Hello everybody! Hello Asobo!
The following lines tell the story of my MSFS experience. But I’m writing them with MS2024 in my mind. These thoughts will (perhaps!) help Asobo to avoid making the same mistakes in the future MS 2024.
MSFS’s greatest advance is the quality of its landscapes. This was my greatest satisfaction on discovering this opus.
Unfortunately, the architecture of the view management mode is not satisfying. It’s complicated, sometimes redundant, and the “outside camera” is lacking. (However, I welcome the clever possibility of creating personal views in the “cockpit camera”).
Why invest so much in the quality of a flight model, when MSFS encourages a distorted perception of landscapes and aircraft? Cell phones allow amateur photographers to zoom in and out so easily that no one knows what perspective or depth of field is anymore. Does the term “virtual reality” even make sense?
To illustrate my criticism of this simulator’s handling of exterior views, I think it’s best to recount my own experience. It came about gradually, and it tries to make the best use of the margins of freedom offered to us by the game’s designers. The idea is, in addition to flying, to be able to watch ourselves flying through the beautiful landscapes of MSFS using a combination of different “cameras”. (If you’re going to stay cooped up in a cockpit, you might as well fly for real!)
Consistency, in this combination of views, is based on a zoom setting of 80%, which seems to me, fairly well as a view of the average eye. In any case, a setting that’s better than the 50% imposed for “external camera”. (The accuracy of this 80% can be discussed, for example with professional photographers or ophthalmologists).
My personal device isn’t very complicated, but it must be used at the start of every flight. It has become a reflex, but a tiring one in the long run. With just a few modifications to the view management system, all these manipulations could easily be avoided.
If the reader is interested in the issue of view management, please follow the steps below. This method is not intended as advice. It is only intended, in all modesty, to illustrate easily the problem of views in MSFS.
So,
I am French and live in Paris. I have a certain amount of spare time. I knew FS9, I liked FSX, I’d like to like MSFS and maybe MS2024 …even if planes will be less and less fashionable!..
I’m at LPMA (Funchal Madeira) with the A32NX.
I open the “cockpit camera”. The landscape zoom is set to 80% in "General options / Camera /Zoom. This zoom percentage is suggested by the game and I don’t touch it. I step back slightly from the instrument panel.
I switch to “external camera”.
The zoom is authoritatively set at 50%. This is not a realistic landscape, as it’s too far away. I have to adjust about 80%, which seems closer to a true perception of the landscape environment. The A32 NX takes up the whole screen, and I have not the option of adjusting the distance between the eye and the plane, as was the case in FSX). I seem to remember it was “chase view” in the FSX settings. Depending on the aircraft designer, the size of the screen can vary. But in any case, this distance, which I believe was imposed on the MSFS designers, is too small, resulting in an unpleasant butterfly effect, especially for smaller aircraft.
I then turn my attention to the "camera drone”. (badly translated by « vitrine » (!) in french).
To get a coherent view, I switch “zoom level” to 80%, after checking “drone lock mode” on the right, to keep the “drone camera” always centered on the aircraft. Of course, the plane is huge. I take the opportunity to increase the “drone rotation speed” to 180.00.
With the “translate drone forward” command, I increase the aircraft’s focal length, without modifying the landscape, which remains at 80% zoom. I’ve also assigned a “translate drone forward or backward” command to my joystick).
My settings are done. They must be made at the start of each flight.
During the flight, I can switch from cockpit view to external view by assigning a joystick control (in my case: button 1 on my X52). I can switch from cockpit/external view to drone view by assigning a “Toggle Drone” control in “camera mode switch”. (1+15 in the specific case of my X52). Either you fly the drone and can turn around the aircraft, or you fly the aircraft and the drone view is fixed. To switch from one to the other, you need to use “toggle plane controls”. Not very practical, unless you’re in a liner with autopilot !
The remaining problem : when you switch from “drone camera” to “Cockpit/External camera”, a “fixed camera” is inserted that cannot be removed. In the case of the A32NX, I deleted all the “fixed cameras” in the aircraft’s “camera.cfg”, leaving only the window view.
Note that it’s impossible to delete these “fixed camera” lines entirely. Even if you delete all the "Title = “FixedOnPlane_…” lines from the plane’s “camera.cfg”, there will still be a "Title = “FixedOnPlane_Tail” view in the game, which is imposed on you. Most of the time, these views are ugly, ridiculous, and useless.
So much for my modest practice. Others may have found better !..
Here are a few requests for changes to the camera setup :
A To be able to easily set the tracking distance (“chase camera”) for the external camera and the drone’s camera, using the buttons or joystick, as in FSX. This is not a zoom, but a focal distance from the aircraft, which has nothing to do with it. Note that if you could adjust this distance, you’d hardly need to use the “drone camera”, unless you wanted to go and look at what’s planted in airport flowerbed
This AN2 is harmoniously positioned on the screen (neutral zoom).
I don’t think Dino Cattaneo chose this screen size with such a close-up view of the aircraft (neutral zoom).
B Start with a neutral zoom in the game. Be able to choose, in “general options”, the zoom that suits the player in “external camera” and “drone camera” as was done for the “cockpit camera”. The base setting should be zoom = 0, as in the real world.
C Be able to remove the “fixed camera” when you don’t want it: I must be the only one who doesn’t understand what it’s for.
These are 3 very simple requests. I understand that they can’t be met for MSFS, but if Asobo bothered, they could be useful for MSFS 2024…
I conclude that all this view management could be better architected, and even simplified, without detracting from the richness of the simulator. If Asobo would be interested in this question for FS2024, I’d be more than happy to exchange ideas.
Perhaps your comments on this issue will prompt Asobo to rethink view management. Please excuse my bad English, thank you for your attention, and best regards.
JMG8051
Total game changer but needs simplifying.