Graphics engine from original IL2 utilised in CloD. So what hope for BoM?

[Dano]

Same coders = same techniques = same bugs and same limitations, does not mean that stuff was not re-written.

[Mysticpuma]

Originally Posted by Ailantd

Sorry and not offense, but I have to say you have not even a clue about what you are talking about.

Having re-read my original post, and in the same vain that you posted.....no offense but you are talking out of your arse....no offense

So, regarding other replies, the point I was trying to make was that not only does CloD contain many 'legacy' issues from the original 1946 engine, the only significant (visual) change that I have seen is shadows. That's pretty much it.

Initial releases actually showed much visual promise. Fog layers, beautiful lighting, dark intense shadows, more detail in the aircraft cockpits, light rendering on aircraft, particle effects (small flames as bullets hit), better debris effects, in fact many additions to the game engine.

However.

It also carried over many of the annoyances and irritations of the previous models, the main one in my opinion is the draw distance (or lack of).

Do we really now, in 2012, expect to see popcorn clouds? No clouds...POP! there's one. Pop! Pop!...there's some more! Oh look, I've changed direction... Pop!...they've gone? This is a legacy effect from the original.

Surely by now Clouds should be truly opaque. There should be cloud layers. Multiple cloud layers. Low-level thick and opaque, high level, broken. Both being able to be flown over and through WITHOUT the distance being drawn so obviously?

Yes we get a new weather and dynamic weather in BoM...but it is using this game engine. I guarantee (mark my words here I am prepared to go out on the limb!!), they will still Pop! They will till carry over the legacy of the original IL2. They look pants, totally unbelievable and not immersive at-all!

Regarding the ground textures.

Personally I would rather some way of the ground being aliased in (blurred in) smoothly than the (never been changed since the original) way of buildings and textures popping into view.

Flying low over any populated city really shows how little has changed since the original 10-year-old Il2 in the methods used to create a believable terrain.

Maybe as a thought (don't worry I am about to mention Wings of prey...but waiiiiittttttttttt!!!) there could be some much smaller maps made, specifically for Dog fighting that are just 64K x 64K?

This would allow far more processor time and GPU power to be spent on the preloaded Graphics, like the (here it comes and other will say "far inferior") Wings of Prey.

Could the Developer's of CloD possibly make graphic advances that are possible in the 'lowly and he who should not be named' Wings of Prey, if they actually produced what are considered to be 'too small' maps of Wings of Prey?

I imagine that if the Dev's put some effort into making a few smaller maps that weren't such a resource hog (as I am told by forum users that the only reason we have the hopeless draw distance is because the maps are large?) then there would be a considerably larger draw (pre-rendered LoD) distance, that would at-least make the ground look a little more authentic?

I'm not making this a WoP thread. There isn't a comparison in the workings, FM, DM, Simulation!!! But by using 'smaller' maps, they do achieve at-least a believable impression of flying over a convincing landscape and also clouds?

That doesn't mean that the Maps are all 64K x 64K, but maybe an option so that the ground objects are loaded much further from the player bubble and at-least don't pop,pop,pop,pop,pop into view.

So now development is concluded with CloD (as a stand-alone) just what should we really expect to see (AS PROGRESS) in BoM regarding innovation from the original IL2?

So-far, I see very little Graphically that has been added (that worked and wasn't removed when it became clear that the old IL2 engine couldn't cope with it in CloD) from the original, other than shadows.

I mean even tree collisions were removed and these were in the original?

Currently I just see the Development team putting some features in because they really should be in, then realising that it's not worth the effort of actually fixing it...so take it out and say it's in the sequel?

Well the sequel will be using an optomised CloD engine....built on the legacy programming of the original IL2. What difference will that make? I don't really know, but currently I fear being presented with BoM and having nothing more than "The Emperor's New Clothes".

MP

[vranac]

With all due respect you are talking mostly about optimizations they did to achieve better performance and IIRC you was also one of the many people who were complaining about poor performace until you upgraded your PC.

On the other way this sim was performing good on my PC after first few patches.It was playable even with old clouds and a lot of them, FPS drop was there but I could fight arround them without a problem.
If you see that some pilots still have problems with this new optimised ones you could uderstand the reason why devs did that.

I am happy that for most of the pilots sim is playable now and performing much better than before.
That also can be seen in number of players online.

You could try to solve your problem with poping houses and trees by putting them on max but I don't know if your PC will stand.

[Verhängnis]

Perhaps we should just accept that making a perfect flight simulation is simply unachievable? Otherwise it would have been done before...

[smink1701]

Originally Posted by Mysticpuma

So I'll qualify the title by asking those who played the original IL2 to remember the following;

Ground objects popping into view. Textures being drawn onto objects as if there was a large bubble around the players aircraft and once inside that 'bubble' the textures were rendered, showing a pop-up effect as they 'appeared'. Clouds 'popping' into view in the distance.

The 'new' smoke effects are barely discernible from the smoke effects that have been created in modified installs of the old IL2 game engine (just check the new effects for 4.12 by Gurner?).

Effects present in old IL2 have been removed from 'new' CloD.

Example? Just check the effect when an aircraft hits the water or ground. Old IL2, aircraft exploded and scattered, new CloD...aircraft vanish at point of impact (game pauses maybe 2 frames then continues), just watch any aircraft you shoot down collide with the ground/water...they disappear.

Effects that were present in the 'new' game engine have been removed/stripped right back just to get any performance.

So now, we have to sit and wait for BoM.

Now the way it goes is that we are either getting fixes for CloD after installing BoM over it, or fixes for CloD stand-alone once they are working in patches for Bom (the latter is highly unlikely) but lets look at the Graphics Engine they are working with.

It still has horrendous 'pop-up' on ground textures. Fly over London, look down and the ground is visibly drawn in front of you...it looks 'S**^'. The annoying thing is, when you are chasing an aircraft low on the deck, it's hard to concentrate on the LoD (when it is visible) as the background popping into view is just rubbish, especially when other games do it so well.

If they can't do it successfully, then make smaller maps! Sorry, but after reading of Bomber Pilot troubles as the objects don't appear because of the 'draw distance bubble', I would suggest the first thing that 1C do is actually destroy the crappy legacy IL 2 engine and start from scratch.

My feeling is that IL2 1946 is the single best WW2 simulation ever, but CloD tried to hang onto the apron strings and take the plaudits of it's parent!

Time has shown it has failed to do that with Multiple bugs still unresolved and the graphics engine, tweaked and spruced up from the original has not enabled the Developer's to create the vision they hoped.

I wonder if they will be brave enough to admit they failed with the 'new' Graphics engine and actually re-invest in one that works?

Just asking?

Cheers, MP

And your point would be...

Seriously, me thinks the developers have already admitted to all they are going to. When Luthier was given the wheel to this ship it had already struck the iceberg. Most of us purchased CLoD before reading the reviews and learning how incredibly flawed the product was and still is today. But...most will not repeat this mistake and “IF” BOM ever sees the light of day (I think it's 50/50), it better be pretty sorted out or that will be the end of the franchise. That’s one reason why we won’t be seeing it anytime soon. Until then, CLoD is still the best WW2 combat sim you can find and nothing else even comes close.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by vranac

If you see that some pilots still have problems with this new optimised ones you could uderstand the reason why devs did thatnd.

What "optimised " clouds are you talking about? They did not optimised the clouds. On my machine they are more resource hungry then before.
I used to mke missions just to try that "local weather" engine in full mission builder, with a huge area covered by clouds and it worked on my computer. The frame rate was bad, but it worked. If you look at the "local wether" in the full mission builder, when you add clouds, you get a very small are covered by default. I used to add two zeros to the first two entries and that would give you a decent size covered. I tried multiple layers at different altitudes. It worked.
Now the game crashes when I try a single layer.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by vranac

With all due respect you are talking mostly about optimizations they did to achieve better performance and IIRC you was also one of the many people who were complaining about poor performace until you upgraded your PC.

On the other way this sim was performing good on my PC after first few patches.It was playable even with old clouds and a lot of them, FPS drop was there but I could fight arround them without a problem.
If you see that some pilots still have problems with this new optimised ones you could uderstand the reason why devs did that.

I am happy that for most of the pilots sim is playable now and performing much better than before.
That also can be seen in number of players online.

You could try to solve your problem with poping houses and trees by putting them on max but I don't know if your PC will stand.

Very true complaints ruined some good features, for now anyway.

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

What "optimised " clouds are you talking about? They did not optimised the clouds. On my machine they are more resource hungry then before.
I used to mke missions just to try that "local weather" engine in full mission builder, with a huge area covered by clouds and it worked on my computer. The frame rate was bad, but it worked. If you look at the "local wether" in the full mission builder, when you add clouds, you get a very small are covered by default. I used to add two zeros to the first two entries and that would give you a decent size covered. I tried multiple layers at different altitudes. It worked.
Now the game crashes when I try a single layer.

I am fully enjoying the pre-optimised clouds, I will have to try that trick of yours to add two zeros

[Chivas]

"I mean even tree collisions were removed and these were in the original?"

The original trees on this huge map brought the sim to its knees. The only way they could put enough trees on the map was licencing "SpeedTree". Unfortunately putting a collision model on the "SpeedTree" program would also bring the sim to its knees.

There is very little I like about "SpeedTree", and hopefully the development will be able optimize them or replace them with something better. You can't see the forests for the trees making visual navigation difficult in COD.

[=GI=Joel]

I did get tense 4 weeks ago with CLOD, then I remembered playing il2 v1.0; I think around 2000- 2001. Then I remember playing forgotten battles in 2003. Then "shit" Pacific fighters 2005 and finally 1946 in 2007. Then the penny dropped.....

[vranac]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

What "optimised " clouds are you talking about? They did not optimised the clouds. On my machine they are more resource hungry then before.
I used to mke missions just to try that "local weather" engine in full mission builder, with a huge area covered by clouds and it worked on my computer. The frame rate was bad, but it worked. If you look at the "local wether" in the full mission builder, when you add clouds, you get a very small are covered by default. I used to add two zeros to the first two entries and that would give you a decent size covered. I tried multiple layers at different altitudes. It worked.
Now the game crashes when I try a single layer.

I didn't tried that in the FMB.I'am flying only online.

Before optimization ATAG guys couldn't put clouds at all because lot of pilots had big problems.Now they have some clouds in missions.

Lots of old clouds I tried on another server,I dont remember the name, but there were 10-15 pilots.I spawned in France and there was a lot of clouds.
I thought that this would be unplayable on 560.But on the contrary when I was flying between them FPS varied between 30 and 45.
Only noticable thing was when looking arround view wasn't smooth.
With this new clouds everything is smooth at least for me and I didn't hear complaints on TS like before.