On the new visibility system

[[DBS]Browning]

What does everyone think?

It's certainly much easier to spot planes at distance now.

Paradoxically, it can be harder spot spot planes when zoomed in now. I welcome that as I no longer spend time zoomed in aside from when IDing planes at shorter ranges..

Edited October 1, 2019 by [DBS]Browning

[J2_Jakob]

Yes, after a quick test I second that.

I've put a few B25's into QMB and observed them from a distance of 8km+. Fully zoomed out, they appeared a bit bigger than fully zoomed in.

[Majakowski]

My first mission (I fly bombers as with no TrackIR this is my only means of surviving missions) after update yesterday was horror. I was intercepted before being over target (before I nearly always managed to get there unseen) and after releasing bombs and diving away I was shot down. However I learned that I was flying into a nest already populated by our and enemy planes. In a following raid I managed to get there unseen again and was able to flee and land unmolested.

 

But I saw airplanes from very far away, on my routes this was never the case before. I think with this visibility system it is time to pump up cloud density on multiplayer servers to give the bombers a little more chances of survival.

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

I guess this new visibility is the weak point of the new patch. Its overdone for far contacts.

Edited October 1, 2019 by III./SG77-G_Boelcke

[[MoKaMbO]jrepas]

4 hours ago, [DBS]Browning said:

What does everyone think?

It's certainly much easier to spot planes at distance now.

Paradoxically, it can be harder spot spot planes when zoomed in now. I welcome that as I no longer spend time zoomed in aside from when IDing planes at shorter ranges..

I think, its a good addition I feel been almost the same with CLOD.

[Roger_Meatball]

I think the tone and intention of the system are great - it still rewards scanning carefully but helps lower the separation between players with hundreds of hours in the game and players with thousands. I assume this is a system that will get tuned for a while, but I found my hours in multiplayer far more enjoyable last night having a bit better SA. I still got bounced when not checking my 6, but I was far more aware while flying smart than normal. 

[ShugNinx]

Hello !

 

I find the new visibility system to be great, it adds so much life to the scenery. Noticed a small bug though : navigations lights aren't visible until the classic 9-10Km range, which is kinda weird but will surely be corrected in a few patches.

[FAE_Azor]

With the new visibility system is easy to see plane on long distance but near disappearing on close distance and the imagen is not stable I note a lot of "jumping" imagen when I move the head with track ir and FPS dropped dramatically, if you use the zoom the plane disappear ¡¡. I would  prefer the old visibility system, more stable smooth and you can see the contacts on short or medium distance which is where it is important

Definitely this new system is the wear  part of this update and does not improve the game.

Other aspect of the update are amazing, but please back to the old visibility system 

Edited October 1, 2019 by FAE_Azor

[[GDG]Andreher]

For me the new visibility system is the BEST thing about this update!

 

Finally the multiplayer matches feel like an online game! 

 

I flew to an objective and saw so many planes! It was terrifying! I didn't feel alone at all (happened alot before this update). I was tense with the constant cons I was spotting it was great!!!

 

Before this update the game was a very lonely experience. You would fly for more than 20 minutes without seeing anyone. Just at the objectives you would see a plane or two.

 

With the new sistem you are constantly seeing other planes all around, it's so much better!!!

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

It's much better, its not even close. the sense of scope of the battle is much improved... The downside that has been mentioned is something that I will gladly swallow if it means being able to track planes from a proper distance and plan your attacks

[RedKestrel]

Everything in this sim gets tuned over time to improve. Sometimes it takes a while. I'm sure this isn't the last tweak we will see to the viewing distance, but so far it sounds great. I can't wait to get online and try it out. The view distance was a big limitation when assessing the risks of entering a combat zone...you never knew if there was a bunch of enemy fighters lurking just outside 8 km.

[Stoopy]

Just now, RedKestrel said:

Everything in this sim gets tuned over time to improve. Sometimes it takes a while. I'm sure this isn't the last tweak we will see to the viewing distance, but so far it sounds great. I can't wait to get online and try it out. The view distance was a big limitation when assessing the risks of entering a combat zone...you never knew if there was a bunch of enemy fighters lurking just outside 8 km.

 

.. or if someone in a P-47 is lurking in the clouds above the ships on Combat Box... ?

 

 

[RedKestrel]

10 minutes ago, =[TIA]=Stoopy said:

 

.. or if someone in a P-47 is lurking in the clouds above the ships on Combat Box... ?

 

 

When you put it like that, it sounds so sordid!  That was a fantastic fight by the way, you got some really good reversals on me! That was my favourite sortie of the night.

In the end, I_Fly_Central punished me for my insolence/target fixation - visibility distance wouldn't have saved my sorry butt. Once he hit me the first time I figured I would just try and take you with me and damn the incoming fire, but that didn't work out so hot. Or, it worked out really hot as my plane ended up on fire and in pieces. D:

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

I guess devs should tweak this feature: ask real pilots about visibility, articles etc. I guess visibility should fade at distance depending on atmospheric features: https://www.biral.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Introduction_to_visibility-v2-2.pdf

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005594

 

I guess its overdone.

[Gambit21]

Get a better monitor 

At 4K I have no issues - contacts start as a tiny 4K pixel and slowly grow.

 

Stop sniveling 

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

Figure 16. Threshold range as a function of contrast for ten aircraft.

Threshold range is the largest distance at which an aircraft can be seen. Dashed lines have slope = ½. These results depend upon a particular set of lighting conditions.

 

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005594.g016

Im not snivelling i'm presenting data to help.

[Gambit21]

If you have enough resolution to properly render at further distances the problem disappears.

 

The issue is trying to balance the effective for people at lower resolutions. Something has to give somewhere.

 

For me the aircraft are drawn far before I can pick them up with the naked eye.

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

Ok, but compromises sim aspects  and most of users. I guess game should detect resolution and apply diferent techniques.

Edited October 1, 2019 by III./SG77-G_Boelcke

[Gambit21]

I’m sure it will be tuned but I’m guessing that the further below 4K you go, the less realistic.it will be, simply because the pixel resolution doesn’t exist past a certain distance. Any fix for that problem will always be a bit clunky.

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Gambit21

[Majakowski]

Just had a round in multiplayer where I kept a "safe" distance of say 15-20km from one of our targets he was pounding and looking to the left I could see his plane silhouette with its maneuvering status distinguishable (not so clearly when zooming in though). No way you can tell from that distance the silhouette of a plane of say 15m wingspan. It is even hard to see an A320 10km above one without contrails not to speak of being able to tell its attitude. That really should be fixed. 

[354thFG_Leifr]

It's great being able to see contacts at such longer distances now, although I must say that there seems to be an issue with the actual contact popping in/out of visibility.

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

I like it...EXCEPT, at certain angles airplanes almost appear white depending on the angle, and that angle seems broad to me...

[Majakowski]

@Gambit21

 

A compromise for lower res could be to make the pixel of the "out of pixel range" contact a weaker contrast to the background. Say if you have a clear blue sky, the pixel of the far away plane isn't just black but say a little blue dot a little brighter than the background sky. This would allow for the contact not to be "not displayed" but still be not as easy detectable. 

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

42 minutes ago, Majakowski said:

@Gambit21

 

A compromise for lower res could be to make the pixel of the "out of pixel range" contact a weaker contrast to the background. Say if you have a clear blue sky, the pixel of the far away plane isn't just black but say a little blue dot a little brighter than the background sky. This would allow for the contact not to be "not displayed" but still be not as easy detectable. 

Yep. Decrease opacity with range...

[Guest deleted@83466]

Several times last night I saw some things that baffled me:  There were a lot of distant contacts that appeared to be contrailing, but they were well below contrailing altitudes and they weren't leaking fuel or coolant.  Then, when I got closer, they simply stopped streaming, leaving me a bit confused about what i had been seeing.   Similarly, there was quite a bit of stuff going on in the distance that looked like a "SAM launch", for lack of a better analogy.  

 

Aside from that though,  the glint off of wings is really good now, and it was really cool being able to see distant things against forests and ground from far off.

[yardstickfb]

As a VR user I am incredibly happy with the new spotting system. I can actually see aircraft at range and I can pick them out from ground clutter. 

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

1 minute ago, SeaSerpent said:

Several times last night I saw some things that baffled me:  There were a lot of distant contacts that appeared to be contrailing, but they were well below contrailing altitudes and they weren't leaking fuel or coolant.  Then, when I got closer, they simply stopped streaming, leaving me a bit confused about what i had been seeing.   Similarly, there was quite a bit of stuff going on in the distance that looked like a "SAM launch", for lack of a better analogy.  

 

Aside from that though,  the glint off of wings is really good now, and it was really cool being able to see distant things against forests and ground from far off.

My mates and I were seeing similar anomalies, at least from what they described and what I was seeing.

[SE.VH_Boemundo]

I saw this SAM launch effect too...

4 minutes ago, SeaSerpent said:

 

 

Aside from that though,  the glint off of wings is really good now, and it was really cool being able to see distant things against forests and ground from far off.

This effect is very nice.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Since it was the first day of the release, I wonder if the servers might need to update something on their end, and then some of the weird visual effects will go away.

[Stoopy]

2 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

When you put it like that, it sounds so sordid!  That was a fantastic fight by the way, you got some really good reversals on me! That was my favourite sortie of the night.

In the end, I_Fly_Central punished me for my insolence/target fixation - visibility distance wouldn't have saved my sorry butt. Once he hit me the first time I figured I would just try and take you with me and damn the incoming fire, but that didn't work out so hot. Or, it worked out really hot as my plane ended up on fire and in pieces. ?

 

Thanks!  I agree that was a great "wrasslin' match" and the highlight of my evening.   Heartbreaker to lose you in the sun after that rolling scissors all the way down to the deck, particularly after spending a great deal of time hunting around for something in that cloud cover.  The Grand Inquisitor (Central) seemed a bit nonplussed with me having to end up needing help because "how can you lose sight of a P-47?!" and all I could say is that it was really well flown... and that's surely the truth!  

 

Will definitely look forward to another opportunity,  it will be very interesting to see what that's like with the new pilot physiology!  But that's another thread hijack altogether...  ?

 

[wumas0201]

As a VR user, I prefer the old visibility system. the new one is very horrible for me, I think it should be tweak as real life.

[SCG_ErwinP]

I did a small and simple video about distance view when in Beta test.
I think that I can share it now:
When playing is a lot better to see than recorded video.

 

 

[Cpt_Siddy]

Remember the thread i made some time ago about visibility? 

 

Pepperidge farms remembers. 

 

This is a very good change, it makes high altitude fights possible with the new, more powerful, machines we got. 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Cpt_Siddy

[[DBS]TH0R]

Without a doubt they will tweak it along the way. A long overdue change, and a must have for late war birds that feature closing speeds much higher than WWI birds.

Edited October 1, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R

[danielprates]

3 hours ago, wumas0201 said:

As a VR user, I prefer the old visibility system. the new one is very horrible for me, I think it should be tweak as real life.

 

Isn't it now more lifelike?

 

I loved the new system. Feels much more realistic. Granted, I probably have the hardware it was intended for. But you can't stop progress; I don't think devs should have as a main target the users with lower-end hardware. I'm not trying to be dick saying that, don't get me wrong. Its just that, well, we all willl have another monitor in an average 2 or 3 years time, its not realistic to expect the deveolpers to release the best product, for the  whole previous 10 years of technology....

[dburne]

Can't wait to see all this, I am nuts deep into another project but hopefully will get to try it out here soon.

[Mac_Messer]

Mid range visibility upgrade did it for me. The planes do not disappear anymore, and long range vis is still tough but not nearly as bad as before.

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

I’m loving the distant contrail and smoke from downed planes... simple awesome?

I feel like I need to retrain myself for situational awareness, but overwhelming to be able to see so much     

 

AND omg, with the new building render distance we can finally fly at higher altitudes and have fun!

[Bremspropeller]

7 hours ago, Majakowski said:

No way you can tell from that distance the silhouette of a plane of say 15m wingspan. It is even hard to see an A320 10km above one without contrails not to speak of being able to tell its attitude. That really should be fixed.

 

That depends on a lot of factors - mostly contrast, relative motion and of course your eyesight.

I can see cows on a field (white dots against green background) from cruising altitude of airliners. I think everybody has seen cars (roundabout 5x2m in size) on a highway from cruise-altitude. Just like one can see haystacks/ rolls from altitude.

 

Next time you see an airliner above you, try to make out it's engines against the blue sky. They're usually sized similarly to cars (5x2m) on the narrow-body jets (A320 and 737 families).

 

I could spot a widebody airliner at rougly 40NM distance (TCAS-target on Nav Display 40NM ring) - it was just a pinprick and it's presence was de-facto only given away by the contrail, but the tiny dot in front was barely visible.

 

Given dry air, it's amazing what you can actually spot at long distances.

[Cpt_Siddy]

I think we established already in another thread that human vision is about much more than angular size of the object.

 

This current system is not "real", it is just approximation,, but we are working with finite pixels that cannot be subdivided beyond what our screens output and have to work with that. 

 

Humans are perfectly capable of seeing infinitesimally small things so long they have enough photons emitting from them, stars are very good example of that. Stars are so far away that their angular size is smaller than a bacteria few meters away, yet we see them on our night sky just fine.