Real F14 Pilot Flies the DCS Tomcat.

[Tinkickef]

 

[Jayhawk1971]

18:03 "I can't see the ship. It's too grey. [...] see the centerline".

Ha! So those of us who thought that the centerline was too hard to spot were not crazy after all. 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[Nealius]

Glad we got the new carrier wake as well, considering his mention of "tucking the wake under your armpit."

[Hammer_251]

That was Sierra Hotel!!!!! Lived and breathed every word! Mooch could you have Nasty do a tutorial for the F-14 A. I am learning it right now and would love some feedback from both of you! That blew me away!

[tomcat_driver]

36 minutes ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

Not really. Mooch has weird settings if you look at the rest of the scenery prior to that (low AF setting and draw distance) and he also stayed zoomed out in the groove. You can't exactly compare real life visibility and eye position to the sim on a 2D screen. In real life you'd be seeing the HUD, indexer and ship only during that phase - and if you zoom in enough when entering the groove you do get that to an extent. 

Not in the tomcat. You don't center on the HUD in the tomcat, you scan your instruments, thus, zooming in is unpractical.

[Nealius]

Settings is besides the point. Centerline should be visible at all settings regardless of zoom. 

[LanceCriminal86]

Been asking some aircrew, by month 2-3 the decks were quite worn like we are seeing, both the markings from all the tire skids and fluids, but also the actual anti-skid wore off and the decks got slippery. IF the tempo and time and weather allowed sometimes they'd re-apply anti-skid, and sometimes touch up markings, but not always and it again would quickly get worn/beat up/grimed over again.

Add to that weather, sun position, and trying to see the deck markings could be extremely hard.

[Jayhawk1971]

IMO this is a technical - I assume texture rendering distance, but I'm not a developer -  issue, not a texture art issue. Weathering and all is fine, if it would render further away from the boat.

Even when "weathered and grimy", you would still be able to see something, not a monochromatic light-grey blob. The ball is also affected in the same way. Greenish-yellowish blob.

All that changes magically once you reach a certain distance from the boat. Or if you zoom in. All of a sudden everything is visible, "weathered" or not.

Look at the video below. The deck markings seem to be in a similar (if not worse) worn condition as currently in the game.

Now, despite this being GoPro wide-angle lens, tiny sensor footage, which also suffers from YouTube compression, you can still see features very well and can make out the deck when he rolls out into the groove. The deck appears to be a much darker grey than in-game, which gives everything a higher contrast.

This is what I would like to be able to see when I am at the same distance in DCS. That's all. Preferably In VR, with affordable hardware, without having to use crutches like "zoom view".

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[lunaticfringe]

26 minutes ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

IMO this is a technical - I assume texture rendering distance, but I'm not a developer -  issue, not a texture art issue. Weathering and all is fine, if it would render further away from the boat.

Even when "weathered and grimy", you would still be able to see something, not a monochromatic light-grey blob.

 

That's not guaranteed.  Mid-cruise images from the CVW-3 photo book "Where the Sea Meets the Sky" shows the centerline essentially obliterated at 50'; even the foul lines are almost gone but for the extreme sides: 

 

[Nealius]

Photographs != what the MkI eyeball sees, given exposure, white balance, etc. etc. This has come up time and time again in other topics and should be common knowledge by now. Those particular photographs are also at a very shallow angle, and only representative of that singular point in time, and not representative of a general condition.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Nealius

[Jayhawk1971]

Zitat

That's not guaranteed.  Mid-cruise images from the CVW-3 photo book "Where the Sea Meets the Sky" shows the centerline essentially obliterated at 50'; even the foul lines are almost gone but for the extreme sides: 

The deck in those images is still not a monochromatic blob. There are visible spots and lines, giving it texture, even in those 20-year-old photos.

Which of course is not relevant to the issue at hand, anyway, because the in-game deck isn't nearly as weathered. The engine simply doesn't display textures when over a certain distance. Whether this technical limitation is even fixable or would result in severe performance issues if tempered with, I don't know.

I'm just letting ED know that it is a nuisance IMO, and a retired Rear Admiral and former Tomcat pilot seems to share this opinion.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[Jayhawk1971]

And I didn't intend for this thread to be derailed into SC territory. I was just picking up on "Nasty's" verdict.

Anyway, it's a very good video with a lot of helpful and interesting insights into flying the Tomcat. And also IMO a huge affirmation of Heatblur's fantastic work on the Tomcat. 

[lunaticfringe]

10 minutes ago, Nealius said:

This has come up time and time again in other topics and should be common knowledge by now.

As one who has pointed out the effect of imaging technology versus what the eye represents- white balance and exposure aren't undercompensating for literal missing paint.  The centerline isn't going to magically reappear by overexposing the image by two stops because it's been worn off.  Given this is mid-cruise- the deck spends far more time looking closer to what is in those images with respect to wear than it does post-workups and fairly clean.  

With regards to the angle of the image- the second large image is at a higher angle relative to the deck than a pilot would be looking at it coming down the glideslope.
 

[Nealius]

49 minutes ago, lunaticfringe said:

white balance and exposure aren't undercompensating for literal missing paint. 

The ladder and centerline are not missing in those photographs.

Furthermore, two photographs do not prove anything: Where is the evidence that the deck was in that very same condition for weeks or even months before or after those photographs were taken? We need multiple pictures from multiple deployments from multiple carriers to make such generalizations. This is Research 101. On top of that, why should the user be forced into a recreation of one specific snapshot in time? The arguments for obscured lineup markings are incredibly thin.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Nealius

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

why should the user be forced into a recreation of one specific snapshot in time?

Because the texturing takes time time and money, so they have to chose one, and the best bet is the one that is most common for the carrier on the deployment, which in turn is most realistic in the DCS missions, which majority of virtual pilots prefers in the simulation. Same goes for aircraft and cockpit textures.

More options are always welcome but they go into wishlist and mods sections.

@Jayhawk1971 Do you already have set textures high, visibility at least high and AFx16? If yes, and still a problem, that would point to a LOD issue. Are we talking about SC or 59?

[Jayhawk1971]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb draconus:

Do you already have set textures high, visibility at least high and AFx16? If yes, and still a problem, that would point to a LOD issue. Are we talking about SC or 59?

Yes, yes and yes, and SC.   Preload radius is up as well, for good measure.

The boldened part would also be my assumption. One can see the same phenomenon with other in-game objects as well (other aircraft). 

vor 49 Minuten schrieb Бойовий Сокіл:

LOD's are indeed an issue in DCS, be it lighting or far detail, so that is potentially one area that could improve.

I 'd say that is definitely an area ED should try to improve on. Hopefully without introducing an enormous performance penalty, because I assume there's a reason for why there's an LOD issue: performance  

Catch 22 situation. 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[RustBelt]

I mean, performance from whenever they originally made 2.0. 
 

Problem is all this stuff gets grouped in with “vulkan coming soon” which has been years now. I don’t blame them not wanting to do the same work twice, but well, if it never gets done, it’s not really done twice.

[LanceCriminal86]

16 hours ago, Nealius said:

Photographs != what the MkI eyeball sees, given exposure, white balance, etc. etc. This has come up time and time again in other topics and should be common knowledge by now. Those particular photographs are also at a very shallow angle, and only representative of that singular point in time, and not representative of a general condition.

 

But first-person accounts are, and they stated exactly what I provided that by month 2-3 the lines were extremely obscured by tire marks, deck grime, fluids, etc. I have already provided a complete timeline of Forrestal's 1988 cruise in terms of deck photos from lots of different angles and weather, already from the pre-cruise visit to New Orleans to the first month or two at sea headed to the Suez it went from brand new to about what we see in the DCS model and just stayed that way or worse through her return.

I think the issue again is how DCS is handling things like LODs, mip-maps, textures at distance, and lighting. And the latest update has impacted a lot on the lighting front, with roughmets behaving quite differently now than they used to. With the game engine performing "better" or differently the hints of the lines should be more visible further out.

[Nealius]

Looking at more pictures of dirty decks from seaforces.org, I'm finding that in general the aftmost and foremost portion of the angled deck is still quite visible, with the majority of dirt/grime/fade being in the wires and just forward of the wires. With the aftmost/foremost portions still being visible the middle section can be as dirty as anyone wishes without affecting ease of lineup.