[REPORTED] Model Visibility Issues

[lemoen]

Yeah, the spotting is insane. Zoom back (wide fov) and stuff on the ground appears. Zoom in and at a point they change size and color and becomes invisible until you're much closer. Its angry-making and it reinforces mission design for BVR fights and guided munitions.

[SharpeXB]

The era is completely irrelevant.

Well if I can't see a WWII plane at 10 miles away at least he can't shoot me from that distance. With the modern era aircraft and weapons that's about point blank range.

[NineLine]

Not to insult anyone, but who can ID an aircraft at 10 miles away with eyeballs alone? I read numerous reports of WWII pilots who couldnt ID a plane until they were right up on them.

[OnlyforDCS]

Heh, no one is asking for an ability to ID a plane at 10 miles, that's beyond ludicrous. :) I barely manage to ID them at 500 yards.

 

IDing planes, and effectively keeping visual on them in a dogfight are two very different things.

[NineLine]

Heh, no one is asking for an ability to ID a plane at 10 miles, that's beyond ludicrous. :) I barely manage to ID them at 500 yards.

 

IDing planes, and effectively keeping visual on them in a dogfight are two very different things.

 

ok, I possible misread, sorry guys. I know there is some activity internally, so dont get to down on all this. As I said its tough with the way shaders change right now, but ED knows how important this issue is.

 

I will say it shouldnt be 100% possible to always keep eyes on a target if you mess up, but it does need to be better than it is for sure.

[Knock-Knock]

2 articles / papers I have come across on the subject, that both show, that its really hard to spot planes, especially smaller ones, at a given distance. Especially when they are contrasted against the terrain.

 

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_memoranda/2006/RM4562.pdf

 

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005594

 

And I dont think that is where the problem is in DCS, spotting at a distance. Thats almost to easy. The problem for me is in close, in the merge. There is this 'deadzone' where a plane becomes impossible to spot. At a distance a fraction further away, no problem spotting, and then at some point after this 'deadzone', the plane becomes visible again. But this deadzone is often right where the merge is happening, and you completely loose track of the plane, even when not looking away.

 

I think the current 'post-dot' concept is quite good - maybe too good at longer distances, and I think they should leave that 'post-dot' on all the time. Dont remove it (well maybe below 100m or something). Just have it centered on the plane, and when the plane is close enough to make out the silhouette of it, the dot wouldnt really block the ability to ID it, cause we are just talking 1 pixel. And let this 'post-dot' shimmer slightly - 'billboard' it to the sun, so when you are between it and the sun, it will be at its brightest shimmer etc.

[Knock-Knock]

Was just digging around some of the articles I had been reading lately, to find this particular part.

 

Attempting to use the environment and vertical separation to make us harder to see, I brought the nose on and had a speck in the target diamond on the heads up display (HUD). By about 2 miles the bogey had spotted us and turned nose on, and just inside of a mile I was able to visually identify (VID) him as an A-4E Skyhawk. Our game plan was set.

 

We passed left to left, turned left just far enough to keep him in sight, unloaded, accelerated and attempted to build separation. As the bogey’s nose was coming around towards us and approaching three miles separation, I went to idle power and extended the speed-brakes to slow rapidly to about 350 knots so that the Tomcat would turn at a good rate and small radius. The difficulty now would be to maintain sight of the relatively tiny A-4.

 

At three plus miles of separation and nose on, the A-4 was a speck as we looked over our left shoulders about 160 degrees aft of the direction we were heading. We had the separation; it was now time to pitch back and shoot the A-4 in the face. The hard part would be maintaining sight. It was difficult enough while extending away, but now smack 6.5 Gs on and it would be infinitely more difficult, but we were successful.

 

From this great article: - cant remember who posted it here on the forum, and where.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8282/how-to-fight-to-win-in-the-f-14-a-4-and-f-5-at-the-navys-topgun-school

 

And Ive read the same about the F-5, at Top Gun. Its really hard to spot.

[chihirobelmo]

Sorry quoting this from an indirect source as original papers could not found on the Internet but again from Serfoss 2003 it was said...

 

In 1983, Kress & Brictson studied 87 air-to-air engagements at the Yuma TACTS

range. Average unaided detection distances for the target F-5 and F-4 aircraft were 3.1

nmi.

 

Another study by Hutchins in 1978 at the Air Combat Maneuvering Range

(ACMR), which is the earlier name of the TACTS, involved 45 air combat training

engagements. The mean detection distance of the A-4 targets was 3.09, with a range of

0.38 to 6.23 nmi. Other studies were done using observers on the ground. With visibility

conditions spanning 7 to 10 miles over an 8-day testing period, O’Neal & Miller (1998)

found detection distances for approaching T-38 aircraft to ranged from 4.77 to 6.73 nmi.

 

Another ground observer study used 400 visual detections of a T-38 aircraft (Provines,

Rahe, Block, Pena, & Tredici, 1983). The aircraft was approaching from a known

direction and a distance of 9 miles and mean detection distance was 4.55 miles over the

400 trials

 

Reading also several other quotations on the paper it seems about 3.0nm would be an average detection distance to find the F-5/A-4 size target when you do not know where they are coming from, and 5.0nm If you already know where they are. Not sure about air conditions for each research.

Edited April 12, 2017 by chihirobelmo

[gavagai]

Sounds fine to me. Now show me the research that describes aircraft disappearing at 1nmi while the pilot is watching them through the forward hemisphere of his canopy.:)

[GGTharos]

There is a study showing a curve for average detection distance based on aircraft size.

 

All I want to say is that it is a LOT less optimistic than most people like to say on the forums. For sure you can detect aircraft past those distances, but you have to know where to look for them, aspect matters, lighting matters etc.

As long as DCS cannot take all of this stuff into account, it should represent the mean case as best as opposible.

 

@gavagai, the 'dead zone' is also a huge problem, I agree.

[SilentSierra]

I was considering to purchase a new monitor 24" Full HD, but I realised that I'm not lonely having trouble to see.

 

This issue should be priorized before release Normandy and WWII assets, we have no EOS, FCR or TGP to spot the targets in that environment.

[chihirobelmo]

There is a study showing a curve for average detection distance based on aircraft size.

 

All I want to say is that it is a LOT less optimistic than most people like to say on the forums.

 

That is also believable depending on aircraft size and air condition but would like to see the quotation and research title...

 

 

 

FOV zoom until 20-degree in-sim also seems too easy to keep visual though it is trading off the sense of attitude. In some hard-core server, it should be limited depends on the resolution.

[PeaceSells]

That said, a better system would I believe adjust the contrast of the target to make it stand out more, perhaps add some element of glinting to the aircraft frame, and apply some slight (slight!) scaling to keep the identify ranges in line with real life data.

 

+1

 

As I said its tough with the way shaders change right now, but ED knows how important this issue is.

 

Thanks for this info, SithSpawn!

[NineLine]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

[ricktoberfest]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info. It's good to see this is on their radar ;)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SeaW0lf]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

Thanks for the update. With the Normandy map, B-17 and all, it would be nice to see a mature version.

 

The other day I got online again, so I might get hooked. To know that they consider these things and are working on spotting, damage model, a new P-51 version, etc, is good news.

[Why485]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

Can I ask that when this change is applied, it is mentioned in the patch notes? There have been multiple dramatic changes to visibility (such as the removal of impostors) that were never mentioned in any official channels.

[NineLine]

I'll mention that it should be, not sure why pulling of impostors wasnt

[klem]

Good news SiThSpAwn !

 

<cough> next patch! <cough>

[OnlyforDCS]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

Good news! To be honest, I really wasn't expecting anything until 2.5, or 2.1 (Normandy) at the earliest so any earlier improvements along the way would really be a nice surprise and very welcome! :thumbup:

Edited April 14, 2017 by OnlyforDCS

[funkyfranky]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better.

Great news. Looking forward to it. Thanks :)

[captain_dalan]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

Will it go into 2.0 only, or will it be in 1.5 as well?

[Talisman_VR]

Hey guys, small update with Wags blessing. I have been looking and comparing our internal testing version with current release and the transition from dot to LOD is very much improved, spotting, and maintaining a visual lock on the target is much better. This will trickle down to the release version later, but I wanted to let you know its getting attention and improving.

 

Thank you. This news lifts the spirits somewhat. The proof will be in the pudding and I look forward to the eating.

 

Happy landings,

Edited April 14, 2017 by 56RAF_Talisman
spelling.

[chihirobelmo]

Thanks for the good news.

Looking forward to seeing the next update.

 

 

 

Perhaps it would not be needed anymore if the fix worked but I just have finished my video so I uploaded here.

The video is showing results of both ideas what if SmartScaling enabled for DCS, and what if Dot Overlayed to 3D model.

[SeaW0lf]

So right now I'm flying online almost every day and I started to see how spotting really affects 'real life' / multiplayer game play.

 

In a close turn fight, even against clear skies, the planes are rendered with a very thin / pale layer, almost as a late afternoon shadow. Over terrain they blend easily right in front of your eyes. You need to focus hard to don't lose it. And I have seen others go through the same ordeal -- to reset in mid combat and start looking for me -- and this against only one plane.

 

From what I see [or don't see -- pun intended :)], a fix for close quarters rendering / spotting is much more important than dots and such. At least we need to see the enemy once we engage in a close turn fight.

 

I could get used to it, but at the moment [i might change my opinion] I think it is not even healthy for one's eyesight either.

 

I do hope the situation changes with the updates.