Dots

[Pepe]

How about painting dots in the skin predominant colour, instead of plain black?. This way Goons could hope to blend into the ground, Hellcats, and F4U's into the sea, Ki-61........

Would it be too demanding in terms of program effort/machine resources?

Cheers,

Pepe

[SKurj]

yeah this one has been brought up b4


SKurj

[bozon]

in real life planes always look like a dark dot from afar no matter what their colour is - even if they are white.
this is a real problem. I've read about attempts to make planes seem brighter coloured from afar so they will blend better into the sky background. those attempts included making the planes activly lighted by white lights.
to be able to tell the general colouration of a plane you need to be at a distance at which the general features of the plane can be distinguished - no longer a dot. I think this work well in AH since I can usually tell a B17 even out of icon range since it's the only silvered buff in the game.

Bozon

[Dux]

Bozon, that is simply untrue. I speak from experience and everyday observation.

Go outside and look up.

[CyranoAH]

I don't agree with the "dark dot" theory... a few weeks ago I was on the traffic pattern with my precedent a white and blue C172 co-alt.

The visibility was not perfect, granted, but I couldn't see the darned thing until it turned to base, and it was barely 1200 yards away.

No dark dot whatsoever.

And my sight is excellent, as reported in my medical tests... just in case you were wondering

I am just loving the reduced visibility model of Target Korea... much closer to the real thing.

Daniel

[john9001]

'dark dots' is not a theory, i have flown real planes also  and approching a small county airfield on a good weekend all you see from several miles out is a bunch of black dots over the field, in fact it looks just like a furball in AH

if you can't see a plane 1200 yds away your SA is bad

in AH you can tell a P51 when it is only a dot because the silver finish reflects the sun, it looks like it is flashing

[Dux]

Let me expand on my abrupt comment... no offense Bozon.

The air is made of particles, and these particles have a reflective and refractive index to them. It may seem invisible right in front of you, but over a distance (even on the clearest day) these particles are obscuring your vision, like looking through a very thin cloud. This is why you don't see black outer space during the day... sunlight is lighting up all these particles, molecules, etc, and making them a significant ambient light source. Blacks become greys, blues become lighter greys... whites even become grey. Even an all-black aircraft will become grey. An aircraft sitting on the ground will have almost black shadows on its underside, but an aircraft in flight has very very soft shadows on its underside... the air is effectively a light source below (and all round) the plane. It's not a matter of color, either. The atmosphere has a way of desaturating colors.

Artists use a technique called Atmospheric Perspective... by lightening the values and desaturating the colors the closer you get towards the horizon, you convey a greater sense of distance within the 2-dimensional format.

What you are seeing is intensity and contrast. If a light-colored plane is moving against a very dark and consistent background... say, large grassy fields, then spotting that plane is much easier. Against lower-contrast backgrounds? well, if you see it, you're lucky. Look away for ten secoonds and see if you can find it again quickly.

John9001: there is a factor here that you are not figuring... you are absolutely expecting to see other planes over this field, so it's no surprise to me that you spot them so easily. But enroute is another matter, altogether  I also would have to ask what kind of background you saw these dots against.

I've had formations of C-130s pass a couple thousand feet below me while enroute. Big planes, huh? But with their camouflage and speed, very difficult to see until very close, and my SA is no worse than any other pilot's. They paint those planes green for a reason. If it didn't matter, and they turned into black dots at ten miles out, then they would save weight, time, and money by not bothering to paint them. Why do you think most aircraft camos these days are variations of grey?

Bozon: the experiments you refer to have been tried on all kinds of things... tanks, ships, airplanes... even buildings. By covering whatever with a grid of lights whose intensity matches the intensity of the air behind it, you effectively blend it into the background. Nothing to do with color.

Anyway, Pepe, I agree with you. I'd like to see the distance dots modified if possible. And yeah... what the hell is the KI-61 camo supposed to "blend in" with anyway, a car dealership?

[SKurj]

I look up i see white/light grey planes at high altitude on a clear day.....


SKurj

[bozon]

What you are seeing is intensity and contrast. If a light-colored plane is moving against a very dark and consistent background... say, large grassy fields, then spotting that plane is much easier. Against lower-contrast backgrounds? well, if you see it, you're lucky. Look away for ten secoonds and see if you can find it again quickly.

this is what i mean.
when the plane is far enough and against bright background (blue sky) the "intensity" of light comming from the background is much greater then the one comming from the aircraft. the contrast is big enough so no matter what colour is the aircraft, it will always appear darker, because your eye will adjust to the surounding light intensity (ever tried taking a picture of a man standing in a door way of a dark room with the outside behind him? he'll come out as a shadow covering colourfull outdoors).

yes, the air scatters light from the sun and this is the reason you see blue skies and not the stars and black space. but the open blue skies reflects light that has to hit the aircraft and then reflected to your eye. you usually don't see light directly from the sun hitting the body of the aircraft and reflected to your eye, in a mirror like effect - if it does, the plane "shines". this is why the intensity of light from the aircraft is smaller that that of open skies.

when the plane is close enough, it captures a larger angle of vision, so now your eye can distinguish betwin different contrasts on the surface of the plane - this is when you really starts to see the true colour of the aircraft. at this point it's close enough for you to tell the general features of the plane - it does not appear as a dot any more.
the "dot" distance in real life is several miles. planes you see flying over your house are at about 4 miles up if they fly at 20kft. if they fly that high or higher they should be seen dark. under 3 you can easily tell the features of the plane (i refer to jet fighters size, not jumbo jets).

the "pattern camoflage" made to blur the shape of the plane, is usefull at short distances only where you can see patterns and colours.

try again looking at small aircrafts from several miles against blue sky or white clouds, and try telling what colour are they.

and I do too speak from experience looking at and out the windows of various planes from piper-cubs to F-16.

Bozon

[Dux]

Well... I guess we see different things.

I still disagree, but I respect your opinion. I don't know what else to say.

[bozon]

Well... I guess we see different things.  

I still disagree, but I respect your opinion. I don't know what else to say.

Dux, no offense taken

maybe it only works in my area.
and it won't be the only thing working wrong here...


Bozon

[CyranoAH]

Originally posted by john9001
if you can't see a plane 1200 yds away your SA is bad

My SA is perfectly fine, thanks for asking

I can see (and have seen) a twin engine several miles away... be it co-alt, higher or lower... what I was trying to say is that depending on the light, the kind of plane, the aspect of the plane relative to yours, and the background, maintaining a visual contact with an airplane is not as easy as in AH.

As I said, Target Korea's view system beats everything else I've seen so far.

Daniel

[jarbo]

My 2 cents is that with distance, the intensity of the "dark dot" should be blended with the back ground color.   Heck look at a mountain from 5 miles away versus 20 miles away.  It is much lighter due to the "haze  of the air" if you will.

Another, more complex idea, to be implemented after the faded dots were implemented, would be if you held a view for a period of time (1-2secs), all the dots would become slightly darker.  This would represent the pilot doing a thorough scan pattern, as opposed to a cursory one.  

Jarbo