Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by kendo65

I don't really think this is a 'problem' - ie something that needs to be 'fixed'

A side-effect of running a monitor with higher resolution is that you get a more realistic experience - in this case distant aircraft are rendered more precisely.

The result, of course, for those who value the competitive gaming experience is that they suffer a disadvantage in being able to spot enemy ac.

For those who value realism over getting a competitive edge there is no problem.

you are incorrect there kendo, but maybe you just didnt put enough thought into what you wrote.

first, when the original il2 came out most monitors were 15' or 17' crt's, using resolutions similar to 1024 x 768, and that is exactly what il2 was designed to display these "distant dots of aircraft" correctly on (being for ex 2 black and 2 grey pixels combined in a 4 pixel dot). the scenery might not have been all that high rez and pretty, but at least you could spot the bogey at 2 km correctly (approximating visibility in real life)

fast forward 10 years and run the same game engine (and dot display method) on a nice 30' lcd at 2560 x 1600, and the scenery might look great but that same 4 pixel dot at the very high resolution is now much harder to find (because these same 4 pixels are MUCH smaller now). hence many people with those large monitors will 1/2 their resolution to 1280 x 800 to play online and be competitive, and suddenly those distant dots have become 2x easier to spot.

additionally, however good lcd's and other flatscreens are now, they still are not as good as the original crt's in displaying sharp clean video (unless you have some high grade professional ips lcd), so trying to find a small moving dot against a background of forest and other landscape is significantly higher now. further, the most distant lod models in the original il2 did not have "3D volume" to them, they were simple flat clumps of grey and black pixels, making them MUCH harder to identify then a real 3 dimensional object in real life at the same distance (when viewed on a less then perfect pc display technology). the end result is that on a modern pc system in il2 you are flying in a myopic mini bubble of SA which is 2/3 smaller then what it should be, compared to the historical visibility real pilots had to deal with in ww2 aircraft. "harder to spot" might be one ignorant persons idea of playing a game online which is "difficult" , but it is not simulating the environment and visibility real pilots had to deal with in ww2 (and after all most of us here are interested in the "simulation" part i presume).

all this has been extensively discuses in the main il2 forums over the years, and oleg is well aware of this problem and has tried to address it for BoB/Sow. as you might have noticed in some of the early video clips we have seen, distant LoD models now have "volume" to them, and these distant aircraft stand out much more as a result. additionally instead of 3 LoD models there are 7 or 8 iirc, so the transition to having pixels represent a distant object is much better

there are major compromises we still have to deal with in pc games in 2010/2011, and one of those in BoB/SoW will be "pretty" versus "realistic distant aircraft spotting distances", and obviously the focus should be on the latter.

in your statement of "....running a monitor with higher resolution is that you get a more realistic experience - in this case distant aircraft are rendered more precisely..." you were incorrect in assuming a prettier landscape and "more precisely rendered" also meant aircraft were more realistically displayed at far distances, which has never been the case in il2 from FB onwards (when oleg reduced the dot sizes, and the earlier uglier big dots were replaced with "prettier ones" which were MUCH harder to spot).

[kendo65]

Ok Zappa. Thanks for the considered reply. i'll look into it a bit more.

But surely the most distant depiction of any aircraft at maximum range will be a single pixel? This is what i understood, and a post earlier today from Oleg ( I think - could've been Luthier?) said as much.

For newer high-res monitors that single pixel will appear smaller on screen and thus be harder to spot. My point was that real-life pilots had to contend with similar issues - and that the max distance depiction of a near-invisible single pixel would be closer to that reality than the larger, more easily visible pixel on say an 800x600 screen?

----

ok, home now, and had another look. Yes - I can see what you're getting at.

Part of the problem too was a bit of sloppy use of language in my original post - as you identified concerning 'rendered more precisely'.

Seems I have made a few assumptions which may not have been correct. Seems the key issue as to whether it is more realistic or not is when the lod-switching is triggered - and I can see that in the move to higher res that could skew the original balance.

Basically, I'm not a competitive online flyer, so it isn't something that has been an issue for me

[GT182]

Must be nice. I see Oleg has bought the Devs the new Thrustmaster Cougar Warthog stick and throttle setup.

Can't see getting it... no rudder pedal connection or support.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by kendo65

Ok Zappa. Thanks for the considered reply. i'll look into it a bit more.

But surely the most distant depiction of any aircraft at maximum range will be a single pixel? This is what i understood, and a post earlier today from Oleg ( I think - could've been Luthier?) said as much.

For newer high-res monitors that single pixel will appear smaller on screen and thus be harder to spot. My point was that real-life pilots had to contend with similar issues - and that the max distance depiction of a near-invisible single pixel would be closer to that reality than the larger, more easily visible pixel on say an 800x600 screen?

----

ok, home now, and had another look. Yes - I can see what you're getting at.

Part of the problem too was a bit of sloppy use of language in my original post - as you identified concerning 'rendered more precisely'.

Seems I have made a few assumptions which may not have been correct. Seems the key issue as to whether it is more realistic or not is when the lod-switching is triggered - and I can see that in the move to higher res that could skew the original balance.

Basically, I'm not a competitive online flyer, so it isn't something that has been an issue for me

Kendo,

afaik the most distant "aircraft dots" in the il2 series sim do not use a single pixel to represent the distant object, they us a square clump of 4 pixels (2 black and 2 grey ). as you probably know close up aircraft/ship type objects in il2 are represented currently with 3 LoD models, which transition to a progressively smaller LoD model the further you get away from the object. iirc somewhere between 1000 and 1500 meters (depending on object size) this smallest LoD model will transition to a number of pixels drawing the rough shape of the very distant aircraft, and at the furthest distances this will then transition to a single 4 pixel "dot" untill at about 5 km the dot disappears completely.

in any discussion like this you need to differentiate between distant aircraft seen against an open blue sky background (reasonably easy to see), and those drawn against a terrain scenery background (almost impossible to see in most circumstances in il2, and very unrealistic in its "aircraft spotting" distances, particularly since in most instances in il2 we fly with near perfect visibility). and to illustrate with 2 simple screenshots how this problem becomes even much worse in il2 when you add a variation in screen resolution, see the illustrations below

the initial screenshot is with a 30' lcd in its native resolution, note no faint aircraft dot in the middle of the screenshot (we are searching for a low altitude pghter aircraft somewhere below us), but the snow covered scenery looks fairly good video quality and is "pretty"



next shot is of the exact same situation but now we have halved the screen resolution, meaning the pixels now used to display the 4 pixel dot is 2x larger. as you should be able to note now, you CAN see the faint black dot of the enemy fighter below you ! and that is exactly why many experienced flyers *who are into online stat counting) will "game the game" by halving their resolutions. you should also be able to note the scenery quality has gone downhill, and is now noticeably not as pretty or "good".



the point of all this is to ask yourself "what could a historical ww2 fighter pilot see from his cockpit in that exact same situation" ? and that is basically what il2/BoB should presumably aim to "simulate".

there are other issues and problems relating to this "pixel display" problem representing distant aircraft in il2 . another good example is in this flight of four i-16's heading in your direction (illustrated here with a zoomed clip with these 4 aircraft against open sky). i-16's are at roughly 1000 m distance, 3 km alt, game paused and screenshot taken in external view at 1280x1024



as you can see only one of them looks vaguely like a "plane" (yet it is a formation of 4 planes flying together), the others are just an erratic irregular group of pixels, AND those drawings constantly change shape depending on the view angle ! instead of seeing a solid "aircraft looking pixel group" coming your way, you catch intermittent glimpses of a jumbled shape of loose pixels coming your way (and this is against open blue sky). 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.

the same problem is illustrated by trying to hunt for ground targets in open fields or on roads. during the normandy invasion allied tank busters would scan the scenery for german targets from 1500 m alt, and could see individual tanks/trucks stand out clearly in open fields and on roads. ever tried to do the same in il2 ? you cant, you need to be at about 350 meters or even lower to do the same (which then makes you more vulnerable to ground fire, and because you also have to fly slower it makes you more vulnerable to enemy planes).

note: people who "game the game" in il2 will often use an artificial zoom by briefly narrowing their FoV setting to 30 degree's and then scan the ground/sky for targets, but this is not he solution and is the equivalent of using binoculars. in short, when your monitor is correctly calibrated and you have the right FoV setup for your monitor size, you SHOULD be able to see from your cockpit what a real human could see in the same situation from his cockpit, in il2 this was NOT the case this was a major issue, probably the single biggest downfall of the whole series.

note 2: oleg was well aware of this problem and in patch 3.02 (iirc) he significantly increased the pixel clump size that represents these distant aircraft. this did correct the problem (but probably made them a bit to visible now), but the whiners got the upper hand at the time and oleg removed his fix in the next patch, and for years didnt want to discuss it again (but i know he has taken it under consideration for BoB/Sow)

[kendo65]

Yeah - pretty conclusive. Nothing much more to say except that I was wrong.

...though still have suspicions that you may have photoshopped the second image

[swiss]

Zappa:

There must be something wrong.

low-res: plane is 6-8pixels
high: plane is 2pixels

Do you still have the ntrk? If so, please host at somewhere I would like to conduct some tests too, but to do that we need the same picture.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by swiss

Zappa:

There must be something wrong.

low-res: plane is 6-8pixels
high: plane is 2pixels

Do you still have the ntrk? If so, please host at somewhere I would like to conduct some tests too, but to do that we need the same picture.

this might make the concept easier to understand

below a screenshot of a B-17 (wingspan 30 m +) seen at roughly 5 km against blue sky with some clouds. for this aircraft the il2 engine keeps trying to draw the rough shape of the aircraft untill about 5.7 km when it suddenly and abruptly transitions to its generic display of "the il2 dot" being made up of 4 pixels ( 2 black and 2 grey)

the left image displays the "4 pixel dot", the right image is with the aircraft just a little closer (by 200 m), when the il2 engine now tries to draw the shape of the aircraft (and we get pop-up of the smallest LoD model being displayed). the sim does it roughly correctly by now showing 15 horizontal pixels for the wingspan (all credit to "lurch", an astronomer il2-flyer who made the calculations)



for the discussion in this thread the issue is about the "4 pixel dot" and how visible it is, and how realistic this visibility is compared to real life "spotting distances". if the aircraft was a me-109 with a winspan just under 10 m wide, this "lod to dot" transition point would have happened at about 1/3 the distance, being roughly at 1500 meters (which is indeed when it happens for that aircraft in il2).

and that is exactly what my earlier screenshots were intended to illustrate. if you have an me-109 below you somewhere at 1700 m distance, and hence he is displayed by the "4 pixel dot" then SCREEN RESOLUTION MATTERS a great deal (because on a monitor changing the resolution changes the pixel size).

on the 30' dell the earlier screenshots were taken on (snow scenery), the monitor has a pixel size of 0.250 mm, so the 4 pixels form a little square of 0.5 by 0.5 mm (2 pixels being grey, and 2 black as you can see in the zoomed in gunsight), but if you halve the screen resolution of that same monitor you suddenly have 0.50 mm pixels and the "il2 dot" has doubled to 1 mm by 1 mm. hence on the screenshots i posted earlier this is the critical change from "now you see it" to "now you dont"

this is something many online flyers have been using for years to "game the game", you reduce your screen resolution and bogey's are much easier to spot.

there is however an even bigger problem then that. these little 4 pixel dots still dont accurately represent what most real ww2 fighter pilots could/would see from their cockpits ! if il2/BoB is claiming to be a simulator then it is critical in my opinion this most important issue has a high priority (and oleg in the last few years has answered positively he is aware of this problem and is trying to correct it for BoB/il2).

ps: if anybody wants to play around with their monitor resolutions in il2, try and use exactly 1/2 your native resolution as a comparison point (this will double the pixels used in the 4 pixel il2 dots). using other comparison ratio's will require sub pixel blending of the "dot", creating a fuzzy and less describable outline. nice square blocks of full pixels are much easier to see as il2 dots

[swiss]

Originally Posted by zapatista

this might make the concept easier to understand

I do understand what you said.
Unfortunately I can't reproduce your resolution, I got a 22"/1680 here.
However I tested 1280 vs 1680. On both resolution the plane in the distance had the size of two pixels.

Maybe I screwed something up while taking the screenshots(dont think so tho')...
Anyway; here are the shots and the ntrk, 7.55mb zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/447028204/ss-and-ntrk.zip

[zapatista]

can you just post the shots here in the thread ?

easier to see and discuss

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by swiss

I do understand what you said.
Unfortunately I can't reproduce your resolution, I got a 22"/1680 here.
However I tested 1280 vs 1680. On both resolution the plane in the distance had the size of two pixels.

Maybe I screwed something up while taking the screenshots(dont think so tho')...
Anyway; here are the shots and the ntrk, 7.55mb zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/447028204/ss-and-ntrk.zip

the key point for using comparison screenshots is that:
1) the distant aircraft you are looking at must indeed be a dot (so past the lod model drawing distance, for single engine fighters this can be up to 2000 m or so)
2) have your monitor FoV correctly set for the monitor size so ingame objects are displayed in 1:1 ratio compared to real life, dont use a zoomed in/out FoV setting
3) use in cockpit viewing of the distant object, external views can distort and magnify
4) use 1/2 your native resolution to compare the 2 screenshots