-27 Dev. update and Discussions

[Zorin]

First off: Get well soon Oleg.

Regarding the new screenshots.

1. Coming together nicely. Everything starts to feel natural.
2. The Ju88 model does show its age, which is sad. Your Do215/17 already has modelled thickness for the hull and canopies, which the Ju88 doesn't have and results in a IL-2 look I had hoped not to see in SoW.
3. Will the aircrews on multi-crew crafts all have the same face? I thought they would not, but the screenshots lead us to believe otherwise.
4. Does the Ju88 skin shown in the shot show a bump map yet? It doesn't look like it. There is a hint of a specular map in the "bail-out" top shot, I believe, though.

On a personal note: Thanks for fixing the small glitches on the Bf110. Highly appreciated

[Blackdog_kt]

Judging from the fact that even in IL2 one could have multiple different faces for pilots and even import his own, i guess it's going to be the same with SoW. Maybe they just didn't care about inserting different faces, because they wanted us to focus more on how the crew moves, eg the bailout scene and the way the pilot looks around in the second picture? Just a thought. In any case, i think it's safe to assume that even when small details are concerned SoW will be at least on par with IL2. In that sense, i don't worry about missing features if i have seen those features in IL2, i'm sure they'll be included at some point.

As for the buildings, it might seem they lack randomized vegetation close to them, like small gardens, but the rest of the 1st picture is very interesting. You can clearly see that the field near the left edge of the picture exhibits plow lines, the fields are sufficiently different to prevent the repeating tile effect and they also have hedgerows around them. On the field visible just behind the buildings we can also see that they took care to mix different types of vegetation, as there's not only a circular row of bushes but an isolated tree as well and it also exhibits areas that lack grass coverage. I think we can safely lay the matter of vegetation to rest

What i'm really curious about is the tracers. They look a bit laser-like , but then again i'm sure so much research has gone into this that i can assume they are historically correct, plus the IL2 tracers also seemed strange to me when i first saw them.

I think that the whole package is coming along nicely and we've reached a point where we can't deduce much more from still images, in fact i'm guessing that a lot of misunderstandings arise from this fact. A lot of things that might look strange or funny in screenshots could be looking perfectly natural when seen in motion. This might be seen as an effort to coax the developers into providing some video goodness and in a sense it is, but it also shows how far the title has come during the last few months.
A short video showcasing some of the core elements would not only help to pacify the restless among us, but also fuel the excitement even more.

As far as i'm concerned, i don't even need to see full detail DX11 graphics glory if there's interesting stuff being done in the video. It doesn't even have to be combat footage if you ask me, just starting the aircraft up and taking it for a circuit around the airfield would reveal so much about the details and inner-workings of the new sim that it would be an absolute joy to watch (maybe that's why they don't show such things, to prevent the competition from knowing what kind of goodies it has).

If what we're seeing are low to medium detail graphics, i'm 100% certain that overall graphics quality will be near excellent. Sure, some things could still be improved, but graphics-wise it's good enough for me to go out and buy it this instant if i was to judge from graphics alone and it was available for sale.
The reason people get restless and nit-pick is because they've only been shown graphics thus far. That's what they focus on and since 90% of it ranges from very good to downright excellent, they'll start debating the size of individual leaves

In fact, i'm so satisfied with graphics that i've starting becoming much more curious about actual gameplay at this stage, namely the things that we didn't have in IL2. I can't help but wonder about things like the new complex engine management, radio communication and sound for example. I'm not apprehensive about it, i'm sure it will be done to an equally high standard, i just expect to be pleasantly surprised by these aspects of the sim and watching the whole community going "oooh" and "ahhh" over it all

Judging from the rate at which progress occurs (we went from "these flames are weird" and "where's my hedgerows" to "these flames rock" and "terrain looks convincing" in the span of 2-3 updates), i'm going to be optimistic about it and hope that we'll finally see it during autumn. The more it improves the harder the wait becomes though, but such is the life of a hobbyist

[Romanator21]

Who allowed you guys to set a real Ju-88 on fire? Those things are rare these days you know. Tsk tsk...

BTW, make sure Oleg gets more vitamin C.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

...
...we've reached a point where we can't deduce much more from still images, in fact i'm guessing that a lot of misunderstandings arise from this fact. A lot of things that might look strange or funny in screenshots could be looking perfectly natural when seen in motion. This might be seen as an effort to coax the developers into providing some video goodness and in a sense it is, but it also shows how far the title has come during the last few months.
A short video showcasing some of the core elements would not only help to pacify the restless among us, but also fuel the excitement even more.

As far as i'm concerned, i don't even need to see full detail DX11 graphics glory if there's interesting stuff being done in the video.
...

I was thinking along similar lines. I recently made the move to Win7 and was able to re-watch the 'leaked' Spitfire video, only this time on full screen, and it completely blew me away.

The thing is that it looks SO much higher quality than most of the screenshots we have seen - the three-dimensional realism and excellent lighting really comes out.

Is it because that video has been done in DX11 or DX10 mode with AA, while most of the screenshots are pretty rough quality (no AA,etc) DX9 ?

Interestingly the other video showing the British vehicle convoy looked much closer to the quality in the screenshots. Was that DX9 too or just much lower-res than the Spit video?

Still, it leads me to think that the final quality of all this when seen in motion in the game will be far ahead of what is hinted at in the screen shots.

[luthier]

Originally Posted by arjisme

Interestingly, the propellers in the first two shots don't look like that.

Exposure. First shots were paused at 1x speed, the others at 0.25x.

Originally Posted by major_setback

I would prefer the Hurricane pilot to be immobile rather than placed too low in the cockpit. It is very noticeable.

Yeah, he accidentally got set into different plane position, leaning back sports-car-driver style. I was really late with the update so I didn't want to waste more time asking him to be reset.

Originally Posted by Zorin

2. The Ju88 model does show its age, which is sad. Your Do215/17 already has modelled thickness for the hull and canopies, which the Ju88 doesn't have and results in a IL-2 look I had hoped not to see in SoW.

You're kidding, right? Look at the Il-2 Ju-88 model again. The BoB model has almost 10 times the number of polygons and 4x the texture.

I just took a screenshot of the Ju way, way too close (Oleg will be mad). All models have a finite level of detail - get close enough, and you will see the edges. Today's computers have nowhere near the power that can render a super-detailed model that distance.

Originally Posted by Zorin

3. Will the aircrews on multi-crew crafts all have the same face? I thought they would not, but the screenshots lead us to believe otherwise.

The two guys in the front of the Ju-88 have different faces. They just both have a mustache.

There will be different heads and different faces, and all appearance of each crew member of every plane will be fully customizable.

Originally Posted by Zorin

4. Does the Ju88 skin shown in the shot show a bump map yet? It doesn't look like it. There is a hint of a specular map in the "bail-out" top shot, I believe, though.

Some questions put me in a temporary stupor sometime.

Yeah, there is a normal map on each of our models. Always been.

[Zorin]

I do not mean to be offensive, so please try to accept my statements as mere observations.

1. Screen: Old model. Hull with no thickness and AlphaCut windows.
2. Screen: New model. Hull with no thickness and AlphaCut windows. Correct shapes and all, but still.
3. Screen: Your very own Do215. Hull thickness modelled and therefor can be shot that close without a problem.

I know that this is a result of the long development time and therefor there is no one who could be blamed for this. It is just something that will be noticed like the IL-2 Ju88 being out of shape and blocky compared to later twin engined planes like the A-20 or B-25.

As for the texture maps, the normal in the Do215 shot, in the "model viewer" environment, had strong and noticeable panel lines and rivets, something completely absent in the Ju88 shots, that is why I asked.

[Pierre@]

On screen #2 above, posted by Zorin, where are pilot's feet?

[PhilHL]

olegs pc.. as said ofter here.. has very low performance (he uses THIS pc with intention i guess)... you see the textures are very blurry.. no one would paint textures like that in photoshop... they are downscaled in the wip pictures...

and if hes running on low graphic settings...then the plane modells are also with "low" settings. watch those and you see how many details the JU88 have: http://www.stg2immelmann.de/FeedItem...-Storm-of-War/
.. Oleg must be mad always to repeat that this is NOT the final graphic result..

one hint to luthier and oleg... please wrote just one line in every friday update. that THIS GRAPHICS ARE STILL WIP AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE QUALITY OF THE FINAL GAME...

[Ekar]

Originally Posted by PhilHL

olegs pc.. as said ofter here.. has very low performance (he uses THIS pc with intention i guess)... you see the textures are very blurry.. no one would paint textures like that in photoshop... they are downscaled in the wip pictures...

and if hes running on low graphic settings...then the plane modells are also with "low" settings. watch those and you see how many details the JU88 have: http://www.stg2immelmann.de/FeedItem...-Storm-of-War/
.. Oleg must be mad always to repeat that this is NOT the final graphic result..

one hint to luthier and oleg... please wrote just one line in every friday update. that THIS GRAPHICS ARE STILL WIP AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE QUALITY OF THE FINAL GAME...

This is all I needed to see...




Convinced

[johnnypfft]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKWPi8uHHoE

Video slideshow