Dev Blog #80: New in the Environment

[LukeFF]

Imagine flying over Korea at dusk. The sun is setting, and its rays are reflecting off the smooth surfaces of flooded rice paddies.

In "Dev Blog #80," we'll cover changes coming to the environment and more.

Read the full details in the article on the official website: https://media.il2-korea.com/news/dd_80

[Banzai]

Nice. Jumping trees fixed and performance on the ground improved. I'm most happy about these changes. 

[Avimimus]

Well this is extremely exciting!

Hopefully they can expand the distance at which grass renders... as it would improve the terrain textures quite a bit to have that additional variation. It'd be nice to at least have it as an option.

I'm quite happy with all of this - I've already been very pleased with the diversity of forests... it isn't quite perfect (we don't have any shrublands / scrub i.e. land intermediate between a field and a forest). But, overall, it matches a lot of the research I've done on Korea and is actually quite varied depending on where you are on the map.

I suppose my one remaining wish is for seagulls (as a result of my accidentally mistaking an F-80C for a seagull once and getting excited)!! A Po-2 or AT-6 (or something else that flies low and slow) wouldn't go amiss for sight seeing. You know what! Just ignore these last two sentences! I can be content with wonderous surprises and improvements without immediately dreaming of more.

I'm really looking forward to trying all of this out!

[Stoikiy]

Do you plan to add a more realistic coastline? With waves.
Current variant and especially reviers look outdated 

[KillerBee]

With all these really nice rivers, and those marvelous steel bridges all over the countryside, and the general north-south movement of the front lines, is it possible that we might see the arrival of USA M3 and M4 single and dual lane pontoon bridges in a usable form along with some bridging equipment, vehicles, etc.  With both sides having so much fun blowing the bridges up, it’s near impossible for the resupply columns to advance to forward positions….especially in persistent missions spanning multiple hours on servers.  Just asking.

[Civilprotection]

The training range will be an amazing addition to the game! But will the range be on the full Korea map? I hope it gets its own small dedicated map to keep load times down when restarting a practice mission.

[Avimimus]

I've moved the conversation about sun glare to its own thread (as it is about atmospherics and vision modelling, rather than terrain improvements):

 

[AndreiTomescu]

The most annoying thing for me in good, very good old GB series was that, except for some hard worked scripted campaigs, the world to/from the target was barren. Empty. Not a living soul. In the vast expanses of the eastern front, this could be forgiven. In Normandy's dense populated areas, not so much. In the mighty busy cities, not at all.

The addition of random vehicles, ground and sea, on the Korean map is, indeed, very , very welcome. A huge immersion boost.

Also gives us a palpable reason for the steep price we've put into the rigs needed for running the game.

Excellent adition, thank you , gentlemen. Can't wait to see that around.

Edited Tuesday at 09:06 PM by AndreiTomescu

[robzerg]

So... The question is when do we get to try out these improvements? 😁 

[Husar]

Please look at the trees shadows they are flickering when looking at them while moving.

BTW now when we have nice looking physical damage model to objects and it's parts, static damage model look outdated,  for example static planes just switche to destroyed in cloud of dust.

Edited Tuesday at 10:42 PM by Husar

[KC23]

I would like to see civilians with animals pulling carts. Just more civilians please. Love what you've done so far. Keep up the fantastic work.

[FuriousMeow]

1 hour ago, Husar said:

BTW now when we have nice looking physical damage model to objects and it's parts, static damage model look outdated,  for example static planes just switche to destroyed in cloud of dust.

The compute cost isn't worth it, nor is the dev time. Maybe they've got something in their back pocket but these are static objects which means they are simplified in every way. 

[Husar]

5 hours ago, FuriousMeow said:

The compute cost isn't worth it, nor is the dev time. Maybe they've got something in their back pocket but these are static objects which means they are simplified in every way. 

Opinion, but if they want to have a not breaking immersion ground operation scene it would help to have it consistent with. Computing cost still be lower than a not static object and player do strafe static objects a lot.

[Avimimus]

9 hours ago, KC23 said:

I would like to see civilians with animals pulling carts.

Same goes for military carts - the DPRK used a lot of pack animals.

[FuriousMeow]

7 hours ago, Husar said:

Opinion, but if they want to have a not breaking immersion ground operation scene it would help to have it consistent with. Computing cost still be lower than a not static object and player do strafe static objects a lot.

Compute cost would be the same as a detailed object. They went with simplified FM and DM for B29s to get large formations possible... putting detailed objects on the ground would reverse that effort.

And as an option that few to none could run, that's wasted dev effort. 

Edited Wednesday at 01:53 PM by FuriousMeow

[Uriah]

Most rivers could be significantly narrowed and even mostly show up as tree lined banks.  Only the largest rivers show up in real life as big as they are shown in the game. 

[Husar]

17 minutes ago, FuriousMeow said:

Compute cost would be the same as a detailed object. They went with simplified FM and DM for B29s to get large formations possible... putting detailed objects on the ground would reverse that effort.

And as an option that few to none could run, that's wasted dev effort. 

No It wouldn't be the same, it can be just an animation (not switch on/off like now) doesn't need to be full physically correct as other ground objects.

Edited Wednesday at 02:10 PM by Husar

[Avimimus]

8 minutes ago, Uriah said:

Most rivers could be significantly narrowed and even mostly show up as tree lined banks.  Only the largest rivers show up in real life as big as they are shown in the game. 

River size varies a lot depending on the part of the world.

That said, I do find that the narrower rivers in Kuban might look quite good in some of the upland areas (further up the watershed) that currently just have valleys after the river water ends... that is one area for long term improvement - the various small rivers, streams, and tributaries that feed the larger rivers (and are often missing in Korea).

[Captain_Trips]

18 hours ago, Civilprotection said:

The training range will be an amazing addition to the game! But will the range be on the full Korea map? I hope it gets its own small dedicated map to keep load times down when restarting a practice mission.

That would be a great idea.

I doubt it  though.

[Husar]

Since IL-2 Korea is already moving towards a physically based rendering (PBR) pipeline, I'd love to see the water specular reflections updated as well.

At the moment, the sun glint is always very prominent and appears to follow the player's viewpoint, producing a bright streak that is visible almost constantly. While this may have been acceptable years ago, in 2026 it stands out as one of the few remaining visual effects that still feels tied to an older rendering approach.

A PBR water shader should produce reflections that are more dependent on surface roughness, wave state, wind, and viewing conditions. The result would be a more natural-looking specular highlight instead of a persistent "camera-following" reflection. This would greatly improve immersion during flights over the sea and coastal areas.

The new terrain, aircraft materials, and lighting already look much better than GB, but the water reflections don't quite match the quality of the rest of the visuals. Updating this effect would make the overall presentation feel much more consistent and realistic.

[JL1]

So far I am very impressed with the Korea map.  It is a big improvement from BOX which I really appreciate.  

My wish list for further improvements includes:

• Better reflections off water.  From some views it looks more like blue land than water.
• Higher resolution underwater texture in shallow areas. 
• White caps in windy weather.
• An option for higher resolution ground base texture down low (it looks fine from higher altitude) for people with more VRAM.
• Eliminate the random ground texture "pop in" from high resolution to low when flying at medium to high altitude. This may be related to GPU memory limitations?  Perhaps an option for people with a lot of VRAM to hold more texture on the GPU?  
• More "random" ground clutter between villages.  There are a lot of villages but not much between them.  In mountainous areas this makes sense but in large flat areas with farm fields it seems like their should be some occasional single buildings and other objects/people related to farming.
• More military sights of different types particularly near logistical transfer points and front lines. (I really like the radar sites).
• More bushes at the transition from fields to forest and in general around the map.
• Dynamic weather/clouds across the map that moves and changes with time. The current weather/clouds look great but applies to the entire map and only changes between missions.

I realise there is always the issue of balancing eye candy and performance but some of the enhancements (such as higher resolution base ground texture) could be an option in the graphical settings as is currently the case with 4K aircraft textures.

Regardless I think the devs are doing a fantastic job with the new environment!

 

Edited Thursday at 05:17 PM by JL1

[Avimimus]

5 hours ago, JL1 said:

• More bushes at the transition from fields to forest and in general around the map.

That would be scientifically accurate for forest margins where there is more light.

[Husar]

8 hours ago, Avimimus said:

That would be scientifically accurate for forest margins where there is more light.

Yes those are missing, I remember complains about hedges on Normandy map, devs answer was -  an engine limitation. I hope that  maybe now something in between grass and trees is possible.

Edited yesterday at 07:53 AM by Husar

[Aapje]

14 hours ago, JL1 said:

My wish list for further improvements includes...

You might want to post that in the special wishlist thread.

[Koziolek]

8 hours ago, Husar said:

Yes those are missing, I remember complains about hedges on Normandy map, devs answer was -  an engine limitation. I hope that  maybe now something in between grass and trees is possible.

Do you mean tall grass and short trees ? 😄