Oolite Bulletins

Text such as Forward View, Aft View et al are all but illegible in the glare of a star.

Obvious suggestion is to try another colour.
even orange would be an improvement (no offence to orange )

If one gets fore and aft mixed up when sunskimming then...

Obvioulsy yellow works well enough against a predominantly black background or een against (most) planets but in the situation described above...
Black shadow effect or similar around text perhaps?

Redspear wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 8:21 pm

Text such as Forward View, Aft View et al are all but illegible in the glare of a star.

Obvious suggestion is to try another colour.
even orange would be an improvement (no offence to orange )

If one gets fore and aft mixed up when sunskimming then...

Obvioulsy yellow works well enough against a predominantly black background or even against (most) planets but in the situation described above...
Black shadow effect or similar around text perhaps?

Have you tried Phkb's XenonHUD?

Redspear wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 8:21 pm

Text such as Forward View, Aft View et al are all but illegible in the glare of a star.

One advantage of an opaque instrument panel. If I could remember how to extend my Fighter Hud, I'd bring Oolite's messages within it.

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 8:58 pm

Have you tried Phkb's XenonHUD?

No, but I'm not sure it's affected by alternate HUDs (could be wrong). Even if it were though, it still seems that the default HUD should ideally be able to address this issue.

Cody wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 9:13 pm

One advantage of an opaque instrument panel.

Aye, or even a semi-transparent one. Pros and cons...

Yeah... the original Fighter Hud was semi-transparent, before I butchered it.

Cody wrote: ↑Tue May 24, 2022 9:13 pm

If I could remember how to extend my Fighter Hud, I'd bring Oolite's messages within it.

What messages are missing from your HUD?

As Redspear notes above, the Oolite info messages (and Comms messages). I get them, but they're not within the opaque instrument panel. I added a panel to display my only MFD, but that was years ago. It'd need another panel added to the left side, and the messages moved within it.

Have a look HERE. While there is no option to change the color of the text for either the Communication Log or the Messages themselves there is an Alpha Setting which might accomplish what you are after.

Another option is to eliminate the Sun Glare Effect entirely. This can be done with a combination of the Glare Clarifier OXZ (Expansion Manager) and the No Flare OXZ (HERE). The total elimination of the Sun Glare Effect may go against the purist's heart but it is the route currently taken in my Ooniverse. The Handwavium justification for it being that we have similar sun glare blocking options in the real world so in the time frame of Oolite such technology has been adapted to the viewing ports of a ship or, at the very least, to the helmet a pilot might wear.

The third and final option is to turn the change of view into an easier to remember spoken audio option. Have a look at CHANGE VIEW SOUND which does something similar but with only a beep. Personal preference would be to have the entire view change spoken, as in "Forward View Selected" or some such similar wording. The text for the view change can be found in the default descriptions.plist but no default script that calls it up can be located. My guess would be that such a call is ensconced somewhere in the core code.

Let me not get started once again on my endless TWEAKING in order to achieve a talking ship but this third option does somewhat add to that end. Yes, there is the option to turn all text messages into spoken audio but it goes much too far and the voice used is not as pleasing as the TWEAKED f2 voice currently in use.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 10:14 am

Have a look HERE. While there is no option to change the color of the text for either the Communication Log or the Messages themselves there is an Alpha Setting which might accomplish what you are after.

If I understand correctly then the comms log is something different and there are essentially two types of message: those that will make it to the comms log (e.g. "3 barrels and we'll let you go") and those that won't (e.g. "Forward View").

I'm talking about the second type here and I'm not sure if either of those settings would effect them. Even if they did, yellow remains an odd default choice for messages when the green for example works well against both very pale and very dark backgrounds.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 10:14 am

Another option is to eliminate the Sun Glare Effect entirely. This can be done with a combination of the Glare Clarifier OXZ (Expansion Manager) and the No Flare OXZ (HERE). The total elimination of the Sun Glare Effect may go against the purist's heart but it is the route currently taken in my Ooniverse. The Handwavium justification for it being that we have similar sun glare blocking options in the real world so in the time frame of Oolite such technology has been adapted to the viewing ports of a ship or, at the very least, to the helmet a pilot might wear.

I love a good handwave myself but I'm not really thinking of the sun glare but rather the sun itself, a solid, very bright background.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 10:14 am

The third and final option is to turn the change of view into an easier to remember spoken audio option. Have a look at CHANGE VIEW SOUND which does something similar but with only a beep. Personal preference would be to have the entire view change spoken, as in "Forward View Selected" or some such similar wording. The text for the view change can be found in the default descriptions.plist but no default script that calls it up can be located. My guess would be that such a call is ensconced somewhere in the core code.

Not sure if it's the only other option but is is one I hadn't really considered.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑Wed May 25, 2022 10:14 am

Let me not get started once again on my endless TWEAKING in order to achieve a talking ship but this third option does somewhat add to that end. Yes, there is the option to turn all text messages into spoken audio but it goes much too far and the voice used is not as pleasing as the TWEAKED f2 voice currently in use.

Yeah, it's a nice option but I always end up turning it off after a while - perhaps if it were more selective rather than either saying nothing or saying everything.