New effects

[Nooch]

believe or not, the new explosion effect isn't what I am waiting for...

 

I'm not sure I have seen the ones you're talking about but I have to say I was very disappointed by the new CBU effects we got in 2.0/1.5. They look more like some weird fireworks than real CBU bomblets exploding... I do hope we'll get something better in 2.5.

[Pitot]

I am going to go hard on this:

Cr*p games need overdoing in the field of visual effects to get a player to feel immersion. DCS does not need that, as much as we all like fancy things or realistic effects. When all is working peachy, then they can worry about micro aesthetics.

[WinterH]

I'd personaly say +1 to Pitot on this one.

[shagrat]

you know when you turn on the anti-collision lights? it's not reflected on the ground, that sort of thing. :)

 

Yes it is! And wing tip lights also.

[Aginor]

I am not sure when that was added though, because I am sure I remember checking that at some point and it didn't work.

[shagrat]

Okay, As for the rain:

Given the shape of a fighter plane cockpit, there would be rain drops when not moving, but when you accelerate there would be only streaks of water going upwards/backwards, and after accelerating even more you'd probably have none on the glass and possibly some high-pressure condensation at places where glass construction is interrupted with metal frames. There would also be some streaking up to some point at the lower end of glass, where it enters the metal canopy construction, but at high speeds that would not exist too. It is awesome that graphics are improving in DCS, but let's not get unrealistic.

You can create the wanted effect in 2 ways:

1. The above mentioned one, by someone from ED staff, where you have an entirely new render layer over the picture,

2. Placing a particle emitter in front of the plane that would actually emit liquid particles to the plane.

To anyone using brain - it is clear that both options require immense rendering power. Apart from that, number of lines in the new code for any of the solutions is equal to the number of hair strains on a head of an average DCS player.

On top of that, you need to tell the game engine not to sync these effects client-server-client-wise. Other players should not receive info on your raindrops and pressurized water trails, because that would make the latency problems a monster. Given that fact, now you need to write a completely new piece of code that allows other clients to individually render outside effects when your airplane is in the field of view (those trails), which is another mountain of work.

 

Sum up: As far as I am also a person that wants to see as much as possible improvements in DCS and video game world when it comes to rendering all kind of awesome things, I would like even more that ED manages to deliver all that had been promised by now.

 

"Other Games" - Other games are done in other engines. Other games sometimes have much less underlying layers than DCS, so they can spare resources to render 500 individual rain drops on a glass with refraction included without your PC becoming the Eye of Sauron (big burning thing, that is). I personally feel like deleting posts that include other games is a bit too much, but I also understand admins because saying "in that game it is possible" while it's a completely different game engine is like living in Chad and complaining to the authorities because there are no snowy days in the year.

 

Edit: You can find Mryia video of rain takeoff on youtube. Even with it's flat, almost-vertical glass - after reaching a certain speed, there are no more raindrops or streaks on the glass. So is it really needed that bunch of people spend months of their lives so we can watch rain for 3 minutes on a piece of glass while taxiing?

 

Edit 2: If absolutely necessary to have rain: 1 - place a piece of glass between you and your monitor(s); 2 - Hire a minion with a sprayer and a fan; 3 - While flying, the minion should spray liquid onto the glass panel and blow it off with the (powerful) fan. We have people making physical cockpits, why not make a rain. (Disclaimer: Edit 2 is purely for fun and to make people laugh a bit)

^This... Pretty much FPS vs. Eyecandy

 

With VR-glasses running barely on medium to low settings on a GTX1080, would you invest programming ressources into raindrops?

 

I personally prefer, netcode optimization, multiseat, AI enhancement, better damage modelling especially for AI and then even explosions, smoke and dust effects and search lights optimized and enhanced, before adding rain.

[Aginor]

For me that goes without saying. Gameplay before visuals for me any time.

 

I would like to focus on the effects (and their gameplay aspects of course!) here though, because it is the topic of the thread. :)

Edited July 6, 2016 by Aginor

[Vitormouraa]

Sorry, I didn't get it.. If it's not needed, why are we discussing about over wing vapor, rain over canopy, and etc? ALWAYS there is space for improvement, always, no matter what, DCS being a simulator, for me, does not matter, it's still a digital game. People tend to say visual doesn't matter for study sims, but then I ask, the simulators in the past didn't have a very good visual because the technology didn't permit, and now, we have enough technology to make one of the best study sim, with an awesome visual, for some reason Eagle Dynamics updated the DCS engine, inclunding new visual effects. I understand people that say visual isn't what they're looking for, I respect, and I agree, but I don't understand the relation between study sim and visual, can't we have both? Why not..

 

I am not saying I want all the effects that you find in Battlefield series and etc, I want, at least an upgraded lighting effect, just like you, you want over wing vapor and rain on canopy, me too!

 

Is there any difference between wish over wing vapor and a better lightning (anti-collision, NAV lights, and etc)

 

OBS:The most recent DCS modules are coming with a very good lighting effect. Not sure if you guys have seen the Spitfire, pic released by Racoon, its artificial lights look awesome, but as I said, Ka-50 does not have the same, because it's a very old module (still my second favorite module - it's not because it does not have good textures and etc like the newer ones, I won't fly it, on the contrary, I fly it all the time, with or without good texctures and fancy things.)

 

Again, if it's not possible a discussion about a study sim having good visual, this is going to be my last comment in this thread, looks like it's a taboo yet. (not sure if you guys know this expression though..)

 

Just my opinion...

 

EDIT: As Aginor said, gameplay before anything, but we can have both.

[Aginor]

Oh, I think I contributed to a misunderstanding again, let me try to clarify what I meant:

 

- gameplay is important

- visuals are important

- visual effects that affect gameplay (like smoke blocking line of sight and over-wing vapor that shows you your opponent is pulling a lot of Gs right now) are more important than pure visual effects (for example updating a mediocre explosion visual effect to a awesome looking one)

 

And yes, while I think that in a sim visuals take second place behind gameplay (if they are separable from each other ) I think that by no means a study sim isn't allowed to be pretty.

Blunt example: A developer says "sorry guys, no improved ATC, we spent all our budget and CPU power for animating pilot's facial hair" he would be doing something wrong. :D

If we can have both (and DCSW history says we probably can!) then by all means: go for it!

So what I am trying to do is gather some ideas how something beautiful can be achieved without sacrificing performance.

EDIT: Also sometimes an 80% solution is better than a 100% one, rain on canopy is one of those I think.

 

With a bit of luck my questions in post #1 of this thread and this discussion will give the devs some ideas they might have overlooked. That would absolutely be worth it. :)

[Pitot]

Uhm... There is that little thing about "now is not the time to reserve significant resources into solving something that is not a deal-braking imperfection while we have burning issues with current deficiencies".

I prefer that 2 years for developing awesome weather side-effects to be spent on making more complex......... ECM for example.

 

This is a bit like a person that complains to the architecture expert about color of the building. Yes! The color matters overall! But if your supporting columns are under construction you don't redirect bunch of workforce to paint the building. Anyway, they'd just get in the way of people working on important issues. (just an example, not necessairly correct in terms of architecture)

 

I am one of the bigger criticizers about how some things are handled, but I also try to look at the things from the practical side. Yes, I do get carried away with feelings or wishes just like you do, but you need to sort the priorities.

 

P. S. There is a lot of scripted events in those games that people here take as example, while in DCS you can't script bluefor or redfor on multiplayer... OFC it is much easier to render something at specific point in time, (game)space and with limited duration, but in DCS you have multiple entities doing multiple things that need fast, accurate and resource hungry rendering. When creating a game, you need to ensure it behaves the relatively same at low and high load. Now, go play DCS on a 2 core pc with 8 gigs of RAM and ATI 5700. Try single and multiplayer. You will feel the difference. Not because something is wrong with DCS, but because it is very heavy on hardware. Now, it is easy to be awed by flying through clouds and not paying attention to every single few FPS lost and feel like DCS could handle it easily. I understand that. But it's not that simple.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Pitot

[kripzoo]

Here you can see how moderate/heavy rain can look at high speeds in the canopy of the F-16.

 

Look from 2:05 :)

 

[Vitormouraa]

Since I am a fan of A/G operations, I kinda agree about the ECM pod (even though ECM is very important for A/G aircrafts). That makes sense for me. :)

 

About the little fancy things, after fixing a lot of things that, the DCS or whatever game needs, then you can work on visual, even though the producers work separately, what I mean is, an engine Coder won't spend his time making new artificial lights (*I guess*), so at the same time other producer, specialist in this kind of thing, will be working on it if that makes sense...

 

There is a team, each member of this team works with something. (there is exceptions, of course but I am just trying to give me point if you know what I mean)

 

I am saying that because sometimes I see people saying they would rather a time spent improving the engine than making fancy things, yeah, of course, everything has its time, visual is important but should have some love after the important improvements..

 

I might be wrong though..

 

I am translator, I work for RAZBAM, I spend all my time translating, and not making something else. (about the project of course)

Edited July 6, 2016 by Vitormouraa

[Pitot]

Yes, that is true, but when it comes to stuff being rendered in a game engine, it affects others too. And even so that departments work sepparately to some extent, they are all under the same umbrella of predefined goals. They can't just jump from a task to task cuz we want it.

[NineLine]

The point I was trying to make was that said effect has been successfully achieved in another (older gfx engine) sim without much performance loss or the need for high-end CPU/GPU, and IMO that is a realistic looking effect. My intention was to provide an example of what is already achievable, rather than a comparison.

It wasn't intended as A vs. B.

 

Be sure that the final objective is none other than to contribute to generate some ideas/discussion that can help DCS become better. In the end that's what we all want I guess, even if there are clear differences in how we go about it.

 

Anyway I appreciate your post and clarification ;)

 

As far as I know it is planned. So we will get it, but they have a lot of effects and such to build and rebuild still, not sure of a priority. But they will get there. Some cool stuff coming down the pipe soon.

 

And I dont think you intended a A vs B discussion, and if anyone accused you of that I apologize, but I know that some discussions left unchecked can turn into that, we just take the stance of nipping all those in the butt right off the start. Forums like Mudspike are better suited for such discussions. There is no denial at all that there are features in other sims that we would love to see in DCS, or that are farther along than what we have in DCS. ED is aware and working on most.

 

Hope that makes sense.

[Vitormouraa]

I liked the discussion we had here SiTh, was good and heathy. ;)

[rrohde]

Some cool stuff coming down the pipe soon.

 

:thumbup:

 

There is no denial at all that there are features in other sims that we would love to see in DCS, or that are farther along than what we have in DCS. ED is aware and working on most.

 

So long as ED doesn't sacrifice realism/quality/flightmodeleing of their modules for "eye-candy", I am sure that we all can be patient. Don't want this to be a watered-down simulation down the line...

[NineLine]

The goal as far as I know is always realism. But realize it usually takes longer. The sim will never go arcade shooter in planes with super fancy graphics and tiny maps :)

Edited July 6, 2016 by NineLine

[NineLine]

I liked the discussion we had here SiTh, was good and heathy. ;)

 

Yes, although sorry for dragging us a little off-topic, I like to try and explain stuff occasionally, we really are not trying to be the big bad moderation team.

[shagrat]

Here you can see how moderate/heavy rain can look at high speeds in the canopy of the F-16.

 

Look from 2:05 :)

 

Can't! Contains music from Sony Music... blocked in Germany.

[Aginor]

Yeah, you might watch it using a.... different way.

 

EDIT: Or take this video.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S11e-c9I9wU[/ame]

[shagrat]

Yeah, you might watch it using a.... different way.

 

EDIT: Or take this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S11e-c9I9wU

Thanks.

 

P.S. different way is difficult on smartphone... ;)

[Enduro14]

Thanks.

 

P.S. different way is difficult on smartphone... ;)

 

I use ProxFlow on chrome browser and it unblocks those videos for me here in Germany. It's an extension app for chrome

[Aginor]

Inspired by another thread on these forums today I decided to throw another effect into discussion: Missile contrails.

 

Aside from looking cool, especially in humid air, they can have a big impact on gameplay, because they make missiles easier to see.

Although I admit: I don't know much about them, when they happen, how easy they can be seen and so on.

 

Any insight/opinions on this?

[shagrat]

They are modeled since forever?

Only problem is they happen only when the rocket motor is active, usually a couple seconds from launch to inflight. Then the rocket motor is exhausted and the missile goes ballistic (glides and steers by fins only) until it reaches the target, or misses and explodes.

In that phase there is no contrail, as there is no propulsion.

 

Unfortunately that means you can't "see" a normal medium or long range missile on its most critical point in flight...

[Aginor]

Those are smoke trails from the motors, not contrails, right?

 

Under the right condition a missile leaves a short vapor trail, I was referring to those.

They should look a bit thinner, more like wing tip trails (as far as I remember from descriptions)

Edited July 7, 2016 by Aginor