Tracers Rounds (From SimHQ)

Originally Posted by Upthair

Although I myself have never in person seen tracers being fired, but I have doubt that the "light rod" of each tracer should be of both the same brightness and the same width from beginning to end.

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I've shot 8mm tracer ammunition (WWII vintage stuff) out of my Mauser and it's pretty much just like the videos and the pics from SOW. When you fire it, it looks like you are lobbing a bright dot since you can see the rise and fall of the bullet along its path. When looking from the side it looks just like star wars, long streaks or laser bolts. In my experience they look almost exactly alike on and off camera.

Here are some videos.

This one shows .22 tracers during the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCsv30xysHA

Here are rifle calibre rounds approaching the camera at night. I'm not sure how visible they would be during the day from this angle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1iXp5m8ovE

Sometimes you can't see them at all during the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1j2PBYroNM

Tracers in .45 ACP?!?! Why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3kNH3_cytE

Generally speaking, they have done a pretty good job on the tracers, but I'm wondering how visible they will be when they are between a light source and you.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Tracers in .45 ACP?!?! Why?

I would hazard a guess for submachine guns like the Thompson, M3 grease gun and Owen.
Cheers

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

I would hazard a guess for submachine guns like the Thompson, M3 grease gun and Owen.
Cheers

I'm thinking more for people who have more money than sense given the muzzle velocity and effective range of the .45 ACP round.

[Upthair]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

I've shot 8mm tracer ammunition (WWII vintage stuff) out of my Mauser and it's pretty much just like the videos and the pics from SOW. When you fire it, it looks like you are lobbing a bright dot since you can see the rise and fall of the bullet along its path. When looking from the side it looks just like star wars, long streaks or laser bolts. In my experience they look almost exactly alike on and off camera.

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The vidoe above, which you selected to show I was wrong, actually proves my doubt. Please look at the following pictures captured from the video.

In either picture, the tracer "light rod" has both varying brightness and varying diametre (thickness) from head to tail. The fact is too clear to be overlooked.





More can be captured from the video but these two are enough. In addition, the absence of homogeneity (eg, in terms of brightness) along a tracer "light rod" in the air may not be visible at night, because all parts of it are too bright in darkness, so that the camera or the human eye will most probably register all parts as "maximum brightness".

Some people may have also noticed that the distance between the tracer and the camera can play a part in influencing what the tracer looks like in the film - which is quite natural, since the nearer you are, the more details you get.

As I said, what tracers look like is a complex subject.

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[Skoshi Tiger]

Ha!

Just got a call from my Bro'. He was given a mixed box of about 20 WWII vintage .303 rounds. From the Head Stamps two apear to be tracers.

We've been looking for a excuse to get our Lee Endfields out from the safes and run a few rounds through them.

Now we just need to wait for our Total Fire Ban to end and then get tickets of leave from our lovely spouses for a day.

By the end of August I may just get a chance to see a tracer in person!

Cheers!

[choctaw111]

Originally Posted by Upthair

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The vidoe above, which you selected to show I was wrong, actually proves my doubt. Please look at the following pictures captured from the video.

In either picture, the tracer "light rod" has both varying brightness and varying diametre (thickness) from head to tail. The fact is too clear to be overlooked.





More can be captured from the video but these two are enough. In addition, the absence of homogeneity (eg, in terms of brightness) along a tracer "light rod" in the air may not be visible at night, because all parts of it are too bright in darkness, so that the camera or the human eye will most probably register all parts as "maximum brightness".

Some people may have also noticed that the distance between the tracer and the camera can play a part in influencing what the tracer looks like in the film - which is quite natural, since the nearer you are, the more details you get.

As I said, what tracers look like is a complex subject.

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You two "proof" photos are only showing that the tracer has just lit as it is coming out of the barrel and takes a foot or two to reach full brightness, nothing more.
Take a look at the tracers after they reach full brightness. Their width is the same down the length of the trace.
On film and in the human eye the brighter a small object becomes, the bigger, or wider in this case, it appears.
As far as their appearance being a complex subject, I agree as much as saying that a simulated tracer must be dynamic to be realistic. It must be able to have varying lengths depending on apparent speed to the observer.
This is what Ilya is talking about when he says that the tracers are perfect as this is taken into account.

Originally Posted by choctaw111

You two "proof" photos are only showing that the tracer has just lit as it is coming out of the barrel and takes a foot or two to reach full brightness, nothing more.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Another thing that people should take into accound when looking at modern tracers used by the military (in the past 30 years) is that they have a delayed start, so that they will go a hundred yards or more before lighting. This is to keep the operator from being blinded in low-light or night situations and it also has the benefit of not giving the enemy a perfect line to where the gunfire is coming from.

Also that is .45ACP, quite possibly the slowest tracer ammo avaliable in the world (do muskets have tracers?). So it is not going to behave exactly like something traveling 3-4x faster than it.

[123-Wulf-123]

So much BS and nitpicking over an effect which I am SURE the dev team have got right, geez louise

You guys must have little to do with your time if you can spend so much time and effort endlessly arguing about this, god help us all when the game is finally released and you start arguing about the size of fields/haystacks/trees etc ad infinitum

[choctaw111]

Originally Posted by 123-Wulf-123

So much BS and nitpicking over an effect which I am SURE the dev team have got right, geez louise

You guys must have little to do with your time if you can spend so much time and effort endlessly arguing about this, god help us all when the game is finally released and you start arguing about the size of fields/haystacks/trees etc ad infinitum

You may be more right than you know. I'm retired and have plenty of time for this
It actually entertains me.
I was only trying to clarify some misconceptions

[Upthair]

Originally Posted by choctaw111

You two "proof" photos are only showing that the tracer has just lit as it is coming out of the barrel and takes a foot or two to reach full brightness, nothing more.

Taking a foot or two to reach full brightness? Maybe, and maybe not.

Take a look at the tracers after they reach full brightness. Their width is the same down the length of the trace.

Take a look:



If you still say this one bullet has just lit out there, then the "just lit" part is even brighter.

If it is argued that distance is the reason why the nearer end is brighter than the farther end, then this reasoning applies to all vidoes where each tracer segment has homogeneous brightness and width from beginnnig to end. In other words, when a vidoe show that the tracer segments have the same brightness and width down their length, that is because "distance" intervened, and actually they are not homogeneous.

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