1. #1
    Warning: Long post with many large images and a lot of incoherent babbling.

    Ok, so most here probably know my hesitance to get excited by BoB coming up when it comes to graphical quality. I am appalled at the low quality of graphical demos I have seen for BoB. Yes, I know they are not final qualities, but they are almost laughable when put beside any of the new games coming out now... like original Nintendo games beside an XBox360 title. Are they better than Pacific Fighters? Sure, but should that really be the bar to which BoB is compared? No. Is Oleg Maddox aware of what is actually possible or is his team stuck in their own offices thinking this is the best that can be done? An Oleg quote, "The landscape even in PF looks incredible on any distance or altitude". Whoa.

    Let's take Crysis for an example. Due out Q1 of 2008, probably before BoB. Here is the environment that Crysis plays in:

    (note: all images are gameplay quality)













    Now some argue "ya, but they don't have 100 AI aircraft and the flight models all loaded into memory with a vast area of topography to draw." No? How about accurately modeling every leaf on every tree including all the correct physics for each specific leaf so that they are all destructible or usable? Surely to Betsy that entails GOBS more computing power than 100 little planes. And not only that, our game example has 50 or 60 AI characters running around making their own decisions as well within this physically correct world. And not only that, our example has real-life, real-time lighting throughout. And not only that, but motion blur too boot. Why the huge chasm of difference by BoB?

    "Ah, but there are much larger areas that are needed to be rendered with BoB". There is?? Look at those screenshots... those are not "backgrounds", they are part of the environment and can be reached and interacted with if so desired. And even if, yes, the areas are much larger in the flightsim, why pray tell does the 'vastness' matter anyways? Scalability should make that a non-issue when it comes to a flight-sim. When you're flying at 15,000 feet the vegetation detail is irrelevant, while the topographical detail remains relevant. If these other games can draw, render, and react to each and every leaf, branch, and blade of grass, surely a flightsim could drop the "physical leaves" and insanely detailed world of objects and throw that computing power into the topography... no? As Oleg says, "great map distances to render in relatively high details comparing say to shooters". Bull pucky.

    "Ah, but look at all the ammunition that needs to be tracked in a flightsim". Pffftt... no more than the ammunition in our example game, and probably less.


    And our example game does all this as well as having human characters that look like this:






    Vast environments are possible, as complicated as our own physical world and video realistic... scalable, destructible, and usable... and not just "possible", but doable and playable today. Why do we get crappy Mario Brothers environments?

    I know we haven't really seen any real BoB screenshots of the topography, but I don't believe it will be anywhere CLOSE to most games out there today. One problem is that it's like Duke Nukem Forever... BoB has been worked on for so long that even the day it comes out it will be of a graphical quality from 2 years ago minimum. The power is there... stop making flight sims that can play on a P3-500mhz and start creating something special... please

    </end nonsensical rant>


    MrVH
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  2. #2
    GL2's Avatar Senior Member
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    I have the same concerns about BOB. The release date has had to be pushed back so far that what would have been great at the time of the original release date might not be all that impressive by the time it does arrive. I've checked out some of the new FPS games, and, as you showed, the terrain graphics in those games are far better than anything we've seen in the BOB screenshots. Hopefully, they will rework the terrain before releasing BOB and give us something on the level of some of these FPS's.

    In Battlefield: Bad Company, 90% of the objects in the game are destructible. Tanks can crash through walls, machine guns can cut down brush--it's incredible. You can check out some of the trailers at youtube. As this first trailer also shows, there is enormous potential for machinima with these life-like characters. It would be great if BOB had pilots that looked this good could be animated. No more talking airplanes to stare at.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=nLT_XkTuVYo

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=xijncXnNJ...elated&search=
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  3. #3
    K_Freddie's Avatar Senior Member
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    In the past, a lot of people were complaining more about Flight models and other aircraft aspects, than the terrain. So Oleg AFAIK has concentrated more on this.

    That being said there are some very nice detailed maps coming out for v4.08/9.
    Another thing to consider (as mentioned before) a/c cover large distances where army type FPS's (Red Orchestra's a good game/example) the area covered is at a max 32Kmx32Km - so there has to be a trade off between Flight models, Terrain size and details.

    I, myself prefer the cockpit, a/c details and Flight Models having priority over terrain detail. Although the more one can have (big $$$ PC) the better.
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  4. #4
    Never look like that in all our lifetimes Mr VH! that thing is the cutting edge of graphics at the moment to be fair it's always FPS type games which have the leading edge on graphics and if I remember correctly was'nt Far Cry by the same bunch way ahead of most peoples PC's at the time, things move so fast you look at it now and it looks bloody awful.
    Even if we're just talking about general sims quality who's standards are always slightly lower BOB has to be at least the same level as current things like Armed assault which is the same concept as Crysis, large detailed rendered spaces so you can drive or fly 20 miles from one end of the island or map to the other with daily life going on as you go, villages, people, moving vehicles, guys on tractors etc, time passing, and all destructable. I'm calling Arma a sim rather than FPS but thats just my opinion.
    Or Silent Hunter 4, top notch graphics with postrendered effects like blur and distortion
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouic-x7leBw
    Or at the very least FSX
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTkfxadjdfU
    The other thing is the animations, although not much has been revealed on this the screens for BOB vehicles and transport look nice and detailed but that means nothing if you cant do a close up because the animation may be cartooney as we have at present. Needs to be realistic looking and correct physics as in Arma
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBemdxHYgFQ
    or up coming Black Shark (also worth a look for environments)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPcY75LmVr4
    The other thing I'm noticing a lot now is many more games/sims which have the abilitiy to use the editor for proper film making purposes, ie sweeping camera and panning motions and much more. I've seen this now in half a dozen games although I think Arma movie makers have made the most use of it, it's also in Battlefield, that first video link GL2 has posted with the guys talking to the camera although it's a promo movie you can actually do that stuff in the editor as I've seen a couple of Battlefield movies at machinima.com using the same techniques. This is way ahead of having to fake the stuff in IL-2 like locking on to distant objects and all the other work arounds to get panning shots or any other kind of shots.
    If BOB doesn't have the standard of graphics or features of most of the above, some of which have been out for months already then IL-2 movie making is going to die on it's arse 'cause to be honest the IL-2 we have at the moment is in the dark ages compared to this stuff.
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  5. #5
    I was thinking a similar thought just recently. I don't have FSX but from the screenies I have seen it looks far better than the BOB screens (which honestly just seem to be IL2)and those Crysis shots are just breath-taking. I wonder if the new generation of games has scared Oleg off releasing any in-game screenots or even if it has made him go back and re-do things. Certainly he'll have to try and beat FSX as it will have been out for a year or so by the time BOB arrives. Fingers crossed.
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  6. #6
    I agree that it is very unlikely that SOW:BofB will have the graphical environment realism of Crysis or other recently released (and very soon to be released) Gaming/Simming products. One major prohibiting/limiting factor is that Oleg noted long ago that he would not be designing SOW:BofB for DX10 graphics,but rather for OpenGL.

    "Crysis" is ,perhaps, the first Game so designed, especially for DX10. I will probably buy Crysis even though that genre of Game is not my forte, just for the eye candy graphics...in order to justify my expenses in purchasing my current (acquired a couple of months ago) Rig with Vista and GTX8800 card, both of which are required for DX10 graphics.

    Oleg's choice to forego DX10 considerations would seem logical at the time in 2005 and earlier when his established goal for BofB release was 4Q2006...it was known/predictable that DX10 hardware would not be on the scene by that time (though it would have been possible, easily as I understand it, for a DX10(beta?)-designed Sim to be backward compatible to DX9...had Oleg chosen to go the DX design route.

    In any event, as noted, Oleg said long ago that SOW:BofB would be designed for OpenGL, not DX... That may sound like he missed the boat for great graphics, but it now seems that without great fanfare OpenGL is suddenly making huge advances as well:
    [Spring 2007]What is going on with OpenGL right now is very exciting. This year will see two new versions of this venerable API. The first version due in July 2007 is Longs Peak (OpenGL 2.x). This is a major clean-up of the code after almost a decade and a half. Approximately three months after that we will see the release of Mount Evans (OpenGL 3.0) which will run specifically on hardware born after November 8th, 2006. We are talking about DirectX 10-class hardware, bringing all the features of unified 3D architecture to the world of OpenGL. Mount Evans is compatible with Longs Peak, but you will require OpenGL 3.0 class hardware to run everything.
    Several forums show screen captures from various games/developers and OGL 2.x+ seems very comparable or possibly even better than DX10. You will still need a DX10 capable card to do Open GL 2, 3 etc...and presumably Vista.

    Check this OGL vs DX10:



    So it is possible that Oleg may be designing SOW:BofB for the advanced Open GL technology....hopefully! Still, we've seen nothing in any posted screenshots to indicate such an application of advanced OGL graphics to anything in SOW:BofB. Unfortunately, very much so, currently it is reported that OGL has a 50% peformance hit on Vista...and like it or not, VISTA is the wave of the future...that is, during the life time of the SOW "Series" (6-7 years, perhaps?), VISTA will become the overwhelming pedominant OS.
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  7. #7
    15/10/07 Oleg Maddox wrote on 1C forum:-

    "(in final engine it looks really way better, like in cinema!) "
    Lets hope so.
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  8. #8
    Every screen I posted is capable in DirectX 9 (except for the head).

    There is NO excuse why BoB graphics can not be of nearly as high a quality. Using the OpenGL argument is an excuse (not by people here, by Oleg Maddox and team). BoB can be DirectX9 and look ever so much as lovely as the screenshots and examples shown. The change from DirectX9 to DirectX10 is not as noticeable in these huge environments. Sure, there are of course increases in quality, but we are talking changes that ENHANCE realism with special mappings, not polygonal complexity. PF, and with it most likely BoB, doesn't have objects that push on DirectX6 quality!!!! It comes down to committment to environmental graphical quality, and so far I have not seen anything resembling that from the BoB team. I have some slight attempts to increase detail, but nothing to show that they are really.... really... taking it seriously. And if it IS much much better they better get off their keisters and throw some screenshots out there, even if they're in-progress screenshots. Everyone does it, it helps. It builds enthusiasm for the project. That they won't do that is extremely telling to me.

    FSX has a fairly high quality environment, there's no reason why BoB shouldn't be able to equal or surpass it. No reason whatsoever.


    MrVH
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  9. #9
    K_Freddie's Avatar Senior Member
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    Originally posted by Doolittle81:
    ... One major prohibiting/limiting factor is that Oleg noted long ago that he would not be designing SOW:BofB for DX10 graphics,but rather for OpenGL.

    In any event, as noted, Oleg said long ago that SOW:BofB would be designed for OpenGL, not DX... That may sound like he missed the boat for great graphics, but it now seems that without great fanfare OpenGL is suddenly making huge advances as well:
    Oleg has chosen the better route with OpenGL...
    The last time I looked at the DX8 and OpenGL dev kits, Open GL is more geared for massed vector(point) graphics calculations, which is where the IL2, BoB series is. OpenGL is geared/streamlined for number crunching tables of vectors whereas DX tends to deal more specifically with individual objects which takes time in loading and unloading object data.

    DirectX is OK for picture graphics and can produce nice images, but if you want fast moving images/objects OpenGL is the way.
    I have not bothered to follow up on Dx9 but AFAIK there were some improvements, but so has OpenGL.
    I do expect better graphics with BoB but as usuall the 'bigger' your machine the better the images
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  10. #10
    Originally posted by K_Freddie:
    ..
    Oleg has chosen the better route with OpenGL...
    The last time I looked at the DX8 and OpenGL dev kits, Open GL is more geared for massed vector(point) graphics calculations, which is where the IL2, BoB series is. OpenGL is geared/streamlined for number crunching tables of vectors whereas DX tends to deal more specifically with individual objects which takes time in loading and unloading object data.

    DirectX is OK for picture graphics and can produce nice images, but if you want fast moving images/objects OpenGL is the way.
    I have not bothered to follow up on Dx9 but AFAIK there were some improvements, but so has OpenGL.
    I do expect better graphics with BoB but as usuall the 'bigger' your machine the better the images

    Thanks for that information. I've been educated. Makes sense then that Oleg is going OGL...let's hope it will be state-of-the-art OGL3.0
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