Its striking in this photo how varied the shades of green are depending on shadows, angle to light, transparency etc.
Personally I would think it impossible to accurately model this, and talk of saturation etc. is pretty much meaningless - the best that can be hoped for is an approximation, which will never keep everyone happy, because they don't seem to recognize how much more complex reality is.
Also I have seen mention of speed grass blowing in the wind - as I understand from looking at their web site the amount of grass modeled in this way is limited to a small area around the view point, so it would seem unsuited to a flight sim.
Yep, but I would say adding fences/hedges would add much greater immersion than attempting to model every tree type in Britain

A someone who tends to land in fields rather than at the appropriate airport, wind blown grass would be one of those things that give us wind direction which would be nice.

It will be interesting to see what damage will occur to us as we pass through the stone walls and hedges during our forced landings (and to the hedges and walls!). Depending on speed and fuel/weapons load and other factors, I hope we don't have an imediate explosion like when you hit trees in IL2. I'ld prefer a variety of crumpled messes (with and without fire) ranging up to the explosion.

cheers!

I would like to see as much detail as is physically possible added everywhere in the new sim , blasting around at 25 plus is ok but when you find yourself down low , say coming into land or chasing somone and you look out of the cockpit at a very unrealistic landscape such as what il2 looks like in this day and age , thats a real killer , I do hope that we get the enviroment to match the level of detail we have already been shown in vehicals , weapons ect.

agree, if you think about it practically where does 90% of the action actually take place in multiplayer? Within 3000km and less - and that's being generous, its more like 1000km and lower.

There is an interesting video showing trees getting mangled, smashed and broken on the SpeedTree website:

http://www.speedtree.com/showcase/

-click on the "Physics - Breaking Trees" link on the left hand side

I'll put a disclaimer in here - it mentions Beta features, I have NO IDEA if SOW will be like this!! But interesting to see what is possible now - (this may be old news to those of you with experience of modern games, but to an old il2 diehard like myself it's pretty amazing)

Apologies to those who have had their fill of the tree debate:

and

I'd put it more charitably and quote Forrest Gump :

"My momma always said, 'SOW updates are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get next.' "

Good post Kendo65.
I had no idea what Speedtree software was capable to do.
It´s Physx accelerated, good reason to buy Nvidia card in my planned upgrade for SOW.

From above post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeWWC1ecbtw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhwZ7...channel&fmt=22

If this is what we can expect to see , im very happy.

+1.
Preparing to be a Stuka pilot in SOW.:cool:

Actually, I'm not sure that this will be the case in SOW. :(

There are a few variants of SpeedTree as far as I can see - I think that video showcases the just-released version 5.1

If Oleg and Co have been working with the SpeedTree software for some time it'll likely be an older version and I have no idea how the physics modelling will compare to that video or whether PhysX will be supported.

I expect it'll still be impressive though. :)

---
Edit: SpeedTree 5 does support Physx, so maybe...? I'd wait to hear it from Oleg though before making plans.

It´s Ok.
I´m waiting for release to do the best new system I can with lesser expense.
I´m considering the ATI 5970 but if SOW series will be Nvidia optimized, the GTX 480 probably is the way to go.