Fact is Rob, you need to embrace a whole new way of conceiving what KOE is going to be!

You will in fact be intimately involved with these weapons, and in being within the aircrew's virtual cockpit(s), and in seeing an aircraft's textures in close proximity from your airman's point of view!

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UQCFAqMZM...424791224940175[/img]

The whole realm of aircrew animation as well as weapon animation is now possible!

As a gunner in one of KOE' multi-seat aircraft you will be wielding these machine guns, taking aim, and perhaps even reloading and unjamming your weapon when needed.

As a pilot your MGs action will be right before your eyes, and it's certainly a possibility that you will be able to charge your weapons and perhaps even clear stoppages!

The state of game technology and sim development has advanced in leaps and bounds over what the last venerable retail WWI sim had to offer.

There's new game experiences to be had, and it's time to conceptualize the possibilites using a clean sheet of paper..............

Aaargh... not a-bloody-gain.

Look, would you please take the bloody blinkers off and read what someone writes instead of reacting with your default "you need to raise your eyes and see the new dawn" patronising bollocks.

I don't play RB much because it's so outdated. I prefer Il-2, because it's much better. Il-2, in which I can, as it happens, play a rear gunner.

So please, stop lecturing me - I am not stuck in the conceptual rut you think I am stuck in. I do not love Red Baron, its many and various limitations irritate the crap out of me and after playing Il-2 it's a pain in the arse to go back to old stuff like RB for a bit of WWI action.

So, returning to the point at hand:

1) Yes, of course the extra detail possible with higher resolutions makes it possible to do detail you can't in other places.

2) Yes, of course the fact they are applied to far more detailed 3D shapes akes a big difference

3) Yes, I can see that they can put a lot of details into the skins

4) All of that taken into account, the actual artwork on the skins simply do not look nearly as good to me as the stuff 3rd party artists are kicking out for Il-2 and Battle of Britain (I won't include Kess's work on RB as if I do you'll start frothing at the mouth and using stupid buzz words at me again...). And no, I don't think it's just a bit of weathering; they don't look new to me, they look... a bit plastic.

The concept sounds great, the specs they have shared so far sound really exciting, the 3D models look briliant and I will be buying it the moment it comes out and probably getting a new computer for it. But when I saw the screenshots for Il-2 my mouth fell open in amazement at the artistry; looking at the screenshots for KOE I'm just not particularly impressed. OK?

Rob

Bugger me...

Rob

Maybe you need to read over your entries before you post them in the future, so that "details" such as these don't continually confuse the discussions here:

Either you believe what you write, are possibly mistaken, or are intentionally offering up disinformation. Since I don't believe you're intentionally trying to confuse the issues here, then there's only a couple other explanations left.

Sorry, but your quoted statement above is dead wrong................there, do you like that better???

I think the skins you see are not finalized yet. In fact looking at some of them I am sure of it.
I think Aspect wanted to show the damage model in action.

There is no reason to think that you, me, or anyone would not be able to paint our own skins.
And a much better job can be done by those with the talent. Aspect probably does not have the time to make realistic skins.

I was impressed by the stock skins in IL2. But if you go to Il2skins,(I think that is it.), you will just fall out of your chair. They are far superior to the stock skins.

Painting aircraft is a big thing in sims. And as far as I can see, IL2FB has no limit, except the size of your harddrive. It would be somewhat short sighted for Aspect to ignore that.

There really is nothing to conceptualize with this upcoming game. It is what it is. Is it possible to have the gunner go through the motions of loading his gun, unjamming his gun, or dropping the fresh drum over the side?

Yes, it is. IF you have the horsepower. But it will have to run on a wide variety of systems that range form adequate to overkill. So it is not practicle to have things like that.

In IL2 nobody is unhappy with the fact that you don't reload the rear gun, the computer does it for you. Or that cockpits are not covered in blood.

Fly my lad, you are starting to sound like a certain someone who is obsessed with rotaries.
Drop it down a notch or too.

The message itself is not bad, but the delivery is ticking people off. Don't hammer it so much

Go to Frugals world, there are some new posts for you

Hopefully by years end we can get into talking about the relative merits of the airplanes.

Yes, much better. Your post is short, direct, sensible, accurate and non-patronising.

So, on that topic - yes, I was wrong; you do indeed see your own gun that close up. I'm still not certain that much detail is really a positive; you see it from one perspective only, and in the case of the vickers/maxim it is generally buried in the fuselage.

And it still ducks my preimary point, which was on the look of the skins, not the 3D models. In that screenshot of the Lewis gun from a gunner's perspective again it looks a little plastic to me; I'm sure the 3D model is brilliantly accurate but either the texture (or possibly the renderer) leaves it looking not that good aesthetically.

It's not a huge deal, looks aren't the most important thing by a long way and I'd be surprised if 3rd party skinners can't improve on them anyway. Just be nice if they could sell loads of copies based on people going "wow" when they see the screens.

And as Ironhand says, they may well not have finalised those skins - hey, we're all speculating on the basis of what's available to us, which is not a lot.

Rob

No one is ducking your point Mahoney.............we never have!

Low-res skins (if done well) look great at a certain range from the viewer, but terrible up close.

The point is that in KOE you'll be viewing your aircraft and objects "in your face" so to speak, and this is where low-res skins fall flat on theirs!

It's really a comparison of apples and oranges, which has worn quite thin over these past months.

And some hi-res skins are better than others! Il-2 - hi-res skins, I love many of them. KOE - hi-res skins, I think they're not nearly as good as some of Il-2's hi-res skins. In my opinion, the aesthetic effect of the artistry done on the textures in those screenshots is not that good.

Take Il-2 - some of the skins that came with the game were ugly as hell. Some of the skins done since by 3rd party skinners are works of art. Same 3D model, same resolution of the textures, different aesthetic result due to better art work on the textures.

So no, I am clearly not comparing apples and oranges. I am comparing the artistic effect of applying a texture to a 3D model, taking into account the limitations of the detail of the 3D model and the resolution of the textures. Which is all that is occurring in any of these case...

Rob

It gets irritating after awhile, doesn't it?

Droops

You know, I'm concerned now. Mr. FlyX here is suddenly posting KOE pictures that I've not seen before, that I can't find on the KOE website.

Where did these come from? What does Mr. FlyX know that we don't? Or is he hinting to us what the game's going to be like?

If so, its kind of scary to me and discouraging.

Oh well, I didn't really have the money to upgrade to a new computer anyway.

Droops

I honestly dont think the guns look like plastic. Looks metallic to me! Just my opinion tho...

Well Droops, "Mr. FlyXwire" has been doing his KOE homework here from the beginning!!!

So now Droops in the new found manner of not parsing our statements anymore on this forum, let me say that you are utterly and completely wrong!

In your effort to score hits in our discussions here, you have misstated the facts, and have put forth theories which bound on the fantastical...............I so thought we have left that sort of activity behind us months ago with the departing of another individual who got too personal with his forum activity.

It's time for you to search why you too feel compelled to engage in this type of conduct?

Now the facts Droops.........again the FACTS!!!

The screenshots I have recently posted here above are from previously previewed pictures that Aspect themselves showed us months ago on their own website!!!

That's right Sir, these screenshots have been available publically, some since Aspect's website first went online almost a year ago!!!

Where were you then I now ask, and where's your conspiracy theory now too???

The unseemly conduct of misstating supposed "facts", and in engaging in overblown "hyperbole", and in making direct and personal attacks on the character of others has got to stop!

You're on a slippery slope Droops.........quite frankly I think you're much better than this, but the bottom line is your assertions above are utterly and completely false, and really downright insulting........to both of us!

The question now is whether you can admit this............especially to yourself?

Mahoney, my first question to you is if you have ever textured WWI aircraft before (or done any skinning for that matter)? If yes, where can we access your work?

My second question to you is if you reserve judgment of a sim on previewed screenshots which is under development, and many months before it's supposed release date?

My third question to you is whether you think anyone from Aspect comes here and reads your postings?

Before you answer, let me give you my answers to the above questions: YES, YES, YES

You know, I think it very possible that the artist working for Aspect have done their damnedest to provide KOE with some of the best textures we've seen yet in a retail WWI flight sim. I think it also plausible that work continues on the game's graphics, and perhaps even on the sim's rendering engine too! Of course there are deadlines to make, and goals to be achieved.............

I think many artist put their heart and soul into their work, whether it be on physical media or through digital rendering.

Perhaps we need to give a bit more credit to those working on projects such as KOE?

Mahoney, you certainly have your right to critique what you've seen of KOE's screenshots (of which I'm aware now has been of a limited nature), but how aware are you of the present state of art of this sim's graphical development......and how aware can any of us really be of KOE's present state of being?

Ok Rob, it's all yours...........

I don't see how that's remotely relevant (I've never painted a picture or written a song, but I know that I prefer some artists work to others), but after a fashion, yes; I used some quite exceptional templates by Ishmael to put together a hi-res pup skin for my RB3D squadron. Not sure if it's still online, or if I still have it. Wasn't much of my own work really anyway; Ishmael had done all the difficult stuff.

Certainly I reserve judgement on the sim; that would by why I stated that the skins may change, but that the ones in the screenshots didn't look that special to me. Judging the ones in the screenshots, you see, rather than the sim itself. In response to a positive judgement about the quality of the art in the sim itself based on the screenshots.

I haven't the foggiest idea. How on earth would I know?

More than likely. I think they're more than likely big enough and old enough to cope with one less than enthusiastic comment on an internet message board, too...

Err, this doesn't seem to be in line with the rest of your post that strongly suggests you think it is wrong for me to critique them.

Sigh. It was a fairly inoccuous comment about the textures in a few screenshots; they look OK but not amazing compared to other stuff out there. Had you not gone off the deep end it wouldn't look like I was making such a big deal about it; for the record I don't think it's remotely a big deal. Yes, I agree that both the textures and the renderer may have come on a lot since they were made; more than that, as a programmer I know that they are totaly cosmetic, views onto the real meat of a program which is the actual logical model. Decorating is the last thing I am interested in a programmer.

It's bloody weird being on the other side of this argument; normally I'm the one saying people should cut the people who actually get up and do this stuff some slack. But equally I'm used to being in an environment where everyone doesn't get terribly upset if the response isn't uniformly positive.

Rob

Managed to find the skins on my HDD - you can find them here:

http://www.pm63.dial.pipex.com/files/IshPup.zip

They are hi-res compared to RB's default ones, but still only 256*80 at most. And I really must reiterate that the skill was all Ishmael's, I just used the template. Showed me a) how hard it is and b) what extraordinary results can be achieved even with the limitations of 256*80 dimensions and only 256 colours.

Rob

Edit - oh, and they're designed to fit Charles de Thielt's brilliant Pup model, not the stock RB one.

The fun of going through the archives - looks like I took some screenshots too. These were taken 3 years ago:

Well. All I can say is...

While you guys are debating or whatever on how the gun looks or how plastic or leather or dirty the skins look, I will be concerned with the most important part.

Shooting your tail out of the sky

And for the record, I have skin downloads off when playing IL2FB.

I'm more concerned with the development of the cockpit interface and detail than if a skin looks plastic. I'll be spending most of my time there.

Work in progress guys, work in progress.

I think the plastic look may be because these aircraft look like they just came off the factory floor.

It would be really interesting if KOE had some ability to enable progressive weathering as the player continues to use a particular plane. So, as the player goes through a campaign, one can start to see oil stains develop on the engine area or the elements fade and discolour the paint. Bullet impacts could be replaced by small patches on the air frame as the player continues with the same plane.

Now that would certainly be something new and interesting rather than jumping into a plane that looks like it has already been flying over the front for years (i.e. IL2)

S!

Dantes - I've thought that would be cool, too. I'd like to see a campaign system that keeps track of planes and pilots, and indeed assigns a plane to a pilot so that you feel a bit of a wrench if you manage to smash up your trusty mount (particularly if in consequence you end up flying the old DH2 that's the only non-allocated serviceavble plane in the squadron until a replacement can be found).

On that basis as you say a record could be kept of how old the plane is and how long since it was last doped/painted, with gradual increase in weathering. Being allowed to repaint your old plane could be a reward.

Could leave lots of room for interesting mistaken identity, too; you'#re a well known ace and you've plainted your DrI a pleasant combination of blue and yellow, but then you get injured and can't fly for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile your squad is short of crates so a rookie is handed your plane; in a dogfight the opposition are studiously avoiding him, convined it's the legendary X.

Rob

I like Pups too Mahoney!

Now here's one from a real close view:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SgAhA7gWH...428589966120434[/img]

Would you like to see more?

Neat ideas about weathering Dantes..........and I think you once mentioned it would be cool to see castor oil accumilate on our goggles in flight too.

Now that would be awesome!!!