Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Pooface on November 02, 2005, 08:31:12 AM
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...they look absolutely great, but the graphics are still far behind any game like il2, not the planes, but the terrain :(
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/superfly/spit164.jpg)
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/natedog/K2.jpg)
those planes look fantastic, far better quality than il2 and other boxed sims, but, the terrain is still very samey and not quite right in a way. terrain modelling in the game (eg. hills and things is not bad, but could do with a little smoothing), but the main problem with ah terrain is the rancid green grass colour thats everywhere. i realise that this is certainly not a priority with tod being far more important than terrain detail, but i was thinking that in just the same way ht organised the skinning team that the exceptional map makers hiding away in h2h could help to create some new terrain tiles and textures, and new maps, keeping the work ht needs to do to a minimum. it would add so much more immersion to the game, having ground that doesnt look like a stretched apple skin.
ht, is there any chance of seeing something like this. it would instantly raise ah's graphical profile by a large amount, and we can start to compete with boxed sims graphic wise. i mean, we are already miles away from il2 gameplay and flight modelling wise, all we need is a better terrain model.
what do people think?
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IMO AH1 terrain was better than AH2's terrain.
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About the only thing I've ever liked about the CT. Some of the maps look great.
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Originally posted by Morpheus
IMO AH1 terrain was better than AH2's terrain.
I only use the terrain for plowing vertically into at high speed anyway
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As long as it wouldn't significantly kill my FPS I'd be all for it. I wonder if you're asking for more detailed terrain, or a better "painting"?
One thing i miss about that other game was the nifty little program the Kraits came out with. I miss flying around the desert :)
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Originally posted by Vudak
As long as it wouldn't significantly kill my FPS I'd be all for it. I wonder if you're asking for more detailed terrain, or a better "painting"?
One thing i miss about that other game was the nifty little program the Kraits came out with. I miss flying around the desert :)
i mean just adjusting that awful puke colour and adding some other random terrain tiles. it'd be cool to have higher ground have snow, and big deserts and things. and i'd also love the very pointy angular mountains just smoothed out a little bit. we need some more realistic looking terrain
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Originally posted by Vudak
One thing i miss about that other game was the nifty little program the Kraits came out with. I miss flying around the desert :)
Yea I loved that thing. Fly desert for awhile, go eat lunch, come back and fly snow. It was sweet.
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I've often thought that it'd be great to have the playability and flight models of AH combined with the graphics of IL2/PF. When you fly over the water in PF, it looks like water - not blue shag carpet. Also, there are beaches on the shore, and the water changes color to reflect changing depths, ie light blue next to the sandy beaches, darker blue the further you get from shore.
I also like the variety in the IL2 series - snowy russia, sandy north africa, green jungles - not to mention snow, fog, rain and other weather effects.
I know HTC made an effort on the water a while back with the animated water. I'm not sure if it's just my machine or not, but it looks like quivering blue jello on my screen - I leave it turned off in favor of the shag carpet look.
IMHO, the flight models in IL2 just don't seem right. It's probably becuase I am more use to AH though - I'm not sure what a "real" flight model for a WWII fighter should feel like. Unlike most of the rest of you, I don't have countless hours in my dad's P-51 to compare it with. . . .
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Lets make a game called 'Watch the scenery from here to there' and put in some absolutly realistic looking grasses, shrubs, bushes, sapplings, small to large trees.
Could have an add-on pack with insects that frequent the general area your walking/driving/flying through.
The Sheep-Ewe addon would be the only thing that costs something and would most likely let HiTech and the crew retire before the year 2010.
Online you could even walk/drive/fly around with a wingman.. na no fighting so wouldn't need that. You could walk around with a companion :)
{ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhshaddupfuzeman}
I'm usually on the low end of the Mhz scale so as long as its easy on the cpu I'm for it but many many many other things ahead of it on the hot potato scale.
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Ohhhhhh so pretty ohhhhhhhhhhhh so pretty:rofl
Graphic detail will drop fps performance considerably especially in respects to the ground detail, clouds ,water etc etc.
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Its all about the lighting and weather effects.
(http://www.pacific-fighters.com/en/screenshots/Perfect_RataEarlyMorning_01_Rab.JPG)
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/superfly/spit94.jpg)
Camo
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Keep in mind that one of the differences in ground detail is that IL-2 and it's decendents don't have to accomodate ground warfare. The ground detail in IL-2 actually looked pretty godawful bad from the ground or close to the ground. Forests ceased to be made up of trees and became six or so flat polygons stacked vertically and textured with dots to look like trees from altitude.
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if ah had graphics like il2, together with the great ah flight modelling and planeset, and our real online community, together with ah's ease of use, ah would be THE flight sim.
sadly, it is still fairly underground because it is so lacking in graphic detail:(
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Originally posted by Pooface
sadly, it is still fairly underground because it is so lacking in graphic detail:(
Actually AH's ground detail is much higher than IL-2's ground detail and the halfway point AH occupies between ground detail like a FPS or MMORPG and a flight sim like IL-2 looks less elegant. Certainly IL-2's lighting and weather is better, but that is really all I am prepared to give it.
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Hmm, it seems some folks weren't around the last time this was explained.
Like the planes, the terrain graphics WILL be improved....it just takes time. The whole point of AH2 is the new graphics engine. The graphics in AH1 were maxed out. If you are really bothered about it....grab the tile editor and get after it!! :)
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The key of IL2, PF, OFP and almost any other game about graphics is the light itself. In AH the light is "death". Doesnt matter how many polys you add, doesnt matter how good the textures are, what matters above all is light.
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i dont mean detail, i mean the actual terrain. its the same texture over the entire map! its never different. look at the il2 screenie, it may not look great from the ground, but it looks far better than ah because it actually looks like ground. ah ground just looks like a repeating lino floor.
i did not suggest that ah terrain needed a rework, just that we need to have a great deal more terrain tiles, just to mix it up a little. we need things like city tiles, grass, forest, snow, desert, dirt, so that we can make a nice detailed map, that just looks a little better. its not a lot of work, we just need to do the same thing that we did with the skinning team, and create a map making team. it would add SO much to the game
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Why can't terrain detailing be different when looking at tank FE and plane FE? Ground warfare is no reason to change the way trees etc. are modeled for the flight.
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I'd be happy if they just got rid of the kevlar leaves and shrubbery :D
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Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Why can't terrain detailing be different when looking at tank FE and plane FE? Ground warfare is no reason to change the way trees etc. are modeled for the flight.
Because the tank driver can't be put in the position of hiding under vegitation that the pilot doesn't even see.
Plane bombs/rockets tank.
TD: "WTF!?! How'd you see me?"
P: "What do you mean?"
TD: "I was completely hidden under those trees. It is BS that you killed me."
P: "Trees? What trees? You were sitting in the middle of a field."
TD: "BS, I had been driving under trees for the last five minutes."
p: "Nope. No trees in sight. Sorry, but I just nailed you fair and square. Stop whining."
TD: logs out
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Don't name the word "IL2" and never link up a "IL2 screenshot". I did it once ... ouuuuutch
;)
Don't look simply on the IL2 terrain. Look at the gameplay as well. IL2 don't has the possibility of mass multyplaying like AH. From this point of view AH has all my credits.
airmess
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Originally posted by airmess
Don't name the word "IL2" and never link up a "IL2 screenshot". I did it once ... ouuuuutch
;)
Don't look simply on the IL2 terrain. Look at the gameplay as well. IL2 don't has the possibility of mass multyplaying like AH. From this point of view AH has all my credits.
airmess
absolutely! i hate il2, but the graphics ARE better than ah, something that i think we should change. with the intro of all the new ah2 modelling, the planes look really good now, but the terrain is still very basic, and although its a different texture now, its exactly the same as the old terrain type. the terrain model needs to be redone.
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AH1 tiles looked like crap. BUT, what they had going for them (and I'd post a few screenshots if I could) were 2 things:
1) They tiled better. In better patterns. I have an old screenshot I took back when I thought the modeling of the 109E4 looked good (it's an OOOOLLLD screen) that shows the southern part of the old BOB map. It's amazing the way it looks, just for the pattern used.
2) Contrast... If you looked close they were blotchy and looked very 8-bit, but what they had was blotches that were higher contrast, to provide a type of "perceived detail". This usually looked better at a distance, but it was also in effect on the water, and made that look nice (IMO).
For some reason, AH2 tiles look...... blurry. Always blurry. I don't know why. Perhaps it's just how AH2 renders them, compared to AH1.
I think the tiles would look better if people just took a lot of time to create some better ones. The only problem is nobody knows how, and nobody is willing to devote endless hours for such a (relatively) minor detail. Imagine the trial and error... "Hmm.. Let's make a set of tiles with much higher contrast" -- build tiles -- put in map -- fly around testing it -- "Hm.. that didn't work.. Let's try a set of tiles with a brown tint to simulate dirt patches" -- build tiles -- etc etc.
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Bingo for Karnak and Camo.
Like Camo mentioned,
Graphics is 80% lighting and 20% details.
The truth is, you can draw a smurfy picture of nekkid lady and still make it look really sexy if you can give shadows and highlights where it is deserved. On the contrary, a simple line drawing, with no "lightings" whatsoever, will look pretty bland despite the fact that it's a 1:1 scale represantation of a Playmate. I mean, where's the fun in looking at the cleavage?
The quality of 3D modelling may be better in IL2, but that's not what makes people think it looks better. As for textures, AH plane textures, despite the fact that new standard uses only one BMP file, still in lot of cases are much more detailed than IL2 textures. Also, in many cases, even the quality of terrain textures don't make much of a difference.
It's almost SOLEY the lightings effect they use that makes the difference.
And like Karnak said, IL2 terrains are optimized to be viewed from the sky. The trees are everybit as much generic as in other games if viewed from low altitudes. Besides, they don't have much of ground detail in the first place. Grass, hedges, rows, none of that, because they don't need it, since they don't have playable ground warfare.
Another big trade-off is the fact that AH terrains are FULLY player customizable. IL2 landscape is like a beautiful painting of a building, whereas AH2 landscape is fundamentally, a "LEGO" building block. There can be more clever attempts to hide that fact, but in the end, there's no way a fully customizable terrain which the players can build and change as they desire, can ever be really comparable to a single, set terrain. IL2 map editors do not offer full terrain creation.
That being said, the limited lightings is probably the biggest problem. The plane lightings is fair enough, but the terrain lightings just don't compare.
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you know, the weirdest thing i find about the ah terrain is the fact that there are no transitions from land to water, eg. no beach, or rocks, or anything like that. and the borders of the water aren't straight, its a really odd looking repeating zig zag :(
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I vote for better terrain as well... it enhances immersion. The problem undoubtedly is related to some limit in the number of different terrain textures allowed by the graphics engine. I'm curious as to what that limit is, whether or not current terrains are at that limit, and whether or not the new graphics engine actually increased the limit and there is room for future improvement. Obviously, more different visible terrain textures make demands on graphic card resources and it is probably impossible to have a terrain that completely gets away from the repeating kitchen tile look.
All the comments regarding ground detail are spot on. All flight sims look good at certain altitudes and terrible at others. AH has the very difficult task of having to handle both long distance views (from airplanes) and very short distance views (from ground vehicles). That is not an easy task.
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Originally posted by Morpheus
IMO AH1 terrain was better than AH2's terrain.
From the air I agree. Strongly
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Having a newe Graphics card , I can really tell the difference in the game as to how it looks. IF you have a very high end machine and graphics card you would be suprised as to how good this game really looks from BOTH perspectives. Ground and Air.
I have NO idea what it takes to build tiles or terrains , nor do I really care. I just know that Eye Candy is nice. Being able to see things that I haven't been able to see at longer distances now is good.
The water still looks funky. Whether I have it on or off. Either way I don't really like it all that well.
The trees look nice on the ground and in the air. Not sure why I can't shoot thru them , but hey it is what it is.
The hills and mountains look wonderful from high alts and low alts , but the seem a bit sharp. No idea what it would take to smooth them out. Would be nice of they were tho.
All in all I can say that this game isn't NEAR bad as some I have seen. It is the premier Air Sim I can think of online.
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We already have better ground clutter then AH1. I don't know why we don't have better lighting effects but the gound in AH is 3d, not a photo realistic 2d matt of 3d objects.
It might improve things a lot if there were 16 elevation points per square mile instead of nine. The gross memory requirements for the elevation file would go from 2.01 MB to 4.72 MB which is not too bad.
The next step beyond that would be 25 points and 8.4 MB for the elevations which is a problem for downloads even compressed in the .res. The nice thing about it, the elevation points would be about 350 yards apart instead of our current 880 yards so you could build beautiful terrains. It would also create a lot of extra work for the terrain makers and you'd probably never see the full potential in everyday terrains unless the elevation settings could be automated some way.
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I'm all for IL2:cool:, but remember that IL2 is a multi CD boxset, while AH is made to be downloaded.
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Originally posted by SFRT - Frenchy
I'm all for IL2:cool:, but remember that IL2 is a multi CD boxset, while AH is made to be downloaded.
Which leads me to a question....
Why isn't this game Boxed and marketed for Multiplayer on line and H2H?
Just wondering:)
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Originally posted by RedTop
Which leads me to a question....
Why isn't this game Boxed and marketed for Multiplayer on line and H2H?
Just wondering:)
By the time you press the disk, package it and put it on the store shelves, it would be out of date and you just spent a fortune on packaging and distribution costs for something that can be distributed free. Wouldn't make much sense.
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A satisfied, loyal, word of mouth customer is far more valuable than any GameCube mega million dollar advertising generated customer with the attention span of a 11 year old.
The player base in here have evolved beyond Quake and need for speed V.14,642
You can't package a long term community and have it be a hit title at Walmart that lasts between Noon November 12th and 10:30pm December 8th. Completely the wrong market, totally wrong audience.
The players in here both want HT to earn a fortune so they remain happy and maintain our community, while hoping like mad that those EA Games addicts never find us.
Most games are on the shelves while the Production Department is printing the 2nd Gen and Dev's are designing the 3rd.
It's a delicate balance :)
Now, I'm sure that if Valve or EA offered HT 15mil to box it, they'd bite, but then we'd have to go to Texas and have a BBQ :)
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Originally posted by ROC
Now, I'm sure that if Valve or EA offered HT 15mil to box it, they'd bite, but then we'd have to go to Texas and have a BBQ :)
Dont forget the lynching.
OR being in Texas should we take the fire ant approach?
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Be careful what you wish for Poo,
I wouldn't be flying here if FA hadn't pooed out on me and went and upgraded all the graphics, my system runs it fine but for others it didn't (less players less fun)
game is Now a 500mb download and they even attempted to box sell it which backfired because they didnt have the $$$ to do it right. Investment in the gameplay became non-existant and stale and drove its best pilots to leave (and for me to rock up here) says everything about how good AH actually is gameplay wise.
I'd rather play a fun game than a pretty one.
" If it ain't broken don't fix it "
Have faith in your management more than i can say for FA's...
Bruv
~S~
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they only thing I'd wish HT to improve is the coast lines. The rest looks good enough for me.
Bozon
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Originally posted by ROC
Now, I'm sure that if Valve or EA offered HT 15mil to box it, they'd bite, but then we'd have to go to Texas and have a BBQ :)
On the contrary, I'm really hoping Bill Watterson is HTC's business rolemodel - seems to be so far. :aok
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Yes, coast lines should be improved and ... for crissake, improve all the cockpits. Macchi ones are simply awful.
*New* aicraft exteriors are good indeed for a 2005 massive online sim.
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Originally posted by Easyscor
By the time you press the disk, package it and put it on the store shelves, it would be out of date and you just spent a fortune on packaging and distribution costs for something that can be distributed free. Wouldn't make much sense.
Exactly. We have changes every two weeks.
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I think terrain development is stale because the AH2 terrain editor is still limited. AH2 terrain editor has fewer tiles options than AH1. If AH2 terrain editor is at its definitive form... then we'lll start seeing better terrains, much better than all flying games out there (exagerating a bit :))
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Originally posted by 1K3
AH2 terrain editor has fewer tiles options than AH1...
What do you mean? It's the same number of basic tiles plus now each one is divided into 4 sub parts for a more natural looks.