Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Open Beta Test => Topic started by: shift8 on April 13, 2016, 11:01:07 AM
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Overall I really like AH3, save for one big issue.
Please fix the tracer effect. It is very very hard to see. Unrealistically hard to see. One of the best things about AH2 was the tracers and the hit markers from the tracer impact flash. Both of these things are diminished in AH3. Right now in AH3 for the short distance you can see the tracer arc it looks like a laser, then dissapears for a bit, then later you can see the falling bits as they drop away. Please fix this high tech. I loved your AH2 tracers!
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+1
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I tested tracers just now at 80 fov and 120 fov for visibility.
1. - At either fov if the gamma is at 1.0, the glass reflector plate is too dark to see trough at 12:00 noon and tracers are very dim.
2. - Setting gamma 1.2-1.4 makes 12:00 noon look like real world 12:00 while clearing up the darkness looking through the gunsight's glass reflector plate. This was true for both 80 and 120 fov. Tracers became usable.
3. - Learn to lead shoot without needing tracers which will have you placing your rounds where the con will be, rather than being slightly behind the curve on ever hitting the con by depending on tracers for visual cues. I know, that is asking a lot with this being just a cartoon game.
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have to agree with shift8 on this one. I love the firing effects but at distance it just look like a blur on my end. A wirble was firing at me in Beta and it was all over the place couldn't really tell what rounds were close etc.
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Do you also get Icons that shift from solid to opaque and back depending on the range? His original description sounds like the Icons. have you tried upping your gamma offline after setting the terrain to 12:00? That increased the brightness of tracers for me at all times of the clock.
While creating a new generation of brighter gunsights recently, it seems like many things that are secondary light sources unto themselves, depend on the brightness of the key light source for the arena. I saw that with the moon while testing night reticles.
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Bf110 30 mm tracers are AWESOME :x by the way.. ;)
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We went into this already a few weeks back, Bustr, you should post a link to that as you did a bunch of screen shots and tests at various ranges/fov/etc that was pretty good info. I think I even said it would be a good sticky, as it would be a very common question/issue, the whole tracers/hit sprites thing. I've found I've made adjustments similar to what Bustr has suggested already, and that factored in with just getting used to the difference, I found that after a bit of time I got used to the different tracers. TBH though I feel the AH2 tracers/hit sprites are superior in visibility still, but the AH3/beta ones DO look better in terms of actual graphics/detail, it's just that they are far smaller and thus harder to make out. At 1440p they are VERY small IMO, and 1080p and a 106 FOV they are better with the gamma turned up, at 4k - very tiny.
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Bf110 30 mm tracers are AWESOME :x by the way.. ;)
LOL!! :airplane: I am sure they are...love throwing taters!
<S>
HamrDown
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First thing is turn up your gamma offline with the time set to 12:00. Once you get it to your version of real world 12:00 bright. A lot of things seem to fall in line after that.
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Miniscule; especially considering I'm talking about tank rounds. Still, I think it is probably more realistic than AHII was, but the thing is (in retrospect) the fact that the computer screen is our only way to see anything and that room light tends to be much brighter . . . the smaller tracers are very difficult to see.
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Then allow the rest of us to pull out the lawn chairs and beer coolers. Then you walk up the Hitech and pick a fight over the number of pixels he decided makes an adequate tracer in AH3.
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I like the smaller tracers, but I wish the hit sprites were bigger and brighter.
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I have a similar opinion, the smaller tracers actually make less stuff...in the way of seeing what's happening to the target, but with tiny hit sprites too, it isn't a real advantage overall compared to AH2 IMO. Larger hit sprites, the same as AH2, with the AH3 tracers - heh, that'd be spanky IMO. The sprites do really look great, especially in 1440p/4k, very cool seeing a pile of little pings from a load of .50s hitting bombers, but again, I find my neck craning trying to see them at those res, and even at 1080p they still seem small.
I do agree, they are likely more realistic, big time, so I guess those banging their "I want teh realizms" gong won't be able to complain much about them, hah.
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Now if you hit zoom so the reticle is near life size, the tracers and hit sprites are much larger and zilch peripheral vision. After all, with a 2D space spoofing our eyes into thinking it is a 3D space, and we are being presented a proportional life sized world. Something has to be done to spoof the lack of peripheral vision. So the whole thing gets shrinked proportionally if we choose a custom FoV to show us more of the environment.
There is a master scale, and Hitech prides himself on building everything to it. Seems light intensity might be getting shrunk a bit with the smaller tracers at larger FOV settings. The hits sprites are bright but, proportionally smaller to your custom FoV. Try cashing drones at 80 fov with your gamma 1.2 - 1.4 and you will see nice tracers and hit sprites.
So the real demand is then what? Hitech increase the master scale so FOV 106 tracers will look like FOV 80 tracers?
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This is actually a wish of mine, because the huge armor tracers gave the position of tanks away from 10k. Any aircraft could instantly identify your position, but also when you have a tank in an ambush situation the first shot gives your position away. My understanding of actual tank tracers is that they are hyper-visible from the rear, but not so much from the target. However, even aircraft tracers are intended for the shooter to identify the placement of any shots from his gun. If the shooter cannot follow his own tracers then I am at a loss as to what to suggest.
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In AHII, the excessive smoke trails is one big thing that makes them more visible than the tracers in AHIII beta. Looking at real life footage where .50 cal is fired, generally the small amount of smoke emitting from the rounds seems to come from the burning tracer material which produces very little smoke compared to the tracers in AHII. German cannon ammo used smoke tracers which really do leave a prominent smoke trail.
I do think that the tracer itself is less visible in AHIII compared to AHII as well but to me the lack of smoke trail probably makes the biggest difference, which is definitely more realistic as far as .50 cals are concerned. I still think the tracers in general would get looked at. It depends on the lighting conditions of course but on many gun cam films .50 cal tracers seem much brighter than they are in AHIII and German ammunition should have more prominent tight corkscrew-like smoke trails.
One possibility regarding the smoke trails difference between AHII and AHIII is that it might be a bug. I've noticed that while most of the time the smoke trails are barely noticeable and disappear quickly. Sometimes they suddenly create very similar smoke trails that are found in AHII (see attachment).
Shooting at things is quite a big part of the game. :) I'd like to see the tracers getting a major look in general. For example, seeing periodically correct colors for different tracers would be welcome.
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I'm a fan of making it look however it looked IRL. If Axis tracers were different from Allied, I'm all for showing that as well as whatever color variations there were.
I just want things to look as close to reality as possible, whatever form that takes. Although I will admit, if smaller is more correct, I am going to miss the larger hit sprites a bit.
Wiley.
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I like how it is in the beta and if the beta effect is how RL tracers are, then it needs to be kept untampered for realism and immersion reasons.
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So the real demand is then what? Hitech increase the master scale so FOV 106 tracers will look like FOV 80 tracers?
Hah, that sounds about the size of it I think. I really don't care if it's changed or not, it'll be adjusted to like anything else, remember when the hit bubble and damage changed? You could pepper level targets with 50 and 10 mm out to 1000yards with ease in the early game, now it's much, much harder, and rightfully so - yet it was a major point of contention for a while.
I do think some tweaking may improve how they look and function overall, but they do look pretty good right now still.
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they way the tracers look now, might as well not have any.
semp
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I did notice that when zoomed in, at pretty much any FOV, I tried 80, 100, and 106 at least anyway, the smoke trails completely disappear. Just the tracer dots is all you can see. I tried shooting at drones with the tracers off and various FOV, and found that at 100 I found the best compromise between FOV and tracers. Works pretty good for me now now that I have the gamma at 1.2ish, the FOV at 100, and tracers off. You can really see the hit sprites this way. Looks like I'll be a tracers off pilot from now on.
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Just about everyone turned them off by 44.
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My tracers seem to look just fine. The hit sprites are definitely harder to see, but I usually catch a glimpse of the debris, much easier. As for walking bullets to target, the tracers seem to stay on screen longer than in AH2 and do pretty good job for me at 106 FOV. I do have my color settings on my monitor increased, possibly this is the advantage needed to view them better through the much foggier AH Beta skies. :headscratch:
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Talked with Semp in Beta today. The biggest hinderance to visability of tracers and hit sprites, may just be the screen resolution that you have chosen.... doh! 1360 x 768 looks great for me.
I just can't shoot worth a dang.. :old:
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I am playing with 1440 i can see them 3 feet in front of me then they dissapear. it's really bad.
semp
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1080p 1920x1080 24in monitor
Unzoomed at 100 fov I see tracers until they reach their max time\distance. On zoom, I don't see them close in but appearing short of the con by 100-200yds then streaming into the con. Increasing fov to 120 I still see tracers to the target un-zoomed, just very small. Same issue zoomed.
I bet if you guys turn off post lighting your tracer problems go away..... :O
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I've done a lot of testing today, with post lighting effects on/off, shadows on/off, gamma from 1.0 to 1.3, fov from 60, 80, 100, 106, 120, reflections on/off, 1440p and 1080p and so forth.
Something I've noticed - when sitting stationary on the ground, LA7 for example, when you fire, with any of the above on/off, you can see the old spiral smoke tracers such as in AH2. Once airborne however, regardless of zoom level, those smoke trails disappear, and change to very tiny/thin smoke, or disappear entirely if you zoom in too far. Zoom greatly affects them, however as I said, when sitting motionless on the ground, you can see the tracers look almost the same as in AH2. I included a couple screenshots below demonstrating this. I took them at FOV 80, at about 80% zoom, with the tracers having flown about the same distance both airborne and on the ground stopped. The more you zoom once airborne, the more the smoke trails seem to vanish. On the ground - if that effect happened in the air, I don't think there would be a peep from anyone, as they really look much the same as AH2 IMO. I was also in a shallow climb just after take off only doing about 140 MPH when I fired and took the screenshot.
Could someone else try this and see if they get the same effect?
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Well for me this is a realism issue more than anything else. And it is not just FOV related. Mainly it is that the effect itself is very very hard to see, and what you can see looks too laser esque when it is up close. In real life, Tracers are VERY easy to see. I have used .50cals with tracers in real life from a M2. Extremely easy to track. You can even see them in the grainy old gun cam footage.
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So you can't see through the armor plating to shoot?
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So you can't see through the armor plating to shoot?
I dont follow
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GMan,
By the color of your reflector plate mask, I bet 12:00 is still a tad dark for real world 12:00 on your PC. It looks like your gamma is about 1.2. At 1.4 the plate itself becomes almost the same mask color as the windscreen.
Wonder how much of this is a light issue related to the semi transparent Icons that shift from that to full color than back, try turning off post lighting and look at your tracers.
Wonder if tracer brilliance is tied to the light source sun\moon just like gunsight reticles are?
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I'll try your new settings and find out. That was 1.2, I did put it up to 1.4 in the air, but it was SO bright that the ground was whitewashing out on me in the air then.
There are so many factors on the hardware end, I"ve always found AMD cards to be a bit dimmer than Nvidia, and the monitor settings are so different monitor to monitor. Maxing gamma and 80 brightness on my ROG Swift is far different than on my Acer 4k Gsync, and even different than my other ROG Swift which is an IPS version. Resolution played at is a factor too I think, I've noticed that 1080p is a lot different than 1440p in the beta. Oddly, on my system at 1440p I get BETTER fps than at 1080p pretty much in every situation.
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Johnny Nash, "I can see clearly now......", seems to fit my experience.
I agree that while maneuvering, the tracers and hit sprites are less "vivid". Conversely, they are wonderfully animated and an adjustment that I think is worth the effort. Antialias, fogging, high screen resolution and low video contrast settings seem to be the culprits for those like semp that are unable to see them. I can say this, because in the past, I also was unable to even see the field gun tracers. Now, they are noticeably different but still clearly seen (most certainly at close range/ against dark backgrounds as Bustr has noted).