2021 (and earlier) DCS Newsletter Discussion Thread

[Mars Exulte]

3 hours ago, Pizzicato said:

Again, I'm not looking to be difficult or argumentative. I'm just trying to figure out how our perspectives are so diametrically opposite.

  No worries It really doesn't matter much, but I'll try again. Perhaps poor choice of words on my part.

 

  Any potential environment has light sources and a variety of things that influence it. We are in agreement on that. What do I mean by static?

 

  Ok, ''ray tracing'' as it is in its ''new'' RTX technology is the dynamic simulation of how light bounces around in a room, for example. It doesn't simply emit from point A, strike point B and stop. It bounces off point B, hits other surfaces and bounces back toward point B and A again, causing a much more diffuse glow besides JUST A and B.

 

  In the past, when you saw super fancy ultra realistic lighting in a game, it was because somebody sat down and hand manipulated light sources until they got it fine tuned to look just exactly right. The rest of the game did not look that way because they can't spend the time to hand model the entire game.

 

  When talking about a cockpit, versus an open world, they're night and day different. In the open world, you have countless light sources, countless things moving around, there's only two ways to do it. Not at all (ie very simplistic lighting) or dynamically, because it's not feasible to hand manipulate the entire environment.

 

  With a cockpit, it's a very small, tightly controlled, sterile environment. You know EXACTLY what emits light and what doesn't. You know exactly what those lights are going to shine on, what colors are involved, what they're going to interact with, etc. As a result, you can (as they say ''precalculated'' not ''handmade'') run a ray tracing algorithm to determine how these lights are going to emit, interact with each other, etc, then save it. It's a KNOWN FACTOR. Whether it's MFDs, warning lights, etc, you can calculate all that ahead of time, you don't have any ''unknowns'' appearing in the cockpit out of nowhere.

 

  Regarding things OUTSIDE the cockpit, yes, those are random and unpredictable, but are also the sort of thing that will just be a general cast or light source over the top off/interacting with the pre-calculated lighting. The cockpit is a bunch of known values, if somebody sweeps a spotlight over you, that's just something ''over the top of'' the pre-calculated rendering. That's why I said about ''it may look slightly off sometimes'', because it's NOT ''dynamically calculating'' all these sources, but taking some pre-calculated effects, and blending them with the much simpler dynamic effects outside. 90% of the ''cool'' of ray tracing without the weighty overhead. You can't ''fake'' the whole world, but a small, confined, predictable environment like a cockpit? You can fake it well enough it won't draw undue attention.

 

 

DISCLAIMER : I have no idea how they're actually doing this stuff, nor have they provided any details. This is all a huge divergence attempting to clarify my interpretation of their statements and what I meant in comparing the cockpit as a ''static environment'' vs ''the whole world'' which has too many sources to attempt to ''fake'' in the same manner.

[Slant]

On 4/5/2021 at 1:54 AM, Mars Exulte said:

 Regarding things OUTSIDE the cockpit, yes, those are random and unpredictable, but are also the sort of thing that will just be a general cast or light source over the top off/interacting with the pre-calculated lighting.

 

LOL, you'd think. And then you spawn at Senakhi at night, floodlights on the apron all around you and your cockpit is a black hole.

[kontiuka]

4 hours ago, Slant said:

 

LOL, you'd think. And then you spawn at Senakhi at night, floodlights on the apron all around you and your cockpit is a black hole.

It's because those are textures, not light sources.

[Mars Exulte]

3 hours ago, kontiuka said:

It's because those are textures, not light sources.

 Yep. That and Caucasus is cobbled together from bits of experimental tech and left to its own devices. The tree shadows are still backwards afaik.

[LASooner]

 
Well, i googled pre-calculated ray tracing and all results somehow hinged on that dcs newsletter. For me that means that the technique used is either pioneered by ED engineers (which i doubt), or it is a solution that's commonly refered to by another name. In this case "pre-calcualted ray tracing" would still be a marketing term, would it not? Again, i am sure that those new reflections look great and all, but since most offline-rendering is raytraced since decades now, all pre-calculated shader effects and even textures could be called "pre-rendered raytracing". Do you get my point?
It was not my intention to bash ED, i simply prefer technical terms in my newsletter, so that those that have an interest in understanding the technology, can easily read up on it...

sounds like reflection probes

Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

[Eldur]

On 4/6/2021 at 1:02 PM, Slant said:

 

LOL, you'd think. And then you spawn at Senakhi at night, floodlights on the apron all around you and your cockpit is a black hole.

 

You just perfectly described Dark Cockpit Simulator in a nutshell

 

I'm really looking forward to the improvements and I hope those won't be reflections that I turn off like the baked in ones.

[ebabil]

What do those hornet pics mean in the screenshots section? Hornet out of ea or something else?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[razo+r]

They mean that things on the Hornet got updated. 

[draconus]

17 minutes ago, ebabil said:

What do those hornet pics mean in the screenshots section? Hornet out of ea or something else?

Probably plus about all the new Hornet features to be added in 2.7 - HARM stuff, WACQ radar mode, additional weapons.

Edited April 9, 2021 by draconus

[Hoirtel]

I'm guessing that is the ATFLIR?

[AKULA_OPTIMUS]

44 minutes ago, Hoirtel said:

I'm guessing that is the ATFLIR?

Looks like the LITENING, ATFLIR pod is way smaller

[some1]

ATFLIR is on this one: 

[ebabil]

 

[Northstar98]

Awesome newsletter today!

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

Nice News letter!, like the new propellers tech too, very nice addition and the kind of thing that makes a difference in terms of inmersion and fidelity. Nice to see that we will be getting cumulonimbus too at some point!. Hoping for no more delays releasing 2.7. 

 

Thanks!

[Tom Kazansky]

Thanks ED for your sense for details! I very much like the new propellers. Can't wait to let them hum.

[Eaglewings]

Hoping for no more delays releasing 2.7. 
 

I am praying all will go well this time around for a next week release finally.
The cloud teasing has been been difficult to bear since seeing the first sight of the new cloud.
Yes! it is coming

[Versor]

Yes it's true. Awesome newsletter today. It is a pity that everyone forgot to add information about new systems in Viper. I am  browsing the Viper mini-updates folder but there is nothing new there.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Versor

[MemphisBelle]

1 hour ago, ebabil said:

 

 

I wonder whether these Propeller enhancements also take an Effect on Helicopter Rotor Blades?

[Silver_Dragon]

Not bad see them not only on piston propellers, turboprops require the same update.

[Eldur]

ED seems confident now with the release next week. Looking forward to that

 

And yes, I know, subject to change, but I guess chances are higher this time it will go by plan

[sirrah]

 From the newsletter:

Quote

This update will bring noticeable changes to DCS World including the new Clouds and fire effects 

 

 First time I see that we'll also get improved fire effects with 2.7 . Have there been any teasers on this that I might have missed?

 

I'm curious on what to expect 

[Northstar98]

28 minutes ago, sirrah said:

 From the newsletter:

 

 First time I see that we'll also get improved fire effects with 2.7 . Have there been any teasers on this that I might have missed?

 

I'm curious on what to expect 

 

They've (or maybe Wags - can't remember) mentioned it before IIRC, but I don't think we've seen anything teased yet. I guess we'll find out soon, fingers crossed.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Northstar98

[dburne]

Going to be a very nice update indeed!

[Rosebud47]

New propeller tech looks mindboggling. Like you could feel the power of the engine. What a great addition!