[TEC] Periscope fields of view - SH4 vs SH3

[panthercules]

Just been toying around, testing a few things out with my current RFB 1.26 install, and I started wondering if the ships really looked right in the scopes - just something gnawing at me about the sizes not looking quite "right" (compared to my memories of how they looked in SH3 anyway), so I decided to do some tests>

I set up a couple of simple missions in SH4 and SH3, each using a British Liberty cargo positioned as close to 1,000 yards away from my sub as I could get it (this was my first try playing with the mission editor in either sim - lost my first German sub to gunfire from the Liberty ship, after which I figured out how to start my u-boat at periscope depth ). Anyway, as you can see from the series of screenshots below, something odd does seem to be going on with the ship images in SH4 (w/RFB 1.26) compared to SH3:

SH4 Attack Scope at 6X:



SH3 Attack Scope at 6X:



SH4 Attack Scope at 1.5X:



SH3 Attack Scope at 1.5X:



As you can see, at 6X magnification the ship almost exactly fills up the scope view screen in SH4, but way more than fills up the view screen in SH3 (so, the ship "looks" larger at 6X in SH3 than in SH4). BUT, at 1.5X, the situation is reversed - in SH3, the ship spans about 40 degrees (based on the bearing scale at top), but in SH4 the ship spans about 60 degrees (so, the ship "looks" larger at 1.5X in SH4 than in SH3).

Is there any reason for this to be occurring, or is this an indication that something is "wrong" with the scope view implementation in SH4 (or SH3 maybe)? NOTE - as it turns out, I'm running RFB 1.26 with the "Betterscopes 1.2 Worn" mod on top of it, (and GWX Expansion on my SH3 install) so maybe it's something related to that particular setup - if I get time tomorrow I may try this with the stock versions and see what happens. Just wondering if anybody else has seen any anomalies like this with their setup.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=115525

Try that thread. I think this is what your looking for

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Mav87th

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=115525

Try that thread. I think this is what your looking for

Thanks for the tip - unfortunately, I tried those settings and I got the same results as before (and I did move the "copy of" file that minitweaker makes out of the SH4 folders onto my desktop, so hopefully the game wouldn't try to use the old settings still) with the attack periscope. Also, another odd thing is the the view in the obs scope is now essentially the same as in the attack scope (see pictures below):

Obs scope at 4X:



Obs Scope at 1X:



I would have thought that the image in the Obs scope should be smaller, given the weaker magnification it should have compared to the attack scope. Wonder what's going on here? - guess I'll try some different tweak numbers and see what happens.

[panthercules]

Hmmmm - curiouser and curiouser. :hmm:

I tried changing the obs scope min/max zoom numbers to .5 and 2, thinking that would make the image smaller - but no change. Then I tried boosting them to 2/10, but again, no change. (and this time, I just deleted the old "copy of" files that minitweaker made). I don't get it.

I guess I'll drop back to the stock cameras.dat and see what that does.

[panthercules]

Ok - dropping back to stock cameras.dat fixed at least part of the issue - the obs scope images now appear to be suitably smaller than the attack scope images - see screenshots below:

SH4 attack scope at 1.5X:



SH4 obs scope at 1.0X:



SH4 attack scope at 6X:



SH4 obs scope at 4X:



It's a start anyway

[edit] it's still exhibiting the oddity that in the attack scope the image looks bigger in SH4 (than in SH3) at 1.5X but smaller in SH4 (than in SH3) at 6X. In the obs scope, the image looks bigger in SH4 at 1X and at 4X. Very strange. Oh well - at least the obs scope is back to looking more "right" compared to the attack scope - guess I'll just have to forget how they used to look in SH3 and get used to how they look in SH4. After staring through those SH3 scopes for a couple of years, I was hoping I wouldn't have to recalibrate my eyes to be able to guesstimate ranges in SH4, but unless someone can tell me why changing the zoom numbers doesn't seem to work and how to make the ship images a little smaller (which, now that I think about it, doesn't sound like that great an idea anyway), looks like I'll have to just re-train my eyes.

What your looking for is AngularAngle. If that does not match an 8deg FOV lens at the correct zoom level you wont get squad from changing zoom.

Try to install my camaras.dat file and see how that works.

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Mav87th

What your looking for is AngularAngle. If that does not match an 8deg FOV lens at the correct zoom level you wont get squad from changing zoom.

Try to install my camaras.dat file and see how that works.

Well, I tried that but no joy. As you will note from the screenshots below, the ship is back to looking as big or bigger in the Obs scope than it does in the attack scope - that just doesn't seem right to me given the lower magnification the obs scope is supposed to have:

Obs scope at 1x with Mav's camera.dat:



Attack scope at 1.5x with Mav's camera.dat:



Obs scope at 4x with Mav's camera.dat:



Attack scope at 6x with Mav's camera.dat:



Not sure what's going on here, but I guess it's back to stock camera.dat for me at this point unless someone has some other suggestions.

Too mee it looks like you have botched the installation of the Better Scopes - perhaps having them switched around.

Appart from that - there is no x1 or x4 zoom in my mod.

The observation scope and the attack scope both had x1,5 and x6 as zoom's. This is reflected in my mod. Further the binocular and the TBT both have x7 in zoom.

The reason that the ships are slightly larger in the observation scope is that the scope image (the hole you look out of) is slightly larger. Thus the angularangle needs to be adjusted acordingly so the ships present them selfs correctly at any given range.

no matter what the ticks in the scope should cover X amount of feet at Y range. This is measured in both degrees (angular field of view) and in feet (linieer field of view). Both scopes have a angular field of view of 8 deg. at high power (x6) and 32 deg. in low power (x1,5)

For example, in hight power with 8 deg. (angular) field of view has a (linear) field of view of 419,4 feet per 1000 yards. Meening a target of 420 ft. in lenght placed at a range of 1000 yards should touch both the left and right side of the periscope view.

As long as the FOV is less than about 10 degrees or so, the following approximation formulas allow one to convert between linear and angular field of view.
Let A be the angular field of view in degrees. Let L be the linear field of view in feet per 1000 yards. Let M be the linear field of view in millimeters per meter. Then:




"

[panthercules]

Thanks for the explanation - I was basing my labels of 1x/4x and 1.5x/6x on info I had seen online as far as what magnification levels the US scopes had, not what was stated in the mods - I'll have to recheck that research to see if it was wrong or I mis-remembered it (either of which is quite possible).

I sort of understand what you're saying about the angular settings and FOV and touching edges of scopes view etc., but even taking that into account as best I can at this point, it still seems counterintuitive that any image of a ship at a lower magnification would look bigger than the image of the same ship at a higher magnification - this may be something like the binocular view issue, where you know that things don't really look like that (sideways figure eight shape) when you actually look through a real pair of binoculars, but TV, movies and games have used that shape view mask for so long that it feels more natural/right to see it represented that way in game than it would if it were more circular.

At any rate, I've loaded up RFB 1.28 which I believe has your camera.dat settings and stuff in it, so I'll try that without any further tweaks and see how things look.

You are absolutely right about the "thing" should look bigger in HIGH power then it will in low power.

High power being x6 in any US scope durring WWII and x1.5 being low power.

A simple source would be the Submarine manual for periscopes.
http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/pscope/index.htm

4 different scopes are mentioned in it.

Have fun

[panthercules]

Intriguing link - that manual clearly indicates that at least those particular US scopes used the same magnification levels (1.5x and 6x) for both the attack scope and the obs/night scope. I really thought I had seen somewhere that the US used the same approach as the Germans did (reducing magnification) to get more light into their obs/night scope, but from that manual it looks like they didn't. I'll have to see if I can find what I'd found before that made me think that.

Of course, if the magnification levels are the same it would make more sense for the images in the obs scope not to be smaller than the attack scope, like I was thinking they should be. One thing that was weird - from that manual, it looked like it was actually the attack scope that was able to tilt higher and look for planes, and not the obs scope (like it was in the German scopes, apparently) - that would actually seem to make more sense, given that the obs/night scope would be used at night (when planes would be less likely to be up there to spot) and the attack scope (being smaller) would leave less of a wake and be less likely to be spotted by the planes you were trying to spot with it.

I understand that the betterscopes mod is supposed to make the images through the attack scope darker to simulate the obs/night scope letting in more light. Does the game model a higher chance for detection when using the obs/night scope? Does your camera mod reduce the vertical elevation/visibility of the obs scope so you can't really use it to scan the skies as well, and increase it for the attack scope? It seems like given the differences in US scope implementation, it should call for some changes in the way we use these scopes in game, compared to what we got used to in SH3.

As I read the manual the observation scope had the highest tilt angle, but the attack scope were allso able to tilt quite a bit.

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by Mav87th

As I read the manual the observation scope had the highest tilt angle, but the attack scope were allso able to tilt quite a bit.

Well, I'm not completely sure if I was reading it right, 'cause I'm not sure about what that middle one ( 92KA40T/1.99 PERISCOPE) really was, but the attack one (91KA40T/1.414HA PERISCOPE) had a "High Angle" (HA) designation and gave specs for large max elevation vertical angle of view, whereas the obs/night one (93KN36 PERISCOPE) gave specs for a much lower max elevation angle, from which I based my comments in the earlier post. Interesting reading, though a bit technical - I may give it another go later this week.

[elanaiba]

http://rapidshare.com/files/35332490/Cameras.dat.html

Try this cameras.dat file and let me know how the ships look through the scopes

[CaptainCox]

NOT FAIR!!!!! Dev's doing mods now!



Hahaha way to go man!