Pilot sizes...

[Panzerlang]

I was looking at some of the pics on facebook and the ones of the P51, showing the pilot side-on in the cockpit, just looked weird. Like a child-sized bod in the cockpit. I looked at pics of real ones and it really showed it up while at the same time being hard to pin down what was causing it. So, comparisons. I got the tails matched perfectly and it turns out the Il2 model is too long, including it making the cockpit abnormally large. Somewhere along the line this got properly cocked up.

 

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[THERION]

I think it is very difficult and not very accurate to overlay screenshots / photos to compare size and dimensions of a real plane and a virtual one.

If you want to do this like you described, you must be 100% sure that both planes are depicted at the very same distance with the very same

angle. And the light conditions should be the same as the skins / color of the plane. If all parameters match, then you might compare them.

 

And beside of this, the pilot in the real plane wears a modern pilot helmet, whereas the virtual one only a leather cap.

[Panzerlang]

Dude, study the pics, none of what you've said applies.

[Talon_]

Different lens lengths means the pictures are not comparable.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Looks fine to me, the differences are from prolly from different angles. 

 

 

[Panzerlang]

Just now, Talon_ said:

Different lens lengths means the pictures are not comparable.

Lol, whut? Look at the distance between the fronts of the heads and the windshield canopy struts. And what "lens lengths" has to do with it. ?

1 minute ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

Looks fine to me, the differences are from prolly from different angles. 

 

 

There is a very small roll difference that has zero effect on the lengths.

It really is like saying black is black and somebody arguing "no, it's white, because angles, light, lens..." Lol. The visual evidence is right there on the screen, irrefutable.

[Cpt_Siddy]

6 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

 

There is a very small roll difference that has zero effect on the lengths.

 

I can see inside the air ram of the radiator from one of them, but not others.... that is not just roll but also yaw. 

[Panzerlang]

Just now, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

I can see inside the air ram of the radiator from one of them, but not others.... that is not just roll but also yaw. 

Oh my lord. Ignore the comparison overlays, look at the pilots in the cockpits of each plane ON THEIR OWN. You can clearly see how the Il2 scaling is out of whack. The overlay was just me trying to work out which was wrong, the plane dimensions or the pilot size. Turns out it's the plane's dimensions.

[Danziger]

From someone that has tried this a billion times with the MiG-3, you are only going to get a certain area to line up properly. I got it to work but only if I did just the nose or just the tail or just a wing. 

[DD_Arthur]

8 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Lol, whut?

 

'Fraid Talon is quite right.  Do you know what 'focal length' means? 

[Panzerlang]

Just now, DD_Arthur said:

 

'Fraid Talon is quite right.  Do you know what 'focal length' means? 

So focal length can increase the visual size of a real pilot in a real cockpit? No, it can't. And it doesn't hold in the comparison regardless, given that the screenie of the Il2 model hasn't been done with a camera.

[Danziger]

Let's also not forget one of those pilots is wearing a leather skin hat and the other a gigantic plastic orb with tons of foam padding.

[Panzerlang]

1 minute ago, Danziger said:

Let's also not forget one of those pilots is wearing a leather skin hat and the other a gigantic plastic orb with tons of foam padding.

He is but it's not enough of a difference to account for the odd scaling. Very clearly so. The pilot scale is correct, it's the plane that's out of whack.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[Danziger]

Let's also not forget the average size of a person was smaller in 1944 than 2019.

[DD_Arthur]

Just now, Uffz-Prien said:

 And it doesn't hold in the comparison regardless, given that the screenie of the Il2 model hasn't been done with a camera.

 

So you don't know what focal length means, lol.  

 

Carry on digging!

[Panzerlang]

Just now, Danziger said:

Let's also not forget the average size of a person was smaller in 1944 than 2019.

That's why I first thought the pilot had been made child-size (it looks like a kid is in the cockpit). That was until I did the overlay. Yes, the plane positions are not 100% perfect but the difference doesn't account for the significant size discrepancy.

1 minute ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

So you don't know what focal length means, lol.  

 

Carry on digging!

Depth of field. It doesn't give the ability to shrink one part of a subject while making another part bigger. Aye carumba. But please prove otherwise and find a picture that's done that, per the example in my OP.

[Talon_]

4 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

It doesn't give the ability to shrink one part of a subject while making another part bigger.

 

[Pierre64]

[Panzerlang]

3 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

 

Lol. No dude, "per the example in my OP". The pilot isn't tens or hundreds of meters behind the plane, he's in it. Like, you know, the bracket on top of that concrete block that does NOT change size relative to the block it's on.

Never mind that the zoomy image you've provided is a composite of multiple images, not one snapshot.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[DD_Arthur]

10 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Depth of field. 

 

Nope.  Keep trying 

[Panzerlang]

Just now, DD_Arthur said:

 

Nope.  Keep trying 

Yes. Try again. ?

Or just provide two pics of the same subject where a part has been artificially enlarged using different focal lengths.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[Cpt_Siddy]

22 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

So focal length can increase the visual size of a real pilot in a real cockpit? No, it can't. And it doesn't hold in the comparison regardless, given that the screenie of the Il2 model hasn't been done with a camera.

 

Forget the absolute proportions here. Go with the relations, are the relative size of the model correct? Is the pilot relatively ok size? 

I am of the opinion that you are making some fallacies here that other have pointed.

 

edit, also i think you underestimate of how xbox huge that helmet is, have you ever seen one? That leather cap is tiny in comparison. 

 

edit2, this is also some of my mea culpa to devs. Since this team does get 90%-95% of things right, i do not believe that this is one of those things they will make rookie mistakes at. 

I have been critical of engine model and some low speed aerodynamically oddities, but do get to those you need to get lots of things right. So yeah, generally speaking the devs know what they are doing and this is certainly not one of the areas where you expect mistakes. 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Cpt_Siddy

[Panzerlang]

3 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

Forget the absolute proportions here. Go with the relations, are the relative size of the model correct? Is the pilot relatively ok size? 

I am of the opinion that you are making some fallacies here that other have pointed.

 

 

It's like looking at a picture hanging ever so slightly crooked on a wall. Lol. Sure, they're "kind of ok", if you imagine the pilot is child-size (like a 14 year old lad). Some RL pilots were actually that small (mal-nourished typically), like Heinz Knoke. US pilots were generally better fed and bigger. It's the plane dimension causing it.

It's no biggie and it'll never be fixed anyway, so meh. Was just interesting to discover it.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[DD_Arthur]

3 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Or just provide two pics of the same subject where a part has been artificially enlarged using different focal lengths.

 

Lol.  I don't have to do anything.  You've made the foolish statement and I rather think you know that now but..........

[[DBS]Browning]

(Click to enlarge)

Getting the scale right for a 3d model like this is a trivial task for the developers compared to much of the other things the modeller must do. Looks like everything is in proportion here, but I could just have easily presented this image in a way that makes things look out of proportion. Do not trust this kind of comparison too much.

Edited September 22, 2019 by [DBS]Browning

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

 

 

How about it?

[Panzerlang]

9 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Lol.  I don't have to do anything.  You've made the foolish statement and I rather think you know that now but..........

No Arthur, I know nothing of the sort. Put up (proof by example) or stop digging your hole.

8 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

 

Getting the scale right for a 3d model like this is a trivial task for the developers compared to much of the other things the modeller must do. Looks like everything is in proportion here, but I could just have easily presented this image in a way that makes things look out of proportion. Do not trust this kind of comparison too much.

You can't use the top pic, the yaw is way off (can see the windshield strut on the far side). The checker-tail is interesting though.

Yeah, odd how the total length matches almost perfectly but the mast is around six RL inches out.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[Finkeren]

It really doesn't look off to me. 

 

The pilot in the photo is wearing a modern hard-shell flight helmet, which makes his head appear almost double the size of the sim pilot model, who is wearing a tight fitting leather cap. 

[Panzerlang]

Then I see this and think I might just be talking total balls. Lol.

What's really doing my head in is how DBS can get an almost perfect match at the tail that translates into an almost perfect match for total length, while mine matches the tail but not the total length.

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[Talon_]

36 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Lol. No dude, "per the example in my OP". The pilot isn't tens or hundreds of meters behind the plane, he's in it. Like, you know, the bracket on top of that concrete block that does NOT change size relative to the block it's on.

 

The apparent size of the rear bracket changes a lot.

[Panzerlang]

Just now, Talon_ said:

 

The apparent size of the rear bracket changes a lot.

The pics have clearly had the photographer at slightly different positions.

[Danziger]

5 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Then I see this and think I might just be talking total balls. Lol.

 

It happened to me a lot in my research.

[unreasonable]

1 hour ago, Uffz-Prien said:

I was looking at some of the pics on facebook and the ones of the P51, showing the pilot side-on in the cockpit, just looked weird. Like a child-sized bod in the cockpit. I looked at pics of real ones and it really showed it up while at the same time being hard to pin down what was causing it. So, comparisons. I got the tails matched perfectly and it turns out the Il2 model is too long, including it making the cockpit abnormally large. Somewhere along the line this got properly cocked up.

 

 

 

It is perfectly obvious that the angle of the pictures is not the same. The top (US) shot is from more forwards and below than the bottom (RAF) shot. You can see this from the angle of the prop blades and the position of the end of the wing's leading edge. That is even before issues of foreshortening come into play. 

 

Also, if you had ever met any RAF pilots, you would know that they are agile, but extraordinarily stupid, which explains their small heads.   

Edited September 22, 2019 by unreasonable

[Panzerlang]

This is the one that looks so odd, it looks like he would have to lean forward quite a way to touch the instrument panel. Were they really that far back from it in their seat in P51s?

He still looks like a weird doll in this pic though.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien

[Talon_]

7 minutes ago, Uffz-Prien said:

The pics have clearly had the photographer at slightly different positions.

 

To achieve that effect he has to move forwards as the focal length changes.

 

 

 

[Panzerlang]

Just now, Talon_ said:

 

To achieve that effect he has to move forwards as the focal length changes.

 

 

 

Sure. But it means it can't be used vs a single shot. There is no way focal-length can be used to increase the apparent size of a pilot in a cockpit from tens of meters away anyway, photographer changing his position or otherwise.

[Talon_]

Just now, Uffz-Prien said:

Sure. But it means it can't be used vs a single shot. There is no way focal-length can be used to increase the apparent size of a pilot in a cockpit from tens of meters away anyway, photographer changing his position or otherwise.

 

So you're saying the photographer and the screenshot you posted in the OP are at exactly the same distance? How convenient!

 

Because if they're not, then as you've said the two shots cannot be be compared.

[Panzerlang]

6 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

 

So you're saying the photographer and the screenshot you posted in the OP are at exactly the same distance? How convenient!

 

Because if they're not, then as you've said the two shots cannot be be compared.

Dude, one of the pics is a PC screenie, focal-length comparison is a nonsense right off the bat. I thought the argument he was trying to make was the pilot in the real plane had been made to look bigger than RL by some accident (or design) of focal-length.

Given the tails have been almost perfectly matched the relative distances from the picture-taker are irrelevant. But DBS getting a better match has kind of thrown the entire thing into the air. Lol.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien
grammar

[Talon_]

1 minute ago, Uffz-Prien said:

Dude, one of the pics is a PC screenie, focal-length comparison is a nonsense right off the bat. I thought the argument he was trying to make was the pilot in the real plane had been made to look bigger than RL by some accident (or design) of focal-length.

All the proportions of the plane are distorted by the change in focal length, including the length of the fuselage.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Talon_

[Panzerlang]

6 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

All the proportions of the plane are distorted by the change in focal length, including the length of the fuselage.

Ah. You're saying the screenie is a pure image while the photograph could be distorted along and in total length. Yes, that makes sense. Thank you.

So, the pilot has been created on the very diminutive end of the scale then (in my opinion).

This guy must have problems not accidentally hitting the dash with his knuckles quite frequently. ?

 

Anyway, it was an interesting sunday-morning conversation. For me, subjectively, the pilots are too diminutive (in some planes they look very odd). It would be nice to see them filling the cockpits a bit more.

But at least they don't look like the ones in Cliffs, lounging in deck-chairs. ?

Edited September 22, 2019 by Uffz-Prien
grammer