When I start P3D with the A2A Cessna 182, the eye point defaults to 0.30.  What does this mean?  What I want is the feel of what a real pilot would see sitting normally in the C-182.  It looks "about right" but maybe a touch too far back from the instrument panel...Also, what is the difference between zoom and eyepoint.  Thanks.

Was this a hard question?

Was this a hard question?

 

Only because it's hard to know what you're asking. I don't think there are any 'nuances' - eyepoint represents the position of your eyes in the aircraft (the seat position) and zoom represents the focal length of the lens (wide-angle v telephoto effect) through which you're looking out of your eyes. You choose the eyepoint to suit. This is like moving your head around in real life. Real life has no zoom, so you set it to something that approximates realistic for your setup and leave it there.

What I want is the feel of what a real pilot would see sitting normally in the C-182.  

 

Hi,

Here is a video explaining a theory how to set the view correctly:

In short, you should have wide view aspect true selected and use zoom of ideally 1.00 or maybe 0.90.  What you referred to as the eyepoint being 0.30 is actually the zoom setting and the lower this is, the more the outside world appears to have a fishbowl effect.....everything is appearing much further away than it really is.  Low zoom is great if you want panoramic views of the panel and the outside world, but, is totally unrealistic when compared with what a pilot would see.

 

Egbert's video link is well worth a watch.

 

Best way to see how bad these low zoom settings are is to fly an approach at 0.30 and note how quickly things seem to happen when you're on final and then repeat at 1.00.  In a Cessna, this setting of 1.00 will have you feeling like finals at 70kts is slow motion....just like it is when flying for real.

 

The other way to look at it is to ask yourself what MS could possibly have had in mind with the view zoom at 1.00....to me at least, that would be 'normal' zoom.

In short, you should have wide view aspect true selected and use zoom of ideally 1.00 or maybe 0.90.  What you referred to as the eyepoint being 0.30 is actually the zoom setting and the lower this is, the more the outside world appears to have a fishbowl effect.....everything is appearing much further away than it really is.  Low zoom is great if you want panoramic views of the panel and the outside world, but, is totally unrealistic when compared with what a pilot would see.

 

Egbert's video link is well worth a watch.

 

Best way to see how bad these low zoom settings are is to fly an approach at 0.30 and note how quickly things seem to happen when you're on final and then repeat at 1.00.  In a Cessna, this setting of 1.00 will have you feeling like finals at 70kts is slow motion....just like it is when flying for real.

 

The other way to look at it is to ask yourself what MS could possibly have had in mind with the view zoom at 1.00....to me at least, that would be 'normal' zoom.

 

 

Well, I sit in between those: I have wide view on and a zoom of 0.70. This gives the best compromise because you do want to make up a bit for the missing peripheral vision (1080 monitor here) and you also don't want to see those loading textures and autogen too zoomed in.  :wink: I get claustrophobic with a zoom of 1.00: things simply are TOO close for me. A zoom go 0.7 also (hardly) gives a fishbowl effect. In the end it is a very subjective. Imho it is impossible to get a truly realistic view on a screen anyway so you have to choose what you like most.

Cheers for Egbert!! :wink:

Egbert 's video should be compulsory viewing by any beginner :smile:  !  

 

Most of the checklists have a starting item recommending to move your seat forward or backward, upward or downward to be comfortable. So start with the recommended .9/1.0 zoom and then use the CTRL, SHIFT, ENTER and BACKWARD key duets to set a realistic PoV according to your size. 

Also, to be fair, this zoom thing has become more of an issue with P3D having the default at 0.30.  At least FSX defaulted to 0.80, which I think is correct if you're using wideviewaspect=false.

 

The problem is then exaggerated by developers putting their eyepoint in the wrong place and/or setting up the aircraft default view with a panoramic 0.30 zoom.  First thing I do with an add-on is sort out the VC views and zooms so that I have just a handful that are useful.

My advice with respect to FOV is.......use what is most comfortable for you. I have mine set to 0.70 for my A2A Piper Cherokee 180 and Piper Comanche 250.

 P3D having the default at 0.30.   

This is something I've failed so far to understand, why should they set a default entry (as opposed to a scenario entry) at such a ludicrous zoom... 

Some time ago i tended to calculate the correct FOV value from my monitor distance and width but i can't remeber the correlation between FSX/P3D zoom value in % and FOV in °.

 

btw: is there a way to write out eye-point coordinates for later use in aircraft.cfg?

This is something I've failed so far to understand, why should they set a default entry (as opposed to a scenario entry) at such a ludicrous zoom... 

 

0.3 is about right for a three-screen display, assuming WindViewAspect defaults to off. Perhaps this reflects the P3D target market.

Some time ago i tended to calculate the correct FOV value from my monitor distance and width but i can't remeber the correlation between FSX/P3D zoom value in % and FOV in °.

 

That's in part 2 of the video