wip Dark, dirty glass and canopy reflection

[Monkey21]

12 hours ago, Lixma 06 said:

That doesn't mean the reflections aren't really there; or shouldn't be there.

And when you're in a dogfight the same thing happens.

When driving/racing in the rain your focus is absolutely not on the rain, spray, wipers etc; you ignore all that. In a sense you don't see it. But just because we're hardwired to ignore all that chaos obstructing our view and focus on our target doesn't mean we should therefore remove those obstructive elements.

 

Do we want DCS to be a simulation of what a gopro sees, or what the pilot sees?

[Lixma 06]

LC, Slippa

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1. I'm almost 80 and my eyes are not what they used to be. So everything that reduces visibility puts extra strain on my eyes and brain, and reduces the fun.

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Would be good to have the option to sort it out. Put it on a slider or something.

No issue with any of those.

2 hours ago, Monkey21 said:

Do we want DCS to be a simulation of what a gopro sees, or what the pilot sees?

What a camera records and what a pilot sees is all but identical - if it wasn't we wouldn't use cameras.

Those reflections aren't an artifact of GoPro - they're very real.

 

[Doughguy]

The reflections on the anton canopy are simply overdone. Lookin backwards its like theyre sandblasted, because they arent transparent enough.

theres tons of wartime footage.

Yes, they had reflections, but they werent so bad. If the perspex wouldve been so bad, that would be a life threatening flaw...

Edited December 17, 2024 by Doughguy

[Slippa]

There’s an easy way to solve this.

Give us animated ground crew. They’ll have one of the chaps polish the canopy. 

[Lixma 06]

27 minutes ago, Doughguy said:

The reflections on the anton canopy are simply overdone. Lookin backwards its like theyre sandblasted, because they arent transparent enough.

theres tons of wartime footage.

Yes, they had reflections, but they werent so bad. If the perspex wouldve been so bad, that would be a life threatening flaw...

Yeah, don't get me wrong - I don't want to defend canopy effects poorly implemented. God knows I've paid my dues in the Anton - I understand the issues.

[Monkey21]

On 12/17/2024 at 8:01 PM, Lixma 06 said:

What a camera records and what a pilot sees is all but identical - if it wasn't we wouldn't use cameras.

Not true, human eyes and the visual processing of our brain is fundamentally different from a digital camera, such are the limitations of meat-based optics. The most relevant factor here is nicely demonstrated by your own video: the depth of field the "sensors" are capable of. As you can see, the depth of field the GoPro is capable of is massive, with both the instrument panel and the terrain in focus, even when the latter is several kilometers away. Your eye, on the other hand, has to refocus when switching from looking inside to outside the cockpit and vice versa, this is why HUDs are focused on infinity, so you don't have to refocus on it when you've been looking outside. Go and try it in your car or something, you'll need to refocus your eyes to read the tach after looking through the windscreen.

Another factor is that we have binocular vision so when focusing on distant objects we're quite good at filtering out unnecessary or obstructive stimulus from close to our eyes; anyone who wears glasses understands this as you don't really "see" the frames unless you're actively trying to, despite them being well within your field of view. Even if you don't wear glasses, your brain removes your nose from the image your eyes feed it, despite it also occupying a significant portion of your FOV. Perhaps the best example of this is the halo in F1, where a big titanium pillar sits right in front of the driver's eyes; ostensibly a terrible idea, except your eye focuses past it and it becomes entirely unobstructive while racing

This means that, while looking outside the cockpit, items close to you are not in focus. Items such as the scratches and reflections on the canopy. This is why I say it depends on what you consider realistic; are we (the player) a camera or a pilot? If we're a camera then the way the scene is rendered is very realistic, but I don't think we should be looking at what a camera sees, I think we should be looking at what a pilot sees.

[Lixma 06]

5 minutes ago, Monkey21 said:

Another factor is that we have binocular vision so when focusing on distant objects we're quite good at filtering out unnecessary or obstructive stimulus from close to our eyes; anyone who wears glasses understands this as you don't really "see" the frames unless you're actively trying to, despite them being well within your field of view. Even if you don't wear glasses, your brain removes your nose from the image your eyes feed it, despite it also occupying a significant portion of your FOV. Perhaps the best example of this is the halo in F1, where a big titanium pillar sits right in front of the driver's eyes; ostensibly a terrible idea, except your eye focuses past it and it becomes entirely unobstructive while racing

You're literally repeating the points I made earlier.

7 minutes ago, Monkey21 said:

This means that, while looking outside the cockpit, items close to you are not in focus. Items such as the scratches and reflections on the canopy. This is why I say it depends on what you consider realistic; are we (the player) a camera or a pilot? If we're a camera then the way the scene is rendered is very realistic, but I don't think we should be looking at what a camera sees, I think we should be looking at what a pilot sees.

You are conflating two different things. What a pilot can see versus what a pilot is focussing on.

I can hold my hand in front of my face and watch the TV through my fingers. It's not ideal but perfectly do-able.

Does that mean if I were to simulate this experience I just erase my hand from existence?

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I think we should be looking at what a pilot sees.

I was in a dogfight last night and during that time I was paying ZERO attention to the cockpit, the wings, the clouds.

According to your scheme we should therefore not model the cockpit, wings, and clouds! This is madness.

 

[Monkey21]

7 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

You're literally repeating the points I made earlier.

 

 Glad we agree that certain obstructions should be blurred then.

 

7 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

According to your scheme we should therefore not model the cockpit, wings, and clouds! This is madness.

Nope; if you actually think that then you've fundamentally misunderstood the argument, but I suspect you're just being flippant.

 

 

[Lixma 06]

6 minutes ago, Monkey21 said:

Nope; if you actually think that then you've fundamentally misunderstood the argument, but I suspect you're just being flippant.

It's not flippant.

Your idea is for the program to somehow determine what the player is focussing on, and then blur (or erase) those things that happen to be in the way.

Even if that was desirable how could it be done?

[Monkey21]

2 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

It's not flippant.

Your idea is for the program to somehow determine what the player is focussing on, and then blur (or erase) those things that happen to be in the way.

Even if that was desirable how could it be done?

No, that's not my idea at all.

My idea is to reduce the intensity of the simulation of reflections, dirt, and scratches on the canopy to better represent what a pilot actually sees when they look through a transparent object. This is because those things are not in focus when a human eye looks beyond them and focuses on the outside world, and therefore appear less prominent. It's as simple as that.

[Nealius]

There was a post I saw a couple days ago with a clear-canopy mod and updated lua file entries to mitigate this but I'm unable to find that post. Anyone know where it might be?

[Dr_Molenbeek]

Afaik Nineline has stated on Discord that the canopy reflection issue has been fixed and that we can now only hope that it will be included in the next update. 

[Art-J]

Duplicated layer + flickering issue or transparency issue? These are separate things (albeit I wouldn't be surprised if latter was related to former).

[Scoll]

9 hours ago, Dr_Molenbeek said:

Afaik Nineline has stated on Discord that the canopy reflection issue has been fixed and that we can now only hope that it will be included in the next update. 

???

Does this mean someone is finally starting to work on dynamic reflection after 3 and a half years? Or are they just adding a button to remove all reflection in the menu?

[JUDAS 1-1 Arnold Rimmer]

19 hours ago, Nealius said:

There was a post I saw a couple days ago with a clear-canopy mod and updated lua file entries to mitigate this but I'm unable to find that post. Anyone know where it might be?

I put a comment on Hoggit with a modification of the old clear canopy mod that goes some way to fixing the issue. It's by no means perfect, but it does improve it a little.

 

It's a comment reply in this post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1hfk6p8/bf109_or_fw190_a8/

 

Let me know if it helps!

Cheers

[Nealius]

3 hours ago, JUDAS 1-1 Arnold Rimmer said:

I put a comment on Hoggit with a modification of the old clear canopy mod that goes some way to fixing the issue. It's by no means perfect, but it does improve it a little.

 

It's a comment reply in this post:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1hfk6p8/bf109_or_fw190_a8/

 

Let me know if it helps!

Cheers

Ah that was it, thanks.

[Slippa]

I thought there was something here too. Maybe I’m thinking of one for the Spit or the Pony? Can’t remember now.

[Derbysieger]

I am really thankful that the flickering is gone and with the clear canopy mod it's actually not too bad but the big red Achtung sign being reflected on the canopy behind a the headrest really should be looked at. It's physically impossible for that reflection to be where it is and it almost completely blocks the view out back, plenty example pictures in this thread. In the Dora you also have a reflection behind the headrest but much less pronounced, almost absent with reflections at 0 and the sun high up in the sky and only grey, not red/white. It should be the same in the Anton as there is no red sign on the back of the headrest. Not being able to do real time reflections is not an excuse for having it behave like this in the Anton. Also consider that there should be a Pilot's body blocking line of sight to the sign!

This is with a modded clear Anton canopy and reflections on 0. It's bearable but still bad, the reflection has no business being where it is:

Dora for comparison, reflections at 0, no clear canopy mod:

Edited December 25, 2024 by Derbysieger

[JUDAS 1-1 Arnold Rimmer]

11 hours ago, Derbysieger said:

I am really thankful that the flickering is gone and with the clear canopy mod it's actually not too bad but the big red Achtung sign being reflected on the canopy behind a the headrest really should be looked at. It's physically impossible for that reflection to be where it is and it almost completely blocks the view out back, plenty example pictures in this thread. In the Dora you also have a reflection behind the headrest but much less pronounced, almost absent with reflections at 0 and the sun high up in the sky and only grey, not red/white. It should be the same in the Anton as there is no red sign on the back of the headrest. Not being able to do real time reflections is not an excuse for having it behave like this in the Anton. Also consider that there should be a Pilot's body blocking line of sight to the sign!

This is with a modded clear Anton canopy and reflections on 0. It's bearable but still bad, the reflection has no business being where it is:

Dora for comparison, reflections at 0, no clear canopy mod:

I've made a further modification to the clear canopy mod, tweaked to the new patch version. Replace the contents of "description.lua" with:

livery = {
    {"FW_190_BRONIGLASS_INT",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_INT",        DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"FW_190_PLEXGLASS_extr",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_PPRBORS",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_gunsight",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_inst_edge",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};
    {"Fw190A-8_DetailsOpacity",    DIFFUSE,    "empty",        true};

    {"FW_190_BRONIGLASS_INT",    SPECULAR,    "yellow",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_INT",        SPECULAR,    "yellow",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_PPRBORS",    SPECULAR,    "yellow",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_gunsight",    SPECULAR,    "yellow",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_inst_edge",    SPECULAR,    "yellow",        true};

    {"FW_190_BRONIGLASS_INT",    14,        "white",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_INT",        14,        "white",        true};
    {"FW_190_PLEXGLASS_extr",    14,        "white",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_PPRBORS",    14,        "white",        true};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_gunsight",    14,        "id_13_D_FILTR",    false};
    {"FW_190_GLASS_inst_edge",    14,        "id_13_D_FILTR",    false};
}

 

Cheers!

JUDAS 1-1 | Arnold Rimmer

 

[_JMax]

In the latest changelog, the Anton was listed with:   Fixed.Cockpit Glass.    What was actually changed? Looks the same to me.

[Doughguy]

Flickering only it seems..

[Doughguy]

Ok, so here´s some pictures of real life examples. most wartime and some restorations.
as you can see, reflections were there. and very drastic.
also, the perspex wasnt fully clear but had some opacity to it which can be clearly seen.
Hower, and that is what ED def got wrong is that the surface isnt "polished" enough and appear very rough and sandblasted.
means, roughtmats are wrong.
reflections on canopies were present but very crisp and only the very bright spots were mostly noticable and obscuring.
if we compare that to current pictures, it should and would be the same.

pics from with the cockpit, especially during flight are scare. i know that there are a few, but i cant recall if they showed reflections.

Also, with the sandblasted "reflections" bein mostly present permanently (!) around the canopy edges, i suspect some normal issues caused by smoothing groups.

Edited December 26, 2024 by Doughguy

[Derbysieger]

1 hour ago, Doughguy said:

Ok, so here´s some pictures of real life examples. most wartime and some restorations.
as you can see, reflections were there. and very drastic.

You can not compare reflections viewed from the outside with what the pilot would perceive. It's even visible in some of your pics with an open cockpit were there are very strong reflections on the outside but you can clearly see through the glass on the inside. Reflections are much less pronounced when looking through a material from a relatively unlit place (like a cockpit, even on a bright day) into a well lit environment. Plenty of modules have reflections on the inside of the cockpit but the only module where it's a big issue is the Anton. The main problem is that the view out the back is completely obscured by a very strong reflection that shouldn't even be there in the first place and an almost opaque rear cockpit that doesnt let you see out the back. Something that is clearly wrong as in the pictures you posted the canopy is very clear all around.

[Skewgear]

4 hours ago, _JMax said:

In the latest changelog, the Anton was listed with:   Fixed.Cockpit Glass.    What was actually changed? Looks the same to me.

The problem highlighted in this thread wasn't fixed. There was a flickering effect in VR that was fixed.

Give it another 4-5 months and this might actually be fixed. Seeing as we told ED during beta testing that the canopy update was bugged, and they ignored the testing reports to release it anyway, I wouldn't expect this bug to be fixed soon or potentially at all.

[Art-J]

Flickering was there in 2D as well, so fix should affect both modes I reckon? I haven't tested the latest version yet.