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Battleground Europe: WWII Online News - Dynamic Weather System Video
Posted by Michael Bitton on Sep 16, 2009 | 2 comments in our forums
In the near future, World War II Online will be getting a new dynamic weather system, and we've got a new trailer showing the neat weather effects off!
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The weather effects aren't purely visual either, for example, pilots will be subject to the detrimental effects of bad weather if they don't fly above the clouds.
More information on the new weather system below:
How it will work
At midnight of each game day cycle, the host will run a process to decide if the upcoming game day is going to be a "bad weather" day. On "bad weather" days, lighting is reduced, and a layer of dark clouds is added to the sky. Limits have been included to ensure that consecutive "bad weather" day selection are minimized. Every game hour of a "bad weather" day, the host runs a secondary process to determine if rain will fall anytime during that hour. If the result is positive, a random selection is made to determine how many minutes rain will fall. This will range from 5 to 60 game minutes. This step is done to avoid having a state of rainy weather for an extended period of play and to create variety. When rain is active, a rain texture within a certain radius of the player is displayed. The rain drop texture is actually composed of dozens of drops applied to a tile or "sprite", giving the appearance of volume. There is an additional sprite that displays splashes of rain hitting the ground. To complete the entire rainy day experience, random claps of thunder will echo throughout the game world. All weather settings and effects are global for the game world.At midnight, the next cycle begins and if the system determines the next 24 hour game cycle is to be a clear weather day, then the "bad weather" cloud layer will be removed and it will clear skies ahead- at least until the next cycle is set.
Aircraft and weather
One important issue that has been addressed is ensuring that weather didn't negatively affect the air game. When a "bad weather" day is active, there are lighting changes and a layer of storm clouds are added at approximately 800 meters. This elevation has been set by the production team for play testing through Beta and may be adjusted. This layer does have breaks through which bombers can still see the ground below. Above the new cloud layer, the sky lightens and the rain vanishes leaving clear, blue skies for pilots. All changes created by the "bad weather" day are erased once a pilot climbs above new cloud layer. The fog settings do not change on "bad weather" days. Above the "bad weather" cloud layer, pilots will see no differences in air-to-air combat.
A full rundown of the dynamic weather system can be found here.
See it in action here.
