Cockpit glass scratches?

[Madfish]

Scratches in the glass are very easy to make though. Engine sounds are not necessarily easy to make (it takes a very good recording job or even worse, it takes a crazy amount of time to re-create sounds with just software)

And yes, all glass degrades, no matter what quality it is and the quality of glass back in 1940 wasn't even remotely comparable to todays standards in the automobile or aviation industy.

By the way, it's not just absurdly obvious scratches. A tiny amount of "texture" is probably what describes the issue best. CoD glass looks as if it's not even there. Anyone with real world experience knows that you will always be able to see a glass surface. due to very fidel textures and reflections. This is well done even in Wings of Prey but in CoD I don't feel imerged at all.

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

Just a bit of useless info,the priority of the ritualstic cleaning of these
perspex canopies can't be expressed too much.

Apparently the perspex material could be scratched so easily,so much so,that the ground crews were given the softest cloths to clean them with ,as even wiping them unwittingly with a handkerchief could damage them.

After all you're life depended on the effeciency of you're search tfor the enemy through you're canopy.

(An exert from Spitfire at War by Alfred Price)

[pupo162]

Originally Posted by Madfish

Scratches in the glass are very easy to make though. Engine sounds are not necessarily easy to make (it takes a very good recording job or even worse, it takes a crazy amount of time to re-create sounds with just software)

And yes, all glass degrades, no matter what quality it is and the quality of glass back in 1940 wasn't even remotely comparable to todays standards in the automobile or aviation industy.

By the way, it's not just absurdly obvious scratches. A tiny amount of "texture" is probably what describes the issue best. CoD glass looks as if it's not even there. Anyone with real world experience knows that you will always be able to see a glass surface. due to very fidel textures and reflections. This is well done even in Wings of Prey but in CoD I don't feel imerged at all.

good maintenence makes glass scratches unniticable.

i flew a 1946 plane with original glass, and it looked cristal clear.

AS opinion keep it as it is. its good.

[Cataplasma]

Originally Posted by Flying Pencil

Aircraft "glass" is typically plastic, except for armored glass.

Plastic is easy to scratch, and would be awesome to have.

Armored windows is glass, and scratches, even nicks and spider chips, would be very unusual because rocks off of tiers do not fly up to 12,000 ft!

Plexiglass (PMMA=Polymethylmethacrylate) was invented by army and used for the first time for spit's cockpit (with its typical thermoformed rounded shape).
The scratches that you see in Lock on are typical of modern PMMA cockpits.
Alcohol is very aggressive for PMMA, if you want to make some scratches on PMMA you just have to clean it.
Glass scratches are different and very rare to see on old glass cockpit's thikness.
The spit is the only plane that should have this "scratches", and also different clean-cut bullet's holes

[II./JG1_Wilcke]

That is why you have your ground crew, to blend the canopy Perspex and get those scratches out! Get them to work!

[xnomad]

Originally Posted by Cataplasma

Plexiglass (PMMA=Polymethylmethacrylate) was invented by army and used for the first time for spit's cockpit (with its typical thermoformed rounded shape).
The scratches that you see in Lock on are typical of modern PMMA cockpits.
Alcohol is very aggressive for PMMA, if you want to make some scratches on PMMA you just have to clean it.
Glass scratches are different and very rare to see on old glass cockpit's thikness.
The spit is the only plane that should have this "scratches", and also different clean-cut bullet's holes

The 109 canopy is also plexiglass. There's even a section in the real Messerschmitt Emil manual about how to clean it without scratching it.

Glass was only used in the windscreen as armoured glass and that was introduced later on around the time of the F model and retrofitted to older E models.

[Madfish]

In my opinion not even the best glass in the world will ever be scratch free, at least I haven't seen it, not in moving objects like planes, trains or cars but even some buildings e.g. in dusty environments with strong winds.
I also think many are confusing this: In my post I said "give the glass some texture" and as we all know from physics there is no perfect surface. Even high tech mirrors do have a surface structure and a cockpit window is certainly not a high tech mirror in a vacuum and hermitically sealed environment.

The important message I want to convey here is that there are stains from water drops, dirt, smashed bugs, minor glass degradation, residue from various sources, even from the inside, e.g. touching the glass or just breathing. Did any of you really ever see a perfect surface without even some of this? Because I sure didn't.

There are countless sources for textured glass, not only hefty scratches. However, none of you will, hopefully, disagree that you can always see the canope glass. You don't just have to guess it's there - you can see it. This effect is produced by reflections and texture.

As such I must say I like the idea of a coupling with the aging slider but considering the hefty default aging I believe at least a little bit of realistic glass would be fine. Right now the glass is just perfect. As if it wouldn't have seen the real world at all. Not a single stain on it, nothing. Only a very slight reflection of sunlight.

Considering how they implemented those new sounds I really hope that the coming SDK's will make it possible or that they maybe think about this as I assume making a glass texture is much easier than re-doing the sounds and since you are in the cockpit 99% of the time it'd add a lot to the realism and imersion.


Also I did a quick random search on youtube just to illustrate the point here and entered "warbird cockpit" and first result I got was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=lE-F29kBjsE
Now this may not be the best maintained plane in the world but even so - it's what I would expect. You can clearly see the glass surface. As everything in this world it's just not perfect although you may never realize this unless you pay attention.

You can also see this beautifully in this video here, notice the tons of tiny scratches on the canope when the plane turns:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiAIyX0l42M&hd=1

And I have yet to see proof of a scratch and stain free canope. Especially considering the crazy airflow that goes over it you'd have to expect it to get sandblasted by everything that gets caught up between propeller and the canope.

That said I would very much like to see some typical glass texture that could even be worsened depending on the aging slider setting. Bear in mind though that all pilots would still want to have vision so the effect of the aging slider should be mild. The reflection of the cockpit itself could eventually be a bit stronger though as it also provides much of what then leads to a recognition of the glass.