[Sandwich]

What's being done about this, anything? Everyone's pretty much agreed that things don't look as big as they should. Has anybody found the render angle/lens/whatever that needs to be tweaked to change this?

I want a ginormous 1.6 km Star Destroyer!!!

[Bobboau]

I've looked into it, it initaly seems to do the trick but as you play things seem to be not right

[Assassin]

That would be awesome. I was thinking something like this would be great... a 300 meter long cruiser simply does not look 300 meters long.

[phreak]

if you change the FOV settings, it either looks like a fisheye (increase), or it looks like you aren't moving (decrease)

[FrancisA]

You know, I really don't think that the ships-dont-look-as-big-as-they-are problem has anything to do with distortion (or lack thereof) of the viewpoint.  I think it's simply that, as you're flying along the ship, there are few reference points, and so it looks like you're barely moving.  If the ships had a lot more surface detail, or much more detailed textures, it'd probably feel quite a bit bigger.

Giving points of reference is the reason why you see movement streaks of little dust and such from your cockpit: if you didn't no matter how you moved through space, you'd feel like you weren't moving at all.  More "realistic" sims dispense with this fake debris stuff, but usually compensate by making a 3d hud grid or something similar (c.f. M.I.S.C.).

Here's an experiment: try doubling or tripling the uv scale of the textures of a capship, then see if it feels longer when you fly against it.  It'll probably be much uglier at a distance, because the detail is lost in all the texture tile repetition, but feel bigger up close.

Keep in mind too that your ship is moving pretty fast as well, so of course you can close very large distances quickly, making everything feel smaller.

Perhaps bump mapping texture surfaces might be a way to add points of reference to a ship, and make them feel bigger.  Just a wild guess.

[Nico]

I don't agree. take the Xwing series ( even the very old first one ). the ships in those games went very fast, the capships were scaled right, and they does look much bigger than in FS2.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by PhReAk
if you change the FOV settings, it either looks like a fisheye (increase), or it looks like you aren't moving (decrease)

And? When you're trying to cover 4 miles it should seem like it takes you a while to get there. I can live with a fov modification especially if it can be made optional.

[Bobboau]

you know things could look small becase you're flying about in a 40 meter long fighter...

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Venom
I don't agree. take the Xwing series ( even the very old first one ). the ships in those games went very fast, the capships were scaled right, and they does look much bigger than in FS2.

Xwing is an excellent example. Also take a look at Tachyon:The Fringe.

[Sandwich]

*ignores part of thread dealing with "is it worth it?"*

Originally posted by Bobboau
I've looked into it, it initaly seems to do the trick but as you play things seem to be not right

Bob, could you code it in as a command-line option, so we can play around with it and see what happens? Say, something where you specify a number in whatever range is valid (?)..... could you?

[Vilkacis]

Originally posted by FrancisA
If the ships had a lot more surface detail, or much more detailed textures, it'd probably feel quite a bit bigger.

I don't think so, here are some examples with the texture density increased 4 times, also note that these images were taken with 4x AA and 8x Anisotropic Filtering to reduce the extreme texture crawling, (that's also the reason why the hud anis are screwed up).

The Colossus as a whole, looks like crap but does help a bit:


It seems as if I'm standing right in front of this turret which might be say about 1,8m tall:


Nope... it's more like 100m away and as big as a house:


This radar dish might fit into my cockpit:


Or not...

[phreak]

[Taristin]

Me and sandy did this once, I had a pic of my myrm next to a deimos like that, and everyone thought it was a new deimos mod,

[Sandwich]

Ok, we are NOT talking about increasing the texture resolution, adding bump-mapping (which would be nice, but it's besides the point), or any other hare-brained scheme like that.

FOV/perspective/lens adjustment. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Nico]

ah, how many times did I bring that discussion, again?
Bob, could you post pics with the modified FOV so we can see by ourselves?

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Venom
ah, how many times did I bring that discussion, again?

Yeah, but I can ban 'em if they don't cooperate.

[KARMA]

I thought it was already said that there was going to be a command line about this, or I'm wrong?
eh, it's about the 4th time this discussions started:)
Bob, I'd like to see those pics too, I'm really curious:)

[Exarch]

When using X-wing examples, remmeber that in X-wing your velocity isn't shown as any existing measure. Thus, you could very well be moving a lot slower than your displayed speed might seem to warrant. Sure, 120 sounds like it's pretty fast, but what exactly *is* 120 MGLT? But this can't be done in FS2, since the measure for speed is meters per second, and so if you're moving too fast or too slow compared to what's displayed, it's very easy to notice.

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by Bobboau
you know things could look small becase you're flying about in a 40 meter long fighter...

BOB SPEAKS THE TRUTH lol... hell if we guys keep making uber sized ships that can be piloted, of course were gonna have a BIG POV.

but i thinks also its the way the line of site is, the camera in some wierd way makes everything big, almost as if the cameras on the NOSE of the fighter/ship, rather than from the cockpit.either that or could someone simulate this "MAKE A SHIP" bigger effect by leaning close to something, when ur a few inches, feet back from something your looking at (where ur line of sight is coming from), it looks in perspective (IE when you zoom out a few meters, the ship now does look small, and the cap looks its right size), but if ur in cockpit (if u move closer to what your suppose to be looking at, aka the hud) when ur closer to the hud, things look bigger.

IN FS2 when were in HUD 1st person mode, its almost as if were all huntching forward staring right thru the hud out the rest of the universe. thus an optical illusion that were not really so small. if the hud was say, made smaller, more in the center of the screen, where as everything is now on the far outside, or maybe arranged in a way to make the illusion of acutal size to a ship, then maybe this effectcould be done.

[Deepblue]

For those who have 3ds max the perspective in freespace is almost like taking the perspective view and really flattening it out.