[kasperl]

WMCoolmon: I just checked out the fs2_open module to a completely fresh dir, and still, only hugauges.h exists.

[WMCoolmon]

Ehmm, I checked and it turns out hudgauges.h doesn't seem to have a CPP file. So it shouldn't be a problem...

Incidentally, I haven't touched hudgauges; all the parsing stuff is in hudparse.*, the custom HUD display code is in HUD.cpp (search for custom hud), and I've modified the gauges in hudtarget.cpp and hudshield.cpp. I also had to make a line or two of modifications to freespace2.cpp and one of the cpp files in the mission dir (wherever function commit_pressed is).

BW: That depends how the SEXP stuff works.

Oh, LS: Bob's stuff will be put in CVS after 3.6 is released, when Fractux finishes the...hmm...additional items.

[TopAce]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
...
TopAce, I did a little checking and found the bug: I didn't post the new build link.
http://fs2source.warpcore.org/exes/latest/fs2_open_Cex.zip
...

It brings up a 404 error page.

[WMCoolmon]

Try "linkie" in the last post, I remove old builds to conserve space.

[TopAce]

Still nothing

[WMCoolmon]

I'm having no trouble. Try this:

http://fs2source.warpcore.org/exes/latest/fs2_open_ex.zip

Or you can try browsing the directory http://fs2source.warpcore.org/exes/latest

[TopAce]

The first link seems to be working.

[WMCoolmon]

Check out the new build:

• Custom gauges can now be ANIs. First frames are shown by default.
• Four SEXPs added: hud-set-text, hud-set-text-num, hud-set-frame, and hud-set-coords. These will work for custom gauges as well as the retail ones I've included in the table.
• Static image (ie PCX) support for custom gauges remains. You can try calling hud-set-frames for it, this may be a way to switch images, but I wouldn't advise using it in a release situation.

I didn't implement attaching a variable to a gauge, however, all the hud-set functions are small enough you should be able to put them in an every-time/true loop without much slowdown.

A side note on making gauges - the display order goes from first to last, so if you want to make a background for a gauge, have it display before the contents and not after.

Custom gauges cannot be flashed (yet).

The zip contains the newest EXE, a FRED build (with the new SEXPs), a test mission, and a hud_gauges.tbl to work with the test mission.

Now let's see some implementation. :p

ZIP link: http://fs2source.warpcore.org/exes/latest/C06012004.zip

[Lightspeed]

If they could be linked to game parameters by default that'd be a better solution, since you could use them with existing missions and wouldnt have to SEXP it in every mission.

[Black Wolf]

Can you put in Guage-Set-On and Guage-Set-Off as well?

And I'll see about knocking up a guage - if nobody has an alternate request I'll do something simple - Cargo Remaining, for dropping nav buoys, mines etc.

[Lightspeed]

Do it, we need to test this stuff. Unfortunately I cannot help there till Bob's stuff is in there too, since i'm working on alpha env maps which would not work with any of these builds. (and switching builds that dont like each other's data all the time is quite annoying).

[Black Wolf]

OK. I'll provide it, but someone else will have to test it as I'm still limited to floppy sized Downloads.

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
If they could be linked to game parameters by default that'd be a better solution, since you could use them with existing missions and wouldnt have to SEXP it in every mission.

If you mean SEXP variables, I don't know the SEXP code well enough to do that. If you mean internal game variables (ie number of loaded ships), each one would have to be hardcoded as an option. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it'd take some doing.

[WMCoolmon]

The next build will remove the addparent variable and coordinates will be computed as floating point numbers. This means you'll be able to do this:

Code: [Select]


$Default: (1,1)
$Your Gauge: (.5, .5)


[Bobboau]

seeing as you have got the most eperience in playing with new gauges, there was an Idea floated around for a while internaly to speed up the rendering of the HUD, the idea was to break the HUD down into sections, and then render the sections to a texture the HUD would only be actualy rendered if some part of it was changed, and there would be a HUD texture that had all of the fairly static graphics in it, do you think if we gave to some sort of render_to_texture functions that you would be able to get some work done on this? it was mostly abandoned becose nobody knew anything about the HUD.

and addition of a teritary and tactical weapons system is something that has been wanted for a long time, though I think the teritery weapons system became the tactical system (as my origonal idea was for teritery weapons to be countermeasures and mines, tacktical system to be cloaking devices sensor pods and targeting lasers)

[WMCoolmon]

Yeah, if it means making a texture for the whole screen and then only modifying changed gauges.

If I do anything like that though, it would involve basically revamping the whole HUD system - not a fun task. How much performance increase would this give?

Edit: A quick idea for implementation - the hud rendering system is tied into the keypress system, so whenever a keypress event happens (let's say "fire afterburner") the HUD gauges are checked if the flag matches one of theirs. If it doesn't, the gauge isn't rendered.
Also tie it into the SEXP system, and main gauges flagged as being dependant on SEXP events would be updated when the SEXPs were updated.

Whenever a gauge is updated, all the mini-gauges are re-displayed onto the old HUD. The problem here comes in with text and different-sized images, and I'm not sure if there's a way to get around this...

You could make a gauge buffer for each one and then render that every frame unless the gauge is changed, i 'spose.

[Bobboau]

it'd proly be beter to wiat or yu t ge done with he table firs though, after that lts dicuss his further

[Trivial Psychic]

Can this system of custom gauges allow for an escort list display that can show more than 3 ships?

[WMCoolmon]

Yes - you could modify the escort art, add a few gauges for ship names and HP and the background, then use SEXPs to set it up.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Bobboau
seeing as you have got the most eperience in playing with new gauges, there was an Idea floated around for a while internaly to speed up the rendering of the HUD, the idea was to break the HUD down into sections, and then render the sections to a texture the HUD would only be actualy rendered if some part of it was changed, and there would be a HUD texture that had all of the fairly static graphics in it

Ugh, no.  This, I think, would be going too far.  Sometimes too much optimization is a bad thing.

Focus on the other stuff.  Don't invent a new feature when so many other things need doing.