Sense Of Scale

[Sterling MH]

Was curious about your statement 'Because you can see a bigger cockpit' .

And by bigger cockpit it again is merely "not just a bit bigger than my monitor". When you look at something you can see differences about 10ft away to gauge distance. Barely. You can do the maths of how much off angle you get and the visual acuity of the human eye to separated spots, and that is the best case for parallax: two tiny dots with no visual noise to clutter things up), and it works out to about 10ft.

When you can move your head around and the view moves along with the parallax of your shoulder movements, the split in movement creates a bigger baseline for parallax and that scales up linearly. So when you can move your head (in VR) rather than just move your camera angle (trackIR) you can see a bigger cockpit because you can "see" a bigger distance in a 2d image (which is all your eyes get, and not even an image, just fragments to be collated and compared to what you've already seen to recreate an image from the fragments your brain gets), and both give you a bigger cockpit than the straight ahead view, since at least with TrackIR et al you can look up to see how far away the top of the mailsot is, it doesn't just "disappear off the top of the monitor, just like your cockpit does".

That's all I meant by "bigger cockpit". It can be judged by visual cues to be bigger than every other cockpit that ALSO just happens to be a little bit bigger than your monitor.

 

[lenna]

No point judging VR on YT videos, absolutely no point at all. All a YT vid demonstrates is head tracking in 3D space. Depth and scale cannot be translated for obvious reasons.

Unless it is a proper 3D Video stream of course.

 

[Old Duck]

Actually Skyrim (also)has an exaggerated world size (for most people). Most have to dial it down a bit.

It also has giant chickens and giant cabbages for some reason...

I don't have any of these problems with Skyrim PSVR - my cabbages, chickens, people, houses all look normal to me. Spiders are big, but Skyrim spiders ARE big. Some buildings and dungeons have exceptionally high ceilings, but then again, go visit some medieval churches - grand high ceilings are the norm for such buildings. Your Skyrim VR problems may be due to a PC setting rather than the game itself, because it's perfect on my PS4.

Speaking of giant chickens and cabbages, why do we have cockpits that are like giant greenhouses? I've been on large seafaring ships IRL, so I get the bridge-vs-cockpit argument, but I've never seen bridges like those in ED. Perhaps FDev is a fan of Disney's "The Black Hole"

Spoiler

And then there are things like the 3 story high exhaust fans and florescent lights in the hangars that must be the size of tanker trucks.

ps - what 'triggered' me to start this thread was mining in my Anaconda, where I just have no sense of the size / length / mass of my ship as seen from my bridge nor the distance from the asteroids I'm mining. Everything feels like toy land.

 

[Sterling MH]

No point judging VR on YT videos, absolutely no point at all. All a YT vid demonstrates is head tracking in 3D space. Depth and scale cannot be translated for obvious reasons.

I wasn't judging the video quality, I was judging the words of the YTer who experienced the full resolution view. IOW I took them at their word.

 

[lenna]

I wasn't judging the video quality, I was judging the words of the YTer who experienced the full resolution view. IOW I took them at their word.

What 777Driver was getting at is VR adds a 3D perception element that is lost in conversion to 2D Video therefore depth perception aspect is lost.

 

[Sterling MH]

Speaking of giant chickens and cabbages, why do we have cockpits that are like giant greenhouses?

Because in a dogfight you need to see your target, not your cockpit roof. And as a bit of bling, showing off the external universe is better advertising than showing the interior of panelling and wires of a cockpit. Tradeships don't need it, except that the silly docking ED uses is a LOT easier when you can see the ground.

And IRL the big problems of ALL the combat craft and every plane and copter is that where you want to go is obscured by the solid bits you can't see through. In a space game you have shields that stop bullets pounding your weak flesh after having been briefly slowed by glass, so the downsides to putting glass there instead of damage resistant alloys does not exist to anything like the same extent. and by making the view bigger, you can reacquire your target quicker. And if you kill them first, the holes they could put in the glass is moot.

What 777Driver was getting at is VR adds a 3D perception element that is lost in conversion to 2D Video therefore depth perception aspect is lost.

Yeah, but that is why I asked since that has naff all to do with what he had quoted. Quoting it was irrelevant, since the text he added was not relevant to it. And binocular vision only gets you a few feet, 10 feet is unrealistically high a guess, but subconscious head movements can add a couple inches to the baseline and your brain can filter it out so you don't see any shake, just like you don't notice the siccadic motion of your eyes.

 

[Bdragon4]

In Elite, everything looks smaller than it should in 2D. Like, WAY smaller.

 

[777Driver]

the most notable case is landing an Asp Explorer as you can look almost straight down and get a vary accurate and natural feel for your alignment with docking/landing pads.

Exactly, even sitting on the bridge of the T9/T10 docked looking all the way down to the hangar floor, sat way higher than 10ft above the ground, it is that sense of depth & scale, your brain tells you a fall from that height will not end well.

 

[Old Duck]

Because in a dogfight you need to see your target, not your cockpit roof.

You don't need a three-story high greenhouse bridge for this. I'm specifically thinking of ships like my Keelback, though the Vulture and others might also qualify.

However, I think you hit one of the problems of scale, the idea that we are "dog fighting" in ships that are between the size of 747 and an ocean liner. This is one reason I'm not interested in the Corvette, as its breaks physics with its insane maneuverability. I wish ED was closer to old school Star Trek (like Wrath Of Khan) instead of the "giant spaceships fly like jet fighters" in J.J. Abram's Trek, at least with the big ships. I don't need VR to get the sense of scale in this scene:

[video=youtube;mkJ3--2K7yo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkJ3--2K7yo[/video]

 

[lenna]

Yeah, but that is why I asked since that has naff all to do with what he had quoted. Quoting it was irrelevant, since the text he added was not relevant to it.

Actually, it was not totally irrelevant - just maybe a bit misguided.

You can not truly appreciate what VR does for ED without experiencing it for yourself. Videos with associated commentary only give a partial picture. A friend of mine has been loaned a VR unit and only after they tried it out did they truly understand what a difference it makes wrt general perception of the virtual environment in ED. My prior comments to them about how VR allows us to truly appreciate the sense of scale finally hit home at that point.

ED is good in 2D and I could still go back to playing it on a single 2D monitor BUT I would find adapting to a different controller layout a bit of a challenge.

Where perception of scale is concerned, depth perception is a key element. There are some people who do have a very limited sense of depth perception and for such people VR or a 3D monitor would probably do very little to benefit them (in terms of sense of scale) because of this. I am not saying that case applies to anyone here but it does highlight the point that "perception" is a subjective and personal thing.

What is not subjective is that regardless of other factors - FD (seem to?) have modelled everything in ED at an appropriate scale. If the scale video I posted a link to earlier is accurate in regards to model sizes then you can ignore the (seem to?) part.

 

[CMDR Percivus Keenblade]

Because in a dogfight you need to see your target, not your cockpit roof. And as a bit of bling, showing off the external universe is better advertising than showing the interior of panelling and wires of a cockpit. Tradeships don't need it, except that the silly docking ED uses is a LOT easier when you can see the ground.

And IRL the big problems of ALL the combat craft and every plane and copter is that where you want to go is obscured by the solid bits you can't see through. In a space game you have shields that stop bullets pounding your weak flesh after having been briefly slowed by glass, so the downsides to putting glass there instead of damage resistant alloys does not exist to anything like the same extent. and by making the view bigger, you can reacquire your target quicker. And if you kill them first, the holes they could put in the glass is moot.



Yeah, but that is why I asked since that has naff all to do with what he had quoted. Quoting it was irrelevant, since the text he added was not relevant to it. And binocular vision only gets you a few feet, 10 feet is unrealistically high a guess, but subconscious head movements can add a couple inches to the baseline and your brain can filter it out so you don't see any shake, just like you don't notice the siccadic motion of your eyes.

If the concern is offering more visibility to the pilot in combat scenario, they could have simply made a glass dome that the ceiling just barely floats above the hair of the pilot when they stand up and front glass that is slightly further than pilot can reach with an extended arm. That would be an acceptable sized glass dome. What we have however, is like a pilot chair fixed in the middle of a medium sized living room that all it's walls are made of glass except the one behind the chair. Take a look at Diamondback Explorer, for example.

Speaking of DBE, i think it's a good example about awkward scale cockpit on a flat screen.
Take a look at this. It looks like a cozy cockpit with everything in arms reach. It looks as if the pilot getting up that chair can easily pass behind through the sides but they need to slightly bend themselves here and there a bit.
It looks as if pilot extends both arms to the sides, they can touch both ends quiet easily.

Spoiler

Well, with that scale in mind, take a look at this

Spoiler

Spoiler

Huuuuuuuuge dome of glass the size of a room. Looks like you could put 2 more chairs to the sides of that chair, stack a bunch more on top of it and to the front which seems impossible from the inside look.

I agree that the scale on flat monitor is a bit funky in ED. And ED scales being good in VR is not an excuse why it is wrong on 2D.

 

[777Driver]

I wish ED was closer to old school Star Trek (like Wrath Of Khan) instead of the "giant spaceships fly like jet fighters" in J.J. Abram's Trek, at least with the big ships. I don't need VR to get the sense of scale in this scene:

Perhaps give Star Trek Bridge crew a try, both VR & 2D compatible. I am waiting for the TNG update to roll out this year. Much more my style of combat, more like naval warfare.

https://kotaku.com/we-just-got-a-good-star-trek-the-next-generation-video-1826273629

 

[lenna]

You don't need a three-story high greenhouse bridge for this. I'm specifically thinking of ships like my Keelback, though the Vulture and others might also qualify.

With the Lakon designs, they do have a lot of cockpit glass BUT such an approach to craft design is not unprecedented... certain Helicopters spring to mind for example.

However, I think you hit one of the problems of scale, the idea that we are "dog fighting" in ships that are between the size of 747 and an ocean liner. This is one reason I'm not interested in the Corvette,...

I personally find the idea of "dog fighting" in a Corvette/Anaconda/Cutter/T10/T9 more than a tad ridiculous and would not consider such combat true dog fighting. However, dog fighting is not the only reason for a high degree of visibility from the pilot's/CMDR's chair being desirable. There are many different reasons for wanting it and while some may find those reasons flawed (I don't necessarily agree with the dogfighting rational for example) that does not make any of them invalid.

Where the Corvette/Anaconda/Cutter are concerned, the cockpit visibility is more like that of a wide bridge than that of the glass canopy of a dog fighter.

 

[Sterling MH]

Actually, it was not totally irrelevant - just maybe a bit misguided.

You can not truly appreciate what VR does for ED without experiencing it for yourself.

I could not at all. Asymmetric squint. To get parallax I would need to move my head. But again, though I agree (as have all three of us in this little minor aside with each other), it is still irrelevant. The mechanism is there. That is what I explained. And the qualia of it is the experience of that mechanism, not the mechanism itself. Never said otherwise and describing the mechanism says nothing about how it feels to experience it.

Listen to Kev Wilson's "I gave up -ing this morning". You can describe the action all you like, but when he says "was like chooks flying out of me bum", you know that the feeling is rather different.

And, likewise, kissing can be explained, even the transfer of pheromones in the saliva during the act. All can be explained. But when you kiss someone you feel passionate love for, the FEELING doesn't give a monkey's tinkle for the reasons. You may be sucking on one end of a tube half full of biowaste but you aren't even considering the reality.

Or the TL;DR version: I know the feeling of experience is different. Again, irrelevant to the quoted text.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

I seem to remember FD scaled the cockpit windows up so they would look correct from the outside.
Humans are small,space ships are big,big space ships with small cockpits look silly.

 

[Sterling MH]

If the concern is offering more visibility to the pilot in combat scenario, they could have simply made a glass dome ...

Yes. Or they could have done as they did. Either works. And remember that the cockpit of a modern fighter, despite being a LOT less inhibited by the engine of the plane in the nose, still has a problem with visibilty outside the 10-degree down and 20 degree back limit of such a cockpit. Moreover you don't get out of the seat in a fighter jet. And when you do, gravity keeps you constrained to "the floor", meaning you can traverse a cramped area better because you can pus against your own weight and use gravity to recover downward. Not so much in zero g.

And in your design, you are stuck in the bubble until landing. with a massive blind spot for a full hemisphere below you. At least with the glass shed on the front idea you can see everywhere your weapons can point plus more, and the visibility is where your head points naturally.

 

[Sterling MH]

You don't need a three-story high greenhouse bridge for this.

You do if you don't want the pilot to be alone and stuck in a fishbowl with no room to get up. The AspX cockpit isn't that big. It's smaller than an average room and moreover split level, one person perched above the other. And to have enough room to fit the instruments in you need a good 8 feet from the pilot to the window glass. And when you're already that far ahead, the resulting cockpit will be "three story high greenhouse" in size.

Moreover on something like the Sidey or Cobra, you're a good 20 feet back from the front edge of the window and it slopes back dramatically (around 20-30 degrees), so to get a full view of 40 degrees from you sitting there behind a 30 degree slanted window you need to have a window that is 40+feet high. And to see out the sides a bit for a ship 100ft across, you need that window to be 140ft or more wide.

 

[CMDR Percivus Keenblade]

Yes. Or they could have done as they did. Either works. And remember that the cockpit of a modern fighter, despite being a LOT less inhibited by the engine of the plane in the nose, still has a problem with visibilty outside the 10-degree down and 20 degree back limit of such a cockpit. Moreover you don't get out of the seat in a fighter jet. And when you do, gravity keeps you constrained to "the floor", meaning you can traverse a cramped area better because you can pus against your own weight and use gravity to recover downward. Not so much in zero g.

And in your design, you are stuck in the bubble until landing. with a massive blind spot for a full hemisphere below you. At least with the glass shed on the front idea you can see everywhere your weapons can point plus more, and the visibility is where your head points naturally.

True, but as I was saying, if combat was the only pure concern, that would be the most efficient approach to design something.
If we need a, in ED terms, multipurpose ship approach, the current cockpits sizes mostly looks good on 2d screen from INSIDE, but I get this feeling they don't actually match that from the outside as I've tried to show in the DBE pics. Also there seems to be way much redundant space that has zero use and to cover that issue to keep the same field of view, the size of the glass plates grow considerably. I don't think thats really efficient at all. A ceiling slightly above the pilots head would be good in that situation, currently you can put another pilot on top of the pilots shoulders and they could still miss hitting the ceiling, in DBE or most ships, really except only some.

 

[Sterling MH]

True, but as I was saying, if combat was the only pure concern, that would be the most efficient approach to design something.

Nope, it would not. For the reasons I already stated.

 

[Parmo]

SRV does 33 m/s cruise, that is 73mph, faster than the UK motorway limit. That is insane speeds for off roading. Used to off road a fair bit out in Bahrain and Oman, purpose built machines, we wouldn't dare go above 35 mph, end up killing ourselves.

What's the rebuy cost in Oman for off roading 'accidents'?