Camera Shake

[Frogisis]

So in FC3, when you fire your cannon in a dogfight, the camera shakes in a gratifyingly powerful way, conveying a tactile sense of the action of the gun as you spray the enemy with bullets, but in proper DCS: A-10C, your view stays stone-still when you fire the much more powerful GAU, which you are sitting directly above.

 

I'm wondering if there's a way to import that same parameter into that jet, so I get that same tactile sense of the gun firing, as if it were transmitting vibrations up through the seat. Anyone have any leads or know anything?

 

Maybe in real life it's so thoroughly stabilized you don't really feel anything, but since you can still hear it, you know some vibration is getting through.

[eFirehawk]

I would also like to know this. Even if the shaking isn't realistic, some things must be exaggerated to give a little more immersion since we're not feeling everything that a pilot would feel inside the cockpit.

[tarracta]

Ahhhh "Cam Shaking" ... the instrument of C-movie-directors to create immersion to cheap action sequences .. bahh... no!

 

I already see it in some arcade-games and it always appears terrible. If at all, then you have to shake the plane (like in turbluences) but never the camera...

[Ryan Barnes]

Could look good if done correctly... see around 3:00 mark

 

[Cruiser18]

Don't have time to look up the proper names for the systems, but the A-10 has a switch that you flip that helps stabilize the A-10 for when you fire the cannon so you don't go all over the place.

 

Also remember that the Gau-8 fires at a much faster rate, almost constantly, contrary to the machine guns on other jets that has a small interval between firings that allows the opposite forces to affect the plane. The Gau-8 is more like a constant force that is countered by the stabilizer switch, hence the lag of shaking. The A-10 is also a much heavier and more stable platform than the other "flimsy" jets.

[Frogisis]

Don't have time to look up the proper names for the systems, but the A-10 has a switch that you flip that helps stabilize the A-10 for when you fire the cannon so you don't go all over the place.

Right, naturally it has that stabilizer, but:

Also remember that the Gau-8 fires at a much faster rate, almost constantly, contrary to the machine guns on other jets that has a small interval between firings that allows the opposite forces to affect the plane. The Gau-8 is more like a constant force that is countered by the stabilizer switch, hence the lag of shaking.

This is actually a very good point.

 

eFirehawk already mentioned this, but what I'm going for isn't so much a literal sense of one's view shaking so much as conveying the sense of the firing of the gun being transmitted up through the seat, using the only two senses current sims are capable of engaging: sight and sound.

This fanbase has a tendency to be overly literal, which I think is ironically a detriment to realism, given that so many nuances are cut off from us given the nature of the medium. Flight models and avionics are a matter of research and engineering, but the sounds and visual effects need to be pure art, to truly engage with people's sense of reality.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Frogisis

[Frogisis]

Agreed, aircraft should shake, not your head.

 

I agree completely, but the only way we have in this medium to show that is in the camera.

[eFirehawk]

I'd like to make it clear that being realistic or not, I would actually like to have my camera shaking a little more when the A-10C fires, simply for the sake of added immersion. I assume the pilot would feel at least some vibration on his body, and the only way that the players can get a bit of this feeling, in my opinion, is to have something visual telling that there is some shaking going on, and this has to be a little exaggerated. :)

 

But while we're on the subject, check this:

 

at 0:17, when the plane fires, the camera shakes and some parts of the cockpit also shake and move! :) ...and make some noise too it seems. :)

 

at 0:15, in the HUD tape there is some quite noticeable shaking :D

 

But then again, I just wanted to show this because these videos came to my mind after reading everyone's replies. Even if there wouldn't be anything that could show some shaking while the planes fires I would still like to have my in-game camera shaking, at least in my opinion nicely done camera effects and audio can compensate a little bit for what we cannot physically feel inside the cockpit :)

Edited October 24, 2013 by eFirehawk

[Frogisis]

But while we're on the subject, check this:

 

at 0:17, when the plane fires, the camera shakes and some parts of the cockpit also shake and move! :) ...and make some noise too it seems. :)

 

at 0:15, in the HUD tape there is some quite noticeable shaking :D

 

Wonderful! I'd say that cinches it, above and beyond the artistic responsibility of a sim designer to use the available senses to convey the power of the weapons you're using.