Canopy reflection is a little overdone

[MBot]

Spot the Phantom...

[hovring]

So how come no other module is even close to the reflections the Mig-21 has?

Edited May 9, 2021 by hovring

[rossmum]

The Su-25/25T are. I think one or two others as well, and judging from the reflections in the trailer, the Mi-24 will have the same as well. Different modules use different 'glass' materials, so not all of them have the new reflections yet, or display them properly.

 

There is also the issue that it seems some developers are more accommodating to complaints that it's somehow "unrealistic" for canopies to be reflective, crazed, or dirty/scratched (it isn't, no in-service jet on the planet has a canopy as clean and clear as most DCS modules do).

[Ala13_ManOWar]

Doesn't cockpit shape have a role in the reflections as well? Spitfire reflections are also something alike these ones.

 

S!

[Althar93]

The cockpit shape most certainly has an impact on how reflective the glass appears, compared to a flatter canopy.

 

I do appreciate the scratches, grime & reflections but unlike in the real world where we have a much larger field of view & can focus past scratches which are a few millimeters in width, here we are faced with scratches which are several pixels wide on a screen that is a fraction of what a real pilot would see. There has to be a balance between realism, and having something playable for a sim/game.

 

If anything the glass will tend to look 'milky' with age as more and more microscratches accumulate & the glass effectively becomes rougher and as a result the reflection less defined - you can see in this 360 degree view of the cockpit (not the bis, but close enough) : https://www.gawronsky.com/panorama-3-MiG-21MF.html

Edited May 15, 2021 by Althar93

[MBot]

The reflections on the gunsight really have to go ASAP. Now in addition to the reflection textures of the HUD projector which were already backed onto the glass, we have these new dynamic reflection of the ejection seat handles which are totally out of place (there is no physical path between those).

 

[rossmum]

The reason reflections are visible through paths where there's no direct LoS is because they're just cubemaps, they're not realtime reflections. The latter would require a lot of work and have an enormous impact on performance.

 

As for playability... it's playable. People already expect too much from spotting (and as it is, long-distance spotting in DCS is absurdly good compared to real life - there is no human on earth who can see a MiG-21/F-5 sized aircraft from 20+km away) and now we have another real life factor to deal with. Flat screen users might not be able to focus beyond reflections, but as a flat screen user I don't see what the fuss is honestly... just don't put yourself in situations where you can lose sight of someone that easily, or find ways to work around it. If we want this to be a simulator rather than a game, then it should simulate the negative aspects as well.

[Schmidtfire]

8 hours ago, rossmum said:

The reason reflections are visible through paths where there's no direct LoS is because they're just cubemaps, they're not realtime reflections. The latter would require a lot of work and have an enormous impact on performance.

 

As for playability... it's playable. People already expect too much from spotting (and as it is, long-distance spotting in DCS is absurdly good compared to real life - there is no human on earth who can see a MiG-21/F-5 sized aircraft from 20+km away) and now we have another real life factor to deal with. Flat screen users might not be able to focus beyond reflections, but as a flat screen user I don't see what the fuss is honestly... just don't put yourself in situations where you can lose sight of someone that easily, or find ways to work around it. If we want this to be a simulator rather than a game, then it should simulate the negative aspects as well.

This is not entirely correct. This guy could see fighters at 24 miles. Extraordinary, but possible.
 

In theory your arguments are very valid, but flying in DCS the reality is somewhat different. One of the biggest advantages since birth of aviation - height, doesen't work properly in DCS because of spotting mechanics. You also have to factor in the strange zoom/fov/lod behaviour, the dynamic range, contrast and color compared to real life. VR helps a great deal compared to a flat screen as fighters doesn't "blend" into the background as easily. Im currently using a 3440x1440 screen and honestly I don't see much. Not at long ranges, not at medium ranges, not at close ranges. Dotted labels help, but it ruins the immersion a bit.

Back to the new reflections. They look fantastic, not questioning that. But the strenght of the reflections becomes sort of a problem dealing with all the current issues and limitations above. I guess we just have to deal with that for the time being. As MBot wrote above, the biggest issue right now is the gunsight glass, if that is fixed then I think we will be ok for the time being.

At least Magnitude 3 is early adopters and that is a good sign          
 

[Ala13_ManOWar]

3 hours ago, Schmidtfire said:

This is not entirely correct. This guy could see fighters at 24 miles. Extraordinary, but possible.
 

Yeah, but every pilot out there isn't that guy, just look at it the other way around, it means that 99,9999% other guys can't and so that's what should be modelled, not the single rare guy who can. What should never, ever, be modelled is singular persons' aspirations for being what they aren't and never will be in real life.

 

S!

[rossmum]

Considering US tests frequently returned results less than 5 miles, I'm not sure pilot testimony in this case is entirely reliable - if he genuinely did see them at that range, and not contrails or at least smoke, then he is genuinely exceptional because I used to struggle to spot non-manoeuvring, gloss-white-painted aircraft roughly the size of a MiG from more than about 3. We should be modelling what an average pilot would see, not taking a single best-case outlier based on anecdote and using that to decide that it's possible and therefore should be possible in the sim.

 

In any case, the new reflections do complicate matters even at close range, but I really don't think they're as bad as they're being made out as, and even if they were - it's realism. Any realism is good as far as I'm concerned, especially if it makes it harder to airquake your way to 10 kills per sortie (and I say this as someone who flies PvP in air to air roles almost exclusively). IMO every other module in the game should be brought to a comparable level of reflections and canopy dirt/scuffs to the 21, not the reverse - because that's historically been the actual issue here. The 21 has always had a little harder time than other modules because it was the only one portraying a jet that's been out of the factory more than 10 minutes, canopy-wise.

 

e/ The gunsight glass would be less of an issue if the reflection of the lens was not baked in, but apparently that's not easy to do in DCS. At least the glass itself is clean and quite transparent now... currently the 19's multiple layers of it turn nearly opaque when the light catches it at a bad angle, even without reflections.

Edited May 16, 2021 by rossmum

[Schmidtfire]

What is perceived as realism is highly subjective. As I previously wrote, there is already many issues with the view system within DCS.
Will it be more realistic because big canopy reflections and a gunsight you cannot see through?

Replicating what a fighter pilot sees on current software and hardware is extremely difficult, if not impossible. We are already at a big disadvantage
trying to pick up aicrafts and objects compared to real life. So that is why Im very doubtful that these big reflections gives the overall experience that
a real fighter pilot would have. Instead it might push us further away from what is realistic.

I really do like the new reflections, my objection is that they come on very strong in the current flat screen environment. It is what it is...
not much to do about it. But the sight glass has to be fixed... that is extreme.         

[CoBlue]

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by CoBlue

[FoxTwo]

DCS MiG-21bis by Magnitude 3

• Adjusted Cockpit IBL and Ellipsoid Reflection settings.

Thanks guys!

[KAKTYC_11]

Disagree ! Reflections in front of canopy must look like projection on sphere & now they looks like front canopy consists of many bubbles (((

[Moriarty]

Tried out the changes in my Index and it’s much improved. The reflections are still very much there as they should be, but the effect is such that my eyes are able to focus at a point in space further away than the canopy now. Thanks, team. 

[Hiromachi]

We cant control it locally - i.e. per each glass, so that we could adjust different levels of reflections for canopy and different for front glass which is after all very different. 

[CoBlue]

On 5/27/2021 at 10:12 PM, Hiromachi said:

We cant control it locally - i.e. per each glass, so that we could adjust different levels of reflections for canopy and different for front glass which is after all very different. 

Latest OB.

Didn't notice any difference, the reflections are still there. Why don't make it like F-18?

 

There's actually a big airport behind the HUD, Ramat David.

Radar obscured.

Edited May 29, 2021 by CoBlue