An F/A-18C Lot 20 Cockpit that Looks and Feels... Right (56° FoV)

[Bowie]

7 minutes ago, BJ55 said:

And this from where is it coming from? Weird, I see a strange mysterious symbol after the FoV value...

Guess what it means...

 

That is the External FoV, in degrees°.

It has no bearing on the .lua file cockpit views - 'Internal view', which is an unknown calculation, or the 'external view', also in degrees°.

But set it to the same '56°', or whatever works the produce a flat 20/20 view on your rig internally, so that they do match.

Three different settings.

 

Bowie

Edited 11 hours ago by Bowie

[Phantom711]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb BJ55:

confirm that a MIL is not a milliradian (wich is MRAD, wrongly abbreviated to mil), but 

Pleeeeaaaase…why are you doing this to me?

The wikipedia link clearly explaines that it is basically the same thing. I can try to find better sources if you feel that wikipedia is not reliable enough. 

[Bowie]

56 minutes ago, Ornithopter said:

As I said earlier I use a 65" screen.  That works out to about 56 inches from left to right.  Using a tape measure, I can see that my eyes are 24" from the screen if I'm leaning in.  I have a huge screen, and I sit very close to it.

Can you tell me what my field of view is, from my eyes to the bezels of my 56" wide screen?

Answer, no you can't!  Because what I call 8th grade math, is what you call a "religious cult" and you clearly don't understand that.

The fact of the matter is that my screen encompasses about 100° angle going from my eyes to the screen bezels.  The math can be confirmed by physically measuring the angles. When looking straight forward, my peripheral vision extends beyond the screen edges by at least 10° on either side, into the room beyond.  Probably have a total vision azimuth of 130°.

Yes...so unless you're a Cyclops, the human FOV is MUCH larger than the 41° you recommend.  You're simply wrong, and you're either too thick or too stubborn to admit it.  Have fun looking through a periscope while you play, though, lol. 

 

You are misunderstanding the 'Internal view' scale.

It is not in 'degrees°', but some other unknown calculation.

The 'External view', however, is in degrees°.

 

In the .lua settings provided, the [1] (Num0) snap view is an external, in degrees°, set to -30°/center, the instrument panel view.

This coincides w/ the dedicated panel view button on the joystick.

Setting the view to panel, and then snapping in, will produce different zooms, until the internal view setting is adjusted to remove it.

For '56°' external, that is '41.0' internal spot on.

 

One can also reverse engineer it, by finding the internal zoom that flattens the view, and then adjusting the external view to match.

The point is - to get a flat, 20/20 view, and then set All your A/C to it, as it is a world view, not specific to the A/C, unlike the eyeball position.

 

Bowie

[BJ55]

11 minutes ago, Bowie said:

That is the External FoV, in degrees°.

No! That's the cockpit FoV, "current field of view" has a meaning.

10 minutes ago, Phantom711 said:

The wikipedia...

...Is often incomplete or uses the wrong sources, you can find more detailed info on specialized shooting websites, since riflescopes use MIL/MRAD/MoA. (example: https://spartanat.com/en/basics-mil-versus-milrad , but there are variations, usually riflescope reticles have a constant spacing between dots, since they're on a plane you're measuring a height instead of an angle)

Edited 11 hours ago by BJ55

[Bowie]

4 minutes ago, BJ55 said:

No! That's the cockpit FoV, "current field of view" has a meaning.

...Is often incomplete or uses the wrong sources, you can find more detailed info on specialized shooting websites, since riflescopes use MIL/MRAD/MoA.

External view, from outside the cockpit.

Set it to a million°, and then jump into an A/C.

Get back to us.

Three different settings.

 

And MIL was a think long before MRAD.

 

Bowie

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Bowie

[BJ55]

Now guess what happens to the SnapViews.lua when I set the FoV degrees and press AltGr+0?

 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by BJ55

[Bowie]

18 minutes ago, BJ55 said:

On the User/Config/View/'SnapViews.lua'...?

Only External view is affected.

Are you on the default .ula in DCS core, which might make a difference, or just havin' some fun?

How are you bringing this up in-game?

 

Bowie

Edited 10 hours ago by Bowie

[BJ55]

No fun here, sorry.

[Ornithopter]

Quote

No fun here, sorry.

BJ55, 

He would have you set that FOV slider to 41°.  Can't understand how someone thinks this realistically captures what a real person can see.  I know what I see when I'm looking at the world around me, including as I'm typing this, and some sliver of a view he recommends just doesn't match my perception of the real world at all.

(setting 41° on that slider and hitting the Save Views key will directly write that value of 41 into the Snapviews.lua at block 13, which is what is being proposed)

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Ornithopter

[Bowie]

16 minutes ago, Ornithopter said:

 

BJ55, 

He would have you set that FOV slider to 41°.  Can't understand how someone thinks this realistically captures what a real person can see.  I know what I see when I'm looking at the world around me, and some sliver of a view he recommends just doesn't match my perception of the real world at all.

(setting 41° on that slider and hitting the Save Views key will directly write that value of 41 into the Snapviews.lua at block 13.)

 

 

What produced the images posted - is 56°/41.0.

How do they look?

 

22 minutes ago, BJ55 said:

No fun here, sorry.

Interesting.

Mine does not.

How are you bringing this up in-game?

And how does it compare to [1] (Num0) snap view, in degrees°?

 

Bowie

Edited 10 hours ago by Bowie

[Ornithopter]

27 minutes ago, Bowie said:

 

What produced the images posted - is 56°/41.0.

How do they look?

 

I already showed you the screenshot, but here it is again.  Its TERRIBLE and a mere sliver of a realistic cockpit view.

Also, Num 0 snapview, which you set to 56° is irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is block 13, which you propose setting to 41°, which can either be set manually in the .lua or with the ingame FOV slider.  That IS the degrees of arc that one would see in the cockpit if they sitting in the virtual position x, y, and z.   If a human has a 130° FOV, then setting this to 41° cuts off our vision to about 1/3.

 

[Bowie]

49 minutes ago, Ornithopter said:

I already showed you the screenshot, but here it is again.  Its TERRIBLE and a mere sliver of a realistic cockpit view.

Also, Num 0 snapview, which you set to 56° is irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is block 13, which you propose setting to 41°, which can either be set manually in the .lua or with the ingame FOV slider.  That IS the degrees of arc that one would see in the cockpit if they sitting in the virtual position x, y, and z.   If a human has a 130° FOV, then setting this to 41° cuts off our vision to about 1/3.

 

First off - Posted the settings right off the .lua that produced the views posted.

Then explained in a recent post how they were used to produce the views posted.

As for the [1]'Num0' snap view, it provides an actual degree° view, that is then set to the panel view location, and is then used to adjust the 'internal view' number to match.

IF - your system is directly posting External FoV to the .lua?

Try setting it to 56°, and see what that produces.

 

On my system, adjusted manually on the .lua, as described:

56°/41.0

SnapViews["FA-18C_hornet"] = {
[1] = {-- player slot 1
    [1] = {--LWin + Num0 : Snap View 0
        viewAngle        = 56.000000,--FOV 60.000000, 56.000000, OEM 63.000000 "FA-18C_hornet"
        viewAngleVertical= 0.000000,--VFOV
        hAngle            = 0.000000,--    (Snap Center)/(Cockpit panel view in)(-30°)
        vAngle            = -30.000000,-- Cockpit View -30.000000, OEM -15.700000
        x_trans            = 0.015000,-- Cockpit View In_Trans 0.015000(60/56°), OEM 0.130000
        y_trans            = -0.017000,-- Cockpit View Up_Trans -0.017000, OEM -0.008300
        z_trans            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View Rt_Trans 0.000000, OEM 0.000000
        rollAngle        = 0.000000,
        cockpit_version    = 0,
    },

...
    [13] = {--default view
        viewAngle        = 41.000000,--FOV 44.180000(60°), 41.000000(56°), OEM 63.000000 "FA-18C_hornet"
        viewAngleVertical= 0.000000,--VFOV
        hAngle            = 0.000000,--    (View Center)/(Cam View Dn-Slow)(-30°)
        vAngle            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View  Angle   0.000000, OEM -15.700000
        x_trans            = 0.015000,-- Cockpit View In_Trans 0.015000(60/56°), OEM 0.130000
        y_trans            = -0.017000,-- Cockpit View Up_Trans -0.017000, OEM -0.008300
        z_trans            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View Rt_Trans 0.000000, OEM 0.000000
        rollAngle        = 0.000000,
        cockpit_version    = 0,
    },

 

 

Bowie

Edited 9 hours ago by Bowie

[Ornithopter]

Enjoy your view, Mr. Magoo.

[Czar]

Bowie, you should get a VR headset.

Narrow FOV in 2D is horrible! for combat. You posted the same stuff on a P-51 thread a while back which we had an exchange of ideas.

I hope no newcomer come to see this and take it as a ''scientific rule'' to only blame DCS itself later.

On 10/26/2025 at 9:59 PM, Kdrum said:

Does this apply to all size monitors?

It doesn't. The smaller the monitor the lower the FOV should be if taken into account OPs rules.

Combat efficiency and able to read what is in the cockpit should come first.

If the cockpit looks small, you should get a bigger screen or closer to the screen, not handicap your peripheral vision which is very important in a combat simulator. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Czar

[BJ55]

9 hours ago, Bowie said:

What produced the images posted - is 56°/41.0.

How do they look?

On which monitor size and distance?

 

9 hours ago, Bowie said:

How are you bringing this up in-game?

During mission press Esc - Options. (I don't use snap views)

Edited 1 hour ago by BJ55