Who wants a pilot / copilot in the VC ?

[roger-wilco-66]

I wonder how fellow flight simmers feel about that.
Sometimes I think that these cockpits, expecially in twin seat environments, look too empty. I even wouldn't mind to see legs, body and arms of "my" virtual pilot in the VC, maybe removable via a mapped key. In a twin cockpit with a copilot, it could also be used for basic crew interaction like in the A2A B-17.
I'm aware that a well modeled co-pilot and/or pilot would probably cause a forbidding frame rate hit that a developer would avoid, but nevertheless it would be interesting how the community feels about it.

Cheers,
Mark

[stiz]

yes, but only if they look good and it needent cause a forbidding frame rate hit if done properly and your not useing the cheap "high detail 5740982749687209457 million polys model!" when 65,000 would have done fine :monkies: :engel016:

[scotsman]

Aerosoft's Aerolite Ul, Ant's Moth and Drifter and Restauravia's Nord and Fouga show up good animations. I also prefer to see more than a blank cockpit.

Mike

[Naismith]

I guess I will go against the prevailing trend and say I am a loner so no. Though I like to see occupants when viewed from o/s, but inside no not really. Although The Avro Anson by Dave Garwood (I think) was OK as was the old DH Dragon Rapide ( I hope I got the author right ). Now the more I think on it, as long as it is well done its OK otherwise no, ....... unless .... oh now I'm totally confused.. lol
:icon_lol:

[expat]

I guess I will go against the prevailing trend and say I am a loner so no. Though I like to see occupants when viewed from o/s, but inside no not really.

Fully agree. For me seeing virtual humans in the vc breaks the spell and spoils the immersion of interacting with the machinery. It's a bit self centered. I like to see at least silouette humans from the outside view but too often detailed human faces look very cartoonish next to comparatively amazing rendering of exterior and interior objects and scenery in FS.

[X_eidos2]

With the SkyUnlimited AT-6 and Harvard I modeled both the pilot and the guy in the back seat in both exterior and interior views in both FS9 and FSX versions. Included was a system of visibility buttons that would allow the user to turn figures on or off as they desired. I even included blinking eyes. There was no noticeable frame rate hit when the figures were on. The response from our customers was a big yawn.

I noticed that when the user point of view was surrounded by arms and legs, especially in the back seat position, a lot of the instruments and switches in the lower part of the cockpit got covered up.

The hardest part from a modeler's point of view was getting the right arm of the pilot to move in sync with the joystick, something that I notice a lot of developers just leave out all together.

[PRB]

I voted no. Not sure why I don't like co-pilots in the VC. I think it's because I like to look at the VC and the co-pilot gets in the way :)

[trisager]

I like the passengers in Ant's Technam Sierra and the A2A Cub (the silent Heidi, though). It's good fun flying the Cub with a passenger in the front seat and a very restricted view of the instruments.

Pilot body parts I can do without.

[Sieggie]

An occupant of the seat you are not sitting in, would be nice. To have the seat you are occupying full of arms and legs, gets annoying when trying to find buttons and switches on the panel. As a real pilot you would just move your protruding parts out of the way to see something. The AI blob just sits there being annoying, always seeming to be in the way of something you want to see.

Outside view should always have at least a pilot. It is disconcerting to see a plane flying without anyone in the cockpit :O

Dave

[Killbilly]

I like when there's an option. Iris, for example, lets you select the visibility of the co-pilot or passengers based on the weight in the loadout. If you want some company, put some in. If you want some solitude, take them out. Options are always nicer and hit a wider audience.

[Bjoern]

While halfway convincing co-pilots would surely be possible in VC model, they're basically just another 329839843 hours that have to be invested into a model.

So that's a clear "no".

[italoc]

.
.......I even wouldn't mind to see legs, body and arms of "my" virtual pilot in the VC, maybe removable via a mapped key........
Cheers,
Mark

Me too ... as long as they are female body parts :icon_lol:

Italo

[TeiscoDelRay]

Planes that have copilots should have them virtually as well. Bill Lyons had great animated copilots and passengers, even a dog that covered his eyes when things went wrong. These add much to the realism of the plane.

[delta_lima]

I still have nightmares of those ghoulish mummy-like co-pilots of certain FS9 planes (can't recall which).

At best, in the case of a tandem-cockpit set up where the student's head can be seen (as in Ant's Tiger Moth), I'm ok with that. Until the sim gets to the point where the organic rendering can be as good as the mechanical, then no. An otherwise perfect pit will be impoverished, rather than improved, by the presence of a pilot/passenger that is not as realistically rendered as the cockpit they're sitting in.

For the pilot, I loathe seeing "own" arms, hands and legs. Completely takes away from the immersion.

dl

[Daube]

I would like copilots and pilot body as well, but only if there's an option to temporarly remove any obstacle preventing the access to buttons/gauges.
In the freeware Mystere, you can click on the left arm so that the pilot removes his hand from the throttle, to give full access to the various fuel+light switches if I remember correctly. This is cool.

[dogfish]

Yes I wish We had them, as long as they are modeled well, and if they can move even better. Nothing worse in My opinion than a multicrewed aircraft with empty seats, especially now with the beautifuly rendered aircraft/cockpits we have. I'd be more than willing to pay the extra cost this would no doubt entail.

[huub vink]

I would like them, but in the same graphic quality as the pilot. However based on my current experience I don't think it is possible to a co-pilot/passenger in this quality without an huge impact on frame rates.

Huub

[casey jones]

I like Mr Loney's Piper twin for F9 very much...but I cannot stand that weid looking guy sitting next to me.


Casey

[peter12213]

I voted no. Not sure why I don't like co-pilots in the VC. I think it's because I like to look at the VC and the co-pilot gets in the way :)

I have to say my thoughts exactly!

[Desert Rat]

VC:

Pilot - no
others - yes

External:
yes to both.

[Kiwikat]

No.

It is especially awkward when you look down and see legs with a hollow body. I don't understand why a developer couldn't include two versions though.

[Gibbage]

As an artist and now a developer, I have had to deal with this question many MANY times. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t have a pilot at all, but its not about what I want, but what the customer wants.

I personally will never have pilots, copilots, or passengers in the aircraft for VC for MANY reasons.

#1, visibility. As a pilot in FSX, you need to have visual access to every nook and cranny since they hide buttons EVERYWHERE. I know that there are ways around it like camera's and views, but having a user constantly having to think of ways around your artwork means your art is getting in the way. Not something I like.

#2, Seatbelts. I know it sounds like a small thing, but its a real PAIN to model fabric seatbelts, and a harness? UGH! Gives me fits to even think about.

#3, Animation. Its really hard to rig up a pilots arms and legs, but we do it for the external model. We CAN keep it for the internal model, but that leaves #4

#4, Continuity. This one is hard to explain. Basically the pilots hands would be locked to the stick the entire time. So when YOU are adjusting the throttle, the PILOT does not. His hands are still on the stick, yet the throttle moves? Thats braking continuity. Your no longer the pilot, and a ghost is moving the throttle. It would be cool to animate something that the pilots hands reach for whatever your doing, but its almost impossible and would suffer from lag. It takes time to animate the pilots hands moving from the stick too the throttle. Since we cant predict your throttle commands, the throttle will move BEFORE his hands get there. Also, what if the switch is out of reach? Do we have him lean over? Maybe a co-pilot do it? It will take more time to animate pilots and copilots then modeling the ENTIRE AIRCRAFT. That would DOUBLE the price of a product EASY.

#5, Head. If you see your body, and your in the head, what do you do for the neck when you look down? This is why FPS games DONT HAVE BODY's! If the user looks down far enough, he will see into his own neck. Do we have a body with no neck? Or maybe just a bloody stump? There is no answer to this, so every game has left the body out.

Ultimately, there are just WAY TOO MANY PROBLEMS introduced with the addition of pilot/copilot models in the VC. Its just too much work for very little return. Something like A2A's Cub is cool since the female passanger is mostly out of the way, but other then that, I stay away from pilots in VC.

Just my professional opinion.

P.S. I almost forgot an important one! Performance! VS's are VERY complex, and so are PEOPLE. To have both would kill frame rate.

[robert41]

In the VC, yes, I would like to see the copilot, crew and passengers. But not the pilot. Especially in larger aircraft, I get that lonely feeling with out a visible crew.

[Dexdoggy]

I really like the A2A Cub and Ant's Sierra, Drifter and Tiger Moth that you can switch these on or off! :applause:

[anthony31]

I like chickybabes.

Best sort of eyecandy I reckon.

That's why I put them in.

[mfitch]

If the passengers are like Heidi providing feedback, then I like them. Just sitting there is not interesting. Actually unmoving passengers are like corpses.

[fsafranek]

I voted "No". Put the effort into other cockpit details.
I do like to see a full crew in external views however.
:ernae:

[Gibbage]

Thats another good point. The more detail we put into passangers, the less time we have for the aircraft itself. We budget a fixed ammount of time, so if we added time, we would need to add to the price of the product. Im sure there are some people out there willing to pay 5-10$ more for animated passangers, but would that number outweigh the people who would rather save 5-10$ for NOT having them? Thats a good question, and will leave that up too the customers.

[DaveWG]

I voted "yes", but they need to be well done, and removable.

I don't see the point in putting crew / passengers in the external view, and not in the VC view as well. The pilot is an exception, and should be left out of the VC though.

[X_eidos2]

Where there's a will, there's a way.

When making movies, there's a couple different ways of adding crew to the scene.

46260

Sometimes it's a good thing not to have a crew member in the original model, makes post-production a lot easier.

46261

This way is my favorite. The external model of the pilot in the Lysander was mapped in such a way that you couldn't just paint a white harness on the texture map. So using FS-Recorder, I had a model of just the harness flying in close formation with the model of the Lysander

46262

[fliger747]

Surprisingly in some aircraft, such as the F86, being able to see "your body" moving the stick and rudders added a lot of realism. In those small cockpits you are yourself a good portion of the scenery! I'm not large, but do a decent job of filling the Supercub Cockpit, have no idea what it is like for my larger friends!

In a larger cockpit such as the 747, you really don't notice yourself as much of a presence.

T

[TeaSea]

Think I'd have to say "no"....not from inside the VC.

Now, looking at the A/C externally, "probably".

[modelr]

I prefer to see the pilot/passengers from the VC. I feel like I'm in a totally radio controlled movie type aircraft set when I can't see my legs/hands & arms. Having them removeable by switch/weight/etc is a good idea. As to finding things/moving parts out of way, an invisible switch when moving eyepoint closer/zooming in should work. Same goes for when using Track IR, that would temporarily turn off the body parts.

[Daube]

Yesterday I made another flight with the A2A B-17 Accusim. Hearing the crew talking but not seeing anybody in the cockpit (and turrets) is just a total frustration. Once again, I would love to see animated crew in my planes, with a swith to make them disappear when I'm sitting at their place.

[Mathias]

Yesterday I made another flight with the A2A B-17 Accusim. Hearing the crew talking but not seeing anybody in the cockpit (and turrets) is just a total frustration. Once again, I would love to see animated crew in my planes, with a swith to make them disappear when I'm sitting at their place.

One issue with that is that you'll mostly likely animate them using skinned mesh animations.
In return you can't use visibility tags as it doesn't go well along with skinned mesh animations but need to hide the extra guys guys somewhere in the fuselage when needed/requested.
That means the paxe's will always drain some ressources, regardless of wether they are visible or not.

[Daube]

I don't think those passengers will drain so much ressources. Heidi is switchable and hidding somewhere in the back of the Cub, and the performance is nothing critical. I understand, of course, that the performance could become a serious problem in a liner where several passengers would have to be modelled, but in a regular GA or military plane, we're talking about something like 1, 2, 3 or 4 passengers in the cabin at maximum, and they won't need billions polys each.

[Mathias]

I don't think those passengers will drain so much ressources. Heidi is switchable and hidding somewhere in the back of the Cub, and the performance is nothing critical. I understand, of course, that the performance could become a serious problem in a liner where several passengers would have to be modelled, but in a regular GA or military plane, we're talking about something like 1, 2, 3 or 4 passengers in the cabin at maximum, and they won't need billions polys each.

If you want to see them in the VC they'd need a considerable amount of modelling and texture detail, thus they do_cause_drain. I'd rather spend my shader budget elsewhere, tu be true.
Heidi, ah well, you just see her from the rear. It's a different thing when you look at your side- or back seaters.

[Daube]

You get multiple views from the VC, and when you look at her from all angles, there are no modelling problems that are really noticable. I guess you are perhaps over-estimating the necessary level of details for those animated passengers. Heidi looks good but she's doesn't seem to be a dramatic amount of polys, nor does she use ultra-high resolution textures.

This discussion is very interesting. I think I'm going to reproduce it on the A2A forums to get some more informations on this details/performance ratio.

[stiz]

it also depends on taste and preferences a little bit, some would be perfectly happy with Heidi, whilst others wouldnt be happy unless you could see every imperfection in the skin :engel016:

[CWOJackson]

it also depends on taste and preferences a little bit, some would be perfectly happy with Heidi, whilst others wouldnt be happy unless you could see every imperfection in the skin :engel016:

Freckle counters?

[X_eidos2]

When building the FSX version of the AT6 Texan and Harvard I had to hide the extra body parts of the pilot on the other side of the engine firewall. The pilot was a skinned model and the guy in the back seat was just polygons. It was a lot of work figuring out how to set things up. Thanks to the friendly folks at Free Flight Design forums I got it all sorted out.

It was an awful lot of development work to get everything working. I have recently seen the planes being used in several screenshots lately, but none of them have taken advantage of being able to turn the visibility of guy in back on and off.

I find this poll very interesting. Had I read it before I started work on the Texans, I probably would have left the visibility feature out all together.