Change cockpit FOV without changing outside LOD distance?

[Gunslinger22]

5 hours ago, RustBelt said:

Depends on the choice of how you simulate the "CAMERA" Infinite DoF with wide view angle makes things extra weird.

Keep in mind museums typically have the seat all the way up, higher than an adult might comfortably fit with a helmet on and the canopy closed. 

Have a look at where his eye level is, nearly higher than the hand hold bar. Whereas in DCS your eye height would be up to his chin. 

[draconus]

2 hours ago, GunSlingerAUS said:

Take a look at the Hornet and Falcon to see what, I think, is a better position. Currently we can't even see our altimeter without zooming out...

You're comparing apples and oranges. Different aircraft, different position, different instruments. Pick one you like better.

You've been told it's correct. What you can change is the fov, head position and seat height, that's it. To look at the instrument just take a look at it. Don't you have any headtracking?

 

About altimeter it's my pet peeve. Somehow they made the reading window digits (on the mechanical counter) too small and refuse to admit it's wrong:

HB: http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/_images/altimeter.png

RL: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_dXEL7_-VClA/TPAdgGJK-AI/AAAAAAAABWY/69PhpupZtA8/s1600/F14_Cockpit.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/1c/86/061c8689acce9077c3b00e4d4dcd1ef0.jpg

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1343/9895/products/DSCN0123_1024x1024.JPG?v=1515191256

@IronMike ?

Edited July 23, 2021 by draconus

[Hiob]

Guys,

you can literally adjust EVERY dimension of your simulated eye position in the cockpit.

That includes every 6 degrees of movement plus the FOV (aka zoom) plus parameters for your virtual neck and shoulders…. 

and you can save your favorite position for every module as default.

Just „rtfm“….

 

The only inherent shortcoming of 2D is you can only render one eye, which makes obstructions like a cockpit bow more of a problem than in 3D.

But that‘s not DCS specific problem.

 

btw. regarding the „zoom“ level (fov). DCS gives us the freedom to adjust that to our liking, but nevertheless you can calculate what would be a „realistic“ fov in regards to the size of your monitor and viewing distance. Be aware, by realistic I don‘t mean natural or something like that (obviously with 2D and a single monitor it can‘t be natural regarding depth or peripheral sight).

But it gives you the best size of the cockpit and dimensions in the environment.

As a rule of thumb: when the screen width matches your viewing distance (from your monitor to your eye) this value is around 60.

Which is probably uncomfortable for many, though.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Hiob

[GunSlingerAUS]

11 hours ago, Hiob said:

Guys,

you can literally adjust EVERY dimension of your simulated eye position in the cockpit.

That includes every 6 degrees of movement plus the FOV (aka zoom) plus parameters for your virtual neck and shoulders…. 

and you can save your favorite position for every module as default.

Just „rtfm“….

 

The only inherent shortcoming of 2D is you can only render one eye, which makes obstructions like a cockpit bow more of a problem than in 3D.

But that‘s not DCS specific problem.

 

btw. regarding the „zoom“ level (fov). DCS gives us the freedom to adjust that to our liking, but nevertheless you can calculate what would be a „realistic“ fov in regards to the size of your monitor and viewing distance. Be aware, by realistic I don‘t mean natural or something like that (obviously with 2D and a single monitor it can‘t be natural regarding depth or peripheral sight).

But it gives you the best size of the cockpit and dimensions in the environment.

As a rule of thumb: when the screen width matches your viewing distance (from your monitor to your eye) this value is around 60.

Which is probably uncomfortable for many, though.

 

 

Yes, we know you can do that - but moving the FOV back to allow more of the cockpit to be seen causes external objects to be rendered at a different distance. So while my wing leader can clearly see the carrier group or a bogey, I can not. And if you move the character's head position, it totally screws up the HUD and the windows.

 

For those of us running much larger monitors (55" for me), it'd make sense to have the view point set further back - ie, do exactly the same thing as moving the zoom slider back, *but* it shouldn't then also cause external objects to disappear/be rendered further away.

 

I'm currently doing a slightly wonky workaround - at the start of a mission, I lean my head forwards, center trackIR, then sit back in my normal position. I then have to move my in-game cockpit seat upwards to allow me to see more of the HUD. It's not ideal, but it's the best solution for the moment.

[draconus]

2 hours ago, GunSlingerAUS said:

...it'd make sense to have the view point set further back - ie, do exactly the same thing as moving the zoom slider back...

Camera position and fov are two different things. Your current workaround is changing camera position further back and up.

 

To report objects rendering range changing at different fov you have to go here:

https://forums.eagle.ru/forum/490-2d-video-bugs/

as it concerns global DCS gfx engine.

[Hiob]

When you zoom out, you‘re squeezing more landscape (more degrees of the whole 360) into a given width of screen (your window to the world of dcs).

which means that every object gets smaller. So for me it makes sense, that it will show up later.

 

So you‘re right, when you say, that a bigger fov is appropriate for your larger screen (given that you don‘t extend the viewing distance).

BUT: Theoretically you would need to increase the pixel resolution accordingly to take full advantage of that greater FOV in regards to spotting.

 

That is how I think it works.

The engine calculated how big an object would be at a given distance and a given FOV.

For every object there is a threshold from which apparent size it is drawn by the engine. For fighters, that may be a single pixel, for aircraft carriers a different thing.

Problem with a bigger FOV (aka zoom out) now is, that threshold comes later (nearer).

 

In other words. At a given distance with a FOV of 60 the carrier is 20 pixels wide, but with a FOV of 120 degrees it is only 10 pixels wide.

So when the threshold for a carrier to be drawn is, let‘s say 18 pixels, it will be drawn at FOV 60 but not at FOV 120.

 

 

[RustBelt]

On 7/23/2021 at 2:06 AM, Gunslinger22 said:

Have a look at where his eye level is, nearly higher than the hand hold bar. Whereas in DCS your eye height would be up to his chin. 

That's a picture with Parallax looking up. The camera would need to be at the pilots eye level to see where their eye level is.

[Docsnuggles]

On 7/24/2021 at 6:05 AM, GunSlingerAUS said:

 

Yes, we know you can do that - but moving the FOV back to allow more of the cockpit to be seen causes external objects to be rendered at a different distance. So while my wing leader can clearly see the carrier group or a bogey, I can not. And if you move the character's head position, it totally screws up the HUD and the windows.

 

For those of us running much larger monitors (55" for me), it'd make sense to have the view point set further back - ie, do exactly the same thing as moving the zoom slider back, *but* it shouldn't then also cause external objects to disappear/be rendered further away.

 

I'm currently doing a slightly wonky workaround - at the start of a mission, I lean my head forwards, center trackIR, then sit back in my normal position. I then have to move my in-game cockpit seat upwards to allow me to see more of the HUD. It's not ideal, but it's the best solution for the moment.

I know what you mean and it sucks; as we are talking about 20-40cm of movement to see all in the cockpit some people try to argue that its ok that things miles away are effected. I use a widescreen monitor and have a similar problem for years now. Fun fact is, that in IL2 it works without problems.

[Spurts]

it sounds like you are describing FOV with zoom instead of moving the pilots head position backwards.

[Scaley]

Just coming back to this topic as I've run into the same problem and there is a simple solution I've found.

in graphics.lua there is a setting "DistanceFactorDefaultFovy". This does what it says on the tin and sets what DCS considers the default FOV to be, and therefore the reference to apply the LOD distances to.  If you increase this then the problem described goes away. For my 40" ultrawide I've now got mine set to 150 instead of the default 90. 

As per the DCS instructions this edit is best done via autoexec.cfg in saved games so you don't have to re-do it on each update.  Instructions for this are in dcs/config/graphics_readme.txt

[Scaley]

And another update in the wonderful world of DCS... The above fix does not work correctly on the marianas map. If you se view settings above FOV 100 on that map there is a strange graphics bug where tree disappear at certain LODS.  The higher the defaultFOV setting, the more LODS disappear.  It now seems that view distance and LOD settings are being handled totally differently on different maps, meaning you may need different DCS graphics settings optimised specifically for each map... Yay...