Friday 2010-03-19 Screenshots and Discussion Thread

[jocko417]

Looks good! I am happy to hear about the lighting model, too many titles are bloomed to death these days. Speaking of lighting and shadows....

Camouflaged RAF biplane fighters were painted in a 'shadow scheme' so that the top wing wouldn't cause a huge difference in camo colour appearance due to the shadow it cast on the lower wing and upper fuselage. I'm on the road now but I'll post a scan of what I'm talking about when I get home. Until then, let me just say that the upper surface of the lower wing of a biplane fighter would have been painted in camo colours of a lighter shade than the upper surface of the upper wing.

The colours were official and were (in the case of the Temperate Land scheme like the Gladiator is finished in above) Light Green and Light Earth, to compliment the Dark Green and Dark Earth used on the rest of the aircraft.

The examples following are swatches from the Simmers' Paint Shop website, keep in mind these are modern FS595 colour equivalents, not the original, official colours, as they don't exist in any colour charts anymore.

Dark Green:



Light Green:



Dark Earth:



Light Earth:




When painted in the lighter colours, the lower wing would appear 'the same' as the top wing when in shadow. You can see the effect in the Gladiator screen shot the shadow makes on the lower wing, the camo colours look too dark in the shaded portion and stand out too much. This is something the skinners (myself included) will be on top of once the sim is released, but I thought you'd like to know.

Thanks for all the updates!

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by jocko417

When painted in the lighter colours, the lower wing would appear 'the same' as the top wing when in shadow. You can see the effect in the Gladiator screen shot the shadow makes on the lower wing, the camo colours look too dark in the shaded portion and stand out too much. This is something the skinners (myself included) will be on top of once the sim is released

I find it very unlikely that any colors would accomplish much between upward facing clear sky and surface facing, even less that it would make the upper and lower meld together. The sky is REAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLY bright, and the whole upper hemisphere illuminates the upper surfaces. It only helps a little bit. Works better with camuflage painted on faces..

[Zorin]

Looking at the Ju 88, I do feel a bit disappointed in regard to the new skin size of 2048x2048. All the details appear to be rather blurred and it is not that much better than any well made Ju88 skin in Il-2.

It does look flashier with the lighting effects and all, granted, but yet not near what I had hoped for.

[jspec01]

Hi Oleg, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions.

If it's not too early to ask, I was wondering what the "time compression" feature will be like in the storm of war series. Will it be like Il-2 with "2x, 4x, etc"? Or will we see features like "skip to next waypoint" or "skip to next encounter"?

For the Battle of Britian I'm sure the original way would be fine, but looking into the future where there might be long travel distances in different theaters, it would be nice to have a different option.

thanks!

[tagTaken2]

Originally Posted by jspec01

If it's not too early to ask, I was wondering what the "time compression" feature will be like in the storm of war series. Will it be like Il-2 with "2x, 4x, etc"? Or will we see features like "skip to next waypoint" or "skip to next encounter"?

thanks!

Good question.
I loved Pacific Fighters theatre, but on my old PC it was tough to sit through the slideshow of 8x for several minutes.
This is connected to engine as well, I think. If 'skip to next encounter' is done, the engine has to work out what probably would have happened if the mission was flown in realtime, and then show consequences at next encounter.

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Zorin

Looking at the Ju 88, I do feel a bit disappointed in regard to the new skin size of 2048x2048. All the details appear to be rather blurred and it is not that much better than any well made Ju88 skin in Il-2.

It does look flashier with the lighting effects and all, granted, but yet not near what I had hoped for.

Maybe its because of the distance of the ju88 to the camera. If you get closer you would see the details better and without loosing quality, instead on il-2 on a very close shot you see that the quality of some details its not so good. From distance, its doesn´t motter how good the sking and resolution is, it looks the same, but from up close it begin to show the diferences.

Nice update, and that last screenshot of the parliament, i dont know why but give me feelings of bombing that beatifull building . Maybe it because i saw yesterday on tv the movie "V for Vendetta" .

[Blackdog_kt]

Very nice indeed. Can't wait to see some screenshots on higher detail or at least with AA/AF enabled.

Again, i'm looking at the small details. Notice the radio messages and you'll see the AI is calling out contacts

[Foo'bar]

Originally Posted by Zorin

Looking at the Ju 88, I do feel a bit disappointed in regard to the new skin size of 2048x2048. All the details appear to be rather blurred and it is not that much better than any well made Ju88 skin in Il-2.

It does look flashier with the lighting effects and all, granted, but yet not near what I had hoped for.

The planes in SoW do have much more details than in Il-2 wich all need their room on the texture map, think about all the details underneath the cowlings wich all want to be skinned. Beside that I believe that the Ju 88 skin layout isn't the same than in Il-2 where only one wing underside was there. In SoW the 88 will have for both wing undersides their own place on texture file. So the new skins with 2048² won't provide a 4 times higher resolution than 1024² though the file is 4 times bigger.

[Blakduk]

Thanks for the great pics- the close up of the Ju88 looks brilliant. I get a sense now of how the crew were crammed together in that space- when damaged bombers of this type crash landed extricating the crew was apparently quite traumatic.
From reading the screen messages i get a sense of how much more detailed the damage modelling and (i assume) the interaction with AI aircraft will be.
It also appears that ground controllers are giving information about altitude, numbers etc of enemy aircraft????

[Sutts]

Oleg,

That picture featuring the Blenheim navigators table got me wondering.....

One day do you think we'll be able to take on the role of bomber navigator and have access to the tools of the day to perform this demanding job?...giving the pilot heading updates, calculating wind speeds, performing dead reckoning tasks at low level etc.

It would really be fantastic to watch the mission unfold from the front end of a low level bomber with all the pressure of spotting land marks such as road and rail junctions, coastline features etc. and keeping the mission on track.

I've seen footage of a low level mossie raid and it gives me goose bumps. Would be great to get a feel for what it was really like.

No pressure, just something that I think would add another dimension to the sim in a future release.

Thanks!