Non reflecting reflector sight sights in ARMA

[Rocklobster 10]

One of the things that bugs me in games is when the reflex/holographic sights simply utilise a reticule pasted onto a pane of glass, as opposed to how they work in real life by correcting for parallax when the point of aim shifts. Here's an example:

Basically, you shouldn't be able to see the reticule from that angle.

I know it doesn't make any practical difference in gameplay, but it is really jarring for me personally seeing such a feature in a game designed to be as realistic as it is.

I've seen this in A2 and in the current gameplay footage of A3, and I was just wondering if anybody had any info (well, specifically the devs I guess as I can't imagine anybody else knowing) as to whether this issue would be remedied in the final version of A3?

Edited January 12, 2012 by Rocklobster
sentence rewording

[rye1 21]

Maybe, maybe not.

[Zacho 0]

I too would love to see this added/fixed. And it would help game play a bit when it comes to CQB, even if that is armas low point.

Fyi they added this with the new HUDs, so they could do it for guns i guess.

[instagoat 133]

This has been an issue of critique since the times of armed assault. Apparently it´s non-fixeable, so the static "painted" reticules will remain in the game. They are visible in all videos of arma 3 so far.

My suggestion would have been to "paint" the reticule as part of the GUI (ie, not a texture at all, but as a cursor) which only appears when looking down the sights. That way colour, size and shape could be selected and altered via config, and reticules would be much more easier to standardize to realistic values and looks.

I´ve suggested this in multiple places so far, but it wasn´t picked up on, so I guess it´s another avenue the devs have already tried and tested, and found to be non-workeable for some reason. That, or I wasn´t careful enough in highlighting the idea.

Would be great to get parallax-free sights ingame, though. That, and 3D magnifying optics.

[scruffy 22]

There were ways to do these in Arma 1 (using a bug), but it doesn't seem doable for Arma 2. It's the reason an ironsight is more useful because it's easier to see the aiming errors.

CIT ticket

If not as an UI-element, the option to set a special "aiming-LOD" on weapons would work, too.

[CyclonicTuna 87]

First, here's the wishlist: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=125819

Second, I won't doubt your point nor will I pull Arma's target realism in doubt. But isn't this a little far fechted?

I mean, sure Arma its a simulator but I think this is one of the last things BIS should put on their list of features. I think there are a lot bigger and more important things to tend to first.

[onlyrazor 11]

But isn't this a little far fechted?

I mean, sure Arma its a simulator but I think this is one of the last things BIS should put on their list of features. I think there are a lot bigger and more important things to tend to first.

True, but one of the reasons reflex sights are useful is because they are always stationary as long as you don't change your viewpoint, allowing you to focus on a target while moving. In the current games, they're worse than the regular irons.

[Pulverizer 1]

I think this is one of the last things BIS should put on their list of features. I think there are a lot bigger and more important things to tend to first.

I take it you don't fly much in Arma. It's a pretty serious issue with TrackIR users. I made a video to demonstrate how bad the parallax error is in choppers:

http://youtu.be/Ys26bgKg7lA?t=23s

[gammadust 12]

I am not sure I understand the rationale...

If one, IRL, is supposed to keep the eye position for these type of sights to do its job, howcome the projection is supposed to follow your eye position in-game for it to be realistic?

OP puts it better when he says "I know it doesn't make any practical difference in gameplay..."

So far I follow, and would support this if it wasn't for more important stuff to be addressed first (ie. AI behaviour/pathfinding), in comparison this is just a minor detail, imo.

Realistically it would be "nice" to have proper parallax simulation even if that does not mean we will be able to use it to fire from unorthodox eye positions though.

Also in regards to the chopper video it helps in showing the issue by exageration, the projection would be circunscribed to the plane of projection of the HUD glass, while you are aiming outside of it as if using a Helmet mounted "HUD" in which case the projection follows your head position regardless.

On the other hand the GUI solution to this seems not to be plausible since there would be 3 dimensional occlusions to it and I am not sure there is a feasible way to access that information on the GUI level. Some sort of texture updating solution would probably help this side of the issue (ie. tie some x/y position to a certain angle incidence).

Edited January 13, 2012 by gammadust

[dunedain 48]

I too think it looks awful as it is now, even if it doesn't serve much purpose in a game I'ld like BIS to fix this.

[Minoza 11]

Even simple fix like turning it off while not aiming would be better than what we have now... BF3 for example and few other games do that.

[PuFu 4600]

Even simple fix like turning it off while not aiming would be better than what we have now... BF3 for example and few other games do that.

no it won't because you would see it missing when turning your head around, which is impossible in most if not all other FPS_es out there.

Plus, i guess the discussion about parallax could be extended to vehicles as well (where you can't turn it off), not just the weapons

[Flash Thunder 10]

@RockLobster

Then you could say that for too many things in this game.

Like the fatigue system

The AI being robotic snipers

The self reloading mounted weapons

the reload animations

etc etc

[wipman 1]

Hi, the problem that we had with the Paralax back on the ArmA1 when doing addon weapons, was that you had to create 'an invisible box' in front the sight (M68 or Eot) where the reticle would move to a certain point depending on your head's FOV possition; we had problems as:

- The Nvidia cards wasn't able of make this box 100% transparent.

- With certain light/effects conditions you was able of see the entire box in front.

- The reticle dissapeared from the FOV sometimes when IRL it wouldn't.

With this method, the best one 'til the date back then, we had those problems when trying to add the paralax effect to the addon weapons and wasn't improssible to aboid some of this bugs so some of us did choose to use the normal non paralax effect M68 & Eot sights instead even when the not that good sights with paralax did improved the CQB as indoors it worked really well in corridors and in frontal engagements.

I think that this thing with the Nvidias don't making the transparent textures 100% transparent in low light conditions or when you're under a light source as a street lamp, the lights of a car or a fire source... still there and there isn't any way of aboid it.

On the ArmA2 i use to choose the M68 sighted weapons over the Eot ones because the Eot's reticle is too bad for me to aim accurately over the M68's dot, but... as the M68 sight haves a bug that unables you to see through under certain conditions and day times... i'm forced to pick the Eot sighted weapons renouncing to a better combat performance.

For those who don't know it... this is the Aimpoint's Glass Bug:

It happens after the dawn by some hours and before, during and after the dusk by some ours too. Let's C ya

[Pulverizer 1]

Also in regards to the chopper video it helps in showing the issue by exageration, the projection would be circunscribed to the plane of projection of the HUD glass, while you are aiming outside of it

You can see still the aim point in the HUD at extreme angles so naturally you would assume that's where your weapons are pointed at. The error happens all the same within the zone where a correctly diplayed reticule would not dissappear from view. But yes, the idea was to make it clearly visible outside of the shiny HUD glass to not be lost in video compression.

[gammadust 12]

It appeared to me that, in the video, there was some kind of "repositioning" of the reticle in the HUD of the Huey. Just that it was not a proper repositioning, and indeed:

(seen from another pov)

but also

This leads me to two things. BIS has an implementation to account for the reflector type sights. It does not seem to be done through a reflection in the beam splitter glass though (it bleeds out of it, see 2nd image). It is also occluded by the HUD framing, hinting at another invisible object. Maybe not too disimilar from the method wipman mentioned. (I tried opening the config to see if I could figure this but the model is binarized)

Another note is that the main advantage of a reflector sight is (contrary to what i was thinking) that you can actually move your eye position and still get a representation of the actual aim point, BUT, take note, as if the target was at infinity.

The following is what is to be expected: (click for source)

Looking at the first image, and thinking that the point "at infinity" along the craft's axis is totaly out of view, somehow i wonder if arma's engine trouble here is not in reproducing this "at infinity" plane, by properly simulating the collimator's lens job.

Making this a different, or in addition, to a parallax problem which apparently is simulated as we can confirm in both images since they respond to different points of view, disregard for now that there exists other sights where this is not the case.

Edited January 16, 2012 by gammadust

[rainbird 1]

Falcon 4.0 does this really well since 1998 ;)

Wish it would appear in ArmA 3. It really is frustrating without it.

[nodunit 397]

Yes and Janes Longbow has had RTT since the late 90's,thing is those engines were built around such things whereas up until now and perhaps still, the concept is an afterthought rather than a core feature.

That said I do have high hopes for these to come into play for Arma3, despite what people think of these things being simple eye candy it's not, it's one of the more great differences between WWII weapons and vehicles vs modern.

Edited January 17, 2012 by NodUnit

[Pulverizer 1]

It appeared to me that, in the video, there was some kind of "repositioning" of the reticle in the HUD of the Huey. Just that it was not a proper repositioning, and indeed:

The reticle stays still. There are two surfaces: the invisible surface with the reticle and the slanted glass in front of it. When your point of view moves, they misalign so the reticle appears to be on a different spot on the glass.