[Sutts]

Originally Posted by constant

The screenshots are overall decent, I love the burning planes. ++

However, the specular affect on the planes is severely dissappointing, having the same flat-"plastic" look as in IL2, instead of metallic.

With the new technology, and computers moving to the 64bit bandwidth platform, 1c should not be afraid to move to bump-mapping + environment mapping (reflective) for a more authentically "metal" look.

Notice the minute details of the highlights in the planes construction, the shine on the underside of the wing and on the lowered flap. (Even the orange paint on the tail has a good shine to it!)



Now notice how the plane basically looks flat IL2:



Now look in SoW how well still have the same basic flat look, with what looks like a failed attempt to bump-mapping or a poor version of a bump mapped plane:

(image was too big to leave in a post..)

SoW Screenshot

Producing a properly skinned plane with bump-mapping and environment mapping (even realtime) is not a difficult task these days. You could even generate an environment map for all planes using one render of the environment, say from the players plane position, to a texture, since any plane that will have this reflectivness will need to be within some distance to be noticeable anyway, much too close to notice the lackof diffierence in environment mapping. Even in non-commercial 3D engines such as Irrlicht, this is possible in as few lines as 20, I believe. And second-rendering the environment (not other planes, no ground objects, just ground, water, sky..) should not be a big performance hit either. This second render could then also be used for other things like reflectiveness of the environment off the water.. Not that the water looks bad at all.

However there is probably just too much for these guys to fix to even bother attempting to reproduce that wonderful realistic look that planes have at this point in development. I am just sorely dissappointed they could not address this major peice of the sim as it has plagued the realism in il2 and sorely hampered my willingness to make skins for planes, especially those like the p51 who have had polished metal panels instead of paint.

What planet are you on mate?? Most early WWII aircraft were supposed to have a flat look. They used non-reflective flat paint containing light scattering particles just for that purpose. I remember reading that the engine will support reflective finishes but there isn't much use for that in the BoB period is there?

I think Oleg and team have done an incredible job with the new aircraft - the flat paint looks better than any sim I've seen and the details are all there, right down to the subtle quilting effect of the rivet lines. I fail to see why you are comparing a fighter featuring glossy paint and areas of bare alloy to early war aircraft covered in flat matt paint?? And then you have the cheek to slag off the teams efforts based on that!

I'm tired of hearing this endless stream of drivel from the self proclaimed "experts". If you can do better then why don't you write your own sim?

Rant over