Visual Scaling, Spotting

[Spartan111sqn]

Definitely there is something not working well with scalling, i used to dogfight here and in other sims, i see in real life fighters flying, and to lose visual is too easy in DCS.

 

It is something to be improved.

[Taz1004]

but don't come to say it is then more realistic and acceptable for those who want more realism

 

I said that? I said labels is more realistic and acceptable? Where? I keep telling you to point out where I said all these things you're telling me I did. But you never do. I wasn't gonna continue this further but can't stand people making stuff up.

 

Go read yourself at your sarcasm to be against...

 

And yes what I replied to you first was sarcasm. I twisted YOUR words to make you realize YOUR sarcasm. I did that for several posts. Which finally worked...

Edited June 23, 2020 by Taz1004

[Snappy]

Bet they use 120 degrees FoV too. They may be good pilots but poor gamers.

 

Nice arrogance on your part.

 

Even if they did, maybe ask yourself why they do?Because it maybe resembles their actual field of vision in the real thing more than the zoomed in , looking-through-the-straw thing you have to resort to in DCS to make up for the suboptimal visual rendering system we have right now?

Which is why some sort of a well-implemented scaling system would be the better way to go in my opinion.

 

The constant „ thats not realistic“ shouting is plain silly given the hardware limitations we have in this and other aspects of the sim and the many other concessions to gaming and usability in DCS.

 

 

 

Regards,

Snappy

Edited June 23, 2020 by Snappy

[SharpeXB]

Even if they did, maybe ask yourself why they do?Because it maybe resembles their actual field of vision in the real thing more than the zoomed in , looking-through-the-straw thing you have to resort to in DCS to make up for the suboptimal visual rendering system we have right now?

In order to play effectively you need to constantly vary your FOV using the zoom view, use a wide FOV for awareness and a narrow FOV for seeing detail. That’s how it’s supposed to be done and why this view command is necessary. This is universal for all flight sims and not unique to DCS.

 

Which is why some sort of a well-implemented scaling system would be the better way to go in my opinion.

There’s no such thing as a “well-implemented scaling system”. The problem is that you’ll see scaled up aircraft directly against non scaled objects like an aircraft carrier and the effect just looks ugly. ED has stated several times they aren’t working on scaling.

[Snappy]

In order to play effectively you need to constantly vary your FOV using the zoom view, use a wide FOV for awareness and a narrow FOV for seeing detail. That’s how it’s supposed to be done and why this view command is necessary. This is universal for all flight sims and not unique to DCS.

 

 

There’s no such thing as a “well-implemented scaling system”. The problem is that you’ll see scaled up aircraft directly against non scaled objects like an aircraft carrier and the effect just looks ugly. ED has stated several times they aren’t working on scaling.

 

To the first point: No , thats what YOU think how it’s supposed to be done , nothing more and if you think all flight sims are universal in that regard, you certainly haven‘t seen a lot of them, because I‘ve played a few where this was solved better , with much reduced or no need for zooming and without unrealistic giant overblown aircraft.

 

To the second part, regarding scaling: Again your opinion and just because you haven‘t seen a good implementation of scaling doesn’t mean it is non-existant.

 

Regards

 

Snappy

Edited June 23, 2020 by Snappy

[Tippis]

. That’s how it’s supposed to be done and why this view command is necessary. This is universal for all flight sims and not unique to DCS.

Odd how some things that are blatantly unrealistic but “universal” for all flight sims are ok, but other things that are there to improve realism and are also very common in flight sims are not. Why this distinction? Why are some standard solutions ok and others are not? Is it just the unrealistic ones that you approve of?

 

There’s no such thing as a “well-implemented scaling system”. The problem is that you’ll see scaled up aircraft directly against non scaled objects like an aircraft carrier and the effect just looks ugly. ED has stated several times they aren’t working on scaling.

This is of course blatant nonsense that has been disproven every time you brought it up. It's kind of telling that you must resort to such obvious lies — ones you, yourself, have helped prove untrue — to desperately try to preserve your artificial advantage like this.

 

As demonstrated earlier, you were shown a couple of techniques of doing scaling. You were unable to tell that scaling was in effect. And this was with techniques that were doing what you suggested should happen, as opposed to how they work when they're actually implemented properly. The effect you're assuming doesn't exist. It's that simple. It's something you've made up. Even if it did exist, you've proven that it wouldn't be noticeable. That's how little of a problem your assumption would be even if it were true, which it obviously is not.

 

That’s cool. He did says he’s using lesser hardware such as a 15” laptop and no TrackIR just to that DCS can be fun without and expensive rig. That’s one reason had the labels on. At this range other aircraft are easy to see, you wouldn’t really need labels especially if you have head tracking. I like the French Air Force using DCS, nice ultra wide screens

You understand that these are all arguments in favour of a fixed visibility system, yes? That such hardware differences should to the greatest extent possible be made irrelevant to the experience of the core gameplay. And you understand that there are already mechanics in the game that make TrackIR sort of redundant, yes? Mechanics that, much like your ignorant standard go-to “are from a 20 year old game” (except it's actually 30 years in this case, and it's actually true this time). You understand that visibility is being fixed, in spite of your desperate foot-stomping trying to keep it from happening…

Edited June 23, 2020 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

thats what YOU think how it’s supposed to be done

I’m certainly not the only person who uses the zoom view. Just watch any gameplay video from DCS or any combat flight sim and you’ll see this being used. Like this:

 

 

To the second part, regarding scaling: Again your opinion and just because you haven‘t seen a good implementation of scaling doesn’t mean it is non-existant.

I’ll just keep posting this if you guys keep bringing up scaling

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4150636&postcount=163

“ We are working on visibility, not scaling, but many graphical improvements and aids, as well as looking at a more robust and customizable label system.”

It’s a dead issue.

Edited June 23, 2020 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

I’m certainly not the only person who uses the zoom view

That wasn't the question, though. Again, just because you think that's how it's supposed to be done doesn't mean it's The One True Way™ of doing things. Indeed, ideally, it's something that sims in general should be moving away from since it's not… well… very sim:y.

 

It’s a dead issue.

Seeing as how it's a part of the visibility problem and also a “universal” solution to quite a few of those problems — it's how a bunch of those other combat flight sims you like to compare against do it — it's not exactly dead. They're working on the broader issue of visibility, which at some point means they'll need to figure out if they want the increased realism that comes with a well-implemented scaling solution, even if they're not looking into those specifics right now.

 

Remember how they also were happy with GAU-8 and M61 dispersion? With night time lighting? With ground vehicle damage modelling? With missile flight dynamics? :D

 

Just because you have no arguments against scaling doesn't mean it's not something that will keep being discussed as a solution to the issues DCS is facing, especially since it's specifically designed to solve those issues and has been proven to do so exceedingly well.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Tippis

[Snappy]

I’m certainly not the only person who uses the zoom view. Just watch any gameplay video from DCS or any combat flight sim and you’ll see this being used. Like this:

 

 

What is it about DCS in particular that it’s players don’t get this? :doh:

 

 

I’ll just keep posting this if you guys keep bringing up scaling

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4150636&postcount=163

“ We are working on visibility, not scaling, but many graphical improvements and aids, as well as looking at a more robust and customizable label system.”

It’s a dead issue.

 

Did you even read what I wrote?? I never wrote anything about people not using zoom IN DCS.

 

I wrote that contrary to your statements there are OTHER sims which implementated different rendering systems resulting in reduced or no need for zoom use.

 

As for the ED statement that you feel you need to constantly bring up:

I don‘t give a lot on what they say in that regard . They also claimed for a very long time that their implementation of the M-61 gun dispersion was correctly modelled and that they wouldn’t change it at all- until they recently had to cave in and did change it despite their statements.

 

That’s s all I‘ll write on this here , as it‘s pretty obvious discussions with you lead nowhere.You‘re seemingly unable of respecting diverging opinions.

 

Regards,

 

Snappy.

Edited June 23, 2020 by Snappy

[SharpeXB]

I wrote that contrary to your statements that there are OTHER sims which implementated different rendering systems resulting in reduced or no need for zoom use.

I know what “other sim” you’re likely referring to and no, they have expressed no interest in doing “smart scaling”. This discussion should be about DCS and not other games.

[Tippis]

I know what “other sim” you’re likely referring to and no, they have expressed no interest in doing “smart scaling”. This discussion should be about DCS and not other games.

So why did you bring those other games up, then? So that you could make another argument from ignorance about how flight sims “universally” work, without actually knowing anything about it and what it would mean if DCS joined the crowd?

 

Are you running so low on anything that could be confused for an actual argument that you have to resort to trying to bait people into breaking the forum rules, just so you can report them? Have you tried actually addressing the arguments instead of doing your best to get them removed?

Edited June 23, 2020 by Tippis

[Mars Exulte]

[Tippis]

Pff. You just stole that idea from NineLine :P

 

 

But sure, yes. That's kind of what happens when one party can't offer any kind of actual arguments in favour of keeping the game unbalanced and unrealistic.

[SharpeXB]

Interesting, just uploaded

 

[Tippis]

So nothing new, really — just what's been known for yonks, and a good illustration that many of the cues that should be there are missing and that FoV changes does very silly things to how planes are drawn, just as people have been saying. :dunno:

[Fri13]

I’m certainly not the only person who uses the zoom view. Just watch any gameplay video from DCS or any combat flight sim and you’ll see this being used. Like this:

 

 

Can you point few positions where the person flying has not already spotted the target, but is using zooming specifically to spot enemies?

[tugais]

You understand that these are all arguments in favour of a fixed visibility system, yes? That such hardware differences should to the greatest extent possible be made irrelevant to the experience of the core gameplay. And you understand that there are already mechanics in the game that make TrackIR sort of redundant, yes? Mechanics that, much like your ignorant standard go-to “are from a 20 year old game” (except it's actually 30 years in this case, and it's actually true this time). You understand that visibility is being fixed, in spite of your desperate foot-stomping trying to keep it from happening…

 

This is not the first time I read Sharpe's comment on this very subject when he tries to dismiss a point by exactly doing the opposite and proving that something must be done about the current implementation. That's odd.

[SharpeXB]

Can you point few positions where the person flying has not already spotted the target, but is using zooming specifically to spot enemies?

Yeah, me. I could find literally dozens of videos of others doing the same thing. How is that unusual?

[Tippis]

Yeah, me. I could find literally dozens of videos of others doing the same thing. How is that unusual?

So… no? Presumably you can't, since you instead chose to go off on a wholly unrelated tangent that didn't actually answer the question. Or was there some other reason for this evasion?

 

It's not unusual in the slightest because it's your standard go-to strategy when things you bring to the mix are being turned against you…

[LowRider88]

I just watched a youtube video from a former Rafale pilot who retired 2-3 years ago. He's actually using DCS as a training tool within a company he created after leaving the french navy. In his video he states that he has to use the label system to overcome the poor rendition of the visibility in ACM and BFM situations.

 

This former fighter pilot is not the only one to use labels, I already watched on youtube others fighter pilots from the US using labels too.

 

The fact that fighter pilots use labels and that one of them is clearly stating that DCS has some rendering issues makes me think that something is definitely off at the moment.

 

How old are these French and US pilots? Did they say what their setup is like?

What kind of labels are they using? Dots or Full blown labels with side and situational details?

 

It may be the rendering of the size of the target aircraft in the game is correct with the scale of the artificial user cockpit, which itself may be too small given his config.

What if this guy has the FOV default, eg. the terrible fish eye after the initial zoom out?

 

What ever the case, we had good solid research material on visibility earlier in the thread and so this post is to negate all of that? I think we need more measurements and less subjective anecdotes.

[nighthawk2174]

I know this may be a little off topic too what is currently being discussed but I wanted to respond to this comment left by the OP:

 

In the Design Aims > Effectiveness section, Point #1, it says small fighters like the F-5E should only be visible broadside (platform exposed while banking) within 4 miles, while head on, or tail on, it is only visible within 2 miles.

[/Quote]

 

I want to specifically examine the 4/2 miles number. This number is important as this is the range at which for smaller aircraft they will "pop" into your extended perifial vision(for lack of a better word). Inside of 4 miles is the range where stuff in this area of vision will start to be noticeable to you and should be very visible within 3. Beyond this range you become reliant on the contact being inside your fovea which is the zone of highest "resolution" for your eyes.

In the case of the F-5

and this is just average detection range not maximum possible.

Inside of this zone it is very possible to see stuff at much longer ranges especially if cued, hec for example these aggressor pilots call tally at 13-14Nmi

Below is a detection chance chart for different aircraft. Even for the T-33 there was a non zero chance of detecting it at 20km. A small one but still possible, I've even had someone tell me that they had a conversation with an F16 pilot who had experiences of cued detection of F15's/F16's at ~20-24Nmi when they were cued by the target box on the HUD.

 

Its just impossible to accurately represent what vision is like on a screen without adjustments. We have two eyes that are constantly moving around and our brain uses that constant stream of stimuli to build an image and fills in the blanks if there are any and will automatically process and adjust what you precieve. This is why this is a thing. The fact of having two eyes vs one really a big deal as well as the slightly offset position makes things appear bigger to you than if its just with one eye. IIRC one eye's "resolution" in the fovea is around 1 arc minutes but with both that number drops to around .3, less than half of the former number.

[LowRider88]

Thanks nighthawk2174 for these research details.

 

I know this may be a little off topic too what is currently being discussed but I wanted to respond to this comment left by the OP:

 

 

 

I want to specifically examine the 4/2 miles number. This number is important as this is the range at which for smaller aircraft they will "pop" into your extended perifial vision(for lack of a better word). Inside of 4 miles is the range where stuff in this area of vision will start to be noticeable to you and should be very visible within 3. Beyond this range you become reliant on the contact being inside your fovea which is the zone of highest "resolution" for your eyes.

In the case of the F-5

and this is just average detection range not maximum possible.

 

Thanks very much nighthawk2174 for these research details.

 

I am a bit confused though. Your first screenshot shows Figure 6, but the second makes reference to Figure 3. Also in neither of these is there any mention of averages vs maximums, or fovea. It is hard to correlate.

Are you able to share the source PDF?

 

 

Inside of this zone it is very possible to see stuff at much longer ranges especially if cued, hec for example these aggressor pilots call tally at 13-14Nmi

Below is a detection chance chart for different aircraft. Even for the T-33 there was a non zero chance of detecting it at 20km. A small one but still possible, I've even had someone tell me that they had a conversation with an F16 pilot who had experiences of cued detection of F15's/F16's at ~20-24Nmi when they were cued by the target box on the HUD.

 

Its just impossible to accurately represent what vision is like on a screen without adjustments. We have two eyes that are constantly moving around and our brain uses that constant stream of stimuli to build an image and fills in the blanks if there are any and will automatically process and adjust what you precieve. This is why this is a thing. The fact of having two eyes vs one really a big deal as well as the slightly offset position makes things appear bigger to you than if its just with one eye. IIRC one eye's "resolution" in the fovea is around 1 arc minutes but with both that number drops to around .3, less than half of the former number.

 

Please note the video you sourced is an F-16 pilot calling tallyho on an F-14, which is signficantly larger than the F-16, and further still than a MiG-21 and F-5E, respectively.

This correlates to the light fighter wiki article I mentioned that says and F-15 is detectable at 11 nm.

 

Also, it the first table, are they being spotted head on? Planform on? Causing extended vapour trails from height or weather?

 

It says empirical, but how much of it was interpolated/extrapolated/calculated from available data points? So at least someone was able to see a T-38 from 20 nm away head on?

 

The part you mention about hearing from someone from a pilot sounds a bit like the grapvine. More hard numbers would be less subjective.

Edited June 24, 2020 by LowRider88

[draconus]

That such hardware differences should to the greatest extent possible be made irrelevant to the experience of the core gameplay.

 

As long as users have different hardware, can set any fov and gfx options and can sit howerever they like away from monitors the problem will persist. What DCS can do is to make sure when you set all of that to display the area you want to look at is as close to reality as possible (right angular size, display contrast and brightness) then you have the image as close to reality as possible. And DCS does already great job at this.

 

Should be obvious but it seems a lot of users cannot embrace the facts and try to compare reality with their borked setups. It's like complaining at having book reading problems because it's lying on the table while you're sitting on a couch.

 

@LowRider88: You have to understand that spotting is subjective because of differences in human eyes, training, weather, equipment, canopy, situation, setup and whatnot. You can get hard numbers only for one single situation. The second one will be different.

Edited June 24, 2020 by draconus

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

What find a tad frustrating is that planes “In my particular setup “ seem to have auto camouflage. That is to say that against the blue sky, they appear as black dots initially then as they get closer, they take on their native colors. But, when they dive below, they start to “shimmer” and take on the coloring of the surface they are above. Probably due to the resolution of the index but I would rather see grey or black silhouette (still unrealistic) than a fully camouflage look.

Maybe someday and may just be my rig.

[Mars Exulte]

As long as users have different hardware, can set any fov and gfx options and can sit howerever they like away from monitors the problem will persist. What DCS can do is to make sure when you set all of that to display the area you want to look at is as close to reality as possible (right angular size, display contrast and brightness) then you have the image as close to reality as possible. And DCS does already great job at this.

 

Should be obvious but it seems a lot of users cannot embrace the facts and try to compare reality with their borked setups. It's like complaining at having book reading problems because it's lying on the table while you're sitting on a couch.

 

@LowRider88: You have to understand that spotting is subjective because of differences in human eyes, training, weather, equipment, canopy, situation, setup and whatnot. You can get hard numbers only for one single situation. The second one will be different.

 

That's the thing people consistently overlook : how their own decisions and equipment is affecting their experience.

 

@Nighthawk

Interesting read, which concurs with my own ideas. If you know where to look, it's possible to detect things at a great distance, because they're physically there to be seen (how a telescope works, it's not conjuring data from thin air). However the distance you'll notice something willy nilly without prompting is much more circumstantial, biased toward ''not very far''.