Exp3 News! (no, not really)

[Stratos 3,192]

Then, we're in a dead end, as TK will not give us permission to do that... I think.

[Murphy'S 15]

Then, we're in a dead end, as TK will not give us permission to do that... I think.

 

Not in a dead end..... But in front of a choice for some people i think...

[+Julhelm 266]

Why do you think it is insane?

• Larger textures require more detail
  

But they don't have a lot more detail than before. I can downscale an SF2 1024 texture to 512 like in SF1 and the difference is negligable.

 

• More polygons take more time
  

Yes, if we're talking very high detail like DCS or FSX payware. The SF2 planes are not that much higher detailed compared to SF1 planes. The ground objects are all the same.

 

• Specular mapping
  
• Bump mapping
  

No, just no. It takes me a whooping 15 minutes to derive a specular map from my diffuse texture. Creating the bump maps takes no more than half an hour, tops using the free nDo plugin. And since you obviously do not bake from highpoly meshes, we can conclude all the normal map work is done in photoshop. So that's less than an hour getting both maps ingame. If you know what you're doing you shouldn't even have to tweak either very much since you can already preview the result in the 3ds max viewport using a viewport shader.

 

• More detail in avionics
  

Are they really that more detailed compared to the SF1 avionics?

 

• 10 - 14 years from SF1 to F-14: Do you really think labor rates don't go up in a decade?
  

Mine sure as hell haven't.

 

If the development costs go up and the labor rates go up, yet the sales and the prices of the games stay the same (remember these are budget games), common sense would dictate that you are making less money. It's really not that hard to grasp, I hope.

 

And another thing, you are only focusing on artwork since that is all you know. Exp 2 added the mission editor which took a long, long time to make - and almost put him under. F-14 took a long, long time to make with all kinds of new features - naval ops, terrain engine - which again, almost put him under. And the terrain engine needs a lot more time to be optimized and complete. It's just not very mature. But, you either lose your business or make compromises. This is the last thing I'll say.

 

So we can conclude that the terrain engine was a bad business decision in terms of cost vs the visuals it delivered. It frankly amazes me that it couldn't be seen that it would clearly be inadequate compared to existing benchmarks like Il-2 or even on the legacy engine such as Stary's tile mods. It almost looks as if no attention is paid to what the competition is doing.

 

Also, there is no reason tools like a mission editor should cost so much to develop that the business almost goes bankrupt since stuff like that are usually derived from tools used during development. Has it ever occurred to you that development costs might be disproportionately higher because there's never been an investment into developing better tools to allow for faster workflows? It would fit perfectly with TK's very risk-averse attitude to not risk anything by investing in infrastructure. If asset production takes too long, you develop new workflows that allows you to turn around that content faster, even if there is an up front cost programming-wise.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Julhelm

[Wrench 9,850]

Gentleman; my friends...I think this thread has MORE than run it course.

 

Let's let this entire thing just settle down, and we'll worry about exp3 later.

 

I'll pulling the plug on this one