FoV's: Fields of Views.

[Ali Fish]

im starting this topic because i feel passionatly about discussing this issue i have with how Cliffs of Dover is presented.

my issue is with the fields of view system in CoD and how its been approached.

To start with the manual quotes this.



NOTE: The Close-up or 30° Field of View matches the picture seen by
the naked eye the best. We highly recommend using the 30° lens for most
screenshots or videos.
However this view is not particularly useful in a cockpit as it greatly limits the
viewable area (which however is perfectly in line with what you would see with
a naked eye without having to shift your gaze). The Normal 70° view shows a
larger more useful area but slightly distorts the picture, and the 90° lens shows
an even larger and an even more distorted area of the world. Please be aware of
the distorted dimensions in the Normal and Wide field of views which will render
objects at different distances from the camera with seemingly wrong proportions.


So where does that leave us.

my following sentiments are associated with Trackir camera view system.
When we are in our cockpits and set at 30 degrees we are quite close and personal with the Hud and reticule system. Relating this to real life i will ask the questsion with the pilot staring through the Hud how easy it is for him to glance down and take information from his panels ?

IMO answer= It should be very easy. So within game my experience of this should be equally as easy and comfortable !

the reality of this situation is that it is not easy. Using Trackir i have to twist my view down to the point that my eyeballs are straining to see the monitor with the guages ahead and below of me.

so whats wrong or whats so different. My theory is that the game does not take eyeball movement into account with head movement.

so thats fine. we cant have independant eyeball tracking of course. unless someone develops retinal track devices (RTIR™) lol !

so casting back to the quote from the game manual. we can understand that CoD does not take into account eyeball movement and the extended field of view it can bring.

im sitting here staring at my monitor writing this. and i can see far left most hand wall and the television on the right. to be more precise.. this dimension of field of view spans about 4.5 metres and sitting about 1 metre from the monitor. thats a might large field of view isnt it ?

now we can get to the argument i have.

Projecting the world correctly at 30 degrees FoV whilst being realistic is in actuall fact not realistic at all where realism and situational awareness is concerned.

so you say " Just change the field of view ! "

Voila it appears much more like we might expect. Our eyeballs can adjust over the field of view to many different aspects of the planes interior. Much like a real pilot could do. BUT BUT BUT the world is not correctly rendered in front of you is it ?

According to the the manual it isnt, and from 30 degrees to 70 degrees normal viewing distance is twisted and distorted. You can see evidence in all screenshots of this where the shot is not taken at 30 deg fov both external and internal.

so lets take the gun sights, the convergance and various settings. is there an underlying problem because the chances are you are percieving the game world incorrectly.

i believe that rendering the worlds correct gemoetries should not have been set at 30 degrees FoV. i believe the concept that has led the developers to design the sim this way is just wrong. whilst i can never expect this to be fixed to my desires. it sure is awkward to continue with this. on one hand realism is great on the other realism poorly concieved is another.

let our eyeballs do the talking where this realism is concerned not our TIR heads. and get the game world world gemoetry rendered correctly at a more appropriate field of view for viewing on 21 inch monitors. this isnt the real world its sim displayed on a monitor.

another clear example is without using stupid trackir camera settings, can you look over your shoulder whilst in cockpit at 30 degrees. because i can in reality but not in game.

FoV in cod is seriously flawed thats all im pointing out folks. simulating a static eyeball with only head movement is where this is at fault. thus the Fields of view system is at fault for being specified the way it has.

[Psycho_Ch!cken]

I would strongly suggest you read up a little on the way "3D" worlds are displayed on 2D screens.

There's nothing "at fault" with the game engine or its field of views. The reason they suggest 30 degrees is closest to reality is because if you're sitting at the ergonomically correct distance from your monitor, it will take up an area roughly equal to 30 degrees of your eyes' own field of view. Additionally, the objects displayed on the screen will be rendered at approximately the size you would see them as in reality, if they were at the distance being simulated in the game world. At a wider field of view, objects will appear far smaller than they would in reality and are much, much harder to see (planes about to bounce you for instance) than they would otherwise be.

As far as I understand the rest of your post, I get the impression you think it's possible to render as wide a field of view as we like without distortion? I'm afraid that's just not possible and there will always be a level of distortion no matter how much you're rendering. This is because you're attempting to represent an arc of view on a flat plane (your screen). When you try to take something curved and flatten it out, you get distortion. Look no further than a world map for a perfect example - all those northern areas are grossly distorted and look much larger than they really are, as a result of being "unwrapped" from a round object.

There is nothing different or "special" about this engine over any other as far as the way they render is concerned. Each and every single game you play is faced with the same constraints, you just don't realise it.

Now if you want to talk about a genuine flaw in the way they handle field of view, it's this - there's no recognition of horizontal or vertical field of view as being separate. Certainly the engine can do it, they're just not using it. 90 degrees at maximum hotkeyed fov is appropriate for a 4:3 monitor, not a 16:10 or 16:9 one, which should be closer to 100 degrees horizontal fov. For those of us who use Eyefinity, there's no handling of alternative aspect ratios like 24:5 which I typically use. That means that either I lose a huge chunk off the top and bottom of my vision, or I get a huge amount of heavily distorted vision at the top and bottom of my view (when using the manual fov slider). What the game needs is to be adjusting the default fov based on your aspect ratio first and foremost and then dynamically changing the values for "30/70/90" to suit the ultrawide perspective.

In fact, in case a dev happens to wander through, however unlikely, I'll quote myself from another thread:

Really, for Eyefinity to be viable, the horizontal FoV needs to be calculated dynamically based on aspect ratio. Presently it's assumed that everyone's using a 4:3 aspect ratio and naturally that doesn't play nice for ultrawide configurations. Even using the progressive FoV adjust controls, that's changing the entire FoV instead of just horizontal which gives you too much vertical FoV and a whole lot of stretching to go with it. What needs to be added is a calculation that changes the actual values of "30, 70 and 90" degrees to new ones that give the same level of apparent "zoom" but take into account the extra width of the screen. Something like:

FoV to Use = (ATan2((Tan((OriginalFoV * Pi) / 360.0) * (AspectRatio / BaseAspectRatio)), 1) * 360.0) / Pi

Where OriginalFoV = 30/70/90, AspectRatio = whatever you're using (resolution width/height) and BaseAspectRatio = 0.75 (4/3)

So everytime you hit a key to change the FoV (del, end, page down) rather than just setting 30/70/90 as it currently does, it should run that calculation (or something like it) and then set the FoV to the resultant value instead.

[Buchon]

I agree that the 16:10 appropriate FOV is close to 100.

Im using a 1920x1200 (24 inches) monitor, and the game looks better around FOV 95, I guess FOV 100 is correct for 27 inches.

in game I have to set 90 FOV and then adjust the fov pressing the FOV´s key and using the vertical mouse axis.

This method is not precise and is very annoying that I have to do this every time that the game is started.

I miss a method to set my desired FOV by default :(

[Kianoni]

field of view and image size are 2 different things - it really would be nice if we would be able to set these up correctly for different type of screen setups.
the quote from the manual might be correct for a 19" 4:3 screen but with anything different from that it's pure bullshit.
take a 64" 16:9 screen and run the game with it's default image size and field of view - this would be far from what a real pilot sees.

[Ali Fish]

TBH the distortion doesnt bother me that much. its situational awareness i care off and the fact that i can move my eyes independant of my head But the sim is simulating my eyes statically looking ahead at its apparent most realistic settings.

i guess what the real ball ache is that TIR acts as my eyes really not my head. i believe what i want simulated is the full range of the eye scan left right up down etc etc on my screen. with me ? the more you increase Fov. the more it seems to simulate the head aspect. we have the choice which is good i guess. mega montior setup seems to be the only way to get around this and even that is flawed.

[Buchon]

Agree.

I did this in my 1920x1200 monitor :

Increased the FOV, around 95, then increased the zoom forward to fix the pilot position.

Obtaining with this an awesome situational awareness position :o, in fact is how the game should look in 16:10 :grin:

We need a line in the config.ini to set our desire default FOV and our desire default zoom :!:

[Ali Fish]

Agree.

I did this in my 1920x1200 monitor :

Increased the FOV, around 95, then increased the zoom forward to fix the pilot position.

Obtaining with this an awesome situational awareness position :o, in fact is how the game should look in 16:10 :grin:

We need a line in the config.ini to set our desire default FOV and our desire default zoom :!:


+1

choice is what its all about.

[CharveL]

Your issue is simply a TIR profile not suited to your particular situation. Specifically the Pitch axis is not sensitive enough resulting in you having to move your head much too far to see the control panel.

If you search my posts you'll find my profile which you can use as a basis for your own preferences and sitting situation (distance from clip to receiver) by adding or subtracting overall sensitivity.

My profile is fairly aggressive with just enough deadzone to make aiming easy enough while not "pulling" too much when you need to look up or out the side. Most people at first require a larger deadzone to stay "locked-in" to the sights but eventually you'll want the quick and responsive movement for tracking planes so you might prefer a bit less sensitivity.

[Kianoni]

the issue being discussed here is about a realistic FOV settings for different screen sizes - NOT about TIR profiles.

[CharveL]

the issue being discussed here is about a realistic FOV settings for different screen sizes - NOT about TIR profiles.

Yeah, I got that and am responding to his also mentioned issue that the 30deg setting is not good enough because his eyes have to strain to look up while trying to look at the dashboard.

Is that ok with you, sparky?

[hanuristi]

I dont understand why the default three fov settings cannot be configurable to whatever you prefer personally. You can use any fov you want with the mouse setting anyway, just being able to set them quickly with buttons would be much much more convinient.

The manual's claims about 30/70/90 FOV are just plain wrong, a realistic FOV depends on the display size and how far away your head is from it (Not that a realistic FOV would be what most people would prefer). It's all too much dependant on conditions and personal preference to be forced to unconfigurable values.

edit: not to mention that the FOV is applied "wrong" anyway for any unusual monitor setups, like a triple monitor setup where the default values are apparently unusable.

[whoarmongar]

Retinal tracking does exist. I heard a program on about it a few weeks ago. Its in development testing with hopefully retail release soon. On the program they were talking about desktop and "proper" work type programs, but all I was thinking was Arma2 and Flight sims
Damn I hope the program wasnt on 1st of April.

[zapatista]

bump


has anybody found a solution to this yet in CoD ?

we should be able to set specific FoV's for our respective monitor sizes (and the distances we sit from them)

in the later versions of the il2 series you could key-bind your FoV settings at 5 degree steps between 40 and 90 degrees, so for ex "normal" for a 24' monitor might be 45 FoV, and for a 27' it might be 55 FoV, and a 30' desktop screen might be the 70 FoV that they have now locked into "normal" setting with CoD

having these forced incorrect settings for most users (who will have a smaller then 30's screen) means that all ingame objects look smaller (mini planes you are chasing and aiming at, and dinky toy sized ground vehicles etc..), it also distorts your sense of speed (since ingame objects appear artificially smaller, like buildings, trees, and ground vehicles etc..)

anybody found a solution on how to alter this setting yet ? i made a request for this to be patched in the options setting, but have had no reply or indication 1C and luthier even recognize that this is a major problem. all they need to do is give us back the same option settings for this function as was available in il2-1946

anybody found a way to edit an ini or config file, so we can temp fix this ourselves till a patch is provided ?