Cockpit Quality

[MBot]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, so let's bring up the graphical quality of the cockpit and especially the textures. It is by no means bad, but I do not think it can match the quality of ED, Belsimtek or LNS cockpits. I think the textures on the instruments and panels are rather weak.

 

Also the cockpit all around is pretty dark, making it somehow difficult to quickly find switches. But this might be the way the real cockpit looks like.

 

On the plus side is the view back over the shoulder, which is very detailed in modeling and textures and looks very nice.

[jojo]

I don't agree with you.

 

Why do you these textures weak ?

 

It looks really nice to me...

[Flia]

Cockpit textures are not bad. But they can be better. Lets hope for some better cockpit textures mod in the future :)

[Brisse]

I wouldn't say the cockpit graphics are weak. It's a bit dark though. Not sure if it's supposed to be like that or not.

[Aginor]

IMO the textures are fine. Definitely good enough for me.

But if there is room for improvement I guess there will be modders who make custom pits for us. :-)

[MBot]

Here are some of the areas I think could be improved.

 

 

 

The blue panel texture looks very low res and grainy. Also both ADI look quite bland and not very plastic.

 

 

 

This area should be more detailed, considering that it is right in the players face and also often looked at zoomed in (right below the HUD).

 

 

 

Very low res texture.

 

 

 

The top of the HUD looks weird and low-detail, but this might be the actual geometry.

Edited December 27, 2015 by MBot

[golani79]

Think the cockpit quality is easily on par with the ED modules - looking pretty good.

 

It may not reach the quality of the MiG21 though - but then, neither do the ED modules in my opinion.

[Aginor]

@mbot

Huh. I didn't notice it earlier, but now that you mention it I think I agree.

But IMO that can wait until the missing stuff is implemented and the bugs are fixed.

[TomOnSteam]

I think they look perfectly fine. (coming from someone who got banned for complaining about the hawk's textures)

 

edit: I think that HUD glass is flattened near the top like that to make it fit flush with the windscreen.

Edited December 27, 2015 by TomOnSteam

[Random]

The "low resolution" is a byproduct of wrapping a 2d image over a 3d object. Things get stretched. So a single pixel on the texture file itself can end up many times bigger. You can see examples of this on ALL modules if you know where to look.

 

Mirage is no worse in this respect. I guess if you wanted you could have the pits textures split into multiple sections to increase the resolution locally on areas that are highly contoured to reduce the effect but increase demand on graphics memory?

Edited December 27, 2015 by Random

[grunf]

There is a room for improvements, as seen in MBot's pictures, but overall the artist(s) who did the cockpit, and the entire plane, did a great job!

[jojo]

The blue panel texture looks very low res and grainy.

 

Very low res texture.

 

 

Ok, unusual gaming resolution also :smilewink:

2560 x 1080.

 

Probably higher resolution textures would hit frame rate on some hardware.

 

Will see in future, but from my point of view, it isn't the higher priority thing to fix.

 

I see what you mean, but it doesn't strike me that much when I play.

Dark cockpit comes from geometry and color, can't do anything about it, it's tiny cockpit...

[otto]

My opinion is it looks good.If i compare it to this one :

 

MlqMGzrcqks

[Bourrinopathe]

The low resolution impression is the result of the textures wrapping for the dashboard and the side panels. The whole dashboard base uses a pretty small part of a 4096x4096 texture (check M2KC_4C.bmp.dds in \Mods\aircraft\M-2000C\Textures\M-2000C) while most of the instruments use much more pixels and thus are more detailed/high resolution.

 

(4096x4096)

 

The problem is that it implies a very noticeable resolution difference for the same view (the instruments are detailed, the dashboard panel is more "blurry").

(as seen in MBot's post)

 

The lateral panels use the M2KC_5C.bmp.dds diffuse texture.

 

Increasing the details with the current textures would require to increase the texture size.

Iirc DirectX 11 maximum texture size is 16384×16384, so there's room for improvement if you want to increase the dashboard and side panels resolutions (diffuse, normal maps and specular maps).

 

One great thing is that Razbam has used normal maps and specular maps for the cockpit.

Kudos for that as it's pretty uncommon even for the recent modules like the L-39C (no normal maps for the cockpit if I'm not mistaken) (the beautiful MiG-21bis cockpit uses some specular maps but very few normal maps).

 

Now there's a custom cockpit function available in DCS ;)

 

[EDIT: also, there's always that nasty performance consideration above our heads, so there have to be some compromises. One of the best solutions would be to have dedicated textures for the side panels and the dashboard panel basic texture.]

Edited December 27, 2015 by Bourrinopathe

[Fab]

I think its ok, to high res and you got lag !

[GeorgeLKMT]

The way this screenshot looks (I don't have Mirage so I can't check by myself) makes me think there are no mipmaps again which, if true, should be reported and fixed:

 

[Bourrinopathe]

The mipmaps are here. No problem with that ;)

 

It's just that the allocated texture area for those parts is not large.

 

I'd love to see more detailed textures but I admit I don't pay much attention to those parts while flying (1080p).

The only thing which bites my face is the dashboard panel texture if I happen to zoom in to carefully check the instruments.

[GeorgeLKMT]

All textures or just the one you're showing me? I can't see any panels with text on it, but the preview is really small so I might just not see it. Anyway, the screenshot (judging by the text) still looks like no-mips or point filter used.

Edited December 27, 2015 by GeorgeLKMT
typos

[luckyhendrix]

Buttons also make no clicking animations or noise, but I'm sure it'll be added later

 

Sent from my XT1072 using Tapatalk

[Bourrinopathe]

I've only checked the texture with the side panel with that preview.

 

And, you're right, many textures don't use mipmaps (I've just checked the whole textures folder). It seems inconsistent. For example, the bottom of the aircraft texture don't have mipmaps whereas the top has mipmaps levels (13). (memory performance choice?)

 

It would explain why I have that kind of aliasing in the cockpit view (1080p), but I'm not familiar with the rendering distance for the cockpit.

 

I know the L-39C cockpit uses 6 levels mipmaps for the textures.

Edited December 27, 2015 by Bourrinopathe

[Bourrinopathe]

Ok, here's the difference with the mipmaps in 1080p:

 

Please click the link or download the files to view the .png images.

Check the clock (left) and the panel behind the stick (center) - the textures have mipmaps levels.

There are aliasing artifacts for the other textures. It probably looks better with a 4k monitor.

 

Default max FoV

 

Default normal FoV (using headtracking)

 

Maximum zoom level:

Edited December 27, 2015 by Bourrinopathe
changed image host

[Farlander]

There is nothing wrong with the cockpit in my opinion for a beta release, but i do agree with Mbot that some things could be better. Saying there is nothing to improve in the cockpit would be wrong.

[cameleon33]

Mig 21 should not be taken as a reference IMHO.

 

It might be beautiful and really detailed, but it's a disaster in terms of optimisation.

Everytime someone jumps in a Mig21 on a server, it introduces an awful lag for everyone, ending up with disconnection and/or freezes for everyone.

 

So I prefer having some low/medium resolution for some of the less important parts than having a ultra-detailed aircraft with no optimization.

 

That being said, in my opinion, the Mirage cockpit is really nice, even if some parts could be improved, if it does not impact performances too much.

 

Cam'

[TOYKILLA]

The Cockpit looks great in my opinion. I find FPS are more important then eyecandy and I have real good FPS in the Mirage with my 40" TripleScreen.

Edited December 27, 2015 by TOYKILLA

[sotosev]

The textures are just fine for me.