August 6 2011 Development Update
 

Hi everyone.

Here’s what we’ve been doing, and what we’re planning for the nearest future.

The main areas of development are:

1. Graphics. Our graphics team is in the middle of a dramatic revision of our graphics engine. The new engine, still in alpha stage, is both faster and better looking. I won’t get into the technical details, but in a word it’s faster and more streamlined.
From the appearance point of view, the change is equally as dramatic but is easier seen. Colors are calculated differently, especially in terms of distance. I’m attaching some screenshots showing before and after. The colors are not yet tuned, and there are some other issues but we are much happier with the game’s visuals today than we’ve been for quite some time.

2. Sound. As I’ve mentioned earlier, we’re completely redoing our sound engine from scratch. The work is being done in three stages. Stage 1, alpha, where we test basic functionality with some bare-bones samples has been passed a while ago. Stage 2, beta, where we have all aircraft sounds complete, and have some bare-minimum sounds for other objects, is almost here. Stage 3, a complete sound engine with all object and ambient sounds, will follow.
What we have now is brand new DB601, Merlin, Mercury, and Jumo 211 engines in a new environment, infinitely more stable and supporting realistic sounds from dozens or hundreds of engines within hearing distance. Various secondary and tertiary sounds are also there – G loads, flutter, controls movement, etc. The aircraft feel alive, especially when you’re inside the cockpit.

3. Physics. We are doing a major rewrite of some portions of aircraft landing gear physics (i.e. landing, taxi, take-off) as well as major changes to our secondary physics (ships, vehicles, debris, etc).

4. Models. We have quite a few new aircraft variants in the oven, and our ground modeling team has finally finished a major task that perhaps too few people will appreciate. We’ve completed a huge library of historical German rail engines and cars.

Timeline wise, what we’re looking at is a beta sound patch in a minimum of 2 weeks, and at least a week of tests for that. The new graphics will also be included with it. The same upcoming patch will also include some new aircraft and most likely the German trains. Due to all new sounds, it’ll be one of the largest patches so far, but still way under a GB.

Thank you all for your support!

Sweet, nice work MG.

THANKS!


But dont forget the COOP interface, please! ;)

Awesome :)

i think i like the older shadows better :S

PLEASE FIX THE BUILDING POPPING!

Can't wait Luthier

<sarcasm>What? You're still working on it?</sarcasm>

Looks and sounds good, the first two comparison shots look to have lost some contrast though, they look a little washed out now, assume that this is due to a lack of tuning?

Looks way better so far.

Luthier, thanks for your continued work on this.

I'm not sure if you've seen my Aircraft Checklists or not, but I would like to update them for any additional aircraft that you will be adding. I will sign any NDA you need, but if you could PM me a list of the new additions, I could get started updating the checklists for a release about the same time as the patch.

Thanks again for the work you guys are doing.

THX a lot , excellent update thus far :cool:

I notice fps hit with new graphics (see the first pic). If possible, adjust radio commands.
Ciao.

A much better update.
looking forward to the changes.

Luthier, any word on FSAA and CO-OPs?

New look of terrain makes beautiful scenery even more realistic. Thanks for the update and screen shots!

Nice, an already dramatic colour improvement even at this stage......very glad that the spiteful and horrible English 'whiners' (;)) who correctly observed that this needed to be addressed (despite lots of opposition on this very forum lol) have been vindicated.......It feels good to be right and thanks for listening Luthier. :)

I would like to know about FSAA too, as well as Spitfire rotol prop-fuel type situation, as well as some news regarding other under performing aircraft being updated properly.

Great news though, big step in the right direction, and cheers. :grin:

Yes but look at the average fps they have improved.

Second pic says otherwise :(

Terrain looks better in colour, pits do not :(

LOL! Caturday updates for the win!

http://lolpics.se/pics/3.jpg

Thanks for the update guys, keep chiseling away at it ;-)

Stickiness applied for ease of reference.

Good to hear from you Luthier. I think the next patch will be great but the best part is you took the time to provide an update. We know you can't post daily but once a week would be nice. I think if you or someone else could manage that about 90 percent of the frustration and hate would go away. This game has great potential. We all want to see it get there and appreciate your efforts. You've restored a lot of good will today so don't be a stranger.:)

Any chance that we can get a example how to create a server and a client addin?

Many thanks gents for the update

Who toke the screenshots, they look horrible, more so the stuka's
And befor and after shots, looks like someone has just raised the brightness up
After shots dont look as good as, befor shots:confused:

Or maby ive got it wrong, are the befor shots what were getting? because they look way better?

But good to hear about the sounds

Thank you very much for the update. The ground scenery looks great! The Stuka screen and the crops pattern together with colors reminds me the Fall Weiss:)
Good luck with the patch!

Lucas

Thanks for the heads up, Luthier and thank you for your hard work @ the team.

~S~

Looking again at the screenshots...

The cockpit shots, i cant see where they are better, in fact they look worse to me, check the roundels on the hurri, can anyone tell me what im missing?

The landscape shot looks much better.

very much looking forward to the new sounds.

though still no word on some pressing issues.

Thanks a lot for the good update!
-must say, (after 40years airborne) this really begins to look real !
~S~ Luthier & Team :)

Thank´s for the SATURDAY Update;)

And thanks for the pics. They looks GREAT. I like the after pic. It looks realier out now. Good LUCK with the PATCH, and THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR HARD WORK



Towarisch

i like very much how much better the instruments are to read !

I imagine the pressing issues are a bit subjective, if they are doing a major overhaul as explained those things will be on the back burner, they really don't need to explain it, at least we got a 'word'......

You clearly did not read his post did you now furbs.. there still tweaking it. Clearly the shots were to show off the new landscape colors!!!

as of every patch so far, my questions are:
What about radio commands and loadout options fixes?

Radio comms are most essential for any flight sim but the pure arcade ones. Online and offline.

Sorry, but my personal opinion is: Until these 2 issues (in fact those that make the game broken from my pov) are fully fixed and streamlined, I don't even want a new graphics engine, to be perfectly honest.

Agreed bongo, but why say they look better? can you see where?

Like i say, the landscape shot i can see the improvements.

I'm assuming it is because there is a propper haze effect, yes the new roundel is awfull and the less contrasted shadows are awfull too, but the update mentioned it is 'not tuned'

I can say the new look of the enviroment is 'spot on', the haze and landscape colours and the light reflected off the river are the main improvements I see.

FINALLY!! :)

Thanks for the update Luthier, it looks like a lot of work you guys been putting into it! I would say to wait and try the patch before panicking on the colours guys.

Keep up the good work and feel free to update us more often ;)

Good to hear some news, will be interesting to see how much the new gfx engine will change things.

Thanks for the update luth.. Cant tell you how happy I am to hear work has not stopped on this sim.. It has so much potential!

wasnt expecting a graphics engine overhaul, nice one guys

if showing the landscape improvements why cram the shot with a cockpit that looks worse? anyway just sayin. :)

New terrain looks a lot better, not so bright and cartoony.

I suspect the framerates will improve with optimization but it could just be that there weren't that many rendered by the time the screenshots were taken since they're averaged out over the number of frames. Initial rendering always drops the framerate when first entering the world until the memory caches are filled up.

Hopefully the new engine's shadow rendering doesn't cause tree flicker this time around.

I'd love to hear the new sound engine in action too as the old one really didn't capture 3D positioning and occlusion that well imho, beyond the obvious problems of dropouts in MP.

Thanks for the update. Really looking forward to the new patch. Ill pray that everything comes out well and will not take longer than 2 weeks:)

Winger

Thank you very much for your work and to take time to post your progress here!

Thanks for the update.
News of the sound improvements is good news.The ground looks much better, I assume the poor cockpit in the pics is due to the alpha status currently?

That is great news!!!

Thanks for the update. As its work in progress at the moment I'm reserving judgement. Personally I'm waiting for the weather changes. Looking at the cloud shadows on the ground I think the landscape will look more realistic when we have more clouds.

interesting news.

and I intend to do the same as Bonkin, I want to see how it 'll play out before I'll comment further.

more performance... overall excellent news, my faith is with this guys. they seem to be taking it seriously after all.

i see better colour grading in rivers and ocean water, that combined with the terrain tuning will make a world of difference in the landscape.
will we get the clouds this time around??

from me you can take all the time you need.I had faith from the beginning, still have and wil have.I am sure in the end, all those whiners will be silent
Thanks for this hope giving update

Hmmm.....I'm not sure about the looks of the 'before and afters', it looks as though someone just turned the brightness up and contrast down. A lot. But I accept it requires tuning.

The in-cockpit atmosphere of Cliffs is its best feature in my view so I hope this isn't going to tone it down too much.

But that said, it's extremely gratifying to at last have an updated progress report.

The news of the sound plus graphics and all the other features being possibly beta in the 'proverbial' is getting me pretty excited.

So thanks chaps. ;)

(Doffs cap and touches forelock).

+1!

Thank you so much for the update luthier! We wuv woo <3

Cheers luthier! I don't know if the new landscape colours are more realistic or not but I do know that they are kinder to my eyes :). Great work guys! Looking forward to the patch.

Thank you for the update luthier

Thanks for the update.

Hopefully now no more 'they have abandoned us' posts!?

Good work

Great news! :)

The cockpit view looks better in the "before" pictures but you mentioned that this is not final so I have no worries about that. :)

Very nice update on the progress and when to expect things delivered.

Thank you very much for this update!

~S~

I'm with Doc UK. The before/after shots don't impress me. The interior shots of the cockpit have less contrast, and the metal looks less metallic.

The scenery in the others looks washed out.

Just my opinion.

binky9

thanks a lot luthier for ur update!!!! really appreciate it!!!

Outstanding, looking forward to this one...............................

Planes Trains And Cars
 

Thank you,

Bomber pilots love ground content, makes the sim feel alive. The work your team does to create new content is appreciated by many!

Ground wish list: (just for fun/no real order)

1) Hydroelectric Station.

2) V1/V2 launching area.

3) Paris Gun.

4) Ships to support Normandy invasion

5) HQ/Staging area

6) Everything in ww2!

Thanks a lot for the update Luthier!

Thanks for the update!

I'm looking forward to the NEW SOUNDS the most. Can't wait for that. Also some better AA and AF would be nice too, I hope the new graphics engine maybe handles that better so we have less jaggies.

As for the color changes of the terrain I'm not going to comment since Luthier stated it has yet to be tuned, I'll wait for later screenshots that are more close to release.

the before/after shots look like the alpha was turned up...the ground does look better though :)

rewriting the sound and graphics engine which are 2 major components of the game in just a few months is very impressive indeed.

thnx for the heads up Lu

S!

Thanks for the update, much appreciated and looking forward to testing the patch.

Rebuilding the graphics and sound engines... Very welcome news especially with potential performance gains but I'd love to know what happened before release!

Very positive update, thanks again.

Yep I know this still needs further tuning so don't jump on me please, but as feedback it does just look look like brightness and contrast turned up, inside the cockpit does make the instruments look more readable, the roundel on the wing looks a lot worse ... also there seems to be a big drop in FPS in the first comparison shot, but no real difference in the other ones.

Screen shots are one thing but seeing things in motion on your own screen are another too I guess.

But I'll leave final judgement until its tweaked.

Good to hear about the sound overhaul, one of the things I was looking forward to was hearing the sound of the Merlin engines in particular, there are lots of examples of the merlin sound in the public domain from various airshows ETC.

After this they really need to address some very outstanding issues though like the radio communication commands.

But good to see more progress :cool:

As far as I'm concerned the quality of graphics in the current release is adequate (apart from landscape colours). If the new engine improves framerate/performance but does little else I will be very satisfied.

Thanks for the update Luthier. Great to hear good progress is being made and looking forward to release. Personally I actually prefer the level of brightness and contrast in the after shots of the cockpits. Considering you are high up on a sunny day it is more as I would expect it to look. The shadow deep in the footwell is just as dark as the dark shadows in the before shots. I always thought colours as we have now seem a little dull as though it is always overcast even when sunny. Landscape much better. Doubtful about roundel colours but you say you still have tweaking to do.

The terrain looks much better, I must say. I can't wait to try it out in-game.

Thanks for the update Luthier. Hopefully it will quell a lot of the panicking that has been going on here lately. ;)
Looking forward to the next patch.

before 40fps, after 24fps :rolleyes:

you should include
5. Gameplay like rearm refuel feature ;)

Thank you so much for the update. It has made my day. Check my thread of the next patch info and compare it to this which may surprise you and also has a sad note at the bottom or my latest post in it.

Also thanks for the German trains, that is going to be a worthy part of a new mission I am slowly working on once my PC is back to normal.

same PC ?!

Averages (edit, and minimums!) are what count and two screen shot comparisons are not adequate for an answer. I look forward to testing!

thx luthier keep up the good work fella.

Well done Luthier, that's what the community needs, to be kept in the loop.

Not hearing from the dev team is the worst thing imho, just gives room to speculations and rumors, i.e. "the game is dead".

Better graphics engine, performance wise, sounds exellent to me.

I know you guys are working on things you see most pressing, but to make this into a "real" game I think some kind of DCG is sorely needed, even if it's a simple one in the beginning that can be updated and improved on later.

I am enjoying the game and I am happy that when I decided to buy it, mostly to support 1C, I made the right decision.

In 1940?

No, I was just trying to think of any fun ground content possibilities for the area, not so much the time.

Cheers for the update. Would be awesome if I could actually start the game when this patch arrives :)

Thank you Luthier
 

This is what many of us have wanted, real information. Many thanks.

PLEASE can you keep us up to date on this work on say a two week basis and add any 'next steps' as you pick them up?

I can't wait to get my hands on the sound beta and look forward to seeing the new graphics update that will come with it. No feedback on your screenshots because I'd rather comment on the real deal when it arrives.

For the 'fps have dropped' posters, please understand that the first fps number is an instantaneous figure that can vary dramatically second by second. The Average and Minimums are the ones that tell you how well it will run and a minimum of zero can easily show up under a number of circumstances, like if there has been a reload without resetting the FPS counter.

Thanks for the update, Luthier! The new landscape´s colours looks AMAZING and it looks like the UK and not like the Russian steppe anymore lol. I hope you also working to fix the gelded FM´s to use their full potential.

Keep up with the great work!!

I hope all the changes and improvements make it into the sequel and will make it a solid product from the first hour unless Clod.

Great to read a little update today \o/.

re landscape. I LIKE. i was trying to deal with the distance atmospherics in my mod thread but you did it. excellent. thanks big L.

Thanks for the update, sounds very promising.

Great news that things are progressing well. Definately get a postive feeling from your post.

Looking forward to the patch!

The FPS counters don't mean a thing on a screeshot without knowing the spec of the computer the sim is running on. When I start a new session in COD the FPS jumps for a couple of seconds and then settles down, so I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

Thanks Luthier for the update,hey our 'seance' worked,the spirit Luthier has communicated through us:lol:

Thanks for the update, Luthier! And screen shots!

Regards Varrattu

No word regarding the Radio Comm ?!! It's the part of the game needed the most, and also the most broken :(

Thanks for the info. Megawin :)

Hah, THAT deserves an answer..as well for the feeling and if you are in search for a train sound, ahem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwLcM...eature=related

for **** sake it will get done. i admit it is a pain, but good things come to those who wait. and before you put me on your gimp list, this is the first pc sim i have bought.

If the work on the series continues, as it apparently does, I sure it will get fixed..

Problem is, it should have had the biggest priority, as it is the most broken critical feature of the game. I would for sure prefer that, instead a new revamp of the graphical engine.

i agree that if i was one of the DEVS i would of done it before the graphics. but i am sure in time it will get done.

Sounds like a lot of work has been going on and I look forward to these changes with great anticipation; great news to hear about the forthcoming German rail engines etc, I for one will appreciate it after my disappointment to find that they were missing from the initial release:)

thanks for the news and the infos :grin:

Many thanks and looking forward to the next update!

thanks for the update luthier, lookin forward to it :)

german rail cars to shot up.. woot woot :D

Great stuff. Thanks for the update, appreciate the communication. I bought a Russian and 2 EU installs of this game to try and help get you guys off the ground. I'd do it again if I thought it'd help, but please do more to keep in touch with your customers, five minutes a week for a few lines of 'where we're at' isn't too much to ask.

Thanks for the update :cool: and for your continuing efforts.

I hope the AI will receive some much needed attention for us offliners when time permits. ;)

Thanks for the update luthier.

I like Trains.

If we can drive them CLoD would have a whole new fan base.


This will be a good addiction.


flyer01


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fBWQ...eature=related

Hello Luthier !!!

Great move changing the colors!! As a real life pilot the pictures really look like real world enviroment. That misty landscape is very close to reality :)

The lighter colors in the cockpit give us a perfect feeling of the sun light glare. It's quite real too :)

But the RAF markings on the wing seems worse on the "after" picture than on actual version.

Keep the good work!!!

Thanks for the update!

The fact that there are major re-writes of the code going on pretty much sums up that the original game was far from ready for release.

Reading into the emails these are pretty large steps being taken on the entire game engine. This is a positive move but doesn't deserve a pat on the back nearly 6 months after release.

Fantastic news! I love the new landscape,it definitely has a more "real" look to it,I also prefer the new cockpit colours,it looks a little more naturally lit to me.

Any news on the FSAA? other then the sound cutting out during MP it's really my only gripe.

Thanks for the update either way ~S~