Friday 2011-01-28 Dev. update and Discussion

[addman]

LOL! "Casual gamers". They don't even know what a flightsim is. Most people on this forum are fanatics, I'm willing to admit it, are you?

[Cobra8472]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

WOP looks good for what it was intended to do. Run fast and smooth on a Console or Midrange PC and remind people of the camera filters used in Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. The reason they do that is to trick people into thinking, this is what it should look like, because, hey! "That WWII movie and Show looked like that".

What Oleg is trying to do is show you what a flight sim would look like if you were looking out the cockpit glass, and not at 70 year old archival footage.

What I'm saying is that comparing the terrain in WOP to COD is not really a good comparison at all since the WOP environment has been so warped that there isn't a realistic frame of reference in it. Despite what people say about the grass in COD, WOP is more like a cartoon with all the colours and effects set to the extreme. There are no accurate colours in the game, so it's harder to say something looks wrong, meanwhile COD is going for everything looking realistic, so it's easier to find faults, even though it is miles more accurate and realistic graphics wise.

and I'd tend to prefer the cinematic look these games try to put forth.

Why? It simply looks more interesting, gives the setting a different feel, etc.
Lighting is an amazingally important aspect in any medium (photography, film or gaming).

It changes the entire way you percieve the scene, changing the emotions, impressions, and everything inbetween.

Considering CoD has a dynamic day-night cycle, this needs to be seamlessly transitioned between time and weather states. (i.e. different color correction based on time of day and weather)

Do you think there is a single accurate colour in any other game, or film for that matter? Everything nowadays goes through colour-correction - and it makes things much more interesting to look at.


Using Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers as your example is rather dumb, considering the fact that they only use a very light bleach-bypass film process, barely altering colours (mostly just desaturating them slightly).

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

WOP uses a lot of cheats to trick you into thinking that the terrain is good, when in fact it's pretty fake. First they use that annoying vignette to make it look like an old film, you can turn that off. Next look at the view distance. Looks like you're flying over modern day Beijing with all that fog. Next the colours are exagerrated and in some cases washed out to look (at the same time) more vibrant and toned down.

It also relies on the FSX terrain trick of having the "ideal" altitude for terrain detail. The textures you will find look best at the altitude you spend 90% of the game at. When you get lower they look all stretched and very low detail. Load up the Slovakia map in IL-2 and start buzzing around at 200 feet. Doesn't look so good now does it? Same thing with WOP.

All flight sims suffer from this exact same problem. Even COD to a certain extent. In order to get rid of this issue you'd need ground textures to be a lot larger and more detailed. This would be both extremely time consuming and also it would really tax your system or require LOD settings that would really break immersion when changing altitude.

Look at this pic I'm posting below: It's the first pic that would load properly in GIS when typing "wing of prey terrain" with large pic settings.

Do I really need to explain why this is does not look good?

NOOOOO I lost my post by accidently clicking ctrl... wtf

Jockey, you are brilliant I actually never noticed the things you pointed out before myself. Maybe on comps, with maxed settings they removed it? Next time I play I will have to check, but the fact that its their discretly in the background is why it is very clever.

So why isnt the SS on max or high settings? Its like an artist who has a gallery but only displays their mediocre/lunch time scribbles in the window. When you pass by they say: Hey, come inside I have some amazing paintings. Only $60 for entrance to see my good art, all this stuff in the window for show is just the below average work, but imagine how great the "good" paintings will look!

It makes no buisness sense, it makes no sense as a professional dev team and it makes no sense to put out images of the game which are inherently visual advertising/sampling, yet giving us only the mediocre scenes which strikes me as a quality issue (like take pride in your work, always present the best etc). It just doesnt "add up" and makes even me even alittle skitish when combined with the vids we have seen and the horrible performance at the show...
It looks like an engine from 5-10 years ago when you couldnt use HDR and AA at the same time, its absurd and jarring.

Also I dont have a problem with the pallete, but I think the colors look "washed out" and kind of pastel...
Its not my monitor ever so dont even suggest it, I own 4 LCD monitors where 3 of them are different (1 Dell, 2 Samsung + another Samsun of different model), as well as old crt's for when I am working. Its not a monitor issue.

[julien673]

Originally Posted by carl

what with hecke and phillip, i think i may go smoke some grass as it is the only way i will be able to make sense of where this thread has gone.

+1

[BadAim]

Is it that they're letting the patients in the Insane asylums use the internet, or are they just letting them out? And why do they all come here?

[SlipBall]

Pick a green

[jameson]

Perhaps Ilya will do a version with pink grass for those of you who don't think the colour is important. The same people also seem to think it was sunny from March to December in 1940, with temps around 95 degrees F. Clueless.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by jameson

Perhaps Ilya will do a version with pink grass for those of you who don't think the colour is important. The same people also seem to think it was sunny from March to December in 1940, with temps around 95 degrees F. Clueless.

The BoB, 10 July to 31 December. Clueless.
All in all, one of the hottest summers on record. Of course, in the early July days there was precipitiation, and the same is true for some parts of October, but overall largely hot. There are many books on the battle, and some have day by day guides with weather forecasts, so these make useful guides

[Gomer Pyle]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

Pick a green

Which one is RLM25? I'll have that!

/Daniel

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Gomer Pyle

Which one is RLM25? I'll have that!

/Daniel

RLM25 is a classified color, reserved only for the deluxe boxed version...you would be wise to forget all about RLM25, if you know what's good for you,