View System, 3d cockpit & game play.

[Kats]

Wasn't sure which forum this was supposed to go in so......

HT and gang. IMO you guys have sacrificed a little "eyecandy" to implement a 3d cockpit. I believe it's the way to go as well, if you take advantage of what a 3D cockpit can offer. I'm not sure what the plan is, but as it is now I don't see the point.

I think the main thing is (aside from whatever benefit you might get by coding 3D only) is that a 3D cockpit allows for realistic head movement and position within the cockpit whereas 2D doesn't. The current system allows for unrealistic viewing IMO and defeats the purpose of a 3d cockpit in this regard.

More specifically,
-the dead 6 view should be deleted
-snap views should be deleted
-panning should follow realistic head/neck/body movement. EG, switching from the 1 (keystroke) to the 3 view should not pan through the 2 view. It should go all around to the 4,7,8,9 & 6 view before reaching the 3 view etc.

- Pan speeds should be based on G's being pulled and FPS of the player.

[jedi]

What Kats said.

I like the customizable views, but right now, you can essentially "over-customize" so that there's not really a difference between the Spitfire and Mustang, visibility wise.  Just run that Linda Blair view full forward, and you're all set.  That might avoid some controversy later, but does it really serve "realism?"  Of course you could argue that all the planes should have "decent" visibility, either to make up for monitor limitations or for playability, I suppose.

But if you're going to go to the trouble of modeling a 3D cockpit, it seems odd to then allow the player to circumvent the restrictions to visibility, in some cases by moving his head OUTSIDE the cockpit.

GREAT concept tho...just needs some adjusting I reckon  

[Altair]

This is one point that take out a lot of realism in AH, the false head movement.
Also the views from outside the plane, external or chase. Good when you are offline or even in H2H mode, but should be disable in the arena. Even good the excuse of "plyability" this is a feature good for "arcade" mode, not for "as-near-as-posible-real-life".
 

[Kats]

I didn't mention the outside views, because I  assume this is for beta only.

[Valor]

One of the advantages of the current 3D cockpit is that it appears to be resolution independent. At least thats my impression.
If your vid card and monitor can support it, you can run AH at higher resolutions such as
1280x1024 and 1600x1280. These look much much
better than the lower res versions.

Otherwise, cockpit art would need to be drawn for each resolution and would greatly increase the amount of time it would take to create each plane. I suspect this is why there are no 800x600 versions of WB.

The trick, methinks, is create a nicely textured cockpit art with enough polygons to look great, but not so many as to inflict a huge fps penalty.

[TT]

  IMO it is just fine the way it is. I went back to play that other sim a couple times after I started playing here, and the 2d cockpits had a very " painted on " nintento feel to them.

[Kats]

The point I am making is in regards to the implementation of the 3D cockpit - not "who has better looking graphics"

[fats]

Removing the instant ( same as AW and WB, forgot the mode's name in AH ) views will make the game unplayable for anyone ( well for me anyways ) doing some serious furballing.

It just takes _too_ much time to accuire information of your surroundings with the snap mode and forget about using the pan mode! In RL with peripheral vision picking up movement etc the 90 degree FOV just doesn't cut it in AH w/ delayed view switches.

Right now the tunnel vision limits your view capabilities quite nicely ( compared to even grey out of AW and WB ) in a dogfite. It's often question wether you are willing to lose the sight and perform the maneuver in question 'correctly', or perhaps fudge the maneuever by rolling and placing the enemy into the 'bright spot'. Not perfect but IMO the most playable sollution.


//fats

[Mike B.]

Wasn't 'furballing' supposed to be near impossible from a survivability standpoint in real life?

Mike B.

[phaetn]

For what it's worth, I like the view system a lot.  I agree that some head positions are  a little excessive but I suspect those can be worked out in time.  I normally fly the Spit and when taking off in a Me109 I was surprised when I bumped my head on the canopy and couldn't get any higher.

I agree about the Linda Blair business (just saw the Exorcist again on Saturday night at 1:00AM --- eeeeee!).  But it's not that bad.  I release the hat before going from 1 to 3 views so I goes through forward first; was it Mig Alley or Falcon4 that forced the head to do a roll between these views?  Worked well.

I use the Snap-pan views and it works very well for me.  I don't choose to use the instant views, but I can see why people might want them.  Likwise the pan is too slow for knife fights, but still very useful to scan instruments, etc.  I do an instrument "sweep" by using the full pan and zoom modes sometimes.

Kats, I really like the idea of affecting the pan speed based on G load.  It might be too hard to implement, though, because of differing computer power: an older video card and CPU might pan less quickly than a newer rig in the exact same situation.  Then it becomes hardware not ability... let's not forget missing rounds for the FPS challenged in WB 2.6.  

Head movement is good with G effects, nice tunnel vision effect.  Customizable views I think is absolutely brilliant.  Zoom is the only real crutch, but I can see the need for it -- it comes at the expense of field of view and SA so there offsetting factors for the advantage... not to mention we start getting into more realistic visibility ranges by using it.

I really like other aspects, too.  Especially some of the views in gunning positions.  The belly turret feels amazing cramped   and there is a nice view of the interior of the plane when looking from the six view.

Indeed, 3d is the way to go.  Inherently a loss of detail compared to 2d bitmaps for the same FPS use, but other factors make up for it.  Apart from the strategic issues like being able to "look around" spars, cockpit shake, neck extension, etc, it also allows the player to set his or her own resolution without having to make separate artwork for each.

WB will certainly do the same in 3.0.  GPL used it -- it's the way to go.  

------------------
phaetnAT
Aces High Alpha Tester

[Valor]

oops! sorry kats.

As usual, I generally agree with what kats said regarding implementation.

[Kats]

Dammit valor!!!  

You should have seen the reply I had written until I saw you as one of the culprits, old buddy  

Phaetn,

 

- Pan speeds should be based on G's being pulled and FPS of the player.

That's why I think there should be a correlation between FPS and Pan speeds.

[This message has been edited by Kats (edited 11-02-1999).]