Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Rockdog on June 19, 2010, 11:05:07 AM
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I would love to have a checkbox for gun cam in the options that would turn the camera on any time the weapons are fired, just like they were on real planes in WWII.
I rarely remember to turn on my film and when I do, the only parts I watch are the few seconds I'm actually shooting. I'm not asking for any changes to the film recorder, but just a trigger toggled forward view to help assess my gunnery.
I'd rather have a hundred two second films that give me good feedback rather than one 30 minute film that is 99% excess footage that has to be trimmed away.
I'd even be happy with black and white just like what they had available.
Just my wish, let the flaming begin.......................
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The only problem I see with it is the little bit of system hiccup you might see every time the film recorder starts. Might get annoying or interfere with your gunnery if you stutter every time you pull the trigger and film starts to roll.
I've got a button on my throttle set to start/stop film...and I also forget to roll film until well past "Ohh, I wish I had film rolling for this fight..."
What would be really nice is if you could set an option for the auto-film to record a 30/60/90 second loop that keeps over-writing itself until you pull the trigger, at which time it will save the recording of the loop where the trigger-pull is the halfway point. In other words, you have a 30 second loop rolling - you pull the trigger - it saves the 15 seconds before you pull the trigger up to 15 seconds after you pull the trigger - for a 30 second piece of guncam film.
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what I'm looking for is not the full 360 degree all activity near me view with voice that the current film recorder offers. I'm sure that why it causes a hiccup, because its recording so much.
I want to just record what a typical forward facing gunsight cam would and nothing more, no sound, doesn't even need to be color.
I want the same tool that was available to the WWII fighter pilot, and I don't think it would cause much of a tug on resources or would be that hard to implement.
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what I'm looking for is not the full 360 degree all activity near me view with voice that the current film recorder offers. I'm sure that why it causes a hiccup, because its recording so much.
I want to just record what a typical forward facing gunsight cam would and nothing more, no sound, doesn't even need to be color.
The film recorder doesn't work like a movie camera, so it doesn't matter if you want color or not. It's recording simply the game data, not colors or engine sounds. The film viewer itself creates all visuals from that during playback by using the game engine.
And it's not the recording of the relatively little data that can cause the freeze when beginning to film, but the creation of the .ahf file on your disk
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I am aware of this Lusche, but if you parse the game data you are recording it would most likely be much faster. Right now it records all activity within a predetermined spherical distance from the pilot.
If it only had to record what happened in 20x20 degree fov it may perform without causing that annoying film recorder lag bump.
Just a thought, and thanks for the responses guys.
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If it only had to record what happened in 20x20 degree fov it may perform without causing that annoying film recorder lag bump.
Again, it's not the recording of the data, but the starting of the record and the creation of the .ahf file in your folder, which is independent from the amount of data you are recording after that.
Actually, by recording a lot of very short films you are increasing the problem - the more files you have in you film folder, the more likely the "start lag" will be.
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So it could be as simple as starting the film recorder automatically when you launch but only writing data to the file when the trigger is pulled.
That way you would have one file for the entire flight but it would automatically be tailed to just the "action footage. That would also take care of the lag bump as the file would be created before you even roll.
Any problems with that logic?
Thanks for helping me to clarify my wants.
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Well here is why I think it's not a great idea, for me anyway. The trigger pull is just the very end of the fight usually. There's a lot of maneuvering that happens prior to the trigger pull, and that's the important stuff that gets you to that point. Those are the parts of the fight that you want to study. If you're only seeing the shooting, you're missing the critical points in the fight to learn from and the most important tools for learning about the acm. Also, sometimes I really get my butt handed to me, and never get a shot off. At those times I want to see what the guy did that chumped me so badly, and that simply wouldn't be available to if the film only started when the trigger was pulled.
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Well here is why I think it's not a great idea, for me anyway. The trigger pull is just the very end of the fight usually. There's a lot of maneuvering that happens prior to the trigger pull, and that's the important stuff that gets you to that point. Those are the parts of the fight that you want to study. If you're only seeing the shooting, you're missing the critical points in the fight to learn from and the most important tools for learning about the acm. Also, sometimes I really get my butt handed to me, and never get a shot off. At those times I want to see what the guy did that chumped me so badly, and that simply wouldn't be available to if the film only started when the trigger was pulled.
Thanks for the reply, but what brought this up for me is that i'm trying to refine my gunnery and decide what convergence actually is best for each plane type/loadout that I fly, not the normal "seat of the pants" way I'm setting it up. After sixteen years of doing this, I have no problems getting behind someone, but I still have trouble landing rounds under certain circumstances. A guncam option would quickly be able to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong with a new plane. That would also help to get me out of my comfort zone.
I could do the same by fast forwarding through countless hours of footage, but I barely have time to fly as it is.
Thanks for the comment, but I really do want the option of only recording the trigger squeeze.
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Then I suppose what your really asking for is the ability to set multiple functions to any one JS button.
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Then I suppose what your really asking for is the ability to set multiple functions to any one JS button.
not sure I really understand what you asked.
To make my wish simple it would be:
A check box in the options that would cause the film recorder to only save data if the weapons are firing (with a slight post fire delay to allow the rounds to it).
So if the "guncam only" box is checked when you record a film during a flight it would have the firing clips and nothing else.
Does that make is clearer?
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Pardon me but doesn't the AH film viewer have already have a checkbox that you can use to view the film as guncam footage? I believe it does. I don't know whether it's black and white or color but IIRC, it is an option.
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Another issue that I forsee is the little save/cancel box popping up every time I release the trigger. That can really interfere with your manuevers, and will get very annoying after awhile.
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Pardon me but doesn't the AH film viewer have already have a checkbox that you can use to view the film as guncam footage? I believe it does. I don't know whether it's black and white or color but IIRC, it is an option.
The check box that is there only shows the POV, it does not edit out the non firing footage. So a 30 minute film with 3 seconds of shooting is still 30 minutes of film. WHat I'm looking for is just the 3seconds. That way I can let the film view always run and not have to sift through hours and hours of nothing to get to the few seconds I'm looking for to help my gunnery.
Thanks for the reply though.
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Another issue that I forsee is the little save/cancel box popping up every time I release the trigger. That can really interfere with your manuevers, and will get very annoying after awhile.
If I had my way it would only ask you that when you towered out after the flight.
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Rockdog, seeing only the point when you fired your guns would be mostly useless. You need the parts leading immediately up to it, as well, otherwise you can't tell if a plane suddenly accelerated or decelerated right before you fired, or if he jinked, any number of things can "throw off" your shot, and without a better picture of the fight, it's not helpful JUST to have the footage when your guns fire. If all you want is picturesque footage of planes blowing up, fine, but for the learning purposes you state it's far better to record the sortie, watch the film, and delete it afterwards.
Note you can always stop the film after a fight, and then just skip to the last 3 minutes of any film you review when you want to see your gunnery. One of my squaddies does that.
Doing this, looking at films to find your distance to a target, is a good way of setting your convergence, but it's not very helpful (by itself) for figuring out anything else about how you won/lost the fight.
On top of that, you can't roll the film BEFORE you press the trigger. It can't know when you're going to and then start 15 seconds early. It has to be already running. That's the price you pay. Luckily, running film requires little to no system resources, and takes up a lot less space than actual video footage. When I run FRAPS in a game it's a massive file even for short durations. A 5 minute half-screen recording can be upwards of 3GB (yes, GB) in size, whereas a 2-hour scenario frame in all its glory will clock in at 17MB or less.
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The check box that is there only shows the POV, it does not edit out the non firing footage. So a 30 minute film with 3 seconds of shooting is still 30 minutes of film. WHat I'm looking for is just the 3seconds. That way I can let the film view always run and not have to sift through hours and hours of nothing to get to the few seconds I'm looking for to help my gunnery.
Thanks for the reply though.
Starting the film can cause a pause or stutter in frame rate, do you really want one just as you are shooting?
HiTech
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Perhaps if their was a way to see what parts of the film that you are firing your guns and even perhaps taken damage damage. For instance the whole film is there open in AH film viewer and in the bar that shows the time index and the can show the points of the film in which you are firing your weapons. Perhaps this could be indicated by a horizontal red line around this time scroll bar, in which the length corresponds with how long they fired, so you can quickly scroll to it without aimless clicking trying to find the point you were looking for.
This just seems like a good compromise, honestly their are times when i wish i could find the action in my films, an small line along the time bar that shows i fire my weapons would be a good indicator of where i should go, i could click on approximately 30 seconds before i fire if i want to see what ever i did leading up to that moment, or i could just click on where i started to fire and then on to the next with out having to guesstimate where.
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You know you can click the fast forward multiple times, right? And it will go faster and faster at least for the first few times you click it. Not sure if it caps out after a certain speed or not, or just goes as fast as your PC can run.