Model Scaling and Visibilty

[KaspeR32]

I just do not know the answer here... I listen to the arguments but I am hearing air superiority arguments only and DCS is not just that.

This is a real tough argument.

I am a chopper guy who flies low and fast so scaling is a no go as this will expose me far too much than real life would....

From my perception I can pull up my Kamov behind some trees and I am fully masked from a fast mover and happy to relax knowing that I am safe.

From the fast movers perspective there is some burke trying to hide a 50 foot chopper behind 20 foot trees!

it just will not work.

 

targets are easily visible before even 10 miles which I think is where the labels kick in

this Su-27 is beyond that distance and he's spotted with no trouble

 

To the first point, I think we all agree scaling up objects 10x their normal size isn't an adequate solution.

 

Sharpe, you are zoomed in, with the target right in front of you. That's the point we're all trying to make. YES zoomed in works. But you loose all your other FOV. We're trying to figure out a way to have planes visible, without zooming in on every area in a 360 degree sky.

 

It seems to me that Falcon 4.0 USES scaling and people seem to be happy with it, so why is it off the table for some people and DCS? Doesn't make sense.

[Rogue Trooper]

because there is no choppers perhaps?

[Rogue Trooper]

I think labels is the answer for now.

field of view labels that disappear with obstruction but man this is a process that bleeds fps.

 

As mentioned above concerning direction visuals at range; a direction line and a circle that encompasses the aircraft... no data.. no type.

one colour for above one colour for below.

nothing stand out but noticeable... you see you zoom.

 

ground units excluded.

Edited March 27, 2015 by Rogue Trooper

[fastfreddie]

After spending 5-6 days on the ACG WW2 server I got use to a certain extent to spot enemy planes(the size of a ww2 fighter) in DCS. But I have quite better vision than the average person.

The map was quite small so the area you need to scan for enemy planes is also small which helps a lot. On larger maps it's very very hard to spot planes.

 

Things that I find problematic:

 

1.Frame rate drops. In adition to the amount you need to zoom a frame drop has made me loose the plane I was tracking many times. Probably will get fixed with EDGE arrival.

 

2.You need to zoom in quite a lot to spot anything and you loose a lot of the peripheral vision.

 

3.More than a few times I find myself spotting the shadow of a plane first and the plane later and harder. Should this be happening ?

Shouldn't a plane reflect more light towards my eyes than it's shadow ?

 

Are you running their mod on that server because I believe they adjusted so of the LOD settings for better visibility. Another problem with zooming is sometimes if you zoom out just alittle bit the object disappears. I'm sure most of us have done the chasing shadows thing before but the sad thing was that one I was searching for another guy in a planned location to dogfight. Could not find each other anywhere but I saw his shadow on the ground ... we were both 2km up in the air.

[Djent33]

Are you running their mod on that server because I believe they adjusted so of the LOD settings for better visibility. Another problem with zooming is sometimes if you zoom out just alittle bit the object disappears. I'm sure most of us have done the chasing shadows thing before but the sad thing was that one I was searching for another guy in a planned location to dogfight. Could not find each other anywhere but I saw his shadow on the ground ... we were both 2km up in the air.

 

Yea indeed, I once posted pictures of me flying Dora against P-51

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2213991&postcount=536

I found P-51 only because I paused the game and took time looking for it (top right centre of the screen, good luck)

The map in that post shows visible chimney from my position back then.

[SharpeXB]

Sharpe, you are zoomed in, with the target right in front of you. That's the point we're all trying to make. YES zoomed in works. But you loose all your other FOV. We're trying to figure out a way to have planes visible, without zooming in on every area in a 360 degree sky.

Using the zoom is basically essential. Even a large monitor still limits your FOV. Absolutely it's a trade of FOV for scale. The trick to using it well is to have it on a slider or axis. That way it can be used very quickly and variably. I have it set on a rudder pedal toe axis since it's more useful than R/L brakes. Especially in the A-10C where you need all your fingers free for the HOTAS. It goes without saying that head tracking is essential as well.

If scaling made objects easily visible in the wide FOV that would mean scaling them up garishly large.

That screen image looks much better in game. The bogey is quite visible. I could see him launch a missile at about 20 miles. Now "visible" is a different thing than "spotting". Something can be visible and you can still lose track of it.

Edited March 27, 2015 by SharpeXB

[AussieFX]

I'm sorry for my ignorance but do you mean a 1920x1200 monitor? I also use one of those , why does it make it worse?

 

More pixels.

 

I really don't know anything about this subject and it seems that scaling might not be the answer, however something does need to be done. (If possible) Lighting such as sun glinting seems plausible to me.

 

In real life I was sometimes surprised to see small training aircraft ~2nm away, other times you can pick them out from 10+nm. It depends on the aspect of the acft you are looking for and environmental conditions.

 

Not sure how easy it would be to pick up an F-111 at 850kts in the weeds either. Depending on the scenario you may want to be hiding so there's both sides to consider in this.

 

But this is more of a WW2/Korea era problem.

[vicx]

Watch from 1:08 (in full screen 1080p)

_b9o7Wcf9Wg#t=68

 

From 1m15. EXACTLY. Exactly what is required.

 

This stuff is ESSENTIAL for WW2 and Korean era birds.

[PFunk1606688187]

The fact that we need to use max zoom to be able to spot targets AT ALL at a reasonably realistic max range is unacceptable. You simply cannot effectively scan the air that way. Its not possible. The way a real pilot is supposed to work is he has about half the sky with his wingman the other half and he scans it for enemies. If you can't see anything without max zoom then you are simply not flying realistically because that dot thats barely visible in the middle of the screen would be equally visible to someone who can see an area nearly the size of default FOV.

 

Its a basic empirical fact that our monitors at a usable FOV are incapable of rendering objects at a realistic resolution. Even at max zoon its not going to be realistic either. The pixels are just too fat to represent a dot you should be able to see.

 

I know from talking to real pilots that more than 5 nm is perfectly reasonable expectation of visibility. This shouldn't be hard to do. You can do the math to figure out the size something would appear to a human eye at a given distance. That won't change. What does change is monitor resolution and field of view. Within that you should be able to easily find a reasonable factor for scaling and then balance it with thorough study of credible pilot reports.

[McBlemmen]

targets are easily visible before even 10 miles which I think is where the labels kick in

this Su-27 is beyond that distance and he's spotted with no trouble

 

Please be joking...

 

I see one pixel when max zoomed in , that's not "easily visible"

[McBlemmen]

Also why are people argueing about buildings being scaled? This is about A/A combat.. anything on the ground in fine. Ground units are slow and camouflaged IRL so should be hard to spot , and buildings don't move so all you need is the correct intel on where they're located.

 

this is about dogfights

[[DBS]TH0R]

Can you post screenshots of what that looks like? I have a very hard time imagining how that would be accomplished in a flight sim without looking exceedingly odd. Any target shown in relation to a background object would look out of scale.

 

Why don't you try it yourself, on before mentioned sims that do feature it.

 

 

That's why scaling would not work well in DCS or any current flight sim. Here's another image as an example of how many object there are in DCS that would make the scaling of ground targets awkward. What does this scene look like if viewed from afar with scaling enabled? Do the parked planes overlap each other or stick out the top of the hanger? That doesn't reconcile with how realistically it's all modeled. If you see a something land here does it get smaller when it touches down if ground objects aren't scaled?

 

Based from the current situation where you have a hard time seeing anything at all without zooming in (try using GAU8 without a zoom for example) even minor scaling is welcome improvement. Current situation is unrealistic as we have it now, even for spotting ground objects.

 

In short, I can not disagree more. Fire up old IL2 and see how well you can spot a dot at a distance. The distance is even adjustable in the settings for online play. And there are none of the problems you are worried here for closer view like the one you posted - in other words, LODs for close and at medium distance objects are not affected.

 

 

Using the zoom is basically essential in a flight sim. Even a large monitor still limits your FOV. Absolutely it's a trade of FOV for scale. The trick to using it well is to have it on a slider or axis. That way it can be used very quickly and variably. I have it set on a rudder pedal toe axis since it's more useful than R/L brakes. Especially in the A-10C where you need all your fingers free for the HOTAS. It goes without saying that head tracking is essential as well.

If scaling made objects easily visible in the wide FOV that would mean scaling them up garishly large.

That screen image looks much better in game. The bogey is quite visible. I could see him launch a missile at about 20 miles. Now "visible" is a different thing than "spotting". Something can be visible and you can still lose track of it.

 

This has to be a joke. Trading off brakes for the sake of zooming in is a clear evidence how bad DCS is in this area.

 

What we have now in DCS is being nearsighted when in FOV view, and farsighted when zoomed without any kind of benefit when in normal FOV except for viewing gauges.

[thawall]

In my opinion scaling should only process aircraft, which are at the outer limit of visual range and would therefore be currently rendered "smaller" than a pixel. By making these sub-pixel planes at least 2 or 3 full pixels large, their contrast would vastly improve.

 

This effect would just counteract the deficites of our monitors (which is the purpose of all of this) and for nearer distances everything could stay the same.

 

Additionally I think all the low poly LODs should be reworked to address the already reported issues of aircraft disappearing all of a sudden from various angles (even at closer distances).

 

Also the material and colors of the LODs should be reworked. AFAIK they don't currently reflect the selected paintjob of the aircraft, so it may happen to be a dull green LOD for an otherwise brightly colored plane.

 

I don't think, the engine needs major rewrites to accomplish this. It just needs a combination of the right tweaks.

[SharpeXB]

Please be joking...

 

I see one pixel when max zoomed in , that's not "easily visible"

The screen in game looks much better than the screenshot.

[SharpeXB]

Also why are people argueing about buildings being scaled? This is about A/A combat.. anything on the ground in fine. Ground units are slow and camouflaged IRL so should be hard to spot , and buildings don't move so all you need is the correct intel on where they're located.

 

this is about dogfights

The OP asked about both air and ground targets. The problem with scaling ground targets is that buildings would not get scaled.

[SharpeXB]

This has to be a joke. Trading off brakes for the sake of zooming in is a clear evidence how bad DCS is in this area.

That axis assignment is just my own choice. I'm sure other people with different setups do different things. I do have brakes, set to my left toe axis or for the WWII aircraft I set the R and L brake to HOTAS buttons. Braking isn't used enough for me to give up the zoom which is more valuable. It works very well since I can use the zoom simultaneously with other commands.

 

The trouble is it seems many people are trying to play without using the zoom view. The zoom is as essential as turning your head.

Edited March 27, 2015 by SharpeXB

[Nirvi]

The trouble is it seems many people are trying to play without using the zoom view. The zoom is as essential as turning your head.

 

DCS is the only game where I have to constantly use zoom in dogfights. You shouldn't have to use zoom in a dogfight to not loose sight of your opponent.

[gavagai]

Why don't you try it yourself, on before mentioned sims that do feature it.

 

Exactly. And I think Falcon4 does it better than the old Il-2.

[[DBS]TH0R]

The trouble is it seems many people are trying to play without using the zoom view. The zoom is as essential as turning your head.

 

That sounds as if you are the only one using it while I can't imagine anyone not using zoom function in DCS.

 

 

DCS is the only game where I have to constantly use zoom in dogfights. You shouldn't have to use zoom in a dogfight to not loose sight of your opponent.

 

That. :thumbup:

[OnlyforDCS]

Sharpe why are you fighting this so hard? Is having limited and poor visibility issues in a combat simulator a realistic scenario in your personal opinion?

[otto]

Are you running their mod on that server because I believe they adjusted so of the LOD settings for better visibility. Another problem with zooming is sometimes if you zoom out just alittle bit the object disappears. I'm sure most of us have done the chasing shadows thing before but the sad thing was that one I was searching for another guy in a planned location to dogfight. Could not find each other anywhere but I saw his shadow on the ground ... we were both 2km up in the air.

 

Yes I forgot about the LOD mod.If offers better vis. on that server.

[Demongornot]

The argument of Sharpe are invalid, zoom are NOT a valid option to any scaling problem, human eyes DON'T zoom, and binocular are DIFFERENT from scaling, how funny will look a guy using binocular in the middle of a dogfight...

 

The thing is that almost every game that include large map have a scaling issue simply cause of the fact that the camera NOT simulate human eyes size but a HUGE camera...

That's why those DCS's infantry in this screenshot : http://b.pix.ge:81/f/49clq.jpg

Feel like they are really small and look FAR to have realistic size like real person : http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2014/11/10/p196cp1lqp18821bct1hu11bn9p2s4/original_big.jpg

 

This is why even the biggest type of vehicle (boat) look small, and this : http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergals/2014/02/full-11236-73855-dcs_2014_02_09_20_45_37_06.jpg

Look more like this :

http://i1152.photobucket.com/albums/p483/RedArrows/HerschaaldekopievaneindfotosKent013.jpg

Than like this :

https://rnzngunners.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/fdrimpac27jun2012.jpg

 

On the real picture we can feel the scale, and for the opposite reason that this picture of real F22 look like model aircraft : http://tgj4m-blkb.wikispaces.com/file/view/digitalphotography7.jpg/300274658 (look for Model Effect Photography on image search)

DCS and almost every others game with HUGE map feel small, because most of the time the default zoom for two reason is not correct...

First, because having a 1:1 compare to real life will give us a really limited view angle with our monitor except if we use huge 4k monitor and get way too close of it for the long term safety of our eyes, it will still be like this...

 

And the second reasons, is because when huge worlds are used, for having better performance we simply reduce the general scaling, for example 1m in game will be the equivalent of 1Cm irl, which can help to reduce texture size and polygons count, which create this effect of everything looking like models and small thing and having no way near real life scale...And if on paper it should not cause issue since every object will have the same smaller size (no way for us to technically see it) it is perfectly visible...

It can be done by two way, physically doing this with 3D model, or changing the camera size to act like a HUGE camera objective (scale of 3D object are still real life equivalent but the final rendering is not but we can still reduce polygon count and texture resolution and it will be unseen) like this is done in DCS, voluntarily or not I don't know...

And both solution cause issue with object far away.

 

There is also an optical illusion where things on monitors without 3D (Oculus or 3D glasses) will always feel small when on distance, because our brain see something far without having the 3D information of the distance and will interpret it as something small rather than far...

Speed also give the same effect...This is why on Elite Dangerous, planet that have real scale compare to our irl one, feel really small rather than distant...

 

But as you can see here : http://petapixel.com/2013/08/23/using-toys-and-forced-perspective-to-get-professional-low-budget-visual-effects/

We can make small object look at a realistic scale...

 

And DCS have a mix of several problems...

First one, the default camera view is base on a large virtual camera objective which is no way near the short human eyes one, even the distance between two human eyes is smaller than the virtual camera in DCS...

 

Second problem (which we can't do anything about cause its hardware (screen) related) is the fact that the default view zoom is not equal at all on the human eyes's FOV

When I was using Eyefinity with DCS, for an unknow reason with my 3 screens the FOV was adapted at a strange ratio between horizontal and vertical resolution which would almost look like a too much zoom but with 3 screen to extend the lateral FOV it was better and DCS started to look at scale !

 

Third problem, since the graphic engine is not magic, scale optimisation are done and they are perceptible on the screen and make thing feel even smaller...

 

Also DCS leak some effect such as shiny surface reflection and others stuff like this that help in real life to extend the distance where we can both spot (shining stuff attract attention) and view (blinking shiny stuff will be spotable kilometres away even if they are small)...

 

And also the distance where object are rendering is also a limit...

 

So using zoom is NOT a correct solution...

Smart scaling system where far object are still render trough the LOD system but using a single model (that could be simple sprite like old fashion game, it won't be noticeable with the small scale) that have ALWAYS the same size which is the minimum one and which have NO antialiasing apply to it, under a certain range it become transparent and over a certain range the lighter regular LOD could be used to spot it...

Sprite base system will be relatively light on hardware and memory load, can be apply to basically every object, it just have to be angle related and without details (impossible to see if it point from or toward us like irl while looking at distant object where details are not perceptible but shape still) and that can be comparatively ultra bright (all white) or dark (all dark almost black) or its original colour base on some details that will make it simulating reflection, occultation or basic exposure to light.

 

Can be apply to both aircraft and ground unit, and which could be zoom relative, zooming on it , AKA : if the closer range that zoom give still not enough to switch to the lower polygons LOD model...It should keep the SAME dimension on the screen, the zoom should ONLY have the effect to, while zooming if the range is encounter, make the object switch from sprite to first (lighter) LOD...

 

Thousands of object can be show as sprite format on screen at once without impacting performance since few parameters are used :

_Relative angle to us (camera) that will permit to choose the correct sprite to make the object appear on the correct orientation)

_Relative position to us (the camera) to show it where it should be without having to render any 3D model

_Which object it is (one sprite by object with colour being apply base on the texture used main colour, or one by texture, but they are small and have a single colour so their colour are easy to make from texture and their number won't be a data size issue and one by texture won't be long to make)

_Basic light angle (only light powerful enough are taking in consideration for this such as sunlight, which in DCS only require a single angle calculation since there is a single main light source) to show base colour, occultation or shining aspect...

Note that two possible optimisation are : White texture of aircraft should be fad and cold white to not be mixed with shining effect, partial shining should be implemented !

Partial shining can consist to a white dot on the middle of the object when he is at real colour. While on fire the object should tinkle from white to regular + dot texture !

And the second optimisation is the white dot in the middle to be also used at night for simulating any nav/anti collision or anything else kind of light on the aircraft, and disable it during white sprite to reduce even more the CPU load even if it just a true/false argument...

And finally if the object is or not masked by anything (cloud/terrain, others object) to turn it on or off.

 

So here I have give you for free a simple, ultra efficient, ultra performance friendly, mastered since dozen of years, easy to implement and easy to do (texture itself I mean) solution to being able to see distant object without problems related to scaling or rendering range which only consist to show a ultra simple image, and still visually realistic and won't be possible to make distinction between 3D rendered LOD and itself ! (In case some people think by intuition that sprite could look odd or something like this) !

Sprite base object on 3D environment are the one of the first thing ever done on computer with the first 3D environment game, and they are really efficient and performance friendly, sometime it can be nice to go back to old fashion techniques if done on a modern way !

 

And yes sorry I have again do a wall of text...But I hope this one will be useful !

Edited March 27, 2015 by Demongornot

[SharpeXB]

Unless your monitor is life sized and has real world resolution then the zoom view will always be needed to make it life sized. Depending on your monitor size the full zoom in might actually be close to 1:1. So zooming out is actually what's "unrealistic". It's also unrealistic to have blinders on and be unable to see outside a 10d cone at 1:1

That's why all these games have a variable zoom view. I even use it to view my own instruments. Never mind the distant aircraft. Look how small your own cockpit is on the screen.

 

Scaling couldn't eliminate the need for the zoom because it would have to magnify objects around you to about 2x their normal size, assuming a desktop sized monitor, for the player to be able to see and identify them as they would in the 1:1 real world.

Edited March 27, 2015 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

The thing is that almost every game that include large map have a scaling issue simply cause of the fact that the camera NOT simulate human eyes size but a HUGE camera...

That's why those DCS's infantry in this screenshot : http://b.pix.ge:81/f/49clq.jpg

Feel like they are really small and look FAR to have realistic size like real person : http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2014/11/10/p196cp1lqp18821bct1hu11bn9p2s4/original_big.jpg

The reason those infantry in DCS look small compared to the photo is the eye level that they shots are taken from. In the game it's high and in the real photo it's low. Obviously the low shot makes the people look bigger and vice versa. If they were both shot from eye level they'd look approximately the same size. The shots you posted of the ships have the same issue. You're comparing views from above that make the DCS objects look like small toys compared to real photos taken from eye level.

Edited March 27, 2015 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

Sharpe why are you fighting this so hard? Is having limited and poor visibility issues in a combat simulator a realistic scenario in your personal opinion?

I'm not "fighting" the feature. The original topic is "how important" is scaling? I don't think its a vital feature for DCS. I DO think the sim needs to be greatly improved with regard to the ability to spot other objects. I think a better graphics engine will certainly help. Of the few companies today currently making combat flight sim games (ED, 1CGS and Gaiijin? The afore mention Falcon is not developer produced ie a mod?) I don't believe any of them use scaling so I don't think it's likely that EDGE will either. But who knows?

Edited March 27, 2015 by SharpeXB