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

[Parabe11um]

4 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Again it might make sense on paper but when applied in an actual game it just becomes foolish. It also doesn’t take into account the player using a variable FOV which would just invalidate all the data and the very concept itself. It’s only using a single reference for screen size res and distance. That’s not the case for a game played on varying hardware. 

It’s a waste of time bringing this up over and over again because ED has said many times they have no interest in it. If that’s what you’re looking for then you’re in for disappointment here. 

Bro, I literally posted a link showing updated smart scaling adjust for varying FOV.

I get you dislike it but please read up before just saying it doesn't work. Every modeling approach has issues and requires compromises, but at least bring up issues that are actually issues. Modern approaches to smart scaling do adjust for varying FOV. So if that's your concern you can relax. People have worked beyond the original Serfoss paper.

And it's not a waste, imo, ED have changed their mind on big things before, my goal is simply to advocate for realism over visuals (and you are of course free to do the opposite).

Edited September 29, 2024 by Parabe11um

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, Parabe11um said:

my goal is simply to advocate for realism over visuals

You can’t separate the two of those. I’m sure most players want both i.e. realistic visuals. A game today isn’t going to put the work in on all the graphics and modeling only then to give you giant sized aircraft hanging over an undersized carrier deck. Just not going to happen. 

2 hours ago, Parabe11um said:

Modern approaches to smart scaling do adjust for varying FOV

I’m not referring to just a varied FOV setting but doing this on the fly as in the zoom view. That’s the better solution all these sims use now. Just make everything you see bigger equally as needed instead of just the target. That eliminates the need for smart scaling altogether. 

Edited September 29, 2024 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Parabe11um said:

Bro, I literally posted a link

Your link was just to another game forum which I gotta remind you is off topic. What other games do has nothing to do with DCS

[Michal]

Black 2D dots is the worst sollution. So lazy.

[draconus]

11 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

Here’s 78 pages on why scaling is necessary in simulation to replicate the same visual cues pilots rely on in BFM. 

Old study, method cursed with unrealistic visuals, made for only one goal in mind, for different display, different sim, thus... totally irrelevant.

Devs already made themselves clear. The game already provides better visuals than RL (this also should be limited) just users refuse to even use proper fov on their monitors or they mod their visuals with external software.

All targets can be shown in DCS in proper size and achieve RL visibility using proper rendering - no need for dot impostors or scaling. We need better rendering and additional effects, not workarounds. You can't disconnect realistic view from realistic performance - it should be the sam thing.

All I hear is whining about bad spotting but ask them what aircraft at what distance is shown wrong and you hear crickets or "I can't see sh...".

Btw: devs also said they will revert recent spotting changes just to please the gamers in the next update, so there you have it.

Edited September 29, 2024 by draconus

[Creampie]

10 minutes ago, draconus said:

Old study, method cursed with unrealistic visuals, made for only one goal in mind, for different display, different sim, thus... totally irrelevant.

Devs already made themselves clear. The game already provides better visuals than RL (this also should be limited) just users refuse to even use proper fov on their monitors or they mod their visuals with external software.

All targets can be shown in DCS in proper size and achieve RL visibility using proper rendering - no need for dot impostors or scaling. We need better rendering and additional effects, not workarounds. You can't disconnect realistic view from realistic performance - it should be the sam thing.

All I hear is whining about bad spotting but ask them what aircraft at what distance is shown wrong and you hear crickets or "I can't see sh...".

Btw: devs also said they will revert recent spotting changes just to please the gamers in the next update, so there you have it.

 

 

The spotting is incredibly bad in this game.

i think its more so bad in the sense of a competitive state, You have to be playing in 1080p.

If not, you get weird rendering of "dots" both in VR & flat, disappearing/appearing while zooming in/out.

I've been in the sky many many times & they most certainly do not provide a better visual than RL, Unless you have poor vision.

 

Scaling is incredibly important for anyone wanting to play above 1080p only because there doesn't seem to be any other viable solution.

 

 

[=475FG= Dawger]

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

All that data is made irrelevant by the fact that DCS and every other flight sim uses a variable FOV “zoom view” to give players the ability to see distant targets. Essentially making everything bigger equally instead of just the target which would look really awkward. The Serfoss values would only be “correct” for a single display resolution, size, distance and a set FOV. The values he ends up with are just egregious too. Like 2x at about 3 miles. It would look just laughable in DCS

Do a search for this, it’s been discussed to death and ED just has no interest in it. 

Your argument against a well thought out scaling solution is to argue that DCS already has scaling in the form of zoom? Classic

And you very obviously did not read the paper or cannot comprehend what he wrote because it directly refutes your statements above.

Also, all PhD's are Doctor of Philosophy. Its the name of the degree. It does not refer to the discipline in which the PhD is sought.

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Creampie said:

The spotting is incredibly bad in this game.

Thank you for another detailed report.

[Parabe11um]

2 hours ago, draconus said:

Old study, method cursed with unrealistic visuals, made for only one goal in mind, for different display, different sim, thus... totally irrelevant.

Devs already made themselves clear. The game already provides better visuals than RL (this also should be limited) just users refuse to even use proper fov on their monitors or they mod their visuals with external software.

All targets can be shown in DCS in proper size and achieve RL visibility using proper rendering - no need for dot impostors or scaling. We need better rendering and additional effects, not workarounds. You can't disconnect realistic view from realistic performance - it should be the sam thing.

All I hear is whining about bad spotting but ask them what aircraft at what distance is shown wrong and you hear crickets or "I can't see sh...".

Btw: devs also said they will revert recent spotting changes just to please the gamers in the next update, so there you have it.

 

Sir, this is a family friendly thread, please don't use the g word.

[=475FG= Dawger]

2 hours ago, draconus said:

Old study, method cursed with unrealistic visuals, made for only one goal in mind, for different display, different sim, thus... totally irrelevant.

Devs already made themselves clear. The game already provides better visuals than RL (this also should be limited) just users refuse to even use proper fov on their monitors or they mod their visuals with external software.

All targets can be shown in DCS in proper size and achieve RL visibility using proper rendering - no need for dot impostors or scaling. We need better rendering and additional effects, not workarounds. You can't disconnect realistic view from realistic performance - it should be the sam thing.

All I hear is whining about bad spotting but ask them what aircraft at what distance is shown wrong and you hear crickets or "I can't see sh...".

Btw: devs also said they will revert recent spotting changes just to please the gamers in the next update, so there you have it.

 

Unzoomed, you are not looking at a "realistic" presentation. The first level of zoom is actually much closer to real world vision. So unzoomed and unscaled is not presenting objects as they would appear in reality.

In VR, because of poor lighting, objects between 2-5 miles will disappear completely in the completely "realistic" DCS, better than real world visuals. Its weird that I never saw an airplane invoke this cloak of invisibility in my 30 years of professional flight.

If DCS had proper lighting, the claim that "The game already provides better visuals than RL" would seem less ridiculous.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

Your argument against a well thought out scaling solution is to argue that DCS already has scaling in the form of zoom?

Indeed the zoom view is a better solution than smart scaling.

Smart Scaling: Enlarges the target but leaves everything else at the same size. This look really awkward and over-enhances the target.

Zoom View: Enlarges the whole scene equally. That’s a better solution. It doesn’t produce ugly results and it doesn’t make targets excessively visible. It’s also better at solving the resolution problem.

1 hour ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

In VR, because of poor lighting, objects between 2-5 miles will disappear completely in the completely

You need to document comments like this with screenshots. Show us a shot of empty space with a label over it indicating an invisible aircraft. Aircraft at this range are easy to see in DCS. At this range the dots are hardly a factor.

 

Edited September 29, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Michal]

I have the same experience. Planes are less visible when black dots changes to model in closer range. Sometimes dissapears, depends on light condition and clouds. Scratch black dots and bring something more realistic. 

[HansPeter1981]

2 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

 

...objects between 2-5 miles will disappear completely ...

 

Seems like they use this cloak of invisibility here in Canada all the time especially on busy fires

 

I.e flying mostly stripped down Helicopters in order to being able to keep the costs low and to carry more payload we don't get to use a lot of 'cool tech'.. But it's now the second year using TCAS for me and it is an eyeopener on how much you actually didn't see before. I attached a picture with traffic being 2 miles in front of me...

And yes there are also a lot of dead flies on the windshield

 

Edited September 29, 2024 by HansPeter1981

[Tippis]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Indeed the zoom view is a better solution than smart scaling.

Not to spotting, no. It is there to solve completely different and separate problem.

It is inherently unrealistic. That's the whole reason it exists to begin with. It is therefore fundamentally unable to be a spotting solution.
In fact, at best, it's a work-around to complete a failure to simulate perception. But that's also not its job so it shouldn't be shoe-horned into that role.
It's a work-around for factors outside of the game.
It doesn't account for having to have a maximum viewable distance. Because that's not its job.
It doesn't offer an equitable solution across different display systems. Because that's not its job.
It doesn't offer an equitable solution across resolutions. Because that's not its job.
If it helps with spotting, its implementation is broken and needs to be fixed or removed outright — it should only matter for identification, which is a very different matter.

If anything, smart scaling can do everything zoom does. Zoom cannot do any of the things smart scaling does.

One is a part of the multi-faceted solution to accurately simulating spotting; the other is a work-around for the user's out-of-game situation. Of the two, the game could do away with zoom and be better off for it, but it would still need a functioning solution to the spotting simulation.

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Smart Scaling: Enlarges the target but leaves everything else at the same size.

Nope. That's not how it works. If you had actually read up on the topic or looked at any of the examples, you would know this.

Don't substitute your wild imagination for reality.

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Zoom View: Enlarges the whole scene equally. That’s a better solution

…to seeing small details that are too few pixels on your screen but which you should be able to make out clearly, or at least be able to distinguish in some way. As in “is he flying left or right? Is it painted red or blue?”, not as in “is it there or not”? The former is an identification question; the latter is spotting. They are not the same question.

This means it is actually the worst solution imaginable for spotting since the whole point is that you can't make out any details, and can barely see the thing to begin with. For the purpose of spotting, having no zoom at all would be a better solution.

 

In actuality, “spotting” isn't one thing and cannot be solved with one methodology. It's at a minimum, five.

• The actual spotting, which needs spotting dots to ensure that contacts appear at very specific distances at very specific sizes. Only dots can do this since they are… well… dots, and thus not tied to trigonometrical solutions to how large a model would render with a given resolution or FoV. They can also be faded in and out which is critical for the transition phases.
• A transition between dot and 3D model, which needs smart scaling to ensure that visibility doesn't dip as new rules for what gets drawn and what doesn't take place.
• Aspect identification, which needs smart scaling to highlight the cues that lets your simulated pilot uses to figure out where the target is going. Indeed, that is the entire raison d'être for the methodology while still keeping the target small enough to make sure its actual visual detail can't be seen, even if you zoom in. This also needs to be able to transition smoothly into…
• Target identification, which needs smart scaling and possibly zoom although the latter shouldn't be strictly necessary, to highlight shapes and colours that let you figure out (or not) whether to start unloading on the thing or not.
• Target tracking, which might need zoom, but ideally doesn't, where peripheral vision comes into play and might not be fully covered by the pancake mode frustum.

Note how zoom is only a solution to one of these — the one farthest away from the actual spotting phase — and the need there isn't to zoom in, but the ability to zoom out. And it's still really just compensating for out-of-game limitations rather than doing something the simulation should be representing in-world.

 

5 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

Your argument against a well thought out scaling solution is to argue that DCS already has scaling in the form of zoom? Classic

And you very obviously did not read the paper or cannot comprehend what he wrote because it directly refutes your statements above.

Welcome to arguing with Sharpe — he detests research that proves his unfounded guesswork wrong and his argument will without fail defeat itself because he has no idea what his argument actually is or what it's for, as long as, in isolation, it is contrary to what you said. His imagination of how things work trumps any recorded reality of how it actually works — including when he records it himself and proves his argument wrong that way. He has never and will never actually watch a real representation of the solution because what he imagines is the foundation for his argument. Can't get rid of that with reality and facts.

Above all, anything that improves the game and gets rid of his artificial and arbitrary advantages must be fought until the mods step in and lock the thread — such dangerous ideas as him not having an advantage cannot be allowed to live. That's really all there is: he was against spotting dots when he believed they would give other people an advantage over what his hardware gave him (most notably they would nullify his stupidly unrealistic spotting range; spotting dots would let others do the same). Then he was for them when he realised that other people had an advantage over him (notably, lower resolutions than what he ran at created more easily spotted targets; spotting dots would make them the same for everyone). Then he was against them when he realised that

Edited September 29, 2024 by Tippis

[=475FG= Dawger]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Indeed the zoom view is a better solution than smart scaling.

Smart Scaling: Enlarges the target but leaves everything else at the same size. This look really awkward and over-enhances the target.

Zoom View: Enlarges the whole scene equally. That’s a better solution. It doesn’t produce ugly results and it doesn’t make targets excessively visible. It’s also better at solving the resolution problem.

You need to document comments like this with screenshots. Show us a shot of empty space with a label over it indicating an invisible aircraft. Aircraft at this range are easy to see in DCS. At this range the dots are hardly a factor.

 

 

This just illustrates how ignorant you are in regards to VR. It’s essentially impossible to “illustrate via screenshots “ what one sees in VR. 

[SharpeXB]

15 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

This just illustrates how ignorant you are in regards to VR. It’s essentially impossible to “illustrate via screenshots “ what one sees in VR. 

I see people post screenshots and videos of VR all the time. Without any supporting evidence we’re just left to believe you have bad eyesight or something. Honestly that’s the impression I get from these posts that don’t have any documentation. That lots of player simply can’t see that well. 

[Creampie]

6 hours ago, draconus said:

Thank you for another detailed report.

No need for a detailed report. It's bad the company knows its  bad, the community knows its bad and continues to try and make support for it yet you can't seem to understand that.

You want detailed reports like you're relevant to the matter or while having no real constructive thing to say

 

[SharpeXB]

9 minutes ago, Creampie said:

No need for a detailed report. It's bad the company knows its  bad, the community knows its bad and continues to try and make support for it yet you can't seem to understand that.

You want detailed reports like you're relevant to the matter or while having no real constructive thing to say

 

This topic definitely needs supporting data in the form of videos or screenshots. Without that there’s no way evaluate what the problem is. Again in the absence of that I’m left with the assumption that the “problem” is either unrealistic expectations from playing other games or eyesight issues. 

[Creampie]

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

This topic definitely needs supporting data in the form of videos or screenshots. Without that there’s no way evaluate what the problem is. Again in the absence of that I’m left with the assumption that the “problem” is either unrealistic expectations from playing other games or eyesight issues. 

It's had years of supporting data in the form of videos and screenshots.

WT had/has this issue for as long as I can remember as well, Play low res/graphics for some sort of tactical advantage, low res incentivized with low graphics blah blah.

There is an incredibly unrealistic expectation of being able to see a 10x10 (exaggerating ofc) 20nm away. But having flown like many many others within DCS. There is no comparison to RL like the ignorant statement above claims.

[SharpeXB]

6 minutes ago, Creampie said:

It's had years of supporting data in the form of videos and screenshots.

The feature keeps getting updates so old data wouldn’t be relevant anymore. Too many posts here have nothing to say except “I can’t see the planes” That’s not helpful. And too often people are just comparing games. 

Edited September 29, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Zakson85]

Your hundreds of posts are also not helpful. You see a video analyzing the problem and the only thing you notice is the size of the dots. Go to a coldwar server, fly for 2 hours and you will see what the spotting problem means. I recommend spending more time in the cockpit than on the forum

A game without text ERW refreshed every few seconds is basically unplayable

This is incredibly realistic...

 

Edited September 29, 2024 by Zakson85

[SharpeXB]

10 minutes ago, Zakson85 said:

You see a video analyzing the problem and the only thing you notice is the size of the dots.

Yes that’s my chief takeaway from the video. Those dots are ugly and gigantic. The fact that they vanish is secondary. Honestly they should all be eliminated if they’re like that. I think that video was of the old 2.9 version though. 

13 minutes ago, Zakson85 said:

Go to a coldwar server, fly for 2 hours and you will see what the spotting problem means.

I don’t play CW but I’ve had plenty of visual range combat on the modern severs and what I see (even with dots off ie v2.8) seems pretty realistic to me. You realize hunting for targets is most of what happens in real life air combat, right? 

17 minutes ago, Zakson85 said:

A game without text ERW refreshed every few seconds is basically unplayable

If the real world had dots radar never would have been invented. 

[Zakson85]

Arguing with you is worthless. The only thing that was important in this video was the process of the dots disappearing. Those horrible dots that hurt your eyes are a distortion of what dcs displays in the VR goggles. There is no technology that will reliably show the image from the goggles on a 2D screen. I won't waste my time on your arguments, good night.

[MAXsenna]

Arguing with you is worthless. The only thing that was important in this video was the process of the dots disappearing. Those horrible dots that hurt your eyes are a distortion of what dcs displays in the VR goggles. There is no technology that will reliably show the image from the goggles on a 2D screen. I won't waste my time on your arguments, good night.

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[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Zakson85 said:

There is no technology that will reliably show the image from the goggles on a 2D screen

People seem to be able to document the problem here. If you can’t provide images and videos then there’s no point in trying to make a bug report out of this.