Cockpit Glass shading

[recoilfx]

Anyone think that the shading for the glass is too heavy? With the cockpit closed, the whole picture is grey and muted.

I'd imagine in real life, the sunlight would be so much brighter that the lowered brightness wouldn't be apparent after eyes adjusts to it.

Since monitors can not possibly produce the same kind of brightness and dynamic range, maybe we shouldsimulate how eyes adjust to the light (close cockpit, lowered brightness, up the brightness as time goes).

I have no real life pilot experience so what do you all think?

[Insuber]

Anyone think that the shading for the glass is too heavy? With the cockpit closed, the whole picture is grey and muted.

I'd imagine in real life, the sunlight would be so much brighter that the lowered brightness wouldn't be apparent after eyes adjusts to it.

Since monitors can not possibly produce the same kind of brightness and dynamic range, maybe we shouldsimulate how eyes adjust to the light (close cockpit, lowered brightness, up the brightness as time goes).

I have no real life pilot experience so what do you all think?

I agree. The plexiglass (PMMA) is normally very transparent. It is indeed more transparent than glass. In the game the shading is overdone.

Cheers,
Insuber

[Insuber]

The armor glass in front of the Spit is too dark too.

[Catseye]

Agreed, it is overdone.
Since we are looking at a computer screen, we need all the help we can to see objects and I really think that to simulate looking through real plexiglass this way is very detrimental to enjoyment of the sim. I've flown a bit and there is no way the cockpit glass reduces light in the way the sim does.

Also, way too much in the reflector gunsight.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Anyone think that the shading for the glass is too heavy? With the cockpit closed, the whole picture is grey and muted.

I'd imagine in real life, the sunlight would be so much brighter that the lowered brightness wouldn't be apparent after eyes adjusts to it.

Since monitors can not possibly produce the same kind of brightness and dynamic range, maybe we shouldsimulate how eyes adjust to the light (close cockpit, lowered brightness, up the brightness as time goes).

I have no real life pilot experience so what do you all think?

I think it's dead good.

In spite of my current level of inebriation, the detail on the edge of the perspex window on the port side of the spit canopy never fails to amaze me.
The edges of the cut perspex looks like, well, cut perspex.

I also always fly with the canopy open, because the view is so much better.

I'm also convinced that it must've been like this in real life.

However, there's this girl at work right, who in this recent hot weather , has taken to adjusting her bra in front of me.................

[louisv]

I agree. The plexiglass (PMMA) is normally very transparent. It is indeed more transparent than glass. In the game the shading is overdone.

Cheers,
Insuber

I sat in a CF-100 cockpit once and I was shocked at the really bad visibility due mostly to scratches and the thickness also surprised me. There was a greenish tint to the material. This was a decommissioned 50's Canadian fighter.

[Theshark888]

Remember that plexi degenerates over time. We have run into these types of mistakes before with 1C. Where they look at a pieced-together 70 year old aircraft in a museum and copy it exactly and try to tell us that this is the way it was back then:rolleyes:

[julien673]

However, there's this girl at work right, who in this recent hot weather , has taken to adjusting her bra in front of me.................

So how she was ? ;)

[Insuber]

I sat in a CF-100 cockpit once and I was shocked at the really bad visibility due mostly to scratches and the thickness also surprised me. There was a greenish tint to the material. This was a decommissioned 50's Canadian fighter.

Old Perspex degenerates and takes a yellowish tint, namely when exposed to wheater and sunlight.
Fresh Perspex is very transparent and clearer than crystal. The interesting property of Perspex is that it stays clear when increasing the thickness. That's why it is widely used in large aquariums.
So ... The light fading is overdone! Luthier needs to revise this also.

Cheers,
Insuber

[Seeker]

I'd say it's about right, although a couple of times the "pink vision" wounded condition has rolled back when I've opened the canopy....

None of you ride bikes, wear crash helmets? The difference between canopy closed/open is about the same as visor up/down .

[Insuber]

Let's try a quantitative approach. Plexiglass (poly-methyl-metacrilate, pardon my chemical engineering studies :)) has a transparency of 92%, pretty much independent from thickness. It filters only 8% of light. A good optical glass is almost equivalent.

I took a screenshot with open canopy, and tried to measure the RGB in close areas of sky, 1 is free blue sky without canopy, #2 is behind the windshield. I don't know how much glass is in the armored windshield, but let's look at the figures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/Insuber/Perspex-windshieldspitfire.jpg

The perceived brightness through the windshield (formula HERE (http://www.nbdtech.com/Blog/archive/2008/04/27/Calculating-the-Perceived-Brightness-of-a-Color.aspx)) is 82% of the clear undisturbed sky. A reduction of 18%, against 8% of pure Perspex is way too much.


I will do the same exercise for the lateral areas of the canopy.

Cheers,
Insuber

[Insuber]

And now the lateral canopy. Again too dark, according to my measurements:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/Insuber/Perspex-canopyspitfire.jpg

Remember that Perspex white light transmission is 92%. Here we have 78% ....

Luthier would you take a look at this please, after the major issues will be solved ?

Cheers,
Insuber

PS: I attribute to the different time of the day the fact that lateral shading is higher than the front shield shading in my two takes: by all evidence the game's shading is higher with darker sky. I can take measurements at dusk to prove this, but I assume that the main point is demonstrated.

[Insuber]

I believe also that at dusk the shading is even stronger. Not very realistic IMHO.

[bongodriver]

But glass/perspex or whatever still catches shadow and light, all of the science talk is great but what you get in a lab is different to what you see in real life, the surface is covered in dust/scratches and other detritis, even if it is relatively new it picks up dirt pretty quick, this does make it seem fairly dark.

[Insuber]

Yes but the ground crew were very careful at cleaning canopies, since the life of the pilot depended from it. And as the average life of a fighter was few weeks, anyway the wear was not an issue. So I believe that the 18-22% of light absorption in-game is way too much with respect to the 8% of chemistry data. Do we settle for 10%? ... :)

[bongodriver]

I couldn't quantify with a particular percentage, all I have is the experience of how sitting under perspex seems to me and even new/clean perspex casts a fair bit of shadow and in game it doesn't feel so wrong to me, but I will concede that 20% does sound too much.

[Insuber]

Since the shading is quite disturbing, I fly always with open canopy, and noticed that several online players do the same. We didn't have this issue with Il2-1946.

Cheers,
Insuber

[bongodriver]

Since the shading is quite disturbing, I fly always with open canopy, and noticed that several online players do the same. We didn't have this issue with Il2-1946.

Cheers,
Insuber

true but il2 1946 doesn't have the same shader materials and self shadowing effects.........semantics really I guess, one thing reading all the forum illustrates is there will 'never' be a one size fits all solution to any software.

[kalimba]

Well, hope they will fix those fake tracers first...:rolleyes:

Then they could reduce transparency opacity from 20% to 10 %...;)

Salute !

[Insuber]

Yeah, it is a low priority issue, but still it's very visible ... :) and IMO it's not as controversial as the tracers ... In this case measurements are much easier ...

[raaaid]

agree i would like to tweak gamma like you can do with other games

[kalimba]

Yeah, it is a low priority issue, but still it's very visible ... :) and IMO it's not as controversial as the tracers ... In this case measurements are much easier ...

Hello Insuber,

Very impressive study and demonstration that you did ! Congrate...I didn't want to be rude with my comments about tracers and minimize the importance of your subject...;)

But since you are quite brilliant with technology, you could indeed try to "measure" the tracer's parameters and try to figure out what is so wrong about them...It is a kind of friendly challenge here..:rolleyes:

Thanks !

Salute !

[hanuristi]

I think the whole "glass is dark" effect won't work on a computer game. In real life your eyes would adjust to the fact that there is less light overall and you wouldn't see the windows being dark at all - only everything else (the cockpit) would appear a tiny bit brighter. If you would open the canopy (or fly a convertible like the fiat) then you could see the difference, but not when your whole vision is covered by the same glass.

I think a better simulation would be to have the glass darkening effect disappear once you close the cockpit and make it 100% transparent (except some shadows maybe). When opening the cockpit the glass could appear a bit darker after a moment... This would oppose the effect you have now and encourage you to fly with the canopy closed ;)

[recoilfx]

I think the whole "glass is dark" effect won't work on a computer game. In real life your eyes would adjust to the fact that there is less light overall and you wouldn't see the windows being dark at all - only everything else (the cockpit) would appear a tiny bit brighter. If you would open the canopy (or fly a convertible like the fiat) then you could see the difference, but not when your whole vision is covered by the same glass.

I think a better simulation would be to have the glass darkening effect disappear once you close the cockpit and make it 100% transparent (except some shadows maybe). When opening the cockpit the glass could appear a bit darker after a moment... This would oppose the effect you have now and encourage you to fly with the canopy closed ;)

That's what I exactly said in the opening post, but I'm glad that we agree. :-D