resolved New spotting is great / New spotting is overcooked feedback thread

[Cgjunk2]

30 minutes ago, Tippis said:

The main point of the dots is to hide the fact that there is nothing being modelled behind it for the simple reason that there shouldn't be.

At the ranges where the dot should be active, any kind of modelling will be reduced to the same four pixels and thus offer no information anyway, meaning all the processing can be skipped and you save a couple of milliseconds on your frametime. Remember, they're spotting dots – not identification dots or figuring out aspect dots. That shouldn't happen until much further in.

The problem before was that the ranges for some of that were stretched out far too long (which parts it happened to depended on your setup, but it was far too long for everyone in one way or another). By having these dots, DCS can now hide the transition from showing you a model that you can identify and track to having nothing at all with a featureless dot and make that seamlessly fade away. The loss of information can happen much sooner and much more realistically, and with a bit of tweaking look good in the process.

The loss of information is a good thing. Because it is how it should be. Not because people like it that way – it should be that way because people dislike not having information that they shouldn't have anyway.

I agree there should be no or very little information beyond 10 miles.   Then why is there a huge (or any-sized) dot over planes and objects that are beyond visual range?
 

by 5 miles there should be some additional useful, information transmitted to the eye, so why is there a big dot obscuring all or most of that information?  Also, the fact the blob is meant to improve spotting, means it will improve the ability to maintain the target in sight with just a glance.   In real life, if you lose sight, you have to start looking all over again, and you may not ever see it again if it stays at that distance.
 

Are the people having trouble with flat screens because of field of view issues?   Now I recall, When I played flat screen, I made sure my FOV was set in a way that made my screen act as if it were a window into the cockpit, trying  to simulate one to one object size in the cockpit as much as the screen would allow, and understood that not having track ir meant I needed to use arrows to look around.   Then I got track IR to get around that problem.   I got a bigger monitor when I realized the little airplanes in the distance were smaller because the screen was small.   But i never thought that it was a “DCS problem” that I couldnt see what others with bigger screen sizes could see.   I never thought it was a DCS problem that I couldnt easily see most of the cockpit either.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Cgjunk2

[Tippis]

7 minutes ago, Cgjunk2 said:

I agree there should be no or very little information beyond 10 miles.   Then why is there a huge dot over planes and objects that are beyond visual range?

Because it's the first roll-out and it has yet to be tweaked.

Fortunately, even in this early state, it makes sure that there is the absolute minimum of information given beyond 10nm — just a hint that something is there.

By 5 miles, there should also be very little information unless we are talking about very large aircraft. The rest might as well just be a tiny dot, which is what they're represented as at the moment. The "tiny:ness" is subject to the same tweaks as before, and it's about spot on for high-res displays.

e: Oh and, I'm not sure people are having trouble with flat screens. If anything, it seems like pancake mode makes these spotting dots work wonderfully, and it's more when you move to other displays that issues arise. There are some hints that TVs are causing problems too, which seems natural since modern ones have a nasty tendency to over-process the image signal to amp up saturation and contrast because it "looks good" for certain types of media. For games, though, you really need to turn all that junk off to make the colours appear correctly and something as detail- and (lack-of-)contrast reliant as spotting dots would be extra susceptible to over-processing.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tippis

[rob10]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

There are no giant black cubes to see in real life.

Please try to understand that NOT EVERYONE IS SEEING GIANT BLACK CUBES in game currently and virtually no one who isn't seeing them currently is arguing that ED shouldn't continue to tweak things so that those who are currently don't in future!!!!!!  Unlike the majority who are seeing them and think things should just go back to the way they were.

Edited November 19, 2023 by rob10

[Parabe11um]

While I think spotting needs some tweaks, it's nice to see ED finally move away from a system that tied dot size to pixel size (there are several PhDs worth of research on why this was a bad idea and why mil sims began to move away from that).

 

Overall as others have said we are moving closer to a realistic spotting system (where unaided spotting is possible at sub 10 NM and pilots start picking up features vital to BFM and tactics below 5 NM).

 

Some VR headsets and setups def suffer from giant blob syndrome, but I don't see why this can't be tweaked.

[SharpeXB]

18 minutes ago, rob10 said:

Please try to understand that NOT EVERYONE IS SEEING GIANT BLACK CUBES in game currently and virtually no one who isn't seeing them currently is arguing that ED shouldn't continue to tweak things so that those who are currently don't in future!!!!!!  Unlike the majority who are seeing them and think things should just go back to the way they were.

I get it that it’s still a WIP. But I can’t quite figure how they think it’s anywhere close to reasonable. It seems like nobody tests this stuff. I already posted my results and anyone else running 2160x3840 will see exactly the same thing. The effect is indistinguishable from dot labels. 

[SharpeXB]

3 minutes ago, Parabe11um said:

a realistic spotting system (where unaided spotting is possible at sub 10 NM and pilots start picking up features vital to BFM and tactics below 5 NM).

This is exactly what we already have in 2.8 using 4K and hence unable to really see the spotting dots. In 2.9 the aircraft are covered up by a dot label at about 4 miles and don’t reveal any shape. As they merge with you or you zoom in the dot vanishes and the aircraft instantly shrink to their realistic size. It’s an odd effect. 

[Tippis]

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I get it that it’s still a WIP. But I can’t quite figure how they think it’s anywhere close to reasonable.

Have you tried reading what people write? Because it becomes quite clear then.

It's reasonable because it provides much more realistic view distances than before.
It's reasonable because it is much less resolution-dependent than before.
It is reasonable because it is much more subtle than before where needed, and much more pronounced before where needed.
It is reasonable because it creates a foundation for an infinitely more equitable solution across different hardware and software setups than before.

And let's not forget that you said it was good.

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I already posted my results and anyone else running 2160x3840 will see exactly the same thing.

No, they really won't.

Partly because graphics settings matter. Partly because display type matter. Partly because physical setup matter. Not many will play in portrait mode, for instance…

Not everyone sees the “giant black cubes” you complain about. And your posts show that neither do you.

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

The effect is indistinguishable from dot labels. 

This is objectively false.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tippis

[Parabe11um]

11 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

This is exactly what we already have in 2.8 using 4K and hence unable to really see the spotting dots. In 2.9 the aircraft are covered up by a dot label at about 4 miles and don’t reveal any shape. As they merge with you or you zoom in the dot vanishes and the aircraft instantly shrink to their realistic size. It’s an odd effect. 

I never ran 4K in 2.8, but the problem for me was that in every other resolution spotting was unrealistic (it alternated between being lower distance than real life and also insanely over what is possible in even ideal situations). Given my experience even at 1440p (and how small dots were) I don't really see anyone at 4k in 2.8 at realistic ranges, but I suppose anything is possible.

In an ideal world, as others have said here too, we should get a dot with no detail (save smoke) at like 7-10 NM, and then as distance decreases more useful info is revealed (starting at something like 5 NM).

It doesn't really change my view though that while this new spotting system has some different problems, overall we are getting closer to spotting that matches posted real life data.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Parabe11um

[Cgjunk2]

1 hour ago, Tippis said:

Because it's the first roll-out and it has yet to be tweaked.

Fortunately, even in this early state, it makes sure that there is the absolute minimum of information given beyond 10nm — just a hint that something is there.

By 5 miles, there should also be very little information unless we are talking about very large aircraft. The rest might as well just be a tiny dot, which is what they're represented as at the moment. The "tiny:ness" is subject to the same tweaks as before, and it's about spot on for high-res displays.

e: Oh and, I'm not sure people are having trouble with flat screens. If anything, it seems like pancake mode makes these spotting dots work wonderfully, and it's more when you move to other displays that issues arise. There are some hints that TVs are causing problems too, which seems natural since modern ones have a nasty tendency to over-process the image signal to amp up saturation and contrast because it "looks good" for certain types of media. For games, though, you really need to turn all that junk off to make the colours appear correctly and something as detail- and (lack-of-)contrast reliant as spotting dots would be extra susceptible to over-processing.

 

I meant, are people having trouble seeing airplanes at reasonable distance without the dot.   If they have a fov that wider than what a person naturaly sees, wouldn’t that result in objects, especially other airplanes, appear much smaller than it would in reality?

[SharpeXB]

2 minutes ago, Parabe11um said:

I never ran 4K in 2.8, but the problem for me was that in every other resolution spotting was unrealistic (it alternated between being lower distance than real life and also insanely over what is possible I'm even ideal situations).

It doesn't really change my view though that while this spotting system has some different problems overall we are getting closer to spotting that matches posted real life data.

Well now we can evaluate what Dots Off is like in 2.9 and compare. 

[Tippis]

6 minutes ago, Cgjunk2 said:

I meant, are people having trouble seeing airplanes at reasonable distance without the dot.   If they have a fov that wider than what a person naturaly sees, wouldn’t that result in objects, especially other airplanes, appear much smaller than it would in reality?

Without dots, it goes both ways.

One the one hand, you are able to see airplanes at unreasonable distances because of how naive the distance rendering is. Even if you zoom out, the renderer seems to really dislike not showing things that are smaller than a pixel so if you're good at pixel peeping, they show up anyway. And when zoomed in, it just goes by pure trigonometry to decide that something should appear too big at distances where the planes should just not show up at all. There is no (sensible) upper limit to how far out the models are drawn.

On the other hand, you are able to lose planes at distances where you should reasonably see them, or where they show up clearly at lower resolutions. It's that awkward cross-over distance where they are no longer just tiny dots on the screen, but are now fully rendered aircraft with (single-digit-pixel) details, which means that colouring starts to matter, and they get lost in the general noise of the background. FoV obviously matters here, but almost the opposite way: if you compress the contact into a smaller cluster of pixels, it often comes out more sharply than if you zoom in… or at least if you only zoom in half-way (ie you maintain a 1:1 scale). Fully zoomed, they obviously show up more clearly again, but are harder to track because of the inherent jitteriness of those higher zoom levels.

It is consistently inconsistent and nonsensically counter-intuitive.

The biggest promise of all of the spotting dots is that they make it possible that all of that goes away.

[Cgjunk2]

4 hours ago, Parabe11um said:

While I think spotting needs some tweaks, it's nice to see ED finally move away from a system that tied dot size to pixel size (there are several PhDs worth of research on why this was a bad idea and why mil sims began to move away from that).

 

Overall as others have said we are moving closer to a realistic spotting system (where unaided spotting is possible at sub 10 NM and pilots start picking up features vital to BFM and tactics below 5 NM).

 

Some VR headsets and setups def suffer from giant blob syndrome, but I don't see why this can't be tweaked.

Maybe I’m misinterpreting what ED is trying to do here.  Are the dots the beginning of improvements to rendering planes at distance?   Or are “improved spotting dots” an overlay dot to improve visibility of what the game renders?   I thought the intention was for it to be an overlay, like how the how the dots on the labels work (the smallest label option).

[Parabe11um]

5 hours ago, Cgjunk2 said:

Maybe I’m misinterpreting what ED is trying to do here.  Are the dots the beginning of improvements to rendering planes at distance?   Or are “improved spotting dots” an overlay dot to improve visibility of what the game renders?   I thought the intention was for it to be an overlay, like how the how the dots on the labels work (the smallest label option).

Why485 asked that very question.

The dots atm are the latter.

Ultimately though there's no reason other stuff or changes can be combined with dots to improve realism in terms of player performance (dots can help bridge some of the issues that other rendering solutions introduce or vice versa).

But even as a mere overlay to improve spotting range (and adjust for software limitations related to rendering), it still had to be separated from resolution.

If you go read papers on stuff like smart scaling the origin of solutions like that mil sims suffered from two problems we face here 1) lacking various visual cues we do irl (and looking through a screen) spotting can often be harder than irl and 2) again due to hardware/software limits critical information (such as aircraft aspect) is harder to interpret at ranges it's on average possible to do so accurately irl.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Parabe11um

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Parabe11um said:

If you go read papers on stuff like smart scaling the origin of solutions like that mil sims suffered from two problems we face here 1) lacking various visual cues we do irl (and looking through a screen) spotting can often be harder than irl and 2) again due to hardware/software limits critical information (such as aircraft aspect) is harder to interpret at ranges it's on average possible to do so accurately irl.

These “problems” only occur in sims when players don’t use or understand the zoom view or variable FOV. With this view method it’s easy to replicate real world visual acuity without the use of dots or excessive object scaling. Indeed this is the intended solution for every current flight sim today including DCS. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Toastfrenzy]

14 hours ago, Enigma89 said:

I would just like to share not my perspective but the general vibe that I have seen from the multiplayer side. While there is only a dozen or so pages on this thread, there are thousands of interactions per day on discord which is not really captured here. In general, the feedback, from what I have seen, on the spotting changes has been overwhelmingly positive. The few people who seem to be opposed to the new spotting are people using a nascent technology (VR). As this is the first version of this and the few negative response seem to be centered with some VR people, it looks like we are moving in the right direction. Once this is solved for VR, then it should be in a good spot for everyone, including the few players on VR.

What we had previous was simply unacceptable for spotting for a sim in 2023. What we had before was the worst spotting system out of any sim on the market. This is a step in the right direction and it's the first step to fix it.

 

As a 4k user and new to DCS 8 mths ago. I did simply walk away from DCS after about 3 maybe 4 months , one of the reasons was dot spotting. Couldn't spot a thing, single player mode or multiplayer. I was so disappointed.

Then 2.9 dropped and along with other issues that I had with DCS, which all seem to have been addressed. What an update!

Only had one or 2 sessions this weekend but I'm ready for more!

[Tippis]

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

These “problems” only occur in sims when players don’t use or understand the zoom view or variable FOV. With this view method it’s easy to replicate real world visual acuity without the use of dots or excessive object scaling.

Lol. No.

You see, in the real world, eyes don't have zoom or variable FoV. In fact, those two are the biggest problems when it comes to making sims replicate real world visual acuity because on the one hand they're needed to overcome the inherent limitations of a very tiny view frustrum, but on the other hand, they open up for the game showing far far more than it ever should. The problem isn't with players or their “understanding” of zoom (except in the cases where they claim that this is in any way, shape, or form realistic which is just laughably ignorant) — it's in how you have to counteract the zoom functionality when dealing with far-away stuff.

Object scaling is actually by far the best way of dealing with that because it gives you a mechanism to not make ships be too big when zoomed in and at the same time not too small when zoomed out.

Real world visual acuity can only be replicated by having hard caps on rendering distance — and far lower ones than people who zoom a lot will want to have. The problem, then, becomes one of pop-in: how do you make sure that someone that is at max zoom doesn't go from seeing nothing to seeing A HUGE MASSIVE SPLODGE as a contact crosses over that visibility threshold? Non-linear scaling is one way. Drawing the model even later and covering up the transition with some kind of dot is another. Either way, zoom is a complication; it's an accommodation to technical limits; it is something that has be compensated for to maintain proper replication. The best case would be if zoom didn't even exist as a function, but we're not there yet in terms of display tech.

[okopanja]

3 minutes ago, Tippis said:

Real world visual acuity can only be replicated by having hard caps on rendering distance — and far lower ones than people who zoom a lot will want to have. The problem, then, becomes one of pop-in: how do you make sure that someone that is at max zoom doesn't go from seeing nothing to seeing A HUGE MASSIVE SPLODGE as a contact crosses over that visibility threshold? Non-linear scaling is one way. Drawing the model even later and covering up the transition with some kind of dot is another. Either way, zoom is a complication; it's an accommodation to technical limits; it is something that has be compensated for to maintain proper replication. The best case would be if zoom didn't even exist as a function, but we're not there yet in terms of display tech.

So zoom should be eliminated?

[Tippis]

1 minute ago, okopanja said:

So zoom should be eliminated?

In the far distant future when we all have retina-level resolution VR goggles, sure. And even then, it might have its UX use cases where it's still necessary.

But until then, it needs to stick around to get around the fact that we are viewing the world through monitors with arbitrary resolutions that sit at an arbitrary distance away from the player's eyes.

[Talisman_VR]

15 hours ago, Enigma89 said:

I would just like to share not my perspective but the general vibe that I have seen from the multiplayer side. While there is only a dozen or so pages on this thread, there are thousands of interactions per day on discord which is not really captured here. In general, the feedback, from what I have seen, on the spotting changes has been overwhelmingly positive. The few people who seem to be opposed to the new spotting are people using a nascent technology (VR). As this is the first version of this and the few negative response seem to be centered with some VR people, it looks like we are moving in the right direction. Once this is solved for VR, then it should be in a good spot for everyone, including the few players on VR.

What we had previous was simply unacceptable for spotting for a sim in 2023. What we had before was the worst spotting system out of any sim on the market. This is a step in the right direction and it's the first step to fix it.

 

I agree with the above regarding "What we had before was the worst spotting system out of any sim on the market."

However, I fear DCS are attempting to come up with the worst solution for the worst spotting system out of any sim on the market.

I am concerned that the solution being attempted is far from logical, desirable or achievable and will just cause a lot of trouble and strife.  In fact, to me, DCS appears to be trying to apply a sticking plaster solution to try and cover a fundamental problem.

I would be happy to be proved wrong though, because I would like to keep supporting DCS if I can, so good luck with it anyway.

Happy landings,

Talisman

[Parabe11um]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

These “problems” only occur in sims when players don’t use or understand the zoom view or variable FOV. With this view method it’s easy to replicate real world visual acuity without the use of dots or excessive object scaling. Indeed this is the intended solution for every current flight sim today including DCS. 

 

What are you talking about?

It's a big enough problem we have entire published scientific papers on it and people working to build better ways to represent objects in sims.

The reason things like smart scaling exist is because of the problems I mentioned and that you view as being solely player misconception.

Edit: Tippis posted a very nice reply explaining the problem with your post.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Parabe11um

[SharpeXB]

40 minutes ago, Parabe11um said:

It's a big enough problem we have entire published scientific papers on it and people working to build better ways to represent objects in sims.

You’re referring to the silly Gary Serfoss thing

That would maybe be relevant only for a specific hardware setup, screen resolution and so on. Not something that could be useful for a sim like this with such varying hardware. Plus the whole premise of that gets invalidated when you consider the variable FOV that all games like this have. And smart scaling would produce horrible looking results in a game with so much A2G action and such where you’d see aircraft 2-3x their size next to unscaled objects. 

[Tippis]

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

You’re referring to the silly Gary Serfoss thing

How is it silly?

You have never once managed to offer an actual argument for that stance. Possibly because, by your own admission, you have never actually read the research or bothered to understand what it even is or how it works.

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

That would maybe be relevant only for a specific hardware setup, screen resolution and so on.

No. That is not how it works. Read the paper and look at the implementations

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Plus the whole premise of that gets invalidated when you consider the variable FOV that all games like this have.

No. That is not how it works. Read the paper and look at the implementations

41 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

And smart scaling would produce horrible looking results in a game with so much A2G action and such where you’d see aircraft 2-3x their size next to unscaled objects. 

No. That is not how  it works. Read the paper and look at the implementations

I understand that you will once again go on one of your catastrophically ignorant and uninformed posting sprees about this topic but it would really help if you — just once — had actually read the paper, looked at any of the examples, understood its intent and end goals, and/or seen it in action in any of its multiple implementations. But since you actively, deliberately, expressly and obstinately refuse to do any of that, it will be fun to see what kind of laughably nonsensical fantasies you come up with this time to fill in the gaps (i.e. everything) in your understanding of the topic.

If you want to disprove the usefulness and applicability of smart scaling, there is exactly one thing you should focus on: post your research. Or someone else's research. Anything, really, that has the same empirical and mathematical basis, and as many tests of different implementations, but which conclusively show that it doesn't work for some reason. Do that, and you might have a point. You won't, so you don't.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

So, looking at 2.9 with the spotting dots disabled (Edit: it’s unknown at this point whether Off is actually Off or just switches to v2.8, it seems like it’s indeed Off), on a 4K screen (with DLAA), this seems entirely realistic. This is using the DCS Hornet Sparrow Combat mission  

At the extreme range of 28 miles the bandits are not visible except for their contrails.

At about 15 miles they become barely visible but only if you know where to look, under good conditions and because there is a radar cue on them.

At 5 miles they start to become very visible depending on their aspect and the conditions, without even using much of the zoom view at all, meaning you could pick them up in your peripheral vision.

At 2-3 miles they are totally visible to the point you could hardly miss seeing them.

At a range of 7 miles with a top profile view they are still quite easy to track even in poor conditions if you know where to look and focus on seeing them (zoomed)

DCS is capable of providing fully realistic visibility and spotting, extra dots are not needed.

Edited November 26, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

5 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

So, looking at 2.9 with the spotting dots disabled, on a 4K screen (with DLAA), this seems entirely realistic.

At the extreme range of 28 miles the bandits are not visible except for their contrails.

At about 15 miles they become barely visible but only if you know where to look, under good conditions and because there is a radar cue on them.

So basically, they're more visible under the old system — you can clearly see the “huge black dots” at over 50km range — than under the new one in the region where they shouldn't appear at all, meaning we've gained a degree of realism with the spotting dots. And of course, on top of that, the old system still has the whole inverse-visibility issue at different resolutions that needs to be solved, so the old system has to go regardless even if it didn't have that over-visibility problem.

7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

DCS is capable of providing fully realistic visibility and spotting, extra dots are not needed.

…except that what you're describing is not realistic. So there's that problematic detail on top of it being fundamentally flawed as far as how it is affected by resolution settings.

No wonder you said that the new system was good.

[SharpeXB]

PS to the above. With Spotting Dots On the distant high-aspect fighter aircraft be come easily visible at 21 miles as defined black dots. That's not realistic at all.

Edited November 19, 2023 by SharpeXB