[ClockWatcher]

The image below uses a modified greyscale in MicroDEM to get as linear a slope as possible. Each white square = 1 pixel in IL2's terrain maps. I want to point out the following:



IL2 cannot give you a vertical slope, a cliff. This is because at ALL heights, a drop to the next height level results in a slope drawn over 2 pixels, 400m, as shown in the picture. This is because terrain maps (map_h) are drawn at a resolution of 1 pixel = 200m in IL2's terrain rendering engine. So those hoping for the White Cliffs of Dover and similar features will be disappointed. These cliffs are around 315ft, 100m, tall at their highest point, but IL2 will show them as a slope because of the way the terrain engine works making it look like a gentle hill. There is also the limitation that IL2's maximum height appears to be 4000m.

Please think about why maps are not accurate before you post, it is not because map makers are being sloppy, it is because it is the best they can do with the rendering engine we have in IL2.

Could this be improved in IL2? Yes. Water features are drawn in map_c at a resolution of 50m, if someone could figure out how to get terrain drawn at this resolution we could have more accurate scenery. But this would make the game more sluggish.

Why? Because at the moment each terrain square covers 200m per side = 4 height points, one at each corner. If we now did it at 50m per terrain square we would need 25 points to describe the height for a 200m x 200m square now (there are 16 50m squares in a square 200m x 200m). So 6.25 times more data to be plotted and rendered makes it a slower game! The picture below gives a better explanation, the red dots being where the height data points are.



Thanks for listening.