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

[klem]

Originally Posted by pupaxx

I think they should be more similar to this:

anyway, too much faultless lasergun-looking 4 me. i don't know how they appears in RL, all I know is what I see in vids and films and the well discussed technical implication of filming (what u see is what a camera 'electronically' sees)
Cheers

Thats the last time I go to a boot sale!

[Targ]

I voted "dont care"

[skouras]

Originally Posted by Targ

I voted "dont care"

agreed

[Baron]

Completely and utterly indifferent.


Would be cool with more effects from fire hitting targets/ground targets etc. though.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by machoo

I don't care what experts say. The tracers should have a squiggle like on Tv. Why? Because you are pressing a button that vibrates the crap out of your body , the aircraft is vibrating , the perspex would be vibrating.

It just makes sense.

Is your vision blurry when driving down the highway in an older car or a truck? Because there's all sorts of vibration in that one too

The amount of tissue in your body and the reflex motions of your eyeballs can dampen these vibrations out to the point that they are non-perceivable until the vibration gets really severe.


As for the topic at hand, i agree with Heliocon that making them slightly thinner and using lighting instead of geometry to give the impression of glow would make them just right, but i disagree that viewing them 90 degrees off to their line of travel would give off dots (unless one was very far away). At least that's my perception from personally firing 20mm rheinmetal AA guns while i was serving my conscription term in the local air force, the whole gun was shaking when i was watching others fire but when i was firing myself i was on the gun and didn't feel a thing, tracers didn't squiggle at all, etc. All i would see is thin lines of light that turned into small dots as they got about a kilometer or so away from me. I could estimate range from knowing the shell's maximum flight time (it has a self destruct fuse) and the amount of time it flew before it turned into a dot, so it was easy to make a rough calculation, eg "it turns into a dot 1/3rd of the way before it explodes, i know it explodes at 2km, so it's about 600-700 meters".

As for extra effects, there are ricochets modeled in CoD. Best way to see it is to have a steady firing platform with a battery of rapid firing guns: just crash land a 110 and let it rest with its nose low, then start firing those mg17s and the rounds will start impacting a few hundred yards off your nose, you can easily see the ricochets.

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Is your vision blurry when driving down the highway in an older car or a truck? Because there's all sorts of vibration in that one too

The amount of tissue in your body and the reflex motions of your eyeballs can dampen these vibrations out to the point that they are non-perceivable until the vibration gets really severe.


As for the topic at hand, i agree with Heliocon that making them slightly thinner and using lighting instead of geometry to give the impression of glow would make them just right, but i disagree that viewing them 90 degrees off to their line of travel would give off dots (unless one was very far away). At least that's my perception from personally firing 20mm rheinmetal AA guns while i was serving my conscription term in the local air force, the whole gun was shaking when i was watching others fire but when i was firing myself i was on the gun and didn't feel a thing, tracers didn't squiggle at all, etc. All i would see is thin lines of light that turned into small dots as they got about a kilometer or so away from me. I could estimate range from knowing the shell's maximum flight time (it has a self destruct fuse) and the amount of time it flew before it turned into a dot, so it was easy to make a rough calculation, eg "it turns into a dot 1/3rd of the way before it explodes, i know it explodes at 2km, so it's about 600-700 meters".

As for extra effects, there are ricochets modeled in CoD. Best way to see it is to have a steady firing platform with a battery of rapid firing guns: just crash land a 110 and let it rest with its nose low, then start firing those mg17s and the rounds will start impacting a few hundred yards off your nose, you can easily see the ricochets.

Sorry I might not have been clear with this. Watching from the side 90 degree angle at close range makes the tracer look even longer than from behind. However the farther away you are the shorter the tracer length looks.

(also in general) I am not in the military so I cannot attest to higher calibre weapons like a .50 or 20mm equivalent.
In the end its all just physics though.

[Blackdog_kt]

@ Heliocon: Yep, your revised explanation is in agreement with my personal experience, if that's worth anything

Originally Posted by kalimba

well, seems like those who saw real tracers and those who didn't agree that CODs tracers aren't right...
So what would be the good compromise here so everyone feels that we get
realistic impression of what would be real tracers as seen by humans in a real plane flying at 250 mph ?....What would be a common ground as reference in that case ? The best thing would be to have something on film or video that would bring unanimous agreement as a basis to work from....

Am I dreaming ?

salute !

It's very simple really. Just make them a bit thinner and make the amount of glow dependent on ambient light conditions. I don't know how simple it is to do in coding/graphics design terms, but that's the only thing two things they would need to change.

That's why i've been a supporter of the initial stock tracers. They may not be 100% correct but they are a much more sound foundation and starting point for getting correct-looking tracers as viewed by the human eye with a couple of modifications, while what we've usually had in other sims in previous years is harder to modify into what the eye actually sees.

The basic idea behind the CoD tracers is totally correct as far as i'm concerned and they exhibit all the correct traits in terms of shape/size depending on angular separation and amount of streaking depending on distance. They just need a bit of fine tuning and i mean that in the literal sense of the word, they just need a tiny bit of touching up and they'll be looking exactly like what i've seen in real life.

[jamesdietz]

Seems to me I read all this berfore in SAS & AAS Forum postings for Il-2 Mods.They came up with alot of variations all of which ( to my eye) look better than the death ray tracers in CloD...sadly....