Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: SkyGnome on February 06, 2008, 01:06:28 PM
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Pretty please make the gauges higher contrast. The shortcomings of looking at them on a PC display - even a geat, high-end pc display - make the readability quite low on most of the new models, and in the dev screenshots recently put up.
I guess I just have a strong preference for shooting for realistic usability over realistic artisticness. I'm not saying go back to the old-school gauges (though to be honest, I would prefer that,) but perhaps just a bit more contrast to make up for all the PC shortcomings. (And really, I'm not convinced that the new gauges are all that realistic looking - as there aren't many samples of brand-new, not faded, not hazy, with properly coated glass WWII aircraft gauges available to model from - not to mention the glowing paint used in some.)
Otherwise, the new stuff looks great. Please please, pretty please make it work great too!
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they look great to me, only time I have trouble is when the sunlight hits them just right a reflects off the glass.
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I think the art looks great. Nice job, guys. I'm hoping the Yaks will be in the works soon.:aok
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Originally posted by thndregg
I think the art looks great. Nice job, guys. I'm hoping the Yaks will be in the works soon.:aok
+1 :D
...-Gixer
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thought it looks good on my end... Btw, when were these completed?
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Im willing to bet we are going to see not only a graphic change* but a flight change with the la7's aswell.
remember every plane that has had a enhancement of graphics has also had the same done to how it fly's, handles, so on and so forth.
"Look at the ki-84 the 51's our f4u's .ect .ect"
Every plane upgradeded, has changed, some changes minor, some major.
Lets hope it wont be such a speedy lil' sucker in the end.
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Yes, please upgrade the instrument contrast, particularly on the fuel gauge and compass. I hate bringing up the clipboard to find out which direction I'm heading or what my fuel status is, it's very gamey and ruins the immersion.
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I can read all my instruments fine in a 109 with a 17" screen on 1024 tex and 1280/960 res...
I realise not everbody is running this high though...
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Ok, so here's an example of what I'm talking about. I hacked the dev screenshot a bit to bump the contrast a bit on a couple of gauges. The airspeed indicator is tweaked to look the way it looks on my cheap LCD (where the gauges are much more readable.) It's possible that this is part of the problem, if the art is being done on an LCD that cost less than $500-$800, as they practically all chop off dark greys that give an artificial boost to contrast. The altimiter is tweaked a bit harder, and really shows how much more readability comes from strictly a contrast boost. There is no other tweaking or sharpening done - just moving dark greys down to black.
(http://alf-learning.org/local/EQ/test.jpg)
Another way to see this that I noticed is to take up a seafire. It has a couple of gauges with higher contrast, and they are actually very readable, whereas most of the instrument panel has these grey-backed gauges that are very hard to read.
And btw, I run the game at 1600x1200 on a top-o-the-line 21" Trinitron, so my resolution or monitor is not the problem. ;)
But really, folks, the gauge backings in the screenshot are roughly the same shade of grey as the metal in the cockpit. I've been in a few WWII era cockpits, and the gauge backing has always been BLACK, not steel grey. And light reflection is handled fine even with the high-contrast gauges in the game, they still white out when the sun is reflecting, its just the static backing art that is unrealistic, and impairs readability.
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The backing texture is that way to simulate the glass in front of it.
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Originally posted by moot
The backing texture is that way to simulate the glass in front of it.
Exactly, that's the problem. Then, in the game, the rendering engine simulates the glare on the glass in front of the instrument _in addition_ to the glare that's already in the art - making for a very poor visibility gauge. Check out the spit, which has a couple of black-backed gauges along with new gauges. When the sun's to your back, they are glared, when the sun's in your front hemisphere they are black. The new ones are glared even when the sun is in your front hemisphere, and double-glared when you have the sun at your back.
Besides, we are looking at tiny gauges on a pixelated screen and deserve a bit of a break here (just like icons over planes.) In real life, we don't have to hit a zoom button to get a realistic fov and use a freakish head manipulation mechanism to take a look at something with the high-rez portion of our eye.
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I'd make it somewhere between your speedometer and what we have now.
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make it so half the gauges arent cut off in 16:10 AR, its annoying having to press view down to see what alt-ammo-climb etc :D
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Originally posted by BaDkaRmA158Th
Im willing to bet we are going to see not only a graphic change* but a flight change with the la7's aswell.
remember every plane that has had a enhancement of graphics has also had the same done to how it fly's, handles, so on and so forth.
"Look at the ki-84 the 51's our f4u's .ect .ect"
Every plane upgradeded, has changed, some changes minor, some major.
This is incorrect, flight models were not changed with graphics updates. People thought they did, but I tested them and the only ones that changed flight models were the ones HTC announced as being changed, which were unrelated to the graphics updates. If HTC does not specifically state in an update "Read Me" that the flight model is also changed, it is the same.