B17 II Interview by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson
	B17 II: The Mighty Eighth is one of the most intriguing simulation designs of the decade. Just as Total Air War pushed the boundaries by combining a strategic game and a military flight simulation, so B17 II is pushing the boundaries of simulation gaming in a variety of areas. Combining state-of-the-art graphics with role play and motion capture crewmen, an online multiplayer game where up to ten humans can crew one heavy bomber, and a strong tactical dimension, B17 II is one of the most exciting simulation projects I've seen and looks likely to actually meet the high expectations that abound. Two weeks ago I fielded one of the most detailed interviews I have ever written to the Wayward team working on B17 II. Not only did they respond to my questions with great care, but they did so at a time when the team is working hard to achieve a development milestone. In spite of the pressure, they went the extra mile so that we could all enjoy reading about the work they are doing. A special thanks from COMBATSIM.COM staff and on behalf of all our readers. For our previous coverage, see the B17 II Interview dated April, '99 and the B17 II Preview dated May, '99. ********************* Q. This is a quote from our original interview: "there's the aspect of representing the environment as realistically as possible. That may sound as if it's a case of simply upping the resolution and texture usage, but in fact a large amount of what makes B-17 2 groundbreaking from a technical point of view is the technology sunk into the terrain, physics and effects. " Tell us more about the terrain engine, physics and effects. The Terrain Engine A. By their nature Flight Sims have always had to overcome the problem of modelling huge areas of terrain believably and beautifully. It is not difficult to model a large area convincingly if it is only to be viewed from very high up. In this case you can use satellite or aerial photography. The problem with this is that when you get low down it all quickly falls apart into a big blur that slowly passes beneath your plane and destroys all illusion of ground rush. Another more subtle problem with photography is that it is already naturally pre-lit and shadowed, so any real time lighting and shadowing added to the game can at times be at odds with the shadows photographed into the textures. It is also easy to model a small area to very high detail that will look great low down. The problem with this though is that when you get high up you need to fill a huge view area convincingly. So you either need Gigabytes of video RAM to store it all (which nobody has) or you need to have the same detailed texture squares tiled repeatedly, resulting in an unconvincing checkerboard landscape. And from the developers' point of view, even if we did have Gigabytes of video RAM, you would need an army of Artists and Level Designers to populate this enormous area with such detailed stuff. So we have adopted a different approach to things here and we are delighted with the results. We think our terrain looks great from very high up, with non repeated blended varieties of natural, urban and suburban areas stretching out to the horizon, with long roads curving smoothly through the landscape, all lit real time and casting shadows. And when you do go down low it does not break up, it actually goes down to a resolution of 20cm (we can actually go to higher resolutions) so you get an incredible impression of ground rush. In our terrain you can see the line down the middle of the road, the curbs and overhanging trees and hedgerows- all casting shadows. We recently calculated an interesting statistic from our systems performance - if we were to save out all the detailed non repeated textures that our game generates on the fly for Europe as a single flat texture map it would be in excess of 300,000,000 Terrabytes! or 300,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes! Click to continue		Notice the variety of effects! At 650Mb a pop this would neatly fit onto 461,538,461 CD's (+ 1 more if we include the game code) What a box set that would make! (Ed. I can see it now. You order a new sim and it arrives on a SEMI.) This is all coming together now and any screenshots to date have been work in progress, we will post some screen shots of the finished terrain, cities and all in a few weeks time and you can judge for yourselves whether we have succeeded. Physics and Effects As for the issue of how physics and effects contribute to immersion and realism of the game - well there are many ways. A beautiful environment is a great start, but it's just that - a start. To truly create an immersive and realistic experience the environment needs to interact properly with the player. Physics help that - the players aircraft will respond to the thinning air at altitude as he would expect it to. It will produce the wingtip streamers caused by high 'G' when he performs radical manoeuvres at high speeds. The suspension on landing gear will piston correctly as he taxis from the outside camera views or looks out the canopy at another aircraft taxiing. We also consider special effects a very important reward for the player. To satisfy this we have a programmer dedicated to effects who has been concentrating mostly on B-17 2's special effects for many months now. So far you've really only seen his contrails, muzzle flashes, bullet to ground impacts and some graphics for damaged B-17 engines. There is much, much more to come. A lot of what he's been up to relates to how objects like bullets and bombs interact with the ground and water, thus increasing realism and immersion. Fighter Dropping to Target We have wheels that turn, independent brakes, tarmac, grass, bumpiness, suspension, prop wash, wind, gusts. You can put a P51 or Bf109 onto its wingtip if you turn too fast. Break the left undercarriage, and it will drag round in circles on the wingtip. Brake too hard in a P51 and you will put it on its nose, bending the prop and kicking up dirt. And that's before you get into the air! We have engine torque, ground effect, wind, gusts, prop wash, turbulence. Control surface trimming, altitude/pressure/temperature effects. G effects on engines. Propeller/speed/efficiency models, ground effect, compressibility. Fly low over the airfield and dip the wing onto the grass - see what happens! We have belly landings and ditching on water. Lower the gear and feel the drag, feel the nose drop. Raise the flaps and feel the nose drop. Transfer fuel from left to right wingtanks and feel the pull to the right. Go to Strategy and Dynamics
Copyright © 1997 - 2000 COMBATSIM.COM, INC. All Rights Reserved. Last Updated August 2nd, 1999