Scopes & Optics
Overview
NeoFPS provides a number of ways to implement different scopes and optics for your weapons. These include close range and long range optics in different styles.
Iron Sights
Iron sights are the simplest form of ADS optics. You simply need to make sure that your iron sights geometry is a sensible shape and layout, and then use one of the firearm aimer modules to align the weapon to the camera when aiming.
Holographic Sights and Red-Dots
Holographic and red dot sights project a reticule at a distance in front of the weapon that is only visible through the sight. This makes it easy to quickly acquire a target and adjust to the movement of the weapon during recoil.
You can increase or decrease the brightness of the reticule using the Optics Brightness +/- input buttons in game.
For more information see the HolographicSight Reference. The Demo Facility assault rifle uses a holographic sight by default.
Render Texture Scopes
Render texture based scopes are used in games such as Escape From Tarkov that emphasise realism. They provide a zoomed in view within the scope lens, without zooming in the rest of the frame. This means that the player can maintain awareness of their surroundings much easier than they can with a HUD or stencil based scope where their whole view is zoomed in.
The NeoFPS RT scopes also have a parallax effect when moving. This involves moving the reticule and a blurred scope ring as the scope goes off the player camera's axis. It can also rotate the scope camera slightly to compensate for this off axis viewing so that the scope image feels more dynamic.
When the render texture scope gets far enough from the camera axis it starts to fade out to an opaque, reflective material. Once fully opaque, the scope camera will stop rendering.
Scopes implemented in this way incur a performance penalty since they involve rendering the scene twice. This can be mitigated slightly by showing the scope smaller on the screen (and therefore using a smaller render texture), but you should be aware that the increased realism comes at a cost.
For more information see the RenderTextureScope Reference. The Demo Facility sniper rifle uses a render texture scope by default.
Stencil Based Scopes
Stencil based scopes use stencil shaders to define what parts of the weapon are visible through the lens of the scope. They provide no zoom themselves, so the entire player camera must be zoomed in. The stencil shaders are used to cut out the scope housing and mount behind the lens so that your view is unobstructed. They are also used in the opposite way to display the scope reticule and inner tube, providing a slight parallax effect, while cutting out any of the geometry that extends outside your view of the lens.
Stencil based scopes are much more performant than render texture scopes, with the trade off that the view around the scope is also zoomed in.
The Demo Facility sniper rifle has stencil based scopes disabled in its hierarchy.
Note: The stencil based scopes are currently not working with deferred rendering. A solution is being looked into.
HUD Scopes
HUD based scopes essentially hide all weapon geometry, and overlay a crosshair over the entire screen. This can be instant, or triggered at the end points of an aim-down-sights animation.
These scopes tend to have a much more arcadey / responsive feel than the other options, though it can be harder to make them look good.
You should also make sure that the shooter module on the firearm is set to use the camera aim when aiming so that the bullet hits where the crosshair is pointing every time.
The sniper rifle in the feature demos uses a HUD based scope.