258 replies to this topic

[o0Marduk0o]

Fasthands, on 22 January 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:

Indeed, that's good advice. However, it doesn't in any way address the near-instant mild and building nausea that the addition of this wonderful feature has gifted to some few of us who would like to be able to turn the damn thing off.

But the fact is, this is how a cockpit would look like and you have scratches on the windshield cause you're in a combat zone and nobody cares about the appearance of a window unless it is broken or really damaged. The bobbing of the scratches is in sync with the rest of the cockpit, so no misconception there.
There is absolutely no reason why a mech shouldn't have a windshield and the implementation is reasonable because of the facts mentioned above.
Some people with nausea would probably fail the pilot test if all this would be real but this isn't helping you with your issue.

Straylight, on 22 January 2014 - 06:57 AM, said:

If my Tacoma's windshield were a tenth as bad as my Cataphract's, I'd replace it.

You drive across a battlefield with your car?

Btw, the Cataphract glass is awesome. Not like the Catapult where you barely see any glass.

[Ghostsuit]

Darius Deadeye, on 21 January 2014 - 02:32 PM, said:

I don't suppose you take your car for a spin in the desert, the beach, the moon, dusty abandoned old villages or to warzones very often, then? Stuff gets dirty.

Yeah I have and my car is about 1 meter off the ground not between 7 and 17 meter tall. I'd expect the dust and mud not to be landing on the cockpit at that height very often. I'd expect the bottom 2 meters to be dirty as hell . I'm all for immersion and if when we get shot in the head we get scraps or crack appearing, that's to me is more interesting or for the dust/dirt to build over time during a match.

It's also not out of the realms of sanity that by 3050 they have a glass like material that doesn't scratch. Oh and there's also the fact this is a game and we should aim to make it enjoyable for the most part.

Edited by Ghostsuit, 22 January 2014 - 09:57 AM.

[Orbit Rain]

Who's brilliant idea was it to move this thread from patch feedback to the mech's and loadouts sub-forum?

[Rhogen]

In its current form I don't think it adds value to the game. I just find it plain annoying.

When I first read about cockpit glass I thought it would reflect damage to the head area like cracks and so on.
Which is a cool idea because it would be another reason to avoid being hit.

But having your vision obstructed from the beginning of the match makes not really sense to me.
Why bother with textures at all if you force the user to look at them through a dirty windshield?

Maybe this could be toned down a bit or limited to the borders of the screen to still give the impression of glass but without taking away from the user experience.

[Jetfire]

I like the general concept but that has to be the worst glass I have ever seen, full of what appear to be occlusions. Dirt would be one thing but this stuff appears to be internal imperfections in the glass itself. I have seen higher quality glass on houses from the 1800's. This needs a serious pass. Especially on a fresh mech, the glass should be much more translucent. I would be fine with these kinds of occlusions building up say in the yellow to orange damage ranges. Then at red they could merge into cracks and then finally when your head armor is gone the glass shatters out completely.

Additionally I feel it is a bit much to run a Film Grain filter along with the cockpit glass. I would really like to see a film grain toggle already.

[Spheroid]

Good reflection techniques have been around for years and years. Example Falcon 4.0 circa 1998.

[Voivode]

Ryvucz, on 21 January 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:

Looks great to me.

Ballistic glass isn't exactly meant to be clean friendly anyway.

Bingo. Looks good, adds depth to the game, I like it.

[Joseph Mallan]

Spheroid, on 22 January 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

Good reflection techniques have been around for years and years. Example Falcon 4.0 circa 1998.

That is much better than the 20 year old Plexiglas we have!

[Kenyon Burguess]

Ghostsuit, on 22 January 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Yeah I have and my car is about 1 meter off the ground not between 7 and 17 meter tall. I'd expect the dust and mud not to be landing on the cockpit at that height very often. I'd expect the bottom 2 meters to be dirty as hell . I'm all for immersion and if when we get shot in the head we get scraps or crack appearing, that's to me is more interesting or for the dust/dirt to build over time during a match.

It's also not out of the realms of sanity that by 3050 they have a glass like material that doesn't scratch. Oh and there's also the fact this is a game and we should aim to make it enjoyable for the most part.

when I drive down country roads the dust easily reaches those heights behind me, and when I stop I get coated end to end. I can see the mechs getting filthy fast without any problem as they go about the same speeds as my car does on the dirt roads. my second thought on this matter, is that no one washes their MBT in todays military while in the combat zone, why would someone wash a mech in the future. your there, the fight is on, the techs aren't around and theres no hobo on the corner to tip a 10 spot too. and if your thinking that the mechs just got off a drop ship and should be clean, modern rockets throw massive dust clouds into the sky that take time to settle, cant imagine how large of one would form when a drop ship comes down in a rocky field with low gravity and its the size of 2 city blocks. I like the cockpit glass, I do think it needs to be toned down, and those light gaps behind me need to be fixed up, but over all I am pleased with the effort. doubly so now that the team has said its an option for private matches and not competition.

Spheroid, on 22 January 2014 - 10:05 AM, said:

Good reflection techniques have been around for years and years. Example Falcon 4.0 circa 1998.

completely different game engine.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Also something to keep in mind...

The Battlemechs in the Battletech universe have lead a hard life and aren't crisp new well maintained machines. The picture of the jet above is supposed to represent a well maintained and probably fairly new machine.

IS mechs at the least are cobbled back together to keep them running with parts that people had long forgotten how to reproduce. Mechs like the Founders mechs show this to good effect. To see scratched and worn cockpit glass on a mech is not that big of a stretch to imagine considering how the machines are kept running with primarily old salvage parts or newly found Star League parts from a recently discovered parts cache.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 22 January 2014 - 10:50 AM.

[Spheroid]

@Geist null: Yeah? Whats your point. The idea is emulate the execution and approach not the actual code. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Cyrsis 2/3 have glass reflections? Clearly the engine is capable of such feats.

(On Edit) The Protector has a parade quality paintjob. I don't want to hear that it is 300 year old piece of junk that never gets washed.

Edited by Spheroid, 22 January 2014 - 11:10 AM.

[MischiefSC]

I've ended up turning all my settings to low. The game... the game looks better.

It's so freaking depressing.

The glass reflection is better and worse on different mechs. on a Battlemaster on some maps it will literally turn the front center screen opaque. You can't see anything. On other mechs that doesn't happen.

My own fault for having bought a Battlemaster though and I accept that.

It makes the visuals on the game less visible however and end of the day that's just silly. The game looks better and plays better with all settings at low. You really don't miss anything now between film grain and the windshield shader. I'm not kidding, try it. Smoke trails on missiles but otherwise the distortion from film grain and the cockpit glass is so bad you literally don't see much improvement between low and ultra.

[Trauglodyte]

I kind of like it but it shouldn't be something that can be turned off but rather a scale given to adjust the level of it. They put in the work to add immersion to the game and, for those that enjoy it, it should be there. For others, there should be the option to reduce it like other graphics.

[Effectz]

[Bors Mistral]

Speaking of glass, the Thunderbolt isn't airtight at all...



We're having water leak in the cabin on some battlefields, and air leak out on others.

[Grendel408]

Wow... lots of folks don't like the new glass effect... sad. I love it! Makes me feel like I'm looking through a canopy now and not a perfectly streak-free glass window... is it me or are maps also effecting the glass? I could swear I was looking at frost on my canopy on HPG Manifold last night

[MadcatX]

Grendel408, on 22 January 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

Wow... lots of folks don't like the new glass effect... sad. I love it! Makes me feel like I'm looking through a canopy now and not a perfectly streak-free glass window... is it me or are maps also effecting the glass? I could swear I was looking at frost on my canopy on HPG Manifold last night

I hear ya, I personally like it. But to get the best of both worlds, I believe it needs an on/off option.

[MischiefSC]

It's not a window. It's a monitor displaying an image from cameras on the mech.

If you can't get a covering for it that's streak-free and are essentially risking permanent death (which, really, is what's at stake) because the camera lens is dirty then you don't deserve to be piloting a virtually irreplaceable engine of war.

[Void Angel]

Modo44, on 21 January 2014 - 11:58 AM, said:

Love the effect, would immediately fire/shoot any tech who would leave my cockpit that dirty. I see the need for a texture, but it should not obscure view to this extent. Especially with the silly fog effects already messing with MWO visuals, this is too much.

I'm with you here. I don't like the film grain and fog - they obscure my view and make it hard to see things that are actually shooting at me, even out in the open. And I'm told that certain video cards/graphical settings can bypass those effects to some degree as well (explaining how people can see to shoot me.)

Regardless, cockpit glass is the same sort of thing, and I find it detracts aesthetically as well. I still get the feeling that I'm looking through the cheap plexiglass window of a crop-dusting helicopter or combine harvester. It detracts from my ability to see and experience the game - literally interposing a semi-transparent barrier between me and the battlefield. I can tell that some people love the effect to death, but please, give us the ability to toggle it on and off.

[Noth]

I simply can't believe people find it that obstructive. I barely notice it at any graphical level I play.

Edited by Noth, 22 January 2014 - 11:07 PM.