Why485

What you say in this post is true, yes, and is what myself and Ozneral were saying before. Although, the impostors themselves never fade with distance. (Which is a decrease in opacity, not increase.) Technically there is a gray area with how alphaExp works at extremely short and impractical distances, but in practice alphaExp functions as a flat alpha modifier. I wish the default ones faded with distance, but unless that's changed in 1.5.3, which I'm fairly sure they haven't based on some gameplay earlier today, they don't. They only get covered in more fog which makes them slightly harder to see with the distance, as the haze causes a lack of contrast. Eventually, when the model stops drawing completely (when this happens is based on when the LOD tells the model to stop drawing), it will sharply disappear. What you were saying before where there is no image rendered over the model, (There is. This is the very definition of an impostor sprite.) and that the actual object itself is resized (Model geometry is never dynamically resized based on distance.) were patently false. I know how the impostors work. Dissecting the system was literally the first thing I did when EDGE dropped. There's no way I could have "fixed" them without having an in depth understanding of how they work. You seem to have the concept of how impostors work correct, but perhaps your terminology is what's wrong and throwing me off.

No, what he said was completely wrong and not at all how impostors work. I think he's confusing and mixing up the LOD system with the impostors, but they are totally unrelated and independent of each other. All LODs do is reduce the amount of polygons on a model based on distance. They're not dynamically scaled models based on distance. Wags has actually explicitly stated in the past that for some reason they cannot scale the models as a form of visibility aid because it would mess up radar returns. For some models (the game is very inconsistent about this, and typically it's the older LOMAC legacy models) the lower LOD models have a slightly bigger fixed size, but not in any meaningful way.

Oh hey it's this thread again. I don't have much to add that OP didn't already cover. It would be a great new player introduction plane for the people who just don't give a rats ass for air to ground and/or wouldn't be sold on flying a slow ground attacker.

Due to the way shaders work, I have no idea what's behind the plane, so I can't blend based on background. I also can't use fog to adjust based on altitude because altitude is an absolute number but AGL isn't. I spent a lot of time trying to see if I could somehow calculate AGL and use that to hide ground vehicles, but unfortunately I couldn't find anything. No, he was right. You're either mistaking impostors for LOD models or mixing up the concepts completely. They are totally separate and unrelated systems. When an impostor is drawn, the model behind it stops being drawn and a sprite of the model is instead drawn on top of it. Hence the name impostor. It's a "fake" stand in for the real model. The boxes you're thinking about are the LOD models, which are models that swap out based on distance. The further you are, the less complex the model is, eventually resulting in the box you are talking about for ground objects. Changes in LOD models have absolutely nothing to do with impostors or how they're rendered. It's a completely separate system. Ozneral is spot on with his explanation for why resolution has such a great effect on the apparent size of impostors. It's something that's easily correctable, but ED doesn't for whatever reason.

It's all or nothing. At least as of right now I haven't been able to figure out a way to tell the difference between ground and air targets given the very little information I have in the shader. The mod is optimized for air to air, as that's where I feel the biggest problem lies, and while it's certainly better at air to ground spotting (as in, it's harder) compared to the stock ED solution, it's still too strong. That is something that ED needs to fix. There needs to be separate values for air targets versus ground targets.

I don't have access to airspeed in the shader, and I can't store position to derive speed because shaders don't work that way. What do you mean by exports? Are you talking about Lua? This isn't Lua and I don't have any way to pass new information into the shaders without access to the C++ source code that interfaces the two. If I had access to that layer, things would become significantly easier and I'd have a hell of a lot more control to make everything much better than making do with what little info I have in the shader.

Unfortunately that's something ED will have to fix. I optimized the settings for air to air combat. While ground targets are significantly less overdone than they are in the base game, I still think they're too visible. I spent a lot of time trying to find some hacky workaround to separating air from ground targets. I don't think the information is there for me to get something like an AGL and use that to determine if something is on the ground or not. Who knows though. I thought I couldn't get distance way back when I made my first version of a visibility fix, but it turns out I was overlooking something that in hindsight was extremely obvious.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, because I completely disagree with your assessment and there's just as much testimonial to the opposite of what you just said from pilots and ATC personnel, and I doubt there's anything either of us can do to convince the other. I will give you that ED's current implementation is extremely flawed, and I spent some time trying to see if I could separate ground for air targets but unfortunately that's something ED will have to do themselves.

It's more than just a bug. It's a pretty complex problem because the impostor system as currently implemented has a few very critical flaws. I'm just going to copy/paste most of what I already said in that other thread, as I'm a bit tired of repeating myself ad nauseum on the topic. While 2.0.1 and soon 1.5.3 will fix the inconsistency issues that 1.5.2/2.0.0 introduced, ED has still only been making tweaks to a fundamentally flawed system. No matter what settings they find, they will always have shortcomings in certain scenarios, be it at extreme ranges, at certain resolutions, and so on. I've long maintained that model visibility is one of the most important issues facing DCS. I'm very happy that ED has finally decided to address it, but I'm not satisfied with the solution. Ideally, it should be something that is robust enough that it works equally well across all platforms, and provides a realistic level of visibility. Prior to EDGE, this was an atrocious shortcoming of DCS, and while it's now significantly better, the system is hampered by its own flaws which in turn causes many servers to disable it for various understandable reasons. Here are the two essential changes needed in order to make this the solution DCS needs: 1. Objects MUST become harder to see with distance. When this doesn't happen, you get situations like the above picture where you see ground targets from ridiculous distances the size of football stadiums, and 200ft long F-15s taking off from runways 50km away. It's primarily a scaling problem. Not only is this unrealistic, but it also just looks strange and immersion breaking. 2. Resolution must NOT significantly impact the ability to see objects. This is absolutely critical as if everybody is seeing something different, then nobody can even begin to discuss what's realistic or not. I'm also very adverse to the idea of punishing somebody in an area so important as seeing your target for reasons largely out of their control. In the current system, the lower your resolution the bigger your impostors. Before the model visibility setting in 1.2, the higher your resolution, the better you could see. Additionally, if it were up to me, this would also be a system that is simply on or off, with the default being on. For those that would rather play with it off for one reason or another, they should have that option. However it should be designed so that everybody runs the same settings, everybody sees the same results, and servers default to running with it on.

If there's a specific mission where it's crashing, could you post it? I haven't had any problems with stability whatsoever. Settings for this kind of thing have always been transferable between 2.0 and 1.5. There aren't any rendering differences (in terms of impostors anyway) between 2.0.1 and 1.5.2 as far as I'm aware. Though, I will say that things tend to be easier to see in NTTR because the backdrop is so featureless and bright relative to the Caucasus map.

My mistake. Just drop the Universal Visibility folder into your JSGME mod folder. It's already in a JSGME safe format. If you'd rather do it the old fashioned way, you can extract the contents of the Universal Visibility folder into your DCS World folder. Although, I wouldn't recommend that as you'll just overwrite your files. I'll update the OP with these instructions and throw a readme into the zip.

The current model visibility system is flawed. While 2.0.1 and soon 1.5.3 will fix the inconsistency issues that 1.5.2/2.0.0 introduced, ED has still only been making tweaks to a fundamentally flawed system. No matter what settings they find, they will always have shortcomings in certain scenarios, be it at extreme ranges, at certain resolutions, and so on. I've long maintained that model visibility is one of the most important issues facing DCS. I'm very happy that ED has finally decided to address it, but I'm not satisfied with the solution. Ideally, it should be something that is robust enough that it works equally well across all platforms, and provides a realistic level of visibility. Prior to EDGE, this was an atrocious shortcoming of DCS, and while it's now significantly better, the system is hampered by its own flaws which in turn causes many servers to disable it for various understandable reasons. Here are the two essential changes needed in order to make this the solution DCS needs: 1. Objects MUST become harder to see with distance. When this doesn't happen, you get situations like the above picture where you see ground targets from ridiculous distances the size of football stadiums, and 200ft long F-15s taking off from runways 50km away. It's primarily a scaling problem. Not only is this unrealistic, but it also just looks strange and immersion breaking. 2. Resolution must NOT significantly impact the ability to see objects. This is absolutely critical as if everybody is seeing something different, then nobody can even begin to discuss what's realistic or not. I'm also very adverse to the idea of punishing somebody in an area so important as seeing your target for reasons largely out of their control. In the current system, the lower your resolution the bigger your impostors. Before the model visibility setting in 1.2, the higher your resolution, the better you could see. Additionally, if it were up to me, this would also be a system that is simply on or off, with the default being on. For those that would rather play with it off for one reason or another, they should have that option. However it should be designed so that everybody runs the same settings, everybody sees the same results, and servers default to running with it on. Rather than continue to make threads about this topic and repeat myself ad nauseum about how and why this is so important, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I've made a mod that makes some very critical tweaks the model visibility setting to demonstrate that not only is it entirely possible for DCS to work like this, but it could be done with the information that was already there, but unused. Download the mod here. To install, just drop the Universal Visibility folder into your JSGME mod folder. If you'd rather do it the old fashioned way, you can extract the contents of the Universal Visibility folder into your DCS World folder. Although, I wouldn't recommend that as you'll just overwrite your files. Here's a rundown of what this mod does, and what I think ED's model visibility system should be doing: Impostors now reduce in size with distance. Objects now reasonably fade into view versus always being the same pixel size at any distance. This prevents giant F-15s 50km away, and prevents SAM sites from being silly visible at extreme range. Contrast of objects now increases with distance. Bright spots on planes are much brighter, and dark spots are now darker. Being a bright white color is no longer a cloaking device, and the contrast makes things stick out at longer distances All visibility settings are now the same. For uniformity, and because this is meant to be a universal setting, there is no longer a difference between low/med/high. As long as it’s not off, the system is on and working. Impostors scale with resolution. Lowering your resolution no longer means you get larger planes and tanks, and a higher resolution no longer lets you see further than others. Everybody now has the about the same level of effectiveness when it comes to seeing things at a distance, regardless of resolution. Alpha of the object adjusts depending on field of view. Zooming into a distant object now lets you still easily see the object. In fact, the further you zoom in, the easier it is to pick out. Conversely, zooming way out (e.g. >120 degree FOVs) is no longer a “let me see everything magnified and huge” button. Overall, the end result is objects that are very difficult to see >20km, but still there if you look really hard and get lucky with aspect. Between 10-20km is where things start to become more visible, and objects <10km are very visible. Expect to see dots. Whereas before, it was always an F-15 of the same size no matter the distance, far objects will now turn into high contrast dots as they get further away. They only start to turn into discernible silhouettes as you get closer (usually around 10km) and they start to maneuver. In terms of the actual values, I’ve been a bit conservative with how visible things should be as well. I'm actually expecting some to say they still can't see anything with this. However, I would rather under-do it than over-do it for a first run. This is no 1.5.1 where you could see everything with almost comical ease. As much fun as I had with that, it wasn’t right. This is fairly close to what I feel is realistic. Under 10km you can see targets perfectly fine, but in that gray roughly between 10 and 20km, how visible something is can vary quite a bit. Sometimes you’ll spot them from further out, sometimes closer. It’ll depend on shape, background, and aspect.

Sign me up under Red lonewolf Callsign: Why485 Preferred Aircraft: Su-27, Su-33, MiG-29S, MiG-21bis Can also fly: Su-25A, Su-25T Also what is the model visibility going to be set at for the server?

Here are the new impostor settings as of 2.0.1 (and eventually 1.5.3): old value -> new value Small maxSize 8 -> 16 minSize 4.0 -> 4.0 alphaExp 0.75 -> 0.20 Medium maxSize 12 -> 16 minSize 6.0 -> 8.0 alphaExp 0.5 -> 0.15 Large maxSize 12 -> 16 minSize 8.0 -> 10.0 alphaExp 0.15 -> 0.10 The new maxSize settings mean that the flickering and impostors completely disappearing at some aspects should now be fixed. Now, you'll get a small anti-aliased sprite versus the very crude approximations that often ended up looking like a bar, separated dots, or sometimes literally nothing at all. Overall, this change means that visibility should be much more consistent across the board. Or, in picture form, this doesn't happen anymore. They will now look like planes or coherent small dots depending on the settings/distance. The generally larger minsize means obviously that stuff is easier to see. Personally I think 10.0 is too big if nothing else has changed, but I guess on the other hand it means that this setting actually means something. Medium is fairly realistic to me at 2560x1440 (if a bit too large), but at 1920x1080, medium is equivalent to large at 2560x1440. The alphaExp changes mean that the imposters are easier to see in the distance versus 1.5.2/2.0.0. Small in particular should make distant objects appear as little dots versus identifiable objects. These are all good changes. This fixes the issues introduced in 1.5.2, and I believe that (at least at 1440p) these are sensible values going forward. I also have to thank ED for finally making this option visible in the server browser. It will remove the ambiguity of people basing their opinions on unknown settings. Unfortunately, there are no other changes to the rendering as far as I've been able to tell. If ED had fixed the problem where the apparent size of an object depends on your resolution, then this patch would have been golden for the model visibility setting. This is a screenshot I took today in 2.0.1 Unfortunately, that is not that case. I must once again reiterate that until this gets fixed, and it is a trivially easy thing to fix, then we cannot even begin to agree on what is most realistic. We can only make compromises or just build the settings around an assumed resolution (likely 1080p) and tell everybody else to deal with it. There is also the elephant in the room of the profoundly negative effect that this inconsistency has on multiplayer servers and its players. Other fixes that would help to make this a universal solution to the visibility problem would be separate settings for ground units, and making imposters fade with distance.

What if you create a new mission in the mission editor, save that mission, and test through that mission? Kind of a weird long shot, but I'm curious if that would work.

You can try and set something totally silly as a sanity check like maxsize of 256 and minsize of 128. Part of the problem is that there's so much ambiguity with what setting is applied. I wouldn't be surprised if most servers aren't even aware of what setting the server is at because of how unintuitive it is to set it and there's no good way to check.

They do if the server is enforcing the whatever setting you modified. E.g. if you modified the medium values and the server is using small then you'll see whatever you have small settings at. Personally, I like taking the minsize and just multiplying it by 2 for each of the relevant sizes. This way you still have the official imposter size, but without the awful and inconsistent problems with the current settings. This is fixed in 2.0.1 and (presumably) will be in 1.5.3 as well. The settings are changing to a compromise between what it was in 1.5.1 (when they were most visible) and what they are now. You'll also be able to tell what setting the server is using in the browser.

Minsize is the smallest the imposter is allowed to get. It's measured in pixels.

If you want the 1.5 settings you can use those. They were: Normal: Maxsize: 12 Minsize: 3 AlphaExp: 0.5 Enlarged: Maxsize: 12 Minsize: 5 AlphaExp: 0.25 Nothing has changed in terms of rendering since 1.5.0, so those values will have the exact same effect now as they did when 1.5.0 first came out. 1.5.1 is what introduced the small, medium, and large settings. 1.5.1's settings were also much bigger all round. If those are what you are referring to, they were: Small: Maxsize: 20 Minsize: 6.0 AlphaExp: 0.0 Medium: Maxsize: 20 Minsize: 8.0 AlphaExp: 0.0 Large: Maxsize: 20 Minsize: 10.0 AlphaExp: 0.0

You should be able to change it as many times as you want. I'm not sure what issues Maverick is having with the files as I'm able to change it to whatever, whenever. Alphaexp is strange. I used to think it was just a constant value across all distances, but after doing some really extreme testing, I'm not so sure that's the case. In a couple times when I've hyper-exaggerated the values (maxsize of 256, alphaExp of 1.0), I've noticed that the imposters are fully opaque until they hit the minsize. After the minsize, they gradually become more transparent until eventually they hit the alphaExp value and then remain at that level of transparency. The distance at which something with an alphaExp of 1.0 eventually becomes fully transparent seems to correlate to something a little past 10km, but it's likely that's just the result of some non-linear falloff function that just ends up looking like that. When you have realistically small minsize values, this effectively ends up looking like a constant value across all distances. Either way, I think a correct minsize that looks the same across all resolutions, plus a transparency that changes based on distance, and separate values for these settings on ground vehicles versus air, would be a good universal solution to model visibility that doesn't need to be a gameplay option. To throw some aircraft spotting ballpark numbers out there, at 2560x1440, I think 7.0-8.0 looks very realistic for minsize (which is about 6-7 at 1080p). If that was coupled with transparencies that perhaps start to fade around 10-20km, and become fully transparent around 50-60km, I think you would end up with something very realistic. Ideally I think these distances would be modified based on the true size of the object, so for example a B-52 would fade at much longer distances, but, baby steps first.

That's a direct symptom of what I was talking about on the last page. I'm not really sure what they were thinking with the 1.5.2 imposter settings. I've seen exactly what you're describing while doing my own testing where from specific angles (and not even angles that make sense) a plane will literally disappear because of the way the pixels are drawn in with the current settings. Running with larger maxsizes ensures imposters are drawn at a higher resolution than you see them and then scaled down which gives them a natural anti-aliased look and prevents them from just completely disappearing.

The setting is enforced based on the mission file. It's not a visible setting in the mission editor yet, but all you should have to do is open the mission and then save it again. Whatever the model visibility setting you had set in settings when you saved it is what gets saved into the mission file. I use Notepad++ if that helps. I've had no such issues with modifying the settings.

If anything has changed at all, it's an engine level change, because none of the usual suspect files have been updated. After some brief testing I didn't notice any difference from 1.5.2 as released. I also want to remind everybody of how inconsistent and strange the imposters look with the current settings. It's why stuff seems to just literally disappear from certain angles. Ever since 1.5.2, they've been running very tiny maxsizes that are even lower than the minsizes. This causes them to be upscaled rather than downscaled, which causes artifacts resulting in planes that look like rows of pixels or just a couple dots. Conversely, when you have a maxsize greater than the minsize, the imposters are generated at a higher resolution and then downscaled, which gives a natural anti-aliasing effect and prevents the below situation from occurring. This is how imposters were configured pre-1.5.2. Pictured are 3 F-15s, but 2 of them (because of their angle) look like a pair of dots rather than a plane. Here is the exact same scenario, but with a raised maxsize (12 from 7. 12 also happens to be the value from 1.5.0.). I've touched no other imposter setting. The minsize (8 for large) and alphaExp (0.15 for large) are still their default values. They still look like planes, and don't disappear from certain angles because of the way they get sampled at such low resolutions and then blown up. This doesn't mean that stuff isn't harder to see at certain angles. A plane from head on for example will still be much more difficult to see than from below or to the side. This just ensures they don't disappear to the point of literally having no pixels actually drawn.

Are you sure? I just logged onto the server and it looks like it's off. Did you re-save the mission after you changed the setting? The setting is saved into the mission file the same as all the other difficulty options like G-Force effects. As far as I know, it's not something that's applied just because you have your computer set one way or the other. If you saved the mission with a value of Off, but you host the mission with your options saying Large, it'll still be off.

You can modify it just fine, at least in singleplayer. I did it yesterday to test something. Are you trying this on a multiplayer server? If they have it set to none you're not going to see anything no matter what you put in there.