Screenshot request for Gr.Viper

Hi GV,

Have you downloaded the Dux-manufactured Nieuport 17 for the sim?

If you have, could you link some screenshots of it, cockpit views included, I'm really wanting to see how it looks!

PS. I can host the screenshots if need be, and I'll forward you my e-mail address via PM if you do.

Thanks Bud!

Hey, the poor fellow has a big exam coming up this week... If he doesn't get around to posting screenies we should have some understanding for that...

Due to some server bugs N.17 is not unlocked yet. Devs said they're working on it and it should become available today. So far I can only see it in hangar.

Exam comes next week, but up yet to finish my final paper.

Anyway... take that!

LOL, sorry about that GV, and much appreciated.

Btw, thanks for posting these screenies, and best of luck on your exam and paper!!!

Marvellous! Thanks so much Gr. Viper. You are feeding our addiction nicely. Look after yourself first though.
One question: is it fun?

Main fun comes from flying. Takeoff isn't just setting throttle to full - you have to balance the plane with rudder and stick. And sweat profusely. As my helo trainer told me, when I was learning how to hover, "If you sweat - you learn something".
I accidentially flew with closed radiator on SPAD... after some time the engine suddeny jerked and stopped. Jammed, I suppose. I was about 50m over some trees and in a turn so I crashed instantly. SPAD can also carry a couple of bombs in an internal bay - they nicely fall on the ground with a thud and detonate after a few seconds.

BTW, Fokker is a cheat to fly on hardcore settings. It has auto mixture built in. On SPAD mixture setting is manual. Not that you have to touch it a lot if you don't change altitude, but still Germans have it easier.

Thanks Viper, smashing shots - good luck with your exam!

Ming

Thanks a lot for the reply. A helo pilot - terrifying! I've done two flights in a fixed wing recently and saw a guy learning to fly a helicopter and just thought "No". That is not something I need to do. I can well imagine it is a sweat inducing process.

GAME
=============================
I've been thinking up bunch of questions. If you can answer ANY of them at all that'd be really great but *PLEASE don't feel you need to*.

1. Just out of interest, what kind of specs are you running on and does the game seem to run smoothly enough?

2. Love that shot of the Spad flying downtown. Such great detail on the buildings, and the scale seems better than IL2. >Are they able to be destroyed?

3.In No Man's land are there any shell bursts or tanks charging about the place? If not, they can probably be placed by the mission builder I suppose.

4. Actually, is there any 'life' anywhere- debriefing, ground crew, trucks charging about the airfield, other flights in the air etc? I saw some clips of animated characters on some promo video I recall.

5. Does the weather/ time of day change?

6. Can you set storms/ lightning/ etc?

7.Is the ground in general land-on-able (it's in the Oxford dictionary, trust me) or is it like IL2 in which you bounce all over the place?

8. Let us know anything about campaigns.

10. Let us know anything about the mission editor (though I know that would take ages and not be that much fun when you can exploring the sexy new world of WWI flying and fighting).

11. Does the AI screw up and wing into the ground or stall out?

12. Can you control your AI team mates?

13. Are there any big towns? If so, do they have distinctive landmarks or other features? do they kill frame-rates?

14. What's the viewable distance like for aircraft and objects?

15. Are aircraft ever 'invisible' at closer ranges or do they smoothly expand and contract depending on the distance?(if you play IL2 you will know that some planes seem to almost disappear at about 500m, especially against the ground)

16. Do balloons burn beautifully? Do the observers bail or ride her into the ground?


Really sorry for all the questions but I'm dying to try this thing out for myself. Like I said, please don't feel obligated to answer anything at all.

Cheers,
FlatSpinMan

Thank you Viper for some fantastic screen shots! Good luck on your exam.

Questions :

- are there the high-definition skins in the screenshots or not ?
- On which definition level is here the landscape ?
- What about AA settings ?

Thanks for the info.


P.S Possible to have also some captures with different variants of overcast and grey skies, at flight hours ?

...but still Germans have it easier.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No "bar" on the Fokke ? ;-))))

Other question : is there any color settings in the setup of the game ?

All settings set to high apart from medium terrain textures. Bloom set to off. No AA set up. At the moment AA doesn't work with any of the post effects.

N.17 enabled. Touched the ground with a wing during takeoff - immedaitely broke a strut. Could fly more or less OK, but when I pulled on the stick IT happened.

How did the wing come off? Pulled to hard on the broken strut?

Simply pulled too hard. Not very hard... First the lower wing came off, then I went into a spin and the top one got ripped away.

That damaged strut was the root of it all I can clearly see that now.

Appreciate the pics GV, and your "post-op".

Eh, in the screenshot of the forward view from the D.VII towards the forest, the plane itself is BLURRED! - What's that all about?!

Optional Depth of Field effect. When it is on, looking at scenery makes the plane blurred, studying cockpit blurs scenery, and looking at wings might give a bit of both worlds. The funniest result is that you can't focus both on gunsight and the target.

Viper, how does the view get affected if the plane is leaking oil/fuel?

Is it a splash decal like in IL2?

Haven't seen that yet.
They say that rain makes vision blurry, but again - didn't have a chance to test.

All settings set to high apart from medium terrain textures.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Is it only my eyes or the marking on the aircrafts (for instance cocards) look very low-def ?


P.S: possible to have an idea of the forward and gunsight view on the Nieuport ? Thanks.

They say that rain makes vision blurry...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I just hope that, at last in a modern sim, we will have correct grey weather options, aka high overcast (also without wind and rain) and strat-onimbus skies.

Not just perfect weather and bad weather, bad enough that in normal time no aircraft would fly.

For instance, this kind of sky...

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/cILH9bJ3rNSnKzID9R5tnw

... and also, very important, over the clouds, another level of very high clouds making a second overcast.

Tis a well known fact that posting video footage increases the chance of passing exams exponentially

Off of the Sukhoi forum (using the optional DOF graphic view setting to on in-game):

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93596&d=1241707009

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93597&d=1241707009

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93598&d=1241707009

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93599&d=1241707009

http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=93600&d=1241707009

Very nice depth of field there, scrumptious

Rather bright haystacks. Stooks

Thanks FR

Ming

>>
Very nice depth of field there, scrumptious
<<

I agree, what a fantastic concept! Thanks for the links, FoxtrotRomeo.

I think the word your looking for is "innovative". And it is, and it's been awhile since the word has been used in flightsims.

Nice pictures FR!

ps what's a stook?

The depth of field effect is fantastic. How does the software know whether you're studying the cockpit or the landscape? Does it just depend on what's in the centre of the screen? Is there a 'fade' from one depth of field to another when you look from one to the other or does it snap between views? Really impressed with this feature, I've never seen anything like it in a flight sim.

Piper, a stook is a stack of wheat/barley/whatever, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stook

There's some sort of fade. I think the game tries to adjust DOF to what takes most of the screen space, not what's in the centre. So you can't read gauges or look through sights unless you pitch view much lower than normally. Not very convenient.

So viper when is you're first video uploading coming of some nice engagements?
Hehe just kidding it's great enough that you're willing share screens and answer questions m8.

The AI begins to remind me of Il-2. That is, it flies nicely.. but it will shoot and ram you head on, if placed right ahead of you by mission designer, without any hesitation. Then it starts to suck if you do some creative flying: going N.17 vs N.17 I rapidly dived from my initial altitude cutting throttle. AI tried to follow without much thought, exceeded all speed limits and got its wings ripped off. Next one was Breguet, which kept making cool turns with full bomb load and gunner who could hit me in this position.


What a view...


Just a shot

Shame, I'm an AA junkie.

The damage modelling sounds fantastic.

Quick question: I remembered those old screenshots of a wonderful autumn terrain... Are seasons supported? Or is that going to be one of the upgrades...

Seasons are planned for later. Only summer terrain is there now.

So have you found a train yet viper? Would love to see a few screens of the trains if you run across one.

DOF depends on your viewpoint. There looks to be a angle (cone) of sight that if you are pointing there the area is in focus, everything else is out of focus (like when you use the Aperture settings on a camera). So to change between in focus points by moving your point of view (POV). It's kind of like starting out with TrackIR again in some respects.

angle (cone) of sight

It's a linear zone like a box rather than a cone in front of the eyepoint, two distances away from the eyepoint, the Z direction in the scene. DOF processing uses the Z-buffer, the depth buffer we're already familiar with: the Painter's Algorithm

The depth of the zone-in-focus depending on the size of the camera aperture. At f16, most objects in front of the lens are in focus. At f2.8, depth of field becomes narrower in the Z direction (towards or away from the eyepoint)

Set depth of field to begin at 1m and end at 10m and everything within the zone 1m to 10m is in focus

Set depth of field to begin at 20cm and end at 6m and everything from 20cm to 6m is in focus. 10cm, blurred: 7m, likewise blurred

Set depth of field to begin at 10cm and end at 3m and you have a blurred background after 3m

Set DOF to begin at 6cm and to end at 1.5m and you have the instruments in focus but behind the panels (the terrain) everything is blurred

It's a post-processing filter. Render the whole frame and then (as it were) Photoshop it on the fly at 30fps. Serious stuff

Ming

Hey Master,

Have ya seen this one?

http://www.nd.ru/images/products/771033/771033_screenshot_big_14.jpg