[Flipside]

Well, I still think interaction is the key, the problem I find is that you get 'pretty' close to a capship and then the huge size of your ship means you bounce off 'apparantly' early, so you never really feel like you are interacting with the ship. A mixture of a lower FOV and a ship with more 'interactive' parts (holes in the fuselage to fly through, pipes to fly under etc) then you would feel far more as though capships were terrain instead of decoration. Even Freelancer Capships don't feel as 'big' as they should do, it is because in Space there is no Horizon or point of reference.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Cue shameless pimpage of my WIP Fenris (still plenty more detail to add):
http://nodewar.penguinbomb.com/aotd/Odyssey/models/fenris.gif

And for realism's sake, I think a focal length of ~50mm (assuming the computation is based on 35mm film) might be nice to emulate the human eye. I'll go play.[/color]

[Trivial Psychic]

You should realy check out KARMA's Hi-Poly Fenris in this thread... just jump to the last page to see it.

Later!

[Setekh]

This would be a nice thing to see when I come back.

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by Trivial Psychic
You should realy check out KARMA's Hi-Poly Fenris in this thread... just jump to the last page to see it.

[color=cc9900]Bummer, he's got further than me... Ah well, I'll stop then. Only half an hour lost ^_^ I really ought to check long threads more often, but it's so much nicer when cool stuff goes in individual threads.[/color]

[Nico]

On the topic: all the fs2 ships are scaled beyond common sense, imo.
They should be scaled around the cockpit, bridge, whatever.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]What are you suggesting in terms of changes, then? A general reduction in size, a general increase, or just the addition of scale reference points?[/color]

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]What you've effectively done, looking at the linear length of that red box in relation to the original image, is halved it. This is the photographic equivalent of doubling the focal length of the lens to ~56mm, and is something regularly done on enlargers when making a print.

This means that your 85mm ought to appear much closer than it is, if you were doing judgement from the same distance (which is what would be happening in FS2). Try comparing your resulting cropped image to one taken with a 56mm from the same point, and they ought to look exactly the same. Did you change the distance for that 85mm picture, or is it something MAX did automatically?[/color]

What I did was this:

- Positioned a camera for the large 28mm shot.
- Took the shot at 1600x1200
- Changed the camera's focal length (thx for correction) to 85mm, without using the perspective control. Therefore, the camera position did not change,
- Took the shot at 800x600
- Cropped the 28mm 1600x1200 shot to approx 60%, to resemble the same visible objects as in the 85mm one.

Notice the difference in the Fenris between the cropped 28mm and the 85mm. The Fenris appears much larger in the cropped 28mm, and yet the pilot can still only see the approximate same field of view as he could in an uncropped 85mm shot. Get FS2 to run like that permanentely, and we have a winner IMO.

Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]I still don't get what you're trying to achieve. If you want things to look big, you go right up close to them with a 28mm. If you want things to look big from a distance, you use an 85mm. Perspective is related to distance, not focal length, hence with the 28mm upclose you will see a lot of distortion compared to the 85mm from a distance.[/color]

I don't want the size of things on screen to look big - not where you take a ruler ans measure the image and say "Hey, that Orion's 5mm larger than the other one". The apparent size increase I'm wanting to improve is in the actual perspective, the exact same kind of change you can see between Fenrises in the cropped 28mm and the 85mm images. Look at the "angles" the hull receeds from the camera at - that's the effect FS2 needs.

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by Sandwich
What I did was this:

- Positioned a camera for the large 28mm shot.
- Took the shot at 1600x1200
- Changed the camera's focal length (thx for correction) to 85mm, without using the perspective control. Therefore, the camera position did not change,
- Took the shot at 800x600
- Cropped the 28mm 1600x1200 shot to approx 60%, to resemble the same visible objects as in the 85mm one.

Notice the difference in the Fenris between the cropped 28mm and the 85mm. The Fenris appears much larger in the cropped 28mm, and yet the pilot can still only see the approximate same field of view as he could in an uncropped 85mm shot. Get FS2 to run like that permanentely, and we have a winner IMO.

[color=cc9900]Unfortunately, what you've got there is actually a problem with MAX. I don't quite know why, but it's shifted the camera further away for the 85mm. There is no way that the two final images you came up with are from the same position, provided that one is ~56mm and one is 85mm. The 85mm would physically have to be further away for it to show the same rough size of the objects, around 1/3 as far away again.

It's not surprising you've come up with something that is practically a 50mm lens for what you consider to be the 'best' option. A 50mm lens is used in photography as a 'normal' lens because the image produced is a very close approximation of what the human eye sees. Which is what the great majority of renderers ought to aim for. I don't know what the FS2 FOV number for that is.[/color]

[Nico]

Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]What are you suggesting in terms of changes, then? A general reduction in size, a general increase, or just the addition of scale reference points?[/color]

I should have said "they should have been scaled".
How do you want to change anything? If you scale the fighters logically, you won't see them well enough unless that POV thing is fixed. And then, if all this is done, the gameplay will be changed, fighters will be tougher to hit, etc.
I don't have any pb with that, but will everybody think the same?

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Odyssey

[color=cc9900]Unfortunately, what you've got there is actually a problem with MAX. I don't quite know why, but it's shifted the camera further away for the 85mm. There is no way that the two final images you came up with are from the same position, provided that one is ~56mm and one is 85mm. The 85mm would physically have to be further away for it to show the same rough size of the objects, around 1/3 as far away again.

It's not surprising you've come up with something that is practically a 50mm lens for what you consider to be the 'best' option. A 50mm lens is used in photography as a 'normal' lens because the image produced is a very close approximation of what the human eye sees. Which is what the great majority of renderers ought to aim for. I don't know what the FS2 FOV number for that is.[/color]

Did you read what I said? I rendered the first picture, at 28mm, at 1600x1200 resolution. I then cropped it down. The 85mm picture I rendered from the exact same camera position, with only a lens change to 85mm. The catch is that I rendered it at 800x600.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Nico: I'm swaying towards liking things as they are. Complete and utter accuracy isn't really needed in what is primarily an arcade-style game.

Sandwich: Yes, I read what you said. In the cropping process, you effectively made your 28mm picture a 56mm, by halving the linear length. Hence it shouldn't show the objects at roughly the same size as an 85mm. Unless in some strange manner MAX is actually changing the film format when you change the resolution (LW doesn't do this, it'd screw up framing), what you've shown in those pictures ought not to be possible in the real world.[/color]

[Solatar]

If all this is already able to be done in fs2_open, why can't I for the life of me make the ships look like Sandwich is suggesting?

What's the formula for converting the XXmm into fs2's number system anyway?

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by Solatar
What's the formula for converting the XXmm into fs2's number system anyway?

[color=cc9900]I don't think there is one, not one that's known anyway. The effect of focal length of a lens depends on the size of film/CCD imager, so I'm assuming the FOV parameter in FS2 is an arbitrary unit. I still haven't got around to testing it, come to think of it...[/color]

[J3Vr6]

I like Sandwiche's idea.  What he suggests actually makes sense to me and looks a lot better than the FOV command line.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]Sandwich: Yes, I read what you said. In the cropping process, you effectively made your 28mm picture a 56mm, by halving the linear length. Hence it shouldn't show the objects at roughly the same size as an 85mm. Unless in some strange manner MAX is actually changing the film format when you change the resolution (LW doesn't do this, it'd screw up framing), what you've shown in those pictures ought not to be possible in the real world.[/color]

Ahh, ok - my next quetion would have been where you got that 56mm number from.

You misunderstand the process, though - I loaded the 16x12 image into Photoshop and cropped it there, not in MAX.

But here's the core issue - it's not how many pixels wide a cetain ship is at a given distance, it's the manner in which the engine renders the ship's geometry recceding from the viewpoint. You can't deny that the ships in the pics at 28mm look more dramatic and large, whereas the ships in the 85mm pics are getting close to the orthographic view of MODELVIEW32.

FS2 currently is too close to an orthographic view to make the ships look the correct size.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Odyssey
[color=cc9900]Nico: I'm swaying towards liking things as they are. Complete and utter accuracy isn't really needed in what is primarily an arcade-style game.
[/color]

Well, I just don't like things to look tiny when they're in fact ridiculsouly huge. Which means it's completly assed, but hey.

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Ahh, ok - my next quetion would have been where you got that 56mm number from.

You misunderstand the process, though - I loaded the 16x12 image into Photoshop and cropped it there, not in MAX.

But here's the core issue - it's not how many pixels wide a cetain ship is at a given distance, it's the manner in which the engine renders the ship's geometry recceding from the viewpoint. You can't deny that the ships in the pics at 28mm look more dramatic and large, whereas the ships in the 85mm pics are getting close to the orthographic view of MODELVIEW32.

FS2 currently is too close to an orthographic view to make the ships look the correct size.

[color=cc9900]It doesn't really make a difference where it was cropped. It has the same effect of changing the virtual focal length of the lens.

Also, I wholly understand the effect you want to achieve, but I'm just saying that in the real world it isn't actually possible. When you're at the same distance from something, and you take a picture with first a 56mm and then a 85mm lens, and compare them, they will show the objects at different sizes. In the real world it is impossible for this to not happen.

The same is true for rendering. However, another variable you can change in rendering is the distance from the object, which is how MAX got your 56mm and 85mm picture showing the objects at the same size. I guess it depends on how the renderer works as to whether it actually realises it is changing the distance, or whether it simply employs a kind of 'dented mesh' that it pastes the picture onto.

Since distance in FS2 is judged by you flying around, I'm presuming what FS2 does when you change the FOV is render more of the scene and fit it to this 'dented mesh'. What you're suggesting is fitting the existing scene onto the 'dented mesh', without rendering more scene. I'm not sure how possible this is, but to me it just sounds 'wrong' and would bug me, because it is something that absolutely cannot happen in real life - where perspective depends on distance, not FOV or anything else. That's my opinion, anyway.[/color]

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Odyssey

[color=cc9900]It doesn't really make a difference where it was cropped. It has the same effect of changing the virtual focal length of the lens.

Also, I wholly understand the effect you want to achieve, but I'm just saying that in the real world it isn't actually possible. When you're at the same distance from something, and you take a picture with first a 56mm and then a 85mm lens, and compare them, they will show the objects at different sizes. In the real world it is impossible for this to not happen.

The same is true for rendering. However, another variable you can change in rendering is the distance from the object, which is how MAX got your 56mm and 85mm picture showing the objects at the same size. I guess it depends on how the renderer works as to whether it actually realises it is changing the distance, or whether it simply employs a kind of 'dented mesh' that it pastes the picture onto.

Since distance in FS2 is judged by you flying around, I'm presuming what FS2 does when you change the FOV is render more of the scene and fit it to this 'dented mesh'. What you're suggesting is fitting the existing scene onto the 'dented mesh', without rendering more scene. I'm not sure how possible this is, but to me it just sounds 'wrong' and would bug me, because it is something that absolutely cannot happen in real life - where perspective depends on distance, not FOV or anything else. That's my opinion, anyway.[/color]

Ok, now you're scaring me. I mean, I'm getting really really worried here. Do you not see the difference between the two Fenrises? How one looks "flat" and the other looks "stretched"?

I don't mind if changing this elusive variable from a 85mm equivalent to a 28mm equivalent makes things look farther away - that's virtually the whole point. Currently a 2km ship looks to be about 400 meters long. If everything is stretched, distorted, etc, then that same ship, viewed from the same position, will seem to be longer, due to the end of the ship seeming to be farther away.

And cropping is not the same as changing the focal length, not by any means. If the engine virtually rendered with a 28mm-equivalent lens a picture at 2048x1536, but only displayed the central 1024x768 on screen, it would be perfect. It would also be completely different from simply rendering an 1024x768 resolution image with an 85mm-equivalent lens.

[Flaser]

If fighters look a tad bigger it would be esier to hit them at longer distances.