Visual Scaling, Spotting

[LowRider88]

After searching broader DCS user forums, I have found that there are differing opinions about the ability to see aircraft in DCS.

 

Some, who I agree with, state DCS objects both air and ground are too easy to spot.

If I understand the history correctly, as a result there was some imposters.lua mechanism used to help reduce object visibility at a distance by replacing the 3D object with a small image which then fades out with distance. Sounds like a good workaround. But I read this is no longer being used?

 

Others in the community have complained that they are not able to see other aircraft, making within visual range air combat impossible, and cited different variables like screen resolution and the use of VR, their age, etc.

If I understand it correctly, as a result some are advocating for some scaling feature to make objects at a distance scaled larger, just so it can be visible for this group of users. But it presents a problem with calculating radar cross section.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

My perspective is the first group is right. You should not be able to see things easy in WVR combat, unless you are playing the WWII planes.

In WWI, the average fighter plane length was roughly the length of a car, and only a few hundred km/h in max speed.

In WWII the fighter was only about a third longer. Even though they were longer, wingspans were about the same, and going from bi-plane to monoplane, made these planes look the same size or smaller. But the speed doubled.

During Vietnam, the planes were roughly double or triple the length of a WWI plane, but the speeds are now transonic, supersonic or Mach 2.

 

How do people expect to be able to spot aircraft so easily in the jet age?

There is a reason why WWII pilots were able to rack up kill victories in the hundreds, while in Vietnam, aces had around or under 10 kills. It is because with the great speeds and distances involved there was a greater chance of not spotting anything.

It is because fighter aircraft size has not changed much, but speeds have increased dramatically in relation. Visual range has not changed, as that is the physics of the eye ball. But fighter engagement speeds and distances have.

Most of Vietnam kills were because they got spotting help from FAC, or GCI.

 

To force DCS to show planes at long distances just for more easy playability really kills it for people who want to relive history or fly a real simulation and not an arcade game.

 

Where is the fear of flying out of AWACS or GCI range? Where is the benefit of flying a small, hard to see plane versus a big honking beast? What is the point of having long range radar with the ability to differentiate targets from ground clutter?

All of this is lost because some people want superhuman eagle eyes that see things 4 times farther than they should so they can make jet combat similar to biplane combat.

 

 

In the wiki article for Light Fighter:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_fighter

 

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.

 

I tested and as soon as I see the speck which represents the F-5E ahead, head on, using the F-10 map ruler shows the F-5E is still 10 miles away. It is way too soon to be seeing it.

 

Can the visible range for the small aircraft be reduced to what the article says? The citations in the article appear to be credible sources.

 

I already play with no arcade like labels or icons, as it provides the most realistic experience, and I NEVER user zoom in. But it seems a lot of the advantages of some of the light fighters, like small size are not represented in the game.

 

Please note I never play multiplayer, and am not somehow trying to sabotage that community. I am just hoping for more realism.

It would also be great if the AI could also respect the same visual detection rules.

 

If there is a need to cater to any loud voices about not being able to see in WVR, maybe there can be an option like the easy/real skill setting which lets them see things 4 times farther, while in realism mode it is as the article above states.

[Tippis]

There are multiple problems with the way spotting works in DCS. You've come across one of them.

 

But let's start at the earlier discussions: the imposter workaround was a bad workaround because it ended up just reinforcing the downsides of the rendering system without really addressing the issue of making things realistically easy to spot at a given distance. The suggested adjusted Serfoss scaling solution was shot down by the devs because they claimed it would affect RCS calculations, but that was proven to be complete nonsense because that's not how RCS is handled in the game. It was also slammed by some forum posters for being “unrealistic” when the whole purpose of the scaling methodology is to make spotting more realistic at medium-visual ranges. But more to the point (and this was a point the critics never wanted to grasp or address), it makes a specific component more realistic: the ability to determine relative aircraft attitude — it doesn't actually make spotting, as such, easier because it peters out and simply shouldn't be applied at all past a certain range.

 

So yes, you're a bit wrong about the history. As for expectations for the jet age, that doesn't really make much sense. Being a jet-era aircraft doesn't really affect visual acuity. It just means planes will move in and out of visual range more quickly. If anything, it'll actually be easier to spot aircraft because they're bigger, they leave more trails behind, and the high speed creates parallax shifts that are easier for the brain to pick up against a background.

 

But, that said, the actual problem you're pointing to is quite correct. It's just that it's only at most half of the issues with spotting in DCS. It uses a very naive method of deciding what to render when, and consequently, aircraft (and indeed all units) have a nasty habit of being far too easy to see at a distance; far too hard to see up close; and the whole this is very much affected by the hardware of the player's system… but inversely to the hardware capabilities. Units are actually easier to see on worse hardware. If you dial down the visual quality, the unit rendering issues just become worse: units become even easier to see at range and even harder to see close up. Intuitively, the better graphics would let you see better, but the opposite happen, and of course, ideally, it shouldn't matter at all to visibility. So it's all messed up in many fun and interesting ways. :D

 

This also, for obvious reasons, massively screws with multiplayer balance.

 

Essentially, DCS' very naive approach to determining rendering size inherently creates the issue you're describing, where aircraft show up much earlier than they shout because the rendering maths says it should be drawn at a specific size. Add the inherently unrealistic (but probably unavoidable) zoom on top of this and of course long-range spotting will be completely out of whack.

 

Funnily enough, one of the best ways to combat this would probably rest on implementing some kind of dynamic scaling system like the one the devs (and players afraid of losing their hardware edge) say will ruin everything. The fact that such systems have quite a bit of research behind them aimed at improving the realism of rendering systems just makes it even more funny. It's a way to actually simulate perception rather than just relying on simplistic trigonometry.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Tippis

[LowRider88]

As for expectations for the jet age, that doesn't really make much sense. Being a jet-era aircraft doesn't really affect visual acuity. It just means planes will move in and out of visual range more quickly. If anything, it'll actually be easier to spot aircraft because they're bigger, they leave more trails behind, and the high speed creates parallax shifts that are easier for the brain to pick up against a background.

 

Yes, that is my point about jet combat. Things move out in and out of visual range all the time, But the band-aid solution should not be to make things 4 times easier to spot, and unrealistically keep targets in visual range all the time like bi-plane fighting.

What expectations do I have which are unrealistic? I am quoting an article that gives the visual ranges I am expecting.

 

And not all jets left trails. F-4 and MiG-29 yes. F-5E and MiG-21 no.

[SharpeXB]

DCS actually gets it pretty close to reality.

[LowRider88]

DCS actually gets it pretty close to reality.

 

This is just a guy reading a subjective novel with conjecture about distances.

When they talk about spotting the enemy planes, are they talking about an individual plane or the whole gaggle of them? A swarm would be much easier to spot.

 

This doesn't help much for my concern about jet spotting or the details in the light fighter article with actual measurements.

[SharpeXB]

Funnily enough, one of the best ways to combat this would probably rest on implementing some kind of dynamic scaling system

Funny indeed because you’’d see funny looking stuff like giant sized aircraft parked on the deck of non scaled aircraft carriers. :cry:

 

This is just a guy reading a subjective novel with conjecture about distances.

So then if you’re so concerned try repeating this test with different aircraft and data. But as an example it’s pretty relevant.

Edited June 20, 2020 by SharpeXB

[Mars Exulte]

This is just a guy reading a subjective novel with conjecture about distances.

When they talk about spotting the enemy planes, are they talking about an individual plane or the whole gaggle of them? A swarm would be much easier to spot.

 

This doesn't help much for my concern about jet spotting or the details in the light fighter article with actual measurements.

 

Knowing where to look makes it easier, obviously. It has NOTHING TO DO with whether they are ACTUALLY visible. A swarm might be more noticeable, but it's irrelevant if they're not physically visible in the first place. In this example, both in the real world, and in DCS, the aircraft are visible at 23 miles.

 

And it's not ''subjective''. He's not ''eyeballing it''. He's over A, it is known the other planes are over/near B. Plus or minus a bit, it's going to be similar. 18-25 miles, depending on what they consider ''circling over''. Regardless, they're visible, which is the detail of interest. But but but I know that doesn't fit with the whiner's ''DCS SO BROKENZ Y U SUCK ED'' narrative, so you'll disregard it in favor of bs excuses.

 

As has been said all along, these nubs screaming ''mub immerzion'' while zoomed out to the point things are 1/3 to 1/4th the size they're supposed to be under certain circumstances are their own problem.

 

Once we're gaming at 8Kp120 VR this sort of thing won't even be a topic of conversation anymore, but until then these scrubs need to work within the reality they have to compromise on their end. You make the models the size they're supposed to be, at the ranges they're supposed to be, and then the players can use good sense or choke on a cloud of Cheetos dust while wheezy about their immersion. It's up to them.

[Fri13]

BVR ranges definition by USAF James Burton.

 

 

There wasn't any, so he used empirical tests and reports that when did pilots spot enemy fighters when looking at them in optimal scenario.

 

And to this date, everyone who has done any reading about MiG-21 or F-5, should know that when those pilots points aircraft directly at you, you will lose them even in very close distances (below kilometer) and they become "invisible".

Edited June 20, 2020 by Fri13

[SharpeXB]

I NEVER user zoom in.

That’s not necessarily realistic. The FOV on a normal sized monitor is far smaller than reality and with much lower resolution. That’s explained in the video as well. Most DCS player’s visibility “trouble” seems to come from not understanding this command.

[Tippis]

Yes, that is my point about jet combat. Things move out in and out of visual range all the time, But the band-aid solution should not be to make things 4 times easier to spot, and unrealistically keep targets in visual range all the time like bi-plane fighting.

Well, the good news is that no-one is really asking for that (except the ones that argue against changes to the rendering pipeline), so that's a bit of a strawman position.

 

The point is that it's not as cut and dried as you're trying to paint it: it's not a matter of being jet combat or not. The speeds, sizes, aerodynamic effects, and visual cues involved are all very different so what might make these jets more difficult to spot in one way is often weighed up by their being more easily spotted in a different way. It's swings and roundabouts.

 

So don't get bogged down by that line of thinking. The discussion of spotting in DCS comes down to the core issue I mentioned: that the rendering pipeline is naive and inherently unrealistic in the way it emphasises things at long range; hides them at short range; and is inversely affected by hardware. All of that needs fixing, of course, but your argumentation needs to rest on technical details, not some largely irrelevant anachronistic comparisons.

 

And not all jets left trails. F-4 and MiG-29 yes. F-5E and MiG-21 no.

All jets leave trails — some of them ore obvious (such as exhaust plumes) than others. It kind of comes with the high-speed territory. ;)

 

Funny indeed because you’’d see funny looking stuff like giant sized aircraft parked on the deck of non scaled aircraft carriers.

No, the funny thing is that you're still banging on about this long-disproven nonsense because you refuse to accept that your wild guesswork and fantastical imagination about how things might work does not actually match reality. Give it a rest and try to use actual arguments rather than the same old lies that failed you every single time you tried them in the past.

 

Oh, and I love how you keep trying to suggest that having zoom is realistic. :D

Edited June 20, 2020 by Tippis

[LowRider88]

So then if you’re so concerned try repeating this test with different aircraft and data. But as an example it’s pretty relevant.

 

I would if I was concerned about that scenario, but I am not. I am concerned about the measurements in the light fighter article, which as I mentioned I tested.

 

The dude also says they got radar help.

[=475FG= Dawger]

Aircraft in DCS (and other titles as well) are rendered incorrectly, which makes them more difficult to see than in reality in a particular range band (medium ranges).

 

There is no problem when the range is far enough to represent the target as an undefined dark object (dot)

 

There is also no problem when the aircraft is close enough to be fully rendered in detail.

 

The problem lies in between. It is easily demonstrated, especially in VR.

 

Aircraft are rendered in colors when they should be a dark silhouette against the sky. This causes them to blend with the background and, in particular circumstances, disappear entirely.

 

The disappearing act occurs at about the diameter of a 4-6 G, 450 knot circle, just when a modern jet in planform should be plainly visible.

 

I suspect this is a much greater issue in VR than for a flat earther but I only fly VR.

[LowRider88]

Knowing where to look makes it easier, obviously. It has NOTHING TO DO with whether they are ACTUALLY visible. A swarm might be more noticeable, but it's irrelevant if they're not physically visible in the first place. In this example, both in the real world, and in DCS, the aircraft are visible at 23 miles.

 

And it's not ''subjective''. He's not ''eyeballing it''. He's over A, it is known the other planes are over/near B. Plus or minus a bit, it's going to be similar. 18-25 miles, depending on what they consider ''circling over''. Regardless, they're visible, which is the detail of interest. But but but I know that doesn't fit with the whiner's ''DCS SO BROKENZ Y U SUCK ED'' narrative, so you'll disregard it in favor of bs excuses.

 

As has been said all along, these nubs screaming ''mub immerzion'' while zoomed out to the point things are 1/3 to 1/4th the size they're supposed to be under certain circumstances are their own problem.

 

Once we're gaming at 8Kp120 VR this sort of thing won't even be a topic of conversation anymore, but until then these scrubs need to work within the reality they have to compromise on their end. You make the models the size they're supposed to be, at the ranges they're supposed to be, and then the players can use good sense or choke on a cloud of Cheetos dust while wheezy about their immersion. It's up to them.

 

I don't think I understood half of your cool guy slang.

Anyway, isn't there some forum policy about treating each other with respect?

Who are you calling a noob? Because I am new to the forum? I've probably been playing DCS as long as you have, and sims much longer.

 

You sound a bit touchy like the sensitive multiplayers I read about. Don't worry, if you don't want realism, I am asking for turn on/turn off options.

[LowRider88]

 

There wasn't any, so he used empirical tests and reports that when did pilots spot enemy fighters when looking at them in optimal scenario.

 

And to this date, everyone who has done any reading about MiG-21 or F-5, should know that when those pilots points aircraft directly at you, you will lose them even in very close distances (below kilometer) and they become "invisible".

 

Ahhhhhhh, Thank You for your research and open mindedness.

[LowRider88]

That’s not necessarily realistic. The FOV on a normal sized monitor is far smaller than reality and with much lower resolution. That’s explained in the video as well. Most DCS player’s visibility “trouble” seems to come from not understanding this command.

 

It still seems unrealistic to me. Unless I am flying an inter war biplane with telescope, I won't use it. I would rather be constrained by technology of my monitor and have a harder time than real life pilots, than simulate putting on binoculars in combat. I got trackir, so I just lean in to see the dash. I should not be able to lean in to the airspace.

[Tippis]

Aircraft in DCS (and other titles as well) are rendered incorrectly, which makes them more difficult to see than in reality in a particular range band (medium ranges).

 

There is no problem when the range is far enough to represent the target as an undefined dark object (dot)

 

There is also no problem when the aircraft is close enough to be fully rendered in detail.

 

The problem lies in between. It is easily demonstrated, especially in VR.

 

Aircraft are rendered in colors when they should be a dark silhouette against the sky. This causes them to blend with the background and, in particular circumstances, disappear entirely.

 

The disappearing act occurs at about the diameter of a 4-6 G, 450 knot circle, just when a modern jet in planform should be plainly visible.

 

I suspect this is a much greater issue in VR than for a flat earther but I only fly VR.

“Greater” is a difficult realitivisation to judge. It's a different issue in VR, but flats see the same thing and are also commonly more struck by the inverse-quality issue where worse graphics yield better results.

 

 

What it shows, though, is that it's pretty much a full-spectrum thing: at longer ranges, spotting is broken. At mid-ranges, spotting is broken in a different way. At short ranges, spotting is broken in a third way (but it matters less there because there are usually enough cues available at that point to compensate). And of course, it illustrates the complexity of having all these different hardware platforms to try to unify into something reasonably balanced, which is probably where the greatest point of resistance of all lies…

[LowRider88]

Well, the good news is that no-one is really asking for that (except the ones that argue against changes to the rendering pipeline), so that's a bit of a strawman position.

 

The point is that it's not as cut and dried as you're trying to paint it: it's not a matter of being jet combat or not. The speeds, sizes, aerodynamic effects, and visual cues involved are all very different so what might make these jets more difficult to spot in one way is often weighed up by their being more easily spotted in a different way. It's swings and roundabouts.

 

So don't get bogged down by that line of thinking. The discussion of spotting in DCS comes down to the core issue I mentioned: that the rendering pipeline is naive and inherently unrealistic in the way it emphasises things at long range; hides them at short range; and is inversely affected by hardware. All of that needs fixing, of course, but your argumentation needs to rest on technical details, not some largely irrelevant anachronistic comparisons.

 

All jets leave trails — some of them ore obvious (such as exhaust plumes) than others. It kind of comes with the high-speed territory. ;)

 

Then why have I seen posts of people complaining about not being able to see anything WVR?

They asked to make things more visible.

Yes, there are ways for people to see jets in different ways. It's been covered in this forum already. I in fact want to utilize these other ways rather than oversized targets.

So this somehow makes it okay to render the plane 4 times larger at distance? I don't think you are fully comprehending my irrelevant anachronistic comparisons.

[LowRider88]

Aircraft in DCS (and other titles as well) are rendered incorrectly, which makes them more difficult to see than in reality in a particular range band (medium ranges).

 

There is no problem when the range is far enough to represent the target as an undefined dark object (dot)

 

There is also no problem when the aircraft is close enough to be fully rendered in detail.

 

The problem lies in between. It is easily demonstrated, especially in VR.

 

Aircraft are rendered in colors when they should be a dark silhouette against the sky. This causes them to blend with the background and, in particular circumstances, disappear entirely.

 

The disappearing act occurs at about the diameter of a 4-6 G, 450 knot circle, just when a modern jet in planform should be plainly visible.

 

I suspect this is a much greater issue in VR than for a flat earther but I only fly VR.

 

Thank you very much pmiceli for providing these details.

[Taz1004]

Aircraft in DCS (and other titles as well) are rendered incorrectly, which makes them more difficult to see than in reality in a particular range band (medium ranges).

 

There is no problem when the range is far enough to represent the target as an undefined dark object (dot)

 

There is also no problem when the aircraft is close enough to be fully rendered in detail.

 

The problem lies in between. It is easily demonstrated, especially in VR.

 

Aircraft are rendered in colors when they should be a dark silhouette against the sky. This causes them to blend with the background and, in particular circumstances, disappear entirely.

 

The disappearing act occurs at about the diameter of a 4-6 G, 450 knot circle, just when a modern jet in planform should be plainly visible.

 

I suspect this is a much greater issue in VR than for a flat earther but I only fly VR.

 

Agree with this. I was just practicing BVR in F14 during this trial period and I have no issue not seeing the target in BVR. After all, it's supposed to be "Beyond" visual range.

Also after Phoenix's missed and I merged with guns, I had no problem spotting the Su-27 in turning fight. Because I'm looking mostly at the top side of the target plane which is the largest surface area. But I noticed there were few times when Su-27 was just a dot or box shape and then popped into the plane shape. The range at which this happens is where most of the complaints come from. This also happens with ground targets.

Also as said by pmiceli, not modeling the light reflection and shadowing at distance also makes it more difficult to spot.

 

And contrary to what the OP said, at least in VR, faster moving object (not head on of course) is easier to spot because of parallax effect being more prominent. I do not believe visibility was the reason for low kill ratio of Vietnam era.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Taz1004

[SharpeXB]

No, the funny thing is that you're still banging on about this long-disproven nonsense because you refuse to accept that your wild guesswork and fantastical imagination about how things might work does not actually match reality.

ED already said they are not going to work on “scaling” so there’s no point in continuing to ask for this.

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

[LowRider88]

And contrary to what the OP said, at least in VR, faster moving object (not head on of course) is easier to spot because of parallax effect being more prominent. I do not believe visibility was the reason for low kill ratio of Vietnam era.

 

 

I did not say parallax does not exist. I am saying some people don't want to use parallax and instead ask for oversized objects at distance.

 

It's not low kill ratio, but kill rate.

So what is the reason for the low kill rate in Vietnam?

 

Please read the book Clashes:

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972/dp/1591145198

 

It is as Fri13 mentioned. Hard to see MiG-21 head or tail on. MiG-21 totally reliant on GCI.

[Taz1004]

I did not say parallax does not exist. I am saying some people don't want to use parallax and instead ask for oversized objects at distance.

 

It's not low kill ratio, but kill rate.

So what is the reason for the low kill rate in Vietnam?

 

Please read the book Clashes:

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Clashes-Combat-North-Vietnam-1965-1972/dp/1591145198

 

It is as Fri13 mentioned. Hard to see MiG-21 head or tail on. MiG-21 totally reliant on GCI.

 

Since we're in the mood for correcting vocabulary, Parallax is not something you use.

 

And is Mig-21 head or tail on is what people are complaining about when they complain about visibility in DCS? I clearly said (not head on of course)

[LowRider88]

Since we're in the mood for correcting vocabulary, Parallax is not something you use.

 

And is Mig-21 head or tail on is what people are complaining about when they complain about visibility in DCS? I clearly said (not head on of course)

 

You are not correcting vocabulary but grammar. Anyway, you were the one who spoke of using the parallax effect for spotting.

 

The 'complaint' is a wishlist suggestion for reducing object visibility from all angles for more realism in a product titled digital combat simulator. Head on and planform, as mentioned in the article I linked.

[Taz1004]

You are not correcting vocabulary but grammar. Anyway, you were the one who spoke of using the parallax effect for spotting.

 

The 'complaint' is a wishlist suggestion for reducing object visibility from all angles for more realism in a product titled digital combat simulator. Head on and planform, as mentioned in the article I linked.

 

No I did not spoke of "using" the parallax. Parallax is optical effect you feel. Not something you choose to "Use". Vocabulary.

 

I wont be posting any further as this is getting stupid.

Edited June 20, 2020 by Taz1004

[SharpeXB]

The 'complaint' is a wishlist suggestion for reducing object visibility from all angles for more realism in a product titled digital combat simulator. Head on and planform, as mentioned in the article I linked.

You might be the first person to post here asking for visibility to be reduced :smilewink:

 

Although it seems many players have an inflated idea of how visible other aircraft should be from their experience in other sims.