Friday 2010-01-29 Screenshots AND Discussion Thread

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by drafting

Now that's awesome! I've wanted bailouts like that ever since I first started playing flight sims!

Now, I have have to ask... That's probably hand animated and not using something like Euphoria (or is it??), so how do you account for all possible situations?

Like, say the Spit is missing its left wing and is spinning down... The pilot probably wouldn't step out on the wing in that situation! He'd possibly get flung out spinning through the air...

or say the elevators were jammed full down and the Spit was violently nosing over... would the pilot get lifted up and out?

Of course, that might just be the 'get out of the plane on the ground' animation (but the 'Arrrgg!' suggests otherwise?) and you can ignore my post.

This whole subject (animated bailout) is something I've been hoping to see done really well in SOW. Judging by the video it will be, but each new tidbit released by Oleg throws up a whole set of new questions.

The answer, I think, to your question is that differing circumstances will require different animations, for example, a situation where the aircraft is nose down and out of control will have the pilot almost 'ejecting' vertically out of the cockpit as he pushes off with his legs.

The issues for bombers are even greater - with different escape hatches on different parts of the ac. This is something where il2 really fell down - it had (afaik) just the one standard bail out sequence optimised for fighters, so in bombers you would see the crew 'materialise' mid-fuselage in sequence and then even fall through the ac body on their way down.

This video shows the standard that will be possible in SOW. My only reservation is whether there will be time to produce a full, diverse range of bailout animations for the release date.

Oleg has said they are prioritising aircrew and AAA crew for the initial release. I understand the difficulties involved and personally would be happy to even go with a slimmed down 'generic' set of animations for initial release - presumably more particular and varied animations could be slotted in later..?