Tracer colours?

[APIKalimba]

those are 30mm slugs, you can appreciate they are VERY bright! 

They are, indeed !

I am eager to see how 777 will "solve" this tracers debate... Balls ? Streaks ? Long ? short ? More bright ? Less bright ? 

[Jaws2002]

How tracers look depends on many things. Lighting conditions, perspective (going straight away from you or flying across your field of view, distance from you, and obviously type of tracer and how good is your eye sight.

 

From the few flights I did since we got flak, I think the Germans 20mm that shot up my il2 looks pretty good.

Edited February 19, 2014 by Jaws2002

[Original_Uwe]

I've been wondering about the green 54r tracers and drug this up for consideration:

http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinAmmoID01.htm

All 54r tracers seem to be green, unless I missed something?

In particular the t46 bullet sends to fit the GPW time line and was green.

Edited May 16, 2014 by forsale

[ShamrockOneFive]

The tracer quality seems to keep improving. Head on versus from the side seems to be realistically done. But still just the one colour... it does seem like a lot of Russian tracers might have been some shade of green. I haven't seen any video of green tracers but I imagine they would be mostly white in appearance anyways.

[Original_Uwe]

All 54r (7.62x54r) should probably be green, no idea about the heavier calibers.

They are pretty though.

[choctaw111]

A tracer is very much like a flare (most people can relate to that) just like the ones use by road and construction crews.  Now imagine that flare traveling thousands of feet per second.  You won't see that as a dot or ping pong ball any more than you will see the individual propeller blades through your windscreen as your diving at 500 miles per hour.

That being said, don't base any opinions on videos or movies that you have seen.  You must see them in real life to understand what they actually look like and then find a video that most closely shows what they actually look like.  Tracers look different during the day and at night.   

One of the biggest factors determining the "accurateness" of tracers during gameplay is the framerate.  We'll talk about day and night later.  At 60 frames per second a tracer round with a velocity of 2,700 feet per second will travel 45 feet and appear to be 45 feet long.  If your rig is only running at 30 fps then it will travel and appear to be 90 feet in length.

The average human eye sees about 90 frames per second.  Given this statistic the tracers in real life (traveling at 2,700 feet per second) appear 30 feet long which is what I can attribute as their actual appearance in real life.  It doesn't matter at what angle or obliqueness you are observing them from.  In game at 60 frames per second the tracer should always be displayed as a line 45 feet in length.  If the tracer is traveling directly away from you it will still be a line 45 feet long but viewed from behind will appear as a dot.  The diameter and brightness of that dot will be determined by the amount of ambient light (bright sunny day or moonless night as examples).  As the obliqueness of the angle increases so will the apparent length of the tracer increase out to the 45 foot length at 60 frames per second at a 90 degree angle.

Since most computer displays are limited to 60fps (the actual framerate will depend on your system) then the size of the tracer should appear to be 45 feet long at 60 frames per second as mentioned earlier. 

The other factor is the "fatness" or apparent width of the tracer.  This will depend on the amount of ambient light.  In the day the tracer will appear more thin and not as bright.  At night it will be fatter and much more bright in appearance.

Cliffs of Dover actually displayed tracers very well.

I am hoping for much improvement on the tracers in BoS as it is a real immersion killer for me right now.  Everything else in the sim is fantastic so far.

For those who were wondering what weight my opinion should have I suppose I could say that I have a PhD in tracer appearance.

I was a paratrooper in the 82nd (I was also LRS-D) and have done countless live fires both day and night and everything in between.  One time we fired 250,000 tracers during the course of a day for a battalion exercise.

[[JG54]Vyper]

I am hoping they change the colors to something more historical. Missing the blues and greens... Did note that at least there is red for the Soviet AC and yellow for the German AC currently.

[siipperi]

you're absolutely right. It's just my thing, when I see green , red, yellow tracers, no matter how correct they look, this kills my immersion, don't know why. All of a sudden I feel like I'm playing Unreal or Halo.

It kills my immersion if those aren't like they should be! Just little things that you get used to when you do this rl army stuff.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Yep, I've noticed that the colours have changed to different ones by nationality but nothing else yet. Hopefully we'll see green, white, red, yellow, and blue as historically accurately as possible anyways.

[SeriousFox]

For me it feels like current tracer and bullet speed is very slow. (especially for Bf 109)

[FuriousMeow]

For me it feels like current tracer and bullet speed is very slow. (especially for Bf 109)

 

For me it feels like feels man because feelings don't feel nothing with regards to tracer/round speeds unless you have done actual tests to make anything other than feels man, but I feel ya because she's lost that loving feeling....

Edited July 11, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[SharpeXB]

The tracers in BoS, RoF and DCS (the GAU-8/A practice rounds are tracers which is cool) all look correct and/or believable. They should look like what you see in those videos because your game display is a "film"

Cliffs of Dover tracers look like silly laser guns.

[FuriousMeow]

Your game display isn't supposed to look like "film" or any other media/medium, it is supposed to be as if you really are there. That's the whole point of OR - to drop you in, not sitting on the outside experiencing through a another media/medium. So it should look like what you see, not in videos but what you actually see. I stress *should* because it is still rendered but it shouldn't be trying to look like anything else other than what you actually see.

[SharpeXB]

Your game display isn't supposed to look like "film" or any other media/medium, it is supposed to be as if you really are there. That's the whole point of OR - to drop you in, not sitting on the outside experiencing through a another media/medium. So it should look like what you see, not in videos but what you actually see. I stress *should* because it is still rendered but it shouldn't be trying to look like anything else other than what you actually see.

Your monitor could only look "real" if it was like 480hz and 8K 3D. Now that would be incredibly cool... Maybe someday...

But at 1080p/60 that's what tracers look like, we know because there's ample films of them. If for example they were actual size they'd disappear when they got smaller than a pixel.

[FuriousMeow]

Your monitor could only look "real" if it was like 480hz and 8K 3D. Now that would be incredibly cool... Maybe someday...

But at 1080p/60 that's what tracers look like, we know because there's ample films of them. If for example they were actual size they'd disappear when they got smaller than a pixel.

 

I guess there's a disconnect in our reasoning and explanation. I think we're both right, its just that technology is the limit to the end game of what is needed to reproduce "real world."

[siipperi]

I dont see how our current tech limits at all how tracers look... There are already many games with realistic looking tracers.

[Brano]

I may speak for soviet/russion ammo tracers I saw personaly when using weapons during my military service.14.5mm KPVT ammo tracer was kind of yellow/orange and 7.62x45 was greenish.And tracer ammo can set thinks on fire.I personaly put complete field behind firing range on fire as grass was dry.Puting out fire with caterpillars of our BVP´s was fun to remember

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

The tracers in BoS, RoF and DCS (the GAU-8/A practice rounds are tracers which is cool) all look correct and/or believable.

Cliffs of Dover tracers look like silly laser guns.

Tracers in ROF are very poorly designed. There are no different in ballistic than normal bullet – they work just by adding image to third bullet. They did not give more chance to ignite fire when shoot on leaked gasoline. They look like lasers when seen from longer distance. If BOS will borrow this design – it will be steep backward... Edited July 11, 2014 by tomcatqw

[SharpeXB]

Tracers in ROF are very poorly designed. There are no different in ballistic than normal bullet – they work just by adding image to third bullet. They did not give more chance to ignite fire when shoot on leaked gasoline. They look like lasers when seen from longer distance. If BOS will borrow this design – it will be steep backward...

You're seriously worried about differential ballistics at the range you're shooting at in RoF?

[BlackDevil]

It kills my immersion if those aren't like they should be! Just little things that you get used to when you do this rl army stuff.

 

Have you got any RL footage of Luftwaffe coloured tracers ?

 

(as far as I know, they didnt use colours - without any proof they should stay as they are)

[LizLemon]

Have you got any RL footage of Luftwaffe coloured tracers ?

 

(as far as I know, they didnt use colours - without any proof they should stay as they are)

The Luftwaffe did in fact use colored tracers. Yellow, green and blue being the most common colored tracers.

 

Not sure what colors were used for night fighting.

[SharpeXB]

An all too obvious benefit from colored tracers is they would be visible better against the snow.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Have you got any RL footage of Luftwaffe coloured tracers ?

 

(as far as I know, they didnt use colours - without any proof they should stay as they are)

 

A little basic digging seems to suggest that the MG151/20 tracer ammo was called Leucht spur and there seems to be some disagreement on colour or colours used... white, red, yellow all seem to come up. The Russian ShKAS machine guns definitely used green.

 

Basically all I'd like to see are historical implementations. It seems like a small thing but its always good to get the small details right too.

[choctaw111]

Have you got any RL footage of Luftwaffe coloured tracers ?

 

(as far as I know, they didnt use colours - without any proof they should stay as they are)

If you are new to this stuff or haven't read about it much, there are many different colors of tracers that were used.  You shouldn't be so quick to "write it off" just because you don't know.  The research has been done years ago by myself and many others before me.  I have shared this list several other times for those who say that tracers should all be the same color.

[choctaw111]

If you are new to this stuff or haven't read about it much, there are many different colors of tracers that were used.  You shouldn't be so quick to "write it off" just because you don't know.  The research has been done years ago by myself and many others before me.  I have shared this list several other times for those who say that tracers should all be the same color.

I was hoping the last image would have displayed at full size.  I will upload the sections in a larger format.

[choctaw111]

[Gambit21]

 

P.S. Whenever I use a VVS plane with green tracers, some of you may overhear me on Teamspeak as I vocalize the elephant roar of the TIE fighter sound. Just tell me to get off comms, as I am simply accidentally holding the Teamspeak chat button down.

 

 

Just one more reason to stay off that server and not talk to my computer, which I can't get myself to do anyway.

[Sokol1]

Have you got any RL footage of Luftwaffe coloured tracers ?

(as far as I know, they didnt use colours - without any proof they should stay as they are)

 

RL footage of Luftwaffe using color tracers:

 

 

Unfortunately at time they dont use color films on gun cameras (expensive?) so we dont know what color where used, but tracers are visible in the video.

Since the logic say  if you see tracers some color where used (and AFAIK - even B & W are colors).

If you doubt proof that they are not tracers - because the video show then.   

Or proof that LW use tracers without color...

 

BTW - One thing these footage dont proof are that two  20mm hits "saw" a wing, no one showed in the video.

 

 

Sokol1

Edited July 14, 2014 by Sokol1

[KoN_]

I think cliffs of dover has it right , with the team fusion mod .lots of vacuum smoke . Ect

Edited July 31, 2014 by II/JG77_Con

[SharpeXB]

Speaking of tracers. This is cool!

 

[Wind]

Your game display isn't supposed to look like "film" or any other media/medium, it is supposed to be as if you really are there. That's the whole point of OR - to drop you in, not sitting on the outside experiencing through a another media/medium. So it should look like what you see, not in videos but what you actually see. I stress *should* because it is still rendered but it shouldn't be trying to look like anything else other than what you actually see.

 

I would like to play a devils advocate and disagree a bit on that.

 

Why?

 

Well, mainly because of our traditions how we have seen things. Our collective history of how things "should look like".

That emotion is actually extremely strong. We all consumers have ingrained a visual tradition how things are supposed to look like, be it

ww2, medieval or sci-fi films/games/whatnot. There are certain styles that we have grown accustomed to during the last decades while consuming different media. Middle ages should look like X, WW2 like Y and sci-fi like Z or Ö. If the producers, be it games or movies,  take too much liberties portraying the standardized format problems might will arise.

Things just dont "look" right...they dont meet our expectations.

 

Say, Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg and cinematographer Januz Kaminski contemplated shooting the film in B&W (like schindlers list) or detuned technicolor in the beginning. They ended up with the bleach bypass process to get the the "feeling". We all know how it worked out.

It looked authentic to us. And we loved it.

 

And with the OR, same issues will stand that we have had in the movies and gaming : What are we trying to portray? What is the feeling?

Most of the time, if not always, the super naturalistic way of presenting things might not be the correct one. In fact, it might be the worst one.

Why? Because we compare the end results to the real world and we will end up being disappointed every single time due to technological

constraints. So, it is easier, more efficient...and in the end, more immersive to create a vision, rules or a style how the world looks like.

 

So no, OR or any AR systems are not going to be the ticket to 1:1 portrayal of the world we live in, but it sure as hell will make things more...

Hmm... Awesome?!

 

 

Just my 0.2€

[arjisme]

If I were a foot soldier in a US Civil War simulator, I would not want the world to be portrayed in gritty black and white, even though most images of that conflict are like that.  When we are talking about a simulator, the idea is to insert yourself into the situation, as if you were really there.  So I would want it to look like it did to the folks that were there at the time, not like how we armchair historians experience it.