Motion Blur on rotors

[sobek]

 

Or see around 1:30 here for how the static texture is replaced with the blur one. And it does the same for the cockpit fan.

 

That's the Problem with this techique, there's a point where the switch between textures occurs, which i personally find very annoying, also does the current technique make slomos look ultra realistic. I guess to get both, we'll have to wait for a DX9 or 10 engine.

[Tango]

DX9 engine - I'm not "upgrading" just to run Vista.

 

Best regards,

Tango.

[arneh]

That's the Problem with this techique, there's a point where the switch between textures occurs, which i personally find very annoying, also does the current technique make slomos look ultra realistic.

 

It's very noticable in EECH, yes. But it's possible to have several stages of gradually more blur to make it a smoother transition, if it's too annoying. Though I personally don't find it too bothersome in helicopters, as you usually see the transition at most twice per mission :)

 

And slowmo could still use the sharper rotors. Make the transition between blurred and static texture depend on the RPM the rotor animation is rendered, not the RPM of rotor in game time. Not sure if it's desired, but could easily be done.

[sobek]

DX9 engine - I'm not "upgrading" just to run Vista.

 

Upgrading what? You can run DX9 in WinXP.

[815TooCooL]

DX9 engine - I'm not "upgrading" just to run Vista.

 

Best regards,

Tango.

 

Then you never benefit 50%~70% fps improvement for remaining BS experience.

As anyone can see in my previous posts, I was one of Vista-hater-basher-XP forever guy but after BS experience, I really like Vista now.

Even overall OS environment other than BS affinity effect is far better than I imagined.

You should discard prejudice.

 

Without affinity trick, BS is just unplayable BS to me.

[sobek]

It's very noticable in EECH, yes. But it's possible to have several stages of gradually more blur to make it a smoother transition, if it's too annoying. Though I personally don't find it too bothersome in helicopters, as you usually see the transition at most twice per mission :)

 

And slowmo could still use the sharper rotors. Make the transition between blurred and static texture depend on the RPM the rotor animation is rendered, not the RPM of rotor in game time. Not sure if it's desired, but could easily be done.

 

That would certainly be an option, but i tend to think that applying blur by means of an effect is the more elegant (though not yet available) solution. :)

[zaGURUinzaSKY]

I'm for textured blurred rotors like many other games.. no need of real blur for now.. but at least a fake blur would be appreciated.. it's nicer to see the "disk" instead of flashing blades..

[ARM505]

BS does use the texture trick, just it's not so pronounced, almost like the 'shutter speed' of your eye is very fast (just a tiny amount of blur). I think they've struck an excellent compromise (having watched lots of props and rotors IRL). As has been mentioned, it's very fps dependant - I have some details turned down, and it seems very good to me (normally 35+ fps). Props and rotors can be a bit of a sore point in some sims. Some people think it looks unrealistic if it doesn't look like what is seen in movies, but the truth is that real props and rotors don't look like in the movies at all. The '2/3/4 triangles glued to the hub' look of choppers in the movies is purely due to the fps of the recording device. IRL, props and rotors tend to look like a faint, almost completely transparent disc (especially props). You don't see 'motion blur' IRL, or at least not in quite the same way.

[AlphaOneSix]

when the rotor RPM drops off, in addition to the low speed warning, the blades look almost static as they fly by the window and not as if they're still doing a thousand RPM.

 

Oh heavens! Nothing directly to do with the issue at hand, but optimum rotor RPM is around 200-ish.

[71st_Mastiff]

Whats this about an engine upgrade to the sim coming?

[sobek]

Whats this about an engine upgrade to the sim coming?

 

From the Faq (not the thread):

Q: Will DCS: Black Shark be Vista-compatible and take advantage of multi-core processors?

A: The initial release of DCS will use a heavily modified version of our TFCSE simulation engine that will run Windows XP SP2 and Vista equally well using either DirectX 9 or DirectX 10. However, DCS versions based on the TFCSE engine will not take advantage of DirectX 10 unique features or multi-core processors. We plan however to provide such features in our new simulation engine that is currently in development for later versions of DCS.

[Reticuli]

There's a plug-in for X-Plane that does the same thing. It's used on the Eurocopter and Apache D, but you can turn it off so that you get a blur. Basically it's to similate what it looks like though a non-still camera and will change depending on your framerate and the rotation rate of the rotors. I don't really want it to look like that, either, since my eyes do not have a shutter and capture rate to them ;-) On option to switch "movie rotors = off" would be nice.

 

In real life, you can also change the rotor appearance through a film or video camera using the shutter angle, which as you lower it will capture motion more sharply at a given capture frame rate, but increasingly introduce strobing and disjointed motion: the Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan effect that seemingly every episode of CSI: Miami and Battle Star Galactica seem to overuse. Heck, even Star Trek starting using it.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Reticuli

[zaGURUinzaSKY]

you mean shutter speed..

[zaGURUinzaSKY]

generally in moviemaking we use ND (Neutral Density) filters, filters that are simply grey and reduce the amount of light that hit the film on the sensor, in this way we can use slower shutter speed and get a more natural looking image (slightly blurred... more of what you see in DCS).

I agree completely with Zag. The rotor graphics in BS has the strobe effect of a filmed view of the rotors. Kinda unrealistic.......an analogy to this would be like lens flare (only seen through camera lense which I never enable in any flight sim). It would be great if ED improves the rotor graphics so that it looks like it's not filmed but a live view of the rotors. I think the rotor effects of FSX is pretty decent even in DX9.

[braden]

im curious, if one of these blurring fudges is put in, does that make the screenshot feature unusable ? i.e. we just see this artifical disc and a blurry mess over the rotor hub ? :)

 

how was that handled in the other games mentioned where blurring was implemented?

[Reticuli]

you mean shutter speed..

 

I guess "angle" is more a motion picture film term since we haven't got a shutter speed dial and are just adjusting the physical shutter itself. Never really bothered figuring the duration it's open, either, since you just adjust the light, filters, and aperture based on the ratio of angle you're using compared to the standard 180 degree opening.

[diveplane]

the rotor effects in the sim is a feature ed implemented.

 

rotors look great to me. when you pause the sim you can see blurred rotor effects.

[DTWD]

the rotor effects in the sim is a feature ed implemented.

 

rotors look great to me. when you pause the sim you can see blurred rotor effects.

 

Yes I agree, but can it be turned off?

[DragonRR]

Yes! :thumbup:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=37506

[Reticuli]

Yes! :thumbup:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=37506

 

I think the point of this thread is we do want motion blur, just more of it and not the strobing motion picture-shutter variety. Right now there's a little bit of blur, but you're saying your mod has none? Does the rotor still appear to move at varying speed or stop, depending on rotor rpm and fps?

 

I guess in a way we are watching the rotors through a motion picture camera with a finite fps in a sim. So maybe there's no way around it without fudging if you're just rendering the rotors in motion.

Edited January 29, 2009 by Reticuli

[Ali Fish]

having looked at these non blurred textures along side the originals. A little more blur and transparecny via the alpha,s should be possible.

 

but what i dont like here is ED,s implementation of this concept. had they made a full disc setup (not individual blade arangement) they could have given us all exactly what we want. the animation appears to be a 1 step tranformation no blur to blur. with the disc idea showing all blades on 1 texture they could have had slightly less detailed blades at the stationary level but asides that with this full rotor disc representation they could have given us a 2 or 3 stage animation process which in turn would give us the optical effects we are looking for. as well as a stereotypical blurred rotor blade.

 

in my racing sims texture jobs. we didnt texture 1 spoke of a wheel we texture them all. and through the animation processes set with timing. u have a blurred wheel that can appear to counter rotate visually at varying speeds. i believe ultimatly this is what we are looking for from this rotor blur thread.

 

what could work though is to blur the stationery rotor blade texture and blur the blur effect texture more. stationery it might look crap but in motion its gona look alot better.i'll probally try this idea later on..

Edited January 29, 2009 by Ali Fish

[DragonRR]

I think the point of this thread is we do want motion blur, just more of it and not the strobing motion picture-shutter variety. Right now there's a little bit of blur, but you're saying your mod has none? Does the rotor still appear to move at varying speed or stop, depending on rotor rpm and fps?

 

I guess in a way we are watching the rotors through a motion picture camera with a finite fps in a sim. So maybe there's no way around it without fudging if you're just rendering the rotors in motion.

 

Well I was really answering the previous poster DTWD and not the thread as a whole. Personally I like the blur and I only did the mod out of interest (no blur whatsoever).

 

Because of the strobe effect created by the monitor refresh/graphics card rendering speed you don't get a "real life" type of look with the mod.

 

With the texture size as it is I very much doubt it will be possible to do a "disc" blur effect.

[DragonRR]

what could work though is to blur the stationery rotor blade texture and blur the blur effect texture more. stationery it might look crap but in motion its gona look alot better.i'll probally try this idea later on..

 

I've already looked at this. As far as I can see the effect texture completely replaces the stationary/slowly moving effect. I've had a go at improving the blurred blade but within the bounds of the texture itself the work ED have already done is fine imho. Further radial blurring just makes it look worse.. again imho.

[EvilBivol-1]

ED decided to animate each rotor blade (in fact each section of each rotor blade) according to its actual position in space. This allows them to display precisely accurate rotors, including cyclic and collective pitch angles. However, this means there is no static animation of the rotor disc as one object, so the visualization becomes susceptible to strobe effects and depends on FPS.

 

The best way to understand the compromise is to watch the DCS Autorotation tech demo released earlier by ED:

 

You can see both the disadvantage of ED's technique when the rotors appear to stop in mid-air (unrealistic strobe effects) and see the advantage when the rotors visibly angle up in pitch as the pilot "decays" the rotor RPM after full stop. If the rotor disc animation was "canned," such precise visualizations would not be possible. Also, consider the need to visualize partially broken rotors.

 

I'm no graphics artist. Is there a way to accomplish the precise rotor disc movements without suffering the strobe effects? If not, ED will probably remain on the side of precision over looks.

Edited January 30, 2009 by EvilBivol-1