Nice Simulation of Aerial View of Trenches

[TEShaw]

There's a well done docu-drama about infantrymen centered on the first day of the Somme, July 1, 1916, titled (unsurprisingly), "The Somme".  -to be found on Amazon Video:

 

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07TK1ZFJK/ref=atv_wl_hom_c_unkc_1_6

 

And, yes, it is about the infantry; but there are some animated battle maps of the trenches that look very much like what a World War I flight simulator battlefield could be.

 

And, it's offered here only as that- merely how some other entity envisioned it.

 

And, yes, it's not unlike some of the BoX animated battleground.

 

This is not a suggestion or comparison, just 'Oh, look at this one!'

 

[And, now that I've brought up Somme infantry, there's this other documentary about battlefield camera-work where, in the smallest, barely discernible detail at the top of the frame, they show you something truly chilling.

 

"Battle Of The Somme: The True Story"

https://smile.amazon.com/Battle-Somme-Story-Julian-Richings/dp/B07GBFZXZH/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=somme&qid=1564750738&s=instant-video&sr=1-4 

]

 

Enjoy.

 

regards,

 

Airman T. E. Shaw

 

 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

I have big hope for 3d trenches but I'm afraid that height map used in FC have not enough resolution to do it. So we would have only better textures after 10 years compared to ROF. I hope whole map would be good enough to recompensate that. I can't wait to see it and finally play some historical missions or events.

[Zooropa_Fly]

Lack of 3d trenches have been a disappointment in RoF, and not being able to leave a crater in a runway is a big minus for that and especially BoX. 

I could imagine adding a subterranean level to the game would be a big job though.. 

[Cynic_Al]

40 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

I have big hope for 3d trenches but I'm afraid that height map used in FC have not enough resolution to do it. So we would have only better textures after 10 years compared to ROF. I hope whole map would be good enough to recompensate that. I can't wait to see it and finally play some historical missions or events.

 

Suppose you were to land/crash and fall into a 3D trench; what would you expect to find therein?

2D trenches provide a much-needed demarcation between the environment of a flying game and something that isn't a flying game.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

1 minute ago, Cynic_Al said:

 

Suppose you were to land/crash and fall into a 3D trench; what would you expect to find therein?

2D trenches provide a much-needed demarcation between the environment of a flying game and something that isn't a flying game.

 

one example 4 y

 

Trench strafing do ring the bell?

[SP1969]

3 hours ago, Cynic_Al said:

2D trenches provide a much-needed demarcation between the environment of a flying game and something that isn't a flying game

 

 

I find the ground generally does that, trenches or not, Al.

[Cynic_Al]

4 hours ago, 307_Tomcat said:

 

one example 4 y

 

Trench strafing do ring the bell?

 

I don't think you quite understood but no matter.

 

OK you want to strafe trenches. So having strafed a trench, what result would you expect to see?

[Feathered_IV]

If the destruction in no-man's land will be shown by default in the FC map, I wonder if they will also show the same historical bomb damage by default in the Bodenplatte landscape?

[yaan98]

11 hours ago, Cynic_Al said:

 

I don't think you quite understood but no matter.

 

OK you want to strafe trenches. So having strafed a trench, what result would you expect to see?

 

Good point. There won't be much of a campaign in FC beyond missions strung together. Forget dynamic campaigns like EECH or F4 BMS where you actually need to think about mission assignments because your actions carry over to the next mission.

[No.23_Triggers]

I'd love to see 3D trenches, and a shell-holed no-mans-land that makes for horrific landing conditions. Of course, I'd love to see the troops down there too!  

 

...But if it's the same 2D front we had in RoF then we haven't lost anything, right? So long as we can experience that same ominous feeling of the front getting closer I'll be happy...

 

So long as there aint any bloody ambient flak



 

Edited August 3, 2019 by US103_Larner

[Feathered_IV]

If a square at the centre of the Prokhorovka map can have a mesh detail of 8x or 16x greater than the surrounding countryside, perhaps the FC map can have a strip of higher detailed terrain mesh where no-man's land would be?

[OrLoK]

Ill be happy with bump mapped trenches or "raised" entrencements (as other games that cant handle sub terrain environs do it. eg Arma)

 

Im sure the devs will do the best with the constraints allowed.

Edited August 3, 2019 by OrLoK

[J2_Bidu]

13 hours ago, US103_Larner said:

I'd love to see 3D trenches, and a shell-holed no-mans-land that makes for horrific landing conditions. Of course, I'd love to see the troops down there too!  

 

...But if it's the same 2D front we had in RoF then we haven't lost anything, right? So long as we can experience that same ominous feeling of the front getting closer I'll be happy...

 

So long as there aint any bloody ambient flak



 

 

Well, if they can't show us the troops, which is quite reasonable given current limitations, then they might show us some smoke, etc for scenarios covering offensive periods. Just making clear there is some life (and death) down there.

Edited August 3, 2019 by J2_Bidu
Spelling

[LukeFF]

On 8/3/2019 at 5:43 AM, J2_Bidu said:

 

Well, if they can't show us the troops, which is quite reasonable given current limitations, then they might show us some smoke, etc for scenarios covering offensive periods. Just making clear there is some life (and death) down there.

 

My guess is we'll eventually see individual MG teams, like what we have on the WWII side in the form of tripod-mounted MGs that fire at ground targets and other ones that will shoot at enemy planes. 

[ShamrockOneFive]

Some of you may not have experienced this in IL-2: Great Battles but many of the campaigns and even the career mode now have zones setup where enemy machine gunners face off against each other. It's relatively simple on the ground but from the air, flying over, it looks like an intense firefight going on between opposing squads of troops. It's a good effect and it really helps up the immersion.

 

I think they will be able to pull that off here no problem. Perhaps there won't be action along the entire front but then that's probably not wholly accurate to the real world situation either. There were quiet times.

[Zooropa_Fly]

One map I did had tank battles raging in the streets of Lille, was fun to fly over !

Ai battles around the trenches are easy enough to do.

Edited August 4, 2019 by Zooropa_Fly

[Flashy]

The topic of what level of front line detail is necessary for a flight sim is quite a tricky one indeed. On one hand, we have the RoF level, which even by the standards of the day were pretty disappointing because they were just a flat texture drawn on the ground. Some of the added effects like the dust cloud and the dead trees were nice, but that was about it.  Then on the other hand you have very highly detailed terrain like you find in FPS games like Battlefield 1 or Verdun - this looks awesome, but is obviously overkill for a flight sim and nowhere near practical from a time or performance level for the scale we are talking about with the Arras map. So the sweet spot must lie somewhere between these two extremes, but where? 

 

I would say at a minimum we need the front and no-mans land to be very torn up, uneven and filled with as many craters as possible - it should definitely use the increased 16X detail tech from Prokhorovka as much as possible to model actual craters and holes you can crash into - and shouldn't just rely on the "high-friction" hack that was implemented on all off-field terrain in BoX. The dead trees, dust and artillery explosions should be kept and hopefully expanded on, and there should be many more battlefield detail objects like barbed wire lines (we had these in RoF, but nobody used them because they were tiny, took forever to place and killed performance if you placed anywhere near the number you would need).  Destroyed villages in no-mans land should also be given a bit more detail, maybe with smoke and fire effects inside them like they did for Stalingrad? 

 

The trenches are the most difficult IMO. A couple years back Vander made some cool 3d trench models for RoF, but using them en masse had the same issues as the barbed wire - you would have to place thousands of them to model a decent length of the front, which would take you forever and then the performance would tank. So maybe they could build the trenches into the heightmap of the map itself (again using the 16X detail tech), and then use some kind of texture trick to make it look like a 3d object when it actually isnt. I dont think it would be possible to use actual 3d objects because of the performance issues (hope I'm wrong). 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Flashy

[SP1969]

17 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

I think they will be able to pull that off here no problem. Perhaps there won't be action along the entire front but then that's probably not wholly accurate to the real world situation either. There were quiet times.

 

March to August 1918 around Arras was not a quiet time. 

 

It wasn't static trench warfare, either, to be honest. 

[ShamrockOneFive]

4 minutes ago, SP1969 said:

 

March to August 1918 around Arras was not a quiet time. 

 

It wasn't static trench warfare, either, to be honest.  

 

That's not really what I meant. Sure, during offensives you've got tons of activity. During some of the in between periods there was more sporadic machine gun fire, snipers, etc. But far less intensity. The point being that the entire front line doesn't have to have machine gun fire snaking across it at all times for it to be believable.

[SP1969]

2 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

 

That's not really what I meant. Sure, during offensives you've got tons of activity. During some of the in between periods there was more sporadic machine gun fire, snipers, etc. But far less intensity. The point being that the entire front line doesn't have to have machine gun fire snaking across it at all times for it to be believable.

 

Agreed and accepted. The 'emptiness' of the front is often mentioned in contemporary trench writing.