Pilot modelling within the cockpit?
 

I am not sure if this would be the correct forum to discuss this, but I will give it a shot anyway:

Thus, the question, why no flight sim attempted to implement a pilot model within a cockpit so far? Is there a particular reason why this is avoided universally? The way I see it - the ability to see your virtual pilot (or co-pilot!) would add to the immersion greatly. I can't seem to think of a reason what could possible go wrong with adding pilot models. Sure the pilot legs would probably hide the pedals, but it should not affect other instruments. And the fact that your co-pilot can obscure right-side visibility is part of the "sim" factor, right?

Some other ideas:

- Pilot hands should be on a stick and properly animated. Heck, if this can be extended to other systems (such as throttle) it would be amazing!

- You could probably model injuries better, such as blood on pilot instead of your regular red tainted screen.

Maybe this is a good idea for a mod? Still, would like to hear your opinions on this.

p.s. First-person shooters are moving from this floating-camera approach also (you can see your body/legs in BF3).

0 care.

1.) More poligons and therefor higher load on hardware.
2.) Potential to interfere with visability of instruments which may require workaround. This in turn leads to more development which costs time and money.

I don't think MG will spend any time on such an issue, which is cosmetic at best and pointless at worst.

I'm flying with Condor, there are pilot models, and I must say that it is really nice. Even if the pilot is quite low-poly (but fully animated). It is also true that the glider plane controls much less than Clod's controls. But i'm glad if we see a pilot in the Clod one day (but I know how low priority is). If the pilot model is simply switchable, then no problem with hidden instrumentation, controls either.

Otherwise we talked about earlier, Luthier said, there is no pilot model, because of a freely movable camera. Can not be adapted the pilot model to the camera position (6dof). It looks stupid when you lean forward, and looking back, then you see the headless pilot model - and this is right :)

The BF3 camera handling (in the AIR vehicles) the worst WORST WORST thing what i ever seen is pc game. I hate it. :evil: Please, do not even mention here ;)

Why not if this is an disabled option.It could be interesting to see arms and legs moving the part of the plane represented on your keyboard ruder or stick. It would increase the impression of réalism.

Although not really a Flight-Sim, ArmA 2 has the pilot modelled in cockpit, but nothing except instruments is animated so it is kinda spoilt...

Although +1 for this. And I honestly don't think that polygons would be an issue, pilot model could be made for probably under 1000 poly's with a decent 512x512 texture map + normal map - and of course all could be availible as an 'option' but like it's been said, the devs really wouldn't care which imo shows a lack of motivation in their own product. :(

When I look down I see my arms and legs :D

DCS: Black Shark does a good job modelling the pilot, and you can switch it on/off in game.

The pilots and crew already have 4096x4096 px texture :)
If these models don't lagging in the bombers, why would lagging in the single seater? No, the model just fine. The problem is the pilot animation and the camera placement.

Problem that I foresee with animated pilots is that all the animations of actions would be a little slow. For example: if you were to arm the bombs then adjust your flaps some for a bomb run (I do this in a 110 sometimes) the animation would cause problems such as jerking around in the cockpit and I don't think anyone would want that. I think it is wise of the devolpers not to waste their times on things like this and focus and other animations (the preview video of the bailout for example). If they can get clean and look good, then I think it would be a great addition but it isn't the best to introduce it at this time. Hope I helped out in some way.

Visibility of instruments would become a problem i wouldnt like. And the ability to turn arms and legs on and of to fix this sounds strange too. Just my thoughts though.

To me, flying around in an empty cockpit isn't unrealistic. I'm simply imagining myself there. If I saw a body in the pit, I would think I had a twin growing out of my neck and sitting on my lap, or at least that I was in another man's body. Weird huh?

Anyway, the reason why pilot's aren't going to make it in CloD is because of the wide range of available cockpits and pilot customizations. The dev team would have to position the pilot model properly for each customization (you wouldn't want that flight jacket and life preserver clipping anything). Animations would complicate this by a factor of 10.

It's not that the devs don't care about the product, it's that they have limited time and budget which is better spent producing maps, planes, and other upgrades.

No thanks!

I can see my real hands right where they are on my joystick in front of the instrument panel (my screen). I don't need them repeated on the screen.

In fact I'd like to see the control coumn removed. Seeing it serves no purpose, who really fires the gun with by clicking the gun button with the mouse? It is unrealistically in the way because even with TrackIR it isn't possible to look around the stick as easily as you can in RL. This is a particular problem in the RAF aircraft.

+1 to have removable control column

Not so sure, I think the stick provides a form of sensory feedback (visual) which can be usefull, I just wish the stick animation was smoother.

Except for making movies, I can't see anything useful in having an animated pilot.

Any actions performed by the animated pilot would occur after the player performs them.

In other sims it is canned and generally implemented in a very 'Cheesy' way. I can't see the COD developers doing it any better.

It's very nicely done here, I don't see why it couldn't also be done in CLOD.

MAC

http://warthunder.com/upload/image/m...an_other_4.jpg

Looks nice yes, but i can see at least 3 gauges that cant properly bee seen in this picture. If the hand was gone they could be seen much better.

Yes it looks nice, but lets say it takes me a second to flip a switch on my simpit or press a button on my keyboard. The animation takes 2 seconds to perform the action and return the hand to the throttle.

I reach over and close the hatch and hit the gear up and the animation has lost sync with what I am actually doing and thats only after two actions.

Because the animated pilot can only react to what you've done and can not predict your actions it has no functional application in the sim. Great for movie makers! Don't force me to use it!

If anything though, that might be a case for an animated pilot if you have anthropomorphic controls on. The amount of times that I have gone to do something and it hasn't responded and I've found out later it's because my pilot's hand was doing something else (like increasing pitch in the 109 where it's not a slider so the hand seems to stay permanently on the switch if you have it attached to an axis), having a pilot there would make that much easier since you'd be able to see where 'your' hands are.

That said though, I have to agree that pilot animations can sometimes just look plain awful, such as the flare gun in RoF where the gun seems to be attached to an arm-shaped stick. I'm happy without a pilot as it is anyway, but I would be equally happy with one I think, and as has been said before about many things, if it would be switchable there is no reason to not have it in the game, since if you don't want it, you just turn it off. Providing it doesn't take resources away from other things, of course.

Well the way it's done in another flight simulation is that only the throttle, yoke/stick and rudder movements are animated, without any (noticeable) lag to your inputs, they are real time. Must say I like it better than an empty cockpit, but there should be a way to read all instruments when needed.

MAC

check out lock on, they did pilot models

speaking from experience and a lot of late night flying..if i was to look down all i would see are boxer's...now try and get that image out of your head. :cool:

I've been saying that for years. Dude you just got shot down by a man wearing nothing but his BOXERS!!!

I like the idea of this but as optional.. why not?!

Taking it to an extreme degree, I'd say no pilot models until a Microsoft Kinect type controller is available and you can move a full-body pilot model in real-time. Can't see an instrument on the panel? Move your arm out of the way in real life and your avatar follows suit. Flick switches, make obscene gestures to your enemy, open the canopy, haul yourself up and out to bail...think of it as full-body TrackIR. Patch after next, be sure. :grin:

So did the Enemy Engaged series, and they didn't just do the legs...

That would be good in ROF!

Because I would rather the modeling / animation guys are working on more planes, cockpits, ships, vehicles, etc... at the moment.

Because I would rather have the modeling / animation guys working on more planes, cockpits, ships, vehicles, etc... I suspect all the cockpits would have to be re-done as well to include the pilot animations.

While I too what like pilot animation, to atleast have them chuck the pilot model in the cockpit with his legs, arms and feet to their controls and moving - not nessacarily all the switches then it wouldn't take that long, since I am pretty sure the pilot model is fully rigged and posed (Bailout animation for example).
Knowing the structure of the game, it would take one entry in the hier.him and maybe a few more lines of java in the java file.

War Thunder: War of planes has pilots in the cockpit (with their HOTAS animations). And it's really nice, coupled with the 6DOF. See the movies around the internet.

As long as the pilots are already modelled, mapped, textured and rigged, there's not so much work to do: throw in some simple animations and some dummy points in the cockpit (for the hands animations) and you're set.

i don't know if any remember Oleg joking about this and saying that this would not be done, because of the possibilities of having fires on board and seeing the pilot get burned, with the possibility of associated trauma a/o 'separation of personality' issues..

I dunno.... it sounds like a great idea but I worry it would totally destroy immersion. It's bad enough I have to move a joystick to move my joystick :D (If that makes any sense?). I don't want to "Play a pilot"....... in IL2 I am a pilot.

This was always a point of difference in sim racing. Especially with the tougher sims, like Grand Prix Legends, people developed preferences for whether or not they liked to see virtual characters. For many, myself included, it was easier to concentrate and balance the controls without a virtual driver's hands in the way. And all those involved was a pair of virtual hands! Many even went so far as to disable the on screen wheel (myself included), because the inherent delay and difference between your actual and on screen controller would throw off (ever so slightly) your motions.

Flight sims dont require such precise repetitive motions nor are they quite as fast paced or as demanding of precise and speedy inputs, so this is generally likely to be less of an issue. But I would say that many would nonetheless find that a virtual pilot just got in the way and broke immersion/was redundant since many people would feel no need to see a second 'them'. In that sense, as a situational awareness/thinking game, it would be even more distracting to see a virtual body obstructing things.

It would also be quite tricky to properly animate all the various motions of a pilot's hands/feet/body in a cockpit, and would obscure the view. It would be a lot of work for little gain all in all I would say, but I would of course welcome the option.

I'd love to see pilot model in the cockpit as well and pilot bailout animation too

Difficult to manage all events, but i would like the immersive first person view of a bailout. :)

For example, I like the immersive animation in tanks of red orchestra 2, when you open the tank to have a better view.

But here it is very difficult and there will be a lag between button press and animation, because the pilot has to perform a grab to this thing. In driving sims, it also has a stupid behaviour simetimes, when have to leave the stearing wheel to switch gears.

But a viewing animation without pilot, perhaps? :)