Dot Visibility in COD and Other Flight ims.

[Wolf_Rider]

for a quick comparison, go to an airport and watch passenger jets take off (yes, they are a lot larger than a WWII fighter plane) and follow them out 'til they can't be seen anymore. Watch also how jets flying overhead can be unrecognisable due to viewing angle and whether or not a wing is in shadow..

Look at RoyRaiden's avatar to see how camouflage really works

[White Owl]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

for a quick comparison, go to an airport and watch passenger jets take off (yes, they are a lot larger than a WWII fighter plane) and follow them out 'til they can't be seen anymore. Watch also how jets flying overhead can be unrecognisable due to viewing angle and whether or not a wing is in shadow..

Look at RoyRaiden's avatar to see how camouflage really works

Also realize that seeing a moving aircraft against a stationary background is much much easier than seeing a moving aircraft against a moving background. Anybody who has spent time flying planes knows spotting traffic is tricky, even when you're dealing with brightly colored civilian aircraft who aren't trying to hide.

I've always felt the difficulty in spotting aircraft in IL-2 with a high-res monitor was fairly realistic.

[David603]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

for a quick comparison, go to an airport and watch passenger jets take off (yes, they are a lot larger than a WWII fighter plane) and follow them out 'til they can't be seen anymore. Watch also how jets flying overhead can be unrecognisable due to viewing angle and whether or not a wing is in shadow..

Look at RoyRaiden's avatar to see how camouflage really works

A while back I saw a Tiger Moth take-off from an airport. Going on Google maps shows where I was standing was 4km from the runway. I was immediately able to identify it as a Tiger Moth and see its color (bright yellow, which probably helped a bit )

My eyesight is quite good but not the best (16-12) but in Il2 at that range all I would have been able to see would have been a dot.

[brando]

Originally Posted by David603

A while back I saw a Tiger Moth take-off from an airport. Going on Google maps shows where I was standing was 4km from the runway. I was immediately able to identify it as a Tiger Moth and see its color (bright yellow, which probably helped a bit )

My eyesight is quite good but not the best (16-12) but in Il2 at that range all I would have been able to see would have been a dot.

".....where I was standing was 4km from the runway. I was immediately able to identify it as a Tiger Moth...."

What other biplane types might you have been expecting?

B

[David603]

Originally Posted by brando

".....where I was standing was 4km from the runway. I was immediately able to identify it as a Tiger Moth...."

What other biplane types might you have been expecting?

B

I wasn't expecting to see a bi-plane, since it wasn't a airshow and I had no idea that the Tiger Moth was in the area. The reason I could make the identification was I could see the shape of the rudder/fin, which is quite distinctive on the Tiger Moth, and the rest of the shape agreed with the first impression.

The Tiger Moth flew a curving path that passed about 2km (going by the map) from me, at which point I could see the pilots head/shoulders, and tell that there wasn't a passenger.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by David603

A while back I saw a Tiger Moth take-off from an airport. Going on Google maps shows where I was standing was 4km from the runway. I was immediately able to identify it as a Tiger Moth and see its color (bright yellow, which probably helped a bit )

My eyesight is quite good but not the best (16-12) but in Il2 at that range all I would have been able to see would have been a dot.

exactly ! and is another good illustration of what many people report

and that il2 dot would have been nearly impossible to spot

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

for a quick comparison, go to an airport and watch passenger jets take off (yes, they are a lot larger than a WWII fighter plane) and follow them out 'til they can't be seen anymore.

Watch also how jets flying overhead can be unrecognisable due to viewing angle and whether or not a wing is in shadow.

the devil is in the detail, and semantics do matter.

my point is that currently in il2 for most moving smaller aircraft (and tanks/trucks) seen against a terrain background (forest/fields/countryside), they do not stand out enough (ballpark = visibility reduced by 2/3 compared to real life)

you stating that in RL some aircraft under certain conditions or from certain view angles become harder to see is not a proportional answer to the visibility problem we have in il2 currently

if you feel the problem is less severe than i have described in the previous post then i suspect
1) you fly in il2 with a FoV setting that artificially zooms in, rather then the "correct FoV setting" for your monitor size.
2) you have a TN based 6 bit color monitor (or older crt) that makes dots stand out more, and you believe everybody on their flat screen monitors is seeing the same
3) you dont have much experience in seeing what ground objects look like from altitudes between 1000 and 2000 meters in a small aircraft. otherwise you would have noticed you can easely see individual moving cars on open roads from that altitude (yet in il2 you need to be at 300 m to spot them, a BIG difference)

am i right or am i right ?

nobody is disputing "some aircraft" in "certain conditions" can be "difficult to see", and everybody has stories about the exceptions to the rule. the context we are discussing here is what most of these objects should look like under good visibility conditions, for a pilot with good eyesight and from the right historical "spotting distances" for the size/type object.