Oolite Bulletins

not griping, just curious :
1) why does the RGB ability work w/ the scanner grid but not the compass?
2) why do some of the displays have an Alpha transparency ability, but not others?
3) will it all be standardised later? just wondering cos my new HUDs have diffrent colours, and the scanner can be made to blend but the compass can't!

It’s hard to get answers about HUDs, KW… I know, I’ve tried before.
I wanted to know if I could make my scanner opaque, so I’ll add that as a fourth question.
I presume it’s because it’s hard coded somewhere… any clues, anyone?

can't you just paint a background in the right position, or am i misunderstanding what you're after? as long as the HUD image alpha isn't set to make it semi-transparent that should work.

Killer Wolf wrote:

can't you just paint a background in the right position

Sorry KW, that’s over my head… editing a plist is about my limit.
I’ve tried tinkering with my HUD in GIMP, but can’t get anywhere (still trying to learn how to use GIMP).
What I’m really after is an ‘instrument panel’ effect, as in the original Elite, not a HUD as such. That’s why I use the Fighter HUD… it’s the closest thing to an instrument panel. If I could just make it all opaque… but I’d settle for just the scanner being opaque.

yeah, i did my Isis HUD and the Dominatrix HUD as proper cockpits, but i'm going back to proper HUDs for the Diamondback. i draw them out in PShop then you have to spend a load of messing about w/ the HUD plist getting the various positioning and size attributes right for each item. if you look at the Isis HUD here
http://www.purgatori.net/isisHUD.jpg
you'll notice it's a little transparent; the PLIST has an "alpha" attribute for the "image" key : messing about w/ that makes the image more/less transparent : tweaking this might sort your fighter HUD issue (assuming its image has a background painted in in the scanner's oval).