BF109 - Can't we just have the gunsight in the middle?

[RE77ACTION]

Ok, guys, my bad... But you can't expect me to read through more than 30 pages of rubbish small talk to find out where the initial discussion ended.

EDIT: I assumed that the current gunsight was correct because I've read a lot of posts stating that. Maybe I could have done more research, but I didn't find any indication to do so.

[Blackdog_kt]

Custom centering hotkey: lean to the side (either with 6DOF headtracking or with the mouse), press the hotkey and your centered point of view now defaults to the new position.

That's all that's needed to be honest, not eliminating the view restrictions.

The reason we can't turn around much in gunsight view is that it corresponds to tightened shoulder straps. Judging by the now famous videos of the RAF pilot giving an appraisal on the 109 and Spitfire cockpits, it seems that having your shoulders tightly bolted on to the seat would severely limit a pilot's ability to look around: we only move our heads (at least those of us with hedtrackers) because we are using accelerated input/output curves in the relevant interface, but in reality to look back one needs to turn the torso around as well.

Anyone who's driven a car and had to reverse at some point or parallel park knows this, to look back you need to turn the entire upper half of your body around and not just your head.

This is what the gunsight view simulates first and foremost, with the straps tightened there is less headshake at the cost of reduced ability to turn the our virtual body around, with loosened straps we can look back easier but there's more headshake.

That's why i am firmly against eliminating this feature:
1) It's realistic.
2) The gunsight troubles are a side effect that can easily be fixed.

How? By making the reticule visible from the normal centered position (to simulate the fact that in reality our right eye would be able to see it) or giving us the ability to set a custom center viewpoint.

There's no need to do away with a realistic feature just because of an easy to fix side-effect, it would be like disabling the mixture controls on RAF aircraft because they are reversed: "this is confusing, let's completely delete it instead of properly fixing it", it's a throw the baby out with the bath water approach

[Lixma]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Anyone who's driven a car and had to reverse at some point or parallel park knows this, to look back you need to turn the entire upper half of your body around and not just your head.

Fair point, but be careful.

My head can only rotate roughly 90 degrees left to right. Nevertheless I can still see behind me fairly well without moving my torso. It's not terribly comfortable, and because my nose gets in the way i'm only seeing through one eye...but I can still see.

The limits of in-game visibility should be tied to what the eyes can see, rather than how far our head can rotate.

[Strike]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

This is what the gunsight view simulates first and foremost, with the straps tightened there is less headshake at the cost of reduced ability to turn the our virtual body around, with loosened straps we can look back easier but there's more headshake.

Hey blackdog! I am also one of those who fully support the authentic positioning of the gunsight in axis fighters, but I believe the entire feature is implemented wrong in the game. I've written my honest opinion on this mechanic in a different thread http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=133 .

What I think would be correct is to completely eliminate the feature as a "static" view, but make the game so that when you "tighten straps" you sit upright against the seat and can only look forwards and to the sides, relying on peripheral vision to see what's behind you. When you select "loosen straps" you get the "normal" viewmode where you can lean, shift sideways, move forwards etc and also twist your upper body to look outside an open canopy or try to see what's behind you. Then you can also move your head directly infront of the gunsight. This would be the ideal takeoff/flight/scouting position to fully see what's going on. And when entering combat you would lean backwards, tighten the straps so you won't be tossed around and then fight. You should still be able to lean just enough sideways to be able to see the sight properly, since we cannot simulate human eyesight in CloD. (IRL I prefer firing weapons without squinting my left eye. This way I'll see normally, but the right eye will be staring down the ironsights, kindof superimposing the sight over my entire view.) It's fully possible to do, and is what the axis design sought out to do!

[335th_GRAthos]

Oh c'mon guys, are you not ashamed at all!?

You were supposed to wait for me

No prob RE77ACTION, sorry for been a bit rough, this Revi things annoys me because I am lazy (do not want to go looking for my 6DOF kit when it is damn hot outside) and stubborn (I could claim this comes with age, but it is not ).

Nice picture Lixma it adds the scientific part which I was missing.I from my side I can contribute a picture from the practical side.
This is a scan from the A4 size picture of the Revi of the FW190 (do not ask me why we can find more pictures of the FW190 than of the Bf109) from the Book "Klassische Jagdflugzeuge" from HEEL Verlag 2000
It is a picture shot from the propeller, while the pilot is sitting inside the cockpit.
It is almost centered. Actually if you look better at the Rudder, the tip in the middle at the top of the cockpit frame and the small U-shaped thing on the top of the engine cowling, the photographer was sitting slightly to the right, which actually means the real situation of the pilots eyes and the Revi would be even better than the pictures show.
The quality is excellent on the book but I am not good with scanning and making pictures smaller (as my other posts have already proven) but I hope the result is clear enough:


And a zoom in of the picture showing clearly how well the Revi is in front of the right eye of the pilot (as Lixma unshamefully dared to mention before me):


I highlighted the Revi on this picture, just in case:


So, more than half the pilot's face (maybe this pilot has a remarkably big nose) is in front of the Revi.

I think it like shooting with a pistol: If you keep both eyes open the pistol's gunsight is not centered. If you close your left eye however, the gunsight is straight in front of your right eye.

CoD is showing us the view from both eyes and for obvious reasons, we can not close our left eye and fix the problem as it was in real life...

Anyway, we are turning circles here, it is just a frigging fix, for 10 years it was not a problem, now we got stuck with this bull... (pardon my French) and Luthier got a deaf ear

At least with these pictures we may stop this "Historic reality so it is correct" crap because I have heard this too often in the forum and it turns my stomach (no offence RE77ACTION you were the trigger but not the reason).

~S~


PS. And maybe somebody with some Russian knowledge could post something to Luthier because patience has also limits...

[Strike]

GRAthos, actually the pilot is leaning slightly to his right (you can tell by the head position in the cockpit + the head-cushion on the seat. Also since the photographer is slightly to the planes LEFT side when shooting the photograph, it doesn't clearly show how much he is leaning to his right. It also doesn't show 100% how easy it is for him to look through his sight! I think the game is good as it is.

I don't have to lean very far at all to see through the revi on the 109. and actually the tracers serve as a good indication (if you use tracers) as to where you're aiming. And you have like 1000 bullets

[335th_GRAthos]

Oops, you are right!

Sorry guys, never looked at this picture so intensively.

So I have to be thankfull to Lixma for his scientific picture after all

~S~

[RE77ACTION]

@335th_GRAthos: No problem, it's okay. I understand it gets annoying when you have to explain this thing for 100th time. At least I would get annoyed from it...

Nice reading though!

[klem]

GRAthos

I think the photo is misleading because you are assuming he is aiming at a target. I think he is just leaning to the right or perhaps 'aiming' at the camera (which is a little to his left).

I have marked the pilot's eye position behind the sight and then projected the MG17 and aircraft centrelines onto the photo and placed the sightline pro-rata in position according to Lixma's FW190 drawing. You can see that the sight line passes to the right of the pilot's eye - or the left of it from the pilot's point of view (see thumbnail).

Then I enlarged the pilots face and placed a box around his eyes. I then placed a red box of the same width, offset to the right by the amount the aiming eye is off the sight line (I added the eye position too) plus it's centreline. You can see that the red eyes box centreline is in the centre of the cockpit frame give or take a pixel (second thumbnail).

So it all lines up with Lixma's drawing and the pilot does not lean when aiming.

Unless of course we have a RL WWII 109 pilot on the forum who knows better.

[335th_GRAthos]

Nice work Klem, a bit too difficult for me, Lixma's drawing is a straight explanation, better than my picture.

I admit looking at the picture in front of me (A4 size) it is so high quality that I am drawn by the eyes of the pilot looking straight at me that I did not notice the headreast behind.

What however grasped my attention is the size of the Revi glass because it covers more than half his face.