Aces High Graphics Engine Questions

[Wanker]

I have no complaints about the way things look in AH, so this is more of an "I'm curious" thread.  

Remembering how it worked in Warbirds, there was a whole new graphics engine rebuild for v2.0, that was 3D as opposed to the old 2D of 1.11r2.

Is the same wholesale change going to take place like this in AH someday, or can it be gradually be improved by the use of additional polygons and other methods.

Is it also going to be able to take advantage of new bells and whistles of graphics cards as they mature?

[Ratbo]

And also, will we someday be able to design custom SKINS?

-W

[Superfly]

I'm pretty sure we will start pushing more polygons and textures as it goes on.  We already are pushing more from when AH originated.  I doubt it will ever be as drastic as the switch from 2d to 3d in WB.  We have already bumped up our requirements in the past.  The key is letting low end users having a chance to play as opposed to just high end users.  As more modern PC's with better video cards and processors become common place, it would only be logical to increase graphical quality.

[Wilbus]

Now answer Ratbo's question PLEASE

[Puck]

Executive Sumary: Neat idea, probibly not worth the cost.

There are a couple problems with custom skins; most noteably you can either have them global or local.  If they're global you pretty much require everyone to download every custom skin for everyone else.  If they're local you suddenly have people making skins day-glo orange on one side and gawd-aweful red on the other.  If you're really clever you break the skin into 4ths, so you always know the orientation of the enemy from quite a distance off.  There's a lot of room for "abuse" of a local skinning schema.  With global skins you suddenly get people making their skins sky blue on one side and farm green on the other.

A possible solution for people who would like to make realistic or semi-realistic skins would be an option to submit models to HTC and let Natedog/Superfly add them to an optional skin download if they meet the standards of HTC quality and taste.  People can either use the off-the-shelf skin or download the optional skins and pick one.  Other people who have downloaded the skins will see the one you picked, everyonhe else will see the standard.

The big downside to all this is time.  Somehow I don't think it would be trivial to remove the skins from the compile and make a skin selector.

JMHO.  YMMV.  HTH.  HAND.

[LePaul]

SuperFly

Good answers, as I've got a low end PC (P3 550/Voodoo 5500).

However, like most games, can you make some of the tweaks configurable?  So that, if I did have a 2ghz machine with an obscene video card, I could crank it more details, etc via an option screen?

You guys have a nice balance by default.  I think some with the power systems would like to crank it up since they have the resources to run them.

Again, just wondering.  Weather effects (rain, etc) would be cool to see come along, as well as the contrails and other visual perks.

As I've referenced in the past, I thought Falcon 4 did a nice job of letting the user configure how much/how little detail the user wanted and what the system could handle.

Thanks

[minus]

hmmm how about a forum where paying customer can post they skins and  aproval system be the  paying customers who will check if the skin ar OK,  RUDE the inqisitor will now get some more useful job like whining about whine

but  lets say ONLY 1 skin be  paying acount nd to give some marketing push for AH and HTC if any 1 sign  up for 2 month  or 6 month option you have right for  your own skin

download of skin will be beter to NOT mandatory ,  to respect low  speed users