Oolite Bulletins

No problem DH. Version 3 will have hud switching and changing the surround colors to match the alert condition is on the list to look at.

OTB, I have not playtested the new huds to actually see them, but yes, the round ones are very much what I was thinking of. As for the distortion of the lines in the round ones, it makes them look more "alien" or "fluid based" in my opinion.

Edit: OK I played them. I like #3 better than #4 as 3 is easier to see what the gauges are doing. Also, in 4 the laser temp is relegated to a very smal segment of the gauge, while in combat, you need to really be able to see it. I'm interested in what you may do with V3 when it comes out. dynamic switching could do some very nice things for this hud. Heh, this hud might go very well with the steampunk hud that is also floating around. Ooh, or a wood grain version! One thing I miss is a targeting dot in the center of the cross-hairs, if you would be so kind as to include that? In a final and positive note, I like the large iff scanner display. It makes knowing what you are up against a lot easier (number of ships wise anyway).

My earlier statements still stand: excellent work!!

Gnudoll, thanx for the input and kind words. I've got a couple sections of my switching script complete(probably less than 20% of the total script). Currently going in 3 or 4 directions at once pursuing different ideas and reviewing old ones. Would be nice to get more constructive criticism from many other people. Maybe 10 days isn't long enough to thoroughly test these huds? Oh well....

I think the round gauges are a little too pixelated... but that's my opinion.
And yes, a targeting dot would be nice.

I think the targeting dot, while a nice idea, isn't practical as each ship has a different view and front laser position. A dot that is 'centred' for one ship would not be centred for any others,

What about an adjustable sight for each view? Is that a feature of interest to you? Just something I'm working on...

An adjustable sight - if possible - sounds like an excellent solution - to a tricky problem.

Smivs wrote:

I think the targeting dot, while a nice idea, isn't practical as each ship has a different view and front laser position. A dot that is 'centred' for one ship would not be centred for any others,

Dittoed. A static targeting dot for ships with different parallaxes makes no sense.

You would need to make a different version of the HUD for each ship. (Technically, five different versions for maximum range would probably be enough; but still each player would have to know which one is the correct one for their ship.)

BTW, you would also need to make a different version of the HUD for each possible distance to the targeted ship. Parallax also means that the dot has to be very close to the centre for distant targets, and almost at the bottom of the screen for close targets. Therefore targeting dots in themselves make no sense for any ship where the view-position is different from the laser-position (= the vast majority of ships).

Thanx DH and Commander McLane for the continued support and ideas. I am going to very temporarily suspend my pie v3 upgrade as a recent all nighter eureka moment(yeah, another one) has led to a breakthrough for numeric, needle and other types of hud gauges(already have a working numeric gauge ) and a possible way of getting rid of the circumferal artifacts in my pie arrays(no foolin'). I will start up some other threads on these and when I've completed the huds for these I will know enough possibly to improve(fix?) the pie hud arrays.

Please to everybody thanx for your continued support and to all that have tested out my v2 hud could you please if you are able to post your comments on the result of your testing. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be just a couple of threads over.

The HUD future has gotten so much brighter and that's without a hud.plist bugfix that will be comin, maybe soon.

I gotta wear shades

It's been 2 long weeks and my work on the numeric hud has bore fruit. The way to fix the trails on the outside of the pie gauges is to use equipment switching animation with frame callbacks. It will still be painstaking work but at least there is a solution.

It will be at least until I finish work on the needle hud before I can resume work on the pie gauges and the experience gained will benefit directly to designing a good script for the pies.

As always your comments will always be welcome here.

Well another 2 weeks have gone by and I've released 1.2.1 of the numeric hud. Some of the features will make it into version 3 of the pie huds. Scanner/compass color change for alert condition. If the testing goes well I will include the animated adjustable crosshair as well. I have also found some practical limits to how many selectors can be put in a hud.plist before significant fps slowdown occurs. This will help me plan the modification to the rounded pie gauges when it comes time to try and eliminate the circumferal artifacts.

It would seem that the right strategy to improve the pie gauges is indeed to pursue the methods to create other types of animated gauges. Numeric huds have yielded a lot that can be used here. Continuing on with other animated hud concepts will also prove fruitful for pie huds. I am now starting on an animated hud concept for Staer9's Chupacabra and my limited work on needle type gauges continues. Perhaps in another 2 to 4 weeks I will have enough custom animated hud experience and have enough methods to begin the practical task of improving the pie gauges and release the next version of pie chart style huds.

Thanx to all for your support and patience. Your comments, as always, are welcome here.

A couple more weeks have rolled by and the discoveries keep coming.

In pursuing a method to more smoothly change between a forward targetting scanner and an area scanner, I came up with a way to change between 2 different scanners(or other gauges for that matter) that is kind of cool. I set up a frame by frame animation between the 2 different scanners with a different scanner for each frame over the span of 27 frames and the result is a fluid morph from one scanner into the other. Has to be seen to be appreciated.

I have not yet experimented with gauge swaps as it relates to pie gauges but it could prove interesting to see a gauge or gauge cluster move and change size in reaction to a condition change or other trigger. The "morph" swap of scanner and compass will however be a feature in the next release of pie huds. Cool!

That sounds certainly cool. Vid on youtube?

pagroove wrote:

That sounds certainly cool. Vid on youtube?

In 2 weeks you will be able to try out the chupacabra with custom animated hud and Sniper Camera System and in 4 weeks probably the next numeric hud with Sniper Camera System possibly for select ships.

Perhaps a Parsec Tuning hud with area scanner "morphing" into a front targetting scanner would be cool!

It's only a couple of weeks...

Yes,

I wait to the new goodies are released and then make perhaps a Parsec Tuning skin around it. Would be indeed cool. O and BTW it is cool to see so many relatively 'new' people delving directly into OXP'ing. I see a lot inventions each day. I mean. I have to check the BB each day to keep up with the new developments