Nightvision in Videogames VS Real Life

[@ActionScripter]

You can always tell when devs have actually used night vision before and want to accurately represent it in their game

[@OperatorDrewski]

Hello GHPC man!

[@ActionScripter]

@@OperatorDrewski 😱

[@_JAHAMES_]

yessir

[@Turgeon12]

Thanks to you, IR lights scare me when I’m in a M60

[@andi8343]

Being really accurate is kind of impossible sadly. I would love to see that kind of draw distances that make it possible in arma 4.

[@dashgaming9486]

You forgot Minecraft night vision potions

[@FirstDagger]

One possible reason why early devs might have thought that people glow in the dark with NVGs is that whiteners in paper and clothing pop like that under NVGs. That is why you can ruin your camouflage by washing your clothing with the wrong detergent if it has whiteners.

[@MaxUgly]

I already wrote Drewski a book on ideas for followup videos, but this should be included for sure!

[@GeekOfAllness]

Thermal NVGs do make people glow like that, and were available before FPS games existed. While most real NVGs, especially those worn by humans, didn't use thermal imaging when those early games were created, the effect isn't completely implausible or made up by game devs. UV NVGs, as you say, can make certain kinds of materials pop, especially when they're laced with UV brighteners. However, they mostly don't exist in real life. There's not a lot of ambient UV during the night, and UV tends to fluoresce into the visible spectrum, so active UV lights would be visible to everyone around as a cone projecting a local rave party in front of your "operator". (UV is scarce at night for the same reason the daytime sky is blue, but the twilight sky is red: shorter wavelengths get misdirected more readily by air, so UV is far more likely to bounce randomly either into space or into the ground than to wrap around the limb of the planet where it would be visible.) Image intensifiers, NVGs that simply amplify existing visible light, don't typically make clothing pop the same way, but you still see the bright stuff better than dark stuff. In an area with ambient UV, the image intensifiers would see the blue light especially brightly, but that doesn't exist much in practice. These would typically be better simulated by simply raising the brightness of all the pixels. IR NVGs basically look like image intensifiers, but they use active lighting to get bright enough to see. They'll typically have better image quality since there's more light to work with, but they also broadcast your position to the world. As far as I know there's no particular popping effect from fabric brighteners since the brighteners don't mess with the IR portion of the spectrum. Again, these basically just look like we raised the screen brightness, but this time we need to turn off all the in-game light sources except the player's IR flashlight, or other lights that explicitly emit IR. There's no particular reason why we can't use full-color NVGs, but that makes them bulky and expensive, or makes them very low resolution. So we mostly stick to monochrome since it gives us the best image quality with current tech at reasonable prices. So realistic simulations would use a single color and only render brightness information (though "color" here means "hue and saturation combo", so white, teal, and yellow are "colors" in this context). Full-color NVGs could do things like project thermal to red, IR to green, and visible to blue. Or project IR to white (or whitish green), then thermal would be brighter and more red while visible would be brighter and more blue. Then our base-level IR would be more pleasing to the eye but we'd still see red highlights on hot objects and bluer imagery under street lamps or projecting from normal flashlights. But then you have to have three cameras per eye (including the expensive thermal cameras), more electronics to merge the images, and higher resolution so you can get three subpixel colors into the space of one pixel. Because of resolution issues, if we have multiple cameras, we tend to instead merge them into a single color and simply use different brightnesses, which is how the early games simulated the thermal / image intensifier combos, even if those particular combos didn't really exist at the time. (I'm sure they existed, but I don't think they were readily available in the field.)

[@rickfastly2671]

@@GeekOfAllness Is there a book or online sources you used to learn this. I would like to read more about it.

[@USMCVeteranGamer-zo1rf]

Starch will do it too :)

[@millo7295]

Ehhehah Blinded by the WHITES

[@Sparrow51403]

Well if an enemy is wearing regular clothes, it probably isn’t IR compliant, and your clothes would actually “glow” or reflect almost like a hi-vis vest. So for early games to have enemies glow, it’s actually quite realistic

[@FuturPaladin489]

but they intent to simulate regular nvg, not the newer hybrids

[@Sparrow51403]

I’m talking about digital ir night vision, the old stuff. Hybrid night vision for nods is awesome, but that’s really limited to weapon optics still. However, ir is light that reflects differently off of surfaces, polyester is one of the no nos for night combat because you glow like a beacon no matter what. I have a set of low end digital nods because I’m not buying a set if pvs14, but people’s clothes will glow.

[@alzed9983]

@@Sparrow51403 digital is actually the newer stuff, the older stuff is what uses films and phosphorous to enhance illumination and is referred to (usually) as analog. Digital for the most part has issues with resolution and isn't as sensitive to IR as "analog" night vision (which is why it's still the main thing in use today) but is by far cheaper and easier to find. I won't trash anyone who uses it since pvs14s (or even the pvs7) is a HEFTY hunk of change, but it's worth acknowledging that digital has some limitations contrasted against analog.

[@Sparrow51403]

@@alzed9983 well, my digitalis light people up, depending on clothes, but they aren’t overlayed with thermal like the new ones the rangers have

[@somethinganything4864]

Depends on clothing material and detergent.

[@LAWest]

So glad you mentioned the KSP re-shade… it’s just so amusing that a re-shade plug-in *FOR KSP* made by some random dude in a basement somehow trumped the efforts of entire dev teams. Truly one of the moments of all time… Edit: 32:40 invading Oklahoma to weaponise tornadoes and unleash them on California is now truly the new moment of all time…

[@_JAHAMES_]

the edit lol (I agree)

[@Alepap.]

Ye i'm that random dude haha i'm proud of what everyone has been doing with it

[@LAWest]

@@Alepap. its phenomenal work, really appreciate all the work time you've put into it!

[@truediusbladius7149]

@@Alepap. Somedev hire this guy!

[@logandawson4751]

Can confirm as an Oklahoman that tornadoes are the only thing of note here lmao

[@hamzab6046]

Fun fact: In Delta Force 2, if you had NVGs on, turning them on would create an oval in the middle of the screen. Only this oval covered the NVG region. The rest remained dark. Also, zooming in with the right click button would only set the NVG overlay on the scoped view.

[@kaushikraikar1105]

Oh man, delta force 2. I played that game so much

[@HappyHappyJoyJoy658]

I'm gonna say it... I actually think this is possibly the best video you've ever made, I've been a long term lurking purveyor of your content so as a matter of course it was just the usual obligatory click, Wow was I entertained & informed, thank you for the effort Drewski, it & you are very much appreciated, signed "a hermit".

[@davidplunkett8499]

We are shipping a Tactical VR Sim for PSVR this summer. We actually discussed the different Night Vision modes for our NVGs before we started implementing them. We ultimately settled on a gamey implementation since it was the easiest implementation that gave the game play experience we were targeting. It wasn't because the team wasn't passionate about modeling NVGs properly, but a time constraint. We could model accurate NVGs, or we could implement other gameplay features. Ultimately implementing the other features was decided to be more important. I personally hope we can revisit this decision, but there are lots of other cool features that we are also considering, that compete for time and attention.

[@taylorrobbins24]

That would be awesome if yall did make it realistic

[@gsauceprimary9363]

19:30 there is a mod for hotdogs horseshoes and handgrenades that has EXACTLY what you mentioned here. it's called FTW arms night vision. there's thermals too

[@OperatorVanta]

Yeah, It's really cool. Although it tends to cripple my FPS whenever I use it due to them being picture and picture with shaders

[@kebabit707]

never seen the thermals, what are they called?

[@OperatorVanta]

@@kebabit707 The thermals are from a different mod called Modern Warfighter Optics. That one adds thermal optic attachments for your weapons. They require some tweaking in the settings to get right tho

[@gsauceprimary9363]

@@kebabit707 it's a seperate mod called "modular hk417 and night vision". The thermal is a sight you put on guns, but thanks to the attatchment points on helmets, you can put it on your head.

[@kebabit707]

@@OperatorVanta ah, no wonder, thought we meant goggles

[@Lobos222]

11:12 Just a tip from personal experience. While we only had gen2 or something so the pixilation was very grainy and therefor not ideal to spot enemies at long range (600 meters). Specially if we couldnt use IR boosters or the moon wasnt out etc. A trick you can do with your regular vision is this. The rods in your eyes are concentrated to the sides of your retina (best for night), while the cones are in the center (best for color). Now while your view is adapted to the night and its pitch black. If there is some kind of horizon or difference in the terrain. You can look directly at a point and quickly drag your eyes to the right or left. The split second you do such you get a "flash" like effect in your vision that to some aspect draws and outline of what you are looking at. Do this repeatedly at the same spot and you might actually spot enemy infantry squads and or movements despite it being very dark and they are unable to see you at the same range by just looking in your direction. I didnt know it at the time, but now I know this effect works because the rods are to the side of your retina in your eye. Another thing is that we actually had rubber fittings on our night visions so could choose to avoid having the peripheral vision aspect. The issue is that nigh vision was 2x (Some ITT PVS-7 early variant, maybe with custom details, I think) and the nigh binoculars were 3-6x or something. Which could make walking a bit of an issue because you are not putting your feet where you think you are in context of what your brain is seeing. Walking with the night vision binoculars was hilarious. Yes, they did have the same mounts. It was just a regular night vision with a gigantic camera lens on the front. Impossible to walk with.

[@pablo4yu]

DUDE OPSEC COME ON!

[@neurofiedyamato8763]

@@pablo4yu Nothing he said is classified... what?

[@joshualarsen7011]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this here, but Ground Branch's updated night vision system actually represents the fact that the image you see when looking through NODs is one captured several centimeters in front of your face, which is super weird (and very cool) to play with. It's not only a narrow field of view, but lightly zoomed in too - it is my understanding that this is accurate, but I could be wrong for sure.

[@AnonEMus-cp2mn]

Definitely accurate. Aiming passively with one eye through the night vision and another eye through a red dot sight becomes difficult to line up because of the distance between the objective lens and the other eye. Even navigating in close quarters is a challenge with your vision technically a few inches/centimeters in front of your face. However, it is not as terrible as digital cameras like the Sionyx. That unit in particular has negative magnification, resulting in the user bumping into surfaces that appear to be further away.

[@Reticuli]

Which is why the see-through IVAS is such a big deal, as you can literally look past and ignore the image if you want to, unlike the ENVG-B, which is even narrower FOV and night use only. While currently it's fixed focal length at about 2m out for the mems-based VRD + waveguides/beamsplitters, the pico system inside is the only type previously demonstrated yet to get around this issue. But first they want to get them into the field with minimum necessary capabilities, and they'll probably get that holy grail AR stuff integrated in V3 or V4 down the line.

[@jasonjsalgado4091]

Is nobody going to talk about the amazing intro in this video? As an editor myself, I really liked how you pulled this off, it felt so epic omg

[@SKant19382]

There is actually a VR-Game Mod with a close to perfect depiction of night vision. Its for the Game Hotdogs, Horseshoes and Handgrenades (H3VR) and is called FTW_Arms_Nightvision by Andrew_FTW. The mod allows you to put on mono-, duo- and Quadnightvision, which you actaually need to adjust to your eye and with many other details. The Mod and Controls are a bit scuffed but i think you'd definetly enjoy it.

[@Firomus]

They're so cool to use but such a pain at the same time. I love them. Just a shame that the dark doesn't affect sosigs ability to see

[@MetalheadMitch762]

One of the reasons the reasons I also like my PVS-14 besides seeing the light conditions not being seen through NODs is that my natural night vision is greatly enhanced but my eye looking through the NODs can't see in the dark for squat after taking them off. Also I have done night fighting in WW1 tacticals which relies on your natural night vision and because details are hard too see, it can cause paranoia. Also throughout the night, red flares were launched into the sky which will light up an entire area for about 10 seconds which gave you a moment to see the battlefield fairly well. And red is the color that least interferes with your natural night vision, it was quite an experience of having a taste of what night fighting was like in the world wars.

[@fluffls]

there actually is a really super in depth NODs mod for H3VR that allows you to manually lower the nods, set them up to your eyes and adjust them just like real ones So yeah, there are really realistic nods in VR

[@brillcrafter7417]

I was just about to comment about this, they do take a little getting used too

[@Real_Mick3y6]

Yeah, but it's still modding which can be jank as fuck

[@scopes119]

What’s it called?

[@OperatorDrewski]

That's awesome! I can't believe I missed it lol - will try it out :)

[@kebabit707]

only problem is that they don't work on a lot of the night maps

[@-Investia]

I loved/enjoyed every single micro-second of this, I'm a science/Physics nerd that loves games and simulations, by combining learning and these interests you have single handedly made one of my favorite KZbin videos, ever. Period.

[@dsdy1205]

glad you enjoyed watching each pixel row refresh

[@assadsmagicalmysterytour]

SOYENCE!!! I LOVE FUNKO POPS AND ATHEISM!!!1!1 FACTS AND LOGIC AND MARVEL!1!!

[@bigchooch4434]

@@assadsmagicalmysterytour Why so rude? I'm also a science/physics nerd that likes games and simulations, and just came from Acerola's video on color spaces in real time video rendering. Funko pops are stupid, never been into marvel or DC, not an athiest. Not sure why you think those things come with being curious and fascinated with how the world works.

[@assadsmagicalmysterytour]

@@bigchooch4434Sorry

[@CusterPlays]

I know this one took a while to make! Great job Drew, even got some Exodus gameplay in there!

[@Afterconflict]

In general what we've set out to achieve is to accurately recreate both night vision's upsides, and its downsides. Even to this day, while many are under the impression that modern NV devices have largely become homogenized both in design and function (I.E: A lot better than 30 years ago), you still find different militaries using older devices from the US military using PVS-7s with older tubes to the Russian military using NSPUs, and it's precisely that Cold War tech that we're emulating.

[@its_Prospect]

"I think night time is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction." an amazing quote that makes me grateful of NVGs

[@linuswramage1718]

Hey Drewski - super neat video! I appreciate the time and care that went into this! Definitely came out with a renewed appreciation for NVGs both in game and real life. Cheers:)

[@largematt6352]

this is the best overview because you have played every type of game really from super realistic to really unrealistic and you use nvgs on the regular. great video as usual

[@Pilps]

Would love move videos like this from you, was captivated throughout the whole video. Already on as i type this my 3rd rewatch.

[@Luckydog1159]

Dude, this video is an absolute gold mine. Yes you super-nerded out on peripherals but it was 100% warranted and I appreciate it. No one has talked about this kinda feature in games, in as much of a refreshing way, as you have in a long time. Great job with the video! The B-Roll was on point and gave vivid, detailed examples as to what you wanted to convey and discuss. I could really tell this was quite a passion project for you so great job at it.

[@zerberus_ms]

I'm rewatching this video every now and then. As a game developer, I really want to make a game that will have a good representation of NVGs.

[@OperatorVanta]

Hotdogs Horseshoes and handgrenades has a night vision mod. Essentially works as a picture and picture scope, that attaches to a helmet you wear in a slot with a shader applied. You can adjust it up and down based on the NVG mount the nods use and the NODS also have a physical collider, meaning you have to adjust your weapon's stock and be very aware of your weapon's profile in terms of what attachments are on it for you to be able to passive aim without bumping your nods.

[@gridselix]

32:00 fun fact if you feel like you want to sneeze but not going to, look at bright area of anything but preferably bright with light

[@ControlledPairsGaming]

Phenomenal work, man. One of the most comprehensive NVG explainers on KZbin. And with your telltale production value and video game explanations. Bravo! How long did this edit take!?

[@ControlledPairsGaming]

Also - take a peek at Geronimo as far as upcoming VR shooters.

[@the11b]

I mentioned this in another reply but I still havent seen a game that accurately portrays the perception problem since the image is generated several inches in front of you. That would be awful and not fun imo, but still.

[@Backfisch5927]

5:50 I love that the game title in the corner changes but the rest of the screen is the same

[@elitely6748]

It's always a fantastic day when Drewski uploads another fantastic video. Love the different video style here it's fantastic and I wouldn't mind more of this!

[@Pozor15]

Fantastic

[@vincentzepczyk]

When I saw you go over ghost recon wild lands and say "the night vision amplifies the lighter areas and no so much the dark areas" that's honestly pretty realistic in my experice. If you operate in the woods with no loom and under alot of tree cover, You kinda still can't see well. Pvs 14s have honey comb design inside of them. Sometimes pvs 14s can get fuzzy. That means they are damaged. Pvs 14s can be mounted on your rifle. If you wanna use your optic with nods you need to have a better set up with a higher sight.

[@SubSilent99]

"97° of poor financial decisions" almost made me spit out my coffee!😂😂😂 Great review of the real world and in game variations that night vision and thermal provide us.

[@StupidPieceOfFish]

If you want my favorite representation Of NODs In any games is a mod for H3VR, which adds tangible helmets and at that, tangible NODs, letting you manually raise and lower them, adjust them, and it has proper FoV and they really feel like goggles. Really thing you should give it a try!

[@KitCreep]

Loved seeing nvgs from a more casual perspective. It’s easy to get sucked into the nvg rabbit hole min-maxing tube specs, manufacturers, housings, LAM set ups, etc. This was just a really fun video about nods. These things are the coolest. Great job man! Those 30mins actually flew by.

[@josedorsaith5261]

To add to your point about rods v cones: Rods are oriented so that you have better night vision around the edge of your fovea. If you have trouble focussing on an object in dim light - look just to the side of it to see more clearly

[@TheCloudhopper]

Listening to Drewski on a Friday evening doing a deep dive into NVGs in video games was a video i didn't know i wanted or needed. But i did and I love it. Quality Drewski moment.

[@Destroyanad]

The problem with adding in peripheral vision for NVG in games is that, unless you have some sort of shader, or mask on the screen, you will have to use other cameras that feed their view into a texture, which is then applied to the goggles. Having more cameras in the game reduces the framerate/run-ability drastically, because each camera is rendering the game separately. So having 2 cameras simulating the goggles on your face means you're rendering the game 3 different times. 1 for the main camera, and 1 for each lens

[@Arskaattor1]

Fantastic video Drew! You went super in-depth with all the different mechanics of night vision and the extensive amount of games you showed as examples, I really really love how much effort and detail you put into these videos. I thought I knew at least something about night vision, but most of the things you said here were brand new to me 💜

[@AdeptiHotline]

I'm a writer and this video is giving me brainworms. Training being essential (no difference between white light and infrared) means even with the tech you could still not have as big an advantage [as long as the enemies have night vision themselves]. It creates an interesting dynamic and challenge to stay aware of when strategizing. This video is super cool and genuinely well-written. I know literally nothing about anything mentioned in this video before I watched yet I was never confused while watching!!

[@poolee77]

Why passive aiming is so popular now in the gun/NVG community. Thermal is a whole other can of worms as it is more popular than ever and combined with I2 it gives you ridiculous capabilities

[@Dash62g]

Drewski video essay is top tier stuff! Love these occasional treats.

[@yourlocalncrranger2026]

Ghosts of Tabor does what I think to be a good job of depicting your field of vision using different NVGs. I remember testing out the different models available in game and seeing an extremely noticeable difference between a single tube versus the quad tubes. Somewhat understood it then, but this video definitely helped understand a lot better.

[@GerKaiNeknete]

Good job Drewski, you've outdone yourself! Hope you find that sneeze though before you step on it xD

[@OperatorDrewski]

THE SNEEZE NEVER CAME BACK D:

[@MaxUgly]

@@OperatorDrewski I missed something here, but gesundheit if it ever happens!

[@reeree4385]

It was a bit of a pain admittedly but one of the best Arma 3 Op's I've had with my current Unit so far was a night OP. We had radios but we were instructed to not use them unless absolutely necessary other wise we would be found easier. So we came up with a system of chirps to use over the radios to briefly send very simple messages. but that is only part of it. Long story short I've had Good night Op's and I've had bad Night Op's, and night vision makes it so, so much more enjoyable.

[@JeffNoel]

I must say I wasn't expecting such a video from this channel... and I'm super delighted with it. Props to you Drewski! That was in-depth, really interesting and I can't imagine how much time it took to put all of this together.

[@RizeTB1]

I was in Ft. Lewis in 2001 when they still had Bradley tanks in the motor pool. Transitioned to 3rd Stryker Brigade. During a field exercise we used thermals to ID locations of the attacking red force. With night vision you can see the laser emitted by the MILES gear. After firing the laser stayed on for less than or about a second. Long enough to paint more than one target at a time sometimes.

[@markp2085]

I have had a variety of nv's over the last 30 years and have accumulated thousands of hours viewing in nv. Its nice to see developers are starting to get it right, sort of. So I had an old first gen nv from Russia. When I would turn it on, it would have that typical NV sound that most of all the movies and some games portray. Alas, none of my other nv's make that cool noise. Today I mostly use my nv's for tracking satellites, meteor showers, and UFO's (or to be politically correct these days, UAP's. For real world, I prefer using a monocular, that way I can see visible light (flashlights vs infrared light etc). I agree, I like the portrayal of the PVS14 in the stalker anomaly mod (which is my favorite nv to use for observing satellites).

[@kellythomas6347]

Older gen NVGs had the sound because of the capacitors charging, like an old camera flash. Older NVGs also had mini CRT displays as opposed to LCDs

[@acceptablecasualty5319]

My Granddad has a Night-Vision Film Camera from the GDR. It too makes that whitring sound, albeit constantly while the trigger is held.

[@jeffreyheil9542]

One of my biggest complaints about NVGs in video games is how IR lasers/flashlights are implemented. Usually the laser/light remains on and is pointed at the ground when conducting a tactical carry. In the Marines, we’re issued a PEQ-16. This had the functions of visible laser, visible flashlight, IR laser, IR flashlight, and a high powered laser for marking targets for smart munitions. We were also issued a pressure switch that would plug into the PEQ-16 and mount on the weapon. It was a lot of practice to master only pressing the pressure switch when sighted in down range and then releasing when finished engaging targets. The PEQ-16 can also be outfitted with a filter that will change the shape of the laser. For example, as a squad leader I could change my laser from a point to the shape of a triangle. This way I could tell my automatic riflemen to concentrate their fire on the target I’ve marked with the triangle. You could also tell the rocket gunner to fire a round in the 2nd floor window marked by the square, as an example. Another complaint is the NVGs work the same regardless of the lighting conditions. Unless there’s a bright light that floods the NVG. However, NVGs work based off of ambient light. The less ambient light, the darker the NVGs are. If there’s no ambient light, then you’ll be hard pressed to use NVGs in complete darkness. In this case, it’s much more beneficial to use visible or IR flashlight with the NVGs to clear buildings.

[@jak0spades579]

I had the chance to try out the Thales Nellie NVGs in combination with their XTRAIM holo/ thermal sight on a range reproducing night condition 4 and 5. It took me a minute to get used to lining up the sight with the tubes, but the ability to see thermally active targets in picth black without the use of any IR floodlight was pretty amazing Aside from the focus element you mention (you either focus on close or far, current NVG tech doesn't allow you both at the same time) , I'd say one of the things that games get consistently wrong, is how NVGs mess with depth perception. Though granted its almost impossible to replicate on that medium. Also on the green vs white phosphor debate, spoke to a Thales rep who used to be STAT officer in the French Army. He told me in their testing, the STAT didn't notice any significant differences in DRI times and ranges between the two. They did notice that white phosphor lead to greater eyestrain in the long run compared to green though.

[@mekafinchi]

One of the most interesting depictions of night vision imo, at least from a technical standpoint, comes from Blackhawk Rescue Mission 5. It's a roblox milsim, and if you know anything about what roblox is like most of the time you'll be amazed at what BRM5 achieves. The NVGs are mostly just the standard green + grain + gamma with less peripheral vision, but they also impact your sights and there're IR lasers. The game also has the most impressive optics I've seen on the platform.

[@rpnvg]

Fantastic video. I am a huge night vision enthusiast. Metal Gear Solid & Splinter Cell made me want a set as a kid. The same goes for my suppressors, lol. Currently I own an RPNVG with some nice Gen 3 18UM WP tubes. I also have a ridiculous amount of time on PVS-14’s and GP ANVIS-9’s for work. 🚁 You really nailed everything! I hope game devs take a lot of this in and implement the information. The only thing that I could think of adding is - you can indeed use iron sights. But you have to have either focusing caps or adjustable iris caps. Unfortunately, it really dims your image. Buuuut I understand why you didn’t include that, it just adds more hassle in most FPS games. Maybe one day we’ll see an RPNVG in a FPS game. It’s definitely my most favorite housing, with PVS-31A’s as a close second. 🔵👃🔵

[@aserta]

18:54 someone did sim (and there's a tech demo buried somewhere in tube, i can't find it anymore) perfect NVGs. The dude got a replica, cleaned the shell and put the guts of half a VR rig in them. The curved wide screen he was looking through was dark, but the NVG "toy" was giving him actual NVG-like vision. The vid is from 2017 (i think) and it's from a Korean channel. Blew my mind, because it looked so realistic, down to the fact that he could see the "real" world in the screen and the "nvg vision" in the thing at the same time.

[@battleevren4466]

It is actually cool that you know this much stuff.

[@bellofello1]

Thank you for this, hopefully some devs watch this and put the info to good use 👌 Have you ever tried a pvs14 on your dominant eye and a thermal monocular on your weak eye (like an mh25)? I've heard of people doing this, and apparently your brain just kind of merges the images. I'm curious what the heck that would look like!

[@YoungBottleCap]

I have something to say about the whee sound before watching anymore of this video. Many would say that it doesn’t make the sound that you hear so prominently in COD, ALTHOUGH I found when I put my PVS-14s right up to my ear and flick it on, you can hear a extremely faint whee and I was able to replicate it over and over again

[@riane3100]

I learned more about the human eye from a 33 minute Drewski video on nightvision than an actual human anatomy class.

[@tacoboy2218]

Bro just walking with nightvison is a difficult task I cant imagine what the flying a helicopter with nods on is like

[@tygerz9245]

It kind of makes sense why night vision in games covers your whole vision. In real life your FOV is near 180 but in video games it’s usually around 90-110.

[@Claude-Eckel]

180° for the generation, perhaps, that grew up in front of 2D flat screens and did not develop proper peripheral and distance vision because both the brain and the eyes were still growing and adapting to what they perceived every day: Smartphones in the face or monitors 1m away (80-90% of South Korean youth under 20 are also myopic, that's why!). If you only have 180° peripheral vision, you are either 60 y/o or older, or you belong to Generation Y, the Millennials, or Z, whatever epithet they have, with already damaged or simply underdeveloped peripheral vision (then thank your parents for allowing you to play video games at the age of 12 and younger). With this impaired vision, you are not eligible to become a fighter pilot, for example, because it is also not correctable with any form of optics or glasses and puts you at a disadvantage against adversary pilots who have more vision than you, that is a whopping 35° more! Because approx. 107° laterally for each eye = 214° is the peripheral vision of a human being with healthy, i.e., normally developed eyes (FYI: plus 60 - 70° upwards, 70 - 80° downwards), which did not grow while the human being sat at a desk and constantly stared at the centre of a nearby monitor (not even peripheral vision, but just staring at a reticle in order to hit something with it, and meanwhile overlooking everything else around it! ), but of a human being who went out and smelled, and saw and listened to real life, perceived it with his sense organs, and therefore developed it properly, as it was designed to do. Playing video games can no longer harm healthy brain development and the eyes and other senses only at the age of 25+, that is, after the development of all these organs is finally complete, they actually already begin to age already. Anything before that... and you become one of these modern IT zombie that can't really help themselves and are dependent on others when a real zombie apocalypse breaks loose. Worst thing: Even if a young person at that age of 20+ eventually came to this conclusion themselves, because their parents were too daft but still allowed to reproduce, the damage is already done and there's nothing they can do about it. You would need new eyes in those sockets of yours and a different brain that could deal with what those new eyes could see. That is the unvarnished, unpleasant truth. Now you again: _'In real life your FOV is near 180'_ Really? Yours, or whose? Poor you! Mine is not, mine is still over 200°. And you should probably see an oculist any time soon, though he couldn't do anything about it either. But maybe you've already more damages than that.

[@DisgruntledDisabledCombat_Vet]

before I got out of the army, on my last tour with SF group 3 Amphibious. I got to use the new " codi " system. Everything has like a Orange outline and other countries with IR/NODs/NVGS can't see our laser beams, and lights that we turn on for all friendly targets that no enemy tech can see the blinking strobe. Also those new single nods we used would show us markers set by anyone in the squad on an objective, or whatever hazard to avoid, and depending on how you set up what you see, you can add a compass layout to show you what direction and bearing. This was used a decade before the regular units started to get them issued to, replace the old monocular nods that have to be sent in for calibration, if you removed the cover and had it on during the day, or after a year of usage. The CR123 batteries for those old nvgs lasted pretty long, before you needed to change them out. but here is a link of the Actual systems that we used out in OEF to do recon on the abu sayyaff cells out in mindinao islands. We were 20ft away from them gathering intel, and the got out after that deployment, because I thought it was bullshit we couldn't engage all of these cells. One day is all it would've taken to capture or kill all of them, and grab the bounty on their leader(wanted dead or alive). But our job wasn't to engage unless it was in self defense, and to give the intel to the filipino marines/police, and to train them to prepare for missions to the very spots that we had gathered the intel from. Then when I got out and was pvping on wow at home several months later, my phone had lots of messages, emails, and missed calls. Then two days later Binladen was announced dead, lol. The very country that everyone we ever captured, or spoke to out in nuristan, wardak, kunar provinces all said where he was at, lol.... Amyway here is the link to the new "system" that no other military in the world can see our weapons laser lights, etc. www.businessinsider.com/video-shows-battlefield-through-us-armys-new-night-vision-goggles-2021-4#:~:text=The%20next%20step%20for%20Army%20night%20vision%20technology,low-light%20sensors%20with%20a%20180-degree%20field%20of%20view.

[@Bismarck9771]

🤓

[@Laerei]

When I served in the army, during one training exercise we were in a dark forest, in winter but no snow. We were handed out nv goggles for patrols. But it was heavy clouds and no moon. It was pitch black darkness, you couldn't even see a white paper right in front of your face and there was no difference between eyes open or eyes closed. And the goggles... they didn't do squat. Except give you a colorful spot to stare at in the pitch black darkness.

[@allengordon6929]

19:35 That reminds me of an RPG I'm designing that uses a tenebrist lighting style and therefore filtering most visible light through either NODS or grindhouse film degredation. It's also going to be built off of ArmA 4's version of the EnVision Engine and the shooty part of it's combat suite will be tactical shooter to a T (well, as tactical shooter as it's bizzarre setting would allow).

[@torremalku]

We found that when recruits had ironed a crease into their DPMs, two white lines popped up in the NVGs, where the IR treatment of the cloth had been compromised.

[@ticktock2000x]

Using the PVS-14 is how I learned that you can manually decide which eye to use as your dominant eye. Obiously the default is set, but you can choose which eye to use manually in any given situation if you just put your mind to the task.

[@gambiit]

Its so crazy to me that one of the best NVG portrails in videogames comes from a *mod* from *2007* for a *fanmade* stalker game As for VR games.. we could probably convince the devs at Hotdogs Horseshoes and Handgrenades, i hope

[@zergrush9748]

It's actually a mod(NVG) included in a continuously tailored modpack(GAMMA) built upon a standalone addon(Anomaly), which itself is a rework of a different addon(Misery), and that one was basically a mashup of maps and reworked mechanics from three stalker games(ShoC, CS, CoP) from 2007-2010. Yeah, it looks surprising at first, but these mods have a lot of work and effort behind them.

[@johnwstruhar]

You also have Mesopic. That is between Scotopic, and Photopic. Mesopic is at twilight (dawn and dusk). Our eyes are in transition at this time of day as we transition from cones to rods. NVGs don't fully work yet because it's too bright, but we lose detail with the naked eye. I work with Army Aviation and have to understand this for flying under NVGs.

[@Zosterias]

18:04 there were prototypes for multicolor NVGs. During my conscription, we were fortunate enough to test out these kind of tech. But the battery life of a multicolor NVG is downright terrible. 3-4 hours ish if I remember correctly. And I believe they’re more like digital camera rather than NODs. Which is absurd for ops and doesn’t justify the cost.

[@biggestouf]

Commenting and spending money for engagement. This is a great video and I think this is one of your best works.

[@OperatorDrewski]

WHOA! Thank you so much Ouf! That's my first super comment / dono comment / whatever it's called haha. Appreciate it man :)

[@biggestouf]

@@OperatorDrewski Gotta pay for that COTI somehow.

[@Floatingflys]

Love that you included Halo 3 ODST nods, also that you used some of Halo 3 ODSTs soundtrack in the video 👌🏻

[@QAnswer]

It’s pretty cool experience when i put on night vision goggles for the first time when I was in the military, it’s also fun that you can actually see through the protective plastic cover in broad daylight.

[@null_entity472]

For "Games that make you think about NVG strategy" I've to give a honorable mention to obscure cyberpunk Half-Life 2 source mod NeoTokyo, where depending on your class you might have: Fairly standard light amplification / NVGs (Recon) Thermals (Support), who also comes with the synergy of smoke grenades, which only thermals can see through, however can be countered by other class' varying pools of thermal (and to some degree visual) cloaking (of which Recon has the longest duration by far, making up for their bog-standard NVGs) And appropriately cyberpunk-futuristic motion-vision goggles (Assault), which obviously highlight only movement. Already unique enough on it's own, and doubly so once you realize it's the in-universe counter to the cloaking technology thermals struggle with, as it will light up even a cloaked enemy as long as they're moving, making for a REALLY interesting tradeoff.

[@crewchief5144]

Marine aircrew and an NSI (Night Systems Instructor) here. Yes, games have come a LONG way in how they display NVGs. Most of the time, they just suck at it. Can't tell if it's limited by the software of the devs don't know/don't care in the build. Usually a combo of the two. Brought here due to Battlebit coverage my son showed me. Wish I had found this channel a month earlier. Some good discussions here in the comments.

[@War_Magus]

My all time favorite NVG representation is a shader based NVG system for Stalker Anomaly, by theRealBeef. The NVGs actually cover a space on the screen where the goggles would be over your eyes, and everything else is as normal, meaning you can see the muzzle flashes out of your peripheral vision as you focus on the action. There's different shaders with different effects for the different generations of NODs too, with attention paid to how these devices handled things like ambient sources of bright light or muzzle flashes, and, of course, varying fields of view for the generations (hello generation 1 monoculars!) And you can adjust gain, which is both realistic, and just a really nice QoL feature.

[@misterkaos.357]

The reason why the the enemies glow is because they are all feds.

[@BIGWojo68]

31:31 Ayeeee man that song takes me back.

[@garbagecangaming5805]

coming back to this video after using the NVG Agent avatar for bonelab makes me kinda happy as the avatar has probably some of the most realistic interpretations of nvg's in vr yet.

[@Raz.C]

Thermal is INCREDIBLY easy to block. It can't see through glass or plastic. Or anything, really. Smoke and dust excepted, since that's particular matter, rather than a solid. That information's not going to help in a computer game but if you're doing Airsoft or similar RL things, holding up a plastic screen with camouflage patterns on it will make you completely invisible to thermal/ IR vision and might even help make it harder to see you in normal light, too.

[@microspartan]

I had this one in the queue to watch after you mentioned you had it in the making. Finally got around to watching it and wow such an interesting presentation ! So much work went into the video and I really appreciate the well made content. Learnt so much, makes me want to get some of my own to play around with in real life ahha.

[@magpineapple]

imagine 3rd person nightvision but it like raycasts a cone from the characters goggles and creates an area that is visible in front of them depending where the rays hit, so you cant see behind yourself

[@komradesnoipah1036]

the thermal scope in battlebit is super well done

[@adammartinez1764]

For the thermal, a company changed it up by allowing clear view while using thermal settings on a small sighting system. It is insane to see it.

[@gridgaming_]

19:40 hot dogs horseshoes and hand grenades has several NVG mods that actually are just real phsyical goggles. they behave basically like real life ones, you can gradually lower the goggles, use one or two (or four), etc.

[@Budgness]

I found a really good bonelab nvg nod, you can see around the edges and the goggles a have a slight zoom, not sure if that's realistic or not. you can't change the brightness or toggle illuminators but it feels very immersive

[@colin._.wright]

Having a little zoom is realistic since the goggles are farther than your eyes and give you a zoom effect. Idk about the around the edges though.

[@MishKonn]

Great vid Drewski. Another example of equipment which NEVER got done properly in games are actually red dots on rifles or smgs. If you look through a red dot on a rifle like the aimpoint h2, most of the "wall" of the optic disappears because you're looking with both eyes. This has been just attempted to be simulated by some games which make the actual wall on the model of the red dot much thinner than it actually is - otherwise, I have seen zero attempts at this and when you aim with a red dot in a game, you're losing tons of situational awareness that you otherwise wouldn't while aiming a rifle because the model of the optic takes up half of your screen space.

[@mikehenderson9176]

As a long time Splinter Cell player and stealth game fan I was always intrigued by how night vision works and was paying close attention to the implementation across different games. Turning that thing on and hearing the sound it makes feels like coming home every single time. It really is amazing what real life goggles can do nowadays and awesome how fast games catch up. I know quite a lot of people that were always turned off by Splinter Cell due to having a green screen most of the time. Wonder how they stance would change given proper, modern NVG's. In Splinter Cell 4 already you could upgrade your NVG to a point that you would see color again, with a bit of noise on top so that you know you still use goggles. But I never upgraded to that point because I deemed it "unrealistic" and was so used to the green filter. Little did I know back then about the capabilities of the technology... This was very informative and entertaining from start to finish, awesome video! (Subscribed.)

[@plainlake]

One thing I know from experience, is that muzzle flash of a G3 makes consecutive aimed shots when using a PVS 7 quite difficult.

[@grindpapi]

Some NVGs like the OB70 (LUCIE) when I was in the French military, use the stars and/or moonlight to works so if it wasn’t visible, the vision sucks. that’s why in some video games like GR wildland it’s still dark if the trees covers the sky. the depth perception sucks too. Some devs nailed a lot of things with the NVGs

[@Juicy-America]

Glad you mentioned the RON menu theme because it really is well done

[@dannyczhechoperative9016]

Strykers use a mount called an RWS. Thermal night sights switch from white hot and black hot and have up to 42x zoom. Laser range finders help adjust fire so it’s basically point and shoot if everything is set up properly. 50 cal accurate fire in the dead of night on troops from over a mile away? Yeah America has been using it for over 20 years

[@mitchellhalvorson9719]

This video deserves a like just because it started with Hanz Zimmer's MW2 soundtrack and ended with Marty O'Donell's Halo. That's taster right there

[@To-mos]

I have old 1970's russian green infrared analog goggles from a surplus store and they totally make the exact sound in Splinter Cell like a capacitor charging up when turned on.

[@Pelletajuton1]

FINALLY photopic and scotopic used in an actual sentence on KZbin

[@charlieramirezskateboardin6315]

Night vision just amplifies any ambient light. NODs also come eqippped with an IR floodlight for signaling and for pitch black environments.

[@csgoofball]

watching nvg videos to hype me up for when my psv14s come

[@davidbeale3474]

Great video as always. Have to say the one set of NVGs I've not seen modeled in any game is the PVS 20. Used them during my time in the Army. Heavy AF and required a battery pack but good lord, anyone closer then 1000m is not hiding from you. Thermal overlay FTW.

[@walterbryan1798]

Such a cool video. I have always liked the low-light operations in games because of the neat tools to see in the darkness.

[@mixmaster2909]

6:32 funny story i have to tell one of my guys was on an LZ during a field op we were working with helicopters at night doing external lift operations to meet unit T&R standards when the helicopters left to refuel we had some down time and one of our guys went to go take a leak, there was no moonlight or any ambient starlight it was pitch black so after walking for a couple minutes in the forest he stopped to take a leak then was suprised to hear a voice talking to him saying "what the hell are you doing?" he turned on his headlamp and was suprised to see a SSGT with some dip in his lip asking him to move not because he was angry that he was taking a piss in front of him but that he was almost pissing on one of his Marines. Turns out 2nd Marine Reconissance was out there stalking us and gathering intel on us as part of their training the Recon Marine was so well camoflauged and silent my friend didnt even notice him laying in the prone i guess he was also fine with getting pissed on but thats whatever

[@misc376]

Im an oif vet that used nvgs from 05-15. The first sets of nvgs we got issues definitely made that high pitch whine you hear in old school games. It was on power up, the whine would peak then go back down to barely noticeable unless you were trying to hear it.

[@ionicabanea6025]

@ 0:37 god damn it drew, now i wanna play deltaforce again, blackhawk down was my game when i was little

[@CharlesVanNoland]

The only way that thermal could possibly be defeated is with reflective materials. A hot silvered surface will only look like whatever it's reflecting and itself be invisible to thermal. Apparently there's a company that makes a thermal and visible light camo called UF PRO. It doesn't look reflective, but apparently it works. If it traps heat that's kinda sketch because you need to be able to perspire and have it evaporate.

[@Rempai420]

I use the Gen 3 PVS in real life. We call it the HMNVS (Head mounted night vision sight) The most important thing is that you have to wear a counterweight on the back of your helmet, otherwise the NVS pushes down on the front of your helmet and gives you the worst headache. You also don't realize how blessed you are in games to have clear night vision on dark, overcast nights. In real life if the moon state is being awkward it can totally negate the ability to actually see through your HMNVS, so now its pitch black and green. Depth perception is completely thrown out when using NVS, you'll find your self pawing at trees that are like 3 meters in front of you because they look super close. IR lights and lasers are the coolest shit in NV, you lift the sight up and its pitch black, then you put it back down and the place is lit up like it's daytime. Lastly, in transition from night to day, I find my vision starts to go purple? Like if I've been on patrol for hours with the night vision on and I finally take it off, my eyes are trying to adjust for the amount of green that has been flooding into one eye. You have to remember it's only over one eye, so the other eye is just sorta staring into darkness, which makes the NVS seem like it's on both eyes. It's weird.

[@KingParzival]

dude you really need to do this again. I absolutely love your deep dive videos. Two thumbs up my guy.