[REPORTED] Model Visibility Issues

[klem]

^^nothing changed with today's patch.

 

i dont know, but i really disliked the imposters of earlier patches. these sprites were not an addition to the 3d model, but they simply exchanged the 3d model with the sprite. and not even in sync. so it was common that at a certain distance, nothing at all was rendered. which was horrible. furthermore, the imposters looked rather bad imho. setting them to large gave ridiculous results at far distances, where in fact i thought contacts where clouds :) .

so personally im really against the imposter system, at least as we saw it implemented..not comparing sims is really hard, as others actually manage to give reasonable and convincing results. still i will try not to do it, and just state, that sharpness and contrast should, in my view, be increased as contacts get closer. and a subtle not overdone smart scaling is a perfect working solution in flight sims, proven over many years.

 

I generally agree. I fiddled with the imposters.lua and imposter.fx (on the back of Why485's work) trying to get the Model to blend into a decent Imposter but there was always a point at which the model disappeared before the Imposter appeared although I managed to get a reasonable distant imposter size. Still ED are apparently looking at this again.

[PeaceSells]

In some situations I experienced the dot actually getting vaguer/dissapearing when zooming in. Zoomed out seemed to make it easier to see the dot at times.

 

My main concern is the WVR modelling where even a Red Arrow Hawk loses definition and color at ridiculously short distances. I think that is what needs addressing, not necessarily size.

 

Nice to see that I'm not the only one that noticed this... I recorded a couple of videos to help illustrate:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJrmOP0DdKc

You can see the two planes on my 7 o'clock just below the cloud and above the horizon. They appear as dark dots when zoomed out and disapear when zoomed in.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPDWMUYkFtk

I added a white caret at 00:29s, 00:48s and 00:55s to show the plane's position in my HUD (it's not the F-16 close in front of me). You can see it as a dark dot when zoomed out and, when zoomed in, it disapears.

 

(Those videos are not listed, you only see them if you have the link)

 

EDIT: I should mention that Youtube compression exaggerates the effect. In game you sometimes can see the aircraft after zoomed in, but it's still much harder to see.

 

My humble guess about what's happening: the dark dot is visible because dark contrasts with the light blue sky and white clouds. When you zoom in, the aircraft is drawn with its true colors instead, which are usually light blue/grey, which blends well with the sky and clouds. Plus, afterburner is drawn as white. So that's why you have more trouble seeing them up close than far away.

 

I like this system of drawing dots at distance, I just think that aircraft at close range need a little more contrast, I often see the target's shadow on the ground but can't see the target itself.

 

Maybe this is a work in progress and ED is fine tuning it. I look forward to see the end result, I'm fairly new to DCS and it's already my main game now!

Edited December 4, 2016 by PeaceSells

[shaba]

hi been away for a few weeks......any fix yet for this? Spotting was bad at distance after last patch for ww2 servers

[chihirobelmo]

Flying for a few weeks with new visibility system, I came to guess current system is still an "imposter" method but this time ED replaced an imposter to a dot.

 

As Each plane's paint also affects its visibility (one of the examples are known as "Low Vis" paint), Aircraft model's true color should be applied to a "dot" to represent realistic visibility. Also when aircraft flies in the backlight of the sun or showing his self-drop shadow a lot, he would be much easier to visual than in the order light of the sun, showing his upper side of the body. I just have been to Hyakuri AFB Airshow last week and 302nd Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4's demo was just like that.

 

However, as wide FOV represents 1/2 to 1/3 sized visibility in the sim due to current common monitor size, dot with true aircraft color would be an unrealistically invisible thing. If ED chooses to improve dot system instead of Serfoss 2003, I wish they could apply each model's true color/shadow and shading status/size/orientation to the dot contrast, then enhance its contrast to overcome 1/2 to 1/3 size drawn visibility on the monitor. They also will need to enhance the contrast of the model too just before they become a dot so that they can transit to a dot smoothly.

Edited December 5, 2016 by chihirobelmo

[Reflected]

hi been away for a few weeks......any fix yet for this? Spotting was bad at distance after last patch for ww2 servers

 

What a coincidence that they are next to empty since the enlargement is gone.:music_whistling:

[klem]

Nice to see that I'm not the only one that noticed this... I recorded a couple of videos to help illustrate:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJrmOP0DdKc

You can see the two planes on my 7 o'clock just below the cloud and above the horizon. They appear as dark dots when zoomed out and disapear when zoomed in.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPDWMUYkFtk

I added a white caret at 00:29s, 00:48s and 00:55s to show the plane's position in my HUD (it's not the F-16 close in front of me). You can see it as a dark dot when zoomed out and, when zoomed in, it disapears.

 

(Those videos are not listed, you only see them if you have the link)

 

EDIT: I should mention that Youtube compression exaggerates the effect. In game you sometimes can see the aircraft after zoomed in, but it's still much harder to see.

 

My humble guess about what's happening: the dark dot is visible because dark contrasts with the light blue sky and white clouds. When you zoom in, the aircraft is drawn with its true colors instead, which are usually light blue/grey, which blends well with the sky and clouds. Plus, afterburner is drawn as white. So that's why you have more trouble seeing them up close than far away.

 

I like this system of drawing dots at distance, I just think that aircraft at close range need a little more contrast, I often see the target's shadow on the ground but can't see the target itself.

 

Maybe this is a work in progress and ED is fine tuning it. I look forward to see the end result, I'm fairly new to DCS and it's already my main game now!

 

Dots? What dots? I can't even see one beside the caret, zoomed or not :( Played with my monitor values, still no dots :(

[shaba]

ah,

thanks for the reply, hope they have something in the works......:-)

[PeaceSells]

Dots? What dots? I can't even see one beside the caret, zoomed or not :( Played with my monitor values, still no dots :(

 

Please see if this attached pic helps... this is from video 1, at the mark of 00:03s. You'll have to maximize the pic.

 

Also make sure you watch the videos at 1080p fullscreen.

 

I have an ASUS gaming monitor, size 24", not sure if this makes a difference...

[chihirobelmo]

Plane size by numbers of the pixel is determined by Resolution and FOV.

How large you see the plane is determined by your Monitor Size and Distance where your head positions from the monitor.

[Need-To-Know]

So I have not read through all of the other pages and normally would not join in to this due to I feel developers stays on top of things...but.... just so the squeaky wheels are not the only voices heard. :)

 

I feel now we can see AC waaaay too far away. Like a F5 over 20NM out is not realistic. Unless you are Chuck Yeager. Lol

 

At first I was like great easier for me to spot targets way beyond my radars capability but then you have to consider one of the very few advantages of the F5 is it's size and being hard to spot. Same for the MIG 21.

 

I mean you minus well throw in a bright spot light on the ground underneath the airplane or something....Just having a laugh guys. Lol

[Haukka81]

Well, before we were blind , now we have bit too good vision. Maybe something in between would be nice :D

 

 

But this is step to better direction, imposters were joke.

[chihirobelmo]

I feel now we can see AC waaaay too far away. Like a F5 over 20NM out is not realistic. Unless you are Chuck Yeager. Lol

 

It was possible to visual 10nm-20nm F-5 in previous imposter system and it was another unrealistic part of the system. But do you mean you still can see F-5 over 20nm? Are you sure you updated DCS to 1.5.5?

[klem]

Dots? What dots? I can't even see one beside the caret, zoomed or not :( Played with my monitor values, still no dots :(

 

Please see if this attached pic helps... this is from video 1, at the mark of 00:03s. You'll have to maximize the pic.

 

Also make sure you watch the videos at 1080p fullscreen.

 

I have an ASUS gaming monitor, size 24", not sure if this makes a difference...

 

OK I can just about see them, very very faint grey, almost the same as the background. I would never see these without a pointer plus the time to examine the screen very very carefully so for me 'seeing too far' isn't an issue. In fact I am usually the last person to see distant dots. And yes, even a 'good' distant dot/imposter tends to disappear with zoom although Models don't.

[Why485]

OK I can just about see them, very very faint grey, almost the same as the background. I would never see these without a pointer plus the time to examine the screen very very carefully so for me 'seeing too far' isn't an issue. In fact I am usually the last person to see distant dots. And yes, even a 'good' distant dot/imposter tends to disappear with zoom although Models don't.

 

Keep in mind that with the 1 pixel dot system currently in place, the lower your resolution, and the larger your screen, the easier dots are to see. This is why you see very different opinions on if you can see too far or not. Incidentally, this benefits VR headsets the most, which to be honest need all the help they can get.

 

This was the case before with impostors, but the difference was much more pronounced than it is now. This is one of the reasons so many servers disabled it.

 

 

While the current system, which may be seeing another change when we get to 2.5, isn't as robust as I'd like it to be, after having some time to sit on it I think this is the best spotting has ever been in DCS. Which, isn't saying much, but still.

 

Because it's forced on and non configurable it solves the biggest issue I had with the old system which was that most people just disable it outright. It's subtle enough that it appeases those who think zero visibility is a good thing, but still functional enough that it's an improvement over what we had.

 

I dont think it's perfect by any means. A dot doesn't really help you with WVR spotting, which is I believe the biggest problem with spotting in DCS. I also don't like that lower resolutions have an advantage, but I also kind of feel that playing at high resolutions has enough inherent advantages that it's not as big an issue as it could be. The resolution problem was much greater with the old system. In a sense, you're trading off distant spotting for WVR spotting acuity when you raise your resolution.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Why485

[PeaceSells]

OK I can just about see them, very very faint grey, almost the same as the background. I would never see these without a pointer plus the time to examine the screen very very carefully so for me 'seeing too far' isn't an issue. In fact I am usually the last person to see distant dots. And yes, even a 'good' distant dot/imposter tends to disappear with zoom although Models don't.

 

Yeah, the dots don't really worry me... I'm more interested in visibility well inside WVR...

 

I know that an important skill of a RL fighter pilot (despite I'm not a pilot myself) is the ability to find other aircraft WVR with naked eyes. And I know that our generation of gamers sometimes thinks that everything can be handled in an MFD screen, but that to me is boring. If I wanted to look at MFD graphics, I would be playing ATARI still...

 

The thing is I think planes visibility well inside WVR could undergo some fine tuning to make them slightly more visible. This would stimulate looking at the world instead of just keep rocking the plane around in vertical radar scan while looking straight forward. Or, in case of flanker pilots, relying too much on the datalink...

[Maverick Su-35S]

Seems to be a problem from the latest patches. I've deleted the impostors.lua file just to make sure there's nothing wrong with it, then let DCS repair do it's job which put it back in place, restarted the sim, tried different settings for the model enlargement (off, small, large, etc.), then quit the game, restarted, resaved the mission thinking that any changes to the model enlargement might require re-saving the mission in order to take effects. Nothing!

 

The model enlargement feature is completely out of action now and although it wasn't perfect, it's way better with it than without.

[ST0RM]

Bumping this.

 

Tried some BFM with a buddy with us both flying the F-5. Couldnt see each other at all until a mile.

 

Come on, lets bring this back. Labels kill it, so this was a good option to aid in restrictions on various systems.

 

-Jeff

[Haukka81]

New system is better, but now planes are drawn to far..

 

 

We have to wait, smart scaling is on its way ;)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mkiii]

Where does that info (regarding Smart Scaling) come from? Everyone is talking about it, but can someone point to the official word on this?

 

On the subject of Model enlargement, smoke from burning targets now seems to be much smaller than it was prior to 1.55. If I burn a tank now, the smoke plume is barely visible when I have started to turn back towards the target. it seems more like the amount of smoke you might get from a coal fire, not a burning vehicle.

[HornedGod]

We have to wait, smart scaling is on its way ;)

 

Is there an official or at least ED post about this?

 

I don't know why they didn't just leave the Model Enlargement system active until they had a fully functioning replacement.

 

What's there now is a teeny bit better than the 1.2 days (in that far away contacts are at least a single pixel no matter their distance), but it's still a needle in a haystack simulator on the WWII MP servers unless the server uses the label dot mod.

[Why485]

New system is better, but now planes are drawn to far..

 

 

We have to wait, smart scaling is on its way ;)

 

Why would you say that?

[gavagai]

it's still a needle in a haystack simulator on the WWII MP servers unless the server uses the label dot mod.

 

Even with that mod it is very boring to fly WW2 in multiplayer simply because you might get 5 minutes of combat for an hour of seat time.

[Reflected]

The labels mod on the Burning skies server is still the best I've seen in DCS.

[klem]

Even with that mod it is very boring to fly WW2 in multiplayer simply because you might get 5 minutes of combat for an hour of seat time.

 

Well you wanted realism :music_whistling:

In CoD on SoW server we often fly 1 - 1.5 hours with GCI and don't find a fight. Somehow it doesn't feel wrong.

 

Actually I'm finding the current set-up not too bad for dogfighting. Dd ED change something?

[Pizzicato]

Just been flying the Mirage training missions and we seem to be back to the bad old days of not being able to see targets unless you're right on top of them. The two Hawks in the AA training might as well be invisible. :(