Pilot Body Update from Aug, 18th

[KWard]

On 9/15/2020 at 11:13 PM, IronMike said:

I'm sure pilot and rio will be distinct in where they have to be, judging Cobra's eye for detail, I don't even need to ask him about that, hehe.

 

As for the color of the pilot. I am not sure we would want or could change the whole modeling again, judging by the pictures Cobra is going for caucasian. In general we'd be happy to have more diverse pilots/ RIOs. Maybe at some point we could offer an option for that even, not sure how much work such changes are, the guess is: a lot. So I will be careful and say, please don't expect us to go into that direction for now. At the same time, rest assured we'd have the highest regards for ENS Jesse Brown manning our aircraft. This btw also goes for female aviators, the times where only the caucasian male represents aviation are long gone.

 

While it may be too late now, we'll keep that in mind for the future as well. Thank you for the suggestion. Just on a sidenote: anything that furthers diversity and inclusivity, is something we have always open ears for.

 

 

I'm not very computer literate so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but... are alternate crew figures something that could be done as a player-made mod, like skins? I would certainly like to have a female crew figure.

[Northstar98]

26 minutes ago, KWard said:

I'm not very computer literate so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but... are alternate crew figures something that could be done as a player-made mod, like skins? I would certainly like to have a female crew figure.

 

I mean, it shouldn't be too difficult - it obviously depends on how its set up.

[LanceCriminal86]

1 hour ago, KWard said:

 

I'm not very computer literate so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but... are alternate crew figures something that could be done as a player-made mod, like skins? I would certainly like to have a female crew figure.

 

No, the pilot models are part of the aircraft model and are animated within it.

[westr]

Will we see this in the next update HB team? 

[LanceCriminal86]

Not sounding like it. I believe it's been said the Viggen right now is taking priority to finalize it to get it out of EA, and the Forrestal as well. There's a lot in the pipe but it sounds like we'll have to wait for the roadmap that was mentioned by Mike or Cobra elsewhere. I poked around asking a little while back and it didn't sound like the pilot body had changed at all since last time it was presented.

 

Realistically, I'd expect 2.7 to cause all kinds of fun and upheaval, need for new patching, and fixes, and then a resumption of feature releases.

 

Maybe by the time the new pilot hits I'll have my Virpil stick, base, and extension.

[zaelu]

What I really don't like about this "pilot body -all devs are against it" is why in the earth do the devs believe that what we are interested are renders (most of the time untextured) with a pilot body in 30 billion triangles to look at for 5 years instead of a darn pilot body animated like the one KA50 had???

For me is obvious that developers are "working"  on a feature they don't desire, don't use, dont' find it useful thus they simply do not understand.

We want a pilot body. Get the Ka50 one for start. Then ad polygons or change it hopefully not in 10 years.

Edited May 31, 2021 by zaelu

[Cobra847]

1 hour ago, zaelu said:

What I really don't like about this "pilot body -all devs are against it" is why in the earth do the devs believe that what we are interested are renders (most of the time untextured) with a pilot body in 30 billion triangles to look at for 5 years instead of a darn pilot body animated like the one KA50 had???

For me is obvious that developers are "working"  on a feature they don't desire, don't use, dont' find it useful thus they simply do not understand.

We want a pilot body. Get the Ka50 one for start. Then ad polygons or change it hopefully not in 10 years.

 

I'm very confused. You want us to use the Ka-50 pilot in the F-14 as a stop-gap?

 

And FWIW; I find the pilot body very useful and immersive, and I'd love to add more features to them (e.g.; when you manipulate a control, you see your pilot execute that animation) - it's just a matter of priorities and development bandwidth.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Cobra847

[zaelu]

I gave Ka50 pilot as an example. It was basically used in P51 and Ka50 at the beginning, small animation modifications and two very different airframes. 

I am sure that that pilot body can be replaced with a little better new one and probably it will be same amount of work but for and extreme case yeah... even that old low poly would fare better than nothing.
Of course I would also like the rest of stuff you mentioned but I am soon 46...

And speaking of priorities, of course all devs can have their own list etc and we can observe that... my previous post was basically that, an observation about how important this feature is for most of devs if not all. I mean... we have a audio casette player in F14 that I can't probably know to use... there were some resources poured into that at least in money for the music...

Anyway, nice to see you again Cobra  .

Edited May 31, 2021 by zaelu

[LanceCriminal86]

Why waste manhours (and therefore money) including and animating a resource that's going to be replaced anyways? If there's one thing I hate professionally it's duplication of work for the sake of duplication.

 

They're adding the new body, from what I've seen it's spot on for the 80s and 90s as far as pilot gear goes from head to toe. Only thing we haven't seen are the new helmets and if the existing HGU-33 will get reworked or not.

[KWard]

Who's "they"? Eagle Dynamics?

[STNGersk]

Any new previews? News on pilots and new looking pilots helmets as I would love to see that solid top notch aviators With those cool helmets HUB-55, I have option in my script on Hornet In DCS and I can change helmet from advanced JHMCS to normal HUB-55 if not wrong, see my pic, I have totally reworked retextured to 4K pilot gear and included photo real textures and smallest details and helmet also got lots of variations and visor colours and it’s just brings my hornet to next visual and photo real look 

[LanceCriminal86]

20 hours ago, STNGersk said:

Any new previews? News on pilots and new looking pilots helmets as I would love to see that solid top notch aviators With those cool helmets HUB-55, I have option in my script on Hornet In DCS and I can change helmet from advanced JHMCS to normal HUB-55 if not wrong, see my pic, I have totally reworked retextured to 4K pilot gear and included photo real textures and smallest details and helmet also got lots of variations and visor colours and it’s just brings my hornet to next visual and photo real look 

 

There's a textured preview in the Trello :

 

https://trello.com/b/HsMiJggJ/heatblur-public-roadmap

 

Right now the big push is to get the Forrestal prepped and initial released, after that and Jester LANTIRN it seems that the needed model reworks are in the pipe for things like the texture corrections and possibly new pilots. The new pilots and texture split for the A/B models will mean all the liveries are going to need an overhaul and their pilots as well, plus any community made stuff too. Other modules like the MiG-21 have had to do similar overhauls for things like adding PBR textures or other external texture revisions, so it's like ripping the band-aid off really quick.

 

Oh and it's the HGU-55. It should be the standard helmet for most of the A+/B skins currently included, and for the early 90s and later A model skins. And ideally they will not be using a similar UVW unwrap as the Hornet as trying to do proper patterns across the back of that helmet is like ripping off your own fingernails if you need it to go far up the back of the helmet.

[westr]

Any updates on this now that Forrestal has been released? 

[westr]

please heatblur? dont think its too unreasonable to ask for some form of update on this. Originally it was intended to be included in March though i accept not promised. 

[IronMike]

On 11/21/2021 at 11:08 PM, westr said:

please heatblur? dont think its too unreasonable to ask for some form of update on this. Originally it was intended to be included in March though i accept not promised. 

Not much changed so far, we wanted to include it in the Forrestal update initially, but then the rest proved to be simply too much. Now we're doing the big push for the Viggen. Our apologies for delaying it, but we need to get all of that out of the way to concentrate on it. Due to the multicrew animations it needs more concentrated efforts than just doing the modeling, textures, etc. We did not forget though.

Thank you for your very kind patience.

[sLYFa]

On 6/27/2021 at 2:48 AM, STNGersk said:

I have option in my script on Hornet In DCS and I can change helmet from advanced JHMCS to normal HUB-55

 

 

Sorry to hijack the thread but how do you do this? Which config file does control the helmet type?

[LanceCriminal86]

4 hours ago, sLYFa said:

Sorry to hijack the thread but how do you do this? Which config file does control the helmet type?

Drop this in after the texture section but before the country list:

custom_args = 
{

[509] = 1.0, --Helmet Change
}
 

[sLYFa]

Thanks!

[nzteddy]

Hi Heatblur, you are a business, you are only successful by selling more licenses for your modules. While it is true that broken/missing systems are not great, they are typically missed by those who already have the module. I for one fly exclusively VR, and I cannot fly a plane without a pilot. I have tried the F-14 and I love it, but I won't buy it because it doesn't have a pilot. I wonder how many others out there are like me. I hope you are making the right priority decisions for your business.

[Jayhawk1971]

The first thing I do when I enter a cockpit that has a pilot avatar in it, I disable it (with the exception of the Huey). Because the almost totally rigid arms are always in the way of the left/ right consoles, obstructing important knobs and switches. The only immersive implementation would be if the pilot hands/ arms moved when I move mine, or the mouse cursor. I'm exclusively VR, BTW.

IMO, a pilot body should be one of the last items on a substantial list of things that I'd rather see fixed/ added.

So Heatblur has been making the correct business decisions, their priorities are just fine. Functionality > cosmetics.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[PhoenixRising]

I don't know how many people are in which camp, but I am the same way. I used to fly the A-10 a ton, but after flying the F-18 with a pilot body, it drives me nuts to fly the A-10 now. I own the F-14, but am waiting for a pilot body to really dig in. I also fly in VR.

In the F-18, the only time I regularly have to turn off the body is on startup. Same with the Harrier.

Sent from my moto g stylus 5G using Tapatalk

[nzteddy]

Exactly. I switch the pilot off a bit on startup for the side panels, but thereafter have it on exclusively for flight. I hate seeing an empty joystick while flying around, makes no sense.

[Jayhawk1971]

The Tomcat is not the Hornet! It doesn't have a UFC and MFD's. Also the Hornet's HOTAS has a lot more functions.

If you play more complicated scenarios rather than simplified SP missions (=only one radio channel, easy navigation only using Steerpoints), you will need the left console of the F-14 often during flight operations, not just for start-up.

Because hidden under the pilot's left arm are: AN/ARC-159 radio panel, TACAN control panel, AFCS control panel (SAS, Autopilot).

Also keep in mind that IIRC, HB are planning to do a high resolution, highly detailed pilot body. What impact that will have on precious FPS in VR remains to be seen. Worst case, you'd have to turn it off anyway (like many have to fly with mirrors off, despite them looking nice and immersive).

Just to be clear: I am not against having a detailed pilot body available at some point, I just don't see this as being a top priority ATM, nor do I come even close to understanding how such a comparatively trivial thing could seriously influence a purchase decision. That are some really strange priorities right there.

Seriously, you are depriving yourself from owning probably the best jet module in DCS over that?!

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[draconus]

I also await pilot body - it's important for immersion and realism but not to the point of rejecting the module because of that.

As for people who don't understand the demand for pilot body... a lot of pilots turn off the stick to have a clear view on TID/HSD - I don't understand that too. It's just a matter of how one immerse himself in the sim.

[Jayhawk1971]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb draconus:

As for people who don't understand the demand for pilot body... a lot of pilots turn off the stick to have a clear view on TID/HSD - I don't understand that too. It's just a matter of how one immerse himself in the sim.

If that was aimed at my post, you might want to read it again.