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Final Approach - B17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth
by Len "Viking1" HjalmarsonImages and Obsession
The debate over "eye candy" has become downright spooky in the last few months. In almost every sim forum I visit, I see an almost grudging acceptance among the community that the best looking games also seem more playable. Nowhere is this more true than in combat simulations, where issues of visibility, SA, perception of distance and damage become critical to efficient combat responses.
Dig those shadows
The Wayward lads should be branding GOOD LOOKING™ any day now. This crew has not been playing around. In fact, not everyone is aware of a certain kind of madness known to afflict UK teams working on historical military simulations. It's time the truth was known.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. There. You read it here first.
PC Pilot reported in their second issue (1999) the following:
"Wayward found old aircraft in excellent condition and took thousands of pictures. As they explain, '. . . not only did we take photos of all the aircraft we saw, we also had reference books to work with. Many of these books were out of print and had to be hunted down for this project. We even have a book with all the dials and gauges from old German aircraft from which we gained valuable information.'"
USAAF Issue
"From this material designer Ken Hall could start to work on building the aircraft on the computer. When they worked on the B17 aircraft itself they made a full-size mockup of the cabin, to gauge the exact area. They concentrated on the smallest details: the whole landing gear is accurately reproduced, even down to the suspension moving in conjunction with the ground. Nuts and bolts that keep the aircraft together have all been hand placed on the aircraft in their exact position."
Waist Crew is... wasted
Bring up the larger version of this image and observe the following:
- wood and metal
- rivets
- holes where the shells have passed through
- two injured gunners!
- a crewman standing up in the bomb bay
- light and shadows
- the sky out the window
See? These guys are totally bananas.
When you begin to move around in the Fort, the place where you will soon be spending more hours than you will confess to your wife, children, and work-mates, you will appreciate the loving care lavished upon the textures and artwork of the B17. And when you gaze out the window from 25,000 feet, you will be equally astonished. These guys ain't foolin' around.
Other details will quickly catch your eye and fire your imagination. Starting the engines a puff of smoke belches from the exhaust ports. Glass has lost that perfect transparency notable in past simulations.. now it is murky and stained. Whether you gaze out the plexiglass nose from the bombardier's position or fire the guns from the ball turret, you'll see oil stained glass and reflections.
B17 supports T&L in hardware for the GeForce and Radeon crowd. Reflections and metal surfaces spring to life. The paint shows wear and tear. The clouds are real objects, with shadows of their own, and there are multiple layers. Flying high over the ocean, you'll see whitecaps far below.
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