Cylindrical Earth

Frederf · 02-10-10, 04:41 AM

This thread is intended as a place to discuss the actual features of the game Silent Hunter 5 based what is visible in videos, screenshots or available from interviews and press materials. Since the digital rights management aspect, controversial as it may be, is not game feature it is not appropriate for discussion in this thread; there are many other threads for such talk.

One flaw of Silent Hunter 3 and Silent Hunter 4 is that the world and the map were one and the same. The map was flat and the world was flat. This made programming easy but had nasty real world consequences. Distances (and transit times) between real world places were shown to be much, much bigger in the flat world of Silent Hunter. The real routes taken by ships over the real Earth and straight lines on the map were different leaving historical sources and in-game needs at odds.

The ideal solution is to separate the mapspace from the worldspace so one can look at a flat map on the desk of a submarine but also travel through a world of real spherical shape. There are complications for the mapspace tools as long lines of shortest distance between points are actually curves when view through the distortion of the map projection, but this is well within the capability of programming.

In some interview or text, I heard that SHV is adopting a cylindrical world which is a far, far cry from a spherical world. It seems so foolish to go through all the effort of a change and not come close to a long term solution. Surely the very shape of the Earth is a good foundation for a simulation about submarines with ranges on the order of 10,000nm.

elanaiba · 02-10-10, 04:49 AM

There's no change, its the same as in SH3/4.

Kapitanleutnant · 02-10-10, 04:55 AM

welp

martes86 · 02-10-10, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elanaiba

There's no change, its the same as in SH3/4.

I thought you guys were going to use a cylindrical projection for SH5.

02-10-10, 06:58 AM

Crappy game, it will be the weakest of the series in most of the respects, except the graphics. And the eye candy graphics upgrade through the years took place in ALL video game applications, so that is not a "heroic" act for this so-called Silent Hunter 5, which has almost nothing to do with the concept of naval or sub simulation. As a conclusion, the series has took its course down, with SH5 at its lowest peak. Ubisoft and the romanian developers team should be really ashamed of themselves. But of course, they've got no shame, only the burning desire to fool the market and to make money profit. I hope they won't. At least, not from me.

elanaiba · 02-10-10, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martes86

I thought you guys were going to use a cylindrical projection for SH5.

I know I'm tired and I'm missing something but we've always used a cylindrical projection. Sh3,4,5.

Hartmann · 02-10-10, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunnodayak

Crappy game, it will be the weakest of the series in most of the respects, except the graphics. And the eye candy graphics upgrade through the years took place in ALL video game applications, so that is not a "heroic" act for this so-called Silent Hunter 5, which has almost nothing to do with the concept of naval or sub simulation. As a conclusion, the series has took its course down, with SH5 at its lowest peak. Ubisoft and the romanian developers team should be really ashamed of themselves. But of course, they've got no shame, only the burning desire to fool the market and to make money profit. I hope they won't. At least, not from me.

Graphics is the only thing that some people need to say that it´s the best sim of the history, graphics and explosions , nothing more.

They targeted casual gamers and arcade fans, TDC , accurate chart plotting and late years complications are not necessary . I hope that ubi think about hardcore simmers too.

martes86 · 02-10-10, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elanaiba

I know I'm tired and I'm missing something but we've always used a cylindrical projection. Sh3,4,5.

Really? I'll be damned, I've been thinking otherwise for a long time.

Thanks for clearing the doubt.

Kapitanleutnant · 02-10-10, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elanaiba

I know I'm tired and I'm missing something

1944 and 1945. Hope this helps.

Hitman · 02-10-10, 09:00 AM

Quote:

I know I'm tired and I'm missing something but we've always used a cylindrical projection. Sh3,4,5.

I think what confused many people is that in SH3 the map is cut and you can't do a full turn around the earth, while in SH4 you can scroll the map and get again to the point you started from.

I have no problems with a projection map, but it is a pity that the projection used is not adjusted to compensate the curveness of the earth. The are such 2D maps, called "Mercator projections" and it would have been a nice thing to have

guynoir · 02-10-10, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitman

I think what confused many people is that in SH3 the map is cut and you can't do a full turn around the earth, while in SH4 you can scroll the map and get again to the point you started from.

An unfortunate complication of that in SHIV was that the map cut was in the middle of the Pacific, and radio stations couldn't project past the cut, so you'd have to pump the station up to max volume in the config file so that it could project from, well, one end of the Earth to the other...

martes86 · 02-10-10, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gunnodayak

Crappy game, it will be the weakest of the series in most of the respects, except the graphics. And the eye candy graphics upgrade through the years took place in ALL video game applications, so that is not a "heroic" act for this so-called Silent Hunter 5, which has almost nothing to do with the concept of naval or sub simulation. As a conclusion, the series has took its course down, with SH5 at its lowest peak. Ubisoft and the romanian developers team should be really ashamed of themselves. But of course, they've got no shame, only the burning desire to fool the market and to make money profit. I hope they won't. At least, not from me.

You haven't tested it yet, and you claim it's crap already? Way to go, dumb and thoughtless subjectivity.

SteamWake · 02-10-10, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martes86

Really? I'll be damned, I've been thinking otherwise for a long time.

Thanks for clearing the doubt.

Supprises me as well but as with any projection of a sphere onto a flat surface there is some distortion.

ryanglavin · 02-10-10, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martes86

You haven't tested it yet, and you claim it's crap already? Way to go, dumb and thoughtless subjectivity.

DRM has infected us all, expressially when none of us have played it.

martes86 · 02-10-10, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Supprises me as well but as with any projection of a sphere onto a flat surface there is some distortion.

Of course, of course, I never said that it was a perfect system (in fact, Hitman's link says that it's the less useful system for practical uses, with special focus on the polar distortion). But all along I thought that we got plane projection in SH3 and 4, and that SH5 was getting an all new system, but it seems I was terribly mistaken.

Cheers

02-10-10, 04:41 AM	#1
Frederf Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 665 Downloads: 79 Uploads: 1	Cylindrical Earth This thread is intended as a place to discuss the actual features of the game Silent Hunter 5 based what is visible in videos, screenshots or available from interviews and press materials. Since the digital rights management aspect, controversial as it may be, is not game feature it is not appropriate for discussion in this thread; there are many other threads for such talk. One flaw of Silent Hunter 3 and Silent Hunter 4 is that the world and the map were one and the same. The map was flat and the world was flat. This made programming easy but had nasty real world consequences. Distances (and transit times) between real world places were shown to be much, much bigger in the flat world of Silent Hunter. The real routes taken by ships over the real Earth and straight lines on the map were different leaving historical sources and in-game needs at odds. The ideal solution is to separate the mapspace from the worldspace so one can look at a flat map on the desk of a submarine but also travel through a world of real spherical shape. There are complications for the mapspace tools as long lines of shortest distance between points are actually curves when view through the distortion of the map projection, but this is well within the capability of programming. In some interview or text, I heard that SHV is adopting a cylindrical world which is a far, far cry from a spherical world. It seems so foolish to go through all the effort of a change and not come close to a long term solution. Surely the very shape of the Earth is a good foundation for a simulation about submarines with ranges on the order of 10,000nm.

02-10-10, 04:49 AM	#2
elanaiba Ace of the Deep Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Bucharest, Romania Posts: 1,058 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 3	There's no change, its the same as in SH3/4. __________________ With strength I burn...

02-10-10, 04:55 AM	#3
Kapitanleutnant Frogman Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 305 Downloads: 22 Uploads: 0	welp __________________ Oh worse than Hitler! You wouldn't find Hitler playing jungle music at three o'clock in the morning!

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02-10-10, 06:58 AM	#5
Gunnodayak Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	Crappy game, it will be the weakest of the series in most of the respects, except the graphics. And the eye candy graphics upgrade through the years took place in ALL video game applications, so that is not a "heroic" act for this so-called Silent Hunter 5, which has almost nothing to do with the concept of naval or sub simulation. As a conclusion, the series has took its course down, with SH5 at its lowest peak. Ubisoft and the romanian developers team should be really ashamed of themselves. But of course, they've got no shame, only the burning desire to fool the market and to make money profit. I hope they won't. At least, not from me.