hud redesign?

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 7:11 pm

The Coms should be toggable to either be visible or not visible.

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 7:21 pm

Duality wrote:The Coms should be toggable to either be visible or not visible.

If they stay like they are now i would agree to 100%, but if they are changed in a way i described in an older post in this thread then they will be much more important and you would not want them to be hidden

Anyway, "toggability" is a feature that should be available for every text field in the HUD.

Pontiac

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:15 pm

pontiac wrote:The bad thing is that now the comm-screen takes a big amount of space on higher resolutions

the Comms VDU could be moved to the top of the screen. That way any extra space on the bottom isn't wasted.

Not really sure if that's even a good idea, but it would save the space.

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 9:02 pm

@PeteyG: really good idea. Looks a bit better now:

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... een_05.png
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... een_06.png
EDIT: Yes, i know the objectives-screen is a bit to the right

I also recognized that the messages on the top don't have their custom colors (enemy=red, etc...).
Is this normal behaviour, or did i mixed something up?

Pontiac

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Tue Nov 11, 2003 11:31 pm

i don't really like the gap below the mini-image of the target.
and different sized radars seem a little odd.

as for the original concept, i think its GREAT.

the borders are just fine.
i would say they are too thick and would be a little occlusive, but,
if you make a box/section fade out after a few seconds of no use, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

i do _not_ agree with depending on togglability.
it is a nice option, but there is a problem with it.

who remembers even 10% of the keyboard commands?
you donna know which keystroak toggles what box, among all the
other commands there are?

a fade-out-after-unuse is guaranteed to get rid of what isn't needed.

of course thats in respect to things that aren't continuous.
-an occupied mission box = always up
(or it comes up after you achieve an objective | jump | lock an objective)
-com screen = up when targeting something you can talk to, or when you are talked to.
-weapons = up when you make a weapon selection change

have everything stay for 5 seconds, then fade out in 2 or so.

it would be nice and artsy, and would get rid of clutter.
and the changing scape of the hud would make it more lively.

the arrow that points to the target is absolutely necessary. i'm surprised it hasn't been done already. essentially the radar takes care of it already, but its not as in-your-face as that lil arrow. and i'm sure you can cannibalize the radar code to make it happen too.

the shield/armour readout is very tasteful.
i have only one suggestion.
when a readout reaches 0, have it reappear in red, and flash.
a, it would make it lively
b, it would be noticable. the low alpha on the nearly-0-left portion of hte readout will make you wonder if you have 1% shields, or none at all.
** also, different colour shield/armour readouts with varying shield levels and armour upgrades would be cool. you would see a change on your hud when you make an upgrade to them, more satisfying to upgrade.

also, maybe a picture of your weapon by its list.
atm there are only a few vwep weapons ready (although i sent 6 or so to hellcat, i don't think they are in the release... the ship-models aren't really edited to use htem properly, but the hud could show them in 3d. could be cool)

as for a separate mission screen, it was my objective to eventually have the nav-map include a mission screen, along with mission rank, and auto-calculated + shown paths that would accomplish missions in least time, ordered by rank, etc, allowing for manual detour editing, like an objective-editor sorta thing. eventially it'll be taken care of. but nevertheless, a list of missions would be nice on screen. at least your next objecteive as we have now.

-scheherazade

Silverain · Post by **Silverain** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:05 am

scheherazade wrote:i don't really like the gap below the mini-image of the target.
and different sized radars seem a little odd

.

I agree

if you make a box/section fade out after a few seconds of no use, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

Yep

i do _not_ agree with depending on togglability.
it is a nice option, but there is a problem with it.

who remembers even 10% of the keyboard commands?
you donna know which keystroak toggles what box, among all the
other commands there are?

Wouldn't the toggle be the activation key for that VDU anyway? e.g. [w] toggles VDU on then cycle to comms?

a fade-out-after-unuse is guaranteed to get rid of what isn't needed.

Would be nice.

the arrow that points to the target is absolutely necessary. i'm surprised it hasn't been done already. essentially the radar takes care of it already, but its not as in-your-face as that lil arrow. and i'm sure you can cannibalize the radar code to make it happen too.

This would be a nice want feature, not sure if its a need feature though.

Overall, pontiac, KUDOS for the work done - most impressed by the center target/fuel etc display. Definitely tidies it up. Me personally, I liked the boxes around the different areas (comms, etc). Appeals to my sense of neatness.

My $.02

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:16 pm

borders around the boxes: i am working on them, but they will not look as 'good' as in the gimped pictures

Scheherazade your right, autohide would be the best thing for these boxes.
So the VDU-key at first turns it on and then toggles the different views.
But again: As i see (the future of) the communication screen it will be much more important than now. Autohide is just fine with this too though

Arrow pointing to the target: Not covered by any of my skills (code).

About the redish change to shield/armour and the other related stuff: Can i do this in the current hud?

Pic of weapon: fully agree

Any ideas why the text in the message box isn't different colored when dispalying an enemy message.

Pontiac

FlyingAce · Post by **FlyingAce** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 9:32 pm

will the radar, site, and targeting indicators be more than just lines in this new hud? I'm sure sum1 could do better that what is there now. (ignore if someone has already done this)

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:09 pm

FlyingAce wrote:will the radar, site, and targeting indicators be more than just lines in this new hud? I'm sure sum1 could do better that what is there now. (ignore if someone has already done this)

I shortly mentioned the problem in this post.
summary: it seems that the radar is currently drawn by the engine and not taken from a picture. I set the paths to my own images, but they are just not displayed.

@hellcatv: is this switchable somehow?

Pontiac

Post by **hurleybird** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 12:22 am

the arrow that points to the target is absolutely necessary. i'm surprised it hasn't been done already. essentially the radar takes care of it already, but its not as in-your-face as that lil arrow. and i'm sure you can cannibalize the radar code to make it happen too.

i fully agree. Though we would need sojmeone to program this in it seems. Hellcat or ace, if you could do that, that would be really great!

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 6:33 pm

hurleybird wrote:
the arrow that points to the target is absolutely necessary. i'm surprised it hasn't been done already. essentially the radar takes care of it already, but its not as in-your-face as that lil arrow. and i'm sure you can cannibalize the radar code to make it happen too.
i fully agree. Though we would need sojmeone to program this in it seems. Hellcat or ace, if you could do that, that would be really great!

If this feature is really going to be implemented i would extend it to a second pointer (different shape) for the turret-target

As i see it the color of the pointers should show the relation to your target and a distance-text below (to the middle) the pointer as seen in my gimped pics is another thing for it.

just my 2c

Pontiac

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:59 am

here's yet another 2c

make target boxes at least X size...
that way when you target something that's 100000000000000 metres away, and right in front of you, you see the target box over it (rather than it being smaller than a star-dot)

silverain <<
"
Wouldn't the toggle be the activation key for that VDU anyway? e.g. [w] toggles VDU on then cycle to comms?
"
i'm thinking of another thing than you.
you're thinking of the VDU, specifically the one you cycle.
i'm thinking of all-things-on-screen
this could include:
the mission objective list
weapons list
game-messages field
etc...
if you were to make a toggle key for every possible thing on the hud, you'd need ~9 keys (using the latest image). its not gameplay-practical to memorize so many not critical commands.

pontiac << i don't know about the blinking armour readout either, i haven't made a hud.
but
i think i can code in that arrow.
at least i know i can hack it in...
i wonder how i would do it properly, i.e. customizable location, size, etc, defined in settings somewhere.
i really think you should ask hellcat to do it. i'm sure from looking at it that it's an hours work at most (that includes testing, just coding i'm sure its less than a half hour).
if you have the sprite ready and everything set up to use it, i'm sure he can get it supported.

as for the line-radar...
i dont know about weather it supports images right now,
but i do know that i can make it draw a smoother circle (i've made it do so on my side) by just messing with a little bit of the code.
but yah, it needs to allow sprites too...

-scheherazade

Post by **ace123** » Fri Nov 14, 2003 7:01 am

pontiac wrote:If this feature is really going to be implemented i would extend it to a second pointer (different shape) for the turret-target
As i see it the color of the pointers should show the relation to your target and a distance-text below (to the middle) the pointer as seen in my gimped pics is another thing for it.

They should be the same color as target boxes (cockpit color if no color radar, relation color otherwise). If they always show relation color, then the target box should also show that information.

Also, would an ITTS arrow be useful if you have it?

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Sat Nov 15, 2003 2:01 am

it might as well point to the itts if you have itts... i mean the itts reticle is hardly ever more than a half inch from your enemy anyways, so it doesn't matter much.

-scheherazade

Post by **hurleybird** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 2:24 am

i would prefer to have both.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 9:28 am

Pontiac, could you post what you've got so far on this? I'd like to play around with it some.

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Sun Jan 04, 2004 1:51 am

peteyg wrote:Pontiac, could you post what you've got so far on this? I'd like to play around with it some.

Here is my current cockpit data. Just extract it into the vs-data directory (make a backup of the two dirs first

):

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... sign_4.zip
The source of the grafics is here:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... esign/svg/

Pontiac

oligo · Post by **oligo** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 9:29 pm

pontiac wrote:Ok here is a second one with more stats displayed:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users ... een_02.png

The display of the target on the bottom is switchable to display the 3d-view as well.

The crosshair and the radar screens are looking odd because i can't replace them. They are drawn by the vegastrike engine (lines and dots).

@hellcatv: Can i somehow turn off these lines (not the dots of course) and use my own grafics for radar and crosshairs?
Also: If i use the "View" option for VDUs can i specify thart i only want the 3d view onto the target and not the other two?

Pontiac

The lines of the crosshair and the radar are not very nice, I'd like to have look at the code to draw sprites instead of these lines.
Someone already working on it ? or any objection ?

oligo

oligo · Post by **oligo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 5:30 pm

I'd like to add the possibility to use sprites for radar.
Radar bitmaps are configured in the radar.spr and radarr.spr files already present in the cockpits directories. And the use of sprites would be switchable in the vegastrike.config file.

Here is a blue and green sample radar. They are the same shape as before, but if you have some other nice radars...

oligo

Post by **jackS** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:08 pm

Is there any possibility one could convince you to make the line-width in your sprites thinner? Especially for the cross-hair - it covers up a lot of screen space - and, given that it's dead-forward, I tend to think of that as fairly useful screen space to be able to see. The radar displays aren't as worse off for the thickness of the lines that make them up, but I'd still prefer less obscuring to more.

oligo · Post by **oligo** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:14 pm

I made crosshairs with thinner lines based on the first one : crosshairs
And for the radar I made some with thinner lines and different transparency: radars

oligo

oligo · Post by **oligo** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 2:54 pm

oligo wrote:I'd like to add the possibility to use sprites for radar. Screen shot here.

oligo wrote:And for the radar I made some with thinner lines and different transparency: radars

I have not no feedback for this feature, is it worth I implement it ?

scheherazade wrote:pontiac << i don't know about the blinking armour readout either, i haven't made a hud.
but
i think i can code in that arrow.
at least i know i can hack it in...
i wonder how i would do it properly, i.e. customizable location, size, etc, defined in settings somewhere.
i really think you should ask hellcat to do it. i'm sure from looking at it that it's an hours work at most (that includes testing, just coding i'm sure its less than a half hour).
if you have the sprite ready and everything set up to use it, i'm sure he can get it supported.

scheherazade, have you done something for the arrow ? If not I'd like to have a look at it.

oligo

Post by **dandandaman** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 4:21 am

oligo wrote:I have not no feedback for this feature, is it worth I implement it ?

what? sprites for radars? yes

Dan.a

Shark · Post by **Shark** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:36 pm

Duality wrote:Is it possible to have a 3D wireframe version of a 3D ship model as a 3D-VDU with the custom color along with the hud??

Good idea. Just the model (not the wireframe) would be fine. The sprite is kind of ugly.

oligo wrote:I'd like to add the possibility to use sprites for radar.
Radar bitmaps are configured in the radar.spr and radarr.spr files already present in the cockpits directories. And the use of sprites would be switchable in the vegastrike.config file.
oligo

I think having rendered radars is better than sprites. The current ones aren't smooth enough, though.

BTW, could somebody take a screenshot of the game without any HUD at all for me? I'd like to tinker with it in Paint Shop.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:46 pm

WAY ahead of you. : )

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/galle ... creenshots