FOV settings

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by skarden

Yep this is almost exactly what I do, except I can do it all within the T.A.R.G.E.T software for my warthog controller, as said it does depends pretty heavily on what HOTAS software you use and what it can do but it does work quiet well, for me at least anyway.

I definitely recommend to try it if the normal 3 FOV set up doesn't work for you and your controller software can do it.

I'll have to try that with my Warthog - sounds good. Thanks!

[Jatta Raso]

if you use JoyToKey you can have a progressive zoom in/out by assigning 2 Joystick buttons to those 2 tasks. then if you assign a third button to reset views, you can zoom in or out at will, and back to default view with a key press.

[_79_dev]

What I did with my X52 was:
1. I set one of pads on the yoke as a mouse, so any movement of mouse is controlled on the pad.
2. I set "ctrl" key as "hold to zoom" in il2 controls
3. Divided slider for 3 bands, and mapped "ctrl" key to lowest band

So basically if I have slider on the bottom position it's like having "ctrl" key pressed all the time, to control zoom fov I just use pad up and down. Whenever I don't need it just moving slider back up and I have my mouse back.

The only reason I did like that was because I mapped my controls from scratch, I can use ctrl key as another pinkle switch or mode so it gives me more options to use buttons on the yoke.

[zapatista]

but none of those work arounds you folks are describing allow you to assign a specific FoV to a kb-key or hotas control, do they ? and with the zooming in/out you are describing you never know what exact FoV value you are at and therefore you never know how far away a distant object is (other then when looking straigh ahead, and using the gunsight reticle to "frame" an object).

the purpose of being able to set a specific FoV as "normal" for your monitor size is because only then you can during normal flight see distant objects in their correct sizes and visibility for the distance they are from you (presuming CoD lod models are correctly modeled etc..). eg, a me-109 which normally has a wingspan of approx 10 m wide, will be displayed onscreen as 10 cm wide when you are 100 meters distance from him, and 1 cm wide when you are 1000 meters distance from it. ergo, while flying around in the il2/CoD virtual world the size of objects around you does matter a great deal because it relates to the distance they are from you (and implies there potential danger to you).

all you folks have described so far with these workarounds is to create a "magic zoom" so you can game-the-game and be more competitive online, but it doesnt represent or recreate a ww2 pilots experience

the zoom function in the il2 series is intended to briefly have some magnification while you aim for a particular part of an enemy aircraft (mimicking the increased concentration a pilot might have in a real life similar situation), and the wide view is intended to try and recreate some of the wider peripheral vision you have in real life (during a dog fight for ex) and have improved situational awareness. as such it is again a snap-view intended to briefly use so we can help to overcome some of the problems of sitting behind our small monitors in a living room, rather then being in a real life cockpit with something like 270 degree's visibility and a human peripheral vision which is roughly 180 degrees under normal conditions. and you cant permanently fly in that wider view because objects around you shrink in size, and therefore look further away from you etc..

[FS~Phat]

I guess you could work out the maths and setup a macro to give you the custom FOV you want. You'd have to work out the maths anyway even if there was a quick FOV setting. Id love to be able to switch to my preferred FOV like i could with IL2. But your right it is probably more about gaming the system than creating a simulation as most people dont have a monitor capable of a life size representation. So even "simulating" FOV for a given screen size and seating distance is not going to give you a simulation anyway because the screen sizes are too small. Thats why the zoom FOV exists.

Thats also why later this year Im attempting to build a 65-80" inch surround screen with a high enough resolution that you can create a lifesize cockpit view with good vertical and horizontal FOV. See my other 82" bezel-less thread to see what im talking about!

That's when you ultimately want a single fixed FOV appropriate for your screen and seating distance.

[Artist]

The Autohotkey solution (using the North/South of a POV hat), assuming that <Ctrl>+<Insert> ("Control Insert") is assigned to Camera, Keys, "Hold to adjust Field of View":

#Persistent
iIdStick = 1
SetTimer, watchPOV_Stick, 5

watchPOV_Stick:
    bFirst := true
    while(true){
        GetKeyState, iPOV, %iIdStick%JoyPOV  ; Get position of the POV control.

        ; Some joysticks might have a smooth/continous POV rather than one in fixed increments.
        ; To support them all, use a range:
        if iPOV < 0                                            ; No angle to report
            break
        else if (iPOV > 31500) OR (iPOV >= 0 AND iPOV < 4500){      ; 315 to 360 to 45 degrees: Forward
            zoomViewIn(bFirst)
            bFirst := false
        }
        else if (iPOV >= 13500) AND (iPOV <= 22500){           ; 135 to 180 to 225 degrees: Backward
            zoomViewOut(bFirst)
            bFirst := false
        }
        else
            break
    }
    return

zoomViewOut(bFirst){
    if(bFirst){
        MouseMove 0, 1200, 0
    }
    Send !{Insert down}
    MouseMove 0, -1, 0, R
    Send !{Insert up}
    return 0
}    
zoomViewIn(bFirst){
    if(bFirst){
        MouseMove 0, 0, 0
    }
    Send !{Insert down}
    MouseMove 0, 1, 0, R
    Send !{Insert up}
    return 0
}

Artist

Originally posted in the thread How is variable zoom done?

[_79_dev]

I know that not all of You can afford it but, having 110inch projected screen is a vast change to 24inch monitor, so perspective is changing whe You have 1:1 size cockpit in front of You. Still I agree that FOV is equivalent to distance perception, however it doesn't matter that much when You have big screen.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by FS~Phat

I guess you could work out the maths and setup a macro to give you the custom FOV you want. You'd have to work out the maths anyway even if there was a quick FOV setting.

there is no complex mathematics involved at all

for 95% of il2/CoD players they sit at roughly an arms length from their flat screen monitors. monitor size for them varies from 19 to 30' , and the viewing distance is determined by the monitor technology (lcd in this case). some sit a little closer then that, some a little further away, but it wont vary by much. hence it is pretty simple for each of those screen sizes (19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 30) to determine with a basic formula what the correct FoV is, and once set to this value the player can see all ingame objects in their correct sizes, and knowing the object they look at they will know from its size what the distance is. for my 27' pc screen that FoV is 50 or 55, and in il2 i had that set to my "normal" keyboard key, and was able to use quick snap views to 35 or 90 FoV to briefly overcome the limitations of sitting behind a pc monitor rather then look out of a real cockpit in ww2.

the fact a large number of il2/CoD players never made that mental leap results in them either playing in a dinky-toy world where all objects have shrunk (and hence it distorts distance perspective) when set to an artificially wide FoV, or they are playing superman flightsim by giving themselves "magic magnification" eyes to zoom in and spot minuscule objects on the ground no ww2 pilot would ever find.

its a very different experience flying around in the il2/CoD world with the correct FoV and limit yourself to that most of the time, its err well you know, more "real".

it absolutely boggles the mind that luthier has succeeded in leaving out simple well working features that existed in the il2 series, and right now for CoD as a result is PREVENTING people from seeing the CoD in-world objects (and scenery) correctly.

[HorrorRoach]

Heh, what's funny is that Luthier could probably just take code from IL2 and get the many incremental FOV's to work in COD with ease. Might have to alter it a little to match COD code's function terminology, I think this is just one of the countless features that are being ignored while they fix major problems. I'm betting this feature will come, but not for 12-18 months.

I use a logitech G510 keyboard that has 18 macro keys on the left side of the keyboard. I've mapped my view keys to the top six, gunsight view, looking around, and recentering. My middle 6 control mix up/down, pitch up/down, throttle up/down. The bottom 6 control my elevator/aileron/rudder trim. I have my 3 FOV views set to 3 buttons on my saitek evo i can easily press when i need to zoom in/out. Honestly, i don't really need any more resolution in the FOV's, although, the highest zoom setting could be toned down a bit.

the G510 is a great flight sim keyboard. It has an LCD screen you can switch profiles with. Also has a RGB backlight that lets you assign different colors to profiles.

EJ

[adonys]

Originally Posted by zapatista

there is no complex mathematics involved at all

for 95% of il2/CoD players they sit at roughly an arms length from their flat screen monitors. monitor size for them varies from 19 to 30' , and the viewing distance is determined by the monitor technology (lcd in this case). some sit a little closer then that, some a little further away, but it wont vary by much. hence it is pretty simple for each of those screen sizes (19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, and 30) to determine with a basic formula what the correct FoV is, and once set to this value the player can see all ingame objects in their correct sizes, and knowing the object they look at they will know from its size what the distance is. for my 27' pc screen that FoV is 50 or 55, and in il2 i had that set to my "normal" keyboard key, and was able to use quick snap views to 35 or 90 FoV to briefly overcome the limitations of sitting behind a pc monitor rather then look out of a real cockpit in ww2.

the fact a large number of il2/CoD players never made that mental leap results in them either playing in a dinky-toy world where all objects have shrunk (and hence it distorts distance perspective) when set to an artificially wide FoV, or they are playing superman flightsim by giving themselves "magic magnification" eyes to zoom in and spot minuscule objects on the ground no ww2 pilot would ever find.

its a very different experience flying around in the il2/CoD world with the correct FoV and limit yourself to that most of the time, its err well you know, more "real".

it absolutely boggles the mind that luthier has succeeded in leaving out simple well working features that existed in the il2 series, and right now for CoD as a result is PREVENTING people from seeing the CoD in-world objects (and scenery) correctly.

for someone involving math into discussion, you're pretty far away off, mate.

first of all, because when you're measuring an object's apparent size on the screen by varying FOV until that object's apparent size seems to be right, it doesn't mean the object actually is at the proper distance which would give that same apparent in reality. that's one thing.

another is that you don't actually know which is the real scale of the objects in-game.

a third one would be that zooming has the same scaling effect (ie is done with the same %) on all the objects on the scene, unless there's special code to over-ride that.

a fourth one is that actually FOV is firstly about the field of view, not about the right distance/scale/apparent size of the rendered objects. hence the name FOV (Field of View), and the formula for computing the FoV depending on screen's size is actually about matching human's FoV (ie "view's width" = how much to the right/left can you see a close object), not matching object's apparent size, and using it to get object's apparent size is wrong.

if you want a FoV which would give you the closest resemblance of object's apparent size, you should:
- make sure the scale of the objects is right (draw the real wingspan of a known airplane into the game's editor (using game's "meter" scale) and compare it with that plane's wingspan. even better, import a proper known made object (using a real meter scale) into the game and measure it with game's "meter".
- put that object at 100 "meters" and measure it's apparent size against a game's known FoV (at 60 degrees FoV, and 100 meters away, the screen width's represents X meters. put two objects at x/2 meters away from the center of the airplane, measure the apparent distance between them on the screen at that known FoV and distance, and then, by comparing airplane's apparent size with the distance between the 2 object's apparent size, you can see the real airplane's apparent size). then repreat vy changing FoV until you'll get the proper airplane's apparent size.

you should see that the proper FoV for that it's at around 30 degrees (even less than more), for a same relative scale, no special object groups scaling code, normal screen size.

simpler than that, assuming that the scale of the objects is right for all game object's, adjust your FoV until the targeting apparatus (or just the crosshair) has the same real meters apparent size on your monitor as if in reality you would keep that targeting apparatus (or crosshair) at screen's distance (from between your eyes and screen) from you. then you'll have your proper FoV, again at around 30 degrees, and you can check to see then if airplane's apparent size at 100 "meters" straight in front of you matches the crosshair's measurement as it should in reality.

pretty nasty stuff, right?

the ONE and ONLY solution to object's apparent size in a virtual world having a sufficient FoV (not causing tunnel vision) and objects having the same scale, is to have special code scaling the objects depending on the current FoV used and their distance from the camera.

it's a nightmare from computation's point of view (because forcing the scale of the objects to match the visual appearance will make the objects bigger than they should be, and then.. what would you do with collision? because there's a difference between shooting at a packet of cigars and shooting at a door..), but there were games who did it successfully.

CFS2 was one of them, if I remember right. flying in formation was really feeling like flying in formation in there