[Gregster2k]

I'd like to discuss if meters in FreeSpace feel like actual "meters."

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,11629.160.html
The picture here shows a human standing on an Orion.

I've been thinking about this and looking up speed elsewhere as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_per_second

I have played with FOV settings, including tweaking them for distance of my head to the monitor vs. size of my monitor as pointed out by someone on this forum ages ago (I use a setting of -fov 0.6832)

I liken this to the problem I experience with first person shooters -- a character in Half-Life 2 or Doom 3 appears to be "larger" than one in Red Faction 1 or Half-Life 1; in Half-Life 2, I frequently feel like objects are much smaller than they actually are... what I mean is ... FreeSpace doesn't feel like a game where you look through your monitor and if you are reported as "3 meters away from someone else's ship" it LOOKS like you are 3 meters away from someone else's ship.

Thoughts?

[Bob-san]

I don't exactly know what you mean, but there's an old thread about this. Look back to Dec 06, iirc.

[FSW]

I, too, get the feeling that things, in-game, are smaller than they are. But of course, the player's point of view is not that of a pilot in a fighter, but that of the fighter (or bomber) itself. A fighter is far bigger than a human, so a metre will, relatively, feel like a shorter distance that it would to a person floating about in a spacesuit. Or out of a spacesuit. I'd bet a metre from the airlock seems like a kilometre then.

[Unknown Target]

Well I think the problem really is a lack of reference, i.e. you don't have, a cockpit whose size you'd generally know to the size of the ship in front of you. You also don't have any reference of where your ship is (i.e. a cockpit or at least a nose) that visually tells you how far away you are from the ship.

But I do agree, the sense of scale, while great, doesn't feel like actual meters.

[Elukka]

Heh, if the game wasn't set in space, i think everything would feel much bigger. Imagine an Orion hovering over a city. Or falling into a city, considering it's such a brick.

[TrashMan]

YA... The problem was something with a lens, focal point or something...I don't recall exactly, but FS engine doens't portray the size well.

[Herra Tohtori]

Lack of reference is definitely an important factor... there are no familiar figures to compare sizes to (say, there's no people looking out of windows etcetera... and there are no trees or houses or cars or so forth either, like what you can see in flilght simulators and the like).

But, I've found that much of the "size-blindness" in FS/2 is a result of relatively large field of view default value. Seriously, try using cmdline -fov 0.5 and the cap ships suddenly receive a notable boost in perceived size... at least to my eye. The biggest problem with this is that the background textures sometimes becomes visibly artefacted due to "zoom-in" effect... and situational awareness reduces somewhat, but what the hell. As a compromise, I prefer using -fov 0.6 or 0.55... I find it nicer to fly that way than with default field of view.

...and I still crave for a feature in FS2_Open that lets you manually alter the field of view setting in-mission, like in IL-2 series.

[colecampbell666]

I think the scale is fine.

[haloboy100]

I do think the scale is fine, since knowing the shear size of some fighters like the ursa, they are pretty damn big. I mean, according to the FS1 menu screen, with the Herc, it seems to be about 8-10 meters long in itself. So if the Freespace 2 engine is a little inaccurate, we can credit it must be pretty close knowing the time the game was created.

[CP5670]

Apart from the FOV adjustments (which I don't like due to the blurry backgrounds they lead to), detail texturing on capital ships would help a lot with this if it ever gets implemented into FS2. One reason the scale looks so off is that the capital ship textures become very blurry as you go close to them. For example, if you could see small details on an Orion's runway streaking by at high speed as you flew on it, it would greatly enhance the sensation of both scale and speed.

[Flipside]

I certainly used to have depth-of-field problems when flying close to large capital ships, it was always kind of hard to know where you were in reference to the blurry 3 triangles that loomed in front of you.

[Col. Fishguts]

I do think the scale is fine, since knowing the shear size of some fighters like the ursa, they are pretty damn big. I mean, according to the FS1 menu screen, with the Herc, it seems to be about 8-10 meters long in itself. So if the Freespace 2 engine is a little inaccurate, we can credit it must be pretty close knowing the time the game was created.

[Snail]

I was going to make a picture of me in Paris with the Eiffel tower looming over, and then put a Sath spire behind it.

[TrashMan]

 

Isn't a Fenris/Leviathan supposed to be 300 meters or summtin? Teh Ursa is what? 45? 54?
Something looks helluva wierd there...

[Shade]

Yep, according to modelview, it's 54. And the Fenris is about 250. Seems to fit well enough with the second image.

[Snail]

Yep, according to modelview, it's 54. And the Fenris is about 250. Seems to fit well enough with the second image.

Umm modelview includes the thruster pume.

[Shade]

Fine, subtract 10% or whatever. Still fits with the image. On my screen, for example, the Ursa is 26mm long and the Fenris is 155mm long. And damn you for making me dig out a ruler I hadn't used in 4 years

[Col. Fishguts]

Isn't a Fenris/Leviathan supposed to be 300 meters or summtin? Teh Ursa is what? 45? 54?
Something looks helluva wierd there...

The Fenris belongs to the 2nd pic with the top-down view.

In a side view it looks like this:

All FS ships are 100% to scale to each other. The 747 is as close as I could get it (should be within 1%)

[akenbosch]

how about the lt. ashj too appollo scale example in the fs1 intro?

[Agent_Koopa]

I was going to make a picture of me in Paris with the Eiffel tower looming over, and then put a Sath spire behind it.

Well, what stopped you?