I think the right way to do this would be to have a "targetModel" HUD dial, which re-renders the target to an appropriate position and scale (and probably with the correct orientation relative to the player ship, too). Could render it as a textured+lit 3-D object, or as a flat-colour wireframe.
This isn't entirely straightforward to do because it involves a rendering mode switch in an inconvenient place, but should be possible. Whether I have time to look at it before 1.82 I have no idea, but maybe someone else will.
O. M. G.
You mean that could actually be done in Oolite? Having seen what ED does in this regard, I've been thinking for a while now that such a thing in Oolite would be both seriously cool, and useful. Being able to see the orientation of your opponent when they're off-screen is most helpful in combat, since it allows you to make an informed guess at what they're trying to do.
Please, please, please do this!
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
Which actually brings up the main obstacle to such a feature.. dealing with OXP-added ships.
While OXPers could reasonably easily (if slightly time-consuming) put in pictures for all core ships, I think the right way to do this would be to have a "targetModel" HUD dial, which re-renders the target to an appropriate position and scale (and probably with the correct orientation relative to the player ship, too).
Isn't that what Norby's Telescope OXP does?
What would be useful is a custom image dial that works the same way as the custom text dial. That could be used for an image of the player ship, target ship, selected equipment, species of the npc communicating with you, your girl in every port, etc.
Which actually brings up the main obstacle to such a feature.. dealing with OXP-added ships.
While OXPers could reasonably easily (if slightly time-consuming) put in pictures for all core ships, I think the right way to do this would be to have a "targetModel" HUD dial, which re-renders the target to an appropriate position and scale (and probably with the correct orientation relative to the player ship, too).
Isn't that what Norby's Telescope OXP does?
It does that by using visualEffects that need to be defined in effectdata.plist. So all the ships still need to be defined in the oxp. If there was a way to create a VisualEffect straight from shipdata.plist, then that would not be needed.
What would be useful is a custom image dial that works the same way as the custom text dial. That could be used for an image of the player ship, target ship, selected equipment, species of the npc communicating with you, your girl in every port, etc.
Should be possible. Switch it too fast and you might run into problems with texture loading, but it probably doesn't matter if it blanks for a few frames when switching for most applications. I'll add it to the list.
It does that by using visualEffects that need to be defined in effectdata.plist. So all the ships still need to be defined in the oxp. If there was a way to create a VisualEffect straight from shipdata.plist, then that would not be needed.
Cim said more about the problems of a VisualEffect solution in Github. I described some others in the wiki.
Nonetheless there was a version of dertien's MiLHUD which repositioned the visual target of [wiki]Telescope[/wiki] to the bottom part of the screen. I think this is the maximum what an oxp can do currently, but with core changes everything is possible.
![[EliteWiki]](/images/elitewikismall.png){kind=small}
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