Con/Smoke trails and 9.5km view range

[JaffaCake]

There has been a lot of discussion about the viewrange limit in the game and I get it personally - why it is difficult to implement longer view range and all of the potential performance related issue it can produce. And especially backed up by the claims of "real" pilots that it is impossible to spot an aircraft at 10km range anyway.

 

I don't mean to restart these kind of discussions again, and would like to focus primarily on the issue of contrail and smoke trail visibility. I am sure most will agree that contrails can be seen from extreme ranges and persist for hours after the aircraft has passed (given right conditions). 

 

It is a bit embarrassing that a modern sim that has a hefty cost to it still resorts to popping these trails in and out of view depending on the distance to the original source (not even the trail itself).

 

Not having experience with the engine makes it difficult to estimate the difficulty of implementation, but I feel a compromise where the aircraft are still limited to 10km viewrange, while the trails are synced at longer/infinite range with a lightweight entity (you don't need to constantly update a section of contrail over the network) could work, at least in my mind.

 

I wonder how significant or immersion breaking is the issue to others? And maybe if we focus on separating out the 10km view range issue into "aircraft" and "trail" as separate issues it may actually be addressed sooner?

[LeLv76_Erkki]

It can be pretty bad, looking ahead and seeing nothing, only to have planes on a head-on course cross from the border of visual range to merge within 25 s. While trailing massive contrails.

 

Another and imho even worse issue is that, at least to me, they're only visible when their source is on the screen. This looks very ugly in a prolonged high altitude fight.

[Cpt_Siddy]

A 5m diameter object at 10km has alpha of about 0.029°. A human eye in bright, clear day, conditions can spot object 0.02°. At 15 km you start to be at the limit of average human eye for 5m diameter object. 

 

And there is other factors that can effect this like, humidity, altitude, background contrast and reflections. A good reflection from noon sun can give out your position to 30km.

 

But 15km is at least reasonable range that most of us can spot a plane at in good weather.  

[Caudron431]

1 hour ago, JaffaCake said:

There has been a lot of discussion about the viewrange limit in the game and I get it personally - why it is difficult to implement longer view range and all of the potential performance related issue it can produce. And especially backed up by the claims of "real" pilots that it is impossible to spot an aircraft at 10km range anyway.

 

I don't mean to restart these kind of discussions again, and would like to focus primarily on the issue of contrail and smoke trail visibility. I am sure most will agree that contrails can be seen from extreme ranges and persist for hours after the aircraft has passed (given right conditions). 

 

It is a bit embarrassing that a modern sim that has a hefty cost to it still resorts to popping these trails in and out of view depending on the distance to the original source (not even the trail itself). 

 

Not having experience with the engine makes it difficult to estimate the difficulty of implementation, but I feel a compromise where the aircraft are still limited to 10km viewrange, while the trails are synced at longer/infinite range with a lightweight entity (you don't need to constantly update a section of contrail over the network) could work, at least in my mind.

 

I wonder how significant or immersion breaking is the issue to others? And maybe if we focus on separating out the 10km view range issue into "aircraft" and "trail" as separate issues it may actually be addressed sooner?

 

You remarks about contrails are interesting, but if you don't know anything about the engine, then what allows you to say that something is embarrassing in it? And what allows you to link the implementation of this detail to the price of this game? Just  questions, curious about that.

 

Why not simply asking for improvement of this detail (which is a great idea) in the future instead of expressing yourself in such a manner that  you sound like as if you were lecturing the dev team about how they should do their job?

 

For me it is not really killing immersion, i will do just as always adapting to the situation and do my best. That said it would be very nice to see what you are asking for.

 

I undestand that now that we are getting allied high altitude performance aircraft, this high altitude stealth must end, it's suddenly a very big issue to be corrected asap lol.?

Edited August 20, 2018 by Caudron431Rafale

[Ehret]

Later planes will be getting not only faster but bigger too. It's true for fighters, even - compare how bigger the Jug and Lighting are than the 109. Without longer rendering ranges some of them will have an unrealistic advantage.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Ehret

[Caudron431]

So far we had aircraft of more or same dimension with only one side having this unfair advantage up there and it did not seem to cause any trouble among people that are always concerned by unfair advantages. 

 

But anyway i hear you Ehret and have to say you're absolutely right. Just funny some things happens at "certain" times lol

[Ehret]

1 hour ago, JaffaCake said:

It is a bit embarrassing that a modern sim that has a hefty cost to it still resorts to popping these trails in and out of view depending on the distance to the original source (not even the trail itself).

 

Maybe a little but might be not a straightforward change as one would hope...

The game isn't simple program - you can bet it's written on something resembling a framework. It's to enforce some sanity in the code but may results in constraints - unexpected ones, too.

 

And no - for such niche market this game isn't that expensive.

[LeLv76_Erkki]

37 minutes ago, Caudron431Rafale said:

So far we had aircraft of more or same dimension with only one side having this unfair advantage up there and it did not seem to cause any trouble among people that are always concerned by unfair advantages. 

 

But anyway i hear you Ehret and have to say you're absolutely right. Just funny some things happens at "certain" times lol

 

View distance has been discussed for long, its not a new topic. Lower flying AC who dont contrail themselves gain advantage in being able to see the high flyers very far so they can avoid or intercept them. If there is advantage to be gained to from longer and more realistic view ranges, or at least contrail draw ranges, it will be Germans on one front and Allies on the other.

[[CPT]Crunch]

What pilot said it's "impossible" to see a plane at 10Km, because I'd never want to board any plane with him on it. 

 

The whole system could use a revamp, including AAA.  It's madness the cycles wasted with flak firing away at single maneuvering fighters at altitude that pose zero immediate threat.  Also useless having extended ground objects rendering for fighters without attack roles, what do they need to see the crates besides a dugout at 10K for.  Certainly could use some thinking and smarter controls, like an over all flak central command that can be fine tuned much better by the end user.  You can rob Peter to pay Paul a bit better, not everything is necessary to render all at once, and some is critical, such as shipping, to be seen much further out.

[InProgress]

For me the worst is spotting ships. Wide open sea and you can't find damn convoy of huge ships unless you get close. I never had problem with planes but ships are really annoying, they are huge and it's pain to find then on open kuban sea.

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

4 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

What pilot said it's "impossible" to see a plane at 10Km, because I'd never want to board any plane with him on it. 

 

The whole system could use a revamp, including AAA.  It's madness the cycles wasted with flak firing away at single maneuvering fighters at altitude that pose zero immediate threat.  Also useless having extended ground objects rendering for fighters without attack roles, what do they need to see the crates besides a dugout at 10K for.  Certainly could use some thinking and smarter controls, like an over all flak central command that can be fine tuned much better by the end user.  You can rob Peter to pay Paul a bit better, not everything is necessary to render all at once, and some is critical, such as shipping, to be seen much further out.

Well, than you should never, ever fly small Aircraft, because even under the Best Conditions you will not be able to Spot a Single Seater from more than  6-10km away, normally far less, at least when in the Air, and that is with Bright, White Aircraft, now take Camo, and an Aircraft that doesn't present itself from Top Down View and you'll need special Circumstances (Reflections, Shadow) to find anything below 3km. 

Especially when the Ground is busy with many colors, terrain, water and window Reflections etc. 

 

I would invite you to a day of flying Gliders and I'll bet you, you go crazy trying to find normal Light Sports Aircraft just hundreds of Meters away and be surprised how you didn't see them. I'll shut you up proper with that nonsense. 

 

 

Smoke on the other Hand is awesome. On my Airfield there operate several Boeing 707s with the old, 1st Gen Engines, and when we stand next to  the Runway, watching the Long Final, you never see the Aircraft first, despite the Landing Lights. The first thing you see is a Brown Spec just over the Horizon. That's the Exhaust, and according to Flight Radar that's about 25km. The actual 707 from the Front only becomes visible at about 10km. 

 

Same for Navigation. One of our Standard Routes here is from Power Plant to Power Plant, because their Cooling Towers produce massive Thermals. And you can see their Clouds for 50km on a good Day. 

 

My Conclusion:

1. Aircraft visbility is mostly OK except for the Twin Engine Birds, which should maybe get something like 12 to 15km, no more. 
2. Contrails should be visible from FAR, FAR Longer Distance, at least 25km
3. Ship Smoke should be visible 25km+.

[JonRedcorn]

1 hour ago, 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann said:

Well, than you should never, ever fly small Aircraft, because even under the Best Conditions you will not be able to Spot a Single Seater from more than  6-10km away, normally far less, at least when in the Air, and that is with Bright, White Aircraft, now take Camo, and an Aircraft that doesn't present itself from Top Down View and you'll need special Circumstances (Reflections, Shadow) to find anything below 3km. 

Especially when the Ground is busy with many colors, terrain, water and window Reflections etc. 

 

I would invite you to a day of flying Gliders and I'll bet you, you go crazy trying to find normal Light Sports Aircraft just hundreds of Meters away and be surprised how you didn't see them. I'll shut you up proper with that nonsense. 

 

 

Smoke on the other Hand is awesome. On my Airfield there operate several Boeing 707s with the old, 1st Gen Engines, and when we stand next to  the Runway, watching the Long Final, you never see the Aircraft first, despite the Landing Lights. The first thing you see is a Brown Spec just over the Horizon. That's the Exhaust, and according to Flight Radar that's about 25km. The actual 707 from the Front only becomes visible at about 10km. 

 

Same for Navigation. One of our Standard Routes here is from Power Plant to Power Plant, because their Cooling Towers produce massive Thermals. And you can see their Clouds for 50km on a good Day. 

 

My Conclusion:

1. Aircraft visbility is mostly OK except for the Twin Engine Birds, which should maybe get something like 12 to 15km, no more. 
2. Contrails should be visible from FAR, FAR Longer Distance, at least 25km
3. Ship Smoke should be visible 25km+.

The ships literally pop in before your eyes, especially when you are up pretty high, 5k+ and you can just watch them pop in and out of view.

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

3 minutes ago, 15th_JonRedcorn said:

The ships literally pop in before your eyes, especially when you are up pretty high, 5k+ and you can just watch them pop in and out of view.

Yeah, it's bad. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

Gliders get how high?  Atmospheric distortion drops exponentially, half the atmosphere is gone by 1500 meters.  You can see stars at noon if you go high enough, been there, done that.

 

We ain't flying gliders.  You want crappy vis lown low, real cool with that, but the same laws of physics do not apply upstairs.

[MiloMorai]

1500m or 4500ft, You sure about that?

[unreasonable]

2 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

Gliders get how high?  Atmospheric distortion drops exponentially, half the atmosphere is gone by 1500 meters.  You can see stars at noon if you go high enough, been there, done that.

 

We ain't flying gliders.  You want crappy vis lown low, real cool with that, but the same laws of physics do not apply upstairs.

 

At least check your facts:

 

 

[Zirashi]

I'm not an ophthalmologist, but after quick google-fu it seems the human eye can apparently resolve images as long as they are perceived to cover at least 1 arcminute (.0167 degrees) or greater. Quick napkin math then seems to imply that the human eye would be able to resolve the 9 meter long Bf 109 at up to 30km under absolute perfect conditions. I would assume that once you start throwing in atmospheric effects, lighting, and camouflage that distance drops rapidly.

 

What that actually means, I don't know. Does that mean you can tell it's obviously a 109? Would it mean you could only determine that it's an airplane? Or does it simply mean you could tell something exists in that space?

[Ehret]

2 minutes ago, Zirashi said:

What that actually means, I don't know. Does that mean you can tell it's obviously a 109? Would it mean you could only determine that it's an airplane? Or does it simply mean you could tell something exists in that space?

 

Most probably the latter.

However, when flying a plane you will have other obstacles like scratched glass, turbulent air and vibrations which will make focusing on a single point very difficult if not impossible.

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

4 hours ago, Zirashi said:

I'm not an ophthalmologist, but after quick google-fu it seems the human eye can apparently resolve images as long as they are perceived to cover at least 1 arcminute (.0167 degrees) or greater. Quick napkin math then seems to imply that the human eye would be able to resolve the 9 meter long Bf 109 at up to 30km under absolute perfect conditions. I would assume that once you start throwing in atmospheric effects, lighting, and camouflage that distance drops rapidly.

 

What that actually means, I don't know. Does that mean you can tell it's obviously a 109? Would it mean you could only determine that it's an airplane? Or does it simply mean you could tell something exists in that space?

Your Logic is faulty here. The Human Eye can see  a Circle of that Size at that Distance, but the 109 is tiny in all other dimensions. At 30km it fills less than half a "Pixel"

Any Objcet has to fill the area of at least one full circular Arcminute to be seen. And that reduces your Distance to about, well, almost 10km. 

[-TBC-AeroAce]

Planes are not so much the problem for me but the buildings and ships cause a big headache. 

[F/JG300_Gruber]

8 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

Gliders get how high?  Atmospheric distortion drops exponentially, half the atmosphere is gone by 1500 meters.  You can see stars at noon if you go high enough, been there, done that.

 

We ain't flying gliders.  You want crappy vis lown low, real cool with that, but the same laws of physics do not apply upstairs.

 

5 hours ago, Zirashi said:

I'm not an ophthalmologist, but after quick google-fu it seems the human eye can apparently resolve images as long as they are perceived to cover at least 1 arcminute (.0167 degrees) or greater. Quick napkin math then seems to imply that the human eye would be able to resolve the 9 meter long Bf 109 at up to 30km under absolute perfect conditions. I would assume that once you start throwing in atmospheric effects, lighting, and camouflage that distance drops rapidly.

 

What that actually means, I don't know. Does that mean you can tell it's obviously a 109? Would it mean you could only determine that it's an airplane? Or does it simply mean you could tell something exists in that space?

 

My experience as light aircraft pilot will push me to tell you the exact same things Klaus already said.

Despite being most of the time bleached white painted, there are a lot of circumstances that will make most aircraft more difficult to spot than you may imagine.

They might get visible from pretty far away (your 10km) against a dark forest background or with help of sun reflections but most of the time it will be less than that.

 

There were numerous occasions where despite ATC telling us what sector to look for, we locate each other while under 3 nautical miles radius, in a bright sunny day. 

 

Everything about eye resolution, relative movement and atmospheric distortion enabling you to spot cessna sized aircraft at 20+km is just pointless airmchair expert discussion. It doesn't works like that when you are sitting up there. 

 

Having all planes rendered as black silhouettes at a distance regardless of their camo already makes spotting easier in IL2 than in real life on many occasions. 

 

[JaffaCake]

This is depressing. I quite specifically said that there are plenty of threads discussing the visibility of aircraft at range - its a waste of everyone's time to get into that discussion here.

 

Also @[CPT]Crunch  try to fact-check your own claims. Thankfully someone has already corrected your on the pressure side of things. Regarding the altitude of gliders - entirely depends on weather conditions, but I frequent wave clubs where you can easily gain 3-6km, and higher on an exceptional day. 

 

 

18 hours ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

A 5m diameter object at 10km has alpha of about 0.029°. A human eye in bright, clear day, conditions can spot object 0.02°. At 15 km you start to be at the limit of average human eye for 5m diameter object. 

 

And there is other factors that can effect this like, humidity, altitude, background contrast and reflections. A good reflection from noon sun can give out your position to 30km.

 

But 15km is at least reasonable range that most of us can spot a plane at in good weather.  

@Zirashi

 

 

And similar claims regarding angular resolution of the human eye. Please stop reproducing these ridiculous Apple marketing claims. Do you not realise that a source of light that is smaller than the angular resolution of your eye is still completely visible and not just barely? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN STARS?!!!! and are you aware just how tiny (in angular sense) those stars are??

 

18 hours ago, Caudron431Rafale said:

 

You remarks about contrails are interesting, but if you don't know anything about the engine, then what allows you to say that something is embarrassing in it? And what allows you to link the implementation of this detail to the price of this game? Just  questions, curious about that.

 

Because knowing nothing about how a car works can still allow you to claim that it looks ridiculous, drives slowly, and generally gets beaten by other cars out there.

 

 

18 hours ago, Caudron431Rafale said:

Why not simply asking for improvement of this detail (which is a great idea) in the future instead of expressing yourself in such a manner that  you sound like as if you were lecturing the dev team about how they should do their job?

 

Its a personal opinion and an expression of urgency of the issue. Because when I mention this detail to other potential buyers they usually don't treat it as a minor limitation of the engine, but rather an immersion breaking "wtf".

 

[Cpt_Siddy]

3 hours ago, JaffaCake said:

 

 

And similar claims regarding angular resolution of the human eye. Please stop reproducing these ridiculous Apple marketing claims. Do you not realise that a source of light that is smaller than the angular resolution of your eye is still completely visible and not just barely? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN STARS?!!!! and are you aware just how tiny (in angular sense) those stars are??

 

 

 

 

I put a huge caveat that, and added things like *reflections*. The angular size is for a noon daylight illuminated object with normal albedo is what we are looking at here, not a STAR.  

 

Self illuminated or reflecting objects can be seen from much much future away BECAUSE THEY ARE SELF ILLUMINATING. They either reflect or generate themselves a copious amounts of photons. 

 

Planes, war planes, in war time... do not bring a sun with them. And only occasionally reflect the actual sun with good reflective value (polished surface, canopy etc), rest is diffuse reflection. I could argue that the thing we see against the blue backdrop of sky at 10km is absence of light when we look at that tiny smudge on horizon. 

 

There is many ways our eye resolves object, and in most of those, angular size play a huge role.  (unless you are a huge glowing ball of plasma)

 

9 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

At least check your facts:

 

 

 

 

Yeah, its 5.5 +- local air pressure and humidity.  Still way below your average engagement altitude on western front.  And the humidity and particulate pollution drops off even faster because of temperature.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[JaffaCake]

24 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

Self illuminated or reflecting objects can be seen from much much future away BECAUSE THEY ARE SELF ILLUMINATING. They either reflect or generate themselves a copious amounts of photons. 

 

Planes, war planes, in war time... do not bring a sun with them. And only occasionally reflect the actual sun with good reflective value (polished surface, canopy etc), rest is diffuse reflection. I could argue that the thing we see against the blue backdrop of sky at 10km is absence of light when we look at that tiny smudge on horizon. 

 

 

And here I thought we were talking about visibility of contrails at over 10km range. Not aircraft...  White, very diffusive objects on a back of fairly dark sky, unless exactly against the sun...

Edited August 21, 2018 by JaffaCake

[Cpt_Siddy]

3 minutes ago, JaffaCake said:

 

 

And here I thought we were talking about visibility of contrails at over 10km range. Not aircraft...  White, very diffusive objects on a back of fairly dark sky, unless exactly against the sun...

 

 

Contrails have a lot bigger reflective area for eye to resolve. 

 

What i was arguing in my original post is that 10km vis range is not enough, and even most average person can most likely spot plane in nominal conditions from 15km. Contrail are even easier. 

[6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann]

On 8/21/2018 at 2:45 PM, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

 

Contrails have a lot bigger reflective area for eye to resolve. 

 

What i was arguing in my original post is that 10km vis range is not enough, and even most average person can most likely spot plane in nominal conditions from 15km. Contrail are even easier. 

 

Spot the Traffic 

 

[Willy__]

Found it on the first few secs:

 

 

[/img]

[=420=Syphen]

I dunno - I'm usually flying around 4000-6000ft in my plane and I can't see planes half the time unless I hear position reports. Maybe I need to talk to my AME for another eye exam.

[ESCOMM_FlyMaker]

I think the main issue with aircraft visibility is the pop in effect. 15km range and a fade in view should be enough to fix this annoying event.

 

One HE111 on horizon is easy to see in game but when reach 9.5 they just pop out. This is not good

 

Moving ships and contrails become much more weird with this limitation

 

The game is going foward and that really needs revision

[ZachariasX]

45 minutes ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

I dunno - I'm usually flying around 4000-6000ft in my plane and I can't see planes half the time unless I hear position reports. Maybe I need to talk to my AME for another eye exam.

It most likely has nothing to do with vision, but with scanning technique. It is so important that people report positions around airfields, even if they do not have a tower. Usually you cannot expect them seeing you as well. Especially when doing a lot of computer work, your eye will not have a resing focus set to infinite, but at maybe dashboard distance. This makes blind as a mole. It is important to mostly look outside and look at things out there, just to be sure having a far focus as well. But the fancier the tech in the cockpit, the less people will take a good look outside. Same as in cars.

[Cpt_Siddy]

2 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann said:

 

Spot the Traffic 

 

 

 

Yeah, nah, you are comparing still image to a background, and we are talking blue sky + movement (nominal conditions). 

 

262 pilots will cry bloody murder when they wont be able to line up anything, because they will literally have 15 seconds to react in head on situations....

Edited September 26, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[sevenless]

If they could set that distance from 9,5km to 15km that would be awesome. 

[Cpt_Cool]

3 minutes ago, sevenless said:

If they could set that distance from 9,5km to 15km that would be awesome. 

 

Except they have said they can't. At least not anytime soon. This is well-traveled ground.

[sevenless]

8 minutes ago, Cpt_Cool said:

 

Except they have said they can't. At least not anytime soon. This is well-traveled ground.

 

I know , I know, but I still have faith they´ll find a way.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Its not that they cant, its just that its not very high on the priority.

 

Majority of the customers never touch multiplayer mode, so why waste manpower on something only minority will touch? 

[Ribbon]

I'm sure if it's easy devs would do it by now!

However it will have to come on schedule at some point if they aim to develop PTO.

Short view range rendering aka view bubble makes spotting ships even harder, they just pop up in front of you and that will be problem in PTO where big part of warfare was enemy fleet positions and scouting.

Flying Cathy and looking for ship trails on open sea!

I already seen this problem on servers with naval missions, nothing and sudden fleet is bellow you.

 

So at some point object distance view should be separated from enviroment detail distance view.

In Arma settings problem was solved by having "object view distance setting" and "terrain view distance setting (detailed aka bubble in il2) separated and unrelated to each other.

[LizLemon]

[Cpt_Siddy]

43 minutes ago, EAF_Ribbon said:

 

So at some point object distance view should be separated from enviroment detail distance view.

In Arma settings problem was solved by having "object view distance setting" and "terrain view distance setting (detailed aka bubble in il2) separated and unrelated to each other.

 

 

This arma solution meant that a ghille suited sniper in a bush looked like total idiot when no bush were rendered 

[Ribbon]

34 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

 

This arma solution meant that a ghille suited sniper in a bush looked like total idiot when no bush were rendered 

Hehehe well one bush was rendered for sure ;)) funny moving bush.

Here it would work, no ghille planes hiding behind trees and bushes.

 

P.S. i spent all rep for today so here you go; +1 

Edited September 26, 2018 by EAF_Ribbon

[Ehret]

7 hours ago, 6./ZG26_Klaus_Mann said:

 

Took me under 5s to see an object slightly up-left from the center. Another 15s to id it  as a plane heading left.

Spotting it should be easier in the sim due differences in movement between it and the background.

EDIT: of course I should wrote right, not left...

Edited September 27, 2018 by Ehret