Spotting.

[LColony_Kong]

The BMS scaling is fantastic. You wont find many in that community who do not like that games spotting system. Option 3 would be the best I think, but honestly the odd issues with FOV are a minor issue in BMS. Id take them any day over the "blind" experience we get in il2 or DCS.

[[DBS]TH0R]

Found this post over at Hardware, Software and Controllers forum section. I think it sums up the problems of sub 30" 1440p users nicely (this one comes from a 22" 1080p user):

 

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R

[Barnacles]

I was doing some experimenting (using icons, the pause button and f11 free camera) and I think that the contacts disappearing and reappearing problem is because of the following.

 

At various ranges, the game seems to flip between lighting models. The  exact range this happens depends on the level of zoom at the time, but there will sometimes be a contact, that's closing at around 3k, which will be easily visible because it's rendered as a bright contact. As it closes the colour of the pixels will change abruptly to a much darker palette. This can easily be mistaken for the contact disappearing in the heat of the action.

[Barnacles]

1 hour ago, JG700_Benek said:

 

That is one of the problems this system has, moreover sometimes you cant see a contact in any zoom level except max zoom in.  One of the good things the alternate option has is the fact that you can see the contact with min zoom. Also why the cant use lower gamma on those dots, now everyone lowers gamma such a perfect system we have. 

Yep, because the distance that the brightness of the palette changes is variable dependent on zoom, it's possible that a contact will only be spottable at some levels of zoom. If you pause the game or track, and zoom in and out, you'll see that the contact switches between bright and dark, and when the contrast is low it looks like it disappeared. 

[Sgt_Joch]

2 hours ago, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

I was doing some experimenting (using icons, the pause button and f11 free camera) and I think that the contacts disappearing and reappearing problem is because of the following.

 

At various ranges, the game seems to flip between lighting models. The  exact range this happens depends on the level of zoom at the time, but there will sometimes be a contact, that's closing at around 3k, which will be easily visible because it's rendered as a bright contact. As it closes the colour of the pixels will change abruptly to a much darker palette. This can easily be mistaken for the contact disappearing in the heat of the action.

 

That is not a problem, that is a feature of the new visibility system which now models sun reflections depending on the position of the target AC. If you spend time 1 vs 1 in QMBs which is really the best way to get used to it, you will see ACs are fairly easy to track within 3-5 km. The only time AC seem to disappear is when they are below you and seem to blend into the terrain, but they are usually fairly easy to pick up again. This is in VR.

[Barnacles]

7 minutes ago, Sgt_Joch said:

 

That is not a problem, that is a feature of the new visibility system which now models sun reflections depending on the position of the target AC. If you spend time 1 vs 1 in QMBs which is really the best way to get used to it, you will see ACs are fairly easy to track within 3-5 km. The only time AC seem to disappear is when they are below you and seem to blend into the terrain, but they are usually fairly easy to pick up again. This is in VR.

Then why's it dependent on zoom? I had the game paused, so there's no change of angle, cloud shadow etc. I'm well aware the brightness depends on sun angle etc, but this lighting model is not applied consistently, causing abruptly disappearing and reappearing contacts independent of shadow and cloud angle.

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, JG700_Benek said:

That is one of the problems this system has, moreover sometimes you cant see a contact in any zoom level except max zoom in.  One of the good things the alternate option has is the fact that you can see the contact with min zoom. 

IMO far away contacts should not be seen unless you zoom in. Otherwise they become over enhanced. If they are visible at the wide FOV that is effectively making them huge. They appear closer than they really are. It’s fine to have that effect in Alternate but I wouldn’t want to see it in Normal. 

[[DBS]TH0R]

Example of zoom & disappearing issues have been shown here:

 

 

13 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

IMO far away contacts should not be seen unless you zoom in. Otherwise they become over enhanced. If they are visible at the wide FOV that is effectively making them huge. They appear closer than they really are. It’s fine to have that effect in Alternate but I wouldn’t want to see it in Normal. 

 

I disagree. It doesn't necessarily make them huge. Else give us binoculars please.

 

EDIT: Not sure what to make of this Jason's statement, however there it is:

 

Quote

And real pilots didn't have 'zoom'. 

 

Jason

 

The "inverted zoom" effect present in Scaling or ALT version enables for wide view, thus IMHO better representing realistic peripheral vision.

 

Like some, I too didn't like it at first. But once you get accustomed to it and realize that it actually better represents what RL view offers - it grew on me really fast.

Edited October 23, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R

[Barnacles]

29 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

IMO far away contacts should not be seen unless you zoom in. Otherwise they become over enhanced. If they are visible at the wide FOV that is effectively making them huge. They appear closer than they really are. It’s fine to have that effect in Alternate but I wouldn’t want to see it in Normal. 

And that's fine, but sometimes the opposite can happen, you zoom in and they become less visible. 

[Sgt_Joch]

1 hour ago, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

Then why's it dependent on zoom? I had the game paused, so there's no change of angle, cloud shadow etc. I'm well aware the brightness depends on sun angle etc, but this lighting model is not applied consistently, causing abruptly disappearing and reappearing contacts independent of shadow and cloud angle.

 

interesting, but I have not seen that, when I zoom in on an AC, it keeps the same colour. Maybe something to do with your hardware config?

Edited October 23, 2019 by Sgt_Joch

[Barnacles]

1 minute ago, Sgt_Joch said:

 

interesting, but I have not seen that, when I zoom in on an AC, it keeps the same colour. 

It's rare. I've only pinpointed it yesterday, by experimenting with qmb and free camera. For me it could possibly be a credible explanation for some of the complaints. I think the light system works really well. I am mindful that this is the developers' first published version so I am just posting to help them refine it. I broadly am very happy with the new spotting.

[[DBS]TH0R]

Have you guys tried turning global sharpening filter off? Also, are you using in-game antialiasing or not?

 

Even before 3.201 I found it somewhat easier to spot contacts with AA off.

 

Both of these settings might also play a role why some have contacts rendered differently...

Edited October 23, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R

[Sgt_Joch]

HDR off also helps. HDR on my system gives the terrain a more washed out look which makes it harder to spot contacts.

[Barnacles]

9 minutes ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

Have you guys tried turning global sharpening filter off? Also, are you using in-game antialiasing or not?

 

Even before 3.201 I found it somewhat easier to spot contacts with AA off.

 

Both of these settings might also play a role why some have contacts rendered differently...

It definitely has an effect, and I'm trying different permutations of those settings. The different contrast abrupt brightening/darkening thing I mentioned was found using sharpen off and x2 AA. 

But I'm think it may happen with sharpen on without any AA too.

 

I'll have to try further.

[[DBS]TH0R]

23 minutes ago, Sgt_Joch said:

HDR off also helps. HDR on my system gives the terrain a more washed out look which makes it harder to spot contacts.

 

Thanks. I will try and experiment with HDR off. Without it, the game looks too dark for me.

 

Last settings that I've used are AA & Sharpen off / HDR on with 0.9 gamma.

Edited October 23, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R

[Jizzo]

You can't set AF to app-contolled and force x8/x16 at the same time. That's not how it works.

 

As a general rule you should always force x16 AF on any game you play as long as it works and not causes artifacts (which it actually did in IL-2 last time i tested).

And make sure to set the Lod-bias to Clamp if you do that.

Because the benefit really outweighs the minor performance decrease by a lot.

But i think that the ingame option for the landscape filter actually is an ingame AF setting you can choose, not 100% sure about it, but it kinda makes sense.

 

Last time i checked overriding AA and force it to x8 did not work at all.

And if you do that you should disable ingame AA fully anyways.

Someone with a native 4k screen can test if it works really good, because x8 AA on 4k will have an insane impact on FPS if it works.

 

One thing that really makes the game much sharper is to set TSAA to x8 in NVCP but that aswell has a hugh impact on fps especially when your on the ground.

 

Texture-filter quality should always be set to high quality aswell.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Jizzo

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

And that's fine, but sometimes the opposite can happen, you zoom in and they become less visible. 

That effect is certainly odd. I wouldn’t want to see that. 

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

I disagree. It doesn't necessarily make them huge. Else give us binoculars please.

It’s simple perspective. When you zoom out, everything should get smaller including distant aircraft and at some point they should get too small to be rendered.  If they don’t get smaller they will appear larger in context to their surroundings. And if distant aircraft never vanish due to small size they will remain visible at crazy distances. 

2 hours ago, JG700_Benek said:

Cmon in real life you have super high resolution + super zoom together with wide field of view

But IRL you actually don’t. Your fovea or area of high visual acuity is very small. You can’t see detail like distant aircraft with your peripheral vision. So if the game is showing you dots all over your wide field of view that’s actually unrealistic. There’s only so much you can do on a computer screen but the zoomed-in view sorta equates to your fovea. 

1 hour ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

Even before 3.201 I found it somewhat easier to spot contacts with AA off.

The problem with setting AA off, and I got a lot of experience with this in CloD which didn’t have AA...

Besides the game just looking awful, is that pixels of distant aircraft will render as either black or white but not grey. There is no blending. So yes you might pick up a single dot as black that would otherwise be grey. But you can also lose whole pieces of aircraft like wings etc that will just vanish from view. 

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

3 hours ago, Sgt_Joch said:

 

interesting, but I have not seen that, when I zoom in on an AC, it keeps the same colour. Maybe something to do with your hardware config?

 

This changing colour/contrast effect occurs for me too when zooming in and out on a contact in VR.

[SharpeXB]

^ I honestly can’t imagine this is all necessary to see well in the game

I’m running everything at its default in NCP and the cfg

Ultra preset. All max settings 2xAA in 2160p no filters. Nothing more. 

It really confuses people to tell them that they need to do this much to get decent visibility. I have to question how you can possibly evaluate all those settings for something as difficult to judge as spotting. 

And over adjusting gamma is folly because this game has no gamma setting screen. 

[RedKestrel]

1 minute ago, JG700_Benek said:

 

Yes - also it depends a little what you mean by well and how much u fly multiplayer I think you will not understand us mate -  if the spotting was good there would be no milions of posts about this across both forums and many hours lost in tests plus online would be like 2000 people like in il2 days not 3 servers.

Combat Box has had 3500 unique users on its server this month alone. That's an expert server with normal spotting, in North America.  The server nowadays is packed even on monday nights in NA time. The online community might be smaller but its there. Old Il-2 wasn't competing with more accessible games like Warthunder back in the day. 

[SharpeXB]

11 minutes ago, JG700_Benek said:

 I think you will not understand us mate 

Believe me I don’t think anyone could understand what you posted. This kind of “advice” just confuses people and doesn’t really help IMO

[[DBS]TH0R]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

It’s simple perspective. When you zoom out, everything should get smaller including distant aircraft and at some point they should get too small to be rendered.  If they don’t get smaller they will appear larger in context to their surroundings. And if distant aircraft never vanish due to small size they will remain visible at crazy distances. 

 

Only of you over-do it. If done correctly (like ALT spotting under 10-12 km) it actually is more realistic IMHO. The super long distances need to be either cut via the bubble we had before or anther scaling algorithm.

 

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

But IRL you actually don’t. Your fovea or area of high visual acuity is very small. You can’t see detail like distant aircraft with your peripheral vision. So if the game is showing you dots all over your wide field of view that’s actually unrealistic. There’s only so much you can do on a computer screen but the zoomed-in view sorta equates to your fovea.

 

Realistic FOV is much more than normal view in-game. Denying that is sticking your head into the sand. In-game zoom replaces eye focus  in RL.

 

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

The problem with setting AA off, and I got a lot of experience with this in CloD which didn’t have AA...

Besides the game just looking awful, is that pixels of distant aircraft will render as either black or white but not grey. There is no blending. So yes you might pick up a single dot as black that would otherwise be grey. But you can also lose whole pieces of aircraft like wings etc that will just vanish from view. 

 

Not true. I thought that as well when first disabling it. The key is, again, small dot pitch. So small that it is very much bearable (27" @ 1440p). On a larger dot pitch monitor (e.g. 24" 1080p) yes, lack of AA is definitely noticeable and makes the image more ugly.

Edited October 23, 2019 by [DBS]TH0R