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Normandy Development Update - October 16, 2013


luthier1

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Hello folks,

 

I’ve been absolutely swamped these past few days. Catching a plane to Moscow in a couple of hours, so I probably won’t respond to any questions or comments on this update for at least 24 hours.

 

Here’s where we are with Normandy today.

 

We started working on a 1:1 recreation of Utah beach. It’ll be one of the areas recreated down to each street, each object. It’s obviously in the very early stages.

 

We’re playing around with the representation of the areas with German defensive flooding, and trying to get it so you can still see the fields and villages underneath the floodwaters.

 

We’re also just generally laying out all the important areas, roads, bridges, villages, and so on.

 

Finally, we’re also working on different types of coastal cliffs.

LandViewer-2013-10-16-06-08-03-87.thumb.jpg.2094fd991107d882ecb457679ae7266f.jpg

LandViewer-2013-10-16-06-09-05-88.thumb.jpg.7582203bac936e742a26a220bbd7e2c1.jpg

LandViewer-2013-10-16-06-13-31-99.thumb.jpg.504c4bdf984770211ed262d3e5aaa24f.jpg

LandViewer-2013-10-16-06-20-21-28.thumb.jpg.ecdf1a094fae73282913bf3ad4388410.jpg

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Very nice, although would the flood waters be very clear that you could see through them? I would assume they would be pretty muddy... lets hope you can do different terrain types to that if someone rolls a tank into them I would imagine it would be a big muddy mess and probably get stuck....

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Thanks Ilya!

 

Looks like a good start!

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Even though I appreciate the effort - a feet or two of water poured over a field will never be blue from above - or from any angle ;). But I'm sure you are well aware of that and this is just a very first test... But still - I think that the flooding (even though historically correct) will be very hard to get right? If you "pour" brownish water over the fields it will probably just look strange anyway? Water like that should not have a "defined" edge, but rather a "fade to soaked ground/mud" - and I just can't see that done right without a lot of effort that could be spent on more important stuff? Many will for sure not agree :)

 

Something like this flooded field IRL - but how to get this right in a sim?

 

k0q4.png

 

But I do like the new cliffs! Good stuff!


Edited by mazex

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Even though I appreciate the effort - a feet or two of water poured over a field will never be blue from above - or from any angle ;). But I'm sure you are well aware of that... I think that the flooding (even though historically correct) will be very hard to get right? If you "pour" brownish water over the fields it will probably just look strange anyway? Water like that should not have a "defined" edge, but rather a "fade to soaked ground/mud" - and I just can't see that done right without a lot of effort that could be spent on more important stuff? Many will for sure not agree :)

 

Something like this flooded field IRL - but how to get this right in a sim?

 

k0q4.png

 

But I do like the new cliffs! Good stuff!

 

I must completely disagree with you. As someone who grew up in the Midwest in a farming family, some fields were flooded almost every year. This is also in the area with the best topsoil in the world (black gold we call it / black dirt). The water only remains murky or brownish/dark looking when it's in a state of movement. This is because the sediment has not settled down out of the water yet.

 

But if you have standing water (yes only 2ft deep) that's been sitting still for a while, coupled with a sunny day with a nice blue sky, the water most definitely can look blue.

 

I've seen this 100's of times from the air in when riding along in the crop duster. But again, this is water that's standing still. Water that is slowly being drained back in the ground. Water that is flowing quite heavily may never clear up. Also you can see in the screenshots the ocean water is different color that the flood water. It looks pretty good to me.

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I must completely disagree with you. As someone who grew up in the Midwest in a farming family, some fields were flooded almost every year. This is also in the area with the best topsoil in the world (black gold we call it / black dirt). The water only remains murky or brownish/dark looking when it's in a state of movement. This is because the sediment has not settled down out of the water yet.

 

But if you have standing water (yes only 2ft deep) that's been sitting still for a while, coupled with a sunny day with a nice blue sky, the water most definitely can look blue.

 

I've seen this 100's of times from the air in when riding along in the crop duster. But again, this is water that's standing still. Water that is slowly being drained back in the ground. Water that is flowing quite heavily may never clear up. Also you can see in the screenshots the ocean water is different color that the flood water. It looks pretty good to me.

 

Well - as a theoretical city boy I rest my case, the only flooded fields I have seen are "temporarily flooded" fields after some thunderstorm (which happens sometimes in the fields around our suburb). But that is another thing naturally as they are gone in a day or two...

 

Like this image I took after some rather hefty rain in our neighborhood... There is a bicycle tunnel going under that railway in the background there :)

 

pxbp.jpg

 

Not that it matters - but I have to add that my son is doing a "silly face" like most kids do when a camera is pointed at them :) He looks perfectly normal in other cases... :)


Edited by mazex

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I must completely disagree with you. As someone who grew up in the Midwest in a farming family, some fields were flooded almost every year. This is also in the area with the best topsoil in the world (black gold we call it / black dirt). The water only remains murky or brownish/dark looking when it's in a state of movement. This is because the sediment has not settled down out of the water yet.

 

But if you have standing water (yes only 2ft deep) that's been sitting still for a while, coupled with a sunny day with a nice blue sky, the water most definitely can look blue.

 

I've seen this 100's of times from the air in when riding along in the crop duster. But again, this is water that's standing still. Water that is slowly being drained back in the ground. Water that is flowing quite heavily may never clear up. Also you can see in the screenshots the ocean water is different color that the flood water. It looks pretty good to me.

 

Well, mazex I guess was thinking about the edges/banks of the artifical lakes to be more blended with the surrounding terrain so instead of a dry surface/terrain line stg. like dry surface/soaked surface/mud/deep mud/water. This is reasonable if you look at it, but I hardly ever seen water blending done right in realtime rendered graphics. It's not an easy thing to do I guess...

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Hey mazex,

 

It can most definitely look cloudy etc, but I would have loved to see what the top of that water looked like from a bright and sunny day with blue skies. I'm betting it would be a lot different. As you probably well know, a large percentage of what the water will look like from above also has to do with reflections. Just look at the water at the beach when it's overcast compared to bright blue skies and sun. The ocean doesn't have much blue when the sky is overcast, raining etc.

 

Looks like your son was perfectly ready to get his picture taken ;).

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Hey mazex,

 

It can most definitely look cloudy etc, but I would have loved to see what the top of that water looked like from a bright and sunny day with blue skies. I'm betting it would be a lot different. As you probably well know, a large percentage of what the water will look like from above also has to do with reflections. Just look at the water at the beach when it's overcast compared to bright blue skies and sun. The ocean doesn't have much blue when the sky is overcast, raining etc.

 

Looks like your son was perfectly ready to get his picture taken ;).

 

Yes - I've had a pilots license for 20 years or so and I agree that water "from above" look rather different than from a boat/beach. It's rather impressive how far down into the sea you can see banks, rocks, old wrecks etc. I cannot remember flying over flooded fields but if the sediments have "cleared" I can imagine that the water would not be that obvious in some cases? And in other cases very reflective and obvious even with a few decimeters of water...

 

And like Jeesus says - I think that even if you get the color/reflection right it will be hard to get the right "flooded" feeling as I guess that the line where the water "ends" will be a rather diffuse line of grass/crops/mud that is semi covered in water? Not like a well defined shoreline? My image of the flooded tunnel is not a good example as that is a filled "artificial" "crevice" with mowed grass etc... When the "real fields" on the other side of the village are flooded in summertime (like in the Normandy scenario) it becomes a very diffuse line of where the water begins and the soaked crops/mud starts...

 

Something like this (ignoring the color as this is a "freshly flooded field" and I fully buy your first hand experience of that!):

 

vt3o.png


Edited by mazex

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Yes - I've had a pilots license for 20 years or so and I agree that water "from above" look rather different than from a boat/beach. It's rather impressive how far down into the sea you can see banks, rocks, old wrecks etc. I cannot remember flying over flooded fields but if the sediments have "cleared" I can imagine that the water would not be that obvious in some cases? And in other cases very reflective and obvious even with a few decimeters of water...

 

And like Jeesus says - I think that even if you get the color/reflection right it will be hard to get the right "flooded" feeling as I guess that the line where the water "ends" will be a rather diffuse line of grass/crops/mud that is semi covered in water? Not like a well defined shoreline? My image of the flooded tunnel is not a good example as that is a filled "artificial" "crevice" with mowed grass etc... When the "real fields" on the other side of the village are flooded in summertime (like in the Normandy scenario) it becomes a very diffuse line of where the water begins and the soaked crops/mud starts...

 

Something like this (ignoring the color as this is a "freshly flooded field" and I fully buy your first hand experience of that!):

 

vt3o.png

Yeah, this is the sort of appearance I had in mind. The current WIP version looks more like a lake than a flooded field, but just having less clearly defined edges would help that a lot.

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I'm living in Normandy and as a private pilot I fly above this area often ... I never show this area so full of water ... you have big grass who cover water in flooted area ... and anyway when field are full of water (really not often), the color is Brown but not bleu at all .... it little look like field in Kazan's Area in Russia when snow leave in April...

It's certainly hard to do realistic bog with simulation engine...

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47850-004-E1625278.jpg

 

Aerial photograph of an inundated zone on the Cotentin Peninsula south of Sainte-Mère-Église, France, prior to the airborne assault on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

 

I guess they used the nearby river and the ditches for watering crops to flood this area.

 

On another note, roughly 16% of the initial funding are going into landscape development (as stated on kickstarter), so I demand some sort flooded fields!

Just like others want to see the typical hedgerows, or historically accurate towns. ;)


Edited by BabyJail
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We should also keep in mind that the screenshots are most likely taken from the landscape editor where none of the terrain is self-shaded, and reflection/refractions could also be different than what you will see in-game.

Just a thought.

 

Yes - and it is a very first super-pre-alpha version so I feel a bit over the top complaining about it...

 

But - my thought is that it will be very hard to get the right "feeling" of a flooded field even though it was historically correct. And the problem is that most people don't know about this flooding (even if it was in Band of Brothers? ;)). So if a lot of effort is put down into it and it still looks a bit "weird" in the game I question if it is worth the effort doing it instead of just skipping it? Water in a game is hard to do and very much "on or off" and making a good jagged/fuzzy transition to wet crops/mud will be hard as I see it? Even making good mud/wet ground is very tough in a simulator...

 

Looking at Cliffs of Dover the distant water is one of my few "annoyances" with the landscape as the whole semi distant range looks like it is flooded in Kent. That due to the fact that there are small streams all around and they don't "lod" well so it looks like "too much water" for me at least at semi far distance. Streams/rivers are often a bit carved down in the landscape and surrounded by vegetation so they should "disappear" at a high angle/far distance. Not easy to do naturally and most sims have the same problem (in my opinion).

 

An image from the beta of the game that unfortunately never was completed (Battle of Moscow) of the last (?) version of the Cliffs of Dover engine (not taking in account the amazing work by team fusion on the original CloD engine) where the distant "water problem" I talk of is very pronounced. Small ponds/streams/marshland/water surfaces are hard to do!

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=156857&d=1342791162

 

And sorry Luthier to bring up BoM here ;)

 

But I do appreciate that they try, so we should give them some slack :)


Edited by mazex

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