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HUD not readable in or near thick clouds


Bog9y

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Yeah, but in the other sim you can change the color too. Between the color change and visor I can always find a combo that I can see.

 

DCS is made for those with good vision only. I bet if Wags had bad vision it wouldn't be the way it is.

Buzz

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If you ask me, this color change feature should have been removed a long time ago in favor of a proper fix. An heresy in flight simulation.

 

I used to think the same way. Then I got old and my vision got much worse. Trying to fly when you can't read the HUD is hopeless. It's also zero fun. If i'm not having fun I won't do something. I doubt a real fighter pilot would fly if they couldn't read the HUD. So, how real is this?

 

Why is the Hornet and A-10C HUD easier to read?

 

btw......What do you call a proper fix?

Buzz

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I used to think the same way. Then I got old and my vision got much worse. Trying to fly when you can't read the HUD is hopeless. It's also zero fun. If i'm not having fun I won't do something. I doubt a real fighter pilot would fly if they couldn't read the HUD. So, how real is this?

 

 

 

Why is the Hornet and A-10C HUD easier to read?

 

 

 

btw......What do you call a proper fix?

Might be that the "unreadable" HUD in BMS is much more prominent compared to DCS, and adding colors is a cheapo way to get away with it. But seriously, BMS (basically a 1998 release) is "free", paid for it twice myself 'cause I can't find the original disc, but I have the original manual.

As for the colors, whatever floats your boat. If it ain't realistic. Don't use it. Even Falcon 3.0 could change colors. There is probably a good reason why HUDs are green, but quite honestly in DCS the Spitfire sight is not green, and my bimmer HUD is sort of orange. Go figure. Wish I could change it.

 

Sent from my ANE-LX1 using Tapatalk

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I used to think the same way. Then I got old and my vision got much worse. Trying to fly when you can't read the HUD is hopeless. It's also zero fun. If i'm not having fun I won't do something. I doubt a real fighter pilot would fly if they couldn't read the HUD. So, how real is this?

 

Why is the Hornet and A-10C HUD easier to read?

 

btw......What do you call a proper fix?

Or you could just man up and fly something without a HUD; steam gauges build character. As far as bad vision - read up on Jabara during the Korean war; blind as a bat and almost more dangerous to his wingmen than the bad guys, but still an ace in the F-86.

 

Seriously, real HUDs can be a real pain to use in changing backgrounds, and a helmet visor doesn't help that problem at all, it just makes everything darker. You learn to deal with it. As far as different colors, we are just now starting to see different colors used in the latest digital HMDs like the JHMCS2 - mainly to differentiate between friendly and hostile symbology - much like the reason color MPDs are absolutely necessary now. Would not be surprised to see the use of color extend to HUD in the future (although if the F-35 is any indication, the HUD may be on the way out...).

 

But glad you finally broke down and picked up the Viper - just turn the stupid HUD off and go fly!

 

Cheers,

 

Vulture

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Seems fine to me tbh.

 

ED is trying to simulate sunlight, sunlight reflecting off clouds, sunlight passing through polarized glass, and the green light being reflected onto your hud... all with your computer monitor.

 

I love BMS more than the average guy, but they are just putting green letters on your monitor. As was the style at the time (due to DX7).

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@BuzzU

 

I just had a quick look at some of the game files and it appears the F-16 HUD symbology is slightly transparent whereas the F/A-18 and A-10 HUDs are not. To me it is a very minor difference but maybe that's the reason why it is easier for you. If you go to your mods/aircraft/F-16C/Cockpit/Scripts folder and open materials.lua you can change the color and transparency of the HUD and HMD yourself and see if it helps any.

 

The lines to edit would be line 24:

materials["HUD"]						= {2, 255, 20, 200}

and line 56:

materials["HMD_SYMBOLOGY_MATERIAL"]		= {2, 255, 20, 255}

 

The first number is the red value, the second number is the green value, the third number is the blue value, and the last number is the transparency value. I believe 0 is the minimum value for each and 255 is the maximum value for each.

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After flying the DCS version of the Viper I noticed something. When the HUD becomes washed out it can still be read if I zoom in close enough. I always thought that wasn't realistic and wanted to avoid it.

 

This video changed my mind about getting close. Look how close this pilot is to the HUD. He can easily lean into it and get really close. It's way closer than most if not all DCS pilots are away from the HUD.

 

I won't feel bad about getting close anymore and my normal seating position will be much closer now. If needed it will be easy to zoom in really close.

 

Check it out.

 


Edited by BuzzU

Buzz

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Then explain why the Hornet is much easier to see? Maybe the real Viper is hard to read too but why? What's the point of making the HUD harder to read? What positive advantage does that have?

 

 

No matter. I'll fly the HOG or maybe go back to my roots and fly the Jug. I'm getting too old for modern fighters.

Buzz

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No matter. I'll fly the HOG or maybe go back to my roots and fly the Jug. I'm getting too old for modern fighters.

Why not just take a momentary break from the HUD, when it's obscured, and look at the round gauges in the cockpit? Instead of throwing the whole airplane back in the hangar...

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Why not just take a momentary break from the HUD, when it's obscured, and look at the round gauges in the cockpit? Instead of throwing the whole airplane back in the hangar...

 

Looking at the gauges won't help when i'm in a dogfight.

 

Maybe flying the Hornet is a better choice for me. I just tried to look at the same conditions in the Hornet and I can still read the HUD. I can read the HUD fine in the other sim when I want to fly the Viper. I'm going to park the DCS Viper and wait and see if they do anything in the future to make the HUD more readable. If they don't I threw away $40.

 

Lots of planes to fly beside the Viper. I try to not whine about a plane, so i'll stop doing it now. No more from me about the HUD.

Buzz

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I think people aren't reading my original post properly. I did not complain about the HUD not being readable when flying into the sun, that's to be expected. I am saying that it's really hard to read it when you are in on top of a thick overcast cloud layer or in the actual top part of the layer it becomes really difficult to see the HUD.

 

Try it, setup a layer of clouds from 10 to 20,000 ft with the density maxed out so that it becomes overcast. Time of day: 12:00. Have a flight through the cloud and fly on top of it (fly level, not climbing) and tell me if you can actually read the HUD.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As mentioned above, changing the following in Mods\Aircraft\F-16CzCockpit\Scripts\materials.lua aught to help:-

 

materials["HUD"] = {2, 255, 20, 200}

 

EG. This is much yellower & (in theory) more opaque: {200, 255, 20, 255}

 

 

There is a Mod available that also does this if you want to use OvGMe, which saves you having to set it all up yourself.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3306470/

I haven't tried it myself, so I can't verify that it still works.

 

I have no problem reading the standard HUD against the Sun, Clouds & so on, but do have problems against the haze of the Horizon in the default Free Flight in the Caucasus mission. Perhaps that is akin to your overcast situation. {EDIT} Now having tried a flight exactly as you described - I agree, the HUD is very faint to the point of unreadability. Whether that is realistic or not I don't know. The yellow colour mentioned above does make it a bit clearer though. Note that the HMCS Symbology is done elsewhere, so you can compare the original green with any new colour by turning it on.


Edited by mkiii
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HUD and MFDs need work, HUD is not so bright in daylight, and MFDs are barely readable, the white letters are ok, icons are ok but blue lines are barely understandable.

 

 

 

I only found 1 video from some guy that has those MFDs set up good,

 

Night

 

 

Day

 

 

don't know what did he do to make them as they are, but its perfect,


Edited by Furiz
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