Aircraft Visibility

[RagnarDa]

I've noticed that some of the airplanes has missing LOD's at certain distances, the Tu-95 for example. Try flying towards it and you will see that it disappears at a certain distance and then reappear again.

[doveman]

Now while flying in real more you go up more the colors and light are contrasted the sun is there for sure :) Now HDR which I do not care at the same extent add visual on what is suppose to be dark and make it very unrealistic .. adding HDR for the glare would be great .. the sparks that make the vision more real but that about it.. So yes the glares and light reflections that are visible from far is the most important not the size !.. also a better ground lightning would change the whole experience by a 1000%

 

It's encouraging that the EDGE screenshots I've seen have the sky looking much more like that photo (i.e. realistic) than current DCS does, so hopefully with the new engine they'll be able to give us accurate glare and reflections to help us spot stuff :)

[theGozr]

Doveman I really hope :)

[HellToupee]

Yes they are, resolution is the problem, smart scaling is the fix.

 

Until 8K has become gaming standard there is a definite need for such systems.

 

It is not just resolution but screen size, infact screen size is the bigger issue and the one that scaling trys to overcome because even at higher resolution the aircraft will still be very tiny at normal fov.

[ericoh]

It is not just resolution but screen size, infact screen size is the bigger issue and the one that scaling trys to overcome because even at higher resolution the aircraft will still be very tiny at normal fov.

 

Of course, you cant keep size entirely out of the equation, a 12 inch 4k screen wont do it. :D

[CoBlue]

Common ED fix this please!

[NineLine]

Was at the local airshow last night, man, its hard to pick up planes in certain conditions, even ones that are painted to be seen...

[USARStarkey]

Was at the local airshow last night, man, its hard to pick up planes in certain conditions, even ones that are painted to be seen...

 

and yet, i can make out fighter jets at 30,000 from the ground.

[NineLine]

and yet, i can make out fighter jets at 30,000 from the ground.

 

I said certain conditions, yet you choose to generalize... :thumbup:

[USARStarkey]

I said certain conditions, yet you choose to generalize... :thumbup:

 

Just clarifying that normally you can see planes quite far off. For example , the F-15 and F-16 are rated as being easily visible at over 6 miles. I know your being specific, I just want to make sure were on the same page with this issue. :)

[NineLine]

Just clarifying that normally you can see planes quite far off. For example , the F-15 and F-16 are rated as being easily visible at over 6 miles. I know your being specific, I just want to make sure were on the same page with this issue. :)

 

I wouldnt say we are, you statement was way to general to be sure...

[USARStarkey]

I wouldnt say we are, you statement was way to general to be sure...

 

Yes it is a generalization man, however that doesnt make DCS even close to realistic. No, you wont always seen planes at 6 miles out, and a P-51 or 190 is much smaller than a F-15, but the current modeling is just plain nonsense. As has been pointed out, the engine renders too little contrast to make out planes against any background and it is far too difficult to see things at distance. Getting into an argument over generalization vs specifics seems silly to me though so Id rather avoid it :) I just jumped on your statement because I feel that anything that sounds like defense of the current render is a step backwards.

[NineLine]

I wasnt defending anything, it was a statement towards the discussion.

[USARStarkey]

I wasnt defending anything, it was a statement towards the discussion.

 

Right I got ya, I was just clarifying why I responded to it.

[MacEwan]

OK lets all kiss and make up now. We all want DCS to be the best sim experience possible. We can all agree that yes in some conditions it is difficult to spot anything, especially an aircraft, and DCS should reflect this in the sim.

 

That being said, we can also all agree that there needs to be some improvement on spotting in DCS. More contrast, light reflections, small amounts of smart scaling, etc... Whatever technique ED decides to go with we can all agree there needs to be something done.

[NineLine]

The airshow was quite eye opening, looking at thigs with this issue in mind, reflections/glare/colour are a big part, less than scaling in my mind right now...

[NineLine]

I've noticed that some of the airplanes has missing LOD's at certain distances, the Tu-95 for example. Try flying towards it and you will see that it disappears at a certain distance and then reappear again.

 

if you remember which aircraft, feel free to open a bug report about it, it would be helpful for sure...

[Kuky]

I will say my opinion once more:

 

- Smart scaling is not the answer, with one objects increased in size and other not (rest of the world) the speed of increased size object is off (it looks slower that it is)

 

- People playing on monitor do not use true FoV... for example... you sit in a seat certain distance from the monitor, and the angle measured that monitor FoV takes is smaller than what most people use in game (true FoV your eye sees might be around 30° but in game you use FoV of around 80-90°) This works alright for objects that are in game close to your virtual eye... but further away they are their relative size (compared to what your eye would see in real world) is reduced. If you want to test, set in game 30° FoV and see how far you can make out a plane.

 

- last issue is lighting (in game technique used for this is specular I believe - correct me if I'm wrong). Close LOD's of aircraft have it done well (newer models at least) but LOD's further away lose this effect. I have shown to ED 2 images of some very large mirrors high up in mountain, and image has them reflecting sunlight. One image is from close up to the mirrors, second is of from far away. Both images show the reflected bright light spot same size in both instances, yet the mirrors are "smaller" from far out (object up close takes more of your eye FoV). This is the most important thing we need in game... which is missing.

[NineLine]

Only place I think scaling should be used is for maybe would be when the scale of the LODs gets to 0, that a colored pixel or two could be used, atleast till the aircraft gets to a point of being impossible to visually pick up. Even then, the pixel shouldnt be a static colour, but dynamic based on a number of factors... shade, sun, color of paint, etc... I dont know the performance demands of that though...

 

 

Edit: Check that... I was just putting my thoughts together about all this from what I took in yesterday... I could see a reason to use scaling with things like lights... for example, the Snowbirds (Canadian demo team) have a light on the nose of their aircraft, this seemed to maintain its size even at a farther distance... so certain glare effects and lights might benefit from scaling...

Edited August 10, 2014 by NineLine

[Kuky]

so certain glare effects and lights might benefit from scaling...

 

Yes, that's pretty much it. Only thing that will make that light eventually stop being visible is distortion due to air particles, or other bright objects (or light reflections) that overwhelm the smaller lights.

 

The NAV lights have exact same issue as with sunglare, they are just textures that reduce in size as they get further away, and withing 2-3Km they just "fade"out into surrounding terrain textures.

[USARStarkey]

For me I think scaling would only be part of the solution. Personally I think the issue is mainly with contrast. Even when planes are within DCS visual range, they can be unreasonably hard to make out due to the current engines method of rendering contrast. Sith would be possible for you to post a image of a 190 or 51 agaisnt the ground in EDGE from like 1-3 miles away compared to the current engine?

[NineLine]

I am not allowed to share images from anything in development. Not to mention I dont expect big changes till we see new maps and the engine has been fully optimized...

[lunaticfringe]

Yes it is a generalization man, however that doesnt make DCS even close to realistic. No, you wont always seen planes at 6 miles out, and a P-51 or 190 is much smaller than a F-15, but the current modeling is just plain nonsense. As has been pointed out, the engine renders too little contrast to make out planes against any background and it is far too difficult to see things at distance. Getting into an argument over generalization vs specifics seems silly to me though so Id rather avoid it :) I just jumped on your statement because I feel that anything that sounds like defense of the current render is a step backwards.

 

The contrast problem isn't the rendering engine; it's the monitor it's displayed on. The volume of light coming into your eyeball is far higher when out of doors on even a marginally clear day (and even in many overcast conditions) than your monitor can ever express. Plus, you're dealing with falloff at range caused by particles in the air that generates decreasing contrast as distance increases; this is the reason the horizon appears more gray than your immediate surroundings, and the basis of most modern camouflage schemes.

 

Your eyes see by both contrast *and* motion, and relative motion is more important at range; You can have a dark spot out on the horizon that the eye cannot focus on, , but a grey one with movement that it will track. But 90% of us are working on screens less than 24 inches wide, expecting to sight through a field of view nearing 160+ degrees; you can't compress a net closest frame of reference encompassing nearly 20 feet at your average focusing distance to a monitor down to a mere 24 (or fewer) inches and expect to have things detectable in the same fashion.

[USARStarkey]

The contrast problem isn't the rendering engine; it's the monitor it's displayed on. The volume of light coming into your eyeball is far higher when out of doors on even a marginally clear day (and even in many overcast conditions) than your monitor can ever express. Plus, you're dealing with falloff at range caused by particles in the air that generates decreasing contrast as distance increases; this is the reason the horizon appears more gray than your immediate surroundings, and the basis of most modern camouflage schemes.

 

Your eyes see by both contrast *and* motion, and relative motion is more important at range; You can have a dark spot out on the horizon that the eye cannot focus on, , but a grey one with movement that it will track. But 90% of us are working on screens less than 24 inches wide, expecting to sight through a field of view nearing 160+ degrees; you can't compress a net closest frame of reference encompassing nearly 20 feet at your average focusing distance to a monitor down to a mere 24 (or fewer) inches and expect to have things detectable in the same fashion.

 

 

Good points, I didnt know all of that about vision. But I wonder, if we can do smart scaling to compensate for the human eyes acuity vs pixels on a screen, could not something artificial be done by the game engine?

[NineLine]

This is a big deal. Color, resolution, and such all have soooo many factors... not everyone sees colors the same... so I could show you something that looks good to me, and be completely terrible for you... its a slippery slope.

 

The contrast problem isn't the rendering engine; it's the monitor it's displayed on. The volume of light coming into your eyeball is far higher when out of doors on even a marginally clear day (and even in many overcast conditions) than your monitor can ever express. Plus, you're dealing with falloff at range caused by particles in the air that generates decreasing contrast as distance increases; this is the reason the horizon appears more gray than your immediate surroundings, and the basis of most modern camouflage schemes.

 

Your eyes see by both contrast *and* motion, and relative motion is more important at range; You can have a dark spot out on the horizon that the eye cannot focus on, , but a grey one with movement that it will track. But 90% of us are working on screens less than 24 inches wide, expecting to sight through a field of view nearing 160+ degrees; you can't compress a net closest frame of reference encompassing nearly 20 feet at your average focusing distance to a monitor down to a mere 24 (or fewer) inches and expect to have things detectable in the same fashion.