Helmet visors

[Charismatic Enigma]

Out of all the Gundam series, I've noticed the various visors on the helmets that pilots wear. My question is that which is the most practical. In all the UC era series, I've seen blue, green, purple, and orange colored visors. Gundam Wing had both the blue and green as well as grey. SEED and DESTINY have what I call the transparent tinted kind. I haven't seen Gundam 00 yet, so I don't know about those.

I'm wondering if a visor that's colored blue or green or something else would be more of a hinderance to the pilot.

[mcred23]

I don't think one color is ever shown to be more effective than any other, it's not like pilots with blue-tinted visors are shown to be less effective than ones with green-tinted visors or something like that. While I wouldn't be suprised if that in real life, the color of the tint might have some meaning and have some effect on a pilot's vison, in Gundam, the color of the tint doesn't have any meaning and is never shown to be a hinderance.

[Toxicity]

In many cases, I've seen that the wearer is able to adjust the tint by simply pressing a button or something on the helmet. Not the color, but the darkness of the tint that allows anyone else to see the pilot's face.

As for practality, I specifically remember from CCA, after Amuro and Char have their fight outside of their MS inside Axis and they reboard their MS, Amuro actually takes a moment to take his helmet off. Wearing the helmet in the 360 panoramic cockpit would probably limit the pilots field of vision.

In other cases, Like the Gundam Epyon, the helmet is essential. I'm not even sure how the Epyon's cockpit works. Does it have traditional monitors like most of the other gundams and MS from wing, none at all, or something similar to that of the Wing Zero (which i dont completely understand either)?

[Wingnut]

As for practality, I specifically remember from CCA, after Amuro and Char have their fight outside of their MS inside Axis and they reboard their MS, Amuro actually takes a moment to take his helmet off. Wearing the helmet in the 360 panoramic cockpit would probably limit the pilots field of vision.

Mind you it was also damaged and had to be patched up with a piece of tape on the visor as well.

[AmuroNT1]

In other cases, Like the Gundam Epyon, the helmet is essential. I'm not even sure how the Epyon's cockpit works. Does it have traditional monitors like most of the other gundams and MS from wing, none at all, or something similar to that of the Wing Zero (which i dont completely understand either)?

As far as I've figured, Epyon's helmet functions as a replacement for Wing Zero's ZERO System-augmenting cockpit. Otherwise it's basically just your standard MS cockpit.

[azrael]

Mind you it was also damaged and had to be patched up with a piece of tape on the visor as well.

And that piece of tape blocked his sight viewing the control panel. If your car has a tinted band on the windshield, then I would imagine that's what looking through the visor is like.

[Toxicity]

As for practality, I specifically remember from CCA, after Amuro and Char have their fight outside of their MS inside Axis and they reboard their MS, Amuro actually takes a moment to take his helmet off. Wearing the helmet in the 360 panoramic cockpit would probably limit the pilots field of vision.

Mind you it was also damaged and had to be patched up with a piece of tape on the visor as well.

I had forgotten about that, but I still think i have a valid point because some helmets would probably block your periphrials and above/below view. But i guess with amuro being a newtype and all it wouldnt really matter.

[Gelmax]

Visor color doesn't really matter too much, as long as it's not the same color as the readouts on your control panel, and even then it's only a minor issue as the tint doesn't interfere that much. It's not too uncommon for people to wear glasses with tinted lenses as well.

[Fritz Ashlyn]

In many cases, I've seen that the wearer is able to adjust the tint by simply pressing a button or something on the helmet. Not the color, but the darkness of the tint that allows anyone else to see the pilot's face.

That's probably like our current astronaut's gold visors that are used on spacewalks to block out uv radiation and whatnot. Normally they're just transparent when it's just the suit used to protect them from vacuum.

[bluemax151]

It's not too uncommon for people to wear glasses with tinted lenses as well.

Depending on the colour the tint can wash the wearers perception of other colours out.

[Meteoid]

I think it's just down to personal preference, I mean in 00 they all have purple except Tieria since his Pilot suit is purple and it would look weird. And all the grunts except the HRL have yellow. but I don't think it makes a difference

[sushicake]

As for practality, I specifically remember from CCA, after Amuro and Char have their fight outside of their MS inside Axis and they reboard their MS, Amuro actually takes a moment to take his helmet off. Wearing the helmet in the 360 panoramic cockpit would probably limit the pilots field of vision.

Mind you it was also damaged and had to be patched up with a piece of tape on the visor as well.

Doesn't Amuro take off his helmet when he's pushing back axis?

[Seraphic]

Yellow lenses supposedly helps one aim better. It filters out colors that might seem distracting and provides high contrast so you can pick out targets quickly. I also hear yellow is the color that the eye responds to quickest. I don't know what kind of effect that has when everything is made yellow, though.

This is why you see people on shooting ranges wearing yellow glasses. Not to mention Vash the Stampede.

I don't remember any Gundam characters with yellow visors on their helmets. Then again, I haven't see all the new stuff, either.

There you go.

[v_zubko]

Yazan uses yellow visor.

[Meteoid]

I don't remember any Gundam characters with yellow visors on their helmets. Then again, I haven't see all the new stuff, either.

All the 00 grunts except the HRL had yellow visors, possibly for the reasons you mentioned, 00 has been pretty tech-savvy so far.
Celestial Being don't bother because they have giant robots powered by pixie dust and they're too cool for science

[Dark Duel]

Well, Soma had a plain transparent visor.
CB's are sort of bluish-purple. Except for Tieria, whose visor is orange.
And IIRC, Setsuna's was gray on that black suit he was wearing in the first episode.

[Meteoid]

I did say that the HRL had clear Visors
I reckon Tieria's is just because purple visor-purple suit would look silly
And I totally Forgot about Setsuna, perhaps since it wasn't a CB suit he couldn't really get picky, or gray was better for hiding his face.

Anyway were getting too bogged down in 00 discussion (my bad).

[thesilentreviewer]

Or the tinted visor could be an added security measure, like the panel displays only on a narrow band of the visual spectrum and you need a specific tint to see it, but it's a stretch since most of the time pilots just sit back without a helmet on (bad piloting habit mind you)

[thanatos]

The 00, UC, Wing and Turn A helmets are all decently designed helmets. I think the better ones are Loran's from Turn A and Neena's from 00 simply because they have the least amount of peripheral vision blocked by the visors.
I suppose the Eypon's visor would be the best, but since it's connected directly to the MS, escape would become more complex, having to unplug yourself first.
The worst helmets are undoubtedly in SEED. Vision in those things is limited to a thin V-shaped area directly in front of the pilot's face. They also project way out along the brow and jaw line, which I'd expect would get in the way if the pilot was contantly turning his head.

[South Burning]

They probably tint the visors different colors for the variety, just as they give characters blue hair. I know from experience that if the display in a cockpit is lit by LED's or some other solid state self-illuminating device, as opposed to a "passive" display like the back-lit display in an older car with incandescent bulbs and swinging-indicator gauges, that the visor color is very important. Solid state emits a very pure color and the wrong visor color can completely mask it. I once had an all green display vanish when I dropped my green sun visor. In Gundam, even with the 360 degree displays on the cockpit walls, there are probably heads-up displays on the insides of the visors for data that the pilot needs at all times regardless of where they are looking. My preference is polarized material, but even that can hide some displays because the cover over the light-emitting element can inadvertently polarize the light in the wrong plane.