Canopy crazing/reflections are breaking the game.experience.

L39 is almost unusable from the back seat in VR the pseudo reflections are so bad. Crazing on the Harrier is also really bad and watching the Livestream the F18 looks bad. I know your programmers appear to be very attached to these effects but no Western Aircraft has a canopy that is this bad.

Please can you give us a clear canopy option so we can fly with a realistic canopy in VR if we mod it it breaks the integrity check.

Ok this is an update I just did a check in the Harrier and by moving my head towards and away from the canopy you can see the difference. Problem is that the massive amount of crazing is from your normal head position.

It's not unrealistic to have the scratches and so forth on the canopy. Literally every aircraft has that sort of thing. Watch virtually any video of any aircraft, new or old, and when the light hits it just right you can see that stuff all over it. Belief otherwise is simply mythology.

That said, most times when I've seen people complaining about it, it's usually a glitch or some such. For example, I remember one where it was a small, repeating pattern, hundreds of times across the canopy. It was obviously a mistake in the texture or something.

A lot of the aircraft haven't had their textures updated yet since the engine swap, causing all kinds of issues, weird colors, (most likely the weird reflections you're referring to) etc. I haven't played lately so I don't know what the status is now, but I know MiG-29 and Su-25T both had completely borked canopy reflections that made them unusable.

The scratches themselves are not likely to go away, nor should they. In many cases they do need fixing, though.

Yep the fixed reflections are the main problem in the L39. In the Harrier and crazing is unrealistic I know because I have a fair amount of time in Western fighters and I never flew an Aircraft with a canopy that was anything close to as bad as those in DCS. It could be that VR accentuates what ED intended, either way it's really annoying and breaks the immersion so a clean canopy option would still really be appreciated.

I fly the Harrier in VR daily and I do not see the issue as described.

When I look into the sun or the lighting hits it just right, I like the crazing I see.

Go figure.

I think the crazing is way overdone also. I agree there should be an option to turn it off and still pass integrity check. In real life your focus is on objects very distant so crazing is less noticeable to your eyes. But on the computer (I fly VR), everything is in focus so its very distracting.

So anyways Windy flew fighters for 10 years.. Maybe Russian planes have their stuff all scratched to hell, but not the stuff he flew..

I agree. The "scratches" in VR are much too wide and also white and opaque. It's difficult to spot something the size of a house when those scratches are in view! The crazing should be about a pixel wide and should be translucent, not stark white.

The screenshots posted perfectly display the problem. If you took a knife and spent hours scratching a real canopy, it wouldn't be as sight obscuring as that effect is.

I don't notice this problem in any of the FC3 aircraft, only the L39 and the Harrier so far.

The Mig-15 is really bad in VR too. Sometimes you can barely see out.

This has rendered, for me at least several modules unflyable worst is Mig-15

Is this still some effect that comes from the update? I can remember to many scratches in 1.5 but did not remember sun reflections to be a problem.

There is a thing that could lead to this problem: when you sit in the cockpit irl, your eyes will adjust to things far away and ignore those things near to you. Even if ED takes videos and models it after those, it would be likely overdone because the cameras are often adjusted to the cockpit and not to infinity.

In the f16 video the pilot would have no trouble looking through the reflections from his displays, etc. In dcs we can't refocus our eyes and wouldn't be able to ignore the reflection.

What makes things worse, clouds are completely ignored in this calculation. I flew the 39 on an completely overcast day and got blinded by my canopy that showed "reflections" from the sunlight that was not there. At night the flares from the flare dispenser illuminated the scratches on the canopy so bright that I was unable to differ between flares and scratches.

Ed should think about

A. removing these effects until a solution is found

or B. allowing the user to select how strong these effects are

Edit. Just noticed this is under VR. But I think this effects all setups.

The Mig-15 is really bad in VR too. Sometimes you can barely see out.

Just like the real thing then. :music_whistling:

So here is my two cents. I worked on F-18 canopies in the Navy for seven years and I can tell you, yes all canopies have small amounts of micro/fine scratches in them. However crazing is something completely and they are rare. What DCS is trying to do is have the micro/fine scratches in the canopy. Howerever the effect isn’t realistic nor are the reflections. They are really bad at night as well. This needs to be addressed and I’m sure it will be. But a quick fix would be to allow the option to remove the reflections and scratches.

They should just remove it until they can get it right. So annoying and unrealistic.

Not really an issue for some. I dont mind it. I actually like it.

Real world is real world. Everything will not be a perfect representation. To me its a small thing that does not affect my experience.

Maybe over time these things will be ironed out but its out there for now with no need to beat these small things to death. So as the sim evolves, maybe these imperfections that bother some will be polished over time. Ill probably be pushing up daisies before DCS is perfected.

Not only in VR, it's also a problem on monitors. Scratches are too thick and obstructive, might have seemed like a cool idea initially but it's really overdone and disruptive. ED should really consider toning this down...

+1

Agreed, Any canopy that looked like that would be red X'd (written up as a discrepancy) in about 2 seconds.

Yea agreed its too much, Every periodic inspection on the Hornet (600hrs) the windscreen and canopy are removed and sent to the shop to be buffed and replaced it scratches are too bad and can't be buffed out. Now though with lack of parts it might be getting more realistic ha.

When flying the Mirage I was getting what I feel was excessive sunlight reflections on the instruments and canopy. I tried the helmet sun visor and it took care of the problem. Not sure if the other problem aircraft have the visor option, but it's worth a try.

I only fly in VR and will be doing some more tweaking. Load times are much improved with this update. Happy so far.

Good video here.. There are some little nicks here and there but nothing like DCS has.. Check it out>>

There you can see the scratches against sun. But we have those alike on anything, and especially nice you can see those like a sun would be lighting them.

And then there is simple thing as human eye, as you can focus through such glass, but not in the game as everything is in focus. So it is fairly unrealistic to have them so strongly.

So here is my two cents. I worked on F-18 canopies in the Navy for seven years and I can tell you, yes all canopies have small amounts of micro/fine scratches in them. However crazing is something completely and they are rare. What DCS is trying to do is have the micro/fine scratches in the canopy. Howerever the effect isn’t realistic nor are the reflections. They are really bad at night as well. This needs to be addressed and I’m sure it will be. But a quick fix would be to allow the option to remove the reflections and scratches.

Agreed, Any canopy that looked like that would be red X'd (written up as a discrepancy) in about 2 seconds.

Yea agreed its too much, Every periodic inspection on the Hornet (600hrs) the windscreen and canopy are removed and sent to the shop to be buffed and replaced it scratches are too bad and can't be buffed out. Now though with lack of parts it might be getting more realistic ha.

Everyone has different experiences. To me it looks normal from my experience working F-16 and F-117. Some aircraft have flown combat with canopies like that.

This is from F-16.net, aircraft 90-0778 details

The canopy was so bad that Lt. Col North (at that time) stated "it was like landing with a paper bag on your head.

http://www.f-16.net/aircraft-database/F-16/airframe-profile/3150/

My experience was 16 years flying in the RAF including 10 years on the Tornado F3. I never flew an Aircraft that came close to having the crazing we see in DCS.

Not sure if anyone in ED cares to comment but some Aircraft had some terrible pseudo reflections introduced a while ago, I am thinking of the UH1 and they were subsequently toned down to a more reasonable level ( As in you can see the ground through them ).

While I understand the graphics designers concentrate on Flat screen play used by the majority, VR head position seems to magnify the problem of the crazing and thanks to the integrity check we need ED to fix it if like me you spend most of your time in Multiplayer servers.

Please note this problem appears to be magnified in VR if you are using TIR you are probably not seeing the same amount of crazing. VR only uses about half of you screen area you see on the monitor and magnifies the crazing problem in doing so.