Realistic Gunsight Mechanism

[GuyNoir]

The reason why the gunsight gets bigger and smaller when you move your head forward and backward is the same reason that I gave in my '3d stereoscopic' thread:  the gunsight is actually on the same plane as the glass.  It's hard to tell since you probably play the game in 2d, but if you fly with 3d glasses, you'll see that you either have to focus your eyes on the gunsight, or you have to focus on the enemy out in front of you.  If it's the latter, you'll see two gunsights on either side of him...

Hopefully you can convince HTC to fix your problem, boomerlu, because it's also my 3d problem! 

[Stoney]

Sorry, one of your statements must be true, and the other must be false by geometry. You have to realize that "mils" represents an angle the sight covers, which in turn must be measured from a fixed point of reference i.e., the pilot's head position.

No, the mils are measured from the sight.  I"m not arguing that there's not some 2D graphical issue here--merely trying to counter some of what you've posited about the sights so far.

Also @ BnZ:  Really?  I had to look up what that meant.  I'm still trying to figure out how, when he brought up the "adjustable ring on the site", it was skewed logic on my part to describe the mechanics of the K-14.

[Baumer]

I thought this might be helpful, it's from the 1st edition of the fighter gunnery manual.

[boomerlu]

I thought this might be helpful, it's from the 1st edition of the fighter gunnery manual.

Thanks Baumer! This confirms what I've thought all along.

No, the mils are measured from the sight.  I"m not arguing that there's not some 2D graphical issue here--merely trying to counter some of what you've posited about the sights so far.

Sorry, this is still wrong. It is not a 2D graphical issue, but a matter of geometry. A Mil is a measure of angle, and again, the angle must be measured from some point of reference. In our case, it's our head. When you move an object closer to your head, it appears to get larger because it now covers more ANGLES in your visual space. I guess a picture will explain best. This is meant as a top-down view.



To reiterate, if the mils change with head movement, then the gunsight apparent size must also change. If the mils do not change with head movement, then the gunsight apparent size cannot change. I'm not sure why you are trying to say otherwise, I hope I've made it absolutely clear in my picture. Which of the two possibilities is historically accurate, I'm not sure, but again my understanding is that the MILS DO NOT CHANGE and therefore by geometry, the apparent size cannot change either. What Baumer posted only reinforces my position.

Boomer, I do understand what you're saying, and you may be right.  The reflector gunsights behave as you describe in Il-2, and I had wondered about the difference.

The first reply from saxman was a hijack over one of his pet peeves (sorry sax  ).

Gav, glad to see an entire other company agrees with me.

No problem from sax, he mentioned a legitimate point for us to consider. I countered with the facts of the game, i.e., customizable gunsights would spoil the "forced historically accurate" fixed gunsight size. I don't disagree with him, just mentioning a reason I don't think it would happen.

Then stoney followed up with a non sequitur about the K14.

Are you frustrated yet?  Welcome to the AH bbs.

Actually, gav, it made sense for him to bring up the K14 issue with respect to sight size adjustment/calibration. I was in error to believe that adjustability was more widespread in WWII reflector sights.

With all due respect Stoney, what's been frustrating is your statements afterwards about mils and apparent size. Again, they are simply not true, and it's not a matter of opinion or historical accuracy, it's a matter of geometric/mathematical fact.

[boomerlu]

The reason why the gunsight gets bigger and smaller when you move your head forward and backward is the same reason that I gave in my '3d stereoscopic' thread:  the gunsight is actually on the same plane as the glass.  It's hard to tell since you probably play the game in 2d, but if you fly with 3d glasses, you'll see that you either have to focus your eyes on the gunsight, or you have to focus on the enemy out in front of you.  If it's the latter, you'll see two gunsights on either side of him...

Hopefully you can convince HTC to fix your problem, boomerlu, because it's also my 3d problem! 

Yup, your thread is what got me thinking about the geometry of the problem in the first place.

The gunsight image is supposed to be perceived as "infinitely far away", not "on the glass". As it is, HTC models 2/3 of it properly.

[TnDep]

  you guys in deep thought including bloomerlu.  I need a nap after reading this forum 

boomer was mentioning the lack of realism in gunsight mechanics, and while yeah, the Hog sights are a personal pet peeve they're the only ones I've REALLY done any research in to be familiar with just how inaccurate they are. I also know that other aircraft have the same problem: Gun sight rings were often calibrated to a certain scale for ranging targets, and the way they're presented in-game makes them too small, I just don't have the numbers on the others. It's a realism issue I'd like to see addressed--along with allowing late sights like the K-14 to be adjusted in-flight--and I used the F4U as a specific example because it's the one I have.

And I don't think Stoney's post was off topic, because he brought up the specific point that the adjustable gunsights like the K-14 were a very late introduction, so very few actually worked the way boomer was thinking (which was the point of my post, in that some sights had a fixed calibration for ranging).

[Stoney]

With all due respect Stoney, what's been frustrating is your statements afterwards about mils and apparent size. Again, they are simply not true, and it's not a matter of opinion or historical accuracy, it's a matter of geometric/mathematical fact.

Well then, I've apparently misunderstood exactly what it is you're getting at then.  I know what a mil is.  I've adjusted artillery fire before and I understand the math.  Are you saying that the span of mils increases if you move your head away from the sight, or that the number of mils stays the same?  Originally, you were talking about adjusting the size of the ring to compensate for changing the head position in the cockpit, right?  The size of the ring should represent the same number of mils, regardless of head position within the cockpit.  Perhaps I haven't made myself clear. Sorry, I'll just observe from here on out.

[boomerlu]

Ok, now that we've established it's a miscommunication problem, let me describe the situation and proposal:

1) Currently in AH, as we move our heads forward/backwards from the gunsight, the apparent size changes, i.e., the span in mils changes.

2) The first and main part of what I'm proposing is to eliminate that size change. Based on everything I've seen on how reflector gunsights work (including Baumer's post), the apparent size (i.e., how many mils it takes up on screen) should not change if you move your head backwards or forward. Therefore, I'm saying that the view/gunsight system should be adjusted so the gunsight image looks exactly the same no matter how far forward or backwards the pilot's head is.

3) "Calibration" or adjusting the size of the gunsight without head movement (ie via some keyboard command) is something I suggested to
a) Duplicate the behavior of what I thought were quite a number of historical gunsights (but as you mentioned, very few actually could be adjusted).
b) Allow AHers who make custom gunsights a practical tool for their calculations.

Hopefully we're clear now?

[boomerlu]

The size of the ring should represent the same number of mils, regardless of head position within the cockpit. Perhaps I haven't made myself clear. Sorry, I'll just observe from here on out.

Right, but since the apparent size of the ring changes in AH when the head position in cockpit changes, so do the mils. This is the problem I'm suggesting we correct.

No need to bug out, any input you have is appreciated. The only frustration came from what I thought was your misunderstanding of the math behind the angle measures. Since I assumed you've messed with head positions and seen that the apparent size (and thus # of mils spanned) changes with back/forth head position, the only possible explanation was that you missed the math somehow.

[Baumer]

Well you can all ready do 3B, I have made many custom sights for different aircraft and ordinance systems in the game.

I'm not sure that 2 is feasible with how the game graphics work on a traditional 2D system, the folks at HTC would have to comment on how piratical that really is. It will need to be address if HTC is planning to support the 3D systems mentioned in the other thread.

BTW you can perform the number 3 "calibration" off-line just switch to Knights and fly behind the circling drones and you'll get a very good film to work with. It's easy to look up the wingspan of the B-24, P-38, P-51 and 190D-9 for comparison.

[boomerlu]

Well you can all ready do 3B, I have made many custom sights for different aircraft and ordinance systems in the game.

BTW you can perform the number 3 "calibration" off-line just switch to Knights and fly behind the circling drones and you'll get a very good film to work with. It's easy to look up the wingspan of the B-24, P-38, P-51 and 190D-9 for comparison.

Yes, I know how to do this, however, it requires either head movement or trial-and-error editing of the gunsight.

Also, (3) is mainly meant as a supplement to (2), as with (2), our current system of using head movement to calibrate would no longer work.

[Baumer]

I guess, like Stoney, I must misunderstand what you mean. I don't have to move my head to "calibrate" my sights. I usually fly whatever I'm working on "film everything" then take screen shots at specific intervals to get the sight picture I'm looking for. There is some iterative work but it's not overly problematic or difficult.


In my opinion it's overly easy to hit targets as it is, your request would make it even easier. The primary reason I'd support HTC putting effort into this would be to support 3D systems, there should be no reason to have to focus near and far with a reflecting sight.

[boomerlu]

Oh, I guess as far as calibration, that's one possible way to calibrate your gunsight - trial and error using screenshots. On the other hand, you can move your head position to accomplish the goal as well.

The method I use to... for example... design a gunsight on one airplane, and then adapt it to another. Say I designed a gunsight and I calibrated my angles/pixels ratio with the .target. Say I have a ring that matches the second circle on the .target at range 125.

Then if I wanted to use the same sight for another airplane, I would then include an instruction to "Match the calibration ring to the 2nd circle on a .target 125 by moving your head forward/backward in the cockpit."

That's one method of calibration and I think I read it in one of Andy Bush's articles at SimHQ.

By removing the change in gunsight image size with head position (as suggested by [2] which would have a side effect of helping 3d systems), you would also remove the head movement method of calibration. So I suggested as a practical matter to introduce a system in-game to accomplish the same thing without having to tweak the sight using a graphics program.

[Saxman]

Then if I wanted to use the same sight for another airplane, I would then include an instruction to "Match the calibration ring to the 2nd circle on a .target 125 by moving your head forward/backward in the cockpit."

The problem there is several aircraft that have gunsights that are just too small for this to work reliably. You end up with the view set so far forward it's useless for anything else.

They REALLY need to fix the gunsight sizes on a number of aircraft.

[boomerlu]

The problem there is several aircraft that have gunsights that are just too small for this to work reliably. You end up with the view set so far forward it's useless for anything else.

They REALLY need to fix the gunsight sizes on a number of aircraft.

True, just bringing up one method.