this is such an AMAZING video. watching this gives me chills and put a wide smile on my face. it just hands down, BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!:!::!::!::!::!:

The problem is that when you fly COD at 12:00 midday you are flying on a perfect day.
You know those days where it's a brilliant blue sky and the sun is making everything so bright you have to squint, and everyone is in a great mood?

I've never lived in Kent etc., but I lived in London for a while. Most of the year the UK has clouds and it's either raining, has rained, or rain is on it's way in the near future. Then once in a while you get those brilliant blue sky days where the whole area looks transformed.

So what's missing is the dynamic weather, fly COD at different times of day and it looks amazing under different lighting. I agree the current landscape looks a bit off, but I think it's also because the air is far too clear, there's no haze, fog, smog etc, especially over London, London should be covered in sooty smoke.

Ewan is not flying on one of those bright middays in this video, ( I scanned through it but not that I can see). He's flying on a average UK day, and that's why it looks familiar.

Obviously as a landscape base, the devs have to model a perfect day, and then add weather and lighting effects on top. They also have to make sure that the landscape looks good at all altitudes from the ground up to 8000m.

In the current version when you fly a normal mission in COD, it is without the dynamic weather so you are pretty much flying on a perfect day with maybe a smattering of clouds here and there.

I've never seen England with my own eyes, and know better than to trust the colors of an image recorded in any format, so can't really form an opinion about how authentic the colors are...

I think this sim hasn't had quite enough attention paid to how beautifully all the different hours of the day are rendered. It's really amazing how much detail is in there. Pick a mission, any mission, and just change the start time in one hour increments. Everything in the sim very gradually changes with the clock, and it's beautiful. High noon, which so many missions unfortunately default to, is probably the least visually interesting hour in Dover. Mornings and evenings are the best.

Yes, they've done a good job with the changing hues for different times of day. It is important though to start with a correct slate to take advantage of the time of day adjustments. Rain and plants make green. You can have the brightest, sunniest day with no haze - but it doesn't change the colour of chlorophyl. ;) Water and plants make green regardless. In the video it doesn't matter what time of day the shots were taken, the countryside is still green - not yellow, beige or golden. The British Isles are a lush garden environment. Thats why they have the greatest variety of fauna and flora on this planet for any given location. The closest in North America to this environment is the west coast of Canada, specifically Victoria BC.

This sim has been in development for so long and so much time spent on issues like vehicles, and trains and buildings (IMHO at the expense of sound and avionics and interface) that the least they should come up with is the correct colour of the landscape. (and the correct sound of the Merlin engine :evil:)

Don't get me wrong, I love this sim and admire the efforts in getting it right. I've been flying IL2 since it first came out and many other sims before that. I guess I'm getting a bit critical with my expectations of getting it right considering the time and effort and PR over the last few years on it being the best thing since sliced bread. I hope the devs get it right but right now considering the sound and the environment and their track record in IL2 in these areas I have to say I'm skeptical. If it wasn't for third party developers in IL2 I would have put it to bed long ago.

Keep the comments coming. I think that the devs will make use of any critique that helps them to further refine what hopefully will turn out to be all that we hope it will be.

S!

As someone who has lived most of his life in the south of England I can assure you that the landscape is not always a lush green garden. It can look totally different in August from its appearance in June, when it is mostly green.

The events of the BoB take place around harvest time. The predominant crop is wheat. Wheatfields at harvest time (and the stubble fields that are left afterwards) are some hue of gold/sand/brown, not green.

Even pasture land will look gold/brown after a couple of weeks in the summer without rain. Contrary to what some people seem to think, it does not rain every day in England.

Having said all or that I agree that the specific colour palette was poorly chosen.

If you do a quick search on grass you probably find a few hundred pages of arguments about land scape colouring.

It will, most likely be broken down into
a) Grass is too green
b) grass is not green enough
c) Summer of 1940 was exceptionally hot and dry
d) various post from trolls.

I think after the first year or so of reading these arguments the developers looked elsewhere for authentic landscape colouring data, though I could be wrong.

cheers!

Oki, ok, but my cousin thinks it rains at least every 2 days until November then . . . . hoar frost, scotch mist and gails. :grin:

cheers,

I posted this in the SimHQ forum a while back. It's not proof of anything but I just want to stimulate some debate.

You can argue that the colours aren't right in this picture as well. I'm pretty certain at this altitude that Google use aircraft and not satellite footage.

Lime Green Kent:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...75781&t=h&z=13

I'm guessing this is rape; someone will be here in a minute to say they didn't plant rape in 1940...... :)

for a short moment I thought the vid was WOP.thats the colour they want without the overgreen hue.
actully since i got my new IPS screen WOP looks a lot less green ,

Yep all google maps/earth is photography !.I am positive ive seen the light aircraft flying the patterns. Seems theres is a strong common myth that its all satellite based images. Not the fist time ive discussed that very theory. satellite imagery is used but not at the close visual level.

Yeh no rape seed in 1940. the difference it makes to the image is quite incredible.

Ive ripped the scenery apart many times and without a complete makeover there isnt much you can do to change these colours portrayed. Try and you'll be back at square 1 unfortunatly. and for what its worth what we have is actually better than we think given what it takes to change it to somthing else.

there has been quite a few posts about this topic, but no one is discussing or asking the correct questions. what does it take to make it better etc etc ? the topic is between a rock and another hard place. not much room for manoever artisticly. The construct of the scenery dictates the final outcome. Many dont appreciate that to some degree. thereafter were left with the expectation that it can be changed. which it can ! but not from our level just yet and atleast untill the SDK arrives. 1C has in fact performed a remarkable job on the scenery, untill we see 3rd party addons we may not as a whole community appreciate just how good it is in all honesty.