A potential fix for the Aircraft visibility problems?

[zapatista]

last yr i made a detailed post on the 6 bit versus 8 bit lcd monitor issue, found here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...6&postcount=58

its a summary of what was extensively discussed in some of the main il2 forums in previous yrs, and this issue was only identified as a significant variable after many yrs of having some people claim they had no problems spotting dots/lod's, when under exactly the same conditions (even with playing a track of the same event) some others could not see anything.

credit goes to the others who helped identify this

[PLebre]

I totaly agree with BUZZSAW point of view.
But I have my own idea about how to give a solution to the problem.

First I would like to say that I am 100% to the factor Simulation, as real as the real thing the better.

But we have to agree that the actual interface (vitual reality. Display, grafics, trackir, joystick) have its limitations.

So I will go for the follow possible solution.

First, increase the spot visibility distance (plus than the real spot visibility for a determinated airplane dimensions). This is a point less in the Sim factor, but I think somehow this will compensate the interface limits. At that distance stage the plane will be represented by a black point, and it dimension not related to the current scale distance dimension, just a black point that could be easily spotted on the display.

At closer distances, when the plane begins to be represented by the 3D model first LOD´s, with a over scaled highlight sun refection effect when the spotted plane is to by seen from an above position and no changes when seen from a lower point of view, because we will have a lot of contraste from the object with the lighty sky.

Same process to by aply for the ground target objects.

Just my 2cents.

Regards

[zapatista]

from a previous post i made in this forum a couple of yrs ago. my humble apology for another text wall, but since it is a complex issue we all aim to get resolved, the technical detail in the variables involved does matter

A Basic description of the visibility problem for distant aircraft in the il2/CoD sim series:

I: For those who havnt yet seen how the LoD (level of detail) models work in il2
first, you have the close up detailed external view of an aircraft, it shows it in all its glory but also takes a huge amount of cpu/gpu power to display.
- this detailed visual representation will stay the same up to a certain distance (a 100 meters + ?) where the aircraft just becomes smaller and more distant
second, at some fixed distance from the viewer the more distant aircraft will then transition to a LoD model which keeps the rough shape of the aircraft, but gives much less visual detailed information (since you cant see it anyway, and would be a waste of cpu/gpu power to keep drawing it)required)
third, at an even further away distance this previous LoD model will transition to another even smaller and more rudimentary one, it will only have the rough outline of the aircraft it represent (single or multi engine etc)
fourth, at the furthest away distance (usually somewhere between 1000 and 5000 meters depending on how big the aircraft is) that last LoD model will transition to the "il2 Dot". when you are flying as a fighter pilot and expect other enemy fighters in your area, being able to see these "Dot's" from a realistic real life distance is extremely important. eg, if in real life you might be able to spot (and then track) a moving dot somewhere 2000 meters below you, you'd hope this would be accurately represented in the il2 sim series (but this sadly is not the case up untill now)

these 3 shots show the 3 LoD models for the p40 in il2 (for some reason the animated gif wont work on this forum)


the problem this currently creates, aside from some of the errors in some of the LoD models themselves (like the 2e LoD model of the seafire in il2 series having no wings, making it much harder to detect), is that these smaller LoD models are just little clusters of flat little 2D pixles sliding over a 2 dimensional flat image of the distant terrain scenery that your pc already struggles to make look like a real landscape

so problem 1: that distant little p40 might well be the right size, but on computer screens it is MUCH harder to spot (and keep track of) then a real life because it "blends in more" with whatever is displayed behind it. in real life the 3 dimensional little object stands out against the background more (as understood in modern neuroscience, the human eye through millions of years of evolution is very good at tracking those real life little objects in the distance)
the good news:
-more Lod models are now provided in CoD/SoW series, which means a finer transition and potentially more distant viewing distance before it transitions to the small "dot" sadly we now see in CoD this is not a solution in the way the Lod models are currently painted/displayed. the new method of representing distant aircraft/tanks/trucks is better, but its visibility implementation is not.
- oleg seemed to understand this problem when repeatedly put to him, and there were indications (from early preview video's) that he might have implemented the "little 3D blob" method to make them stand out a bit more in CoD (a bump mapped little blob would take much less computing power, and would visually more closely represents an object the human eye can detect and track on a flat 2D computer screen.
the bad news: sadly there was no sign of this new implementation method in the final release. in some of the CoD preview video's released earlier the distant dots of bomber formations on the screen looked like small individual water droplets rather then the previous flat pixel clusters. this would mean the distant object keeps its volume and visibility much more and stands out from the background more on our pc screens, and imho it could have been an elegant solution to trying to represent a distant aircraft on current 2D pc display technology (which has by its very nature significant limitations in representing distant 3 dimensional objects).

problem 2: for the smaller LoD models, the little cluster of pixels that roughly keeps the shape of the intended aircraft, ONLY DOES SO FROM CERTAIN ANGLES, ie it depends what part of the aircraft you are looking at. from many viewpoints this cluster of pixels will fragment and break up, completely loosing the shape of any aircraft it might have been, making it 50x harder to keep track of !
as an example: this is a distant view of the smallest LoD model for the earlier p40 example



now if you look at a screenshot of a flight of four i-16's heading in your direction (from a similar distance as the last smalles p40 LoD model in the previous illustration), you can clearly see that only one of them looks vaguely like a "plane" (yet it is a formation of 4 planes flying together), the others which are immediatly adjecent to the first one are just seen from a slightly different angle, but have now just become an erratic irregular group of pixels, AND those drawings constantly change shape depending on the view angle !



so instead of seeing a solid "aircraft looking pixel group" coming your way, in the il2/CoD game series you catch intermittent glimpses of a jumbled shape of loose pixels coming your way instead (and this is against open blue sky), but this is NOT the case in real life when it stays a solid object (because your eye resolution is higher then your pc display resolution, eg look at Mac's newer screens claiming "retina" high resolution (bit of a market gimmick, but you get the idea).

Now if you put this in front of the complex shaped and colored "ground terrain" textured background, the human eye simply cannot track this irregular moving cluster of loose single pixels, due to the lack of well defined shape to visually "lock on". You can intermittently reacquire the target when it changes to something more visible as it comes closer and transitions to a larger LOD's, but in a combat situation where both aircraft are doing 300 km/hr and are rapidly closing (or he is trying to sneak up on you) this is not "simulating" what a real pilot would/could see, and therefore doesnt allow realistic combat engagements because you situational awareness bubble has shrunk to 30% of what it should be.

II: one important issue is that when the smallest LoD model transitions to the "il2 dot"
this is an example of the "3e LoD to Dot transition point", when the il2 sim series represents very distant small aircraft shapes with a "dot" (either 4 pixel clump, or 2 pixel clump)

for the b17 and its wide wingspan, it transitions to a "4 pixel dot" at around 5 km (for a small single engine fighter this lod to dot transition point is much closer, somewhere between 1000 and 2000 meters). as you can see from the illustration, one moment you have a vague representation of an aircraft shape, the next it is just a little dot (this is done to save cpu/gpu power)

- the problem we have is that these 4 (or 2, or 1) pixels might well represent the right size for the distant aircraft, but as illustrated earlier for the smallest LoD models in a 2011 pc game these 4, 2, or 1 dot sizes are not visually identified to the same extent on a pc monitor as they would be visible in real life. so these smallest pixel clumps DO need an enhanced visibility feature as well to make them stand out more (and it needs to be a solution that is equally valid for 6 or 8 bit monitors, so we dont have a repeat of the MAJOR problem this created in il2)

For the il2 "dot visibility" however there are no indications this has been solved for BoB-SoW !! we had in il2-4.08 a "4 pixel dot" representing a very distant aircraft (ie, a distant one that has become smaller then the 3e LoD model), and the game keeps this 4 pixel dot as the smallest representation of the distant aircraft (untill it suddenly completely vanishes at a specific distance). some indications are that in 4.09 this 4 pixel dot was now drawn even smaller as a 2 pixel dot, and from one of luthier's recent comments in BoB-SoW the game engine will even give further more distant visibility and at greatest distances an aircraft will be represented by a single pixel. the dot issue is however somewhat less serious in CoD because the greater amount of LoD models allows (presumably) more accurate distant drawing of very small objects

note: this situation is not helped by the fact that not many il2 users know exactly what a "real life distant aircraft" should look like when seen from a ww2 fighter plane cockpit, and some well meaning (but ignorant) posters will raise unrelated reasons like "but the plane has camouflage paint so you cant see it"
note 2: any discussion on this topic with il2 users is further complicated by the fact that 6 bit monitor users have a much less severe dot spotting problem, because of the inferior ability of their monitors to represent grey shades, these grey/black dots stand out much more and they might be able to see them 2 or 3x better then most other users (an additional factor is that many pc users dont have callibrated monitors, and il2 players dont use a standardized amount of AA and AF on their gfx cards). so not all il2 users are aware of how severe this problem is.

conclusion: some in game enhancements need to be used to make distant aircraft (and ground targets) stand out more and deal with the fact we are looking at a 2D monior rather then looking out a window in real life, so these ingame objects are more visible (and able to be tracked) from similar distances as they were for real life ww2 pilots (and this is needed for both distant small LoD models and the "il2 dots"). currently il2 and CoD has 30% of this visibility we should have, and we fly around in a myopic mini bubble of visibility which completely distorts what your normal situational awareness should be. this problem is the most significant issue in what makes the il2 series a "simulator", and needs to be addressed as a matter of priority for BoB-SoW

[SlipBall]

zapatista, waiting for any changes from the team may take awhile. Why not just buy a Planar SA 2311W, if I remember right it, was only 220.- or so.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

Why not just buy a Planar SA 2311W, if I remember right it, was only 220.- or so.

because compensating for one error by introducing other errors just leads to further problems down the line i, and most people here, also use their pc setup for a whole host of other purposes, and reducing quality has other flow on effects. i agree with you however that for people buying a new monitor for il2/CoD, this is something they should maybe consider. but then again we also need to advise those people to set their monitors to lower resolutions so dots and LoD models stand out more (and distort their color setups, a well calibrated monitor is again a potential disadvantage)

or instead luthier could fix the dot/LoD visibility issue, and we can all enjoy the glory of the new CoD scenery in its greatest beauty possible, as well as our hardware will allow

i prefer option b)

btw, using a 6 bit monitor doesnt really "solve" the issue, it just makes it significantly easier to spot a small moving dot (eg il2/CoD distant aircraft) against a static terrain scenery. even with that "glitter artifact" present under those conditions it still doesnt provide correct viewing/spotting/tracking/identification distances in CoD. for ex just try and fly over an airfield at 1250 meters and look down to see if you can spot static parked small aircraft or see individual vehicles driving around, i bet you cant (dont use a zoomed view, use a correct FoV for your monitor size only !!). yet in real life you could/can, that's the issue. its just that during these debates a small group of people has *less* of an issue with this, and that is where the 6 bit monitors come in

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by zapatista

because compensating for one error by introducing other errors just leads to further problems down the line i, and most people here, also use their pc setup for a whole host of other purposes, and reducing quality has other flow on effects.

i agree with you however that for people buying a new monitor for il2/CoD, this is something they should maybe consider. but then again we also need to advise those people to set their monitors to lower resolutions so dots and LoD models stand out more (and distort their color setups, a well calibrated monitor is again a potential disadvantage)

or instead luthier could fix the dot/LoD visibility issue, and we can all enjoy the glory of the new CoD scenery in its greatest beauty possible, as well as our hardware will allow

i prefer option b)

btw, using a 6 bit monitor doesnt really "solve" the issue, it just makes it significantly easier to spot a small moving dot (eg il2/CoD distant aircraft) against a static terrain scenery. even with that "glitter artifact" present under those conditions it still doesnt provide correct viewing/spotting/tracking/identification distances in CoD. for ex just try and fly over an airfield at 1250 meters and look down to see if you can spot static parked small aircraft or see individual vehicles driving around, i bet you cant (dont use a zoomed view, use a correct FoV for your monitor size only !!). yet in real life you could/can, that's the issue. its just that during these debates a small group of people has *less* of an issue with this, and that is where the 6 bit monitors come in

I took the zapatista challenge, and yes the static aircraft are clearly visible for me 1250m. I had a truck driving around the aircraft, I would spot it, and then loose it at times...I'll edit, and post some shots...let me say that the shots are not as clear as viewed while flying

Sunrise, 1250m, 12 static Bf 109, one truck...just past wing end




high noon, just ahead of leading edge

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I took the zapatista challenge, and yes the static aircraft are clearly visible for me 1250m. I had a truck driving around the aircraft, I would spot it, and then loose it at times...I'll edit, and post some shots.

lol, great

why dont you take this one step further and make it usefull for the rest of us !

make a recording track of your "event" so the rest of us can replay it on our own CoD and see what visibility we have. if i understand correctly how the il2 tracks work, and somebody correct me if i am wrong, playing the track will in effect recreate the event on our pc using our own CoD program (and use its detail and option settings) so the distant LoD and dots are recreated, not just "displayed as a recorded video clip" (if you see what i mean)

if that is correct, it should work fine as a comparison method to determine who can see what on their different systems

SlipBall, please make sure you are at 1200 meters and dont use a "zoomed view", because that is the equivalent of using a pair of binoculars strapped to your pilots head. use "normal view" (untill hopefully in the next patch luthier will allow us to set specific FoV's we are stuck with the 3 pre-defined ones). planes parked on the ground must be stationary (truck/tank can be driving around)

ps: dont have a truck "driving around the aircraft" plz (creates the same repeated movements in one specific location), just have a truck driving from point A to point B somewhere on the airfield, or drive in a wide loop as you might want to overfly the airfield several times. a single or multiple trucks driving on a small open road is also a good sample for our purposes.

[SlipBall]

OK, just one thing though, this will be the first track I ever made (crazy right!). How do you/where will I find it/ how do I package it?

[zapatista]

when you make the track, give it a name that is easy to identify, because you then next need to go look in the folder where il2/CoD saves its tracks. then just rar or zip up the track into an archive file and upload it on the web somewhere

[zapatista]

slipball,
i cant see anything there at your wingtip that would specifically represent a small prop aircraft or a truck, and i expanded the screenshots you posted to full size on my 27' monitor and looked over the area just above your wing tip with a magnifying glass

i dont doubt you see something, but i dont think it illustrates what allied pilots were describing when talking about going on a free hunt after the normandy invasion, and being able to pick out individual german tanks/trucks stationary in a field, or moving on a road. even if there was something to see in the screenshot you posted, i think it would represent what YOU can see on your setup, rather then have each of us looking at the same scenery from the same distances on our own pc setups.

a ingame recorded track might do that (hopefully somebody here knows more about how they work exactly when replayed on other pc's)