Cockpit Glass shading

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by louisv

I sat in a CF-100 cockpit once and I was shocked at the really bad visibility due mostly to scratches and the thickness also surprised me. There was a greenish tint to the material. This was a decommissioned 50's Canadian fighter.

Old Perspex degenerates and takes a yellowish tint, namely when exposed to wheater and sunlight.
Fresh Perspex is very transparent and clearer than crystal. The interesting property of Perspex is that it stays clear when increasing the thickness. That's why it is widely used in large aquariums.
So ... The light fading is overdone! Luthier needs to revise this also.

Cheers,
Insuber

[Seeker]

I'd say it's about right, although a couple of times the "pink vision" wounded condition has rolled back when I've opened the canopy....

None of you ride bikes, wear crash helmets? The difference between canopy closed/open is about the same as visor up/down .

[Insuber]

Let's try a quantitative approach. Plexiglass (poly-methyl-metacrilate, pardon my chemical engineering studies ) has a transparency of 92%, pretty much independent from thickness. It filters only 8% of light. A good optical glass is almost equivalent.

I took a screenshot with open canopy, and tried to measure the RGB in close areas of sky, 1 is free blue sky without canopy, #2 is behind the windshield. I don't know how much glass is in the armored windshield, but let's look at the figures:



The perceived brightness through the windshield (formula HERE) is 82% of the clear undisturbed sky. A reduction of 18%, against 8% of pure Perspex is way too much.


I will do the same exercise for the lateral areas of the canopy.

Cheers,
Insuber

[Insuber]

And now the lateral canopy. Again too dark, according to my measurements:



Remember that Perspex white light transmission is 92%. Here we have 78% ....

Luthier would you take a look at this please, after the major issues will be solved ?

Cheers,
Insuber

PS: I attribute to the different time of the day the fact that lateral shading is higher than the front shield shading in my two takes: by all evidence the game's shading is higher with darker sky. I can take measurements at dusk to prove this, but I assume that the main point is demonstrated.

[Insuber]

I believe also that at dusk the shading is even stronger. Not very realistic IMHO.

[bongodriver]

But glass/perspex or whatever still catches shadow and light, all of the science talk is great but what you get in a lab is different to what you see in real life, the surface is covered in dust/scratches and other detritis, even if it is relatively new it picks up dirt pretty quick, this does make it seem fairly dark.

[Insuber]

Yes but the ground crew were very careful at cleaning canopies, since the life of the pilot depended from it. And as the average life of a fighter was few weeks, anyway the wear was not an issue. So I believe that the 18-22% of light absorption in-game is way too much with respect to the 8% of chemistry data. Do we settle for 10%? ...