Ability to lift arms.

[WHOGX5]

I think a great feature addition to the new pilot body would be that if you move your mouse cursor in the vicinity of one of the pilots arms, he would then lift that arm up (maybe rest it on the edge of the canopy) so you can see the panels below his arm. This would allow the player to manipulate all switches in the cockpit, without needing to hide the pilot body everytime you need to flick a switch. Then, once the cursor goes inactive or moves away from the arms, he moves them back to their default position on the throttle and stick. This would greatly increase immersion, and also allow the player the ability to look at the kneeboards on the legs while manipulating various switches in the cockpit.

Maybe it could also be an idea to add a similar feature to the pilots legs, where if you move your cursor close to one of the legs, the pilot body will slightly shift its leg inwards/outwards, depending on which side your cursor is, to make it easier to see around the leg.

[Hank]

I would imagine this is quite hard to implement well without performance issues or it looking janky, while we already have an option to quickly toggle the pilot body on and off. Perhaps a better solution would be to create an area around the mouse's position where the pilot body is hidden. But it would still be very low prio.

Edited June 11, 2024 by Hank

[WHOGX5]

23 hours ago, Hank said:

I would imagine this is quite hard to implement well without performance issues or it looking janky, while we already have an option to quickly toggle the pilot body on and off. Perhaps a better solution would be to create an area around the mouse's position where the pilot body is hidden. But it would still be very low prio.

Honestly, I don't think it'd be that hard to implement. It's just another animation which will play when the users mouse cursor is active in a certain region of the cockpit. I'm pretty sure that creating some feature which will make a part of the pilot body disappear around the cursor would be much more work. Also, I think in order to maximize immersion (which is important IMO), it's always good to make sure the pilot body can be kept fully visible at all times, rather than having to constantly turn it on and off. This feature would also increase the immersion in multiplayer, as you'd not only see other pilots looking around their cockpit, but you'd also see when they are lifting their arms to look at different panels, which makes the pilot body in another players aircraft seem even more like an actual person, rather than just another part of the airframe like it was before the new pilot body.

However, it's also a question of practicality. If I want to do anything that requires a checklist, like starting up my aircraft or fencing in before combat or something, I have two options: Either I constantly turn the pilot body on and off between each item, so I can read each checklist items on the kneeboard between flicking the switches, or I just use the old 2D DCS kneeboard and keep the pilot body completely hidden during all these procedures. Unfortunately, I tend to do the latter because right now it is just so much easier and much more efficient, making the pilot body more of a gimmick than an actual feature for me. I'd just like some way to keep the pilot body active at all times, and simply being able to look around the pilot body and under his arms to manipulate all the switches in the cockpit.

[n0pe]

On 6/12/2024 at 8:37 AM, WHOGX5 said:

Honestly, I don't think it'd be that hard to implement. It's just another animation which will play when the users mouse cursor is active in a certain region of the cockpit. I'm pretty sure that creating some feature which will make a part of the pilot body disappear around the cursor would be much more work. Also, I think in order to maximize immersion (which is important IMO), it's always good to make sure the pilot body can be kept fully visible at all times, rather than having to constantly turn it on and off. This feature would also increase the immersion in multiplayer, as you'd not only see other pilots looking around their cockpit, but you'd also see when they are lifting their arms to look at different panels, which makes the pilot body in another players aircraft seem even more like an actual person, rather than just another part of the airframe like it was before the new pilot body.

However, it's also a question of practicality. If I want to do anything that requires a checklist, like starting up my aircraft or fencing in before combat or something, I have two options: Either I constantly turn the pilot body on and off between each item, so I can read each checklist items on the kneeboard between flicking the switches, or I just use the old 2D DCS kneeboard and keep the pilot body completely hidden during all these procedures. Unfortunately, I tend to do the latter because right now it is just so much easier and much more efficient, making the pilot body more of a gimmick than an actual feature for me. I'd just like some way to keep the pilot body active at all times, and simply being able to look around the pilot body and under his arms to manipulate all the switches in the cockpit.

Trust me...it would be ALOT of work. Animations (especially realistic ones) take a lot of work. As much as I would love to see it and it would be awesome, I don't think we would see it happen. With every new module and map that is added, the resource thins out, unless they are employing more and more artists and coders which is not likely to be 1 for 1. Coders/artists/animators are not cheap and the cost of hiring them would quickly outweigh the income from new modules. 

[WHOGX5]

On 7/4/2024 at 9:58 AM, n0pe said:

Trust me...it would be ALOT of work. Animations (especially realistic ones) take a lot of work. As much as I would love to see it and it would be awesome, I don't think we would see it happen. With every new module and map that is added, the resource thins out, unless they are employing more and more artists and coders which is not likely to be 1 for 1. Coders/artists/animators are not cheap and the cost of hiring them would quickly outweigh the income from new modules. 

No, it wouldn't be ALOT of work. We're not talking about some complex full body animations here, where they need to hire a motion capture studio and then have a whole team of animators sit for weeks on end adjusting and finetuning the animations. We're talking about moving the arm from the throttle or stick, and lifting it up in the air. That's it, an animation which could be created by hand, probably in about an hour of work by a professional who knows what they're doing. Of course I don't know how the DCS engine handles animations and how hard it'd be to add, maybe it's a super complex and convoluted process compared to other game engines, but normally this would be quite a menial task to include in a game. Also, similar animations already exist in other ED modules, like the F/A-18C pilot body grabbing the canopy rail handle during the catapult launch. If they can do it in the F/A-18C, I don't see why they couldn't make the same thing for the F-16C? You'd just make the animation be triggered by the mouse cursor being in a specific region of the cockpit, rather than when triggering a catapult launch. And of course, this feature would benefit from being added to all DCS modules as they all could benefit from the physical pilot body not being a hindrance and an obstacle to operating your aircraft.

[Mateo]

Very cool ideas here, not only for F16. I would appreciate any solution from above.

[n0pe]

On 7/8/2024 at 9:56 AM, WHOGX5 said:

No, it wouldn't be ALOT of work. We're not talking about some complex full body animations here, where they need to hire a motion capture studio and then have a whole team of animators sit for weeks on end adjusting and finetuning the animations. We're talking about moving the arm from the throttle or stick, and lifting it up in the air. That's it, an animation which could be created by hand, probably in about an hour of work by a professional who knows what they're doing. Of course I don't know how the DCS engine handles animations and how hard it'd be to add, maybe it's a super complex and convoluted process compared to other game engines, but normally this would be quite a menial task to include in a game. Also, similar animations already exist in other ED modules, like the F/A-18C pilot body grabbing the canopy rail handle during the catapult launch. If they can do it in the F/A-18C, I don't see why they couldn't make the same thing for the F-16C? You'd just make the animation be triggered by the mouse cursor being in a specific region of the cockpit, rather than when triggering a catapult launch. And of course, this feature would benefit from being added to all DCS modules as they all could benefit from the physical pilot body not being a hindrance and an obstacle to operating your aircraft.

A basic movement is still a fair few hours to implement and I am sure in time they will get to it...but what I said was "Animations (especially realistic ones) take a lot of work". I see no value in making a half assed animation in a sim. it either looks as realistic as possible or its wasted time. You might as well hot key to turn off the pilot when you need to use switches than have some janky half assed attempt at animation which would ruin the immersion just as much as just turning it off. 

The good thing is if they can get the wireframe animation for it done, it will not be a lot of work to transfer it to all aircraft