AoA Indexer Light

[Shahriar0]

I know this has been brought up repeatedly and ad nauseum before, but the AoA indexer is absolutely not visible in day light. It is beyond frustrating. I can barely see it when I lean over (in VR) and squint. At the current state, it is useless and I consider it not working and therefore broken. In my opinion, Heatblur's answer that this is how it was(is) in the real F-14, is unacceptable to me. Please fix this.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Shahriar0

[Skysurfer]

And Heatblur's answer doesn't hold much credit when you actually look at various videos online and use common sense. Why are the instrument lights and AOA indexer lights perfectly visible in all other modules, using the exact same graphics and gamma settings then? It was very visible and absolutely fine before the lighting rework.

 

 

 

[Eldur]

Actually I've been wondering if I somehow forgot to turn it on...

[FoxTwo]

Confirmed, super dim.

 

Unrealistically so. I'm at 2.2 gamma you can barely see the damn thing. It would have been a hazard and unqualified for flight if the real one was this bad.

[Shahriar0]

A picture is worth a thousand words! Thanks to Skysurfer's posted picture, you can see how the indexer was very much visible in daylight. I hope this gets fixed once and for all.

 

Other than that, love the A variant. Only if I can slow it down on approaches :)

[FoxTwo]

And here I am trimmed out and on speed, which you can barely tell. It's TOO dim during the daylight. So are the instrument backlights but whatever, those are significantly less important.

 

I get it "realistic" lighting has been a challenge since 2.5.6 mucked everything up but this seems like one of the things that really, really needs to be fixed. They fixed all the other lights, why hold back on this one?

 

[Wildwind]

And here I am trimmed out and on speed, which you can barely tell. It's TOO dim during the daylight. So are the instrument backlights but whatever, those are significantly less important.

 

I get it "realistic" lighting has been a challenge since 2.5.6 mucked everything up but this seems like one of the things that really, really needs to be fixed. They fixed all the other lights, why hold back on this one?

 

 

This is exactly how it looks for me, too. If you're on-speed and you really stare at it, you can just barely see the donut. If you're not, you can't see the arrows at all.

[Shahriar0]

Still waiting for Heatblur to comment on this.

 

BTW, the indexer lights are even harder to see in VR compare to the images provided above from monitor (thanks to the folks for chiming in and providing evidence.) In other words, you practically don't see them, specially the red one when coming fast. Please fix.

[Shahriar0]

Bump.

[sLYFa]

And please make the indexer brightness thumbwheel actually work. That way people can crank up the brghtness during daytime while having the option to turn in down for night ops

[Blinde]

+1

This needs to be fixed asap!

Edited December 1, 2020 by Blinde

[Wizard_03]

Yeah maybe the most important light in the cockpit lol Please fix!

[The_Tau]

+1

[IronMike]

I'll still say: we think it is bright enough and low gamma values seem to impact the brightness negatively. Ideally, gamma should be set at 2.2.

However, we will look into making it brighter, we see this is bugging you guys.

As for the brightness knob, that's due to some limitations in DCS, which recently changed, so hopefully we will get it to work soon.

[Wildwind]

4 hours ago, IronMike said:

I'll still say: we think it is bright enough and low gamma values seem to impact the brightness negatively. Ideally, gamma should be set at 2.2.

However, we will look into making it brighter, we see this is bugging you guys.

As for the brightness knob, that's due to some limitations in DCS, which recently changed, so hopefully we will get it to work soon.

Even when I did have the gamma set at 2.2, I couldn't see the indexer light.  Right now my gamma is set at 1.8, because at 2.2 I can't see the HUD in level flight some aircraft because the sky is too bright at horizon level.

 

The only time I've ever been able to see the red or green arrows on the indexer, regardless of my gamma setting, is when the shadows of the cockpit rail fall over the indexer, in which case I can see it (but it still doesn't stand out, and isn't remotely as bright as the ones in the Hornet, Viper, or A-10)..

[Gunslinger22]

I’ve never been able to see how a gamma of 2+ is either realistic or not totally washed out. Especially in VR you notice that there is nothing natural about the gamma once you start going above 1.8.  

[sLYFa]

Yeah 1.8 is the highest I go either. IMO this is not a gamma setting issue but a result of the (I guess realistic) effect of direct sunlight on the AoA lights. If you have the sun above or in front of you there is no issue but when the is sun low behind you the AoA lights get hard to see (as do all the other lights when the sun shines directly on them).

And while we're at it, could you fix the AoA lights not working during LTS test? Would help to adjust their brightness before TO when the brightness wheel gets functional.

[Biggus]

Adding my voice to those requesting a bump in brightness.

[Skysurfer]

I think this is pretty much the overwhelming majority at this point requesting this. We need the default value to be much brighter and also a brightness slider/thumbwheel fucntion to be implemented. This was working just fine and was a non-issue before this entire lighting rework by ED, that no one really asked for in the first place.

[Kula66]

Virtually impossible to see lights at the moment on Reverb 1 or Rift S.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Kula66

[near_blind]

At risk of piling on:

My experience at 2.2 Gamma


Seems to be considerably different than that of this photo taken from the back seat:
 

[IronMike]

For windows and all standard monitors the default gamma value is 2.2 - that's what everything gets conditioned to. The exception is Apple, with 1.8. Hence going lower is deviating from default, but sometimes can look "better" (which is entirely subjective) in brighter rooms at lower levels, while it will look better in darker rooms when kept around 2.2. That's also the value we have in mind when tuning such things, etc...

There is a tendency in DCS to run extremely low gamma levels, which, well, is probably owed to the fact that DCS lighting can appear washed out or too hazey or too bright. I would suggest using Mustang's reshade mod instead, it will give you a more saturated picture without having to lower the gamma values. But that's just my personal preference.

If you got used to flying with extremely low gammas (I have seen folks with as low as .8 or .6 even), then ofc, default gamma will look weird to you. The best bet here is to stick with it for couple weeks and get accustomed and then compare again.

But all that said, as promised, we will look into it.

PS: Fotos are not a good source for reference, lights reflect, appear enhanced in pictures and so on... in other words lights will mostly appear brighter in pictures, have orbs, etc. Not sure how the screenshot looks on your monitor, Near Blind, but on mine the indexer lights are clearly visible. As mentioned, it is very subjective.
 

Edited December 9, 2020 by IronMike

[Skysurfer]

9 minutes ago, IronMike said:

For windows and all standard monitors the default gamma value is 2.2 - that's what everything gets conditioned to. The exception is Apple, with 1.8. Hence going lower is deviating from default, but sometimes can look "better" (which is entirely subjective) in brighter rooms at lower levels, while it will look better in darker rooms when kept around 2.2. That's also the value we have in mind when tuning such things, etc...

There is a tendency in DCS to run extremely low gamma levels, which, well, is probably owed to the fact that DCS lighting can appear washed out or too hazey or too bright. I would suggest using Mustang's reshade mod instead, it will give you a more saturated picture without having to lower the gamma values. But that's just my personal preference.

If you got used to flying with extremely low gammas (I have seen folks with as low as .8 or .6 even), then ofc, default gamma will look weird to you. The best bet here is to stick with it for couple weeks and get accustomed and then compare again.

But all that said, as promised, we will look into it.

PS: Fotos are not a good source for reference, lights reflect, appear enhanced in pictures and so on... in other words lights will mostly appear brighter in pictures, have orbs, etc. Not sure how the screenshot looks on your monitor, Near Blind, but on mine the indexer lights are clearly visible. As mentioned, it is very subjective.
 

 

So you are using a shader mod to base your personal opinion on, even though the vast majority of the community is having problems with stock DCS? I cant state this enough but this AOA indexer issue in exclusive to the Tomcat currently. The Flanker, F-16 and F-18 indexers are all perfectly readable. All of these issues only started after the lighting rework in both DCS and your Tomcat itself.

[Wizard_03]

9 minutes ago, Skysurfer said:

 

So you are using a shader mod to base your personal opinion on, even though the vast majority of the community is having problems with stock DCS? I cant state this enough but this AOA indexer issue in exclusive to the Tomcat currently. The Flanker, F-16 and F-18 indexers are all perfectly readable. All of these issues only started after the lighting rework in both DCS and your Tomcat itself.

He said they're looking in too it.

[Skysurfer]

3 minutes ago, Wizard_03 said:

He said they're looking in too it.

Yes, which is a good thing but "looking into it" doesnt really have a sense of urgency this rather simple fix needs. I dont want to use some shader mode that isn't supported by ED and technically "break" my game (because this is what manipulating shaders tachnically is) in order to see an AOA indexer in one plane better. We'll see where this goes, really hope we'll see it fixed in the next update.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Skysurfer