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IL2: Cliffs of Dover - A Diamond in the Rough
BENNETT RING investigates how a band of merry modders turned a mothballed IL2: Cliffs of Dover into the Queen of the Skies.
By Bennett Ring on Apr 7 2015 11:47AM
IL2: Cliffs of Dover - A Diamond in the Rough
The release of IL2: Cliffs of Dover (IL2: CloD) in 2011 spelt the end of an era for flight simulator development. The last big-budget simulator from a major publisher to ever be released, this sequel to the wildly popular IL2 franchise was rushed to market in an entirely unfinished state. What had promised to be the definitive Battle of Britain experience ended up being one of the most disappointing and broken releases PC pilots had ever seen. Abandoned by its developers after a year of patches introduced more problems than they solved, it was soon adopted by a group of hobbyist developers known as Team Fusion. Over the course of the last few years these talented coders have turned this utter failure of a release into the finest WWII combat flight simulator of all time. Here’s how.
IL2 hits turbulence
Developed by 1C: Maddox Games, IL2: CloD was a classic example of a developer biting off more than it could chew. With industry legend Oleg Maddox heading up the development team, the goal was to deliver a next-generation flight sim that pushed the boundaries for PC simulators. The biggest change over its IL2 predecessors were the introduction of fully modelled aircraft cockpits, where nearly every switch could be activated by mouse, replicating the systems of the real aircraft. With around ten aircraft included in the base game, this was a mammoth amount of work alone; consider that DCS World’s add-on aircraft only model a single aircraft at a time to this level of detail, and it’s no surprise that most of the aircraft systems in IL2: CloD launched in a buggy or incomplete state. A brand new graphics engine promised to render the huge bomber and fighter battles of the Battle of Britain at unrivalled levels of detail. In reality, the game suffered massive performance issues, horrific aliasing problems, and a level of detail bug meant that distant aircraft would occasionally turn invisible at the most inopportune time. A revamped damage modelling system attempted to render the havoc caused by machine gun and canon shells on airframes; the actual implementation saw aircraft exploding when they shouldn’t, and half of the damage features switched off in the base code. Finally, a new physics engine promised to capture the flight dynamics of these infamous warbirds better than ever before, but at launch were plagued with massive differences between real world figures and in-game performance.
To put it bluntly, the release was an utter shambles. Given the community’s huge expectations for IL2: CloD, the release saw the flight sim community questioning whether its beloved genre could survive such a blow. After all, if Oleg Maddox, the grandfather of combat flight sims on the PC, couldn’t capitalise on the power offered by modern PCs, who could? The result of this release on the industry was as brutal as it was sudden. Major publishers abandoned the genre, leaving more agile teams like 777 Studios to fill the void with more focused, less ambitious titles that would take several years to grow into a comparable scope. But this wasn’t the end of the line for IL2: Cliffs of Dover.
The real work begins
The revival of IL2: CloD began with a group of IL2 fans frequenting the popular Air Tactical Assault Group forums, or ATAG for short (http://ift.tt/1Isdx80). Chatting amongst themselves, they realised that despite the game’s many, many shortcomings, the framework for a truly ground-breaking simulator was waiting to be saved. With the game’s developer publicly announcing that it had abandoned any future support, these fans realised that nobody else was coming to deliver the Battle of Britain simulator they’d been craving for so many years. After a quick poll on the ATAG forums, the name Team Fusion was selected to represent this assorted collection of hobbyist developers.
The team grew to be comprised of 40 individuals, with a core group of ten extremely active developers, backed up by another 30 who help out where possible. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the team is truly a global coalition of volunteers, spread across multiple time zones, all offering their expertise for free. Their skillsets vary, with some members focusing on specific tasks, while others offer more general knowledge.
Unlike a normal game developer, Team Fusion didn’t have access to any of the tools that studios would usually have to work on a game. Instead they had to build everything from scratch, a mammoth task that has taken the better part of two years. According to the team’s PR officer, Mysticpuma, the team didn’t get any assistance from the original developer. “We have never approached any of the former developers and they haven’t approached us either.” Despite the game shipping in an extremely unfinished state, Mysticpuma praised the code base left by the original developers. “It’s important to add that the work that they (1C Maddox) did during the original development was truly phenomenal and so has made understanding the systems they left in place, much easier.”
As a result of the team’s ingenuity, it now has access to a suite of tools that unlock the potential of the base game’s code. Map makers, audio-tools and script creators now allow the team to tweak and enhance any area of the game, though the complexity of the software means changing one element can have an unforeseen impact on other areas of the code. Mysticpuma explains, “One day our guys will have a breakthrough and we’ll look at the results and be blown away. Two-hours later we’ll get a message. ‘Well I know it looks great, but now x,y,z no longer work, so we fixed ‘x’ and the original now is back to square one!’”
Team Fusion 3.0 is released
The first version of the mod, v3.0, focused on bringing the game’s buggy flight models in line with real world reports, and hit the ‘Net in March of 2013, only a few months after work began. The team scoured historical reports, books, forums and any other knowledge source available to find flight characteristic figures that stood up to scrutiny. A laundry list of bug fixes were also included, from small details like correcting compass markings to fixing broken fuel systems in the BF110. Bugs that had formerly made the game unplayable – such as aircraft always icing up when entering any form of cloud – were squashed. One of the most dramatic changes helped resolve a major problem with the launch version of the game – spotting aircraft at range. The team took a twofold approach to the issue. First they fixed a bug that caused the LOD model of aircraft to become invisible at certain ranges. The second fix can only be regarded as a stroke of genius. Real war pilots often spotted distant fighters by the reflection of sunlight off canopy glass, and the mod introduced this effect. It’s only noticeable at the right angles and uses a very subtle, shimmering effect, but makes a huge difference to spotting enemies, not to mention the realism of the game. It soon became clear that Version 3.0 fixed many of the glaring issues of the game, an incredible achievement considering the team was working off reverse engineered code, with no access to the official Software Development Kit.
A smaller patch was soon released to fix the inevitable bugs found in the first major release, before the team put its nose to the grindstone to develop version 4.0 of Team Fusion. Released in October 2013, a huge number of the changes were further fixes to less obvious bugs, as well as hundreds of refinements to the flight models. One of the most noticeable improvements was a significant boost in performance. The base game was renowned for humbling even the mightiest of gaming PCs, but v4.0 allowed many users to increase their graphics settings dramatically, while maintaining the smooth frame rates crucial for dog fighting. This version of the mod was also the first that saw Team Fusion expanding on the content found in the base game. Players could take control of certain ground vehicles and anti-aircraft artillery, though the interface to do so remained relatively rudimentary. Another new feature allowed pilots to place a photo of their better half in the cockpit of their favourite ride, a habit many WWII fighter jocks introduced. The stunningly detailed English Channel environment found in the original was updated to include Winter and Autumn renditions, with the base Summer version also given a lick of paint to better match real colour photography from the war.
While the first two patches focused on features that fixed the base game, it was sorely lacking in singleplayer content. The original campaign mode remained basically unplayable due to the buggy AI, but this was set to change with the most recent mod release, v4.312, which landed in March 2014. As well as introducing a raft of AI improvements, this version of the mod also included a new Dynamic Campaign mode. The player chooses one of two maps, either a small or large representation of the Channel, then picks the starting year, side, airbase and aircraft. It also allows the user to choose exactly how many aircraft should populate each mission, perfect for tailoring the missions to slower PCs.
Work on the game’s AI continues, as its still one of the roughest areas of the code. Mysticpuma explains that, “our guys have found around 90% of the information required to change the AI and Radio Commands as it currently stands. Obviously that’s 10% shy of having a perfect amount but it’s not a simple case of ‘We’ll just make the AI do this when you press a button’. Sadly, it’s not like that.”
The game’s antialiasing option was also finally fixed, allowing 2X AA where none had existed before, though jaggies remain an issue to this day (a simple fix is to use NVIDIA’s DSR, or downsampling on ATI cards, to run the game at higher resolution than your display allows, which has cleared up jaggies entirely for us). The sound system of the game was also given a massive overhaul, with everything from machine gun fire to the flyby Doppler effect of passing aircraft improved.
As good as it gets
At the time of writing, IL2: CloD is an entirely different game to the one that first disappointed fans in 2011. Four years of modding has delivered what is easily the most comprehensive WWII combat flight simulator ever to land on the PC, improving even on the original game’s vision. There simply isn’t another simulator around that models so many aircraft to such depth, whether it be the intricate flight models or the replication of the systems used to operate each aircraft. These beautiful warbirds inhabit the most eye-wateringly pleasing environment ever made for a simulator, with professional efforts like IL2: Battle of Stalingrad failing to match its graphical prowess. While issues with the AI mean singleplayer can still be a frustrating affair, work continues to improve this facet of the game. Meanwhile new scripting tools have allowed avid fans to host online campaigns, with over 100 humans flying and fighting in replicas of famous Battle of Britain missions.
Version 5 of Team Fusion is just around the corner, and it promises to deliver the biggest dollop of new content yet. Central to this is a brand new theatre of operations, and everything that this entails. While Mysticpuma wouldn’t be drawn on which theatre it is, he did give us a few clues about the new environment. “Currently we are working on a completely new theatre of operations and this is a big advance in the work Team Fusion are preparing. This is only possible due to some incredible work by our guys behind the scenes who have created the map tool, the textures, new objects, aircraft (variants and flyable), shipping and a new soundbank to make these features come alive audibly.” The next version of the mod will also add brand-new aircraft to the simulator, a first for Team Fusion. While the exact aircraft to be included hasn’t been confirmed yet, the team is currently well into developing flyable versions of the Wellington Bomber, the Italian CR.42 and also the Gloster Gladiator, not to mention a new variant of the nimble BF-109. Naval combat appears to be a focus for the new theatre as well, with the introduction of new shipping models and behaviour.
Download it now, ok?
Mysticpuma went to great lengths to explain that Team Fusion’s efforts are a combined push, and not just one or two key people, and they do it for the love of it. In his own words, “Team Fusion are made up of members of the Flight Sim community. Just ordinary guys with extraordinary talents. We do this for fun and as a hobby and for the benefit of the WW2 flight sim community. We don’t ask for and never have had any reward, other than the adulation of those who appreciate the challenging task we have undertaken.” We at PC PowerPlay would like to salute the mighty members of Team Fusion for taking the time to deliver this premiere WWII flight sim, all absolutely free of charge. With a bright future ahead of it, it seems that Team Fusion is destined to fly ever higher on its wings of glory.
http://ift.tt/1HlUBcG
IL2: Cliffs of Dover - A Diamond in the Rough
BENNETT RING investigates how a band of merry modders turned a mothballed IL2: Cliffs of Dover into the Queen of the Skies.
By Bennett Ring on Apr 7 2015 11:47AM
IL2: Cliffs of Dover - A Diamond in the Rough
The release of IL2: Cliffs of Dover (IL2: CloD) in 2011 spelt the end of an era for flight simulator development. The last big-budget simulator from a major publisher to ever be released, this sequel to the wildly popular IL2 franchise was rushed to market in an entirely unfinished state. What had promised to be the definitive Battle of Britain experience ended up being one of the most disappointing and broken releases PC pilots had ever seen. Abandoned by its developers after a year of patches introduced more problems than they solved, it was soon adopted by a group of hobbyist developers known as Team Fusion. Over the course of the last few years these talented coders have turned this utter failure of a release into the finest WWII combat flight simulator of all time. Here’s how.
IL2 hits turbulence
Developed by 1C: Maddox Games, IL2: CloD was a classic example of a developer biting off more than it could chew. With industry legend Oleg Maddox heading up the development team, the goal was to deliver a next-generation flight sim that pushed the boundaries for PC simulators. The biggest change over its IL2 predecessors were the introduction of fully modelled aircraft cockpits, where nearly every switch could be activated by mouse, replicating the systems of the real aircraft. With around ten aircraft included in the base game, this was a mammoth amount of work alone; consider that DCS World’s add-on aircraft only model a single aircraft at a time to this level of detail, and it’s no surprise that most of the aircraft systems in IL2: CloD launched in a buggy or incomplete state. A brand new graphics engine promised to render the huge bomber and fighter battles of the Battle of Britain at unrivalled levels of detail. In reality, the game suffered massive performance issues, horrific aliasing problems, and a level of detail bug meant that distant aircraft would occasionally turn invisible at the most inopportune time. A revamped damage modelling system attempted to render the havoc caused by machine gun and canon shells on airframes; the actual implementation saw aircraft exploding when they shouldn’t, and half of the damage features switched off in the base code. Finally, a new physics engine promised to capture the flight dynamics of these infamous warbirds better than ever before, but at launch were plagued with massive differences between real world figures and in-game performance.
To put it bluntly, the release was an utter shambles. Given the community’s huge expectations for IL2: CloD, the release saw the flight sim community questioning whether its beloved genre could survive such a blow. After all, if Oleg Maddox, the grandfather of combat flight sims on the PC, couldn’t capitalise on the power offered by modern PCs, who could? The result of this release on the industry was as brutal as it was sudden. Major publishers abandoned the genre, leaving more agile teams like 777 Studios to fill the void with more focused, less ambitious titles that would take several years to grow into a comparable scope. But this wasn’t the end of the line for IL2: Cliffs of Dover.
The real work begins
The revival of IL2: CloD began with a group of IL2 fans frequenting the popular Air Tactical Assault Group forums, or ATAG for short (http://ift.tt/1Isdx80). Chatting amongst themselves, they realised that despite the game’s many, many shortcomings, the framework for a truly ground-breaking simulator was waiting to be saved. With the game’s developer publicly announcing that it had abandoned any future support, these fans realised that nobody else was coming to deliver the Battle of Britain simulator they’d been craving for so many years. After a quick poll on the ATAG forums, the name Team Fusion was selected to represent this assorted collection of hobbyist developers.
The team grew to be comprised of 40 individuals, with a core group of ten extremely active developers, backed up by another 30 who help out where possible. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, the team is truly a global coalition of volunteers, spread across multiple time zones, all offering their expertise for free. Their skillsets vary, with some members focusing on specific tasks, while others offer more general knowledge.
Unlike a normal game developer, Team Fusion didn’t have access to any of the tools that studios would usually have to work on a game. Instead they had to build everything from scratch, a mammoth task that has taken the better part of two years. According to the team’s PR officer, Mysticpuma, the team didn’t get any assistance from the original developer. “We have never approached any of the former developers and they haven’t approached us either.” Despite the game shipping in an extremely unfinished state, Mysticpuma praised the code base left by the original developers. “It’s important to add that the work that they (1C Maddox) did during the original development was truly phenomenal and so has made understanding the systems they left in place, much easier.”
As a result of the team’s ingenuity, it now has access to a suite of tools that unlock the potential of the base game’s code. Map makers, audio-tools and script creators now allow the team to tweak and enhance any area of the game, though the complexity of the software means changing one element can have an unforeseen impact on other areas of the code. Mysticpuma explains, “One day our guys will have a breakthrough and we’ll look at the results and be blown away. Two-hours later we’ll get a message. ‘Well I know it looks great, but now x,y,z no longer work, so we fixed ‘x’ and the original now is back to square one!’”
Team Fusion 3.0 is released
The first version of the mod, v3.0, focused on bringing the game’s buggy flight models in line with real world reports, and hit the ‘Net in March of 2013, only a few months after work began. The team scoured historical reports, books, forums and any other knowledge source available to find flight characteristic figures that stood up to scrutiny. A laundry list of bug fixes were also included, from small details like correcting compass markings to fixing broken fuel systems in the BF110. Bugs that had formerly made the game unplayable – such as aircraft always icing up when entering any form of cloud – were squashed. One of the most dramatic changes helped resolve a major problem with the launch version of the game – spotting aircraft at range. The team took a twofold approach to the issue. First they fixed a bug that caused the LOD model of aircraft to become invisible at certain ranges. The second fix can only be regarded as a stroke of genius. Real war pilots often spotted distant fighters by the reflection of sunlight off canopy glass, and the mod introduced this effect. It’s only noticeable at the right angles and uses a very subtle, shimmering effect, but makes a huge difference to spotting enemies, not to mention the realism of the game. It soon became clear that Version 3.0 fixed many of the glaring issues of the game, an incredible achievement considering the team was working off reverse engineered code, with no access to the official Software Development Kit.
A smaller patch was soon released to fix the inevitable bugs found in the first major release, before the team put its nose to the grindstone to develop version 4.0 of Team Fusion. Released in October 2013, a huge number of the changes were further fixes to less obvious bugs, as well as hundreds of refinements to the flight models. One of the most noticeable improvements was a significant boost in performance. The base game was renowned for humbling even the mightiest of gaming PCs, but v4.0 allowed many users to increase their graphics settings dramatically, while maintaining the smooth frame rates crucial for dog fighting. This version of the mod was also the first that saw Team Fusion expanding on the content found in the base game. Players could take control of certain ground vehicles and anti-aircraft artillery, though the interface to do so remained relatively rudimentary. Another new feature allowed pilots to place a photo of their better half in the cockpit of their favourite ride, a habit many WWII fighter jocks introduced. The stunningly detailed English Channel environment found in the original was updated to include Winter and Autumn renditions, with the base Summer version also given a lick of paint to better match real colour photography from the war.
While the first two patches focused on features that fixed the base game, it was sorely lacking in singleplayer content. The original campaign mode remained basically unplayable due to the buggy AI, but this was set to change with the most recent mod release, v4.312, which landed in March 2014. As well as introducing a raft of AI improvements, this version of the mod also included a new Dynamic Campaign mode. The player chooses one of two maps, either a small or large representation of the Channel, then picks the starting year, side, airbase and aircraft. It also allows the user to choose exactly how many aircraft should populate each mission, perfect for tailoring the missions to slower PCs.
Work on the game’s AI continues, as its still one of the roughest areas of the code. Mysticpuma explains that, “our guys have found around 90% of the information required to change the AI and Radio Commands as it currently stands. Obviously that’s 10% shy of having a perfect amount but it’s not a simple case of ‘We’ll just make the AI do this when you press a button’. Sadly, it’s not like that.”
The game’s antialiasing option was also finally fixed, allowing 2X AA where none had existed before, though jaggies remain an issue to this day (a simple fix is to use NVIDIA’s DSR, or downsampling on ATI cards, to run the game at higher resolution than your display allows, which has cleared up jaggies entirely for us). The sound system of the game was also given a massive overhaul, with everything from machine gun fire to the flyby Doppler effect of passing aircraft improved.
As good as it gets
At the time of writing, IL2: CloD is an entirely different game to the one that first disappointed fans in 2011. Four years of modding has delivered what is easily the most comprehensive WWII combat flight simulator ever to land on the PC, improving even on the original game’s vision. There simply isn’t another simulator around that models so many aircraft to such depth, whether it be the intricate flight models or the replication of the systems used to operate each aircraft. These beautiful warbirds inhabit the most eye-wateringly pleasing environment ever made for a simulator, with professional efforts like IL2: Battle of Stalingrad failing to match its graphical prowess. While issues with the AI mean singleplayer can still be a frustrating affair, work continues to improve this facet of the game. Meanwhile new scripting tools have allowed avid fans to host online campaigns, with over 100 humans flying and fighting in replicas of famous Battle of Britain missions.
Version 5 of Team Fusion is just around the corner, and it promises to deliver the biggest dollop of new content yet. Central to this is a brand new theatre of operations, and everything that this entails. While Mysticpuma wouldn’t be drawn on which theatre it is, he did give us a few clues about the new environment. “Currently we are working on a completely new theatre of operations and this is a big advance in the work Team Fusion are preparing. This is only possible due to some incredible work by our guys behind the scenes who have created the map tool, the textures, new objects, aircraft (variants and flyable), shipping and a new soundbank to make these features come alive audibly.” The next version of the mod will also add brand-new aircraft to the simulator, a first for Team Fusion. While the exact aircraft to be included hasn’t been confirmed yet, the team is currently well into developing flyable versions of the Wellington Bomber, the Italian CR.42 and also the Gloster Gladiator, not to mention a new variant of the nimble BF-109. Naval combat appears to be a focus for the new theatre as well, with the introduction of new shipping models and behaviour.
Download it now, ok?
Mysticpuma went to great lengths to explain that Team Fusion’s efforts are a combined push, and not just one or two key people, and they do it for the love of it. In his own words, “Team Fusion are made up of members of the Flight Sim community. Just ordinary guys with extraordinary talents. We do this for fun and as a hobby and for the benefit of the WW2 flight sim community. We don’t ask for and never have had any reward, other than the adulation of those who appreciate the challenging task we have undertaken.” We at PC PowerPlay would like to salute the mighty members of Team Fusion for taking the time to deliver this premiere WWII flight sim, all absolutely free of charge. With a bright future ahead of it, it seems that Team Fusion is destined to fly ever higher on its wings of glory.
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