a wish for more visable hit sprites

[bustr]

Here is another thing to think about with WW2 guncam film. You are not seeing the film from the pilot's size perspective while he is looking through his 100Mil reticle. I've resized two of the cells so the 100Mil ring is 2 inches in diameter or real life. Looks familiar from our game perspective of what is real size and FOV augmented size.

Looks kind of like 650yds at 80 FOV.

 


Looks kind of like 200yds at 80 FOV.




And here you beat up Hitech for a decade over wanting more realism in the game. And when he gives it to you, you beat him up for giving it to you because you have to use zoom now to see.

[BuckShot]

I didn't see any reticles in that film. How did you know what size to use in the superimposed reticle? Was the camera fov standard for post flight range estimation?

I think folks want the tracers and sprites to look like ah2. In this department, screw realism.

[bustr]

The camera FOV was set to correspond with the pilot FOV so during review the intel person knew the range based on wingspan.  Did you think they just took 16mm film shots and asked the pilot to guess at his range during the playback? Once the film was analyzed they knew the range of the con by it's standard wingspan to the cell size. The most unreliable link in this chain was the pilot's real lack of ability to determine range and deflection. The 8th AAF watched 700 films of air engagements and found of the 189 planes destroyed, only 39% of the 700 pilots destroyed them because they held fire until inside of 300yds. Yes standardization, or they wouldn't have had a clue about the ranges in the film analysis. 

[Chalenge]

I prefer the realism. Thank you.

[BuckShot]

The camera FOV was set to correspond with the pilot FOV so during review the intel person knew the range based on wingspan.  Did you think they just took 16mm film shots and asked the pilot to guess at his range during the playback? Once the film was analyzed they knew the range of the con by it's standard wingspan to the cell size. The most unreliable link in this chain was the pilot's real lack of ability to determine range and deflection. The 8th AAF watched 700 films of air engagements and found of the 189 planes destroyed, only 39% of the 700 pilots destroyed them because they held fire until inside of 300yds. Yes standardization, or they wouldn't have had a clue about the ranges in the film analysis.

Thanks for the explanation.

[DaddyAce]

Another vote for realism here.

[Devil 505]

The problem here is not really the size of the sprite, but that the hits in the game are not illuminated. I think a very quick flash of light when scoring a hit would work with correct sized sprites. This was impossible in AH2, so we got a larger hit texture.

[lunatic1]

The problem here is not really the size of the sprite, but that the hits in the game are not illuminated. I think a very quick flash of light when scoring a hit would work with correct sized sprites. This was impossible in AH2, so we got a larger hit texture.

ok what he^^ said--what I'm trying to say in AH2 you can easily see where your rounds are hitting on the enemy plane-in AH3 you can't--you might catch a glimpse of red spark or a light puff of smoke but that's it

[bustr]

When you look at films you get two predominant visual hit responses. Something that looks like a fine debree plume and out gassing, or a flash like the incendiary response when the thin jacket of the ogive over the incendiary compound shreds and sets off the compound. The third response cannot be really seen and is just a round passing through into an empty cavity. Some of the outgassing you see from Luft fighters is from all the compressed air balls used to actuate systems. Another issue from the films is you don't see a flash sprite with every hit by all rounds that touch the plane.

Considering out of 189 planes destroyed from 700 films where 39% of those 700 pilots shot down the 189 planes. When we see guncam films today, we are mostly seeing the films from the 39% of AAF pilots who opened fire inside of 300. And we see the most juicy moments at the end. Anyone have a compilation of the other films? Most of us in our game are the other 61%.

In the AH3 MA if I use zoom when I shoot, I see hit sprites as my con falls apart. If I don't, I may not stay on the con as long as it takes and get an assist message later.

I have been suffering through the lack of hit sprites since Hitech started giving us patches with drones to chase back in the closed alpha almost 2 years ago. I figured from looking at the new graphics engine and how light was generated that hit sprites were being effected by that. I did notice using zoom lets you see hit sprites and makes tracers useless because of the FOV, and how they seem to become visible around 250-300 after leaving the gun barrel. For the last decade everyone has pestered Hitech for more realism in everything. Now that it's here, everyone is pestering Hitech to make many things gamey again.

I used to include AAF fixed gunnery manuals with my historic gunsight package. Hitech's physics is faithful enough to reality that the information in the manuals work in this game. Things like the 100 mile an hour principle which is the reason most of the historic reticles I made for AH3 were\are 100Mil rings. And the 5,10,20,30 degree of travel principle for lead shooting in the RAF "Bag the Hun" manual. And the fact that the more lead you pull increasing your G, your rounds will correspondingly drop lower at 1000ft. The problem with turn fighting in tight little circles and always missing by shooting under your con. It really messes with the tater with its already terrible ballistics.   

[bustr]

check the tracers and sprites in the official AH3 update.

[FESS67]

ok some of you guys are going to hate me for this but.....the new sprites are not good, they are too big.

Please don't think I am ungrateful but the wish was for more visible and as others have posted that really translated as brighter, not larger.  Now when my 50 cals score a strike I see the whole area light up like I am causing massive damage when the result is I am actually delivering little damage.  Not sure if it is possible but can we keep them as bright but a tad smaller.

Thanks

[Chalenge]

I really liked it better before the fix. It would have been much easier to recreate the authentic look in films.

[bustr]

For the majority with crappy hardware this change is probably a godsend. Now at least with the La5\7 alpha mask representing the reflector plate glass to make it look like you are looking through 3 inches of glass. A gunsight.bmp with magenta background feild and red reticle structure lightens the gunsight reflector plate mask Waffle chose.

You think maybe the better part of valor apply's here now that the majority can actually see when they hit something?

[EskimoJoe]

For the majority with crappy hardware this change is probably a godsend. Now at least with the La5\7 alpha mask representing the reflector plate glass to make it look like you are looking through 3 inches of glass. A gunsight.bmp with magenta background feild and red reticle structure lightens the gunsight reflector plate mask Waffle chose.

You think maybe the better part of valor apply's here now that the majority can actually see when they hit something?

I don't know. I tend to consider new versions and new releases as kind of 'experimental'. I'd say give it a few months for feedback and see how more players are reacting to how they are now, if at all.

[bustr]

Did you take part in the open alpha or open beta when people started blowing the roof off over not being able to see tracers or sprites at 106-120 FoV unzoomed? Right now is about equal to AH2 with more luminescence to the hit sprites out to 1500yds unzoom at 106-120 FoV. All the previous tracers and sprites since the closed alpha have been scaled to the real world. You needed to be inside of 300 to see the hit sprites or on zoom up to 1:1 making the 100Mil reticle life sized at 2in. Kind of separated the herd by hardcore gamer versus the rank and file unwashed masses who just want to spray and slay for their 1-2 hours a few nights a week.