For those of you who have never seen tracers being fired in person, why argue about someting you have never actually seen?
Tracers appear as streaks, just like in Star Wars.
Where do you think George Lucas got his inspiratiation? From dogfighting gun camera film and movies showing anti aircraft fire.
Anything this size moving at 2000 miles per hour will appear as a streak.
From what I have seen of the movies and sceenshots of Cliffs of Dover, Ilya is right, they are perfect and I am happy to finally have tracers that look realistic.

What the Camera Sees is Not 100% Reliable
 

I want to emphasize one point that has been mentioned. Please look at this photo, in which the man is Picasso,

http://cache3.asset-cache.net/xc/559...1E70F2B3269972

The bright line (yes, that is one single line) is a camera's view of Picasso's torch, also a "tracer". The line is so long and even, only because the exposure time of the camera was very long, to the extent that during this period Picasso was able to draw the whole "bull" in the air. What the camera "saw" is a bull, while the human eye would of course only see the moving torch.

There is of course similarity between the way in which the human eye works and that of the camera, but such similarity (not identity) only exists in the optical part of the human eyeball, the neural mechanism of the eye and visual cortex being missing in the case of the camera. It a complex subject that perhaps psychologists on percerption know much about, but it is certain that what a camera sees is not exactly what a human sees.

Another example: a human can be dazzled by bright muzzle flash of a cannon, but not by a photo of the muzzle flash, meaning that the camera cannot reproduce enough gradations of bright light that a human eye can tell.

So movies of tracers and gun camera film are not good arguments when tracers are discusssed, unless it is the aim of CoD to simulate only the camera's view.

Although I myself have never in person seen tracers being fired, I have doubt that the "light rod" of each tracer should be of both the same brightness and the same width from beginning to end.

~

I've shot 8mm tracer ammunition (WWII vintage stuff) out of my Mauser and it's pretty much just like the videos and the pics from SOW. When you fire it, it looks like you are lobbing a bright dot since you can see the rise and fall of the bullet along its path. When looking from the side it looks just like star wars, long streaks or laser bolts. In my experience they look almost exactly alike on and off camera.

Here are some videos.

This one shows .22 tracers during the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCsv30xysHA

Here are rifle calibre rounds approaching the camera at night. I'm not sure how visible they would be during the day from this angle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1iXp5m8ovE

Sometimes you can't see them at all during the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1j2PBYroNM

Tracers in .45 ACP?!?! Why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3kNH3_cytE

Generally speaking, they have done a pretty good job on the tracers, but I'm wondering how visible they will be when they are between a light source and you.

I would hazard a guess for submachine guns like the Thompson, M3 grease gun and Owen.
Cheers

I'm thinking more for people who have more money than sense given the muzzle velocity and effective range of the .45 ACP round.

You said it! :cool:

Right!

"What doesn't match is the length. In reality, they would appear shorter when close to the observer (that is, when leaving the barrel) and almost immediately "shrink" to the size of a dot, just like the ones in the 110 picture."

Once again, this is a perfect description on how it shows in reality.

This is right. Just like in a car at high speed on a dual carrigeway, look out the side window towards your side of the road at close trees as they pass by and the leaves are just a blur. The leaves on the trees slightly ahead of you though are easy to focus on, as are the ones on the other side of the road as you pass by them.

A tracer that is viewed from directly behind will appear as a dot, yes, BUT a tracer viewed from the side or even a little off center, just like machine guns or cannon in the wings from a pilots perspective, will appear enlongated and also appear to have the same thickness for the entire length, just as appears in Cliffs of Dover.

I don't see anyone who has actually seen tracer fire complaining in this forum about how they look in CoD but rather saying how good they look. Doesn't that really say it all?
I have seen and fired hundreds of thousands (estimated) during my time as a Paratrooper and the CoD tracers look great!