Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Kweassa on December 29, 2005, 04:13:59 PM
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My wish for 2006, is a version of AH2 totally dedicated to graphical updates only. What I mean by gfx updates is not something big - it's not a request to make AH to look like IL2, nor is it a request to change the graphics engine.
These updates I wish, are petty, small, little changes in details that can be fully adjusted within the limits of current AH2 engine/version. Small things can make a huge difference.
Small ideas such as...
* even a small change in color can make things look different. I want different tone of green for the land textures
* a change in sky colors...
* beaches between land-water transition
* the new "explosion" animation, while a vast improvement over the old AH1 explosion, still leaves somewhat to be desired. Perhaps AH2 could risk a few more animation frames to make the explosion overall smoother, and less quick and jerky?
* the splashes on water can be made to look better. It uses the same 'splash' animation as seen in AH1. It's tolerable, but clearly outdated - it is done in low resolution, a bit unclear, and the animation is a bit jerky. Likewise, bullets impacting ground use the same effect as seen in AH1. Again, not bad, but outdated.
There could be a lot of ideas with small details like these - perhaps a teensey bit of particle effect can be added so it depicts the finer droplets of water spraying around the main 'splash'. Likewise, a teensey bit of added particle effect with bullet impacts to the ground, so it looks like the hits are throwing off dust. Option to turn off such miniscule particle effects for people with lowend PCs.
* get rid of all 'generic' effects... for instance, tank shells impacting on land throw up the same animation as bullets striking land. Tanks shells are tank shells, and bullets are bullets. There are many such inconsistencies within AH2 that is remnant from AH1. Such are probably leftovers, waiting on the "low priorities" list forever. But times have changes, AH2 has much more potential, and people use better PCs now. Can't we see tank shell impacts to the ground throwing up a poof of dirt in the air like it should?
Likewise, bombs landing on normal ground should throw up a dirt pile in the air. We currently do have the bomb impact animation, but everything rolls so fast that its hard to appreciate how the bomb landed. Again, an old remnant from AH1 animations.
* cheap trick with cameras - using the 'camera movement' to portray violent explosions or vibrations. I know it can be done easily enough - I've seen AH1 before 'gun vibrations' were introduced. IMO it's simply a matter of making the screen shake at a certain interval. Small calibre gun strikes wouldn't matter much - but what about 88mm flak bursts? The closer the flak burst to your plane, the harder the screen shakes. It is only a simple visual effect, and yet small things like these can make a huge leap in enhancing the gaming experience.
Likewise, bombs landing close to a vehicle should cause a screen shake. Maybe a bit less for heavy tanks, but lighter vehicles and their crews would definately feel the impact and shakes, even though they survived.
* better looking hit sprites... I wouldn't go as far as ask individual hit effects... how about better looking hit sprites instead? More detailed, higher resolution, clean and cool - instead of the hideous low-resolution 'white glob' we currently have? For instance, my guess is our current 'white glob' portrays incendiary rounds hitting and causing a 'flash' upon impact. So, why not make it lookw more like a flash? Brighter color, more abrupt, violent, and sudden animation.. etc..
* can planes crashing down to water throw up a huge big splash, instead of suddenly blow up? And while I'm at it, how about if someone slowly and very gently sets down the plane at water, the water creates a very big wake and splash trailing the plane, and the plane quickly sinks underwater afterwards? I mean, in graphical bugs with new versions we have planes sinking to the ground time to time. So, if we can do that why not make a plane gently landed on water sink down the water polygon? No need to depict underwater... just make it sink downto cockpit level and then the pilot gets sent back to the tower - he must bail out before it sinks that much.
* can empty fuel tanks stop leak visible fuel now?
* can the effects of self-sealing tanks be visibly depicted? I am aware that such effects are considered in the game already. But currently, it depicts only fuel tank damage that is too large for self-sealing tanks to handle. When a plane is hit at the fuel tank but the damage isn't big enough, it just doesn't show. Can we see the plane leak fuel for a while, and then the hole would seal up and the leak stop?
* can cracks in the cockpit glass be depicted differently according to source of impact? The small holes we currently have, should be fine for AP weapons.. but what about a cannon hit that the glass survived? Or a very close by flak burst? These don't just drill holes, do they?
......... and etc etc, yada yada.
There could be a lot of small bits and parcels added in to the game. AH2 just isn't reaching its full potential, because IMO these small things just keep getting pushed back in the list. Everytime HTC comes with a great new project, and the gamers appreciate it fully... but I think the small, "low priorities" have been delayed for much too long.
A version totally dedicated for "low priorities" - that's my wish.
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Sounds good to me!!! :D
I hope you get your wish in 2006.
Its the "little" things that make the difference.
Originally posted by Kweassa
My wish for 2006, is a version of AH2 totally dedicated to graphical updates only. What I mean by gfx updates is not something big - it's not a request to make AH to look like IL2, nor is it a request to change the graphics engine.
These updates I wish, are petty, small, little changes in details that can be fully adjusted within the limits of current AH2 engine/version. Small things can make a huge difference.
Small ideas such as...
* even a small change in color can make things look different. I want different tone of green for the land textures
* a change in sky colors...
* beaches between land-water transition
* the new "explosion" animation, while a vast improvement over the old AH1 explosion, still leaves somewhat to be desired. Perhaps AH2 could risk a few more animation frames to make the explosion overall smoother, and less quick and jerky?
* the splashes on water can be made to look better. It uses the same 'splash' animation as seen in AH1. It's tolerable, but clearly outdated - it is done in low resolution, a bit unclear, and the animation is a bit jerky. Likewise, bullets impacting ground use the same effect as seen in AH1. Again, not bad, but outdated.
There could be a lot of ideas with small details like these - perhaps a teensey bit of particle effect can be added so it depicts the finer droplets of water spraying around the main 'splash'. Likewise, a teensey bit of added particle effect with bullet impacts to the ground, so it looks like the hits are throwing off dust. Option to turn off such miniscule particle effects for people with lowend PCs.
* get rid of all 'generic' effects... for instance, tank shells impacting on land throw up the same animation as bullets striking land. Tanks shells are tank shells, and bullets are bullets. There are many such inconsistencies within AH2 that is remnant from AH1. Such are probably leftovers, waiting on the "low priorities" list forever. But times have changes, AH2 has much more potential, and people use better PCs now. Can't we see tank shell impacts to the ground throwing up a poof of dirt in the air like it should?
Likewise, bombs landing on normal ground should throw up a dirt pile in the air. We currently do have the bomb impact animation, but everything rolls so fast that its hard to appreciate how the bomb landed. Again, an old remnant from AH1 animations.
* cheap trick with cameras - using the 'camera movement' to portray violent explosions or vibrations. I know it can be done easily enough - I've seen AH1 before 'gun vibrations' were introduced. IMO it's simply a matter of making the screen shake at a certain interval. Small calibre gun strikes wouldn't matter much - but what about 88mm flak bursts? The closer the flak burst to your plane, the harder the screen shakes. It is only a simple visual effect, and yet small things like these can make a huge leap in enhancing the gaming experience.
Likewise, bombs landing close to a vehicle should cause a screen shake. Maybe a bit less for heavy tanks, but lighter vehicles and their crews would definately feel the impact and shakes, even though they survived.
* better looking hit sprites... I wouldn't go as far as ask individual hit effects... how about better looking hit sprites instead? More detailed, higher resolution, clean and cool - instead of the hideous low-resolution 'white glob' we currently have? For instance, my guess is our current 'white glob' portrays incendiary rounds hitting and causing a 'flash' upon impact. So, why not make it lookw more like a flash? Brighter color, more abrupt, violent, and sudden animation.. etc..
* can planes crashing down to water throw up a huge big splash, instead of suddenly blow up? And while I'm at it, how about if someone slowly and very gently sets down the plane at water, the water creates a very big wake and splash trailing the plane, and the plane quickly sinks underwater afterwards? I mean, in graphical bugs with new versions we have planes sinking to the ground time to time. So, if we can do that why not make a plane gently landed on water sink down the water polygon? No need to depict underwater... just make it sink downto cockpit level and then the pilot gets sent back to the tower - he must bail out before it sinks that much.
* can empty fuel tanks stop leak visible fuel now?
* can the effects of self-sealing tanks be visibly depicted? I am aware that such effects are considered in the game already. But currently, it depicts only fuel tank damage that is too large for self-sealing tanks to handle. When a plane is hit at the fuel tank but the damage isn't big enough, it just doesn't show. Can we see the plane leak fuel for a while, and then the hole would seal up and the leak stop?
* can cracks in the cockpit glass be depicted differently according to source of impact? The small holes we currently have, should be fine for AP weapons.. but what about a cannon hit that the glass survived? Or a very close by flak burst? These don't just drill holes, do they?
......... and etc etc, yada yada.
There could be a lot of small bits and parcels added in to the game. AH2 just isn't reaching its full potential, because IMO these small things just keep getting pushed back in the list. Everytime HTC comes with a great new project, and the gamers appreciate it fully... but I think the small, "low priorities" have been delayed for much too long.
A version totally dedicated for "low priorities" - that's my wish.
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How about stars in the evening, or even a moon. Personally I am getting tired of being sun blinded. Verying cloud layers would be nice also instead of the 16k standard on every map. or even storm clouds.
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* Aircraft that hit trees, buildings, or other other objects that fly apart and crash land instead of the generic immediate explosion.
* Engine exhaust contrails above 20'000 ft
* Weather
* Waves and swells on the ocean
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Originally posted by Kweassa
...88mm flak bursts? The closer the flak burst to your plane, the harder the screen shakes.
that idea i love.
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I actually like all of these, especially the inclusion of options to disable eye candy for those with lower end systems.
I really like the idea of screen shakes for flak bursts, ordnance detonating, and maybe even large caliber weapons (I'm gonna go out on a limb and suppose that a 37mm cannon does more than make a muffled 'bam' sound when it hits your wing, or takes the tail section completely off your plane).
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WB3 and *gasp!* LOMAC both have a "bump in the road" effect when something big blows up near the aircraft. Several times in LOMAC especially I've been coming around against a SAM site, only to have his buddy fire from short range. It gets your attention when your view suddenly jolts from a SAM blowing up not ten feet off the tail. Seeing a similar effect from 5" shells would really improve things.
The LOMAC stall shudder works wonders for the immersion factor. It's a rapid vibration that starts out at low intensity, ramping up to a horrific and violent shake if you get too slow. Stall shudder has been requested many times before, yet never implemented. I wonder why?
Gun shake based on caliber would be awful nice, too. A high-frequency, slight vibration from small caliber guns. Big guns naturally would have a harder, more spaced-out shudder.
Amen on the "generic effects"! That "mongo explosion" animation used for tank shells hitting trees looks horrible. Always has, always will. Seeing caliber-dependent hits in the dirt would be a most welcome change of pace, too!
Stopping fluid leaks when the tank is empty has been asked for in the past. Last time around, HT said he couldn't get it to stop when the tank ran dry. Hopefully he's been able to figure it out since then.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/veggie.gif)
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Originally posted by Kweassa
can planes crashing down to water throw up a huge big splash, instead of suddenly blow up? And while I'm at it, how about if someone slowly and very gently sets down the plane at water, the water creates a very big wake and splash trailing the plane, and the plane quickly sinks underwater afterwards? I mean, in graphical bugs with new versions we have planes sinking to the ground time to time. So, if we can do that why not make a plane gently landed on water sink down the water polygon? No need to depict underwater... just make it sink downto cockpit level and then the pilot gets sent back to the tower - he must bail out before it sinks that much.
Ever since the new "smoothing code," I haven't seen a plane explode when hitting the ground OR splash when it hits the water. I've just seen them fly underground and hear a boom after a couple seconds.
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oct is pro graphical goodness.
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I'm liking all these ideas.
I'd still like to see the tracer rounds for AA guns and tanks done better. Most of the time it's hard to see them unless it's damn near night or there's lots of low/dark clouds.
All the animations are "generic", the Ostwind for example when firing doesn't look any diff than the field gun or quad 40 on the ships:confused:
Not saying everything in AH2 looks bad, but ya have to admit it's always nice to see cool animations;)
my 2 cents
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I took off from a CV the other night and as I climbed away I saw 6 contrails a few miles ahead and a few thousand feet above. It looked great. It was just a weird bug effect from the ship convoy behind me but it gave an idea of how contrails would look. Would be fab, methinks.
There are loads of little details that could enhance the game. Stuff moving around the towns and cities, more vehicles on roads - staff cars and despatch riders (the destruction of which would have some kind of strategic or tactical effect) and other road users - villages scattered around the countryside. Merchant shipping, not just the odd barge. Lots of little(ish) things to add to the overall "realism" of the game.
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These ideas are awesome. Way better than adding more planes!
I think this should be an HTC priority after TODs completion!
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I Totally agree with the list,the small items but how about leaving
some of the wreakge behind as well? Surely,no field got cleaned up that quick,even allowing some of the wrecked planes near the runway would add to the scenery. And of course we can't forget about the bombers,there could be some nice,burnt-out debris on the way to the target, and they could,i'm sure get cleaned up as the same time frame it takes for the town to rebuild itself.
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Trouble with debris is that info about debris status would cause serious lag issues. From what I understand, the buggest reason large maps slow many people's FR down is just needing to spend cycles getting update data all over the large map area.
IMO, having debris (and damaged trees, etc) isnt worth it.
On the "little things" concept, I 100% agree. The added features we saw with ah2 made a huge diffference in the feel -- things like seeing dust trails when the wheels touched down, and seeing exhaust on engine start up are simply great. On the same theme, tuning up the sound pack ENORMOUSLY changed the immersion factors. I've loved rooting around for my favorite sounds in the posted add on packs and on the net.
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I love all your ideas, and its just what AH2 needs for the new year. In CFS1 I downloaded this mission near Interlaken, and this whole lake is filled of gun boats and on the shores are flak guns. And when flying 10,000ft man with that flak starts getting close, im boucning all over the place and man did i love it. Some times i didnt do the mission I just went 10k just to fly threw the flak and see if i make it out, and just enjoy the bouncing of my plane from all the flak.
Ive been asking for this, but every one says it will drop FR, but I think you couldn't have said it better.
* get rid of all 'generic' effects... for instance, tank shells impacting on land throw up the same animation as bullets striking land. Tanks shells are tank shells, and bullets are bullets. There are many such inconsistencies within AH2 that is remnant from AH1. Such are probably leftovers, waiting on the "low priorities" list forever. But times have changes, AH2 has much more potential, and people use better PCs now. Can't we see tank shell impacts to the ground throwing up a poof of dirt in the air like it should?
Good job man, I hope to see all these soon.
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Good write kweassa!:aok
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Oh yea and just think if flak makes your plane bounce and jump all over the place, It be harder to distroy a CV group, or a base. And maybe we can add a sound like in Americas Army, when a gernade blows up close to you, all you hear for 5 seconds is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! But this is caused by a close bomb shell, or a close flak hit.
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Oh yeah, and tire squeel when landing. I've got the soundpacks but I don't think there's tire squeel.
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I will add one more would be nice if HE shelll when hitting a hard object would explode, I was dropping HE on a tiger and all they did was bounce off they should have exploded and do no damage, not bounce high into the air and do nothing. I had just destroyed a town at a base and only had HE on my tank.
DHawk
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Originally posted by Casper1
These ideas are awesome. Way better than adding more planes!
I think this should be an HTC priority after TODs completion!
Personally I'd like to see every single A/C ever used in WW2 in the game. Sad fact is, only about 5% of them will be used on a daily basis just as they are now.
We have quite few planes in AH, now go look up the stats for all the planes. You'll find that the same 8-10 planes are used every day, day after day.
Unless I've been under a rock, I see 38's, all spits, Nik's, P51's, F4U's & F6's, 109's/190's/110's, Tiff's, Yak's, LA7's and b17's & 24's.
When the last time you saw 8-10 Stukas show up at a field? Or a 10 F4F's or 8-10 TBM's ??
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I would like to know how near to completion TOD is, because people have stated it's been in the works for years. You know just figured that with constantly working on TOD other issues like adding new planes and other effects are probably put aside.
It may sound difficult but maybe TOD is too much and work on it should come to an end. As much as I and many others would love to see TOD, we are still not seeing but a basic outline of the idea and other possibilites for it.
Some may believe Im just being impatient, but Im wondering about all the other things HTC could accomplish If they were to abbandon the idea.
my 2 cents
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Personally, I don't think TOD will see the light of day, but that's just a hunch. I guess we'll just have to wait n see.
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Originally posted by MOIL
Personally I'd like to see every single A/C ever used in WW2 in the game. Sad fact is, only about 5% of them will be used on a daily basis just as they are now.
We have quite few planes in AH, now go look up the stats for all the planes. You'll find that the same 8-10 planes are used every day, day after day.
Unless I've been under a rock, I see 38's, all spits, Nik's, P51's, F4U's & F6's, 109's/190's/110's, Tiff's, Yak's, LA7's and b17's & 24's.
When the last time you saw 8-10 Stukas show up at a field? Or a 10 F4F's or 8-10 TBM's ??
I hear you there, MOIL. That's why my CO and I like to fly "crappy plane" missions, knowing full well we would possibly get slaughtered. But it's fun. There's always that chance you'll make it back with a couple kills in a P-40B.:aok
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I enjoyed the idea,although all efforts must being used on Tour of Duty
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Thndregg:
"I hear you there, MOIL. That's why my CO and I like to fly "crappy plane" missions, knowing full well we would possibly get slaughtered. But it's fun. There's always that chance you'll make it back with a couple kills in a P-40B"
We often will run missions of lesser used A/C for this reason. It's a lot of fun to attack a field with 4 sets of Ki67's and A6M escorts. You'll prob get shot down or not do much damage, but man is it fun:D
We also did a V base attack with 15 M8's and 3 M3's, you should have seen the look on the enemies face when that rolled in:eek:
Have fun
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Awesome!
The BOPs did a 202 mission last night just for kicks. Was a lot of fun, although I wasn't able to participate.:aok
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Originally posted by Kweassa
My wish for 2006, is a version of AH2 totally dedicated to graphical updates only. What I mean by gfx updates is not something big - it's not a request to make AH to look like IL2, nor is it a request to change the graphics engine.
These updates I wish, are petty, small, little changes in details that can be fully adjusted within the limits of current AH2 engine/version. Small things can make a huge difference.
Small ideas such as...
* even a small change in color can make things look different. I want different tone of green for the land textures
* a change in sky colors...
* beaches between land-water transition
* the new "explosion" animation, while a vast improvement over the old AH1 explosion, still leaves somewhat to be desired. Perhaps AH2 could risk a few more animation frames to make the explosion overall smoother, and less quick and jerky?
* the splashes on water can be made to look better. It uses the same 'splash' animation as seen in AH1. It's tolerable, but clearly outdated - it is done in low resolution, a bit unclear, and the animation is a bit jerky. Likewise, bullets impacting ground use the same effect as seen in AH1. Again, not bad, but outdated.
There could be a lot of ideas with small details like these - perhaps a teensey bit of particle effect can be added so it depicts the finer droplets of water spraying around the main 'splash'. Likewise, a teensey bit of added particle effect with bullet impacts to the ground, so it looks like the hits are throwing off dust. Option to turn off such miniscule particle effects for people with lowend PCs.
* get rid of all 'generic' effects... for instance, tank shells impacting on land throw up the same animation as bullets striking land. Tanks shells are tank shells, and bullets are bullets. There are many such inconsistencies within AH2 that is remnant from AH1. Such are probably leftovers, waiting on the "low priorities" list forever. But times have changes, AH2 has much more potential, and people use better PCs now. Can't we see tank shell impacts to the ground throwing up a poof of dirt in the air like it should?
Likewise, bombs landing on normal ground should throw up a dirt pile in the air. We currently do have the bomb impact animation, but everything rolls so fast that its hard to appreciate how the bomb landed. Again, an old remnant from AH1 animations.
* cheap trick with cameras - using the 'camera movement' to portray violent explosions or vibrations. I know it can be done easily enough - I've seen AH1 before 'gun vibrations' were introduced. IMO it's simply a matter of making the screen shake at a certain interval. Small calibre gun strikes wouldn't matter much - but what about 88mm flak bursts? The closer the flak burst to your plane, the harder the screen shakes. It is only a simple visual effect, and yet small things like these can make a huge leap in enhancing the gaming experience.
Likewise, bombs landing close to a vehicle should cause a screen shake. Maybe a bit less for heavy tanks, but lighter vehicles and their crews would definately feel the impact and shakes, even though they survived.
* better looking hit sprites... I wouldn't go as far as ask individual hit effects... how about better looking hit sprites instead? More detailed, higher resolution, clean and cool - instead of the hideous low-resolution 'white glob' we currently have? For instance, my guess is our current 'white glob' portrays incendiary rounds hitting and causing a 'flash' upon impact. So, why not make it lookw more like a flash? Brighter color, more abrupt, violent, and sudden animation.. etc..
* can planes crashing down to water throw up a huge big splash, instead of suddenly blow up? And while I'm at it, how about if someone slowly and very gently sets down the plane at water, the water creates a very big wake and splash trailing the plane, and the plane quickly sinks underwater afterwards? I mean, in graphical bugs with new versions we have planes sinking to the ground time to time. So, if we can do that why not make a plane gently landed on water sink down the water polygon? No need to depict underwater... just make it sink downto cockpit level and then the pilot gets sent back to the tower - he must bail out before it sinks that much.
* can empty fuel tanks stop leak visible fuel now?
* can the effects of self-sealing tanks be visibly depicted? I am aware that such effects are considered in the game already. But currently, it depicts only fuel tank damage that is too large for self-sealing tanks to handle. When a plane is hit at the fuel tank but the damage isn't big enough, it just doesn't show. Can we see the plane leak fuel for a while, and then the hole would seal up and the leak stop?
* can cracks in the cockpit glass be depicted differently according to source of impact? The small holes we currently have, should be fine for AP weapons.. but what about a cannon hit that the glass survived? Or a very close by flak burst? These don't just drill holes, do they?
......... and etc etc, yada yada.
There could be a lot of small bits and parcels added in to the game. AH2 just isn't reaching its full potential, because IMO these small things just keep getting pushed back in the list. Everytime HTC comes with a great new project, and the gamers appreciate it fully... but I think the small, "low priorities" have been delayed for much too long.
A version totally dedicated for "low priorities" - that's my wish.
I CANT BELIVIE THAT YOU DIDNT POST THIS SOONER!! OMG THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!!!! MAKE THIS A STICK SKUZZY,HiTech, Pyro, or whoever works in that 8x10 office room.:lol .j/k
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It would be cool to see some more eye candy...
1) Better clouds. And the cloud layer not always at 15k
2) Rotate some night back in
3) More maps, new tiles, etc. We're constantly lush green.
4) Weather effects. Wind, fog, rain...things that affect where we lift or land.
5) Improved muzzle flashes for manned ack guns, etc
The explosions improvements have been nice. Im hopeful more of those sort of things continue.
Id love to see terrain much like what we see in shooters like the Novalogic games (Joint Operations, etc). Moving grass, more ground realistic ground objects to operate GVs thru.
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I CANT BELIVIE THAT YOU DIDNT POST THIS SOONER!! OMG THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!!!! MAKE THIS A STICK SKUZZY,HiTech, Pyro, or whoever works in that 8x10 office room. .j/k
Yes, I'm known to have that effect on men.
Too bad women don't take my writings in the same high regard :D
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I agree. Great ideas.