Holy mother of world terrain graphics!

[diveplane]

all splendid eye candy fun hawx

 

downloading the demo here to try for fun.

[diveplane]

music score in this bench mark demo is fantastic,

 

visuals are nice.

[element1108]

This article had a bunch of interesting bits that can be applied to this thread for consideration:

 

http://www.simhq.com/_commentary/all_106a.html

 

Long read, but a good read..."THE FUTURE OF SIMULATIONS" with a bunch of developers who answer questions (developers from STORM OF WAR, JET THUNDER, RISE OF FLIGHT etc).

 

One answer caught my attention the most;

 

DANTE from JET THUNDER:

 

Dante: This is an interesting question that affects directly our experience. Our lead programmer and cofounder, Steven, has worked for 3 years for THQ in a console product in the same style as Tom Clancy's HAWX. It requires a lot of investment (financial) to develop and promote a product like this; they don't have FM, DM, campaigns or anything, but they must have absolutely killer, cutting edge graphics, amazing CG cut-scenes with real actor or high-quality computer generated actors, excellent voiceovers (sometimes by well-known voice artists or even actors/celebrities), lots and lots of modern, real world vehicles and aircraft with licensing rights to pay for, expensive original orchestrated soundtrack, SDKs and licenses for every gaming platform out there, it's basically a Hollywood production costing quite like it with a very large staff backing it.

 

Basically, when I knocked in the doors of some publishers to offer Jet Thunder (JT), they suggested to transform it into a HAWX-clone so they can sell it more easily and in much higher quantities. We can't turn Jet Thunder into HAWX — a flight sim for PC and an arcade flight action game for consoles are two completely different products, they have nothing in common except airplanes in it. It would be easier and faster to make a parallel product under a completely different codebase.

 

Summing up, we didn't pursue that market because it feels like (in an analogy to film industry) doing an Avatar-type multi-million blockbuster before you do your indie-intellectual movie oriented to a specific niche. It is less risky to be running with much lower costs with a product aimed for a specific niche (this is a very important hint for this business!).

 

We would had sunk a couple millions in a risky HAWX clone, thankfully we didn't. Console blockbuster territory *is* risky. The game that Steven worked for THQ, "Stormbirds", ended-up cancelled, because it was too risky and the cost to promote and release was nearing what was spent on developing it so they thought it was better to just pull the plug on it than to spend more.

 

 

Lots of questions often posed or argued by the community here and abroad are answered from the development side of things in this Q and A. I particularly like this one from OLEG because I've noticed the demands and complaints the most ludacris over on the 1C forums:

 

 

QUESTION: 20mm: What do you think today's simulation fans want (besides everything). Is it mostly gameplay, eye-candy, a dynamic campaign, a solid multiplayer, better-and-better AI, or some new element?

 

Oleg: I would say everything anyway! And when we give more and more, making 3D more and more close to a realistic image they never stop their complaints. Comments like, “This screw is not on the right place or this curl of the cloud doesn’t look good”. At the same time a few users would like too much realistic control of aircraft using all the devices like in real life. These are in minority. So there always should be the right calculated balance between realism and usability for a casual player, or we will be not able to sell the new product well and cover our expenses.

[sungsam]

I think we are mixing the art with the Fart here. :D:)

 

Imagine the CPU power consumed for bringing all 4th generation avionics flight physics and comms to reality. Imagine the calculations needed to accurately simulate weapon envelopes, realistic enemy behaviours on real 3D space, with geometry getting it's role as in reality. As much as AI and hundreds more things I can not recall.

 

The arcade Hawx 2 lacks of a these futures and overhead above.

 

Putting the graphics of Hawx 2 on top of DCS it may be possible, but you will need a next decade PC! DCS Real 3D graphics and HAWX photorealistic 3D like graphics are two completely different things !

 

 

 

P.S. I also own Wings of pray. Very good graphics, High FPS, and good physics …. But nothing more to simulate from a WWII Fighter than some basic avionics and AI.

 

:thumbup:

Edited January 3, 2011 by sungsam

[Succellus]

Unfortunatly we can t have the eggs and the omelet yet.

So what do we want ? More eggs or more omelet ?

I also agree that the terrain could have some serious improvement, it still basicly looks like LO.

But well have a more precise idea of what can be achieved when SoW BOB hit the shelves.

As for the grafics presented on HAWX 2 (the screenshot shown in this thread anyway) weren t that impressive to me. It was Rio de Janeiro, OK, i live there, and they look too fake, too much make up IMHO. Too shiny, too bright. The reflexes looks like if all is brand new. It looks even better than in damn tourist photoshoped postcards!!! Scr** that!

In that department i still prefer the more dark, greety, dooming looks the actuall engine brings, its more like it.

But it still really need a serious lifting, OTOH we need to be patient, its coming slowly but it is. I m much more gripped about multicore use than GFX a this time.

NO brand do single core anymore, and almost noooone use even 2 cores, much less 4... so what da hell ?

[Teknetinium]

:).

Edited January 3, 2011 by Teknetinium