Aircraft Visibility

[lxsapper]

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. But of course objects are going to look smaller on your monitor if you have a relatively smaller monitor. They will look the size relative to the FOV you are using (IMAGINE THAT!) The only way the object will look the same aparent size as it would in real life is if your in game FOV is set to FOV your display actually covers in your (real world) view. And yes that will be too danm narrow for most people. It's too danm narrow for me and I'm using a 32'' TV at about a meter distance.

This isn't a problem with the DCS engine it's what any half-assed 3d engine would do. Now you could argue that you rather have some sort of smart scalling as falcon uses to overcome monitor size and pixel density limitations, and that allright. But it's also allright for a developer who feels more "purist" about this feature to refuse to implement it. I don't know what ED's take on it would be. I have rather mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it helps a ton to overcome our current hardware limitations, can't wait for a big (say 65'' curved) affordable 4k TV. On the other hand it's a cheat and meesses up distance perception, as it alters the relative size an object should be at a certain distance.

[Weltensegler]

On oculus dud came into my company half a year ago and presented the 1080p version...for a picture wrapped around most of your vision...NOT sufficient! its like putting your nose on a 1080p TV.

Your eyes draw focus to the LEDs and lines inbetween.

They did plan to go for retina display etc and up the resolution but that was before facebook took over.

Who knows how fast that will progress.

But with 1080p I will definitely not get an oculus!

I rather stick to multi monitor solutions or 4K sceens.

[lxsapper]

Is it possible to somehow balance between FOV and ZOOM. Real pilot not zooming when he move head forward-back and not lose to much FOV? If I expressed properly?

 

A real pilot is not zooming when moving his head forward (as stated before) you hud will look a lot bigger because it wen't from beeing 50-70cm away or whathave you, to beeing 20-30cm (this figure are not exact just an example), do it with your hand, with your arm streached and then right againt your face, it will also work with the letters on a book you are holding. But moving your head forward 50cm won't do squat for the aparent size of a target that is 10m wide and 3km away!

[lxsapper]

By the way one thing I find a ton of help in a dogfight (I may be stating the obvious here) is to use a moderate amount of smothing in you trackIR profile, the view will feel a little less responsive but you will apreciate the view "stabilization" when trying to keep sight on a fast manovering target that is 600m away and "backgrounded" by the ground.

[SharpeXB]

I can't imagine what this "smart scaling" from Falcon is but it sounds tremendously awkward. Changing the scale of objects independent of distance would make estimating range impossible.

[lxsapper]

It's just a smart upscaling of objects based on distance that gets smaller to non-existent as an object gets neared to you. It works surprisingly well and is not that noticeable (it's not very blatant) it's also optional. But it is a controversial feature and like you say it can interfear with distance estimation.

This is actually if I remember correctly a rather new feature in falcon (since OF or maybe even the new BMS), because falcon used to have (since at least falcon 3) fixed scalling options that went something like 1x 1.25x 1.50x 2x. That WAS a big mess on distance estimation!

[zaelu]

3. Increasing further the zoom to get the actual size of 3.2 cm :

 

I think this is close to what normal view is but just a part of it as it doesn't fit on a monitor.

[Bucic]

So, in essence, someone who sees a P51 in reality at 300 meters, should see it appear approximately 3.2 centimeters long at 1 meter distance (and about 1.6 centimeters at 50 centimeters distance).

Why would one see it smaller (1.6cm vs 3.2cm) at a smaller distance (0.5m vs 1m)?

 

As a general reply to your post:

Could you briefly explain what are you trying to prove? Is it: Apparent sizes of objects in DCS (linear size of objects on my display) don't correspond to apparent sizes of real objects?

You do realize that the apparent size is determined only by the in-game FOV and the distance of your head from your display, right?

Edited August 20, 2014 by Bucic

[airdoc]

Why would one see it smaller (1.6cm vs 1cm) at a smaller distance (0.5m vs 1m)?

 

As a general reply to your post:

Could you briefly explain what are you trying to prove? Is it: Apparent size of objects in DCS (linear size of objects on my display) don't correspond to apparent sizes of real objects?

You do realize that the apparent size is determined only by the in-game FOV and the distance of your head from your display, right?

 

I 'm not sure what you mean with your first question. The quote has 3.2 and 1.6 cm.

 

Yes, as you say, this is exactly what I 'm talking about. I 'm saying that the apparent size in standard view is about 1/3 of the real one (at a 24 inch monitor). It comes close to the real one in ~40 inch monitors though. It's essentially an approach to the notion of smart scaling. Distortion of apparent size of aircraft, while retaining an acceptably wide FOV and not having to zoom in to get a similarly big target. Sure there are other important factors that kick in, but the apparent size is pretty much the most crucial one. Luminance, contrast, resolution, reflections, etc, are essential, but not as much contributory.

 

EDIT : apparent size is determined as well by monitor dimensions (not resolution though, unless higher resolution comes with a different FOV)

[airdoc]

I think this is close to what normal view is but just a part of it as it doesn't fit on a monitor.

 

that would be my guess as well

[theGozr]

All we need is a new shade reflections and optimized dot range contrast .. not of this scaling thing .

[SharpeXB]

"Smart scaling" just sounds awful. It was used for games that looked like this:

 

The world has evolved since then ;)

[Bucic]

The world has evolved since then ;)

Ignorance hasn't though :music_whistling:

[Bucic]

I 'm not sure what you mean with your first question. The quote has 3.2 and 1.6 cm.

I've edited my previous post.

 

Yes, as you say, this is exactly what I 'm talking about. I 'm saying that the apparent size in standard view is about 1/3 of the real one (at a 24 inch monitor). It comes close to the real one in ~40 inch monitors though. It's essentially an approach to the notion of smart scaling. Distortion of apparent size of aircraft, while retaining an acceptably wide FOV and not having to zoom in to get a similarly big target. Sure there are other important factors that kick in, but the apparent size is pretty much the most crucial one. Luminance, contrast, resolution, reflections, etc, are essential, but not as much contributory.

 

EDIT : apparent size is determined as well by monitor dimensions (not resolution though, unless higher resolution comes with a different FOV)

So you've confirmed my suspicions. You've used many correct statements to back a fundamentally invalid notion. Your notion is almost equivalent to why houses get bigger as I climb to higher altitude :) To be clear, my intention is not to put you in line with the guys I've bashed previously.

 

Your comparisons would only be valid if you have had matched you're in-game FOV to the actual FOV of your head-display setup. To simplify, you would have had to decrease your in-game FOV until the apparent size of e.g. the reflector gunsight matches the real size of the reflector gunsight.

 

But I'd see very litle on my display then. Not even the entire cockpit frame.

Physics. It's eaither high object size OR high FOV. And the difference you claim (3 times) is certainly not within the scope of smart scaling.

 

PS. Has this topic been merged with the other one? :huh:

Edited August 20, 2014 by Bucic

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

flying pretty much only the p51 and now the fw190, i was very surprised finding out, that in dcs, a F-14 is easily visible out to at least 35km distance as a black obvious dot at a FOV of 70° on my 22" 1920x1080 monitor...

while p51s and fw190s in most cases just disappear at a distance between 5-7km...

 

i think especially with the p51 and fw190 the lod models should be reconsidered.(although spotting a F14 easily at 35km doesnt sound right either)

i know in real life it can be damn hard to spot something, most of the time they will appear uncomfortably close.

but, given the right conditions, after you have spotted them, its easy to keep visual on them if you have the time to focus on them.and they also just dont disappear that quickly anymore.more importantly they do not resemble a single dot that quickly, and that with a FOV of the human eye(~180°).you can watch the shape out to a very far distance once it is spotted.

 

in my opinion, dcs should try to simulate what a pilot would see in real life on a standard screen with 1920x1080(i guess thats standard within the flight sim community) without zooming in!

but that also means that black obvious dots should not be that common.

 

i think smart scaling, if done correctly and subtle could be part of the solution.

[airdoc]

I've edited my previous post.

 

Regarding the question in your previous post, i think that you misunderstood what i wrote. i said that :

"Even if i adjust my seat to move closer to the monitor, at 50 centimeters, then I still get about half the image size I should be seeing compared to reality", meaning that at 1 meter distance from the monitor i get an apparent size of 9mm with the standard zoom; respectively, if i move my seat to 50cm from the screen i would get 9x2=18mm apparent size (note that although the actual size in the monitor doesn't change, the degrees of apparent size would double at 50cm, so for practical reasons i 'm sticking with length measurements) which is roughly half of the 3.2cm which should be in reality. I should have expressed it more directly though, it's a bit vague the way it is written, sorry for the confusion.

 

 

Your comparisons would only be valid if you have had matched you're in-game FOV to the actual FOV of your head-display setup. To simplify, you would have had to decrease your in-game FOV until the apparent size of e.g. the reflector gunsight matches the real size of the reflector gunsight.

 

Actually, that's similar to what is going on. The realistic apparent size was estimated for 1m distance and then the FOV was progressively increased from standard zoom, that yielded 9mm apparent size, to 1.6cm of apparent size at the 2nd pic and finally to what should be realistic at 3.2cms. As a matter of fact, if I look at full screen at the 3rd pic at my monitor, the cockpit structures drawn size seem to be close to the actual real life dimensions, that's why I get such a narrow field of view. I don't know the actual gunsight dimensions, but if you do know them and have a monitor of 24 inches (or similar), you can test them yourself to see if they are close. It would be a verification that the estimates are correct. If you find them largely dissimilar, please correct me.

 

You are right in your conclusion, that it is expected that in order to get the same apparent size, the FOV would be very narrow. The pictures shown are just an attempt at quantifying how smaller we see things in our desktop compared to RL, which for a 24 inch monitor is about 3 times smaller using standard zoom, and provides a rough estimate of how much better a bigger monitor would be and very crudely how scaled up targets should be : i 'm not suggesting that 3 times is the way to go, because this would introduce a very large bias in bigger monitors plus players can always lean forward half a meter to view better, which roughly doubles apparent size.

 

I guess the moderators merged the topics :)

 

cheers

[Nage]

I`m not pro or against it but i have to admit that flying jet or Ka-50 i can spot a plane far away. I can see either a dot or a smoke trail. I did not flew against pistons to tell.

Just to compare to real life seems impossible to me cuz you would need to compress eyesight in reality to a 22 or 24" screen. Maybe that is the reason we seem to have objects looking under scaled and small. That`s why we have zoom.

Also in reality i have problem spotting commercial jets if it is cloudy and if i drive and don`t have my eyes on "target" whole time so it takes time to spot them again.

 

RoF had some sort of smart scaling where you see planes miles away but i don`t know would it work here????

 

 

p.s. Hail to DBS :)

[MacEwan]

"Smart scaling" just sounds awful. It was used for games that looked like this:

 

The world has evolved since then ;)

 

It still hasn't evolved far enough. Until we can get a 1:1 representation of the real world in game there will always be the need for techniques like smart scaling. Technology can't match real life contrast, resolution, number of colours, etc... not to mention that the real world is 3D and not a 2D picture on a computer monitor (depth perception). It may not be 1999 anymore but we still have a long way to go and as much as I love DCS, it is still far from a true to life flight simulation.

[Wolf Rider]

 

~

~

 

You are right in your conclusion, that it is expected that in order to get the same apparent size, the FOV would be very narrow.

 

 

Which is what many others have said and is pretty much a given... trouble is; the flyer would flying around in the equivalent of "tunnel vision". This has come up many, many times before...

 

The pictures shown are just an attempt at quantifying how smaller we see things in our desktop compared to RL, which for a 24 inch monitor is about 3 times smaller using standard zoom, and provides a rough estimate of how much better a bigger monitor would be and very crudely how scaled up targets should be : i 'm not suggesting that 3 times is the way to go, because this would introduce a very large bias in bigger monitors plus players can always lean forward half a meter to view better, which roughly doubles apparent size.

 

 

 

A couple of things... not everyone is going sit at the specified distance away from the screen... they are going to sit at the distance they are comfortable with. Adding to that; head tracking would have to be mandatory with a constant tunnel vision, many won't be happy without the ability to be situational aware - so they're back to zooming out, and with going to a larger screen - they are more than likely to sit a bit further away from the screen again, meaning back to Square One

 

:cry:

 

 

iEdit...

Most, not all, but most flyers will position the screen to be taking up about 60° of their field of vision�, making an ingame FoV of 60° (some go a bit larger to 75°) about right for general use... then to zoom in or out from there. careful though because the zoom in or out may throw in ingame eyepoint out in relation to the cockpit position

Edited August 21, 2014 by Wolf Rider

[SharpeXB]

RoF had some sort of smart scaling where you see planes miles away but i don`t know would it work here????

I don't believe RoF has smart scaling. It does have very good distance rendering of aircraft, you can identify them from miles away very well.

[Bucic]

...

All understood but I simply refuse to discuss it further because, if I don't miss anything, it's a physical limitation. Not software and not hardware limitation.

 

Adjust in-game FOV so that it matches your head&display setup***. Now apparent sizes of objects (angular sizes would be a correct and unambiguous term) in-game vs real should match.

 

If you say it doesn't then somethings fishy as I can't think of any optical or rendering method that would allow that to happen, even if the devs wanted to. If I'd have to guess I'd say you fail to accomplish the ***. At 1m and 24" display the real FOV is ~40 degrees.

[Haukka81]

I don't believe RoF has smart scaling. It does have very good distance rendering of aircraft, you can identify them from miles away very well.

 

DOT's , it just draws those planes always more than one pixel size if they are far :smilewink:

[Gh0st007]

 

Wont it be good ? this is what catch the eyes attention the movement and the glares.. :)

 

That's one awesome picture!! I do agree

[ron533]

VBS3 fast air ops.

 

Watch from 0:49

The implementation of sub pixel rendering in VBS3, a military standard simulator / ArmA3 derivative, with air operations.

[Buckeye]

Watch from 0:49

The implementation of sub pixel rendering in VBS3, a military standard simulator / ArmA3 derivative, with air operations.

 

Good lord that would be AWESOME!