Post made by Jason at Sim HQ

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

Where I disagree is the bolded part. Developers making up their own universe have a much easier time of it than developers faithfully recreating something.

Depends really..

What I am referring to is the time it takes to dream up and script those 'other worlds', and as you know time is money. With regards to flight sims, they don't have to dream up a world, just implement the one we have.

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

Think of all the research that goes into a simulator, not only visual, but what goes on on the inside, like CEM, bullet physics, flight models etc.

The good news is the physics (math) of bullet and flight models has been around for a long time and has not changed much if any. And the implementation of said math has been done on computers for a very long time too. For example you can find the implementation of a F16 in FORTRAN. The only trick over the past 20 years was to get it all to run in real time, what with todays PCs that is no longer an issue. 20 years ago some parts of the flight model math had to be done via table lookup to save on processing power, but with todays high speed processors they can calculate those values in real time. I guess what I am saying is nothing really new physics/math wise has been added over the past 50 years wrt bullets and flight models, nothing new that the user will notice that is!

On a related topic, The area that is wide open.. and as far as I can see never ending is the math behind the AI and damage modeling. There things can be added that the user will notice!

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

The devs for say, Halo have none of that to worry about. They can make it up as they go, and don't have to worry about it being realistic.

Well there is still physics math involved, the only difference between HALO and IL2 is you don't have a death star top speed to compare to, to say how well the model of it is.

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

Depends really..

What I am referring to is the time it takes to dream up and script those 'other worlds', and as you know time is money. With regards to flight sims, they don't have to dream up a world, just implement the one we have.


Well there is still physics math involved, the only difference between HALO and IL2 is you don't have a death star top speed to compare to, to say how well the model of it is.

I agree in a sense; the art direction on these games is pretty insane - there are some very talented people in this world with some amazing imaginations. I'm often astounded at the believeable worlds these devs conjure up.

But look at this another way...if, for instance, they're busy modelling a spaceship but find that it's taking too much time to realise that ship they way they originally intended, the devs can cut back on the detail and/or the physics and nobody would know. There is nothing to compare it to, after all.
Game worlds can be made as intricate or as basic as their needs determine, because there is no point of reference for it. The end user would be non the wiser either way.

In a sim, you're bound by historical aspects that allow for very little leeway, if at all.
As I'm sure you've noticed from this board, hardcore flight sim fans will very quickly point out even very minor mistakes or errors in 3D models, flight models and other aspects. The devs can't get away with anything other than exacting detail.

It may sound rather simple in theory to 'simply' recreate something, but given the choice, I would much rather start with a clean slate so to speak that isn't bound by anything, rather than have to recreate history in the finest detail.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

I agree in a sense; the art direction on these games is pretty insane - there are some very talented people in this world with some amazing imaginations. I'm often astounded at the believable worlds these devs conjure up.

Agreed.. and it is that kind of stuff that I am referring to. Cant think of a good example off hand, but something like a portal opening up in a room, aka star wars/trek kind of stuff that they spend a lot of time and money making, but you would never see such a thing in our 'real world'.

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

But look at this another way...if, for instance, they're busy modelling a spaceship but find that it's taking too much time to realize that ship they way they originally intended, the devs can cut back on the detail and/or the physics and nobody would know. There is nothing to compare it to, after all. Game worlds can be made as intricate or as basic as their needs determine, because there is no point of reference for it. The end user would be non the wiser either way.

Agreed, in that is exactly what I said in my last post.

In response to you implying there is 'no physics' involved in games!

My point being both flight sims and games consist of a lot of physics (math) under the hood.

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

In a sim, you're bound by historical aspects that allow for very little leeway, if at all.

5% error in performance data is the generally excepted range.

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

As I'm sure you've noticed from this board, hard core flight sim fans will very quickly point out even very minor mistakes or errors in 3D models, flight models and other aspects. The devs can't get away with anything other than exacting detail.

Agreed

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

It may sound rather simple in theory to 'simply' recreate something, but given the choice, I would much rather start with a clean slate so to speak that isn't bound by anything, rather than have to recreate history in the finest detail.

Again, my point was simple, both games and flight sims have physics (math) involved. So no real savings there. And when you take into account the fact that the math of the 6DOF flight model has been around for decades you can begin to see that it might actually cost more to create your 'own' math for the physics of a death star entering a black hole while moving at the speed of light.

In summary both games and flight sims consist of a lot of math and physics.. The neat thing is here in the real world all the math of the physics of a 6DOF flight model is at your disposal.

Thus what a 'game' saves in not having to be 'realistic' they spend in doing the math for things that dont exist
Thus what a 'sim' saves in not making things that dont exist they spend in validation for 'realism'

Not saying the two cancle each other, only that 'games' spend money on things that flight sims dont have to spend money on and visa versa.