Halo Icons at short range

[bustr]

Don't have a dog in this hunt.....I still think it's a good idea, I still like the idea & I use a FOV of 90....the default FOV..................

 

You now have a dog in this hunt........

[Chilli]

-1

This is not world of tanks. The highlighted silhouette is one of the reasons I played wot only one time...it stunk, unrealistic.

So Buckshot, you didn't like seeing the highlights, or you didn't like that it reduced your ability to hide in a tank? 

These are 2 entirely separate issues.  Even with our very stealthy ground vehicles, once they are on the move they are highlighted.  A moving aircraft would respond with a great number of clues that would increase their visibility also.

Now, if you just don't like seeing them, the compromise is clear to me by making it target lock only visible.  You don't lock on a target, you wouldn't see any highlight.

A third alternative comes to mind, after some discussion in other threads, instead of "glowing" highlight, target locked could contain more detail or contrast.  (Achieved by +/- power of one or more of the skin's layers).  The plane would stand out better, but still look like the original aircraft.

[JunkyII]

How many of you with a dog in this hunt are at FOV 90-100?

These ideas for changes are good until you get above 100 or use zoom a lot. Here are screen shots at 110. Notice between 600-200 you really don't see much of a difference in the wingspan unless you use the Mil structures on a gunsight in zoom. How many of you know how to do that on the fly?

A halo would make these cons look like a Mario Bros powerup crap especially if you get stuck at the trigger threshold range chasing it. At 400-200 Hitech could have the icon swap out with a red dot on each wing tip and the rudder. But, how many of you really want to watch an annoying flashing red icon as you get stuck on someones tail just at the threshold for any of these changes? A player with epilepsy might even have an interesting lawsuit over it.

Anyone consider the obvious and just have the aircraft type and country tag avatar something you can choose to toggle on or off to reduce the clutter? Or toggle off the plane name only, or toggle off range and plane name?  Things like this that Hitech already can choose to reveal in the game window like the HUD.

Otherwise you guys are taking a track here that always fails. You are trying to force Hitech with group consensus to do something you want without making any attempt to see if he wants it.


Con through gunsight at FOV 110, zoom off, 200-1000.


(Image removed from quote.)

I use 120 and the change they are suggesting would not effect me at all

[bustr]

Junky who cares, you are an anomaly. All games have anomaly players like you just like real life organized sports teams. To the other 98% of the unwashed masses not you in our game, this is a problem.

[whiteman]

No, no thanks.

[BuckShot]

So Buckshot, you didn't like seeing the highlights, or you didn't like that it reduced your ability to hide in a tank? 

These are 2 entirely separate issues.  Even with our very stealthy ground vehicles, once they are on the move they are highlighted.  A moving aircraft would respond with a great number of clues that would increase their visibility also.

Now, if you just don't like seeing them, the compromise is clear to me by making it target lock only visible.  You don't lock on a target, you wouldn't see any highlight.

A third alternative comes to mind, after some discussion in other threads, instead of "glowing" highlight, target locked could contain more detail or contrast.  (Achieved by +/- power of one or more of the skin's layers).  The plane would stand out better, but still look like the original aircraft.

Both reasons. To me, those issues are very similar in that I didn't like them, and they caused me to uninstall that game.

[JunkyII]

Junky who cares, you are an anomaly. All games have anomaly players like you just like real life organized sports teams. To the other 98% of the unwashed masses not you in our game, this is a problem.

Go back to the OP and start again....think you're missing what they are saying

[Chilli]

The fix is easy Buckshot.  DON'T use the target lock.  You won't see it. 

If you want to hide in an aircraft, then    Maybe use the sun to obstruct vision, go low 6 o'clock, or some other real world tactic.  In other words, why should it bother you that other online players may stand a better chance to actually challenge you?

I too, am not all that headstrong to see something that looks horribly out of place.  The original post was for better contrast by using halo instead of red tag at close range.  I inserted a wish to enable it using target lock only, but would like the difference to be suttle with just enough "detail" to make it pop better.

A number of ways this could be done tastefully, but only HiTech knows at what cost.  Still, I am at a +++ for some kind of change in this direction.

[Dawger]

Actually I really just want the butt ugly text icons to go away, especially up close and be replaced by something much less visually obtrusive. A soft halo would give aspect information not available with text, and doesnt look like 1990.

No need to apply it to the cockroaches just the airplanes.

[BuckShot]

The fix is easy Buckshot.  DON'T use the target lock.  You won't see it. 

I wouldn't use it, but...To me, this falls into the same category as the new hud stuff; I don't use them and keep them off. Even though I dont use them and don't have to, I think tools like that are bad for this WW2 game overall.

[Tilt]

I have just watched a silver car drive down the road passing multiple parked silver vans. In AH terms it was camouflaged.

Yet I could pick it out clearly. If this was fully rendered in AH3  I believe I would not be seeing this silver car so easily even at 200-400 yards.

My PC screen does not permit me to differentiate any depth of focus between bogie and back ground clutter so picking a jinking bogie out when low with fully rendered clutter about is not as easy as RL ................. unless I am running with these back ground graphics turned down. The test is to consider the same situation where back ground  graphics are somewhat irrelevant........... when bogie is against sky or water.

Like RL I can see bogie more easily in AH against sky but the argument here is not black and white.............its a matter of degree.

At ranges of 600+ I am referring to the icon anyway............ so it does not matter really.

Would I like a bogie halo at short ranges?.............. well not really as said above its bit WOT. But it would help make up the difference here.

Actually I would prefer a zoom setting that blurred back ground clutter a little bit out of focus but I guess that would be really hard to do as my FE does not know what I am looking at.

The other approach would be to influence the shading of other rides (to pick them out better) as the range closes to that of a  cannon/mg firing solution (500?).

The observation I do make is that this issue (and that of the visibility of black dot distant planes) presently penalises the player who has invested in a higher end system and is using it to its fullest. Obviously the ideal is one where by all players have the same level playing field. But I cant help feeling that investment in kit should bring about an improvement in game play...not (even if only in a couple of aspects) the reverse.

[bustr]

Until this group consensus fest convinces Hitech to change the game for you.

I forgot about something I had started working on during the alpha because I didn't like the new gunsight alpha mask. You can put sunglasses on your gunsight reflector plate. Night or day it shifts the picture through the gunsight to a more monochrome improving the contrast of the con to its surroundings. Not it's clarity or color. Sunglasses in the real world do the same thing with blue, green, or orange. In AH3 red or orange works best. I discovered this trying to lighten up Waffle's dark grey mask on the gunsight reflector plates. I used to be able to do it in AH2. Instead I discovered that red and amber acted a lot like amber shooting glasses.

At first it's disconcerting until you notice things like looking at a con from above over trees it stands out better. Or diving on a town in our short darkness, the lines of the buildings stand out better as a contrast in the monochrome. It even holds back a bit longer the sun whiteout effect.

I gave up trying to get Hitech to do things in consensus fests like this and started looking at the tools he provides to make minor adjustments to the game for solutions. From watching Hitech for 14 years, you gents may have better luck asking him to allow toggling off the three parts of the icon. Range counter, country tag, and aircraft type since he gives you the ability to completely turn off the icon. 

Night time, Amber Mask with red dot. 512x512 8bit bitmap. Mask R22 G9 B0. Darkens clutter and makes objects stand out.





Dob's screen capture under low light conditions, doesn't look like full night. Dark gray gunsight mask in effect and it makes objects as you look through it look like objects in full dark under low light conditions.

[Chilli]

Bustr,

That IS a problem you ARE correct.  That is NOT the whole problem however.  Here is how you can screenshot and compare. 

In order to take the gun sight and / or windscreen mask out of the equation using F3 mode and look at a P47M at low light from the same distance.  You will see an improvement in visibility (yes, clearly can see a change is desirable to reflector plate and maybe even windscreen mask, as you have stated). 

With those eliminated from the equation you should now see that the object with nothing but air between view will STILL be more difficult to OUTLINE at close distances.

Your solution would be a very nice improvement.  However, even after that, the degree of difficulty in picking up the aircraft against the background is arguably unrealistic.

[bustr]

It contrasts even that condition to see the con better than your screen shot. And a silver or light gray aircraft will tend to blend into a silver rock formation as you have conveniently picked out of hour and 13 minute film. That mossie will stand out against the green clutter in a second which you know will happen next. And picking out planes against backgrounds in real life varies from impossible to no problemo depending on a universe of factors that cannot be controlled other than "keep looking" as the pilot.

When I was a kid at the Ft. Meade flying club my father and friends would agree on Saturday mornings to fly in to Fredrick Maryland for lunch. Lots of farmland around Fredrick. We would get up to 6 small aircraft showing up over a designated spot over 30 minutes. Half the time it took a few minutes to find each other looking down for those lower than us even in Cessna white. To kill time waiting sometimes we would play tail chase with up to 4 planes. Even with the kids on board we lost sight of each other.

Here is what this wish simplifies down to.

Wish:

Hitech make planes stand out lit up like a neon sign so I can see them looking down and at a distance. 

[JunkyII]

Wish:

Hitech make planes stand out lit up like a neon sign so I can see them looking down my sights when I'm within gun range

fixed