127 replies to this topic

[Glowhollow]

bump !

[TekGnosis]

The results later in this thread after some refinement are really very good.

Bump. This sort of thread should not get lost without dev comment. The current implementation is quite simply lazy and I don't think we should let them get away with it.

[Type AE-86]

Another bump, and a few thoughts.

I could very well be wrong because I don't have a degree in physics, but I worked with FLIR in the airforce.

Wouldn't it be unavoidable for mechs to emit a heat signature? After all their heatsinks themselves are specifically designed to remove heat from the mech into the natural environment, be it from double or single heat sinks. You could lower radar emissivity with special coatings as in real life by using coatings that absorb wavelengths of radar waves, but the beauty of FLIR is that all vehicles generate heat.

[UltraMek]

I post in a reddit thread and I pgi development responded, I'm pretty sure they have seen this. I said "I don't think the mechs should be e same color as the sno" can't and garth replied it's not supposed to" http://www.reddit.co...cue5q?context=3 sorry for errant words and typos, on my phone and it's acting weird.

[CnlPepper]

Neil Claymore, on 14 April 2013 - 06:43 PM, said:

Another bump, and a few thoughts.

I could very well be wrong because I don't have a degree in physics, but I worked with FLIR in the airforce.

Wouldn't it be unavoidable for mechs to emit a heat signature? After all their heatsinks themselves are specifically designed to remove heat from the mech into the natural environment, be it from double or single heat sinks. You could lower radar emissivity with special coatings as in real life by using coatings that absorb wavelengths of radar waves, but the beauty of FLIR is that all vehicles generate heat.

If the mech's infra red emissivity was similar to its surroundings then this would certainly be the case, the mech would stand out quite well. But we could argue that the mech engineers have tried to tune the IR emissivity a bit to lessen the thermal signature.

Edited by CnlPepper, 15 April 2013 - 02:42 PM.

[ohtochooseaname]

CnlPepper, on 15 April 2013 - 01:48 PM, said:

If the mech's infra red emissivity was similar to its surroundings then this would certainly be the case, the mech would stand out quite well. But we could argue that the mech engineers have tried to tune the IR emissivity a bit to lessen the thermal signature.

In a vacuum environment, it is not possible to reduce the IR emissions from the Mech because that is the only method of heat transfer out. You'd at least have to have one bright spot on the Mech where it radiates the heat outward.

In an atmospheric environment, it is theoretically possible to reduce the thermal IR emissions to that of the background, but this would require massive convection: you'd be blowing air through the Mech to cool it off, and this air temperature would be only slightly higher than that of the surroundings, so the mech would look like a foggy haze.

Or...you could transfer the heat out of the feet and have glowing footprints... I think this would be a cool way to do the thermal, personally.

[Nuds]

Now this is what I call Beta feedback!

[CnlPepper]

ohtochooseaname, on 15 April 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

In a vacuum environment, it is not possible to reduce the IR emissions from the Mech because that is the only method of heat transfer out. You'd at least have to have one bright spot on the Mech where it radiates the heat outward.

....

You can reduce the IR emission in the range observed by a thermal imaging camera by designing materials that emit the radiation (ie the energy) in a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum, this is the principle behind low thermal emissivity (note I said emissivity, not emission...) camouflage.



http://www.defence-i...flage/intermat/

Edited by CnlPepper, 16 April 2013 - 02:10 AM.

[CnlPepper]

I've had the thread moved so we can carry on the thermal discussion. Thanks Dakkath.

[Donas]

Love the look of these, and even some of the color suggestions.

[ohtochooseaname]

Yeah, the radiative heat transfer is actually quite small, so it shouldn't lead to any problems: the heat will escape via convection. Say the outside of a Mech gets up to 600 degrees kelvin, then radiative heat transfer is only around 7.5 kW/m^2. Given a 10m x 5m x 5m block, that's only 250 kW total. This is likely a miniscule amount. (think, the Nissan Leaf engine is 80 kW, and that's tiny by comparison to the energies involved in Mechs).

My vacuum comment still stands (unless they use some sort of evaporative heat transfer in space, or something.) The energy has to escape, and the only game you can really play with it is to spread it over a much larger area, like in that example, which isn't possible with Mechs. Otherwise, it'll bake. Those suits depend on convection for cooling, so the lack of radiative heat transfer isn't a problem.

[Corvus Antaka]

I agree and very much dislike the 700m cutoff for these view modes. However I dont want to see a return to the previous blue sniper vision game we had.

[MasterErrant]

I don't see the images. but everyone who does seems to like em. have you considersd working over NV? it's currently unuseable for Colorblinds and the like (I've used RT night vision gead and it doesn;'t look like it does here.

[rPAHT]

This is my first post to the forums. Piranha please make this happen.

[Bobzilla]

The reason they changed it in the first place was they didn't want thermal to be easier than using regular vision to both spot your enemies and see your environment. So altho these suggestions are good, keep in mind they want thermal for spotting the enemy but useless for manovering, and night vision to be good for manovering and poor for spotting so to hamper running around with thermal on at all times. Their method doesn't accomplish this in my mind, as you can see the environment better than the old way, and mech's aren't any more easilly seen vs nightvision, plus there is a range limit.

So the pixle image would have to be inverted, seeing the mech well, but nothing else. Otherwise your just making a refined version of the old way, which isn't how they want it to function.

[Cycleboy]

Heck, I'd be fine with low res images at distances as the enemy moves out (low heat, spread to atmo through sinks), but when some jack-<donkey> lights off his ER PPC in my direction, I want that location to light up like the 4th of July on my monitor for several seconds! The barrel ends will be glowing hot, his heat scale spiked, sinks are venting hard to atmo, and he becomes very, very, very visible.

So... TL/DR of 3 sentances... implement heat scale shading. By 50-70% scale, you are cherry red!

Oh... and JJs??? Wow. Big ball of heat signature.

Edited by Cycleboy, 19 April 2013 - 06:18 AM.

[buttmonkey]

pgi hire this man as your lead dev and all sit around in awe and watch him fix your game

[CnlPepper]

buttmonkey, on 19 April 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

pgi hire this man as your lead dev and all sit around in awe and watch him fix your game

He he, they couldn't afford me. In my previous post my charge out rate was £700+ per day plus costs.

Edited by CnlPepper, 21 April 2013 - 01:21 PM.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

CnlPepper, on 21 April 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

He he, they couldn't afford me. In my previous post my charge out rate was £700+ per day plus costs.

And people wonder why it costs so much to make quality content for a game ...

[Writer]

PGI really should look into this.