More detailed terrain?

[Arlo]

Not completely lost.  JG11 is fully immersed.  When we roll out of the hangers, taxi down to the runway and line up for take off with engines spun up, all the time with Stampf adding to the immersion by giving us a historical briefing and instructions.  Then in flight we are in flight formation, very little non-sortie chatter, and the enemy is spotted.....................w e are fully involved in the moment.

That is very cool ... and impressive.

[ImADot]

Twas ImAdot ..... but yes. I believe the reason we don't get the colorful sunrises and sunsets are due to the time settings.

Time in the arena goes from sunrise to sunset (times for both are adjustable in the arena settings). Each time has a set of colors to go along with them. Setting the dusk colors different from the day colors gives you the effect in my sample video. I think the issue is that the colors reset when the arena resets, so when the map is won and a new one pops up, it gets the default everything.

Here is a sample from an Excel sheet I created to help set the values:

[Saxman]

Wonder if that's maybe something that should be made a map setting by default, and have the Arena settings be an override.

[gyrene81]

Wonder if that's maybe something that should be made a map setting by default, and have the Arena settings be an override.

that would definitely change some things...i wonder if it's possible. 

[Saxman]

I'd imagine so. IIRC, a number of environment factors (specifically the clouds) are already built into the terrain itself and can be tweaked via arena settings.

[Wiley]

I agree the terrains as-is are 'good enough'.

Obviously nobody will ever say better graphics are bad, assuming everybody's computer is up to the task.  Unfortunately most of our PC's do not run on magic, and artwork to take advantage of new capabilities also does not appear by magic either.

For a really good idea of the number of people you'd be cutting out, take a look at the channels in FSO events that have been cloud heavy.  A sizeable number of peoples' PC's can't handle something as simple as clouds.

Now, the ever-increasing ground game means people spending a ton of time staring at the terrain features for one reason or another.  I totally agree that for that, 'good enough' from the air is not good enough from the ground.

I don't envy HTC's position with the graphics as they are, and the customer base they have.  Split between guys with more computer than God, and guys who bought their midrange systems in 2003.

Wiley.

[moot]

Just another note: The lighting/environment model could probably use a bit of tweaking as well. Y'know, like fixing the sun and moon rising at a fixed point in relation to your aircraft and instead give them their own orbits in relation to the world itself, throw in some colored lighting effects for sunrise/sunset, etc. ....  something to make the environment feel more ALIVE.

Yep.  Pimp screenshots on front page still look too dark because of it.

If you look at e.g. Live For Speed which is now dated like AH compared to its competition (project cars, iRacing, etc, but even its contemporaries like GTR), the details and gfx effects are low.  But the lighting is good enough that it all still looks good.

[ink]

I don't know about you guys and whether or not you play other games besides AH...but little touches like that makes the game feels more alive than it already is. But I forgot, AH playerbase isn't exactly full of gamers, so I guess they wouldn't appreciate the little touches that developers adds in their games.  Immersion seems to be a lost thought here.

I have all these latest greatest games....

BF2-3
Skyrim
Homefront
Farcry3
Crysis
I am Alive
Metro
the new Tomb Raider(which is actually awesome)
Assassins Creed 3
DisHonored

plus many others that I just deleted.

AH is NOT about Graphics in any way...it is about COMBAT Arial combat.......

ya I played all the "great" flight sims also  those got deleted right away.....Wow looks awesome at a frame rate of 4 even though greycliff would be able to play that..... I don't like stop motion....



AH is the best there is....in it's Genre....by FAR the best there is.

[titanic3]

It's the best because its the only one there is...WarThunder and World of Warplanes are arcade shooters no different from Call of Duty but with planes. The only flight sim that is close to AH in terms of similarity is Rise of Fight but that's a completely different era of planes. Il-2 Cliffs of Dover would be too if it weren't so heavy on realism with the engine management. Rise of Flight and AH are the perfect balance between realism and gameplay. If RoF was WWII, I would be long gone from this game.

[ink]

It's the best because its the only one there is...WarThunder and World of Warplanes are arcade shooters no different from Call of Duty but with planes. The only flight sim that is close to AH in terms of similarity is Rise of Fight but that's a completely different era of planes. Il-2 Cliffs of Dover would be too if it weren't so heavy on realism with the engine management. Rise of Flight and AH are the perfect balance between realism and gameplay. If RoF was WWII, I would be long gone from this game.

I am curious How old are you?

[MK-84]

I have all these latest greatest games....

BF2-3
Skyrim
Homefront
Farcry3
Crysis
I am Alive
Metro
the new Tomb Raider(which is actually awesome)
Assassins Creed 3
DisHonored

plus many others that I just deleted.

AH is NOT about Graphics in any way...it is about COMBAT Arial combat.......

ya I played all the "great" flight sims also  those got deleted right away.....Wow looks awesome at a frame rate of 4 even though greycliff would be able to play that..... I don't like stop motion....



AH is the best there is....in it's Genre....by FAR the best there is.

Agreed

[ACE]

I see titans point.  Personally IMO, I never cared about graphics. Never really have in any game tbh.. 

[Blade]

+1

[TDeacon]

If you guys want pretty scenery, try going out of the house occasionally.  For a true "gamer", it's the game first, and graphics a distant second.  That means frame rate first, for one thing. 

MH

[Kazan_HB]

The product must look good  or?