Model Scaling and Visibilty

[SharpeXB]

I can watch airplanes flying over the Burrard inlet and Vancouver harbour from ~3nm and further from my window. Its damned easy to see airplanes at that range. They're the size of Cessnas and float planes. Depending on conditions it varies how easy it is to see but when conditions are right its easy to look out the window, see an airplane at 3nm or greater, look away, look back and reacquire easily. Part of what makes this easy is wider FOV that makes it easy to associate the picture with where the dot is and rediscover where it is generally before the blatantly visible dot is homed in on. Its even pretty easy to determine aspect since blobs look ovoid depending on the aspect.

 

Aspect and light and contrast and all that jazz are relevant but under ideal conditions its bloody impossible to easily see anything in DCS. Case in point, a typical wedge formation from the wingman perspective in my DCS. That's 1.5nm spacing give or take. I know where I'm looking. I still have a hard time seeing him at default FOV. Whats default FOV? The FOV that the devs say "here, play at this FOV". Its also the one that allows us to use our cockpit easily and have spatial awareness of where we are looking. Spatial awareness is part of what makes it easier to keep track of hard to see dots. If you have to zoom in you lose that spatial awareness and so you have no way to easily reacquire if you look away.

 

Its one thing to know what part of the sky my buddy is in and then use the zoom to try and get a feel for his aspect etc, its quite another to not know he's there and try to find him. He's broadside to me in one of the largest single seat tactical aircraft you'll ever encounter. When you can barely see your wingman in standard formation how are you supposed to cast eyes out of the formation to see beyond it?

Thats a good screen example but I don't know how scaling, and I still don't understand exactly what scaling is, will help with an object which is that close. Imo 1.5 mi is very easy spotting range in DCS. What that shot does show is the rather muddy contrast the current engine has. A real plane would pop out against the bright sky. From what I've seen of EDGE its a big improvement in that regard.

[SharpeXB]

Sharpe, really? So you're telling me that it's perfectly fine to be forced to zoom in on everything? How is that realistic at all? Games like IL-2 and BMS make spotting actually possible. This is without zooming.

 

Even dropping the discussion about realism, it's just not fun too zoom in to the max to try spot a pixel. Good luck have any dog fights in WWII or Korean War aircraft. Combat just becomes a tedious game of spot the pixel. At the end of the day, it's still a game. Games should be fun. Zooming in to the max to spot anything past 3km is not fun (or realistic!).

Using the zoom is a normal part of the game. Not sure why that's difficult. Check out the video examples I posted earlier, it's very natural to use. I consider RoF the be the best and easiest sim to spot aircraft in both because the graphics and detail are excellent and because WWI planes are easy to see and yet the zoom is necessary there too. It's all in how you use it but if you're not then you're missing something. It's not just the ability to spot, it's being able to identify and sometimes that's not easy, especially ground targets. No "dots" or scaling will do that better than changing your FOV.

[Wolf Rider]

 

Oh nonsense. At extreme range its not going to make that much difference glancing away at most 2 to 3 seconds at several miles, especially if you're turning to intercept or vice versa. This is why high FOV matters, because you have a picture and a whole sector that you can associate with part of your canopy or a heading or bearing or whatever.

 

~ I can't help but use zoom view. The problem that you don't seem to understand is that its a compromise that creates its own problems.

 

~

Zoom is not a panacea, its a compromise solution that offers its own downsides. I use it, I will always use it, but its got its own baggage.

 

 

"Zoom" (narrowing the FoV) does indeed bring some problems to bear... then again so does widening the FoV, with regard to the ingame default FoV.

 

Its something no-one will get away from with current technology

 

 

as for the rest of the post....

 

 

" As part of the North Vietnamese triad system of defense, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) had become an ever-increasing threat. U.S Air Force Brigadier General Robin Olds describes a typical encounter with surface-to-air missiles, which during a period of time in Vietnam was referred to as either a "MiG day" or a "Sam day", this was a Sam day.[53]

Here come the SAMs. The trick is seeing the launch. You can see the steam. It goes straight up, turns more level, then the booster drops off. If it maintains a relatively stable position, it's coming right for you and you're in trouble. You're eager to make a move but can't. If you dodge too fast it will turn and catch you; if you wait too late it will explode near enough to get you. What you do at the right moment is poke your nose down, go down as hard as you can, pull maybe three negative Gs at 550 knots and once it follows you down, you go up as hard as you can. It can't follow that and goes under.

[

54

]

This passage from a USAF booklet explained a MiG day:

"If you know a MiG-21 is in your area or you lose sight of one and want to find it again: Roll out wings level for 15 seconds, then look in your 6 o'clock about 1.5 miles. It will be there. Probably you'll see mach 2 Atoll (air-to-air missile) smoke trail first before you see the MiG. But remember that's where the MiG-21 is! Just ask one of the 20 aircrews shot down during

Linebacker

that never knew they were under attack."

[

55

]

"

 

 

Wiki

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2015 by Wolf Rider

[NineLine]

Oh nonsense. At extreme range its not going to make that much difference glancing away at most 2 to 3 seconds at several miles, especially if you're turning to intercept or vice versa. This is why high FOV matters, because you have a picture and a whole sector that you can associate with part of your canopy or a heading or bearing or whatever. It means that in a few crucial seconds you may look away you can reacquire because you know the ballpark to look in. Even at high speed the change in position isn't going to be terribly great at longer range. Obviously the rate increases the nearer you get but as things get bigger that should help.

 

Why is it nonsense, you think its easy to track and keep track of an aircraft in a fight, you dont think a pilot has ever lost sight of an aircraft in a fight because he had to look away for a few seconds?. You are talking about aircraft that want to be seen by other aircraft, that are flying straight and steady... its gonna be a lot different for a fighter pilot. There is tracking and IDing targets, read up on both... from the early days till now... losing an aircraft is possible. AND AGAIN, DCS has some issues that make this even more of a problem, and things need fixed and tweaked, no one is arguing that. But being so set on one solution isnt the answer. The heat of a fight would be a little different than sitting on a bench in Stanley Park I would imagine.

 

Its like talking to a wall. Its not about making it easy, its about making it possible. Its about making it possible to continue seeing it since using zoom makes re-acquiring a very difficult to spot object basically impossible.

 

First, talk to me with respect, I dont appreciate the "talking to a wall" comment or calling my opinion nonsense. If you dont agree with my opinion fine, but if you need to resort to insults, I am assuming you have nothing of value to add. If you actually absorbed my comments, I said it needs to improve on many fronts. But scaling only possibly solves part of the problem, and its an old fix that can also bring issues, especially if it effects all objects. I am asking you to think about more than just one aspect. There is more to spotting than what you are seeing, think about other aspects of spotting and how EDGE might add to that.

 

Whats wrong with 10 year old solutions? Most of what works gets iterated into better versions. If there's a new way to overcome the basic limitations of monitor resolution (which is a problem that has itself not much changed since the 90s) you'd think someone woulda thought of it.

 

See above, or visit any dynamic campaign discussion. Why do we have to settle for old solutions when so much has been added to our computers capabilities since Falcon and IL2 have come out... what is wrong with expecting more, or why dont we jut keep playing old games?

 

Zoom is not a panacea, its a compromise solution that offers its own downsides. I use it, I will always use it, but its got its own baggage.

 

Scaling could be described exactly the same, why are you so against them looking at new ways to solving this issue, one that better encompasses all aspects of the issue.

 

I've said my peace here, I think you are just arguing to argue now. I know ED is looking at it, they, thankfully, are open to new ideas and trying to come up with new solutions instead of replacing one fix with another.

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

It's puzzling to me why so many people seem to have trouble with the idea of using the "zoom" view. It's an essential feature and if you're not using it, no wonder you're having trouble seeing anything in the game. It's not cheating and it's not "binoculars". It's how we deal with playing a flight sim on a 2D screen. There's no "default" or "normal" FOV. It's a process of constant adjustment in order to stay aware. The best setting for this is to have it on an axis where it can be used fast and easy. Then you're not compromising awareness for detail and vice versa.

 

And not to use the term "realistic" but your real vision only has high acuity in a narrow FOV. Your peripheral vision isn't going to spot and ID small objects at the edge of your visual field. In the real world you "zoom view" as well.

 

 

i dont think anyone complains about the possibilty of having zoom available.people complain about the zoom view being necessary to spot aircraft at correct distances. the problem i see is, that the zoom function should not affect the distance objects are being rendered at.currently it is, and if you would use a FOV, anything close to human eye, the spotting distance decreases drastically to a ridiculous level.

 

some people here seem of the opinion that smart scaling is something which necessarily make the objects "arcadish" easy to spot.but that doesnt have to be that way. i think the devs just have to apply subtle smart scaling to grant real life distances in spotting with "normal" FOV's, and make the zoom function not affect the distance where objects are being rendered. these two things are essential...

 

 

also, the devs, need to make sure, that they reach a result, where even with maxed out settings, using MSAA and such things, objects are still visible at correct distances.right now, we are more or less forced to fly with a bad looking jaggied simulator to reach close to real life distances in visibilty.

 

of course, other improvements like improved lighting and reflections are welcome as well, but smart scaling has proven to be a good solution.and as long as we are playing with 2d monitors with lower than human eye FOV and resolution, its the only real solution. all the other improvements are icing on the cake then.

 

also, waiting for their customers to buy 4k monitors sounds like a really stupid solution when the idea of smart scaling is there since ages.

[Wolf Rider]

What FoV setting do you normally fly with DavidRed?

[Home Fries]

Getting back to the crux of the issue, it's not whether scaling is "more realistic". I say it's a trade-off that offsets the handicaps of a small FOV and limited pixels. And to clarify, by "scaling" I refer to any solution to the problem of having to pick out a pixel on a monitor. Another reason for this compensation is the fact that the vast majority of us are using 2D monitors, so having "dirt specks" on the canopy (e.g. Huey) or actual specs on the monitor will negatively affect our ability to see targets, whereas in real life you never see those things because you're focused at distance.

 

I like scaling for aircraft because it helps with determining an aircrafts planform and aspect. I don't expect to be spoon fed the data, but having that information represented for fighters at 5km is not unreasonable. I mentioned before seeing a GA aircraft at 10 miles, and being able to determine its type and aspect. While we were actually given type and range (departure was telling us to look for a King Air at 10 miles), the aircraft was in a turn so its planform was exposed. With a glossy finish and CAVU skies, it wasn't hard at all. Since tactical aircraft are painted not to be seen, I have no problem with reducing this number, but I'm just giving a datapoint that planform ID and aspect at range is not unreasonable at all.

 

Also, keep in mind that many runways are 2-3 miles in length. NAS Fallon's runway is almost 3 miles long, so you can have tactical-sized aircraft at 5 miles distance on either side of the field. You can still pick up aircraft taking off or in the landing pattern without too much effort.

 

I'm fine with nothing more than a reflection at distance, if that's what it takes. Just something that breaks the aircraft out from the artificial 2D background of the monitor. For ground targets, I'm fine with dots until they are in breakout range. You're not likely to get aspect on a ground target unless it's moving and you can see a dust trail.

[Wolf Rider]

 

 

 

 

 

 

10miles/ 52,000ft/ 16Km (twice the height of Everest)... ain't gonna happen (except for the very, very few - those with totally exceptional eyesight

Edited April 2, 2015 by Wolf Rider

[BitMaster]

For 45 years I live next to Ramstein US Air Base Europe, it is not impossible to track planes above 10k meters, it all depends on daylight conditions, humidity and for sure on personal eyesight capabilities too. An almost blind man wont see anything.

 

It is (almost) impossible to track AC in DCS at a distance that would be fairly easy to do in RL.

 

 

Look up and watch fpr contrails, usually you can spot a 747 at angels 30. You can even tell if there are 4 or only 2 contrails before they merge. At least I could do that until a few years ago my eyes started to make some trouble, still, I ca still see that plane, maybe not the number of contrails, but for sure I can see that plane at angels 30 and NOT 90° above me, so now also add the angular distance and the 10k meters are now almost 15km alway, still easy to see.

 

Fighers are harder to track but not impossible. I sometimes watch them doing their wargames above Baumholder training area, contrails over contrails, circles...what you want. Easy to track if there is a contrail, if there is none it is either very high above for its size and speed or below, and below you can again see him with naked eye, usually in pairs..

 

Zooming is a bad fix to correct that, a greater resolution helps but unless 16k screens arrive we still have a gap imho.

 

Bit

[BitMaster]

sometimes, they do some funny excersise at night time with multiple fighters, usually at least 4-6 pairs scanning the sky in a pattern 50x50km I would guess.

 

Whenever they let it GLOW, you can track them instantly as the Afterburner is like a 100Watt bulb in the middle of a football field at night, switch it on and all can see it from MILES away.

 

At least for non in-cockpit ears, it is failry easy to know they are here because you can hear them very well too, with some luck you follow the sound wave, add some delay and ola here they are.

 

 

At night it is even easier to spot them if they turn AB on, at least at good weather conditions.

[Solty]

No offence, but you are talking about slow moving aircraft that are flying a normal, expected flight path. I think you would have more trouble if you turned away and that aircraft made an unexpected manoeuvre off its normal route.

 

No doubt there are some issues with the LODs in DCS, and some need fixing worse than others. But dont expect to pick up a fighter at 5nm or greater with ease when you dont know its there to begin with, I think you need to tune your expectations.

 

Once again, ED is certainly looking into this aspect of the sim, but expect something better than a 10-20 year old solution that may sort of work... least I would hope.

No... At least I don't think so. The quicker the plane moves the more the human eye sees the difference between it and the rest of the world around it.

 

That is why when you are sneeking you are moving as slow as possible to stay hidden. When you start moving with quick movments you are easy to spot. It is the same with planes. If they fly slow they don't "catch" the eye's attention and blend easier into the sky/ ground. (assuming they have good cammo)

 

EDIT: Although if the plane is smaller it is harder to see it.

 

You won't see a fighter at above 7000m if he is not contrailing. At least I don't think so, because there aren't any fighters in my area. (although probably ace pilots with very good eye sight would see them)

 

But when I watch up into the sky I can see light-weight planes flying around at 2km. It is easy. As easy as spoting cars. Not even trying. They just are there. I know how to look for planes due to my experience in simulations. So I can realy quickly see those planes.

 

Of course it depends on lighting conditions... but we have simulation here. And for now, this simulation is making my eyes hurt. Because I have to look so HARD to spot something I am moving too close to the monitor to see it and after a session of DCS my eyes hurt :(

Edited April 2, 2015 by Solty

[Wolf Rider]

Actually Bitmaster, you've hit on a very good point there... that being "eyesight"

 

 

seems some just want a FPS shooter "sim" but don't want the work which goes with it.. in a 'sim" in "real life" ya gots to work for target acquisition - and any amount of "I CAN" therefore everybody should, is just hassling and a misnomer. A complete misdirection to fuel the "Kill buzz"

eg on the internets, I'm sure I can spot stuff out clearly at 30KM... real life is a much different story though

 

 

Now, having said that... yes, there is most certainly room for improvement within the DCS sim regarding "Dogfighting"... most certainly there is room for improvement. At least lets all keep it honest and factual, not just something which feeds unrealisticness, or a personal rush.

 

 

@Solty...

 

Solty... the "eyes hurting" thing is a really, really old one - just kick back and relax instead of sitting up close and tense. (me personally, I'm 55 and can still pass a driver's license renewal - heavy vehicle - eye test unaided/ uncorrected)

Edited April 2, 2015 by Wolf Rider

[vicx]

I have great eyesight IRL.

 

Why do I want to have terrible eyesight in DCS.

 

It makes no sense.

[lanmancz]

I don't see why there is so much opposition to implementing some form of scaling. The way I imagine how "smart" scaling should work is a combination of scaling itself as a function of not just the distance to the object but also current FOV (So the dimensions of the object are not distorted if you choose to zoom in. Also the scale effect does not have to be linear.) and some secondary graphical effects like light reflections and smoke that would give a better indication of a unit presence at a distance. This effect could also be increased or decreased based on the speed at which the unit is moving or another factors (=making stationary object harder to find). I understand that some people fear that it would be too arcadish but it does not have to be overdone.

If some people don't like it and wouldn't allow it on their servers why not making it a function that can be turned on and off like labels. Personally I just leave the labels on. I edited the labels.lua file to show just a dot at a certain range. The problem with this is that you can see the label even if your in-world vision is obscured by your cockpit for example.

Edited April 2, 2015 by lanmancz

[[DBS]TH0R]

Solty... the "eyes hurting" thing is a really, really old one - just kick back and relax instead of sitting up close and tense. (me personally, I'm 55 and can still pass a driver's license renewal - heavy vehicle - eye test unaided/ uncorrected)

 

That is fine if you want to get your self shot down in dogfight. Spotting an enemy in time is half the fight.

 

 

I have great eyesight IRL.

 

Why do I want to have terrible eyesight in DCS.

 

It makes no sense.

 

Agreed.

[SharpeXB]

also, waiting for their customers to buy 4k monitors sounds like a really stupid solution when the idea of smart scaling is there since ages.

In a year or so I think you'll see 4K monitors being as common as 1080x1920 is now for flight sim enthusiasts.

[golani79]

In a year or so I think you'll see 4K monitors being as common as 1080x1920 is now for flight sim enthusiasts.

 

Wouldn´t be too sure of that.

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

In a year or so I think you'll see 4K monitors being as common as 1080x1920 is now for flight sim enthusiasts.

^^even if that was the case, it would not fix the obvious problems.especially not as long as they do not fix the LOD models.an invisible object does not become visible because of higher resolution.

[golani79]

^^even if that was the case, it would not fix the obvious problems.especially not as long as they do not fix the LOD models.an invisible object does not become visible because of higher resolution.

 

+1

[[DBS]TH0R]

In a year or so I think you'll see 4K monitors being as common as 1080x1920 is now for flight sim enthusiasts.

 

Emphasis on enthusiasts, and those who can afford it. I give it 5, closer to 10 more years before we even start to see it becoming close to what HD is nowadays.

 

Try running any of the latest best selling games at 4K or 5K resolution and see what kind of hardware you need for that. Then add in extra requirement for flight sims that are usually a couple of years behind with graphics and other standards...

 

 

^^even if that was the case, it would not fix the obvious problems.especially not as long as they do not fix the LOD models.an invisible object does not become visible because of higher resolution.

 

+1

[Solty]

^^even if that was the case, it would not fix the obvious problems.especially not as long as they do not fix the LOD models.an invisible object does not become visible because of higher resolution.

 

Exactly +1

[SharpeXB]

Emphasis on enthusiasts, and those who can afford it. I give it 5, closer to 10 more years before we even start to see it becoming close to what HD is nowadays.

Well that's why I said "enthusiasts" meaning the same crowd that has expensive gaming PCs multiple screens and TrackIR. If there's one certainty in life it's that consumer electronics plummet in price. The 4K TVs are falling in price faster than the 1080p ones it seems. PC monitors will follow. And yes for GPUs expect 4x the VRAM, I'm no expert but that seems logical. Look at the Titan X weighing in at 12GB. That's where we are headed. I will be upgrading to a 4K monitor within a month.

[NineLine]

Well that's why I said "enthusiasts" meaning the same crowd that has expensive gaming PCs multiple screens and TrackIR. If there's one certainty in life it's that consumer electronics plummet in price. The 4K TVs are falling in price faster than the 1080p ones it seems. PC monitors will follow. And yes for GPUs expect 4x the VRAM, I'm no expert but that seems logical. Look at the Titan X weighing in at 12GB. That's where we are headed. I will be upgrading to a 4K monitor within a month.

 

Flight simming community is pretty diverse when it comes to the systems they use, we have everything from the guys that can afford cutting edge gear and the guys that are using the box held together with duct tape...

[SharpeXB]

Flight simming community is pretty diverse when it comes to the systems they use, we have everything from the guys that can afford cutting edge gear and the guys that are using the box held together with duct tape...

Yeah unfortunately it's a big hole we pour money into ;-)

But for example the 4K monitor I'm looking at is half the price of the 1440p one I considered a year ago. I should have bought it on Black Friday! It was cheaper than what some 1080p screens sell for normally.

 

But today's expensive hardware is tomorrow's cheap junk. A Blu-ray player sold for $1,000 back in 2007 and now you can buy one for cheaper than the disc! Remember when 1080p TVs were $10,000!?

So a game engine of the future needs to take that into account.

Edited April 2, 2015 by SharpeXB

[Home Fries]

<photos>

 

10miles/ 52,000ft/ 16Km (twice the height of Everest)... ain't gonna happen (except for the very, very few - those with totally exceptional eyesight

Thank you for proving my point. Just because you don't see it in a low resolution image of a grainy photograph doesn't mean you won't see something with the naked eye (even if it's just picking out movement or something "different" from the surroundings).