"Curtis L. Olson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Andy Ross writes: > > This is mind bogglingly easy to fix. But what is the desired > > behavior? What I want is a limit that will tell me when I've zoomed > > to as far as a human pilot would actually be able to see from the > > cockpit. > > > > What do you guys want? If you want to overzoom only from the > > non-cockpit views (which aren't "realistic" anyway), then we can > > predicate it on the current view number. If you want to ignore the > > feature, we can make a simple preference property. If you want both, > > then we need to decide on a more complicated interface. > > > > Again, IMHO it's a realism thing. Computer monitors don't have the > > spacial resolution that an eye does, so we have to allow for zoom. > > But pilots don't usually have telescopes in the cockpit, so it should > > by default be limited to something approximating real life. > > >From my perspective the issue is flexibility and differentiating > between "policy" and "capabilities". > > I also don't think the "realism" argument should trump everything > else. We do a *lot* of things for the sake of convenience. Is > starting up in flight on a 7 mile final realistic? Is teleporting to > the other side of the world realistic? Is accelerating time > realistic? Is landing a helicopter on a 747 wing realistic? For that > matter, is flying under a bridge something a person would > realistically do in real life? Is being able to swivel my view (aka > head) in multiple 360 degree circles a realistic thing? Perhaps it > would be better not to answer that one. :-) > > There are a lot of cases where convenience, training value, or the > limits of a PC computer will trump "realism".
Agreed. My feeling in fact, when it comes to visuals, is that the PC is drastically limited in that department (for most users anyway) and that it is appropriate to augment in other ways to give a reasonable flight experience. A good example is making the tires sqeak when you hit the ground, because it is otherwise difficult to tell on most PCs that you have touched down. > I think it's very clever to be able to figure out the maximum real > world resolution a pilot would have, but perhaps the little poppup > message would say "overzoom xyz" when you get past the real world > physical limitation. > > Being able to zoom way in is at least useful for taking screen shots > and debugging scenery construction problems. In real life there > exists some pretty amazing cameras and telescopes so it's not entirely > unrealistic to allow arbitrary zooms. Even from a cockpit view you > might consider that a passenger has some super telephoto lens on their > camera, and the air is still, etc. > > Maybe we want to some day simulate the camera view from a UAV. It's > not inconceivable that such a camera would have significant telephoto > abilities and be mounted on some sort of gyro stabilization platform. > Ways I use the zoom are as follows: 1) In cockpit view, to spot scenery objects that are ordinarily invisible. For example I found the sailboat the other day using telephoto zoom. 2) In external/chase view to examine geometry glitches in models. 3) In tower/RC view because I often loose the aircraft. In the real world it'd really be gone :-) But on my PC I've got a chance to get it back by hitting the zoom. Like I said at the start of this thread, this is a very nice feature. I'm also anxious to try some of the scripting out with the model animations as soon as "real work" eases a bit. As for FOV though, about 0.1 degree would be my choice for a min, without any other parameter tweaks. Best, Jim _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
