Friday 2011-01-21 Dev. update and Discussion

Originally Posted by Avimimus

Why doesn't this make sense to me?

Translation for non-English speakers or the dense. . .

If you have to ask if a post is not appropriate THEN the odds are it is in fact INAPPROPRIATE!

[AdMan]

yeah, landscapes still arent living up to expectations from the screenies I've seen thus far. For numerous reasons, just haven't gotten that wow reaction I usually get from a game with superb graphics

[ktodack]

I think the scenery posted is great, and the amount of research thats gone into the authenticity of all aspects of visuals is amazing, aircraft, atmospherics, ground buildings and equipment-- terrain, especially considering the size of the development team. The only thing I see missing are vehicles and people on the ground, especially as seen from the air. But those who criticize please post some samples from other sims showing how they are so much better --maybe side by side of similier scenes so we can see what BOB should be aiming for.

[AdMan]

Originally Posted by ktodack

I think the scenery posted is great, and the amount of research thats gone into the authenticity of all aspects of visuals is amazing, aircraft, atmospherics, ground buildings and equipment-- terrain, especially considering the size of the development team. The only thing I see missing are vehicles and people on the ground, especially as seen from the air. But those who criticize please post some samples from other sims showing how they are so much better --maybe side by side of similier scenes so we can see what BOB should be aiming for.

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Adman, what game is that 2nd shot taken from, it looks gorgeous?

[LoBiSoMeM]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Adman, what game is that 2nd shot taken from, it looks gorgeous?

Some gorgeous flight simulator for above, but ugly as hell if you are in a COMBAT flight simulator strafing ground units in low level flight.

People like a lot "textures". People cry a lot about terrain and clounds. I just want performance and the GORGEOUS ground units of IL-2 : CoD, and accurate terrain mapping.

But the need to compare apples with oranges urge!

[Richie]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Adman, what game is that 2nd shot taken from, it looks gorgeous?

I think that may be a Microsoft game Tree although I may be wrong. The problem with them though is when you get low to the ground everything looks totally different as in pretty bad. That's what I hear anyway. Also I wouldn't trust any add from Microsoft until I saw in game footage

[Blackdog_kt]

That is actually ingame from microsoft's FSX. However, i suspect there's some 3rd party payware terrain add-on involved in the pic with the Gladiator.

Don't get me wrong, i like some things in FSX a lot and even though i don't own a copy, i fly it whenever i get the chance when visiting a friend. However, the way FSX and its add-ons do certain things are inherently unsuited to a combat sim. The stock FSX terrain is not much to write home about for example and the most celebrated feature in screenshots, which is again part of a payware add-on, the clouds, are 2d overlays from real photographed clouds and not actual 3d virtual clouds.

It's great for flying around near your home town, doing transatlantic hops in an airliner with time compression and the mid-flight save capability, or zipping along at low level in some kind of STOL aircraft over a detailed aftemarket terrain add-on from a place you'll probably never visit in your lifetime like the airstrip on the foothills of Mt. Everest, pretending you are shuttling climbers there in your twin otter, there are even 3rd party developers that have managed to overcome some of its stock FM flaws (apparently, it takes special coding to get aircraft to spin properly in FSX) by clever usage of their own modules, but there are still certain limitations that would show big time in a combat sim.

I like it a lot and if i had money to burn i'd probably buy it and a bunch of add-ons (which is the high quality stuff really), but like someone else already said it's like comparing apples and oranges.

For starters, there are no satellite photos of 1940s Europe to texture the landscape with, even if there were they would take up an enormous amount of disk space, plus in a combat sim you will invariably spend a lot of time down low attacking ground targets and having the ground go all blurry on you because you're close enough to distinguish it's just a flat texture would destroy immersion completely. Also, no matter how cool the aftermarket 2d REX clouds look in comparison to the stock FSX 3d ones and the 3d ones we are getting in CoD, there's no way around the fact that for AI line of sight calculations and maintaining fair play in multiplayer we need clouds modelled in 3d. Otherwise, one could be thinking he's inside the cloud and safe, while another guy can see him just fine and is already diving on him. Just a few examples.

[AdMan]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Adman, what game is that 2nd shot taken from, it looks gorgeous?

it's just called Gloster Gladiator, many of the games graphics leaves a whole lot to be desired but you can tell they dedicated most of their time on the terrain and the sky although it is likely a satellite image



still, I think satellite texture gives that look you simply cant achieve by placing objects. Maybe a combination of both techniques can be developed at some point.

the new engine does have tremendous lighting, maybe it will be the games strongest feature next to the planes themselves, and lighting can work wonders, it really is the key to realism. I'm sure at high res with full lighting and a good altitude/angle you will still be able to get some fantastic looking screenshots that come close to tricking the eye

However It seems it will continue to be one of the weaker aspects of the il-2 brand, not due to lack of trying. The moving grass is a great innovation, the attention to laying out towns very similar to how they were at the time, and the detail of the objects themselves are all great but laying them out by hand to make a realistic terrain is just too daunting of a task. Too hard to replicate the organized chaos that is nature and human civilization

[ElAurens]

Satellite imagery is a major failure in a WW2 combat flight sim for a couple of reasons.

1. There are no satellite images from the WW2 period. Any photos from space are just plain wrong in details.

2. Satellite image ground textures only look good from a distance. If you are taking off or landing, or involved in low level work of any kind the obvious pitfalls of this approach are all too obvious.