New Screenshots of SS5 on Stentec Site

[ED50]

Hello Jereon,
interesting to read about the new concepts for the SS5 scenery builder regarding the world data.

Is the new scenery builder compatible regarding the SS4 sceneries? I have spend a lot of time to create big sceneries and hopefully I don't have to spend that effort again ...

By the way: will it be possible to adjust wrong deeps in an existing scenery in version 5? Today we have to create the complete scenery again in case of a DEM error.

Thank you
Ralf

[yachtie2k4]

hey jereon.
just wondering when there will be some more news about SS5, like pics and stuff?
cheers
rob

[Jeroen Schlaman]

I can't say for 100% how SS4 scenery conversion will be supported, but it's defenitily something for us to keep in mind. Also because some beautifull sceneries already been made by you and others.

It is our goal to add functionality in the scenery designer to adjust height of the DEM landscape by moving parts of it down or up. It should be easy to make holes or hills then.

I hope to give you some information about the SS5 features within the near future.

[yachtie2k4]

hey jeroen,
just wondering when the next update about SS5 will be? how is it going?
cheers
rob

[Barry]

Regular updates on sailsim site seem to have fizzled out?
Over 3 months now I think?
Bit puzzling now when SS5 will "eventually" appear?

Thanks

B

[Jeroen Schlaman]

Hello,

Since the last development-log update in December we have work hard on SS5. In this period we considered and implemented some new features. Because these features aren't finished yet or just are not ready to be shown using screenshots, we couldn't show you anything yet.
As soon as we have anything new to tell or show you, it will be posted on the development-log.

[Barry]

Thanks Jeroen

B

[yachtie2k4]

hi Jeroen.
i have been thinking about the game a bit today. maybe you could make a campaign where you start off with a smallish boat and a little bit of cash and make your way up the ranks, with upgrades on types of sails and different boats, this wouldn't be hard as the majority of new games (car racing, shoot em up & role playing games & etc all are able to do this now) and to get crew upgrades as well.
this would probably be able to used online as well.
also would love to see boats get damaged and break up or sink when they run into things, or sails blow out when they are put up in too much wind.
with sails, will there be different sized sails, like you don't only have one type of spinnakers, majority of boats have different sized spinnakers for different wind speeds.
i also hope you will make the boats more realistic with speeds and the such (doing 30+ knots in an IACC boat is impossible)
cheers
rob

[yachtie2k4]

hey jeroen,
are you replying to any new ideas for ss5?
cheers
rob

[Jeroen Schlaman]

Hello Rob,

New ideas are always welcome ofcourse. We have a lot of ideas ourselves and there are thousands of things, from little to big, which can be implemented. Yet we have to decide what we want to implement in the first version and what in future updates.
We put all user-ideas on a list and will decide which ideas are fitting the ss5 concept and are worth it to be implemented.

Because we have a more advanced physics-model for our sailingboats now, we hope we can make the things as speed and 'feeling' of the ship more realistic. Time will tell...

Don't hasitate to post your ideas, because we certainly will put them on the user wishlist.

[ajnasreddin]

I was wondering about the boat designing bit - the ship designer - which would cater to one of my hobbies. Do you think this will be part of the original release or as an add-on later?

Will Stentec be releasing add-ons as seperate CDs/DVDs or will we require internet access? My internet access is a bit unreliable - downlaoding anything above 5MBs usually fails - not to mention that my service has a 3GB limit per month before adding to my bill.

I'm glad to hear that the whole world will be open for sailing. I would suggest that a scenery management tool be available. Something that would allow us to choose between different versions of a place - for example, maybe Barry will create a 19th century Southampton while someone else created a more up to date scenery. It would be nice to switch between them now and again. Also worrying is scenery overlap problems. I hope you guys at Stentec have thought about all the bugs that could come in to the simulation. At the very least, it won't be so pretty if the terrain gets out of joint or buildings and trees get merged together (You thought you were buying a simple sailboat simulator, but you have really stepped into the Twilight Zone! Sorry for the reference to American pop-culture).

Last thing - will there be motorboats in the simulator as background traffic? Will Sail Simulator and Motorboat Simulator ever just merge together?

[Barry]

Would be interesting to get some details.

I know the basics are being worked on as regards world dem data, etc but with no real news since over 6 months ago it seems a bit "unusual" to say the least, compared with updates on some other simulator forums, when combined with a forum that no longer has hardly any active members posting.

Anyway any further content making with Blender from me is on hold until I know what the details of the simulator5 are.

Impossible to test anything properly anyway as the current Scenery designer does NOT work with Vista.

Barry

[Barry]

Thanks Jeroen for the seperate SS5 thread. Perhaps make it a "sticky"?

Barry

[Barry]

Just like to add when it eventually comes out and if all working OK I will give the details on my site and link back to the Stentec Site and perhaps expand the pages on my site for it...but for the present we wait.

I have put a link and details to the SS5 thread on the ship forum section on the train forum
http://www.uktrainsim.com/


Barry

[Airwick]

Hi there,
I hadn't stopped by for a long time and just saw the new screenshots of the VOR.
It's looking good but I have to say I am still worried about the appearance of the water: it looks way too oily and shiny. The overall shape of the waves look good but they look like residual swell with no wind at all...
Of course I understand that effects like this are not finalized at this point and there is time to fix it but I did want to re-iterate this.

There is an article on THG that compares gaming effects to Hollywood and has a pretty interesting discussion on water:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hollywood-gaming-effects,2068-4.html
They do mention the excessively reflective water surface as an issue, which I thought was interesting. They also have a couple of comparison shots including real world pictures that show how real world open sea water with waves is pretty much totally non-reflective, the best one being this one: http://media.bestofmicro.com/J/N/161411/original/Wasser%20-3.jpg where you can just barely make out a lighter area where the reflection of the cloud is and the trees and coast do not reflect at all.

Anyways, thought I'd mention this again
I will be following the development of SS5 with continued interest and hope the sea will be the best ever by the time it comes out , keep up the good work!