9.0 – Storm’s HD Model Feedback

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Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/280163.html

Hello everyone,

Storm made another 9.0-themed post, this time, he’s asking about the feedback of the three HD models, released in the first round of the test. What did you like? What didn’t you like?

Also, he posted three new screenshots of models, that have been reworked (they from today (26.3.2014) and are different from the ones, that are on the test).

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Which one do you like the most? Vote on FTR poll (right side of the blog)

From the discussion:

- T-54 on this screenshot was not much changed from the test one
- the size (height) of T-54 turret is apparently correct: Storm states that there were many variants of T-54 turrets and this is just one of them, Wargaming specifically checked the ordiginal documents (factory assembly drawings) and the turret is correct
- it’s possible there will be more turrets for T-54 after alternative hulls are added
- regarding camo paint applied on wheels, Storm states that it looks weird whe wheels are rotating
- Storm confirms 7 more HD models in 9.0
- it’s possible that weak computers will have the option not to download HD textures, from 9.1 onwards most likely
- Storm states that 9.0 hangar lighting is specific, because there are 3 light sources in it (SS: not just 1 as in battle), some models just look odd in the light
- in 9.0, old hangar mods will most likely not work, because the lighting system has been reworked
- apparently, WG hasn’t developed any means to make the players “feel the size” of the tanks yet
- the Tiger was made much lighter, this change will appear in the next version of test
- for now, there will be no “turret ripped off by ammo rack explosion” effect for turretless tanks (like ripping the compartment open), but it might come later
- dirt on the tracks will be implemented, based on the type of map (surface)
- there are no plans to add wear and tear to tanks, used in many battles by the players (SS: as in a tank with 3k battles looking more worn out than one with 30)
- there are no plans to implement the possibility for players to create their own camouflage
- British HD models in 9.0 will be Centurion 7/1 and Tortoise, Conqueror will come later

98 thoughts on “9.0 – Storm’s HD Model Feedback”

  1. is there any info on the wrong track link conections in the HD model of Sherman or it’s fixing?

  2. I’m not sure which one I like most, they each have their merits. Being very angular the tigers isn’t very comparable with the other two.

  6. “- there are no plans to add wear and tear to tanks, used in many battles by the players (SS: as in a tank with 3k battles looking more worn out than one with 30)”

    heh – pity. It would be super awesome.

  7. I like M4,T-54 looks…weird for me and Tiger? Like plastic toy,why they are unable to model road wheels? Its ridiculous.

    • Every additional ridge modeled on the wheels adds up at least as much triangles as is the initial wheel polycount, which basicaly triples the final. Times 8 wheels per side, it adds up pretty quickly. Plus, the ridges are recesed below the outer rim, so the added geometry doesn’t add anything to silhouette, making it basically wasted polygons. Which does make doing it purely on normalmaps the most sensible thing they could have done.

      I know digging up anything WG might have done wrong is pretty ‘in’ right now, but really…

      • Poly-count isn’t that good of a reason when we have Torsys’s LOWE mod(or his e-100) already in game, that is quite close to WG HD model level AND has the mentioned details on the wheels, though lacks the thread details.
        Then again, i predict that once 9.0 hits, modders will be more than tempted to tinker around those hd models as well. :P

        • Wouldn’t be the first time modders went against good modeling practices ;) Because tying up a third of your poly limit in what amounts to almost flat wheels isn’t usually a particularly good idea….

          • if my 4 year old toaster can run those models with no fps drop compared to vanilla ones, then i don’t see any problem. Hell, you could use simpler extrudes on the wheels with addition to normal maps(meet about half way).
            The usual bitching about game performance comes from guys with pc’s so old, they’re probably coal powered

            • Everything’s dandy as long as you have a single such model on screen. Problems begin with the worst case scenario, that is cramming 30 of this tank in tight space and zooming in on the wheels. Ideally this should have absolutely no impact on framerate even in slightly sub-optimal configurations.
              Anyway, that wasn’t exactly my point anyhow. I’m just saying that having this kind of insignificant part of the model hog this much of its polycount is just bad form.

              • You might not believe it, but i have installed a LOT of custom tank models(ex.almost whole henshel heavy line, 50/50m, top of yankee e5 line and their td’s) many of them have much more increased polycount and many times i can see ~10 of them on screen at once. Still no problems.
                Your example is a bit unrealistic and extremely hard to achieve, unless in a training room.
                Going by your logic they could hack out the ribs on t-54 road wheels and make it a map too, but they didn’t. I’d say someone was just lazy :P More room for improvement for modelers i guess.
                You can use use at it is, me, i’ll swap it as soon as someone remodels them. To each their own.

                • Ok, from the top.
                  However hard to achieve it might be, the design must still account for this kind of thing happening and not kill the framerate in the process. That’s design 101.

                  The ribs on the roadwheels are larger in scale and more clearly visible from different angles than slight bumps on the surface of the wheels. They’re also less poly-intensive, and the wheels are fewer than in the tiger tank.

                  I see where you’re coming from, but as I said, moders have by far less constraints put on them than their professional counterparts. Many times a model is made deliberatly less detailed to better blend with older ones, or has to follow other guidelines set by other team members, that are not readily apparent to the end user. And sometimes you make details simpler because the returns are not worth the higher complexity. You might not believe me, but I’ve done quite a bit of 3d modeling myself, and encountered that quite a lot.

                • Don’t forget that most people who play WOT are Russians. In Russia the average computer capability is (apparently) much lower than in other places (like Europe, America, Australia etc…). While you might have no problem running all those polygons, other people do. So rather than moaning about all the resources that WG isn’t wasting, be happy about how much better the starting models will be for all your modders.

                  Also, comparing it to the T-54′s road wheels falls flat when you realize that the Tiger has almost twice as many wheels to begin with.

  8. Any hints on the M4 getting some kind of historical mode treatment a la the Pz 4D/H? Basically I mean the M4A2 hull appearing before alternative hulls are modules.

    • I think it’s more likely the M4 is going to get the actual M4 hull(Currently it has the cast M4A1 hull, the normal M4 hull is welded and has that slanted look akin to the Easy 8 and Jumbo)

  9. Aside from color and other small things (the log), I can’t see much difference in those “HD” models quality-wise…I wonder what am I supposed to look for.

  12. - British HD models in 9.0 will be Centurion 7/1 and Tortoise, Conqueror will come later

    The only thing I am looking forward to in this update, is the HD model of my beloved Centurion 7/1

  14. “apparently, WG hasn’t developed any means to make the players ‘feel the size’ of the tanks yet”

    Say what?

    I thought that was a directive to the art department, not an implementation of a specific feature.

    • I think what this is talking about is making the tank “feel” like it’s there, little bits like jerking slightly when a tank stops, sound effects to convey the hunk of steel of moving and such

      • Then implement something that really makes you feel like you are driving a tank.
        ERGO: The game is only playable in REAL tanks while driving.
        There. Then i could really feel the power and size of a tank in action!

  15. - apparently, WG hasn’t developed any means to make the players “feel the size” of the tanks yet

    Make a garage like star citizen with 1:1 scale tanks you can walk around.

    • That would be pretty sweet.
      But still keep the tank selector around, I don’t want to spend 5 minutes looking for a tank in my garage just to enter a battle :P

      • Also view from the commander’s hatch!

        I would love to roll around in a JGPZ E100 looking at that gun in front.

  16. They should add achievements in the game and unlockable camo/deals/inscriptions.
    Yeah greedy bastards keep the price in gold, just make some stuff require XXX amount battles in hte tank for unlock, X amount kills, etc, etc. You can still pay the damn gold, but you can get something different for your 3000 battles tank ! Would be super awesome!

    • That is a great idea. It would be great if the tanks had some special inscriptions for achievements, imagine if you could have a tank with a mastery badge or/and something like 100 kills one and so on. It would be great and I am sure people will appreciate it, imagine killing an “Red Baron” tank driver in a match and showing up the replay later … great stuff.

      • you can still do clanwars for your gold :p
        any amount of battles for unlocks just ends in more bots…
        camo skill on the crew is still better than the camopainting!

        • Camo paint is just for looks imo, same with inscription. I only run paint and inscription and decal for the looks, im tired of the ugly stock paint.

          • Cammo paint works mechanics-wise. Experienced many times when an ally tank stood besides me and got badly beaten while I was just standing there, eating no shells. And I was much juicier target that he was (like my in FV183 and ally in Jagdtiger etc.). They simply did not see me while he was rapidly becoming a smoking wreck.

            • Camo paint adds very little to camo, specially on big tanks like löwe and e100, etc. Most people use it for looks because they want to make their tank look nicer, and i agree they look nicer. Even bf4 has camo skin on vehicles, not sure they add any better camo though :).

        • yeah, ofc it for your own satisfaction. Noone else reads your inscription and sees any other of the stuff on your tank anyway. 99% percent of the time you shoot at a red outline. Hey if i want to spend 5000 battles and 1000 gold to unlock pink paint for WT E 100 why not give me that!!!???

  17. Detail on the Sherman is much better than the others. It looks and feels like a Tank. The Tiger is terrible, looks like shiny pastic. The T-54 is ok, but isn’t that much better than the one in game now tbh.

  18. As far as the HD models go:
    -It’s really, really hard to say with them being static images of different tanks. Sorry, it’s hard to do a comparison.
    -I own a Sherman, so I compared the image you gave to what’s in test – as far as I can tell, they’re virtually identical, even the shaders used. I don’t see any obvious differences.
    -I will agree with the crowd that the Soviet tank doesn’t look that spectacular – at least from its static image.

  19. One thing that i really don’t like, that both in the lowest details and maxed details looks the gun at the turret side weird. You can easily see the mantlet and it’s color…. There should be either dark black colour or just a “black-hole”.

  20. “- British HD models in 9.0 will be Centurion 7/1 and Tortoise, Conqueror will come later”

    Does this mean that Centurion 1 and 7/1 will have the correct model size?

  21. Tanks, big deal.
    I wonder if WG plans to add kill marks like did in WoWP.

  22. The T-54 is my favorite armor piece in the game. I love the T-54 from the 9.0 test. I hope they don’t change a thing on it. The turret looks great. very aggressive look . I also like the wood saw on the front of the hull and how the light glints off of it when your in motion. Don’t change a thing on it from 9.0 and i can live with the turret armor nurf. Great job guys..really.

    The tiger from 9.0 looks better then the one in this pic . The test server tiger had more heaver look.
    But good job all the same.
    The Sherman is the same as the tiger. Looked great in the test server, could find no fault with it.
    They all looked great. But Dat 54 modal and turret. Big huggs for you.

    I also like the new T-54 garage icon. Very nice change. Thank you .

  23. “it’s possible that weak computers will have the option not to download HD textures”
    - These HD textures is he speaking about tank models or all objects like houses, ground, trees, sky, water, plants etc? Also “weak” computers, pff read on the forums there are people with i7 4770k and gtx 780ti SLI having 60-120 fps on max settings, thats fucking less than in bf4. I say update your weak game instead and stop with your bullshit. As it is now, if you have a gaming pc you get the same fps on att settings, which is a bad joke because the game is a huge fucking bottleneck, and it became worse in 9.0 because of some idotic changes. i dont know what they have done but having a multiplayer game that supports only 1 core in these days are bullshit. Problem is WG are coding for people who play on 30-40 fps, what about those that have saved money and invested it on decent to good computer systems, why are we punished?

    I tell you wot is a whole fucking new game if you have 100-120 fps and 120hz screen playing on high to max, the game becomes so smooth and fluid and you can aim much quicker, leading targets, aim accurate for weakspots on long range etc. Too bad you rarely get those fps consistently in 9.0. You people who play with 40 fps and similar you really miss something great. If the game would be better optimised and have multicore support all people would get better performance, even if that means a couple of extra and stable fps.

    • They’ll be switching to DX11 later this year, hopefully they’ll also implement D3D11 multi-threading like in other engines. This will certainly bring better performance and a higher frame rate on DX11 cards. WarThunder for instance managed to gain 25% more fps by switching to their brand new DX11 renderer, not to mention “less micro-freezes and reduced latency” that was brought by adopting the newer DX API.
      http://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/81120-new-render-with-directx-11-support/

    • Yea… won’t nag or complain about it, because it’s f2p and if it wasn’t fun to play, I wouldn’t waste my time with this game almost every day, but still it’s a wish… It’s not a set back, it’s playable ofc, but it’s disappointing to get only ~50-60fps with i7 4770k and gtx770 (max settings, hi-res).

      On my mediocre laptop I even only get ~15 – 25 fps on low/medium settings and lower resolution. Even FC3 and BF3 runs far better on it with higher settings. Those 15-25fps are pretty much the same amount I had on my 2,1GHz PC from 2006 on lowest settings and same res more than two years ago. lol

      I really appreciate their efforts to make the game look better, but I really hope they’ll also put some effort into making it run smoother… if this possible. I’m not so much into coding. Guess, the Big World engine just isn’t as capable and probably out-dated compared to Frostbite and others.

      • Many people have confirmed that 9.0 runs less smooth, including me, so they did break something compared to 8.11. Game isnt really “free” thats just marketing bullshit to hook you and then make you spend money on gold. No mmorgp games like these are free, not if you wanna take advantages of all services the game has. If game was entierly “free” and you could enjoy it without paying for gold, then wg wouldnt have such a big profit and ppl wouldnt buy gold from the first place.

        But wot isnt the only game that is fucked, now days I believe the particular game is holding the performance back, because hardware that exist is more than good to run what ever games. Bf4 also have some serious issues with performance and stutter, etc. And dice is a big company with long history. The general trend is making games more “casual” to attract customers, but with that also comes sloppy coding and bullshit. Since people buy less desktops, the main focus isnt for people with system like ours, the main customers are casuals players with laptops and consoles. And these people dont need more than 40-50 fps anyways. So yes the quality of many games now days are utter crap, Its all about gettin as many casual “paying” customers for 2-3 years before they release the next game. This trend can be seen and is discussed widely on many forums.

        Im not saying WOT is becoming more “arcady” than it alreaddy is, I think WG simply make changes to attract more casual players that they believe will spend money first and improve their skill second. All changes are made with the possibilty that players will use gold to convert free xp or buy premium so they can grind tanks faster. I mean what does really new hangars, ripped off turrets, new shaders and HD models do for the gameplay to beginn with? Specially since these features are implemted badly because the game dont support multicore and very few people will be able to play at those graphics due to bad performance from the first place. This 9.0 patch adds little to no value actually.

        • “Game isnt really ‘free’ thats just marketing bullshit to hook you and then make you spend money on gold.”

          Pretty much. “Free” has become a way to draw people in. Once you’re in, you pretty much find out you can’t really take full advantage of the game without spending some gold.

          Technically speaking, yeah you can play the game for free. BUT – as with all free games, it must be profitable. Thus, there is no getting around it: They must rob you of enjoyment if you don’t pay. It MUST be that way. It can’t be any other way. To do anything else would be unprofitable.

          Which is why, at its core, “free to play” is fundamentally broken. And it can’t be fixed. Which is why I wish it had never become popular. I’d rather pay for a subscription.

          • So remind me again how many things there were in WoT that you can ONLY get with money?

            Your grasp of the underlying business logic seems a little skewed in general. They don’t have to, quote, rob you of enjoyment if you don’t pay, unquote; they just need to *make paying attractive*.
            These are not the same thing.

        • Yes, when playing on the test server I met a bunch of people complaining about that, but personally on my desktop pc it ran with the same fps.

          Regarding the f2p: ofc it’s a marketing strategy. Personally I am one of the people who are paying for premium account and it makes things a lot more comfortable and being able to grind faster, receive more creds & xp, makes the game more enjoyable ofc. But if I wouldn’t be able to afford a premium account I could still play this game with my friends. That’s why I prefer this over a monthly subscription.

          But all in all I totally agree on everything you say there. Games could look already way better considering the hardware today, but they just don’t get developed for this kind of hardware, because the cash-cow are casual players – mainly playing with consoles or laptops, not nerdy pc-gamers with a hi-end rig.

          That’s a development in gaming that really makes me sad tbh. Because the quality of the games suffers a lot from that. And it’s not only the graphics, it’s also stuff like the UI (e.g. the horrible inventory in Oblivion/Skyrim) and overall the depth of the games and innovation in game design. Good example are all the shallow CoD clones.

      • “won’t nag or complain about it, because it’s f2p” – pathetic excuse considering that people spend more money on this game than regular commercial titles. How the heck you think Wargaming got all this money?

          • True, but that still doesnt change the fact that “free to play” is only a bullshit term used in marketing. As well as “HD textures” is another bullshit term used by WG not have anything to do with High Defenition to beginn with.

            • Please tell me how HD is a set of codified requirements and not a marketing buzzword to make something new seem better than another older thing.

  24. - it’s possible that weak computers will have the option not to download HD textures, from 9.1 onwards most likely

    I choose using old textures rather than using HD version. I like my anime skin far better

  25. - apparently, WG hasn’t developed any means to make the players “feel the size” of the tanks yet

    Just move the camera a little down… Now tanks look like toys, because they feel so small.
    In Xbox 360 version you can actually feel the size of your tank.

    • Change the FOV if you dont like the current camera angles. Also the game is arcade, not a simulator, many people want bigger fov = smaller tanks.

  26. What’s with the front cut of T-54 turret above the drivers hatch? i havent seen it before. Looked at dozens of pictures of real life T-54′s and i see no such chopped off turret front. It looks just like a sLowe turret flat trapshot behind the mantlet.

    Why did they changed it?

  27. Any clue when they’ll make tanks brighter? 9.0 got tanks models darker than the new version – also paint on a Tiger seem to be very dark, no matter which camo you pick.

  28. Dunno why people complain so much about HD models. If you look few years ago how shitty tonks in WoT looked like, compared to these models they look epic. Really good job WG did there. Imo their HD models>WTGF models any day. I play on low settings so for me this won’t change a thing, but in my personal view they look quite good and improvement is really obvious. Those who say that old M4 looks the same as HD model are blind.

    • You still dont get it. Its pointless introducing all these fancy stuff when the game engine cant handle it due to beeing single threaded. Sure the game looks fine, but the graphics alone dont add any value. Nice graphics are only good if you get sufficient enough fps, and this isnt the case as you can read above. Having 40 fps and max graphics is totally bullshit and outdated, specially in the times where 144hz gaming screens are standard and we have hadware more than enough to handle it. Game is the limting factor here. If WG really wanted to make the game “high end”, they would have made it different from the first beginning. HD graphics is just a selling point, just like all other useless features of other patches.

      • You do get that the art team can’t exactly just go and start messing with the engine just because your fps is capped below your refresh rate. You’re complaining that they’re basically doing the thing they’re supposed to be doing.

        • I complain because the situations is absurd to beginn with. As I said before, better graphics with not sufficient enough fps is ussless for most people. Why not put all that focus on making game engine multicore first and then better graphics?

          • Don’t think slaving artists or graphic engine devs to client development would do a lot of good. Best case scenario, they’d end up sitting on their hands waiting or wasting months learning the inner workings of something they weren’t hired to touch. Worst case- they’d break something.

            TL;DR
            Just because we get some particular content, doesn’t mean no work is done on something completely unrelated.

      • It’s not single threaded… Look at all the screenies from 9.0 It’s still technically single core, but it’s much better optimized than you imply.

        • Its still single thread, the only thing it does is dividing the load to other cores. Much better optimized is not accurate, since many people had better performance in same settings in 8.11 and they all have good system. So no, patch 9.0 did mess some things up.

  29. Tiger became bright again. That’s sad because the darker one was actually closer to real Panzergrau color.

  30. - British HD models in 9.0 will be Centurion 7/1 and Tortoise, Conqueror will come later

    I thought it was the Churchill I that was supposed to be in 9.0 but was cut..

  31. all three models have one thing in common: they are way too glossy, it looks just stupid and unrealistic!
    they should be much more dull, I never saw a shiny tank in real life…

  32. Sherman looks the best overall for me, maybe because the color is lighter compared to the other 2 so you could see more clearly some of the details on the paint, the thing I don’t like is the front tracks that looks a little cartoony and the gun barrel, maybe because it’s short and it blends on the background.

    T-54 is also good specially the tracks and turret up to gun barrel. I have a mix feeling on the hull if I like it or not maybe because of angle/lighting or the color.

    Tiger looks only good on front tracks, gun barrel and some parts on front armor.

  33. all 3 tanks are very nicely done! perhaps tiger has the most details on….overall the tanks feel freaking great!

  34. When they talk about roadwheel camo looking weird are the meaning if the wheels are a solid colour or with camo pattern on them?

    I would have expected the roadwheels to be a single colour and a mix of the camo colours on the wheels.

    For example an all white winter camo would have all white wheels. However the russian brown and white winter camo could have a mix of white and brown wheels.