Need help in "Spot The Airplane"

[Y-29.Silky]

Before my post gets removed again I know spotting is a controversial topic, I just want to find settings that work best for me in spotting aircraft.

With that said, I can see planes very far away, so far that I can see furballs from across the map, they show up as white dots. A good way to know what I'm talking about is you can see the 1943 dogfights from the Allied 1944 spawn in the Berloga server.

However, I can't see anything when planes are close and I don't remember having this problem on my old setup. I don't know if it's my monitor settings or what. I have.. HDR disabled, Sharpen,

Land filter blurred, and 4k textures on ultra.

 

In the photo there's a BF-109 below me. I'm at 2500m, the Bf-109 is at 500m.

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

It's in a right bank.

 

Spoiler

 

[RedKestrel]

17 minutes ago, Y-29.Silky said:

Before my post gets removed again I know spotting is a controversial topic, I just want to find settings that work best for me in spotting aircraft.

With that said, I can see planes very far away, so far that I can see furballs from across the map, they show up as white dots. A good way to know what I'm talking about is you can see the 1943 dogfights from the Allied 1944 spawn in the Berloga server.

However, I can't see anything when planes are close and I don't remember having this problem on my old setup. I don't know if it's my monitor settings or what. I have.. HDR disabled, Sharpen,

Land filter blurred, and 4k textures on ultra.

 

In the photo there's a BF-109 below me. I'm at 2500m, the Bf-109 is at 500m.

 

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It's in a right bank.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

For Berloga, be advised that they use the Alternate visibility setting. Which is probably why you can so easily see aircraft that far away on the server. Although distant spotting is still very much possible on other servers, just not quite as easy without the scaling. 

Nearby spotting has the same problems regardless of visibility settings IMO. Berloga benefits from the map choice, planes just seem to show up better there against the steppe background. Summer Bodenplatte map seems to be the hardest to spot against the ground.

I have basically the same settings as you - Ultra, Sharpen On, HDR Off. I use 0.8 gamma, thinking of tweaking it actually higher to about 0.9 or even 1.0 as it makes the forest very dark, which makes it harder to pick out aircraft against it. Lower gamma is kind of proposed as a panacea for spotting issues but in some cases I believe it hurts more than it helps. I think that turning sharpen off improves spotting very slightly but I found that my target ID suffered greatly so I don't recommend it. If you have a higher def display you may try it, to see if it helps on higher resolutions. 

I don't think there is a magic setting, other than a good calibrated monitor, keen eyes for movement, and a few tweaks to minimize contact blending. Things may improve with the deferred shading that is coming down the pipes in the next update or so, or if/when they are able to improve nearby spotting. 

This just reminded me I have to recalibrate the color settings on my monitor a bit, the display seems a little dark and less vivid in since my GPU upgrade. 

[ITAF_Airone1989]

26 minutes ago, Y-29.Silky said:

.

With that said, I can see planes very far away, so far that I can see furballs from across the map, they show up as white dots. A good way to know what I'm talking about is you can see the 1943 dogfights from the Allied 1944 spawn in the Berloga server.

 

This is because Berloga use "alternative visibility", that means this:

 

You will see ANYTHING far away from you, then you try to zoom in and they disappear... So, you zoom out and they are back again!

So, you turn to point them and when you are close they probably will disappear again...

 

Alternative visibility enlarge pixel when the airplane is super far from you, but if you zoom in or you get closer then the normal visibility come back.

 

Suggestion:

1) Your setting are pretty good, you can try with ReShade if you can find something than can help you more but I cannot how to help you.

2) keep sun behind you, enemy plane will shine and will be easier to see them

[357th_KW]

Double check all your settings including startup.cfg changes you’ve made.  I’d been having some real struggles lately and finally looked at my settings again and realized the recent patches must have reset some options.  No wonder I was getting bounced constantly and couldn’t see a thing.  Now I’m back at square one until I sink a few hours into getting things dialed in again.

 

One technique I found very helpful in the past was to setup QMBs with enemies at long distance (10k or so) and just keep running the scenarios with icons on (to make sure you aren’t missing visible contacts due to errors in your visual scan) and tweak your settings until you can see them reasonably.  This is tedious and time consuming, just changing one setting at a time and restarting the game, but it will ultimately get you there.  Mirrors, shadows, sharpen, hdr, and anti-aliasing all seem to have a huge impact.  Sadly, ugly seems to produce much better functional visibility than pretty.

[blitze]

Suggestion, You are 2km away above an aircraft that is the size of a small or narrow car but with wings but it is painted in colours that are designed from that view to blend it in with the terrain.

 

Welcome to the world of WW2 aviation. Would you like 109's upper surfaces to be painted in modern "Safety" colours so they can be easily seen?

 

Most people probably wouldn't see that 109 in most situations and Il2's even were hard to spot when high above them as described by Hungarian 109 pilots.  500m you should have no issues.

 

Remember, the only reason US aircraft ditched using camo late war was because they had Air Superiority and little opposition so it was deemed not needed.  That and playing at default FOV on a small monitor will not give you 1 to 1 scale.  PITA but that is the limitation of monitors in a combat simulation.

[Guest deleted@134347]

18 hours ago, ITAF_Airone1989 said:

This is because Berloga use "alternative visibility", that means this:

 

You will see ANYTHING far away from you, then you try to zoom in and they disappear... So, you zoom out and they are back again!

So, you turn to point them and when you are close they probably will disappear again...

 

Alternative visibility enlarge pixel when the airplane is super far from you, but if you zoom in or you get closer then the normal visibility come back.

 

Suggestion:

1) Your setting are pretty good, you can try with ReShade if you can find something than can help you more but I cannot how to help you.

2) keep sun behind you, enemy plane will shine and will be easier to see them

 

in Berloga I can see/spot the airplanes only when they are in a bank turn (view from top of bottom). Once they're in a side or a front/rear profile view = fuhget about it even at 300 -400meters...

 

Setting the gamma to 0.7 in setup.cfg helped a little bit, I tried going for 0.6 but that was way too dark. All other settings - HDR, AA, sampling, etc - none of it helps to any noticeable degree in VR

[=TU=flynvrtd]

As long as you're bringing "spotting" up.

 

Go fly on the opposing side and have a look at a furball.

See if you notice little silver gnats darting about the furrball..

Those are P-51s'.

Have a look at the images I was finally able to capture in this thread.

 

[JimTM]

20 hours ago, KW_1979 said:

...

One technique I found very helpful in the past was to setup QMBs with enemies at long distance (10k or so) and just keep running the scenarios with icons on (to make sure you aren’t missing visible contacts due to errors in your visual scan) and tweak your settings until you can see them reasonably.  This is tedious and time consuming, just changing one setting at a time and restarting the game, but it will ultimately get you there.  ...

 

I posted a spotting test mission here.

 

I ended up reducing my resolution to 1280 x 720 (my monitor native resolution is 1080p). With this change, I can see contacts reasonably well at about 4 or 5 km out.

Edited April 30, 2020 by JimTM

[Panezz]

We really need enhanced alternate vis from devs

[GregP]

Spotting issues are a point in favor of using a large, hi-resolution monitor.  I just tested out JimTM's mission above, and on my 43" 4k monitor, I can very comfortably see contacts out to 4 and 5 km, then with a bit of concentration can pick them out at 6, 7 and even 8 km.  I completely agree that going 4k shouldn't be required to have reasonable spotting ability, but thought it was worth pointing out that it does in fact get significantly better when you do so.

[216th_Jordan]

On 4/30/2020 at 4:35 PM, JimTM said:

 

I posted a spotting test mission here.

 

I ended up reducing my resolution to 1280 x 720 (my monitor native resolution is 1080p). With this change, I can see contacts reasonably well at about 4 or 5 km out.

 

It would be interesting to see if this still holds true as it seems that distant LOD management has changed.

[JimTM]

 

2 hours ago, 216th_Jordan said:

 

It would be interesting to see if this still holds true as it seems that distant LOD management has changed.

 

On BoX v4.008, I tried my test mission with 1080p and 720p.

 

1080p: 1 km was easy, 2 km was moderately difficult, and 3 km was hard

 

720p: 1 km to 3 km was easy and 4 km to 5 km was moderately difficult. This effect of the lower resolution caused the planes to blink a bit as they moved, which made it much easier to notice them.

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by JimTM

[[DBS]TH0R]

On 4/29/2020 at 7:48 PM, RedKestrel said:

I don't think there is a magic setting, other than a good calibrated monitor, keen eyes for movement, and a few tweaks to minimize contact blending. Things may improve with the deferred shading that is coming down the pipes in the next update or so, or if/when they are able to improve nearby spotting.

 

I have a monitor calibrated with a device. No difference. None. Zilch.

 

Going the opposite way is the solution - by messing up the image so that contacts actually are visible. When they are not drawn a size of a pixel, that is.

 

This is why people started using re-shade, and forcing low gamma.

[216th_Jordan]

I'll try the mission tonight, but for now I have got to say that spotting has gotten worse for me with the recent patches. (although more consistent with the new lighting model)

Edited July 13, 2020 by 216th_Jordan

[ACG_Smokejumper]

On 4/30/2020 at 5:05 AM, blitze said:

Suggestion, You are 2km away above an aircraft that is the size of a small or narrow car but with wings but it is painted in colours that are designed from that view to blend it in with the terrain.

 

Welcome to the world of WW2 aviation. Would you like 109's upper surfaces to be painted in modern "Safety" colours so they can be easily seen?

 

Most people probably wouldn't see that 109 in most situations and Il2's even were hard to spot when high above them as described by Hungarian 109 pilots.  500m you should have no issues.

 

Remember, the only reason US aircraft ditched using camo late war was because they had Air Superiority and little opposition so it was deemed not needed.  That and playing at default FOV on a small monitor will not give you 1 to 1 scale.  PITA but that is the limitation of monitors in a combat simulation.

 

 

A lot of people need glasses. At 2000M you can see an aircraft and reflections off canopies and other surfaces depending on lighting conditions. The human eye is ESPECIALLY good at picking out movement. Movement attracts our eyes with the exception of snakes. We can spot snakes without them moving. Left overs from us being monkeys. Most prey species can see snakes.... Ever been on a horse when it thinks it see a snake? Fun times but I'm off topic.

 

I agree that we should have a difficult time spotting. However, you can lose a target while tracking it on the ground. I tend to spot more things than average gamers due to my settings and having better than 20/20 vision. That said I think a fix outside of scaling is needed. When you have eyes on within 2000M and it just disappears against the background that's a problem.

 

Perhaps a bit more sun glinting off canopies might do it. It's something you see in Cliffs of Dover and it's helpful. You can still sneak by but if someone has spotted you and looking they will eventually catch a reflection and pick out out.

 

I switch monitor settings depending on lighting conditions. A lot of monitors have multiple gaming set ups as well as custom. I flick between FPS1, FPS2, RPG and a couple of custom settings. I also crank the colour vibrancy up on my monitor which helps enormously.

 

My 2C. Good luck Silky my bro. A lot of pixel pilots feel your pain.

Edited July 13, 2020 by ACG_Smokejumper

[Legioneod]

The main problem with spotting right now imo is the rendering. Depending on the angle the aircraft will render out (become invisible), blink in and out, or just be such small pixels that it's impossible to see.

If they can fix the rendering issues then I think spotting will improve greatly.

[216th_Jordan]

It's worse than I thought. At :

- 1 km the 109 is quite visible

- 2 km the 109 is medium visible

- 3 km almost not visible

- 4 km somtimes small dots, mostly invisible

- 5 km dont even try

 

See for yourself:

[LColony_Kong]

I am just going to drop this in here again. This issue is of paramount importance, more important than anything else in the game to be fixed by several orders of magnitude. Virtually every fight in the game right now is spotting a single bandit at point blank range and not seeing a dozen others that should have been easy to see. My friends and I have extreme difficulty even keeping sight of bombers at the appropriate distances according to the actual USAAF escort tactics used during the war. Good luck getting the high cover to not lose you. As others have already pointed out in this thread, spotting at extremely close ranges of just 2-3km is atrociously unrealistic and bad. We need a fix that enlarges the scaling of aircraft rather significantly and adjusts contrast rather significantly.

 

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by [TLC]MasterPooner

[IRRE_Preach]

Since several updates it is no longer a pleasure to play multiplayer except on berloga.

 We have the impression of spending our time missing planes and this is very frustrating.  

If we add the decrease in performance in vr the games become a disaster

[SharpeXB]

12 hours ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

We need a fix that enlarges the scaling of aircraft rather significantly and adjusts contrast rather significantly.

No. Because scaled up aircraft would look ridiculous and without improvements in rendering and contrast, they would still not be any easier to see just because they are larger. 

[Requiem]

If adjusting scaling, rendering, and contrast allows us to spot contacts without needing to zoom in everywhere or relying on bullet tracers to spot airplanes first then I'm all for that. Usually it's tracers that are a giveaway...tracers are like moths to a flame. Imagine if none of the airplanes in the sim had tracer loadouts and how that would affect your likelihood of finding enemy aircraft in some MP situations. The alternate visilibility is the nice thing about jumping into Berloga...yes, the contacts render too far away under alternate visilibility currently, but you can actually fly around and search using a regular scan technique at a normal field of view and see things. There's no need to zoom. Just look around. It's just unfortunate at the moment the scaling is off when using it as there is good potential there if it could be done right.

 

If I could wave a magic wand to fix visibility in Il-2...we would be able to easily see fighter sized contacts to 5nm (9km), but then with increasing difficulty out to a max of 7nm (13km) depending on the planform (worst case is front or rear aspect, best case would be in a turn showing off the full wing). That's just for airplanes with wingspans of like 30ft. Get into aircraft with larger wingspans and they would be seen even further away no worries.

 

If we truly want to reflect what spotting is like in RL then compromises need to be made to account for the fact we're playing a game on screens. Otherwise if we just believe that using data without accounting for computer hardware limitations is realistic then we'll have to be satisfied with flying around in our little 0.5nm-1nm bubble (1-2km) hoping we don't get bounced after methodically checking our six o'clock a few seconds earlier.

 

I'm not saying I can't see airplanes further out in-game, because I can, but it's just so much more difficult in-game than it is in RL to spot something initially let alone being able to maintain that tally or regain it quickly after looking away. It can be frustrating when people fly around for 40 mins seeing essentially nothing, but then looking at Tacview or a track later and seeing how many airplanes there were buzzing around close by and yet none of them saw each other. It feels like the visibility issue take away the "combat" portion of things at times.

[RedKestrel]

58 minutes ago, Requiem said:

If adjusting scaling, rendering, and contrast allows us to spot contacts without needing to zoom in everywhere or relying on bullet tracers to spot airplanes first then I'm all for that. Usually it's tracers that are a giveaway...tracers are like moths to a flame. Imagine if none of the airplanes in the sim had tracer loadouts and how that would affect your likelihood of finding enemy aircraft in some MP situations. The alternate visilibility is the nice thing about jumping into Berloga...yes, the contacts render too far away under alternate visilibility currently, but you can actually fly around and search using a regular scan technique at a normal field of view and see things. There's no need to zoom. Just look around. It's just unfortunate at the moment the scaling is off when using it as there is good potential there if it could be done right.

 

If I could wave a magic wand to fix visibility in Il-2...we would be able to easily see fighter sized contacts to 5nm (9km), but then with increasing difficulty out to a max of 7nm (13km) depending on the planform (worst case is front or rear aspect, best case would be in a turn showing off the full wing). That's just for airplanes with wingspans of like 30ft. Get into aircraft with larger wingspans and they would be seen even further away no worries.

 

If we truly want to reflect what spotting is like in RL then compromises need to be made to account for the fact we're playing a game on screens. Otherwise if we just believe that using data without accounting for computer hardware limitations is realistic then we'll have to be satisfied with flying around in our little 0.5nm-1nm bubble (1-2km) hoping we don't get bounced after methodically checking our six o'clock a few seconds earlier.

 

I'm not saying I can't see airplanes further out in-game, because I can, but it's just so much more difficult in-game than it is in RL to spot something initially let alone being able to maintain that tally or regain it quickly after looking away. It can be frustrating when people fly around for 40 mins seeing essentially nothing, but then looking at Tacview or a track later and seeing how many airplanes there were buzzing around close by and yet none of them saw each other. It feels like the visibility issue take away the "combat" portion of things at times.

I’ve noticed in the last couple weeks that Berloga now has normal visibility. Or I’m going crazy.

[Lolrawr]

4 hours ago, Requiem said:

tracers are like moths to a flame

this basically makes me tremble in fear anytime i have a bandit in my crosshair and i`m about to squeze the trigger because i know that the second i do it at least 1 other bandit that i couldn`t spot will be on my 6. 

Bad contact spoting literally took the fun out of the game, the fun and satisfaction of squezing the trigger is actually a death sentence.

[Requiem]

7 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

I’ve noticed in the last couple weeks that Berloga now has normal visibility. Or I’m going crazy.

I haven't been on there for a while but I do remember the alt vis being on so maybe it switched back since then

[PreyStalker]

7 hours ago, Requiem said:

If adjusting scaling, rendering, and contrast allows us to spot contacts without needing to zoom in everywhere or relying on bullet tracers to spot airplanes first then I'm all for that. Usually it's tracers that are a giveaway...tracers are like moths to a flame. Imagine if none of the airplanes in the sim had tracer loadouts and how that would affect your likelihood of finding enemy aircraft in some MP situations. The alternate visilibility is the nice thing about jumping into Berloga...yes, the contacts render too far away under alternate visilibility currently, but you can actually fly around and search using a regular scan technique at a normal field of view and see things. There's no need to zoom. Just look around. It's just unfortunate at the moment the scaling is off when using it as there is good potential there if it could be done right.

 

If I could wave a magic wand to fix visibility in Il-2...we would be able to easily see fighter sized contacts to 5nm (9km), but then with increasing difficulty out to a max of 7nm (13km) depending on the planform (worst case is front or rear aspect, best case would be in a turn showing off the full wing). That's just for airplanes with wingspans of like 30ft. Get into aircraft with larger wingspans and they would be seen even further away no worries.

 

If we truly want to reflect what spotting is like in RL then compromises need to be made to account for the fact we're playing a game on screens. Otherwise if we just believe that using data without accounting for computer hardware limitations is realistic then we'll have to be satisfied with flying around in our little 0.5nm-1nm bubble (1-2km) hoping we don't get bounced after methodically checking our six o'clock a few seconds earlier.

 

I'm not saying I can't see airplanes further out in-game, because I can, but it's just so much more difficult in-game than it is in RL to spot something initially let alone being able to maintain that tally or regain it quickly after looking away. It can be frustrating when people fly around for 40 mins seeing essentially nothing, but then looking at Tacview or a track later and seeing how many airplanes there were buzzing around close by and yet none of them saw each other. It feels like the visibility issue take away the "combat" portion of things at times.

 

Totally agree !

 

Air patrols are a pointless exercise in BOX, that's why everyone heads directly for the nearest enemy airfield or main target area for a skirmish, just because you're more likely to spot something at those places. It's no fun patrolling like a hawk for an hour and not seeing anything while all the time enemy planes are slipping past you undetected. 

 

There is so much good work that goes into Il2 GB, but many would agree that spotting remains its biggest flaw. I really hope the Devs can keep trying to come up with improvements, either with the scaling or the shading, whatever makes spotting less frustrating than it presently is.

 

It would be good to have a more simple, standardized system that works roughly the same across different hardware. The current spotting requires far too much individual tweaking and hardware adjustment, which leads to some people having a major advantage/disadvantage in combat.

 

The Devs were able to fix the contacts in clouds recently so let's hope they can work some magic with spotting too.

 

 

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

Requiem pretty much nailed it. RL does not translate well on a screen that has limitations.

[RedKestrel]

I hope they continue working on it as well, one of the problems is that every time they change things at least some people experience problems and then everyone flips their lid. If people were a little more level headed the devs could experiment a bit and we could try a few different things to see what works well. But lots of people take every issue as The Worst Thing Ever so it probably feels like a no win scenario to try and change things. 

[Lolrawr]

I for one am skeptic about this issue being solved in the forseeable future. Why you may ask? Good question, from my limited knowledge i think that a proper fix requires a new or at least a revamp of the game engine and doing that is not as easy as one might think (or cheap).  From what i read 4k kinda fixes this issue, so as tech gets better and cheaper maybe more people will upgrade to 4k for unrelated reason with the added bonus of enjoying BoX even more, this coupled with future tweaks and changes could make a solid compromise, but thats a long way down the line. I don`t know how the majority of players feels about this, but for me playing MP at this point has become more stressful than enjoyable, and i can only hope for a fix as soon as humanly possible.

[JG5_Schuck]

11 hours ago, Requiem said:

Usually it's tracers that are a giveaway...tracers are like moths to a flame.

 

Yes, but once you see the tracers, you see the plane thats firing, right.....?

I actually don't think spotting is that bad, but as stated it varies from monitor to monitor.

And as someone mentioned camo schemes where used for s reason,

Believe me when i say you can almost tread on a person dressed in white in a snowy field before you see them.

So spotting a white plane on/over a snowy field from above should be equally as difficult.

Same goes for a green plane over a green field...... etc.

Spotting a plane above the horizon, i agree should be easier.

But in my experience flying, even when youre told there is a plane in the area, the direction, altitude and heading, you sometimes still dont spot them straight away.

I just wonder how many times IRL planes flew past each other and never saw a thing?

 

One thing of interest (as a keen photographer) the yellow filter used on German aircraft should act as a contrast filter, and not a sun filter,

making it easier to spot aircraft in a bleached out sky at distance!!

 

[Caudron431]

12 hours ago, Requiem said:

I'm not saying I can't see airplanes further out in-game, because I can, but it's just so much more difficult in-game than it is in RL to spot something initially let alone being able to maintain that tally or regain it quickly after looking away.

 

With time and evolution of graphics technology, much has been made to give us all the possible difficulties in spotting things in game : reflections, lighting, scratches, pilot head and upper body moving uncontrollably according to g forces, better res skins, landscape with complex clutter etc

 

However, work on spotting and on simulating how human eyes work has not progressed at the same pace, unfortunately. In some aeras we even have less options to scan than in the old IL2 (for instance there is still no possibility to use keys to zoom in and out progressivley by increments, that helped greately...One step has been made recently with th e quick zoom keys possibility which is nice but still disorienting compared being able to zoom in and out by increments you can set)

 

Mastering all the keys, axes and devices needed to do something you would do "naturally" is a big and (at this level not legitimate imho) part of the difficulty of this genre. Often i consider sims as spotting sims more than combat sims.

 

It is also really difficult for beginners because they cannot learn easily to estimate range and energy state, and i know i am more often saved by my calculation of what an opponenent can do and by my knowing of where he would go than by actually seeing. The spotting job is also disorienting, and very unnatural: too much switching between FOVs, all these moves and keys we have to use to be proficient. Anything of that is part of real spotting in combat yet it is a key skill if you want to survive in sims. I guess most of us old simmers are greately helped by our experience, and in some situation we guess/calculate more than we see.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Caudron431Rafale

[Lolrawr]

48 minutes ago, JG5_Schuck said:

Believe me when i say you can almost tread on a person dressed in white in a snowy field before you see them.

i don`t believe you

[Requiem]

1 hour ago, JG5_Schuck said:

 

Yes, but once you see the tracers, you see the plane thats firing, right.....?

I actually don't think spotting is that bad, but as stated it varies from monitor to monitor.

And as someone mentioned camo schemes where used for s reason,

Believe me when i say you can almost tread on a person dressed in white in a snowy field before you see them.

So spotting a white plane on/over a snowy field from above should be equally as difficult.

Same goes for a green plane over a green field...... etc.

Spotting a plane above the horizon, i agree should be easier.

But in my experience flying, even when youre told there is a plane in the area, the direction, altitude and heading, you sometimes still dont spot them straight away.

I just wonder how many times IRL planes flew past each other and never saw a thing?

 

One thing of interest (as a keen photographer) the yellow filter used on German aircraft should act as a contrast filter, and not a sun filter,

making it easier to spot aircraft in a bleached out sky at distance!!

 

Once I see tracers I know the general area someone is and if I spot them I'll usually have to remain "padlocked" on them. If I look away to check six or a wingman it is weirdly difficult to get tally back.

 

I'm not doubting the effectiveness of camoflage and I know people conceal themselves in snow or other terrain incredibly well. Those people hiding in a field are not moving though. An airplane is a moving object and it's movement which attracts our eyes when scanning, so with that mind it will be more difficult to spot an airplane whose movement relative to you is small (think directly head on or astern here) but it gets much easier the more perpendicular to your flightpath the bandit becomes because relative movement increases.

 

I still would expect airplanes to fly past without seeing each other as no one spots every airplane in RL even with TCAS or ATC giving you the direction where to look. However, when considering that Il-2 has perfect environmental visibility (ie - sky is clear with no haze) then the likelihood of spotting aircraft is not representative of RL in my experience.

 

Hopefully one day we can see improvements.  There are plenty of RL pilots who fly Il-2 who the devs can call on if they desire input on the subject.

[[DBS]TH0R]

16 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

No. Because scaled up aircraft would look ridiculous and without improvements in rendering and contrast, they would still not be any easier to see just because they are larger. 

 

Yes. Because scaled up aircraft would bridge the gap between realistic aircraft modeling vs. monitor and hardware limitations. They would be way easier to see, as in many other flight sims out there.

[LColony_Kong]

3 hours ago, JG5_Schuck said:

Believe me when i say you can almost tread on a person dressed in white in a snowy field before you see them.

So spotting a white plane on/over a snowy field from above should be equally as difficult.

I've seen infantry in real life wearing multicam uniforms against the side of a hill a kilometer away where the range was known because it it was on a range, and in every single game I have played I cannot see infantry in video games under better contrast back grounds at half that distance or less. I play games on a 1440p monitor that was designed for extremely accurate color work. Camouflage and similar background colors have an effect on spotting IRL, but it absolutely nothing like what you see in a video game even on the best monitors. Our displays have limitations that make it impossible to give a realistic impression of visibility without designing compensation methods into the game. Monitors have far lower "resolution" than eyes do, lack the advantages of binocular vision and other eye phenomena, and have contrast ratios massively lower than what you see in the real world. It simply is not comparable. Is it possible to not see someone or something IRL? Of course, but not unders the same condition as in game. A person in a white uniform in a snow environment would have to be much better hidden than a soldier in a game to produce the same probability of being unobserved.

[SharpeXB]

32 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

I've seen infantry in real life wearing multicam uniforms against the side of a hill a kilometer away where the range was known because it it was on a range,

And because multi cam is the worst camouflage uniform ever.. ?

33 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

 I play games on a 1440p monitor that was designed for extremely accurate color work.

The average monitor today has just 16.7 million colors which is far far short of a real life color gamut. Newer displays (HDR) have 1 billion. That’s the solution needed to spot green aircraft against green backgrounds. HDR is commonplace now in games except for niche sims like this. Eventually that will change. 

56 minutes ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

 

Yes. Because scaled up aircraft would bridge the gap between realistic aircraft modeling vs. monitor and hardware limitations. They would be way easier to see, as in many other flight sims out there.

If players still lose sight of “larger” aircraft at close range, how would making them appear larger at long range help? The issue is color depth and contrast, not size. DCS doesn’t upscale aircraft and they are very much more visible. Hate to say DCS has taken the lead over IL-2. It used to be worse and is now much better. 

[[DBS]TH0R]

 

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

The average monitor today has just 16.7 million colors which is far far short of a real life color gamut. Newer displays (HDR) have 1 billion. That’s the solution needed to spot green aircraft against green backgrounds. HDR is commonplace now in games except for niche sims like this. Eventually that will change.

 

How then this isn't a problem in other flight sims, but just this one? HDR is nice, no doubt. But by no stretch of imagination is it a solution to the problem described here.

 

 

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

If players still lose sight of “larger” aircraft at close range, how would making them appear larger at long range help? The issue is color depth and contrast, not size. DCS doesn’t upscale aircraft and they are very much more visible. Hate to say DCS has taken the lead over IL-2. It used to be worse and is now much better. 

 

After so many posts and explanations, you still don't understand how scaling works. Obviously you haven't tried the available demos to try it out (especially different techniques used). Until you have better understanding of the tech, I would recommend you stop posting about it.

 

DCS has its own set of issues, where visibility is severely affected by game engine color & lightning changes, on patch basis. phil style on YT has documented recent DCS visibility changes nicely, especially in context of WWII. Also, I wouldn't use another flawed example as something to look up to.

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by [DBS]TH0R
added link to YT channel

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

After so many posts and explanations, you still don't understand how scaling works.

After so many posts I’ve seen exactly what it looks like. And it looks like garbage. No game today would utilize it because you’ll see scaled-up aircraft in proximity to unscaled ground objects. There IS a scaling algorithm in IL-2 if you select Alternate Visibility and maybe to a lesser extent without. But it’s not the egregious “smart scaling” as seen in this one other sim. And if IL-2 has issues with rendering and contrast, simply making other aircraft larger won’t help that. 

1 hour ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

HDR is nice, no doubt. But by no stretch of imagination is it a solution to the problem described here.

By its very definition, it’s the solution to the lack of color depth. 

1 hour ago, [DBS]TH0R said:

DCS has its own set of issues, where visibility is severely affected by game engine color & lightning changes, on patch basis. phil style on YT has documented recent DCS visibility changes nicely, especially in context of WWII.

If anything aircraft in DCS are too visible. But you can see the other aircraft easily at ranges where you would struggle in IL-2. If DCS had visibility like we do here, in modern air combat where a range of a few miles is literally point blank, it would be unworkable. It’s doing a pretty good job right now though. 

53 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

Your point? We dont have HDR, and most people cannot afford it. There are also not that many monitors that support full HDR. And the ones that do are extremely expensive.

That’s changing very quickly. And every new AAA title is in HDR now, including MSFS2020. Like I said, the only games I have which aren’t are this and DCS. 

56 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

The contacts at short range are too hard to see because they are too small, and the problem exists at longer ranges as well.

How are they too small? You mean you’re used to some other sim that rendered them 2x the size. So being a realistic size is too small for you? 

59 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

DCS has horrendous spotting, and just about the only person who think otherwise is yourself.

DCS is just fine. Oh.. and they have no interest whatsoever is this scaling nonsense people keep trying to promote over there either. How many times do they need to say it?

For a long time I thought this was better than DCS but it’s improved a lot there. 

[LColony_Kong]

21 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

That’s changing very quickly. And every new AAA title is in HDR now, including MSFS2020. Like I said, the only games I have which aren’t are this and DCS. 

But we still dont have it in the game right now do we? And HDR doesn't fix the size problems or sub pixel aliasing. And even if the game had HDR and there were lots of common monitors with it, it doesnt mean everyone will have one. Making HDR the line between you can see it or you cant virtually would make having a HDR screen a requirement to play the game. It will be years before the majority of users have HDR screens, and lets not forget that HDR is not a single thing either. Displays that have HDR vary wildly in their implementation and the quality of that implementation. Most of them are not 1000nits. And I still dont get what exactly your point is by responding to my point about the color problems as they relate to contrast. What I said about the game is still true.

Edited July 19, 2020 by [TLC]MasterPooner

[[DBS]TH0R]

 

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

After so many posts I’ve seen exactly what it looks like. And it looks like garbage. No game today would utilize it because you’ll see scaled-up aircraft in proximity to unscaled ground objects. There IS a scaling algorithm in IL-2 if you select Alternate Visibility and maybe to a lesser extent without. But it’s not the egregious “smart scaling” as seen in this one other sim. And if IL-2 has issues with rendering and contrast, simply making other aircraft larger won’t help that.

 

No. You just saw one (worst) example of it, that you are clinging onto. You know nothing how it works and benefits it gives. Please educate yourself on the matter before posting such nonsense.

 

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

By its very definition, it’s the solution to the lack of color depth. 

 

A perfectly calibrated monitor makes no difference with spotting here. Game has issues with colors and contrast. Purchasing an HDR monitor to solve such issues is down right ludicrous to even suggest. Further example of not having a clue where the issue is.

 

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

If anything aircraft in DCS are too visible. But you can see the other aircraft easily at ranges where you would struggle in IL-2. If DCS had visibility like we do here, in modern air combat where a range of a few miles is literally point blank, it would be unworkable. It’s doing a pretty good job right now though.

 

Too visible is obviously your personal preference. With which many here disagree with.

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, [TLC]MasterPooner said:

But we still dont have it in the game right now do we? And HDR doesn't fix the size problems or sub pixel aliasing. And even if the game had HDR and there were lots of common monitors with it, it doesnt mean everyone will have one. Making HDR the line between you can see it or you cant virtually would make having a HDR screen a requirement to play the game. It will be years before the majority of users have HDR screens, and lets not forget that HDR is not a single thing either. Displays that have HDR vary wildly in their implementation and the quality of that implementation. Most of them are not 1000nits. And I still dont get what exactly your point is by responding to my point about the color problems as they relate to contrast. What I said about the game is still true.

Again it’s literally the solution for the lack of color depth that makes visibility difficult in these sims. In a short time it will be as universal as anything else.