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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Who wants a pilot / copilot in the VC ?

Pilot / Copilot in VC

  • Yes

    Votes: 54 45.4%

  • No

    Votes: 65 54.6%
  • Total voters
    119
  • Poll closed .
No.

It is especially awkward when you look down and see legs with a hollow body. I don't understand why a developer couldn't include two versions though.
 
As an artist and now a developer, I have had to deal with this question many MANY times. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t have a pilot at all, but its not about what I want, but what the customer wants.

I personally will never have pilots, copilots, or passengers in the aircraft for VC for MANY reasons.

#1, visibility. As a pilot in FSX, you need to have visual access to every nook and cranny since they hide buttons EVERYWHERE. I know that there are ways around it like camera's and views, but having a user constantly having to think of ways around your artwork means your art is getting in the way. Not something I like.

#2, Seatbelts. I know it sounds like a small thing, but its a real PAIN to model fabric seatbelts, and a harness? UGH! Gives me fits to even think about.

#3, Animation. Its really hard to rig up a pilots arms and legs, but we do it for the external model. We CAN keep it for the internal model, but that leaves #4

#4, Continuity. This one is hard to explain. Basically the pilots hands would be locked to the stick the entire time. So when YOU are adjusting the throttle, the PILOT does not. His hands are still on the stick, yet the throttle moves? Thats braking continuity. Your no longer the pilot, and a ghost is moving the throttle. It would be cool to animate something that the pilots hands reach for whatever your doing, but its almost impossible and would suffer from lag. It takes time to animate the pilots hands moving from the stick too the throttle. Since we cant predict your throttle commands, the throttle will move BEFORE his hands get there. Also, what if the switch is out of reach? Do we have him lean over? Maybe a co-pilot do it? It will take more time to animate pilots and copilots then modeling the ENTIRE AIRCRAFT. That would DOUBLE the price of a product EASY.

#5, Head. If you see your body, and your in the head, what do you do for the neck when you look down? This is why FPS games DONT HAVE BODY's! If the user looks down far enough, he will see into his own neck. Do we have a body with no neck? Or maybe just a bloody stump? There is no answer to this, so every game has left the body out.

Ultimately, there are just WAY TOO MANY PROBLEMS introduced with the addition of pilot/copilot models in the VC. Its just too much work for very little return. Something like A2A's Cub is cool since the female passanger is mostly out of the way, but other then that, I stay away from pilots in VC.

Just my professional opinion.

P.S. I almost forgot an important one! Performance! VS's are VERY complex, and so are PEOPLE. To have both would kill frame rate.
 
In the VC, yes, I would like to see the copilot, crew and passengers. But not the pilot. Especially in larger aircraft, I get that lonely feeling with out a visible crew.
 
If the passengers are like Heidi providing feedback, then I like them. Just sitting there is not interesting. Actually unmoving passengers are like corpses.
 
I voted "No". Put the effort into other cockpit details.
I do like to see a full crew in external views however.
:ernae:
 
Thats another good point. The more detail we put into passangers, the less time we have for the aircraft itself. We budget a fixed ammount of time, so if we added time, we would need to add to the price of the product. Im sure there are some people out there willing to pay 5-10$ more for animated passangers, but would that number outweigh the people who would rather save 5-10$ for NOT having them? Thats a good question, and will leave that up too the customers.
 
I voted "yes", but they need to be well done, and removable.

I don't see the point in putting crew / passengers in the external view, and not in the VC view as well. The pilot is an exception, and should be left out of the VC though.
 
Where there's a will, there's a way.

When making movies, there's a couple different ways of adding crew to the scene.

View attachment 46260

Sometimes it's a good thing not to have a crew member in the original model, makes post-production a lot easier.

View attachment 46261

This way is my favorite. The external model of the pilot in the Lysander was mapped in such a way that you couldn't just paint a white harness on the texture map. So using FS-Recorder, I had a model of just the harness flying in close formation with the model of the Lysander

View attachment 46262
 
Surprisingly in some aircraft, such as the F86, being able to see "your body" moving the stick and rudders added a lot of realism. In those small cockpits you are yourself a good portion of the scenery! I'm not large, but do a decent job of filling the Supercub Cockpit, have no idea what it is like for my larger friends!

In a larger cockpit such as the 747, you really don't notice yourself as much of a presence.

T
 
Think I'd have to say "no"....not from inside the VC.

Now, looking at the A/C externally, "probably".
 
I prefer to see the pilot/passengers from the VC. I feel like I'm in a totally radio controlled movie type aircraft set when I can't see my legs/hands & arms. Having them removeable by switch/weight/etc is a good idea. As to finding things/moving parts out of way, an invisible switch when moving eyepoint closer/zooming in should work. Same goes for when using Track IR, that would temporarily turn off the body parts.
 
Yesterday I made another flight with the A2A B-17 Accusim. Hearing the crew talking but not seeing anybody in the cockpit (and turrets) is just a total frustration. Once again, I would love to see animated crew in my planes, with a swith to make them disappear when I'm sitting at their place.
 
Daube said:
Yesterday I made another flight with the A2A B-17 Accusim. Hearing the crew talking but not seeing anybody in the cockpit (and turrets) is just a total frustration. Once again, I would love to see animated crew in my planes, with a swith to make them disappear when I'm sitting at their place.
Click to expand...

One issue with that is that you'll mostly likely animate them using skinned mesh animations.
In return you can't use visibility tags as it doesn't go well along with skinned mesh animations but need to hide the extra guys guys somewhere in the fuselage when needed/requested.
That means the paxe's will always drain some ressources, regardless of wether they are visible or not.
 
I don't think those passengers will drain so much ressources. Heidi is switchable and hidding somewhere in the back of the Cub, and the performance is nothing critical. I understand, of course, that the performance could become a serious problem in a liner where several passengers would have to be modelled, but in a regular GA or military plane, we're talking about something like 1, 2, 3 or 4 passengers in the cabin at maximum, and they won't need billions polys each.
 
Daube said:
I don't think those passengers will drain so much ressources. Heidi is switchable and hidding somewhere in the back of the Cub, and the performance is nothing critical. I understand, of course, that the performance could become a serious problem in a liner where several passengers would have to be modelled, but in a regular GA or military plane, we're talking about something like 1, 2, 3 or 4 passengers in the cabin at maximum, and they won't need billions polys each.
Click to expand...

If you want to see them in the VC they'd need a considerable amount of modelling and texture detail, thus they do_cause_drain. I'd rather spend my shader budget elsewhere, tu be true.
Heidi, ah well, you just see her from the rear. It's a different thing when you look at your side- or back seaters.
 
You get multiple views from the VC, and when you look at her from all angles, there are no modelling problems that are really noticable. I guess you are perhaps over-estimating the necessary level of details for those animated passengers. Heidi looks good but she's doesn't seem to be a dramatic amount of polys, nor does she use ultra-high resolution textures.

This discussion is very interesting. I think I'm going to reproduce it on the A2A forums to get some more informations on this details/performance ratio.
 
it also depends on taste and preferences a little bit, some would be perfectly happy with Heidi, whilst others wouldnt be happy unless you could see every imperfection in the skin :engel016:
 
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