Help with View Groups

[MarkH]

I have been playing with viewgroups (see my experiments in this thread). I am doing it using the ViewFrustum setup, as outlined in MHargrove's tutorial. However, I have a few issues that I would appreciate advice on:

(1) I have convinced myself that the 'Flat' ViewGroupShape is the one that works, since my three monitors are not far off being flat (they are angled inwards only slightly due to the layout of my cockpit). BUT when I select this, the 'AllowZoom' option doesn't seem to work. I somehow have a default zoom of 1.24 and I can't change it. (In case it is relevant I have also noticed that in this situation I can't change the views any more - so spot view etc aren't available).

(2) If you look at my second video (in the thread linked above) you will see that my two outer screens are tilted left and right (in the bank axis) by about 20 degrees. This is fine, as I use an opposite bank in the OffsetPBH field for each of the left and right screens. However, I'm not sure how to calculate the edge overlap, since my bezels (gaps between the screens) are now triangular!

(3) I noted in (1) that my default zoom was 1.24 and I don't know where this comes from. Likewise, when I use the spherical view group shape I can zoom the display, but I still have an odd default, this time 1.21. Again, it would be helpful to know where this comes from so I can set it permanently instead of having to adjust it every time I start up.

I hope all that makes sense. I'm hoping someone knows a bit more about what's going on than I can figure out!

[Sabre57]

Mark,
I can't offer much insight into this. However, I thought I would experiment with using 'flat' on my view group. I can confirm that you can't zoom out any further than, for me anyway, 1.21 but you can zoom in. Not sure why you would want to zoom in as everything is way too big/zoomed.

I also experimented with turning off zoom and the zoom factor defaulted to 1.01. Again, I couldn't decrease the zoom factor but could zoom in. Why this number is different with zoom off is a mystery to me. And why it sets this number so high, vs. 0.3 in normal mode being the lower limit, I don't know.

I also tried wide view off and there was no change.

I haven't tested it yet but I was also wondering if playing around with the fustrum would then result in a zoom that looks more realistic.

My camera views, spot, locked spot, etc. have not been affected at all.

I'm not aware of any way to set bezel correction as a variable number. However, your bezel setup, based on what I could see in the video looks pretty good to me. At least it's flyable.

[MarkH]

I can confirm that you can't zoom out any further than, for me anyway, 1.21 but you can zoom in. Not sure why you would want to zoom in as everything is way too big/zoomed

X-Plane works like this - you set the view but you can then zoom in and back out to the starting view, which is sort of like using binoculars. (Having a variable zoom factor has otherwise never made any sense in P3D or FSX etc. before it.)

Anyway, all this seems like faulty behaviour to me. The only sense I can make is that it's defaulting to a zoom number based on the total FOV (150 degrees in my case), on the presumption that this reflects the actual FOV (i.e. what you would measure across the monitors). If it is doing this, then changing the 'side angles' to squeeze a wider picture into the same space won't work because it will assign a different zoom factor. But maybe not, so I will try it out.

[MarkH]

Okay, here is what I have found. Sure enough, if you make the view wider by increasing the SideAngles, P3D chooses a higher zoom setting to main exactly the same picture. (This is still with ViewGroupShape selected as Flat.) And here's some more weirdness with the zoom - you can zoom in, but you can't zoom out. Except that it knows you have tried to zoom out and by how far, it just won't change the display to show it. So if you press the '-' key three times to zoom out three steps, you have to press the '=' key four times before it begins to zoom in!

Curiously enough, making the view narrower by decreasing the SideAngles doesn't do the opposite, so it will never allow a zoom factor below 1.24. It seems that 1.24 is the zoom P3D thinks I need for this setting, and my further experiments tell me it is right. With this setup and even with my twisted outside screens everything lines up pretty much perfectly in spite of my triangular bezels (which are 3cm wide at the bottom and 16cm wide at the top)! So it seems P3D knows what it is doing. (Just as another detail, that ViewGroup at 1.24 matches pretty much exactly the view on a single screen at 0.75 with WideViewAspectRatio off. That may be significant.)

Interestingly, my calculations suggest that I should get a life-size display if I sit 82cm from the screen, which is pretty much where I am sitting in my cockpit. (In fact I will be further form the outer edges of the side screens as they are not angled in ward very much.) This is based on the assumption that P3D renders 34 degrees from top to bottom of the monitor when the zoom factor is 1.0 and WideViewAspectRatio is on. (I made a bunch of videos about this for FSX, which people may have seen.) In fact if I look at a 1.24 zoom image on a non-ViewGroup display (with WVA on) it isn't quite the same, but it's close. I am wondering if this is because to set up my view group I have only measured the actual vertical and horizontal FOVs approximately.

Well, that's where I'm at for now. Still interested to hear other folks' experiences or comments from Lockheed on this stuff.

[ph-mak]

Hi Mark, I saw your movie on YouTube and started this View Group too. But I have a problem after I start the engines and that happen with any aircraft I use. I have the impression you know a lot of this item, So will you look at my topic about my problem : https://prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 2&t=133472 . Thanks
Joop