Oolite Bulletins

There are different ways to achieve such a 'overlay'. All of them have their own drawbacks.

The demo JazHaz was referring to uses the HUD. As you can't attach things on the fly to HUDs it is not usable for a generic mechanism. Additionally you can't change positions via script - they are 'hardcoded' in the HUD.plist. So multiple overlays will collide. In v1.77 HUDs can display things based on equipment availability.

A alternative way is to use shaders via screen aligned quad. A script can control positions, sizes, durations etc. to display multiple overlays. Drawback is here that you need a script which spawns the entity (or in v1.77 the Visual Effect), repositions it (Frustum Culling) and passes the data (positions, size, etc.) to the shader. So it eats a fair bit of resources to create, control and finally remove it again. And it won't work for users without shader support. The Vector uses this way, but it needs to be done very careful.

And finally you could simply use a textured model positioned in front of the players nose. Same script stuff (create, control and remove). In v1.77 it will be possible to create such a thing without the problems of collisions and acting as unwanted 'extra' shield.

I guess you'll have to wait for v1.77 before a generic mechanism can be done without causing trouble.

Love the idea! What a pity it won't come soon...

He, just a teaser



Characters by Justin Nichol, CC-BY-SA 3.0, GPL 3.0, GPL 2.0

Very nice, but—if I may say so—the characters seem a little limited. No Blue Slimy Frogs or Fierce Yellow Bug-Eyed Lobsters.

Commander McLane wrote:

Very nice, but—if I may say so—the characters seem a little limited. No Blue Slimy Frogs or Fierce Yellow Bug-Eyed Lobsters.

Yes. It's just a start. The framework is already running well and the piccies are more or less placeholders currently. The goal is to create 30 character pics and maybe 20 different info/notification thingies. After all they are small (128x128px). OXPs can use own piccies as well. What it will be in then end? Who knows .-)

If you or anybody else wants to work on more/better piccies for this project just give me a call.

Svengali wrote:

If you or anybody else wants to work on more/better piccies for this project just give me a call.

I'm not a piccie-man, I'm afraid. And anyway, forgive my feeble nitpicking.

I'm absolutely stunned, and am looking forward to you taking Oolite to yet another new level.

Svengali wrote:

He, just a teaser

THAT is an understatement Svengali, love the look for that indeed! As for a ship's AI, has anyone considered putting their own picture in the game? What I was thinking of was a sort of Carmageddon image of the pilot up on one of the corners of the screen



Or

Perhaps use such images for comms with other ships and stations?

Commander McLane wrote:

And anyway, forgive my feeble nitpicking.

But you had a valid point, so I wouldn't even consider it nitpicking .-)

Geraldine wrote:

Perhaps use such images for comms with other ships and stations?

Yes, that's the idea.-)

I'm using overlays in ship2player comms already in Vector and the new framework will become part of the Cabal_Common_Library, because the library ships already the communication script. The next step is to make both scripts acting together .-)

Svengali - This looks like a great piece of work that you are developing and I very much look forward to seeing it in game.

Love the images Svengali in your teaser... looks like it could be the crew section for ones very own Oolite Serenity remake...

May I also suggest more diversity from the humanoids from hair like ginger & blonde to even more exotic florescent and veiled etc, all skin colours and some new skin colours too; cyborgs, androids, holo-projections etc and don't forget lobstoid and feline aliens too...

I wonder if a renegade Thargoid might be an interesting OXP idea?

Svengali wrote:

If you or anybody else wants to work on more/better piccies for this project just give me a call.

*cracks knuckles* And that'd be me cue...

Rese249er wrote:

Svengali wrote:

If you or anybody else wants to work on more/better piccies for this project just give me a call.

*cracks knuckles* And that'd be me cue...

Fine .-)

https://www.box.com/s/beuxihhromo6ycew6rfx is the empty frame .png used for the overlays.

Any requests for a particular character or such? No guarantees but I can work wonders with existing images.

Rese249er wrote:

Any requests for a particular character or such? No guarantees but I can work wonders with existing images.

Heh .-)

I'd like to see 'simply' the races mentioned in the planet descriptions. Probably the aliens are the hardest part as most good looking resources out there can't be used in a OXP (license). The overlays should be generic enough to be used in different OXPs (they can use own images as well, but the generic thingummie should cover most needs).

Svengali wrote:

I'd like to see 'simply' the races mentioned in the planet descriptions. Probably the aliens are the hardest part as most good looking resources out there can't be used in a OXP (license). The overlays should be generic enough to be used in different OXPs (they can use own images as well, but the generic thingummie should cover most needs).

Giving some characters space helmets, flight goggles, respirators etc. might help ... it would be easier to make variations on a theme that way.