What a tracer should look like (before spazzing just look).

[winny]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Well that would make sense, I dont know the exact chemicles they used in the bullet (some variant or replacement of gunpower? It certainly would be more "smokey" then modern amunition) but when the bullet leaves the barrel it is of course rotating very fast from the rifling which would create a smoke whirl/spiral (the bullet would be trailing smoke and the particles/air would be disturbed by the bullets rotation causing it to form a spiral). Is that correct?

.303 definitly had rifling in them, .50cals too but no idea about the 20mm cannon as the term "cannon" implies to me that it was not rifled (but I truly dont know in this case).

-Also if you go look at ww2 guncam videos of enemy AA firing at the plane while its coming in for a run, at a distance you will notice the tracers are just very slow moving dots, but as the plane got closer those fireflies get very fast and very dangerous!

The spiral somke trails come off of the ammo because that's how they were designed. As you said, all modern bullets spin due to rifling.

The british .303 'smoke' tracer/incendiary had a small hole in the side of the round (not the back) the smoke comes out of this weep hole and creates large (relativley) spirals. It had no visible light. I don't know if German smoke tracer was the same.

The only other comment on tracer (I've done it to death over on SimHQ) is that they should be relative to the viewer not the object being viewed.

In Game they behave like little comets with a physical tail, when in fact they are little dots that leave a trail inside your eye. This means that they do not always appear parallel to the line of flight and are always relative to the movement of the viewer. The light trails in CoD are always parallel to the line of flight.

The other issues are frame rate side effects.

[Iamsnip]

Just wanted to say that the title of this topic made me lulz - IMO the nicest (although it may be incorrect) tracers that I've seen in game were in B17 the old microprose game - esp in fighter.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by winny

The only other comment on tracer (I've done it to death over on SimHQ) is that they should be relative to the viewer not the object being viewed.

In Game they behave like little comets with a physical tail, when in fact they are little dots that leave a trail inside your eye. This means that they do not always appear parallel to the line of flight and are always relative to the movement of the viewer. The light trails in CoD are always parallel to the line of flight.

The other issues are frame rate side effects.

Except your whole argument is flawed. The tracers appear as streaks of light, offset of the weapon, because the speed of the round produces a streak of light. It doesn't matter where you are positioned one IOTA. That streak of light coincides DIRECTLY with the path of the bullet being fired and your perception is such. The only time you will ever see dots is if you are directly behind the weapon being fired. Your perception may change if you are trying to focus on a single round being fired, but the game shows tracer rounds as if you are focusing on the target you are firing at (which is exactly what you should be doing 100% of the time when you fire a weapon).

As someone who specifically trains the special forces on weapons, even more specifically, machine guns, I've seen and fired more rounds of various amounts of ammunition in a single work day than most will ever in their whole life. I know EXACTLY what they look like being fired from virtually every type of situation.

The tracers in game look fine. You're used to Hollywood effects. Stop thinking that you want to focus a specific round. You never do that when you are firing a weapon and that is the ONLY way what you are saying would EVER happen. And that's why your arguments over at SimHq about staring at a flashlight,pen, candle and waving it around don't hold any water. Once you realize that you don't focus on what's coming out of the weapon, but instead, the target you are firing at, it should start making sense to you.

What we have in game can never be truly 100% accurate simply because the game is shown across a 2d screen in the same exact fashion as a video camera. If you are looking down the sights on a target, virtually everything else is not in focus. In an airplane this effect is much much less, but still present. The game has 100% of your viewing angle perfectly focused all the time, but as stated over at SimHq, this is simply because of hardware limitations. But what we have now, is more correct that some zig zag bs tracer that you want from a movie. Star Wars at least got them right. And if you didn't know "the blaster" in Star Wars came about after watching tracer ammunition. It's modeled directly from a tracer round. So when someone says star wars tracer rounds, I laugh and think to myself, this is actually a compliment.

[winny]

Originally Posted by SYN_Bliss

Except your whole argument is flawed. The tracers appear as streaks of light, offset of the weapon, because the speed of the round produces a streak of light. It doesn't matter where you are positioned one IOTA. That streak of light coincides DIRECTLY with the path of the bullet being fired and your perception is such. The only time you will ever see dots is if you are directly behind the weapon being fired. Your perception may change if you are trying to focus on a single round being fired, but the game shows tracer rounds as if you are focusing on the target you are firing at (which is exactly what you should be doing 100% of the time when you fire a weapon).

As someone who specifically trains the special forces on weapons, even more specifically, machine guns, I've seen and fired more rounds of various amounts of ammunition in a single work day than most will ever in their whole life. I know EXACTLY what they look like being fired from virtually every type of situation.

The tracers in game look fine. You're used to Hollywood effects. Stop thinking that you want to focus a specific round. You never do that when you are firing a weapon and that is the ONLY way what you are saying would EVER happen. And that's why your arguments over at SimHq about staring at a flashlight,pen, candle and waving it around don't hold any water. Once you realize that you don't focus on what's coming out of the weapon, but instead, the target you are firing at, it should start making sense to you.

What we have in game can never be truly 100% accurate simply because the game is shown across a 2d screen in the same exact fashion as a video camera. If you are looking down the sights on a target, virtually everything else is not in focus. In an airplane this effect is much much less, but still present. The game has 100% of your viewing angle perfectly focused all the time, but as stated over at SimHq, this is simply because of hardware limitations. But what we have now, is more correct that some zig zag bs tracer that you want from a movie. Star Wars at least got them right. And if you didn't know "the blaster" in Star Wars came about after watching tracer ammunition. It's modeled directly from a tracer round. So when someone says star wars tracer rounds, I laugh and think to myself, this is actually a compliment.

My argument is not flawed, you just don't get it.

It is a physical impossibility for a point of light that is moving away from you, whilst you are moving left to right, to trace a straight line over your retina. Explain to me how they would stay straight if you are so sure. Like I said cods light trails always stay at 180 degrees to the line of flight. If you actually bothered to work this out you'd realise that a light trail always has to be at 180 degrees to the 'percieved' movement. It's a very subtle difference.

Again, the tracers in cod (and most games) behave as if they have a physical tail. They dont. The tail only exists in the eye and it would be impossible to keep every round in focus if you were looking through the sight with an infinite focal depth, like in CoD. Therefore the path they trace over your eye would only be perfectly straight if you were still. It's a simple fact.

[robtek]

Winny,
the speed difference between the bullet and the possibly highest lateral movement make the distortion you are trying to describe so minuscule that it is so unimportant to waste even 1 computing cycle on it.

[winny]

Originally Posted by robtek

Winny,
the speed difference between the bullet and the possibly highest lateral movement make the distortion you are trying to describe so minuscule that it is so unimportant to waste even 1 computing cycle on it.

You are thinking outside the eye.

It only takes a very small movement for this effect to happen. The speed of the bullet is irrelevant. It's all about relative speed across the retina. regardless of actual speed (which is the reason that tracer coming in from the side appear to have a longer tail), they move across the retina quicker than ones moving away from you.

Again, this effect does not hapen anywhere except in the eye. Any movement of the head/eye/aircraft will effect it.

To understand this you need to stop thinking in 3d, tracer light trails are a 2d effect on the back of the eye, like a pen on paper. They are not affected by perspective.

To say that the effect is miniscule is missing the point, if the tail appears to be 2 feet long or 22 feet long it should still be aligned to the relative movement over the 2d image in the back of the eye, not the actual movement in 3D space.

As for wasting cycles.. That's what they are doing now, by drawing in 3d bars of light.

I'm no games designer and this may actually be horrendously difficult but..

Surley it would be lighter on resources to simply not render the tracer in 3D but to draw them in as a 2D overlay, with the tail at 180 degrees to the movement across the eye/screen? ie. treat it exactly as it is, instead of rendering a 3d bar of light that doesn't actually exist anywhere except inside your eye.

[Mysticpuma]

The problem I have with the current effect is the thickness and also the tracer is always perfect. I never see any randomness in the bullet decay or fade as it falls away, they all burn perfectly, almost like switching 'realistic gunnery' off in IL2:1946. There needs to be variation in the animation. MP

[ElAurens]

And now we get to the crux of this issue.

Gamers, like winney, want SFX, and will totally discount a professional's real world experience.

There is no room for Hollywood SFX in a simulation.

I can't wait for the new sound engine and complaints that the weapons don't sound right. Well, here is a clue to start chomping on, firearms in movies sound nothing like real weapons being fired.

Thank you SYN_Bliss for your post and putting sanity into this issue.

[/thread].

[yellonet]

Originally Posted by winny

You are thinking outside the eye.

It only takes a very small movement for this effect to happen. The speed of the bullet is irrelevant. It's all about relative speed across the retina. regardless of actual speed (which is the reason that tracer coming in from the side appear to have a longer tail), they move across the retina quicker than ones moving away from you.

Again, this effect does not hapen anywhere except in the eye. Any movement of the head/eye/aircraft will effect it.

To understand this you need to stop thinking in 3d, tracer light trails are a 2d effect on the back of the eye, like a pen on paper. They are not affected by perspective.

To say that the effect is miniscule is missing the point, if the tail appears to be 2 feet long or 22 feet long it should still be aligned to the relative movement over the 2d image in the back of the eye, not the actual movement in 3D space.

As for wasting cycles.. That's what they are doing now, by drawing in 3d bars of light.

I'm no games designer and this may actually be horrendously difficult but..

Surley it would be lighter on resources to simply not render the tracer in 3D but to draw them in as a 2D overlay, with the tail at 180 degrees to the movement across the eye/screen? ie. treat it exactly as it is, instead of rendering a 3d bar of light that doesn't actually exist anywhere except inside your eye.

I understand what you're saying, but I actually do think it's more difficult to implement this optical illusion than to do what we have now.
I would guess that what we have now is a visible "light bar" simply riding on the already calculated trajectory of the bullet.
To get a dynamic representation of tracer fire someone would likely need to create such a function from scratch. Perhaps the Devs aren't aware of the effect or they just didn't think it was worth the effort to implement.