Another thread on A/C visibility and the dot/polygon transfer

[pstyle]

This is merely a suggestion, and probably fraught with problems.. but I thought about proposing it anyways.

The problem:
As has been stated many times, there is a small visual issue that occurs when smaller aircraft change over from a dot, to rendered polygons. This changeover often causes the aircraft to effectively disappear, unless the observer reacts quickly with a FOV (“zoom”) change.

In my RL experience, no such sudden visual illusion exists. YES, sometimes one loses sight of an aircraft, but as a general rule, as objects get closer, they generally become more easily visible, provided no other objects or lighting conditions obscure the view.

Proposed solution:
Is it possible, or desirable, for the game engine to continue to render/ generate the DOT, even after the polygons have started to render? So that, you will see a dot, AND the polygon?

Because the view generation is relative to the observer (and is not actually part of the object) could the game ensure that a dot is generated on top of the rendered polygon, until, say 500m distance (at which point the dot disappears, and you get only the rendered textures/polygons)?

I would hope that this dot, if not too high-contrast would not diminish the skins too much (if at all - it's only 1 pixel?...), and would assist in smoothing over this abrupt visual transition between just-a-dot and just-some-polygons, thus hopefully reducing that moment when aircraft “disappear”, before reappearing much closer.

Obviously, the dot would need to respond to clouds (so that clouds could be sued to hide behind/ in)…

Any ideas about this? Worth discussing?