Friday 2011-01-28 Dev. update and Discussion

[TheGrunch]

I agree with nearly everything you said, Robert. The only thing I disagree with is the comment about AA...it's not that people don't think the game will be able to use it, it's just that many of us, almost as much as any member of the development team, want to see this game do well in sales, and releasing screenshots and trailers without AA is one of those things that will put off casual buyers, especially those who don't know what AA is. Something will just look subtly wrong, and they'll just think the game has "bad graphics" and not bother. We want to see the effort the devs put in repaid, we're just hoping they'll realise how critical a lot of less hardcore simmers are about small touches like that because they're comparing the game's publicity to that of other games which are publicised in a way that's all flash and no content.

[Robert]

Point noted Grunch re: AA..... and thinking twice about it, you're correct.

The marketing has barely ratcheted itself up. The casual gamer isn't aware of CoD yet (IMO). The next few weeks will probably see a plethora of screenies and clips and I think these will be more reflective of what we have in store for the release of CoD.

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Good looking girl!
Got to agree though the colors look a bit "off", whats up with the AA, I mean WOP looks better... I hate to whine (because here being critical is whining) but its alittle underwhelming. Cockpits look nice, terrain kinda meh. Are the settings on high? If not, why not?

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?

[Sven]

It does look good Jockey, why? Because the creators of this are brilliant, doesn't consume a lot of PC power, runs great, looks good, it's perfect. Like Oleg's trick with the trees, just brilliant. You are of course being tricked, but this kind of tricking is class.

You sound like someone who just went to a magic show, and afterwards saying out loud in the crowd: You guys do know that that was all a big trick right?!

Originally Posted by Sven

It does look good Jockey, why? Because the creators of this are brilliant, doesn't consume a lot of PC power, runs great, looks good, it's perfect. Like Oleg's trick with the trees, just brilliant. You are of course being tricked, but this kind of ticking is class.

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.

[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?

[swiss]

Originally Posted by 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?

addict yes, fanatic - no.

[blades96]

I'm trying to be delicate, so I'm giving my views in the form of a complement sandwich.

The cockpits look incredible.
The landscape coloring looks off. Too bright and too much yellow.
The plane exteriors look great.

Example landscape with game cockpit

[nearmiss]

I've read the landscape color and brightness whines until it's just unbearable.

Think about what you are saying...

High quality video cards render differently with settings. The internet postings you see are also affected by your local VC settings. The quality is also set when the poster puts the picture up, rendered from his computer settings.

The most important thing is to just leave off these whines, until we get the BOB COD installed on our computer systems. Then you work through your settings and configuration files to get the color and brightness just right for you.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by jameson

philip.ed please check out this site:
http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/contents-index.html
Gives daily account of the Battle of Britain including the daily weather report, also gives daily activity for units of both sides and their losses, and accounts of combat from participants of both sides. Please stop posting complete tripe about the weather.
Regards

I'm not suggesting that the whole of the BoB was scorching hot, I have never said that. But it was quite a hot summer (it is on records as being so, hence the book: Kent and the Battle of Britain: The Long Hot Summer of 1940 by Robin J. Brooks). some books tend to exaggerate, slightly, on the climate of the Battle, but it was unprediactably hot (compared to previous summers. Although 1933 was a very hot summer).
I'm not posting complete tripe, obviously I'm not going to post exact weather forecasts and then go and wait until England is that temperature and take samples of grass colour, but at the same time, the information is irrefutable.
Indeed, it is one of the reasons why many pictures (although arguably staged) show pilots in their shirts and 1932 pattern life-preservers, with their SD jacket left in their locker. Not a lot of evidence points to them flying like this (because at altitude it would still get very cold) but it was too hot, at times, to wear a jacket.
Looking in my book The Battle of Britain by Richard Townsend Bickers, I can see that when Autumn came the weather started to become randomly wet and rainy, so I was wrong in suggesting September was hot. That is true, so sorry for that
But before then there were hot spells.
Actually, viewing this guide, day by day, perhaps I have over-estimated the extent the weather would have on the terrain? Because although there wasn't as much rain between late July and late August, there was still a fair amount of cloud. Temeratures were warm, verging on hot, but I cannot comment on their effect on the terrain. Nor would I want to, I'm not bothered about that.
Either way, it is nonsensical to go into this much detail, so sorry for rambling, but books will always have conflicting information, and so I think it is wrong to discount certain views as tripe (and also hypocritical, based on your date periods for the battle)
Peace
I am not bothered about the colour being a perfect match, but from looking at the pictures, the brightness does really come out.
As I said, release will show the game in its true form and I can't wait for that