How to do boom tanker refuelling camera view (track replay)

[Hoirtel]

I have a track replay from a server and I would like to record the refuel footage as if its from the tanker boom operator view. I know this isn't a specific view available (please ED..) so I wondered how to do it myself. Seems harder than I first thought. 

F2 view on the refuelling aircraft did make this work but as camera is fixed to the wrong aircraft you don't see the fine movements and the view goes out of position quickly, I did try messing around with F2/F4/F11 views on the tanker but couldn't get it to go through the body of the tanker? I have seen this on YT so I believe it is possible. 

Does anyone know how best to do this?

Thanks

[Bosun]

You would have manually place a camera in the .lua file and record the mission to play it back and watch through the camera, and then it still wouldn't work becuase DCS does not have a track-replay option that is functional.

[Gunfreak]

On 8/30/2023 at 12:10 PM, Hoirtel said:

I have a track replay from a server and I would like to record the refuel footage as if its from the tanker boom operator view. I know this isn't a specific view available (please ED..) so I wondered how to do it myself. Seems harder than I first thought. 

F2 view on the refuelling aircraft did make this work but as camera is fixed to the wrong aircraft you don't see the fine movements and the view goes out of position quickly, I did try messing around with F2/F4/F11 views on the tanker but couldn't get it to go through the body of the tanker? I have seen this on YT so I believe it is possible. 

Does anyone know how best to do this?

Thanks

that will let you make views like this

 

 

[Hoirtel]

10 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

that will let you make views like this

 

 

This is the way! Thanks, I knew I was missing something!

On 9/2/2023 at 11:42 PM, Bosun said:

You would have manually place a camera in the .lua file and record the mission to play it back and watch through the camera, and then it still wouldn't work becuase DCS does not have a track-replay option that is functional.

Dedicated server racks don't corrupt, but have no F1 view.

[Bosun]

7 hours ago, Hoirtel said:

This is the way! Thanks, I knew I was missing something!

Dedicated server racks don't corrupt, but have no F1 view.

Dedicated server tracks do corrupt some planes.  The F-14 is a good example - there is currently no way to get an accurate track in any server or client-side replay for the aircraft, except by very short, very specific tracks which cannot really be used for 'filming.'  

The best track you can have is to have a buddy on-server with you, who can put their spectator camera where you'd like it on the tanker, and record your approach to fueling for you.  

[Gunfreak]

21 hours ago, Bosun said:

Dedicated server tracks do corrupt some planes.  The F-14 is a good example - there is currently no way to get an accurate track in any server or client-side replay for the aircraft, except by very short, very specific tracks which cannot really be used for 'filming.'  

The best track you can have is to have a buddy on-server with you, who can put their spectator camera where you'd like it on the tanker, and record your approach to fueling for you.  

F16 seems to work well, I did a 90 minute dedicated server track, and I ran through it several times and it never broke, it wasn't a very large mission, but did include 2x air to air refueling, low level bombing, AAA fire, Sam launch. Yet it worked for 90s minutes. While a simple 4 v 4 ww2 dogfight, dedicated server track breaks in less than 10 minutes no matter what.

[Hoirtel]

Although the above works I have found that I really need the camera to go through the body of the tanker to get the perfect angle, which it doesn't unless the view is locked to the jet and then it looks a bit odd. GoPro style on the fuselage is the best we can do.

The view system is so convoluted, they need a single spectators drone-style option with bookmarks. The rest can be done away with.