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

[Bowie]

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

(Corrected for Dimensional oversight)

 

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

It sees in 52.5 ft. @ 1,000 yd./1° of angle.

Or, 17.5 MIL/1°.  (and that's MIL: 1' @ 1,000', not MRAD)

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 a 17.5 MIL/1° view, 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 presented in that image.

 

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/1°), 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 17.5 MIL/1° 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/1°) view, if desired, from a user perspective.

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

 

F/A-18C Lot 20: (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 "FA-18C_hornet" section.

Change (copy/paste):

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,
    },

 

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 F/A-18C Lot 20 Cockpit: (56° FoV)

Give it a try.

 

Bowie

Edited yesterday at 12:11 AM by Bowie

[Q3ark]

2 hours ago, Bowie said:

Flat 17.5 MIL human sight requires that one point their nose in the direction of the new view - Pan.

I don’t understand what you mean by “17.5 MIL human sight”. Our eyes have roughly a 200° horizontal field of view, so we don’t need to ‘pan’ around like a camera lens.

[Bowie]

49 minutes ago, Q3ark said:

I don’t understand what you mean by “17.5 MIL human sight”. Our eyes have roughly a 200° horizontal field of view, so we don’t need to ‘pan’ around like a camera lens.

17.5 MIL/1° view.

A flat, undistorted 17.5' @ 1,000' for every degree° of view angle in the image.

If there is more, or less, the image has been distorted with magnification (zoom).

And that distorts the relationship b/t proportional size and distance, as well as to concave/convex the image.

 

And we are constantly panning, pointing our nose at the view, and then roaming that view until another is desired.

Lots of different places to look when in a cockpit, especially in combat.

During combat tours, WWII fighter pilots would increase their shirt neck size, by an average of three sizes.

Pointing their noses where they needed to look, which was about everywhere, all the time they were in the air.

 

Bowie

Edited yesterday at 12:05 AM by Bowie

[Tenkom]

9 hours ago, Q3ark said:

I don’t understand what you mean by “17.5 MIL human sight”. Our eyes have roughly a 200° horizontal field of view, so we don’t need to ‘pan’ around like a camera lens.

He just means that if you look at two points that are 1000 units away from you and are separated by 17,5units they will be 1° degree apart in your field of vision. If you set the FOV in the game to match this things will look "right". Just look at the screenshots and you can tell.

Using your calculator input "1000*sin(1°)" and you will see where the number comes from.

However. This is not really the correct way to do it if you want realism. Then you need to use a FOV calculator and take in account the size of your monitor and the distance you are away from it.

For me it makes no diffrence because both ways create a very impractical image that will be way too narrow.

[Q3ark]

Yeah I know that there are 17.78 mills in a degree. But what he’s saying isn’t correct and I was hoping he would explain what he meant. He seems hung up on human vision being only 17.5 mills or one degree wide at 1000’ which  is untrue. The human eye has a field of view of 200 degrees which is 3556 mills. His field of view settings are only correct for his size monitor at his eye to screen distance, it would be unique per users setup if you wanted to get it 100% accurate. 

[Tenkom]

2 hours ago, Q3ark said:

He seems hung up on human vision being only 17.5 mills or one degree wide at 1000’ which  is untrue.

That's not at all what he's saying.

2 hours ago, Q3ark said:

The human eye has a field of view of 200 degrees which is 3556 mills.

Completey irrelevant.

 

2 hours ago, Q3ark said:

His field of view settings are only correct for his size monitor at his eye to screen distance, it would be unique per users setup if you wanted to get it 100% accurate. 

Correct but not what he's talking about.

[Q3ark]

19 minutes ago, Tenkom said:

That's not at all what he's saying.

 

19 minutes ago, Tenkom said:

Completey irrelevant.

 

19 minutes ago, Tenkom said:

Correct but not what he's talking about.

That is much clearer now, thanks for helping me with that detailed explanation. 
 

I want to make clear I’m not arguing or saying he’s wrong, I’m trying to understand exactly what he’s talking about because it doesn’t make a lot of sense as he has written it. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Q3ark

[Ornithopter]

Let me get this straight...Yesterday, the OP didn't like the feedback on the previous 6 page thread, so he just deleted the entire topic, and reposted it almost verbatim?

Wow.  

[Q3ark]

17 minutes ago, Ornithopter said:

Let me get this straight...Yesterday, the OP didn't like the feedback on the previous 6 page thread, so he just deleted the entire topic, and reposted it almost verbatim?

Wow.  

Same as here but I can’t figure out what he means there either. 

 

 

[Ornithopter]

2 minutes ago, Q3ark said:

Same as here but I can’t figure out what he means there either. 

 

 

The Corsair thread wasn't even the now-deleted thread I was talking about!

That means it is at least the THIRD time he posted the same bad advice before! 

[BIGNEWY]

Folks its just an opinion post, it can be ignored or you can discuss, but please stay on topic and keep to the rules. 

You do not always have to agree, you are free to say you dont agree, just keep it respectful, the OP has an opinion, he may not be right and that is ok. I have already had to moderate the now deleted thread, lets not start again in this one. 

 

[Vakarian]

Maybe moderators could tag the threads as "opinion", maaaaaybe it could help. OP shoving his opinion as the fact on multiple subforums certainly isn't helpful and may confuse new people around here.

[Tenkom]

3 minutes ago, Ornithopter said:

The Corsair thread wasn't even the now-deleted thread I was talking about!

That means it is at least the THIRD time he posted the same bad advice before! 

It's not bad advice. He's just giving you the settings to get a unmagnified look to the image. It's not his fault no one seems to understand it. Maybe he's wording it badly?
Now I wouldn't say it's particularly usefull though. Since it will be way too narrow for most people unless you are running mulitple screens.

[Ornithopter]

Too bad he deleted the previous 6 page thread, or you would see his recommendations were discredited as impractical.  Not only that, the modifications to the Snapviews.lua don't even create a too-narrow 56°, they actually specify an even more narrow 41° FOV as the default.  He has cut and pasted "Give it a Try" about 50 times, across three threads, lol, so do it if you want and see what you get!

The only way I can see this being "good" advice, is if you were driving a Tiger tank and trying to recreate looking out of a view slit.

Edited 11 hours ago by Ornithopter

[BIGNEWY]

51 minutes ago, Vakarian said:

Maybe moderators could tag the threads as "opinion"

done, tagged as an opinion thread 

folks as mentioned, if you don't agree its fine, its not worth getting bent out of shape about. 

best regards

bignewy

[Q3ark]

I didn’t mean to kick off n argument, I was just asking someone to explain what he was getting at as it’s not clearly explained. As written it’s a lot of word salad. 

[BJ55]

I have an opinion...

...Time to spend some income for a curved 49"!!!

[rob10]

I don't have a problem if someone wants to post an unpopular opinion.  I DO have a problem if it's OK for them to delete a thread that has opposing opinions and immediately repost their original post without any of previous opposing opinions.  If you want to remove it totally, fine.  Delete and immediate repost I disagree with.