An F4U-1D Cockpit that Looks and Feels... Right (56° FoV)

[Bowie]

An F4U-1D Cockpit that Looks and Feels... Right (56° FoV)

 

This is particularly important in several flying environments for prop fighters:

- Around the Boat/Field: judging pattern distances, turn radius, and glideslope.

- Low-level Dogfighting: the ground/water should be flat viewed and pan smoothly, through rolling scissors.

- High/Low Side gun passes and Ground strafing: requires identification and telemetry at range, accurate judgement of approach arc,

and arrival at engagement point, with a stable gun platform, at gun range - all visual.

 

The Mk.1 Eyeball - is a 1X instrument.

It sees 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL).

20/20 vision.

If one sees less, they are zoomed in with a reduced FoV(Field of View); more, and they are zoomed out with an increased FoV.

 

And this is not about realistic relativity, but scale and proportion.

Take a picture with a 1X lens, and that image will show 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL) regardless of the image size, postage stamp to jumbo-tron, or viewing distance, 30" or 30'.

52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL).

 

To simplify DCS, the FoV of the A/C have been increased to allow panoramic viewing, reducing the need to pan.

But it is no longer 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL), more like Twice that.

This bends the image and reduces the size of objects, near and far, to get then to fit in the single Arcade view.

 

Flat 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle human sight requires that one point their nose in the direction of the new view - Pan.

 

The difficulty lies with determining what is a 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL) view, if desired, from a user perspective.

Subjective analysis - of how known things should look, in relation to other things, at understandable distances.

 

The F4U has a fairly close cockpit:

'Eyeball' location (x/y_trans), is set to '0.0' Magnitude 3 model forward, and top of gunsight 50 MIL's above pipper up.

 

F4U-1D: (56° FoV)

Save a 'RAlt+num0' cockpit view angle to get it implanted in the User 'SnapViews' file.

With Notepad++, open C:/user/"user name"/Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/Config/View/SnapViews.lua.

(make a copy first and rename it. e.g. "SnapViews - OEM.lua".

Find the new "F4U-1D" section.

Change (copy/paste):

SnapViews["F4U-1D"] = {
[1] = {-- player slot 1
    [1] = {--LWin + Num0 : Snap View 0
        viewAngle        = 56.000000,--FOV Cockpit Zoom 56.000000, OEM 85.000000 "F4U-1D"
        viewAngleVertical= 0.000000,--VFOV OEM 0.000000
        hAngle            = 0.000000,--    (Snap View)/(Cockpit panel view in)(-30°)
        vAngle            = -30.000000,-- Cockpit View 0.000000, OEM 70.000000
        x_trans            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View In_Trans 0.000000(56°), OEM 0.150000
        y_trans            = 0.037000,-- Cockpit View Up_Trans 0.037000, OEM 0.030000
        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 Cockpit Zoom 41.000000(56°), OEM 85.000000 "F4U-1D"
        viewAngleVertical= 0.000000,--VFOV OEM 0.000000
        hAngle            = 0.000000,--    (View Center)/(Camera Snap View Down)(-30°)
        vAngle            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View Angle    0.000000, OEM -11.500000
        x_trans            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View In_Trans 0.000000(56°), OEM 0.150000
        y_trans            = 0.037000,-- Cockpit View Up_Trans 0.037000, OEM 0.030000
        z_trans            = 0.000000,-- Cockpit View Rt_Trans 0.000000, OEM 0.000000
        rollAngle        = 0.000000,
        cockpit_version    = 0,
    },

 

Set the Options/System/External field of view to 56° as well, for 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL) External viewing.

 

For the Logitec Extreme 3D Pro, with 4 stick head buttons and a hat:

UL (JOY_BTN5) = "camera view down slow"

UR (JOY_BTN6) = "View Center"

LL (JOY_BTN3) = "view left"

LR (JOY_BTN4) = "view right"

Hat (JOY_BTN_POV1_x) = default pan function

 

This provides:

(UL) Instrument Panel view (-30°), w/ additional down views.

(UR) Gunsight view (dedicated)

(LL) Fast Pan - left (over the shoulder from Gunsight view)

(LR) Fast Pan - right (over the shoulder from Gunsight view)

(Hat) Pan - from any view or location

 

Pilot Views - from the F4U-1D Cockpit: (56° FoV)

Give it a try.

 

Bowie

 

Edited Saturday at 10:30 PM by Bowie

[MigratoryBird]

I'm wondering, is there a way to calculate the right view parameters in DCS based on monitor size and distance to achieve the natural 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 ft./1° of angle view ?

[Bowie]

1 hour ago, MigratoryBird said:

I'm wondering, is there a way to calculate the right view parameters in DCS based on monitor size and distance to achieve the natural 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 ft./1° of angle view ?

It's 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle (17.5 MIL), as the former was an oversight.

And, as mentioned, any image - is unaffected proportionally by either size or viewing distance.

Only relative realistic size.

Where, say, a 3" gauge is actually three inches.

Standard monitors run out of real-estate pretty fast at that rate.

So scaling produces the same image that fits.

 

Bowie

Edited Saturday at 09:16 PM by Bowie