Display of Radar Fog-of-War

[eleazar]

I saw on IRC that KrackenO was working on improving the radar display.

But rather than placing an overlay where the radar reaches, it could be more clearly displayed by letting the radar visually punch holes in the fog of war.  The places where you can see are now crisp and clearer than the rest of the world, rather than dulled by a green haze.
The radar circles are still included, but at a lesser opacity, due to their decreased importance, though they still have some usefulness in seeing which base causes what.

Recipe:
fog of war color: Medium Grey
fog of war opacity: ~45%
intermediate opacity:  ~33%
radar circle opacity: ~33%

Of course, in actual use, somewhat different numbers may prove better, but i messed around with different settings, and these should provide a good start.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Winter]

Personally I'm not a fan of your way of doing it, it just seems like you're overthinking it, making it less straightforward. Why de-fog the geoscape when Kracken's simple green overlay does the job more intuitively whilst also looking better?

I will agree that a lesser opacity setting on Kracken's filter would be nice, as well as retaining the green radar circles to more clearly define the borders.

Regards,
Winter

[eleazar]

Personally I'm not a fan of your way of doing it, it just seems like you're overthinking it, making it less straightforward. Why de-fog the geoscape when Kracken's simple green overlay does the job more intuitively whilst also looking better?

I don't agree that the green-overlay radar is so obviously superior.  Not that i'm criticizing Kracken's work.  I'm glad he's working on it... But as a graphic designer, it's something i can profitably contribute ideas to.

With my version, you'll eventually have a globe that's nearly all clear and crisp.
With the green version, you'll eventually have a globe that's nearly all greenish--- that's  the wrong progression.

... assuming that the new radar display is going to be on all the time... which i think is worthwhile

Kracken's method is more obvious to think of, but not more obvious to use... especially when you start adding the national and IVX overlays.  A green overlay will muddy the colors, and make it harder to distinguish national colors...  A neutral grey will dull the colors, but it won't shift them to something else.

Every game i can think of indicates vision by dulling or darkening the area you can't see, rather than putting a color overlay on the area you can see in.  And with good reason:  It's the more intuitive method.

[Winter]

Hmm. Okay, I can see your point, but I'm still not sure I'm entirely happy. The grey of the areas without coverage just seems . . . not quite right. Maybe making it a little bit darker would help, make it more intuitive. Right now the areas with the most radar visibility are darker than the areas with less visibility, which speaking as a gamer throws me for a bit of a loop.

Regards,
Winter

[BTAxis]

I'm not sure about the always on thing... It's probably going to be annoying, especially with incomplete coverage (and coverage is not supposed to ever be complete, at least not with the inner "detection" range), so I'd argue for a toggled overlay.

[Winter]

I'm not sure about the always on thing... It's probably going to be annoying, especially with incomplete coverage (and coverage is not supposed to ever be complete, at least not with the inner "detection" range), so I'd argue for a toggled overlay.

I thought that was implied, I would never support an always-on overlay. It has to be toggled like the other filters we've got (political, XVI, etc.).

Regards,
Winter

[Kamuflaro]

The pic looks cool, but I don't really see the use of it... either you discovered the ufo or you didn't.
Everything what seeing the radar is usefull for, is when building a new base. But even then you will have to aproximate, because you can't see the radar circle for the new base.

[eleazar]

Hmm. Okay, I can see your point, but I'm still not sure I'm entirely happy. The grey of the areas without coverage just seems . . . not quite right. Maybe making it a little bit darker would help, make it more intuitive. Right now the areas with the most radar visibility are darker than the areas with less visibility, which speaking as a gamer throws me for a bit of a loop.

Sure black would be a more idea choice, but it doesn't work in our situation... when pretty much an entire hemisphere of the planet can be solid black at once (pacific at night), a black overlay would be nearly invisible, and thus useless

The pic looks cool, but I don't really see the use of it... either you discovered the ufo or you didn't.
Everything what seeing the radar is usefull for, is when building a new base. But even then you will have to aproximate, because you can't see the radar circle for the new base.

.

IIRC types of events things for later releases will not automatically pop up on your map... they might remain hidden... but radar  coverage and fly-overs will help to reveal them.  Thus it's relevant to the player where he has coverage and how much.... not just when there's a UFO around.

Being able to toggle the filters is fine... but i believe they should be independently toggle-able, so they player can display all the information he wants at once.

[Winter]

Sure black would be a more idea choice, but it doesn't work in our situation... when pretty much an entire hemisphere of the planet can be solid black at once (pacific at night), a black overlay would be nearly invisible, and thus useless

I never said 'black'. I said 'darker'.

IIRC types of events things for later releases will not automatically pop up on your map... they might remain hidden... but radar  coverage and fly-overs will help to reveal them.  Thus it's relevant to the player where he has coverage and how much.... not just when there's a UFO around.

Even above and beyond that, having a visual representation of your current radar coverage is a good tool as a commander and a nice feature. Especially when we incorporate non-base installations, such as radar towers and SAM sites.

Being able to toggle the filters is fine... but i believe they should be independently toggle-able, so they player can display all the information he wants at once.

Yes, that has always been the idea.

[eleazar]

I never said 'black'. I said 'darker'.

*shrug* similar problem.  A dark grey starts to look like just another shadow over the land, especially in the "detection" zone, and there's just not enough contrast to see what's what without increasing the opacity of the overlay, and thereby causing more issues.
See attached. i changed the mask color half way from the grey it was to black.  Notice the "detection" zone above Russia.  You couldn't hardly see the difference if it weren't for the faint lines i left in.



Of course, there's no obvious reason for the ocean to be so nearly black, nor for the night to be so absolute.

Personally i'd like to see rather than a shaded sphere, one that used the nigh-lights texture on half with a narrow zone of blending.  It would look more attractive, and with the proper adjustment (lighter oceans) allow a black radar fog-of-war to work.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[kracken]

I'm not able to tell now what would be the better between both approach (coloring inside or outside radar range). Thank you for this idea, I didn't think about it myself and I'm going to try both.
 But this color problem is only some fine tunning and I first need to manage to create the radar overlay first.
My problem is that the implementation I made needs too much resources. Base radar coverage is OK, but the problem is for aircraft radar coverage. As aircraft moves, the radar coverage texture must be recalculated on every frame, and that takes a lot of resources (on my computer, I went from ~35 fps to ~15 fps).
I still have some ideas to improve that, this is work in progress. But I'm not going to commit this radar stuff if I don't manage to get better performances.

Personally i'd like to see rather than a shaded sphere, one that used the nigh-lights texture on half with a narrow zone of blending.  It would look more attractive, and with the proper adjustment (lighter oceans) allow a black radar fog-of-war to work.

You mean like what we already do for 2D geoscape ? This would be another alpha map to calculate on every frame. I'm not sure that current night texture is worth the job: it doesn't look really nicer on 2D geoscape than on 3D geoscape, no ? Have you any idea to improve that ?

[eleazar]

I still have some ideas to improve that, this is work in progress. But I'm not going to commit this radar stuff if I don't manage to get better performances.

I understand that a lot of ideas that look and sound good can be a major pain or simply impractical to implement.

However, i have some hope since (i think) only the alpha mask needs to be recalculated.  And visually you can probably get away with a lower-res mask if you keep the green radar-circles (per my mock-up) which will help convince the eye that "circles" are round, even though the underlying texture is pixel-jagged.

You mean like what we already do for 2D geoscape ? This would be another alpha map to calculate on every frame. I'm not sure that current night texture is worth the job: it doesn't look really nicer on 2D geoscape than on 3D geoscape, no ? Have you any idea to improve that ?

You're saying you don't think the night-texture makes the 2D geoscape look better?
IMHO it looks a lot better than a plain black shadow.

Of course there are ways to make the 2 textures work together better (in either a 2D or 3D context).  I was working on that and other aspects of the globe-textures, but many of my questions where never answered on the ML.