reported Canopy glass becomes opaque

[cfrag]

A long-standing issue (probably, I believe it's also known as 'dirty canopy' since 2019) with the Tiger is that the cockpit's glass becomes exceedingly 'foggy', or 'dirty' when at a certain angle to the sun. I could fix this with a simple patch to the glass shader. With the entirety of the shader files now being part of the integrity checks, this fix has become inaccessible because we no longer can patch the glass shader.

For reference, this is how the glass canopy currently looks when the sun is at a certain angle. In this screenshot, I'm turning final for landing. Points for anyone who can tell me which map. Bonus points for telling me which airport

This was easily fixed by toning down the canopy reflection value in the glass shader. Now, after modifying shaders is off-limits, I no longer can fly the Tiger. Note: this also affects the Mi-8 (glass becomes opaque) and Huey (excessive cartoonish cockpit reflections)

Screenshot was taken today (20230718) in current OB, no mods, VR

Thank you for looking into this.

Edited July 18, 2023 by cfrag

[Flappie]

Please provide a track. I cannot obtain such an opaque canopy.

F-5 canopy.trk

[MoleUK]

7 hours ago, Flappie said:

Please provide a track. I cannot obtain such an opaque canopy.

F-5 canopy.trk 115.76 kB · 1 download

Shadows off can help reproduce this as it makes the problem worse.

I haven't hopped in the F-5 for quite some time, but to trigger it in the Mi-8 you usually need to face away from the sun so it's shining from behind to get this effect:

I'll try and remember to disable the clear canopy mod that fixes this later to see if I can get a track for you.

Edited July 22, 2023 by MoleUK

[Flappie]

@MoleUK We're talking about the F-5, here.  The Mi-8 issue is already reported internally.

Oh wait, the F-5 issue is also reported internally, which means I won't need a track.

[cfrag]

@Flappie to save you some searching, here's the track

It's easily reproducible, track is only a few seconds.

opaque tiger2.trk

[Bucic]

I've never seen the issue, even when trying to position the sun so that the smears are best visible. What's your shadow settings?

options.lua

['shadows'] = 3;

['secondaryShadows'] = 0;

 

Have you tried running a DCS Repair and clearing the shader folders?

 

In my opinion shadows OFF shouldn't be available in the GUI at all. I practically causes cockpit rendering to break.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, Bucic said:

Have you tried running a DCS Repair and clearing the shader folders?

Thank you, @Bucic. It's a known (for some years) shader issue (it can be fixed with a simple change to the glass shader), but now has become an issue that all shader files are part if the integrity check and I had to revert to the original shaders.

Edited July 23, 2023 by cfrag

[Bucic]

6 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Thank you, @Bucic. It's a known (for some years) shader issue (it can be fixed with a simple change to the glass shader), but now has become an issue that all shader files are part if the integrity check and I had to revert to the original shaders.

 

It doesn't happen on my end. I checked out your track, not that it matters. A track won't show anything significant in case of such a glitch. And it is a glitch. No such thing could be seen on my system, even though I've been through multiple DCS OB versions, driver versions and 2 graphics cards all within 6 months.

BTW, you can use a cockpit mod without the reflections.

[cfrag]

36 minutes ago, Bucic said:

It doesn't happen on my end.

I believe you. And please believe me when I say that it does on my end, is easily reproducible, and it is well-known (a similar issue happens with the Mi-8). It is suspected to be linked to the shadow settings, and mine are slightly different to yours:

["shadows"] = 1,

["secondaryShadows"] = 0,

So maybe if you tried with those settings, you may be able to reproduce the effect. Since I'm flying almost exclusively VR, the performance hit on shadows 3 is something that I want to avoid at all cost, especially since I fly helicopters a lot. 

[Kageseigi]

I already posted this in the Wish List forum, but here are my results also.

In a quick test, this only happened when "Shadows" are set to "Off" or "Flat Only"
In this scenario, the sun was around bearing 120, and the glare started closer to bearing 160. The plane was rolled to its right and downward, so the canopy was basically hidden from the sun.

Here's an image and a track file...

 

SunTest2.trk

Edited October 21, 2023 by Kageseigi

[MoleUK]

These issues still remain with shadows off afaik.

Not just in the F-5 but in many modules.

[Bucic]

That's because shadows Off shouldn't even be an option in GUI. I still argue shadows Flat shouldn't be there either.