Hello everybody,

 

Today is an important day for the project - we start VR alpha test. It will take 1-2 weeks, then we'll finalize the functionality, perform the beta testing run and then, hopefully, we will be able to release the update with Open VR support before the end of March.

 

VR support turns out to be tricky not because it is complex by itself, but because this technology and API are still relatively immature - there are no beaten paths and in some parts we were moving forward almost blindly. A large chunk of time was spent on finding new ways to optimize performance to make VR experience more fluid, many improvements were made in this field. Another big task we needed to complete was adapting the user interface for VR to make it usable. For a while, we were a bit puzzled how to make optical sights (like Pe-2 lower UBT MG gunsight or tank gunner sight) function in VR realistically, and we decided to show the gunsight only for one eye while another eye should be closed (like in real life). In our opinion, Oculus Rift cv1 has slightly better lenses and more effective usage of the display matrix (pixels in front of you are placed a bit tighter, but overall field of view is narrower). On the other hand, HTC Vive has more advanced tracking tech, slightly wider FOV which feels less like looking through binoculars, much larger possible play area (not like it is useful for a flight sim though) but its lenses have visible peripheral moire effect. In short, both devices have their pros and cons and if you plan to buy one, it would be ideal to demo them both to find out which one suits you better (but be mindful of a possibility of wearing a VR unit in a public place after someone else who may have had red-eye for instance). All in all, we like how VR works in our sim, it's on par or even better than in other sims.

 

News from other departments: our engineers started making flight models for IL-2 mod. 1943 and Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb. Our lead engineer has finished preliminary preparations and now works on making behavior of a plane while using rudder or side slipping even more realistic. Meanwhile, our artists almost finished IL-2 mod. 1943 3D model and today we can show ypu its first screenshots in the sim. Its aiming sights were tricky to recreate - in theory they are very simple, but there are very few photos of them mostly taken from prototypes, while these sights on mass produced aircraft were different. It forced our 3D artists to try a completely new and unusual approach for them - model an aiming sight using neither its schematics nor photographs, but a mathematical calculation of how it should work judging by flight manual descriptions.