Suggestion for the model visibility

[PiedDroit]

4K displays only sound exotic now. In a year or so they'll flood into the market just like 1080p monitors did a few years ago. Everyone will have one, they'll be as widespread as 1080p and probably more so in flight sims. VR devices will take more time and may not appeal to everyone but they will go very high res too.

Sure, they *will*. But think about *now*, that's my point.

I probably won't have a 4k display or high res VR before long (I will likely go VR so I might never see a 4k monitor at all :music_whistling:), so before that I'm quite happy the high visibility feature was implemented.

[SharpeXB]

Sure, they *will*. But think about *now*, that's my point.

I probably won't have a 4k display or high res VR before long (I will likely go VR so I might never see a 4k monitor at all :music_whistling:), so before that I'm quite happy the high visibility feature was implemented.

And you really can play a flight sim at 1080p. That works just fine. I never had too much trouble seeing targets at that res either.

[grunf]

The future is higher resolution displays. Both in monitors and VR devices. Model scaling isn't going to be needed with those. So ED should be making EDGE for the future and not the past.

You're right, higher resolution displays is the future. Until the future becomes reality, let's enjoy the new improved visibility. :D

 

Also let's not forget it's an option, that can easily be turned off.

[SharpeXB]

Also let's not forget it's an option, that can easily be turned off.

The trouble in this equation is multiplayer. It seems likely that this setting will go server side since its been moved into the same category as labels and such. So it will end up getting disabled as a cheat in mp and therefore not much point in using it if you ever play online. Or it acts as another option that splits up servers online. Sims like this are already poorly attended online and all these options splits it up even more. So odds are it will be just switched off, it's easier for people to agree on aids-off, most servers seems to go that route.

[PiedDroit]

And you really can play a flight sim at 1080p. That works just fine. I never had too much trouble seeing targets at that res either.

Well, the world doesn't revolve around you, sorry to spoil your dreams :doh:

If we were all exactly the same, everything would be so simple...

[SharpeXB]

Well, the world doesn't revolve around you, sorry to spoil your dreams :doh:

If we were all exactly the same, everything would be so simple...

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who thinks that adding a feature which lets you see planes 50km away is nuts.

[PiedDroit]

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who thinks that adding a feature which lets you see planes 50km away is nuts.

I agree it needs some tuning right now, it's still being tweaked.

I think it's only the second or third iteration in the beta.

[SharpeXB]

I agree it needs some tuning right now, it's still being tweaked.

I think it's only the second or third iteration in the beta.

It's not being tweaked in the right direction.

 

The whole idea should be to create something that's not a "label" and therefore could be legit to use online on "full real" which is how nearly all people play mp. Otherwise why not just use labels which are already a feature in the game?

 

And the issue is multiplayer. That's the only game mode anyone plays with some set of enforced options. In SP you could just flip labels on or off as desired so this new option isn't even needed.

It would be great if the model visibility option was so subtle that nobody would object to it online, if it belonged to graphic options akin to setting shadow detail or something.

 

The direction this headed now is that it's just another label. Worse because labels only appear at 10 miles. And it's categorized as such in the GUI. So now it's just another server option which will either be divisive or get switched off. Can you imagine anything more absurd than beyond visual range engagements where the players can just see each other as 10 pixel objects even 50Km away? It will turn a realistic simulation into a silly arcade fur ball. And just be plain confusing "bandits! Six o'clock! Break right!" Oh wait, never mind, false alarm those guys are 50km away...

 

So yeah the way it's headed is no good at all.

[PiedDroit]

Tweaking can go back and forth you know :)

I don't think it's going a certain direction without any hope of turning around.

Your points are very valid, we'll see what they decide to do in the end.

[Why485]

Christ, relax man. I wouldn't be surprised if they settle on values that are some medium between what it used to be and it is now. Either way, this will be a server enforceable option, and servers are free to enforce the small or medium settings which are the more realistic options (depending on resolution) with the current values.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Why485

[TomOnSteam]

I'm not really sure what the solution is, but I would like a system that allows me to clearly see any aircraft within ~10 nautical miles. Obviously 50km is silly.

 

Everyone has very different eyes, monitors sizes and resolutions so set it up so that it's comfortable for you. Playing a simulator that you enjoy is ultimately what will make you stay with DCS.

[vicx]

The variable FOV feature is perhaps unfamiliar to players from other "game" games which don't have this feature. They don't have it because they're not "sims". Call of Duty doesn't ask the player to engage targets 500m away like real soldiers do.

 

Well Arma doesn't have zooming and it is a combat sim. You have to use binoculars or a telescopic scope.

 

 

Ok it has zoom but it is way less cheaty than the one in DCS.

Edited November 11, 2015 by vicx

[SharpeXB]

Well Arma doesn't have zooming and it is a combat sim. You have to use binoculars or a telescopic scope.

 

Ok it has zoom but it is way less cheaty than the one in DCS.

Right. ARMA has a zoom view feature for the same reason as DCS. I don't see how it's any more or less "cheaty". Changing your FOV in the game has its own inherent advantages and disadvantages. A narrow FOV lets you see more detail at the expense of peripheral vision and vice versa.

When you're in a flight sim, On a typical desktop sized monitor, zooming in is actually more like 1:1 scale.

[grunf]

The direction this headed now is that it's just another label. Worse because labels only appear at 10 miles. And it's categorized as such in the GUI. So now it's just another server option which will either be divisive or get switched off. Can you imagine anything more absurd than beyond visual range engagements where the players can just see each other as 10 pixel objects even 50Km away? It will turn a realistic simulation into a silly arcade fur ball. And just be plain confusing "bandits! Six o'clock! Break right!" Oh wait, never mind, false alarm those guys are 50km away...

I think you're exaggerating a bit :D. I'm sure no one wants anything unrealistic. But the way how things are without model visibility are very unrealistic. I mentioned Mig-21 earlier. It's some 15m long, and at 10km its angular size is about 5 minutes of arc. That is 1/6 of the size of full moon. Does the Mig-21 appears like that in DCS? Without model visibility you can't even see it!

 

Regarding seeing planes 50km away (I never experienced that, but I'll take your word for it), there could be an option in weather settings (let's call it visibility) that would limit the distance at which the aircraft would be rendered.

[Why485]

I think you're exaggerating a bit :D. I'm sure no one wants anything unrealistic. But the way how things are without model visibility are very unrealistic. I mentioned Mig-21 earlier. It's some 15m long, and at 10km its angular size is about 5 minutes of arc. That is 1/6 of the size of full moon. Does the Mig-21 appears like that in DCS? Without model visibility you can't even see it!

 

Regarding seeing planes 50km away (I never experienced that, but I'll take your word for it), there could be an option in weather settings (let's call it visibility) that would limit the distance at which the aircraft would be rendered.

 

There's already an option that makes planes more transparent based on distance. It was enabled on the first release (at 0.5 or 0.25 on normal and enlarged respectively) of the model visibility presets, but disabled and set to 0 in the last patch. I don't doubt that it will return as right now spotting at extreme distances is too easy. Although I'm not sure what value they'll decide on, as setting it on full (1.0) makes it extremely difficult to see things that are off in the distance, to the point where seeing ground targets is practically as difficult as it is with the option off.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Why485

[SharpeXB]

I mentioned Mig-21 earlier. It's some 15m long, and at 10km its angular size is about 5 minutes of arc. That is 1/6 of the size of full moon. Does the Mig-21 appears like that in DCS? Without model visibility you can't even see it!

10km is 6 miles. In DCSW 1.2 I can see my A-10 wingman at 6 miles even at the wide FOV. In 1080p or 4K and that plane is probably bigger than the 3 or 5 pixel sprite already.

IL-2 BoS only makes the models start to appear at 10km. It doesn't use any silly scaling and those aircraft are very visible. Once again even at 1080p

 

I'm all for having really nice visibility in DCS but it needs to be done in an elegant way. Something that's as beautiful as these new maps and EDGE. Can you imagine the NTTR and Vegas map with all the nice graphics and then these gargantuan objects on them? What a joke.

I don't care how anyone else wants to set up their graphics but I would like to see something that's actually nice to look at.

There are other flight sims with better rendering and older game engines doing a better job of this without resorting to a system lifted from 20 year old games. There are better ways to accomplish this I'm sure.

[dburne]

Can you imagine the NTTR and Vegas map with all the nice graphics and then these gargantuan objects on them? What a joke.

 

Dang something must be wrong with my 1.5.1 BETA install, I seem to be missing gargantuan objects...

[Why485]

10km is 6 miles. In DCSW 1.2 I can see my A-10 wingman at 6 miles even at the wide FOV. In 1080p or 4K and that plane is probably bigger than the 3 or 5 pixel sprite already.

IL-2 BoS only makes the models start to appear at 10km. It doesn't use any silly scaling and those aircraft are very visible. Once again even at 1080p

 

IL-2 BoS does use model scaling, but it's very well done in a way that makes it pretty transparent to the user unless you're specifically looking for it.

 

I don't care how anyone else wants to set up their graphics but I would like to see something that's actually nice to look at.

There are other flight sims with better rendering and older game engines doing a better job of this without resorting to a system lifted from 20 year old games. There are better ways to accomplish this I'm sure.

 

You could always turn it off if you're so offended by it. You say you don't play multiplayer anyway, so why do you care what others are playing with? Either way, servers are going to enforce a setting as soon as they become able to, and that's what's really going to kill this feature at the end of the day.

 

DCS's solution to this is actually very novel and has never been done before. It's not "lifted from 20 year old games" as you say. It's a really clever idea to generate imposter sprites and use those versus outright scaling the models themselves. However, I do still believe its implementation is too simplistic and results in the two fatal flaws that I mentioned earlier in this thread.

Edited November 11, 2015 by Why485

[SharpeXB]

IL-2 BOS does use model scaling, but it's very well done in a way that makes it pretty transparent to the user.

Jason has said that no it does not scale objects. But that may just be semantics because Matt Wagner doesn't refer to this MV thing as "scaling" either.

But in any case, yes, whatever BoS does it's transparent to the user. You don't perceive stuff like you see in these DCS 1.5 screenshots. What you see just looks good. And, key point: it's not another server setting! It's completely invisible to the user so there's no reason to want to turn it on or off. That's what DCS should do.

 

Dang something must be wrong with my 1.5.1 BETA install, I seem to be missing gargantuan objects...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2551585&postcount=47

Edited November 11, 2015 by SharpeXB

[grunf]

10km is 6 miles. In DCSW 1.2 I can see my A-10 wingman at 6 miles even at the wide FOV. In 1080p or 4K and that plane is probably bigger than the 3 or 5 pixel sprite already.

Can you post a screenshot?

 

Here's a screenshot from an earlier 1.5 with Enlarged option enabled. There's a Su-27, 6km away. Can you see it?

 

[theGozr]

+Unlarge ...but need light reflections to be added for better visibility. And even should be more visible far away more contrast on teh dots and light

[SharpeXB]

Can you post a screenshot?

Here's DCSW 1.2 I can see him in the game but I don't think it comes across in the screenshot, these shots are never equal to the in-game image

The second shot is zoomed in, at the wide angle he's still visible as a black fleck right under the cloud. Zoomed in it's easy to ID

 

But this is even better detail rendering than BoS which I think is excellent, IL-2 would actually have contacts pop in at this range

 

+Unlarge ...but need light reflections to be added for better visibility. And even should be more visible far away more contrast on teh dots and light

Yes. More sophisticated rendering and not this just making everything bigger. Rise of Flight does a really beautiful job with reflections.

Edited November 12, 2015 by SharpeXB

[theGozr]

@SharpexNB (Yes. More sophisticated rendering and not this just making everything bigger)

 

 

Exactly ! :)

[grunf]

Here's DCSW 1.2 I can see him in the game but I don't think it comes across in the screenshot, these shots are never equal to the in-game image

The second shot is zoomed in, at the wide angle he's still visible as a black fleck right under the cloud. Zoomed in it's easy to ID

 

I think both our screenshots show how visibility in DCS is far from reality. At that distance you should be able to spot the plane at glance.

 

Here's the screenshot from 1.5.1 using Medium MV (Su-27 10km away):

 

 

 

 

It's better, but still too small IMO. Large is too big, and as I understand it, it's targeted for VR users. Even at Medium, land units look awful :D.

 

To improve MV, there should be separate settings for land and air units, there should be a limit in rendering distance, and smoother transition from 3d model.

[vicx]

Well there does seem to be a clear advantage for people with 4K monitors and they are the ones who are saying that everything is easy to see.

 

This feature is clearly not for them.