IL-2 Great Battles Updates 2021

Thank you for that information @RedBravo65.

Now can you explain how I can switch my view from what was recorded during the the flight while in the cockpit when watching the recording/track? It makes it very difficult to learn how to fly the aircraft when you are unable to change the view that was recorded while in the cockpit.

Wheels

I’m not sure what you are asking. You want to switch view from “cockpit view”? The only thing I think you are asking me is how do you “edit” the replay view…is this correct? In the “Flight Records” in the main menu of IL-2 you see the replay track you want to view; when you click or highlight the record you have several options below like delete, copy and edit IIRC. You can edit the replay track to what-ever view you want to watch it from, then save that track with the new views.

Or if you are asking me how to watch the replay track other than from the cockpit, there are several key presses, mainly the F1 through F12 buttons. F2 is the basic outside view of your aircraft, Left+Alt+F2 cycles through various preset views of the aircraft you are focusing on. F1 puts you back in the cockpit view. F3 is flyby view of your aircraft, F4 is the dogfight view between your aircraft and your target etc., the list is there in the keyboard commands section of the “Controls Settings” menu.

Can you clarify a bit about what you want and what you are trying to do? Cheers.

I understand how to view all the external views of my aircraft and the other objects while viewing the track. What I can not do is change the field of view in my cockpit so I can look at different gauges or in a different direction than what was done while the track was being recorded.

Wheels

The camera commands are the same in the game or watching a replay, if memory serves. So zoom is something like NP+ NP- or mouse wheel. I have them mapped to HOTAS, so don’t recall. And of course most of us are either using TrackIR or VR, so another method of changing FOV.

I’ll test that today and reply here to be sure.

I stand corrected. The external views can be changed, but the cockpit is locked. I never noticed this before. So, I guess that you need to capture while flying if you want to change the cockpit view. Not the best for someone who flies in VR, but edits and creates video in 2D.

Then the only thing I can think of and I have not used that myself is to “edit” the replay track using the editing system in the Flight Records section of the game. I use TrackIR so what I would try is edit the the video and while in the cockpit look around to what I wanted to focus on and then save that view as another, differently named replay track. If you use keyboard commands to rotate a cockpit view, just use those or buttons on your joystick. I believe this would work but then again, have not edited in cockpit views myself, only outside views.

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Dear Friends,

As some of you who frequent our forums already know, Jason has recently announced that we’re developing a new tech called DVD and invited you to guess what that actually means. There were different guesses and some of them were near misses. The answer is, DVD means Dynamic Visual Damage. In a nutshell, it places an impact mark where a projectile hit.

Among the many neat possibilities this tech brings, the size of the mark corresponds to the caliber of the projectile and/or explosive power of the shell if it was of the HE variety. They also look different depending on the material the projectile hit - whether it was armor, thin metal, or not a metal at all. There are also separate marks for ricochets of high caliber armor-piercing rounds. The look of these marks is thoroughly prepared by our partners at Digital Forms and is based on real-world photos of combat damage on different objects. The marks placed by this tech are not simple 2D textures - thanks to modern graphical techniques they have visual depth. Even the penetrations can look different such as near penetrations when the armor (barely) stopped a projectile. We concentrated on making these marks as realistic looking as possible.

All in all, we think this new tech would make the visual part of the damage system much more interesting and appealing both for aircraft and tanks. Tanks will be adapted first and then aircraft. It is a long-term project that will take several months.

Please be aware though that this tech is visual, it doesn’t affect the physical interaction between the projectiles and aircraft and tank parts or systems. We’re working on the improvements in the physical damage system as well, but we’ll tell you more about that later.

Speaking of this new DVD tech, we must note that due to ever complex issues of graphics performance and network traffic and stability, there are some limitations to what can be done. This may be apparent in some rare cases, but we have to mention them. In certain ‘critical’ cases the mark may not appear or a wrong mark type may appear (like a visual penetration when there was a near penetration in fact). There is also a limit to the total amount of marks that can be placed on the object. In multiplayer, you’ll see the marks on your aircraft or tank, but you’ll only see the marks on other player aircraft or tanks that appeared when they were in your view. To alleviate this limitation, we added a special transmission of the most recent marks to other players even if they were looking the other way.

Because of these compromises, the DVD tech doesn’t replace the current visual damage system completely. The current system of visual ‘damage levels’ guarantees that every player in a multiplayer environment will get the visual cues on how badly a certain object is damaged. DVD is designed to enhance the existing visual damage system and we made every effort to make them work harmoniously during its development. Nevertheless, in multiplayer you’ll see the marks on your aircraft and the marks on your opponents’ aircraft - which is the most important and critical application of this tech. If you saw the hits of someone else projectiles on another player, you’ll also see these marks.

The limitations listed above, however, won’t undermine the improved visual look of the damage system the new DVD tech will bring. We hope we have found the sweet spot between visual quality with the least impact on graphics performance and multiplayer. To illustrate the new system, we would like to show you these WIP in-game screenshots.

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Wow. That looks insane.

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Which is appropriate as much of the damage model IS insane.

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Hello everybody,

Another week has passed and our work has moved another step forward. The Collector AAA vehicle, 25-mm automatic gun installed on the chassis of the GAZ-MM truck will be finished soon - the physical model of the truck is ready, as are the automatic gun animations and functioning, all animations of the chassis and the crew as well as gun ballistics and damage model are also done. The correction system for the gunsight that turned out to be incredibly complex kinematically is in. The unique audio and more detailed tech of the tires visualization and deformation are icing on the cake. All these elements have something new and are believed to be interesting for the end-user to familiarize with and learn something new. At the moment we’re improving the visual look of the new vehicle, the texturing of the gun, and apply the new DVD tech we talked about in our previous Dev Blog to make the result the best.

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Meanwhile, a part of our mapping department works on improving the railyards on the Rheinland map (Bodenplatte project). They aren’t the most striking or shiny detail of the numerous cities on this map, but they do improve the overall visual look of the scene and make the landscape more realistic. This time we can show you the screenshots of the railroad structures in the cities of Cologne, Brussels, Bonn, Duisburg, Liege, Mainz, Frankfurt am Mein.

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Dear Pilots,

Good news on all fronts this week as we continue our march towards completion of Battle of Normandy and ramp up work on Flying Circus II. We hope to have some pics of the first FCII plane, the Nieuport 28 soon for you, but today we’ll stick to WWII.

As you already know, We have several aircraft in development and the closest, actually very close, to completion is the Spitfire Mk.XIV which is currently in beta testing. Below are a few pics. This plane is a beast with its Griffon engine and shooting down Doodlebugs with it is going to be a blast. Speaking of Buzz Bombs, our V-1 is going to be treated just like an aircraft. It will have a detailed damage model, so you can damage parts of it like the wings, the pulse-jet engine, the warhead (boom!) or if you’re talented enough tip it over with your wing! More on the V-1 as we develop it this summer.

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Next, we have some early pics of the very cool Me-410 ‘Hornisse’ and the Ar-234 jet bomber. The images speak for themselves. The Hornisse strikes me as the German response to the Mosquito no? Who do you think would win in a dogfight between a 410 and a Mosquito? Did they ever duel during the war I wonder?

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.In addition to new planes, we have made some tweaks to some of our oldest, namely our 109 series. When we overhauled the damage system several months ago, we had to make a temporary change to the 109’s tail assembly to avoid a bug that caused certain parts to stay attached to the plane after other damaged tail parts had been blown off. All 109s other than the E-7 was affected. The temporary change we made was to fuse the vertical stabilizer and the horizontal stabs making them one part which basically tripled their strength and the likelihood of them ever coming off was three times less likely, so basically never. To remedy this, we needed the model team re-build these tails and make a new failure point in the vertical stabilizer (like on the E-7) and break up this fused tail into their proper damageable and detachable sections. Remember that before we did any of this, the 109’s tail assembly was the ultimate ‘kill button’, push it and the entire tail would come off, not just part of a stabilizer like other planes. Of course, you can also just blow off the elevators and rudder if you hit them right.

In the images below you can see this new reality in action during combat. I shot off the vert stab and rudder in one image and the horizontal stab and elevator in another. This should solve the so called “109 concrete tail” phenomenon. 109 tails now behave like all other tail sections in the sim.

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An. Petrovich Lead Engineer’s Note: Initially, 3D models of all 109s except the E7 had the point of broken tail in such a place that the loss of the vertical stabilizer simultaneously led to the loss of the entire horizontal stabilizer. One successful shot in the vertical stabilizer could immediately deprive the plane of all its tail surfaces. Of course, it looked catastrophic (you called it “crystal tails”). And only in the E7 (as in all other aircraft in the game), the 3D model made it possible to separate the vertical stabilizer and the central part of the horizontal stabilizer separately. When we completely redesigned the damage system a few months ago, this limitation of the 109’s 3D models did not allow us to fully correct the situation with the strength of their empennage, and we had to temporarily block the loss of vertical stabilizer for these aircraft. Although the aircraft could still lose the ends of the left and right horizontal stabilizer consoles, elevators or rudder. However, the fact that it became impossible for all Messerschmitts (except for E7) to shoot the vertical stabilizer and the central part of the horizontal stabilizer caused criticism from the players, and now the tails of the 109s were called “concrete”. It was only possible to do it “right” by completely reworking the 3D models of these tails and adding a new break point on the vertical stabilizer (as in E-7). Which is what we did in the end.

Work on the Tactical Codes feature continues and although we don’t have them working on all aircraft and vehicles yet, the technology works great and the images below gives and idea of how it will work and look. It’s not totally final yet so final result may vary a little. Work on the Dynamic Visual Damage system also continues and is currently being applied to our tanks. When it’s perfected on the tanks, we will then work to apply it to aircraft.

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Finally, in the next update we will include 4K skins for the Mc.202 and Ju 88 A-4 made by our talented partner Martin “ICDP” Catney. To celebrate this, I have made these interesting posters showing these new skins side by side. They make quite a colorful display. We hope to do this kind of graphic for all our aircraft eventually. Speaking of new skins, Martin is now working on 4K skins for the Spitfire Mk.Vb. This means both marks of Spitfires in Great Battles will now have 4K skins soon. The beautiful image below of the Macchi skins reminds me to say that I intend to make an Italian pilot for the 202 later this year. Similar to how we made the female Soviet pilot. The images below are 4K so you can re-size them and use as wallpaper is you are so inclined.

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Mc.202 Poster Full

JU-88 Poster Full

See you in the skies and on the battlefield!

Jason and the Sturmovik Team

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Wow, it’s a doozy!

@Phantom88 on the scene, bringing the news hot off the press, jolly good show, old chap!

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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I don’t have any numbers backing me on this, but I think the Hornisse looks heavy, compared to the Mossie, which was basically a wooden frame construction…
Anybody got any info?

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The Me-410 had an empty weight of 7,518 kg (16,574 lb) and a top speed of 507 km/h (315 mph, 274 kn) at sea level, 624 km/h (388 mph; 337 kn) at 6,700 m (21,980 ft)
Source: Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse - Wikipedia

The Mosquito had an empty weight of 14,300 lb (6,486 kg) and a top speed of 415 mph (668 km/h, 361 kn) at 28,000 ft (8,500 m)
Source: de Havilland Mosquito - Wikipedia

Looks like you assessment of the weight and performance difference is correct.

Wheels

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Thanks! Roughly a metric ton in weight difference at empty and even more when loaded. Almost the same engine power… I’ll take the Mossie, please! :wink:
Will be fun to pit them against eachother.

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Dear Friends!

Today’s DD is not long, but wanted to say that in addition to working on many aircraft, features and improvements, we’re also making some moves internally with the addition of, and search for, new personnel while adding responsibilities to others. This adds overhead costs to our operation which we hope will pay for itself in time, but we ask that you continue your financial support of Sturmovik throughout this spring and summer and al of 2021 by purchasing new content and buying gifts for your friends, family and squadron-mates. And please remember, purchases made directly in the IL-2 Official Webstore benefit the team the most!

Without further delay, here are the first pics of the work-in-progress Nieuport 28.C1 for Flying Circus: Volume II . The N28 drafts the U.S. Air Service in the war and her slender lines make her a real beauty. Also notice our new Tactical Codes technology is present. The damage model is next up for her as well as DVD adaptation.

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…. Geronimo!!! No invasion of Normandy can be complete without paratroopers! These guys will be jumping from our C-47s later this year after they are properly animated.

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Enjoy your Easter weekend if you celebrate it and see you in the skies and the battlefields!

The Sturmovik Team

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Love the 28! It’s got the right proportions and curves… Like a Camel, only good looking.

I wish I could be able to fly them there…

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Yep, one of my favorite planes in the old Rise of Flight.

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Looking forward to hunting down fokkers with it!

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