BS2: New Shkval POV shrinks everything and cuts part of the TV Screen

Hello guys,

After flying with BS2 and completing a few missions, something has struck me.

They have adopted a new Point of View as to where the pilot eyes are in the cockpit, and as a result all objects rendered in the Shkval are shrunk to about 60-70% of their actual apparent size.

There is also another little problem with the new POV. A little more than 5% of the Shkval TV screen is obscured by the black frame on the top of the monitor and it simply can't be seen anymore.

Since the BS is ubberly dependable on its optical sensor, and it has no other effective way of detecting and/or engaging targets, I find these changes (Bugs? Features?) majorly disturbing.

ID'ing targets at a distance has become a painstakingly difficult task now, since MBT's become a slice of what their silhouette once was.

For me, this an enormous disappointment in the paid-upgrade, for it hampers our ability to ID and engage targets.

I took a few screenshots from the same Airfield with the targets positioned at the same distance; roughly 3km)

The first image illustrates the perfect apparent size as it was with BS 1.02 from a T-80 @3km with the Shkval at its maximum zoom.

The second picture shows the same tank as it is depicted in the BS2 Shkval from the same tank on the same airfield, same distance and same zoom level as before.

Another picture illustrating the first case-scenario, but now with the Shkval gate on top of the tank to better illustrate the lack of shrinkage in its apparent size.

The last picture further illustrates the shrinking in the apparent size of the target @3km and demonstrating how distorted it becomes:

One can also note that the frame on top of the Shkval obscures a good 5% of the top view, which did not occur in the first installment of Black Shark.

So, is there something that can be done about this?

I believe this to be a major drawback in the paid-upgrade. Sure having all the niftiness of grass, HDR and the such is a nice addition, but obscuring a considerable part of the only targeting visor we have and shrinking the entire world around us does not sound too reasonable. :thumbup: :pilotfly:

I found this to be annoying to but for me it is not a problem, you can edit the pilots head position in the .lua files but that is not what I did, since I always fly with the Shkval "projected on the bottom 1/3 of the screen with the camera export files.

It improves situational awareness no end!

Screen shot(the only one I have of it at work, its not a very good example):

It is sort of realistic as if you were in the chopper you could use your peripheral vision to see the screen out of the comer of your eye.

Be happy you have ultra good Shkval, where in real movies around it has very poor quality of picture :) I hope they will fix it someday and worsen image much more.

I found this to be annoying to but for me it is not a problem, you can edit the pilots head position in the .lua files but that is not what I did, since I always fly with the Shkval "projected on the bottom 1/3 of the screen with the camera export files.

It improves situational awareness no end!

Screen shot(the only one I have of it at work, its not a very good example):

 

It is sort of realistic as if you were in the chopper you could use your peripheral vision to see the screen out of the comer of your eye.

Hello Jib,

Could you elaborate on how I could tweak the Shkval so it wouldn't produce the shrunk view we currently have? If you give me the directions, I think could certainly do that. Much obliged for the help. :thumbup:

Be happy you have ultra good Shkval, where in real movies around it has very poor quality of picture :) I hope they will fix it someday and worsen image much more.

The only videos I've been able to see on the last 10 years depicting the Shkval is that of an Su-25 firing two Vikhr missiles on stationary targets and the quality of the video is appalling.

The image quality of the Shkval might be lower than the one we have in the sim, but it still does not justify the reason for shrinking the entire planet like we have in BS 2.0, and for which we all paid for. :noexpression:

Sorry to say this, but what am I looking at? I don't see any difference worth noting?

Sorry to say this, but what am I looking at? I don't see any difference worth noting?

Indeed, the tank appears exactly the same size to my eyes. It is harder to pick out due to the differing backgrounds however.

Repeat your test under the same conditions.

What worries me the most is the 10 fps difference at your Fraps counter between BS1 and BS2...

The tanks are positioned on the same place on the tarmac and on the same runaway both set at 3000m from the helicopter. I simply put one to the right and another one to the left.

Simply compare the Shkval gate size to the relative size of the object.

It's possible to notice that the objects depicted on Black shark 2 are squished from top to bottom and streched longitudinally.

At longer distances and at oblique angles they become very difficult to ID and spot due to the reduced apparent size ED implemented to simulate some sort of optical distortion.

I zoomed both images to 250X and cropped them to better illustrate the large difference there is in aspect between both simulators.

This is the Tank in its 1:1 apparent size when viewed at maximum zoom from 3km in Black Shark 1.0.2

This is the second one from Black Shark 2. Note the differences is proportion. The tank was shrunk from top to bottom and its proportion is completely messed up. At long ranges and at oblique angles it becomes an absolute pain to ID and engage targets efficiently.

I mean no offense or condescendence with my explanation. Internet has this cabability of making one's pure and simple explanation a dish served in arrogance. By no means I mean that. It's simply because this optical difference seems too plain to me, and I'd really like others to realize it too, being disturbing as it is. :smilewink:

I am not at home right now, and I'll only be able to fly the simulator again later tonight or on Saturday, but I'd more than glad to provide more visual comparisons on this distortion as soon as I can. :smartass:

Another interesting way of viewing this problem is by flying the "PATROL" mission. Stop around WP 2 and hover at about 1000m. You'll see how streched and squished the units are. Because the 16-unit column is moving at close proximity, it's easier to spot the problem. At 7km some of them become difficult to ID. :thumbup:

By flying this mission both on BS1 and BS2, you get a clearer picture of the problem I am trying to describe. :smartass:

I don't know why they've implemented it, since we had a nicely functional Shkval in BS 1. There's simply no logic why they've included this Streching/Squishing simulation to this optcal sensor. :huh:

What worries me the most is the 10 fps difference at your Fraps counter between BS1 and BS2...

Make no mistake. The game is much more hardware demanding than BS 1, and I dare say, due to the lower altitude we fly in, more hardware demanding than DCS-A10.

I have a Core i5 2500k @4.6 GHz and a GTX 580.

These are the settings I run with:

Texture: HIGH

Scenes: HIGH

Civ Traffic: HIGH

Water: MEDIUM

Vis Range: HIGH

Heat Blur: ON

Shadows: HIGH

Resolution: 1680x1050

Aspect Ratio: 16:10

Monitors: 1

Res. of Cockpit: 1024

MSAA: 8x

HDR: NORMAL

Clutter/Bushes: 500m

Trees Visibility: 6000m

TSSAA: OFF

In some of the Quick Missions, I get very low fps mid-way through it when a good number of units are under engagement. As they start to be destroyed, the FPS tend to settle down at around 45-50, but like I said, they do tend to dip down to 20'ish when a lot of things are going on.

=============================================================

EDIT: This is basically what the new Shkval is doing: :)

I have a Core i5 2500k @4.6 GHz and a GTX 580.

OK, now I am REALLY worry.....:(

OK, now I am REALLY worry.....:(

Well 8*MSAA is an FPS killer. ;) I'd suggest trying 4x. The difference is miniscule.

Well 8*MSAA is an FPS killer. ;)

I use 16Q with DCS-A10 and have better FPS than the ones I get with BS2. I guess they'll still tweak it a bit further in the upcoming patches. :)

This is disturbing news.. I think it was hard before to try and identify anything, but with this..?

Hope this will be fixed.

Hello guys,

This is another example of the squishing/stretching problem we are having with the new Shkval model.

First of all, let me show where I positioned the units prior to analysis.

These are the two units from Black Shark 2:

And these are the two units from Black Shark 1:

And these are the results obtained from both units when viewed from the Shkval, this time @4km and using maximum zoom level.

First of all, the perfectly proportionate S300 site when viewed from the Black Shark 1 Shkval:

Now the squished/stretched S300 site viewed under the exact same circumstances:

Now the same two views cropped at 150X:

Black Shark 1

Black Shark 2:

This is the second problem I've encountered and it might as well be the culprit of the distortion we are experiencing in the Shkval with the squishing/stretching.

With further comparison, it was possible to note that the field of view of the Shkval was altered as follows in Black Shark 2:

The top RED area was compressed in order to reduce the Field of View from Top to Bottom, and the BLUE area was stretched as to increase the Field of View laterally.

Because of the way this was implemented in-sim, the resulting image in the Shkval ended up being squished by the compression of the RED area atop which led to the squishing effect, and by the inclusion of the BLUE areas on each side, which led to the stretching effect.

This is a little gif to illustrate the problem even further:

Please take note of the area on the top of the image that gets compressed and the areas on each side that are added to the Field of View:

These are my findings so far, and it seems quite clear that the Shkval FOV needs significant tweaking to return it to what it was, so that the fore-mentioned image distortion can be fixed.

Thanks again for your patience and attention.

I hope this problem can be dealt with in the forth-coming patch. :smartass: :thumbup: :pilotfly:

whoa definitely not a fan of the new low res cockpit textures.

How do you look around in the pit? Do you have a track IR? If not, could it be that the default eye point is now higher, so when you look down with the hat switch the view is looking more downwards, causing distortion? ( Sorry don't have it yet. Waiting for new patched installer)

How do you look around in the pit? Do you have a track IR? If not, could it be that the default eye point is now higher, so when you look down with the hat switch the view is looking more downwards, causing distortion? ( Sorry don't have it yet. Waiting for new patched installer)

I use TrackIR 5 and indeed this was also my initial assumption when I saw it the first time.

However, after comparing a bunch of different screenshots taken from the same location, what they've done has become crystal clear.

They've basically increased the amount of terrain the Shkval "sees" horizontally and decreased the amount of terrain the Shkval "sees" vertically, but the ACTUAL FOV remained unchanged.

Just take a look at the enormous stretching the runaway centerline is subjected to in the gif I added a few posts before and you see it. :)

Because, for some reason, they took this approach, the image is seen distorted.

This is disturbing news.. I think it was hard before to try and identify anything, but with this..?

Hope this will be fixed.

There is nothing to be fixed.

 

Black Shark 1

 

 

I hope this problem can be dealt with in the forth-coming patch. :smartass: :thumbup: :pilotfly:

Again, there's no problem :)

It stems from the fact that the pilot is watching the monitor being from a higher position. As a consequence the angular size of TV screen's vertical dimension is reduced compared to horizontal dimension as illustrated in your BS2 pics.

Now if you adequately utilize the 6DOF of TrackIr and do as one would IRL and lean/bend down a wee bitty then you would see this in-cockpit:

BS2:

I am sure that you would agree that the screen capture is basically the same as your quoted pic above of BS1. As such, no change necessary I would have thought.

To test it definately - prezz ALT-F1 to get cockpit instruments only - you will get Shkval without any borders, ect even without TV-curved effect. Then compare, because perhaps it is really as Viper says :)

To test it definately - prezz ALT-F1 to get cockpit instruments only - you will get Shkval without any borders, ect even without TV-curved effect.

I totally saw that "Everything is working as intended, everything is subject to change. Take it or leave!"-Response coming...

The point was: Why did you change that detail from BS1 when it was working just fine and introduced this inconvenience?

 

The point was: Why did you change that detail from BS1 when it was working just fine and introduced this inconvenience?

Oh....the 'model in accordance with reality' inconvenience? I don't know - you tell me ;)

As the pictures illustrate, there is nothing amiss. If you disagree, please post something substantive to corroborate you point-of-view.

You made the pilot taller. Probably because pilots are taller in RL than they were in BS1, right?

You made the pilot taller. Probably because pilots are taller in RL than they were in BS1, right?

If you have an issue with the default pilot head POV/Position as you spawn into cockpit then kindly feel free to report in a new thread in this sub-forum.

Num2 + RCtrl + RShift or change the Default cockpit view in SnapViewsDefault.lua is it?

@dok_rp, audax, kylania, and all others that want to have a more direct view on the Shkval screen.

To fix your problem:

This are the parameters you have to edit and what they are doing:

You have to edit the values starting in line 1055 to change the default start-up view below .

\Eagle Dynamics\DCS Black Shark 2\Config\View\SnapViewsDefault.lua

The values can be positive or negative!

Snap[11][13] = {} -- Default cockpit view
Snap[11][13]["y_trans"]   = -0.041336805555555564    -- move viewpoint Up/Down
Snap[11][13]["x_trans"] = 0.36 -- move viewpoint Forward/Backward
Snap[11][13]["hAngle"] = 0 -- Tilt viewpoint Left/Right
Snap[11][13]["viewAngle"] = 75.0  -- FOV aka Zoom
Snap[11][13]["vAngle"] = -25 -- Tilt viewpoint Up/Down
Snap[11][13]["rollAngle"] = 0  -- Roll viewpoint Left/Right
Snap[11][13]["z_trans"] = 0  -- move viewpoint Left/Right 

To be honest:

I also think that this "problem" is non-existent.

It's more an enhancement and more realistic that we had in BS1.

So if you still want to tweak it - you want probably change:

["y_trans"] - a little down = -

["x_trans"] - further back = +

["vAngle"] - more up = +