not trying to stir up trouble but..

[Coolridr]

I never said that HTC doesn't value our input..but if you read 99.9999999999999999 percent of the threads throughout the BB you notice that most of it is whines and complaints and hardly constructive critisism. I'm sure that HTC is interested in our ideas and for sure our bug reports..but come on.  There is really some nit-picky stuff getting posted. It would be impossible to make a truly realistic SIM. after all ,I'm willing to bet that most of us were not there and even the stuff in books can't always be trusted as alot of non-fiction is based on the authors opinion.
    You would think that people would be more concerned about major stuff like plane sets ,overall graphics , the realism of the planes themselves, and most of all how realistic the flight and handling characteristics of the aircraft are. All I am saying is let them get on with what they are doing. Lets do the beta tests like they want and not be little whiney *****es because we don't like how one minor aspect of the game looks.

[Coolridr]

Oh and "Scooter", just because I've only been on the BB under this name since August doesn't mean I'm new. You don't know me so don't make assuptions.

[Bullethead]

Coolridr said:

You would think that people would be more concerned about major stuff like plane sets ,overall graphics , the realism of the planes themselves, and most of all how realistic the flight and handling characteristics of the aircraft are. All I am saying is let them get on with what they are doing. Lets do the beta tests like they want and not be little whiney *****es because we don't like how one minor aspect of the game looks.

Well, it looks like the testing HTC wanted is pretty much done for now.  There hasn't been much traffic in the FPS thread for several days now.  And HTC's orders pretty much foreclosed discussion of other bugs in the bug forum for now.  That leaves us with stuff like this in here

I guess the importance of tracer appearance depends on your perspective.  My perspective, in terms of the list of items you provided above, is as follows:

• Plane Set:  IIRC, HT said we'll eventually get all the AH1 planes back, and new stuff only after that.  Which means any new stuff is WAY down the road.  That being the case, at present begging for new planes is pointless, or at least way less important than it was in AH1 before AH2 got into work.
  
• Overall Graphics:  With the basic guts of the engine obviously still being in a state of flux and optimization, it's kinda useless to make any judgments on overall graphics at present.  I like what I see so far, anyway, and know it will get better with time.  So save this for another day as well.
  
• Realism of the Planes Themselves:  I assume you mean how they look, as opposed to how they fly.  They look good enough for me, certainly an improvement on AH1.  If I have problems with the skins, I know I'll be able to do something about that myself when that feature becomes available.  Thus, no real point in discussing appearance, except in general terms of things like allowing swastikas on player-made skins.
  
• Realism of Flight Model/Handling Characteristics:  I've never flown a real WW2 plane so am in no way qualified to judge whether or not AH2 planes fly anything like their real counterparts.  However, I've flown enough real planes to appreciate the improvements AH2 brings to the low end of the envelope.  That's a lot more realistic IMHO, but I still haven't flown enough in real life to be an authority on this.  So I leave this whole topic for those with more knowledge.
  
• Tracer Effects:  This is something I feel qualified to discuss, because I've seen a lot of film and have shot many, and been shot at by many, real machineguns.  More to the point, tracers are a rather important game element IMHO because we'll be seeing so many of them when AH2 goes live.  If you see something obviously wrong every time you pull the trigger, it'll really hurt the overall impression of the rest of the game.  Thus, tracers IMHO are as important to get right as aircraft skins and overall graphics.  In addition, HT himself said at the Con that he wanted feedback on this subject so he could make it look more realistic.  Hence, I feel it's a worthy topic to discuss
  

[WhiteHawk]

Absolutely correct bullethead.  Popcorn aint sht without the salt and butter.  And, i am not saying I could do better myself, and i know this is in the infancy, but i feel the need to at least make my humble opinion known.    The  bullets on the gun cam footage or any gun cam footage that I have seen are spiraling and yes the tracers do tend to give this away, ever so subtly.  The tracers I have seen in the early, unfinished, and surley to be improved upon version of AH2 are....LOOK, I AM A SPIRALING PROJECTILE!!
IN FACT I CAN DO THIS>>WHOOSHOBBLEWOOSHOBBLE.  
  (Bracing for a stoopit dolt japslap from the administrator).
How about an option to keep the 'classic tracers'  for sake of frame rate preservation.  ( I think the old tracers were perfectly fine and in fact, rarely, if ever heard any complaining of them.  Such options may actually expedite the release of AH2 while the creative folks at HTC hammer out these small but important detaisl)

[mold]

Originally posted by Rutilant
So you mean the only thing we have to go no.. we can't go on.. so everything else is just guessing, but that's better than going by video footage?

Yes, absolutely!  If we are certain that camera footage is inherently screwed up in its image detail, then it would clearly be a mistake to use it for visual cues.

There is a tendency in realistic flight sims to mistaknely associate "realistic" with "difficult" or "annoying".

Originally posted by Shane
the pilot will feel the guns balzing away, yes, but his body is a wonderful thing - it'll absorb the vibrations and maintain a steady view with those great mk4 eyeballs.

Agreed and well said.  Like the icon issue, sometimes a simulation designed to be as physically realistic as possible ends up being less realistic overall because it ignores human factors and limitations of today's computer hardware.  Even if there were spirals in real life, if the computer representation of them ends up being more obscuring and annoying than in real life with a Mk4 eyeball, then they should be toned down or dropped.  IMO.

Originally posted by WhiteHawk


60fps

My first system project..complete
IC7-MAX3 Motheboard
p4 2.6 800 FSB w/HT
2x512 KB Mushkin PC3500 RAM
radeon 9800 Pro (<--ouch $$$)
WindowsXP($$$)

Jesus, you have a Max3 and a 9800 pro and you get 60fps??  Not good.  That is exactly the system I am building, but I am overclocking to 266.

[WhiteHawk]

Originally posted by mold


 

 

Jesus, you have a Max3 and a 9800 pro and you get 60fps??  Not good.  That is exactly the system I am building, but I am overclocking to 266.

Well, you go right ahead and overclock.  You may want to wait a week before you buy your CPU.  Intel is slashing thier prices on the top lines to make room for the new top of the lines.

[Siaf__csf]

Plane Set: IIRC, HT said we'll eventually get all the AH1 planes back, and new stuff only after that. Which means any new stuff is WAY down the road. That being the case, at present begging for new planes is pointless, or at least way less important than it was in AH1 before AH2 got into work.

HTC should build early war planes first, then with time as they get finished, add later war planes. If they take 4 years to develop, all the better.

Historical! Realistic!

Why nobody thought of this before.

[Rutilant]

Originally posted by mold

Jesus, you have a Max3 and a 9800 pro and you get 60fps??  Not good.  That is exactly the system I am building, but I am overclocking to 266.

It's probably his monitor refresh rate

[klem]

those short bright snaky trails in guncam films are cam vibration - and it was often not the smoke that caught your attention

tracer smoke would have had some degree of coil due to aerodynamics

not all rounds were tracer - they were mixed in with the hard stuff to give the pilot an idea of where he was shooting. The DeWilde type, which was not tracer but 'splashed' on impact for the same reasons, were typically fitted one every five rounds. I guess tracer was the same.

As experience and ability developed there was a tendency for the better shots  to use less tracer for greater impact and less tell-tale - and whose gun cams films do you suppose we have been watching?

Was it 1 inch, 2 inch, 6 inch or 12 inch coils? Don't know, it would depend on the calibre. Personal impression - the AH2 effect does appear a little overdone. But then I never fired these things in RL. Wish we could have asked our guests at the UK AH Con - they would probably have known about .303s and .5s in Lancs.

Any WWII vets still available for acceptance testing?

[WhiteHawk]

i wish i could post screen shots.  I could show you all a picture of a panzer shooting a rediculous spring and that would be the end of the argument.  These tracers are the worst ive ever seen in any slight sim, including atari tank battle

[mold]

Originally posted by Siaf__csf
HTC should build early war planes first, then with time as they get finished, add later war planes. If they take 4 years to develop, all the better.

Historical! Realistic!

Why nobody thought of this before.

Nah...there's no point in designing it that way.  Better to have a wide-ranging plane set from the start, with an RPS or RPS-like mechanism so we can cycle through the whole gamut in the space of a couple weeks.

Originally posted by Rutilant
It's probably his monitor refresh rate

I sure hope so.

[WhiteHawk]

ya mold..there is no need to get over 60 fps, just a need to stay over 45fps. That is the important part.
  As far as the tracers go, I was watching heavy metal today on the History channel, featuring the p38.  The smoke from the tracers is barely visible.  I guess, if the air is warm and moist, the smoke from the flare on the bullet is not so pronounced.  I would suspect, in cold dry air, or perhaps just cold air, the smoke is more visible.  In any event, the key to the tracer problem is not the smoke from the tracer, but the glow of the projectile itself.
  Just the right length, perhaps a little jiggle, maybe a hint of spiral (tight!) smoke.  But the damage effect as the bullets ripped through the zeros is really the hook.  In my opinion, HTC has very nice damage effects in AH, keeping in mind having to keep the frame rates workable for online play.  I say, focus on the projectile, not on the path it travels.

[mold]

Originally posted by WhiteHawk
ya mold..there is no need to get over 60 fps, just a need to stay over 45fps.

Oh yeah, I agree.  I was just worried that you were getting 60 fps unsynched with such a top-end system, just sitting on the runway; and it seemed to me that this might not bode well for the times when there are more objects on screen and the system is more taxed.  But maybe sitting on the runway represents a good minimum.  Yeah I know, this is a beta etc etc.

Originally posted by WhiteHawk
I say, focus on the projectile, not on the path it travels.

Yeah, I agree.  Subtle is better than flashy when it comes to tracer smoke graphics.

[WhiteHawk]

Originally posted by Furious
Not so.  Think about the vortex created by the bullet's motion and spin.

Yes   irealize that the intent here is to suggest that the smoke of the incindiary is being ejected in a helical path, but the actual result is, that we are shooting 'Oswald' bullets here.

[slimm50]

Originally posted by ply
I knew somewhere there was a page on this

http://www.spanishcastle.com/justplanefun/hollywood.html

I visited the website above. Those cartoons are hillarious! Who is this guy? Does he fly in AH, I wonder?