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[Cedric]

It has been a long time since I last posted and I'm currently not able to fly the sim as I don't have an adequate computer. I am very happy that BoBWoV has continued through to the 2.13 version. A big thank you to all who have kept this alive and developing. I teach courses on the Battle of Britain and always mention this flight sim and show screenies and tell them how to download, etc. I recently paid for my third copy of the sim.

I have a question, which relates to the issue of realism. Do the experts on BoBWoV think it can eventually be flown in a VR headset environment? Or will the age of the code and the original design prevent this? I used to fly it on an average monitor and I got frustrated at being prevented from seeing enough of the sky.

If the answer is no, then I guess the answer has to be a large monitor and Track IR?

Thanks.

[ShadowShooter]

Hi Cedric

I don't think there is any real prospect of BoB2-WoV being converted to Virtual Reality format, although it's a nice thought. With VR still in its infancy as a game technology, and the first generation of games using it still in the process of being officially released and working out how best to use it, all at great expense in time and money to the companies involved, it's hard to see anyone making that sort of investment to convert an old game with a niche market. After all, a few years ago Maddox games went broke just producing a conventionally "high definition" graphics version of the same subject matter i.e. Cliffs of Dover.
Widescreen and TrackIR do seem to be the closest you'll get. Unless A2A-Simulations plan to shock us all by announcing Battle of Britain III !

[Cedric]

Thanks for your comments, ShadowShooter. I remember reading about CoD when it was in development and just released. Didn't know it had had that bad an effect on Maddox. I take your point about development costs. A similar thing applies to the Battle of Britain in the cinema - the 1969 film did the best it could with real planes and a few models. CGI makes it possible for amazing BoB combat scenes but of course no-one will finance such a film because of the limited box office. I will have a look at where Track IR and also multi-monitor technology has gone these days.

[PV]

I've had a couple of VR headsets, from back in the days before
the current excitement, and I have never had any problems
running any 3D game using them. It required having the right
vidcard and/or driver - nVidia has had several stereo drivers
over the years, they started making them in about 2006, maybe,
and stopped for a while around 2010, but then resumed. My
second headset used a iZ3D driver, and would accept any
good vidcard - I use it with my current ATI 6850.

Basically, any 3D game has all the data needed for a VR experience,
the stereo driver just asks the card to shift viewpoint by a
couple of inches between frames, and it does the rest. You
select "shutter glasses" as the 3D mode, and you're away.

Whether the current batch of headsets conform to these standards
I don't really know, but I would imagine they ought to. You don't
get a huge lot of benefit from the3D, other than the cockpit bits
pop out - the world outside is mostly too far to detect distance, but
the nice thing is the head position monitoring, which allows you to
look around. The first headset didn't have it built in, so I used TIR,
with the settings adjusted for one-to-one head motion mapping as
much as possible, but unfortunately it couldn't understand more than
180º turning, so I had too compress the last 15º to represent the
remaining 90º rotation in each direction. The second set has position
built in, so I don't need TIR.

[ShadowShooter]

PV,
how is the visual quality of the 3D in those older headsets? Do you get any of those characteristic problems like sometimes seeming to be looking through a screen door? Have you tried using the second headset in free-camera mode on the ground, just wandering around an airfield or other location with multiple objects?

[stickman]

Cedric,

I am very happy that BoBWoV has continued through to the 2.13 version. A big thank you to all who have kept this alive and developing.
I teach courses on the Battle of Britain and always mention this flight sim and show screenies and tell them how to download, etc. I recently paid for my third copy of the sim.

This is the ultimate compliment that we are doing something good and worthwhile. Thank you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week I am trying to reproduce Portsmouth Naval Base, with historical buildings and dry docks placements.
75% done. From resources that I consider to be true.
1898, 1909, 1925, 1939, 1961, portions of 1942. Everything evolves...
Nothing found specific to summer of 1940, or summer of 1916! A super secret Naval Base.
OK. I takes what I gets!

The Goddess Of Truth remains ever elusive... just out of my reach... to grab a hold of her and take her home.

Aloha!

[PV]

PV,
how is the visual quality of the 3D in those older headsets? Do you get any of those characteristic problems like sometimes seeming to be looking through a screen door? Have you tried using the second headset in free-camera mode on the ground, just wandering around an airfield or other location with multiple objects?

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy moving about. I'm
in Japan this week. Generally, the headsets have pros and
cons. The old technology was small lcd displays in front
of each eye, with optics. This made for a maximum FOV
of about 45º, or about a 16x20" window at arms length.
This was not too dissimilar from a 3x4 monitor in typical
position. This initially seems like it would be claustrophobic,
but the head tracking gets you the the sense of a larger
view pretty quickly. It doesn't have the visceral impact of
presence that the new wide FOV headsets have, though.
The resolution was lower, max 1024 width, but the coupling
to head motion tended to smooth out the pixelization - every
frame is from a slightly different angle, so the edges blur to a
smooth line, and you don't notice jaggies. You would probably
have some difficulty reading the little aircraft labels, but i don't
use them,so I haven't paid attention to that.

Yeah, using the alt-V view allows neat inspection of all the
ground objects up close in 3D, but it also reveals how we've
faked complex shapes by shading of simple boxes to keep
frame rates down. And of course the trees are revealed to
be a pair of plates, etc.