Feature request for the MFS release: realistic (non-cinematic) propeller animations

Fly high, fast, and far in first class comfort
new reply
aurel42
Airman First Class
Posts: 54
Joined: 28 Aug 2016, 07:36
Location: EDCD

Feature request for the MFS release: realistic (non-cinematic) propeller animations

Post by aurel42 »

You know how some people hate lens flares in game, because they feign realism by showing a visual effect that you would never see if you were watching the scene with your own eyes, because it's a result of the imperfection of camera lenses? You might not have noticed, but your brain did. Lens flares signal to your brain: "You're not really here, you're watching this through a camera." Enough people complained about this, and today most titles that implement lens flares have an option in video settings to turn them off.

For me, it's the same with the "cinematic" prop animations which are now standard in the flightsim world. I'm talking about the blurry propeller blades moving at varying speeds depending on the RPM setting. If you've ever seen a prop aircraft in real life, or looked at any fast moving ventilator, like a desk fan or room fan, you know that's not how props look unless captured with a camera. The human eye does not have a shutter speed or exposure time that could lead to this "wagon-wheel effect" (and the sun does not flicker like some artificial light sources do). What you see instead is a disc with varying transparency (and color) from the center to the outer edge, and the variations in transparency are caused by the different relationships of propeller blade width and space between blades at different radii (and the hue is based on the paint scheme of the prop).

I totally understand why at some point the "cinematic" animations were considered a technological progress, and I realize they actually have the benefit of giving immediate visual feedback when the prop RPM changes. But: Apart from this breaking immersion for some of us, there are IMHO two new valid technical arguments for offering realistic looking spinning props animations:

In VR, the cinematic prop animation messes in a major way with the motion prediction needed for Motion Smoothing and ATW, technologies that enable a smooth VR experience on underpowered rigs (and, when it comes to flightsimming, almost all rigs are underpowered, especially when new video cards are ridiculously overpriced because the cryptocurrency bubble keeps inflating). While there are other distracting artifacts of Motion Smoothing, the prop animations are simply the worst offender. The realistic disc does not affect Motion Smoothing at all. In fact, for the MFS default aircraft, modders have created alternative prop animations by turning the transparency to 11 to mitigate the problems with Motion Smoothing.

In MFS, changes in transparency also appear to introduce a slight distortion effect. You can see this when you look at the horizon through a slow-moving cinematic prop animation (ie. RPM is set in a way that the blurry blades move slowly): if you watch closely, you can see the horizon wobble as the transparency changes. Now try the same when you're flying in weather, with multiple cloud layers ahead of you and in lighting conditions that create a lot of contrast between the light tops and the dark bottoms of the clouds. Suddenly everything in front of you turns into a wreathing mess. (Until you've seen it yourself, it's hard to imagine how bad this can become.) And it is much more distracting in VR, even with Motion Smoothing disabled.

Looking at pics of the upcoming DC-9, PMDG might have gone for a compromise: it seems like they only have the blurred blade effect at the outer ring of the prop (blade tips painted black), while everything else looks like a disc without blurred blades... if I'm interpreting the pics correctly.

I would prefer a switch in the configuration program, or maybe just an alternative set of graphics that I can just rename or copy manually. If it was easy to create the graphics for a noob, I would do it myself, but it's not, I tried. And it's even harder when the prop uses a paint scheme. I also have no idea how to handle reflections with the realistic disc, but I wouldn't mind having any.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

User avatar
DHenriques_
A2A Chief Pilot
Posts: 5711
Joined: 27 Mar 2009, 08:31
Location: East Coast United States

Re: Feature request for the MFS release: realistic (non-cinematic) propeller animations

Post by DHenriques_ »

Propeller graphics represent a real challenge for the coder doing them. The easy out is what you see now in MSFS2020. You should see a vast difference when viewing our A2A propeller disks as coded by our team.
The ideal view as seen from the cockpit is a fairly transparent disk where motion is depicted by the clever use of transient "blur" as opposed to the more common "moving sticks" look. To get the disk even more real to actual life the disk should show a very subtle difference in solidity as the pitch of the propeller changes with the governor. You can add realism even to this by the addition of color to the propeller tips. This effect should appear with varying intensities as the disk moves in different directions relative to the sun.
Our P51D is a good example of creative propeller programming. I find it quite close to representative of the actual visuals as seen when flying the real airplane.
Asobo does need some work in this area if the goal is to be "actual life) immersion.
Dudley Henriques

aurel42
Airman First Class
Posts: 54
Joined: 28 Aug 2016, 07:36
Location: EDCD

Re: Feature request for the MFS release: realistic (non-cinematic) propeller animations

Post by aurel42 »

Obviously, you're way ahead of me there. :D

User avatar
DHenriques_
A2A Chief Pilot
Posts: 5711
Joined: 27 Mar 2009, 08:31
Location: East Coast United States

Re: Feature request for the MFS release: realistic (non-cinematic) propeller animations

Post by DHenriques_ »

aurel42 wrote: 05 Jun 2021, 14:00 Obviously, you're way ahead of me there. :D
Not really. Your comments on how the propeller disks look in FS2020 was fairly accurate.
Dudley Henriques

new reply

Return to “Piper Comanche 250”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests