[NO LONGER PASSES IC] Improved Contact Dot Spotting (Updated v1.1)

[Mike Wazowsky]

Mate, this is a dream coming true! Tally is the most frustrating aspect of DCS for me and you are on the rightest track... But I'd like to work with you on this as I think there's room for improvement! Some folks with experience tell me that a medium sized fighter can be seen at 15 NM on a good day (with effort...). I have tested the mod and it is a great improvement on a HP G2, but I think you can be bolder and bump up the visibility even more. I would, for example, keep 100% opacity up to 10 NM for further testing. Also, I have had strange instances where a jet in front practically disappeared at 2-3 NM (see example below).

Anyway, care to work on this together? I am on the DCS Discord, please get in touch.

Again, very well done!

Edited April 17, 2023 by Mike Wazowsky

[Sarowa]

Just now, Mike Wazowsky said:

Mate, this is a dream coming true! Tally is the most frustrating aspect of DCS for me and you are on the rightest track... But I'd like to work with you on this as I think there's room for improvement! Some folks with experience tell me that a medium sized fighter can be seen at 15 NM on a good day (with effort...). I have tested the mod and it is a great improvement on a HP G2, but I think you can be bolder and bump up the visibility even more. I would, for example, keep 100% opacity up to 10 NM for further testing. Also, I have had strange instances where a jet in front practically disappeared at 2-3 NM (see example below).

 

I agree a slightly farther dot visibility fadeout would be nice.

At 2-3nm, you're probably dealing with the dot to model transition I mentioned.

[Rizn-Nuke]

25 minutes ago, Why485 said:

I've updated the OP with this FAQ entry, since I've been getting questions about this.

Do I need to turn on labels to use this?
No, the dot system in DCS is completely independent of labels. There is some confusion around the label system having a couple "dot" settings, but what those do is draw a label with a little . over the target. Labels are (at present) not obscured by clouds or the cockpit frame.

The dots in DCS meanwhile are a completely separate function and do not interact with the label system at all. They are always on, cannot be turned off, and cannot be modified by players without messing with the shader itself as this mod does.

Yes, I was confused by this as well. I think I would word it something like "The dot is the smallest representation of an object at ranges where it's representation on the screen would normally be smaller than a single pixel"

[Why485]

20 minutes ago, Mike Wazowsky said:

Also, I have had strange instances where a jet in front practically disappeared at 2-3 NM (see example below).

As Sarowa said, this probably comes down to the specific circumstances at which the dot appears/disappears. There's really not much I can do about this because a dot system is so simple, and I don't have enough information in the shader to do some kind of additional fade out when too close, since that distance depends greatly on field of view and model size.

20 minutes ago, Mike Wazowsky said:

Some folks with experience tell me that a medium sized fighter can be seen at 15 NM on a good day (with effort...). 

I would, for example, keep 100% opacity up to 10 NM for further testing.

Under the right conditions such as a sun reflection, I think that's absolutely the case and matches my own experience. However, I wanted to use a conservative number and go for the average case as indicated by published data for a small (T-38) fighter sized target. 10 miles full opacity felt too far, but I wouldn't be opposed to slightly bumping out the far range.

However I think a better solution is to have some kind of glinting calculation which can make the dot visible under certain circumstances and at further distances. I did briefly try to get this working, and had some success, but wasn't able to get it working well enough, and I wanted to keep the edits as simple and straightforward as possible.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Why485

[Mike Wazowsky]

Well, I feel that this is just the beginning of a successful journey

 

[Harlikwin]

1 hour ago, Sarowa said:

My mistake, I was looking through screenshots I took and those screenshots appeared to make my point, but the 2 and 4nm contacts should be models in both, not dots, due to VR Spyglass Zoom. It seems to be pure chance that they appear clearer in the "with mod" screenshot.

I looked through some other screenshots and it's difficult to tell the difference due to JPG compression, but the difference was very clear to me with my headset on. Without zoom in my Index, the 2nm and 4nm contacts are much clearer for me with the mod than without.

And yes, in your case, I also suspect the high resolution of your HMD is skewing your results. This is another point in favor of dynamic scaling, instead of messing around with dots and transitioning between dots and models.

 

Yeah I went back and tried to mod the mod to make the dots bigger, still no real effect. I wonder if its something fubar on my end seeing as everyone else seems to see a significant difference. In theory being at that high res should "trigger the mod"

Edited April 17, 2023 by Harlikwin

[BlueF16]

If we cannot say it is broken, can we say it works very poorly   

Resolution shouldn't give you an advantage

[SDsc0rch]

i'm not going to vote - because for me its a mixed bag ---- on the one hand, contact spotting is probably improved - HOWEVER, i'm seeing missiles appear as a giant (ie: out-of-proportion unnaturally LARGE) dot --- the missile and the jet that fired it appears to me as the same size ----- the missile should be invisible, maybe the smoke-trail would be visible 

not sure how to make missiles invisible at range...

[Why485]

30 minutes ago, SDsc0rch said:

i'm not going to vote - because for me its a mixed bag ---- on the one hand, contact spotting is probably improved - HOWEVER, i'm seeing missiles appear as a giant (ie: out-of-proportion unnaturally LARGE) dot --- the missile and the jet that fired it appears to me as the same size ----- the missile should be invisible, maybe the smoke-trail would be visible 

not sure how to make missiles invisible at range...

This is a fixable issue, but requires source code changes since more information needs to be passed to the shader. The dots have no knowledge of what's under them aside from the world position.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Why485

[SDsc0rch]

let's hope ED cooperates   : )

[Gryzor]

Can we have other versions of your mod with other sizes to test please? (in VR I don´t notice many differences...)

[ClydeBigBird]

5 hours ago, NineLine said:

I'll check out the mod, we can put it forth to the team even as an option if everyone things it is worthwhile. 

Thanks!

PS I added a poll on here, if you have tried it, please vote. Thanks. 

It's a dream come true to see ED taking interest in this topic, as the current spotting situation is the single biggest issue affecting those with high resolution displays!

I play multiplayer at 1080p on a 4k display because of the spotting issue, and whenever I jump into a single player campaign and crank the resolution back up I'm astounded by how beautiful this game actually is!

My preference would be to keep the resolution scaling aspects of this mod but discard the more aggressive culling.  18 miles is too short a distance for aircraft to vanish completely - pilots like Chuck Yeager claimed to be able to see enemy aircraft that were 50 miles away (although this was probably in a best case scenario with the sun reflecting off them).  In any case, 18 miles is much too short and would have a dramatic effect on gameplay in servers like Enigma Cold War.

In summary, fix the resolution scaling issue which causes a massive disadvantage at high resolution and leave the rest as is!

[PorkFriedBryce]

Vanilla on left, Mod on right. 1440p flatscreen
imo a must have mod going forward

Edited April 18, 2023 by PorkFriedBryce
Added res

[pastranario3]

Well, as a result of this debate, for the first time I decided to test the detection distances, I got a bad surprise in 2d 1080 I can detect at 60km, in vr only at 17km, without the mod, with the mod there is no difference.!!

spotting-test2.miz

Edited April 17, 2023 by pastranario3

[Callsign JoNay]

1 hour ago, Gryzor said:

Can we have other versions of your mod with other sizes to test please? (in VR I don´t notice many differences...)

VR already has godlike spotting. Some users can spot farther than their radar can see. Meanwhile pancake users in 2k and 4k are blind as bats.

[TAIPAN_]

13 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

I suspect labels.lua / dots will need to be added to the IC

 

Please don't include labels in the same sweep of adding to the IC.

There are great mods out there that tweak the neutral dot to make it fade realistically, and these will only work on servers that enable labels anyway (server owners can disable labels already and it won't even use the label files)

Only dots.fx needs to be worked on

Edited April 17, 2023 by TAIPAN_

[pastranario3]

hace 24 minutos, Callsign JoNay dijo:

VR already has godlike spotting. Some users can spot farther than their radar can see. Meanwhile pancake users in 2k and 4k are blind as bats.

Not true, see my post above.

DISTANCE DETECT
4K 60KM
2D 1920X1080 60KM
2D 1366X768 16KM
VR (2228X2180 for eye) 16km

[John5]

13 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

We have raised the issue of this passing integrity check to the team. 

I suspect labels.lua / dots will need to be added to the IC

Thank you 

I would really prefer this wasn't added to IC check until the dots are made more visible on higher resolution monitors. Its clear from NineLine's poll and community feedback that the current dots are not sufficient on higher resolution monitors. 

[Callsign JoNay]

39 minutes ago, pastranario3 said:

Not true, see my post above.

DISTANCE DETECT
4K 60KM
2D 1920X1080 60KM
2D 1366X768 16KM
VR (2228X2180 for eye) 16km

None of your pictures say 2160. They all say 1080. 

[Sardines]

1 hour ago, pastranario3 said:

Well, as a result of this debate, for the first time I decided to test the detection distances, I got a bad surprise in 2d 1080 I can detect at 60km, in vr only at 17km, without the mod, with the mod there is no difference.!!

Working as intended, then! The mod was designed such that 1080p users shouldn't see a difference, as 1080p is the resolution reference for scaling to other resolutions like 1440p.

[pastranario3]

hace 6 minutos, Callsign JoNay dijo:

None of your pictures say 2160. They all say 1080. 

The images are an edition to show graphically what I have seen, it has nothing to do with the resolution of the moment.

[TAIPAN_]

41 minutes ago, John5 said:

I would really prefer this wasn't added to IC check until the dots are made more visible on higher resolution monitors. Its clear from NineLine's poll and community feedback that the current dots are not sufficient on higher resolution monitors. 

This is true, leave the mod/fix available with IC until ED provide their fix.

The mod clearly fixes something - I'm sick of seeing youtube videos showing you how to lower your resolution below 1080p and stretch it to your whole full screen just to allow spotting.

If the devs can test on ultrawide/4k and compare to 800p it would allow a better outcome. Ideally there should be no difference in ability to detect if the scaling is done right.

[ClydeBigBird]

Just did some tests starting with disabling the transparency code and using only the resolution scaling.  It's absolutely glorious to have that kind of visibility at higher resolution.  I just played a campaign mission and it's crazy how much it adds to the game to actually be able to see where other friendly flights are in your package without having to rely on labels or datalink.  Of course you could always do this at low resolutions, but having this kind of spotting with 4k graphics is amazing.

Thinking about it a bit more, I do actually like the idea of transparency that scales with distance because it gives the player a sense of how far away objects are.  I still think 18 miles is way too short of a distance for aircraft to become completely invisible however, as it's not realistic (doesn't match up with what fighter pilots report), and is going to have far-reaching consequences in non-BVR servers.  I think transparency scaling up to 40 miles before becoming completely transparent would be a better ballpark for this.

I really hope ED implements some changes to this stuff before they lock down the dots file.  Otherwise it's going to feel like a kick in the teeth learning that this whole time we could have had the graphics of 4k with the spotting of 1080p by just editing a file, only to have it disabled after a week or so!

Another thing I want to add is that I hope ED realizes how it negatively affects the perception of their game when everyone streaming MP on Twitch is running the game at 1080p or lower.  You guys have a beautiful game, let people actually enjoy it without being at a massive disadvantage!

[Callsign JoNay]

1 hour ago, ClydeBigBird said:

I still think 18 miles is way too short of a distance for aircraft to become completely invisible however, as it's not realistic (doesn't match up with what fighter pilots report),

Really? We had a Viper pilot in my wing who told me that 2-10 miles is usually the max range for spotting another Viper, depending on aspect, lighting, etc. 18 miles is "way too short"? I mean, AMRAAMs are usually deployed between 10-30 nm, and they are BVR missiles. Can you share your sources?

 

1 hour ago, ClydeBigBird said:

Another thing I want to add is that I hope ED realizes how it negatively affects the perception of their game when everyone streaming MP on Twitch is running the game at 1080p or lower.  You guys have a beautiful game, let people actually enjoy it without being at a massive disadvantage!

Yes, this 100%. And don't forget everyone turning off their anti aliasing too. 

[Mars Exulte]

18 hours ago, StandingCow said:

It's pretty hilarious that this doesn't break IC... but I am also glad it doesn't so that the community can fix what ED has been seemingly ignoring.

 But we have intricately modeled wiring underneath the access panels of our helicopter!

16 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

We do not agree it is broken, but like I have said I have raised it with the team.

 Spotting is and always has been screwed in DCS, and I say that as a fanboi. Just like the BS about missing and irregular LoDs causing models to pop in and out of existence at irregular distances that has been that way for literally ever. It's not ''impossibru'' like some people say, but it doesn't work very well, that's an objective fact, ranging from shaders and resolution issues to the previously mentioned broken LoD system. It is very much not ''working fine''. It is at best ''poor''.

But hey, we have access panels and wiring harnesses @@

 

BTW, the reason I keep mentioning that is I know 3d modelers aren't responsible for all areas of coding, but they ARE responsible for things like LoDs which are a rampant problem. ED spends a considerable amount of time on things that serve little to no purpose and won't ever really be seen... meanwhile ignoring very basic things for years on end.

Like the jet engine prop planes I mentioned the other day, but I am not griping about after seeing WWII sounds getting updated and I don't know if that was part of it (after however many years, I should hope so)

18 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

We have raised the issue of this passing integrity check to the team. 

I suspect labels.lua / dots will need to be added to the IC

 Great! And after they're done assigning community fixes to the ban list, maybe they can like... fix it themselves so these things aren't necessary.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Mars Exulte