Pylon Icons

[Ramirez]

How do the concentric circles work? Don't all lines have to be filled in some way any more or are they just drwan very thin?

I need some unusual icons for my squadron commander OXP and those look just the thing.

[JensAyton]

How do the concentric circles work? Don't all lines have to be filled in some way any more or are they just drwan very thin?

There are no lines, only fills.

The easy way to do the concentric arc pattern (they aren’t full circles, and that matters) would be to use one contour for the overall outline and an additional contour for each black area. Having examined the oil tank icon I suspect Eldon did it the hard way, with a single contour that overlaps itself.

Actual concentric “circles” are possible using multiple contours; in this case, you’d use one contour for each edge.

Tip: to see the structure of an icon, use the polygon-sprite-dump-svg  hidden setting. SVG files can be opened with modern web browsers as well as vector image editors.

[Eldon]

Yep these were done the hard way, all in one shape. No overlapping, no gaps, the line just starts at a point (A) on the outside of the shape, goes round the outside of the shape, back to point A, Skips to a point (B) on the inside of the shape, goes round the inside to create a hole, back to point B, back to point A. The line never crosses its self, just runs parallel once for each hole.

The easier way is, of course to use separate contours as Ahruman says, but I hadn't worked out how to do that when I made these.

Since then I've found this in the Oolite test release 1.74 thread.

Improved missile HUD icons. Outlines are now of consistent thickness. Arbitrary concave and complex (self-intersecting) polygons are supported, and more than one contour may be used (by specifying an array of arrays). To maximise compatibility with existing missiles, the relatively obscure Positive polygon winding rule is used; you can punch holes by using polygons with opposite winding order to the first one. Convex corners are bevelled at 30° or sharper angles. For troubleshooting, use the polygon-sprite-dump-svg hidden setting.

...and worked out how to make an array of arrays.

[Killer Wolf]

new question instead :
are the ASC icons limited to a 5x7 grid too? i've tested one and it's titchy compared to the normal letters, you can hardly make it out.

ta

[Eldon]

For ASC icons I believe a good rule of thumb is to make them twice the size of a similar missile icon. Even with missile icons I don't think it's a hard limit, just if you make them bigger you start overlapping with adjacent missile icons, which looks a bit weird.

If you want to check an example have a look at cargo shepherd, it has a magnet icon for both the missile and the compass icon, both look the right size, but only because they've been defined separately.

[Thargoid]

Yup - I had the same problem there so had to split them at different sizes.

There isn't actually a limit I don't think (at least not 5x7 anyway), although if they get too big they overlap (especially the missile ones) on the HUD and look crap.

[Killer Wolf]

sound, cheers guys, i'll give that a shot tonight.

i was going to suggest too that Shipdata has a new "beacon colour" attribute, as it kinda gets a bit obscured when placed overlapping the side of the compass.

[Cholmondely]

I've taken screen shots of the Armoury & Missiles & Bombs OXP HUD icons.

Vanilla game icons + Repair Nanobots + Salvage Missile (from Deep Space Dredger oxp)


Armoury oxp Missiles:


Armoury oxp Bombs:


Missiles & Bombs oxp:


These are now up with a legend on the Category:Missiles & Bombs wiki page as well as the relevant oxp pages and the HUD oxp page.

Not perfect, but at least a start! (Vanilla games icons included for reference for new players)