A smeared Label mod (2.5).

Have been flying in VR for almost two years now, and prior to that another 2 years or so on 40" 1080p TV with Track IR. The last week, Ive been jumping between TIR and VR, for spotting purposes, to see how big a difference there actually is between the two. And I actually found there is very little difference for the actual spotting part (The visual ID, thats the hard bit in VR). Its just as hard on monitor/TV, as in VR. The other plane disappears in the same way at the same distance, and is super hard to re-acquire again, inside a certain distance. Easier when contrasted against the sky obviously, but against the ground, ouf, tuff.

So that had me thinking, what could actually be done to improve this 'deadzone', what would make the plane stand out more, without becoming super intrusive. It needed contrast, and I thought, maybe if there was like a drop shadow around it, faint. Then I remembered there was a blur option in the label file, and figured, lets blur the dot. So I started experimenting. I wanted something that works well for both monitor and VR. And well, what I came up with I have attached here. I wouldnt mind the VR 'smudge' being smaller, but then it becomes too small for monitor imo. Can just change the font size if you want to experiment a little on that. 11 is the font size. (2 is the blur pass)

font_properties =  {"DejaVuLGCSans.ttf", 11, 0, 0, 2}

I tried taking screenshots, but it really doesnt show well. Has to be seen/experienced in motion. It doesnt start to fade in until aprox 10km distance, and then its very faint. Its peak is at 2km, and then it fades out to nothing again. I find this label mods advantage is, that its still very easy to not find the plane again. Keep your eyes locked on the plane, and its much easier to track it, and keep it in sight, even inside the 'deadzone', but look away, and it can easily vanish. Happened to me a lot during testing, when not really knowing where to look exactly. Really hard to put in words, have to try it out. I find it works really well, without become 'dot wars'. Trying to find a balance between too helpful and not assisting enough.

Ground targets have this label too, but its much harder to come up with something that works really well, cause ground targets are often grouped within a small area, and each label for each unit appears on top of each other, so it quickly becomes are strong smudge. So I just lowered the opacity for ground targets. Is really ment for air to air, more than anything though, but I left ground stuff in.

I recommend for testing purpose, use some of the Instant Action stuff, cause if you use custom missions, that you might have downloaded, they could be using their own label mod - goes for multiplayer too.

Remember to enable labels in your options. It has to be ticked, or they wont show - even if you LSHIFT+F10 in game.

Save it in your ..C:\Users\'Username'\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\View

There, try it, like it, hate it, burn me at the stake. But please try it before just dismissing it.

Might work for 1.58 and 2.2 too, havent tried.

Labels.lua

Just tried it in VR, couldn't see any labels at all.

Just tried it in VR, couldn't see any labels at all.

same here

I can't see anything on the ground but in the air it is there. The effect is very subtle so it doesn't pop up like the normal labels. If you do a fly by view you will notice it. I think it will be hard to spot when you don't know where to look.

That was kinda the idea with it. Just assist with spotting when in close, in the merge bubble, and even there, its just hinting its presence. Aint meant for spotting at great distance. Have to know where to look still.

Easy to make the label stand out like a sore thumb, and make spotting super easy, at any distance.

Lets call it a subtle spotting assist. Works well in a merge I think, hence why I posted it. Not chasing a clear big dot, but a subtle drop shadow or SSAO looking thing.

And Ive been using it/testing it the last few days with 2 friends online, also using VR. They both see the label, and it assists them in the merge.

And distance quickly becomes surprisingly long. During testing I estimated something to be 5 km away, but often was twice that - and there the labels dont kick in.

Regarding the ground. Maybe its current state only works with multiple units in a small area, so that label dots get on top of each other. I only tested it with a F-5E ground attack instant action.

Works great in VR. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks man !

So I do not have a View folder in my config folder, do I need to create one?

I play mostly WW2 and it increase the visibility, great! thanks!

So I do not have a View folder in my config folder, do I need to create one?

It will get created if you define a snapview for any aircraft, else you can create the folder manually using windows.

Thanks this is way better just what I needed and exactly the kind of solution I was looking for.

Dude, I'm a year late (and then some) to the VR party (never going back to TIR). This is a great mod: simple and effective. Nice work.

Hi, is it a way to change X in Labels.lua : font_properties = {"DejaVuLGCSans.ttf", X, 0, 0, 0}

dependind on target distance ?

Hi, is it a way to change X in Labels.lua : font_properties = {"DejaVuLGCSans.ttf", X, 0, 0, 0}

dependind on target distance ?

No, unfortunateky not. But you can use different sized symbols (like o and ° or *and ' ) for near and far.

Together with transparency and color blending every 100 meters (near) over every 200 meters to 500 meters (far) I could get pretty good results...

Do we have a kind soul who can post some screenshots?

Great mod ! :thumbup:

Finally WVR in DCS is playable for me. The visibility of objects is a (the ?) great weakness of DCS.

I used PhilStyle's mission to improve the graphics settings but in contrary to him the best FOV in my case was 170° (yes, fully zoomed out). And I could only barely spot the planes at around 13 nm and below the horizon/over land only at around 10 miles (half the distance he could).

So it's clear that visibility in this game is different for each player. Before tinkering any further with the graphics settings now, I'll use this mod instead. Unfortunately the default settings for Dots and labels just turn this game into arcade.