Quote:
Originally Posted by luthier
Oleg is out today. Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow and be back to answer questions. For now, I'll just take this one.
This just came up today for the umpteenth time. We discussed it at length.
We don't have anywhere near the time needed to animate the pilot model properly. We can put his hands on throttle and stick and feet on pedals, and then in half the cockpits he'll have other levers clipping through his body, stick clipping through his knees, etc. His arms will obscure important gauges on the dashboard.
With our new 6DOF free camera system that allows you to poke your head out the window or "bend" forward and look at the seat back, there's just no way we can animate the body to follow the camera, meaning you'd be able to twist your neck and look back on your own headless contorted body.
So, the answer is no. A poltergeist cockpit is not perfect, but the alternative is even worse.
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My gosh, the knees, the knuckes, the stick, the feet are all just obstructions to the instrument panel. Occassionally, I look at the trim switches to make sure they are working and I hate having to pull back on the stick in some aircraft to see the instruments.
Too bad we can't look around the stick, but really who cares. If the stick weren't there you don't need a fix.
Also, I don't know of reading where pilots were sticking their head out of cockpit except when taxi. Otherwise, the wind was too strong at flight speeds.
6DOF with something like a freetrack or trackir would be nice.
I do like to see a pilot in the cockpit outside views, and looking across at my mates or enemies. It does make a lot more sense than viewing an aircraft in flight with an empty cockpit.