[neoterran]

The SCP is looking mighty fine.

Has anyone ever given a thought to upgrading the Heads up display to look more modern, IE, have glows, transparencies, etc.

This would obviously be optional because the purist will freak out when it's even spoken of, but we need new HUD anyway in order to support new and widescreen resolutions (widescreen is the future for gaming, no reason why SCP can't join that club)

I'm not suggesting that the order of the HUD or its basic elements be changed much, just upgraded to look nicer and more modern. Look at games like Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfighter. The HUD in the game looks very nice, especially the use of transparencies in the right places.

I think an upgraded HUD for Freespace SCP would make a huge impact on new players. After all, it's something that you see every time you play, and having it look more modern would have a large psychological effect, I think.

Discuss.

[Prophet]

I seem to remember there was a discussion about this somewhere sometime ago. Perhaps in one of the hosted projects... Use teh serchzomgh!!11!!1

[Backslash]

Heh, I'm sure someone has "given a thought" .  I think there's some stuff being worked on, probably some stuff in limbo, and other things are now possible through the new scripting system.

But really, it's easy to say "look more modern", "have glows, transparencies"... what specifically do you mean?  I look at screenshots of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, and I see a lot of really useful context-specific indicators and displays (more to discuss on that topic, some other time), and I see that there are many different colors and the indicators are semi-transparent.  Ok.  Now I look at FreeSpace 2, and I see that we can change colors of each indicator, and they're already transparent (even retail!).  I don't have the other game so maybe I'm missing what you're getting at.

"New HUD"... complete redesigns are hard but possible someday.  For now, sure, some new shapes would be nice.  Mostly all we need is someone to make them, you any good at such art?  Look at TBP, they've already changed a few things...

Widescreen support is a good idea, but actually it mostly works already.  Everything but some of the non-static things like target brackets (but this is a bug involving FOV I think, and already reported).

[aldo_14]

I don't personally think the HUD looks old fashioned; I think we're simply just used to it.  That given, a completely new HUD would be useful as a sort of general library for people wanting to make TCs etc, but it's not really needed IMO for FSU.  And, of course, it's a hell of a lot of work which there aren't many people perhaps willing to do.

[Herra Tohtori]

What we need to do is to make them look a bit more holographic IMO.

HUD is a very good system but the trouble is, the HUD in FS doesn't really look lika a HUD even. A HUD normally is best comprised of thin lines as indicators, made more clear by text and numbers. I think the FS HUD is not really a HUD at all but rather more like the holographic panels in, say, HALO. Though a tad bit more transparent, that is.

What I think would give a nice touch would be to have some bleeding from the very edges of the indicators. Not that the HUD would be blurred or anything. No, what I mean is to have the edges of indicators as sharp as they currently are, but give an impression that the image is created by light and some of that light makes the air softly glow in immediate vicinity of the indicator. Another thing is that perhaps the indicators really should be a little bit more transparent.

Of course the indicators could use some redesigning. Everything always does.  

[aldo_14]

It's not a hologram, though.  It's most definately a HUD, even if it's an odd one from a current-day perspective.

[IPAndrews]

3D cockpits with specially named textures tied into the game engine are the way to go.

[ARSPR]

I'm the black sheep here.

A prettier HUD would be really nice, but I do prefer that modders and coders spend their time in more useful tasks:

+ Fixing reported bugs.
+ Adding new features (functional decays, env mapping, enhacing multitargeting, dynamic laser convergence, new SEXPs, WhatEverYouThinkOf, ...)
+ Making HTL ships (I prefer better looking ships than better looking HUD).
+ Making new campaigns, voice acting older ones.

Of course, this is a free and open community so everyone can do whatever he or she likes. But I think HUD is not so awful to need an urgent remake. I just fell it should have low priority, and maybe, the required effort isn't worth.

[neoterran]

What we need to do is to make them look a bit more holographic IMO.

HUD is a very good system but the trouble is, the HUD in FS doesn't really look lika a HUD even. A HUD normally is best comprised of thin lines as indicators, made more clear by text and numbers. I think the FS HUD is not really a HUD at all but rather more like the holographic panels in, say, HALO. Though a tad bit more transparent, that is.

What I think would give a nice touch would be to have some bleeding from the very edges of the indicators. Not that the HUD would be blurred or anything. No, what I mean is to have the edges of indicators as sharp as they currently are, but give an impression that the image is created by light and some of that light makes the air softly glow in immediate vicinity of the indicator. Another thing is that perhaps the indicators really should be a little bit more transparent.

Of course the indicators could use some redesigning. Everything always does. 

This is exactly what I mean ! The HUD looks a little dated, But i love the general layout of it, I'd like it just to be a little more "enhanced", maybe sharper, and cleaner, things that couldn't be done in 1999. Also the loading screens in between the game looks a little dated too... why can't that have transparency ? Look at the menus GUI in F3 mode in the Main Hall.. stuff like that ! That looks really kick ass... Why can't all the game menus be retooled to be like that ? Keep the general idea, but make all the background menus and loading bars etc, semi-transparent, it would just bring the game more respect from people taking a general look at it. It's obvious they wanted to do some transparency, because they've got that weird matrix bitmap they're using in the menus for the backgrounds, but that was when most computers/cards couldn't easily support that kind of thing. That's not the case now... and in a year or two, this project will still be around, and AGP cards like the 7800 GS will have fallen to less than 200 dollars, so many legacy systems still have a path to get an amazing graphics card for freespace SCP.

Anyway, the HUD is the most important thing to change out of all these things because you stare at it and it's supposed to give you the immersion of really being in a cockpit. We already have quite a few high poly models, and for those of use with fast graphics cards and tweaked mediavp sets, it's already possible to run the game at modes like 8xS AA and 16X AF where it looks gorgeous, I'm sure volition had no idea it would ever run this long.

I'm not an artist. There seems to be a general trend around here that you can't suggest or put forward ideas unless you do them yourself, i don't know why that is.

[taylor]

Also the loading screens in between the game looks a little dated too... why can't that have transparency ?

They can.  But someone actually has to make them.  The loading bar animation can be an EFF so you can have any sort of transparency that you want, and even make it TGA without worry since it doesn't stay in memory.

Look at the menus GUI in F3 mode in the Main Hall.. stuff like that ! That looks really kick ass... Why can't all the game menus be retooled to be like that ?

Umm, because that GUI doesn't work very well??  The code still needs to be finished (scroll bars, keeping things on screen, taking keyboard input, properly dealing with lower resolutions, etc.) before it's even remotely suitable for use as the main interface.  Plans are already in the works to totally rewrite the main interface code anyway, taking what it is now and moving it to a whole other level.  The lab GUI may be ok for some, you people don't take full advantage of the existing interface capabilities now anyway, but it could be so much better.

Anyway, the HUD is the most important thing to change out of all these things because you stare at it and it's supposed to give you the immersion of really being in a cockpit.

[rant:target="Thread"]
Well, lets see...

People wanted a way to customize the HUD.  WMCoolmon did a lot of work on hud_guages.tbl so that they could make changes to graphics, positions, etc.  Future work was planned to make it better as the community used it.  BUT NO ONE USED IT!

Nope, people wanted more.  WMCoolmon did a LOT of work on the scripting support so that you could build a custom, interactive and feature rich HUD via scripting.  You can even mix scripted elements with non-scripted elements to just enhance the existing look of the HUD.  NO ONE IS USING IT!

Sorry, but you can want a better HUD all you want.  You can even be given a way to make it happen.  But apparently that isn't quite good enough.  Coder time is already maxed out.  It will be a miracle if you get a third coder push for the same damn feature, simply hoping that, maybe this time, it will actually be worth the coding effort they will have expended.  Take advange of what you already have, and shut the hell up.
[/rant]

Ahhh, I feel so much better now.

[aldo_14]

Where's the documentation for the likes of hud_gauges.tbl?

[neoterran]

Well, it would be nice if information like what taylor suggested was actually KNOWN... it's not in the wiki, short of asking WMCoolmon or Taylor himself, how are we supposed to know ? I guess now we finally have had a search for a week, but i did search for HUD and Better HUD and didn't find a thread exposing this info....

Plans are already in the works to totally rewrite the main interface code anyway

Well, that's great. Hopefully when it's done it'll actually be documented so newbies to the project like myself will actually know what can be changed and what can't.

[Wanderer]

Hud_gauges.tbl in FSwiki

Scripting.tbl in FSwiki

And atleast some mods/TCs are trying to use will use scripting..

[IPAndrews]

WMCoolmon did a lot of work on hud_guages.tbl so that they could make changes to graphics, positions, etc.  Future work was planned to make it better as the community used it.  BUT NO ONE USED IT! WMCoolmon did a LOT of work on the scripting support so that you could build a custom, interactive and feature rich HUD via scripting.  NO ONE IS USING IT!

It's a fair point, well made. Given the opportunity to customize guage positionings and such is only half the battle. Someone still needs to sit down and draw up the graphics for all these fancy new HUD guages. In the case of the scripting though, the truth may be that particular case may be that nobody knows how to use it.

Take advange of what you already have, and shut the hell up.

Game, set, match. I will shut up, along with everyone else .

[neoterran]

Hud_gauges.tbl in FSwiki

Scripting.tbl in FSwiki

And atleast some mods/TCs are trying to use will use scripting..

Ah, okay, i guess i didn't look very hard. Well, um hopefully someone like aldo will do the graphics... 

[taylor]

In the case of the scripting though, the truth may be that particular case may be that nobody knows how to use it.

I agree.  The scripting route does require more coding knowledge than many people may be willing to learn.  I know for sure that some are/will use scripting for custom HUDs, but those custom HUDs are pretty complex.  For those who need/want basic changes hud_gauges.tbl is the only other way to go.

And though hud_gauges.tbl is closer to a normal table and is easier to use, the fact that no one has really made use of it and that scripting can do the same thing, hud_gauges.tbl is on the feature chopping block.  If more people start making use of it then there is cause to not only keep it but also expand on it.  I think it would be good to keep since it allows you to customize the HUD in a relatively basic way, but you don't have to get so complex with it like scripting would give you.  So the problem here is that we have to code features which can do the same basic thing, if one doesn't get used then we dump it.  That hurts people who want a custom hud, but not to the extent that scripting does it, though removing it does clean up the code and reduce bloat.  Hopefully enough of the modders can make use of both features so there is enough reason to actually keep both.

[Backslash]

Hud_gauges.tbl in FSwiki

That one is my "fault" and not a very good 'excuse' for documentation for the hud_gauges.tbl -- I made it last week, getting the information from Google's cache of the old FSDoc site. Besides that, I can't find any other documentation.  A few mentions in the forums archives, but lots of dead links to example hud_gauges.tbl files.

And though hud_gauges.tbl is closer to a normal table and is easier to use, the fact that no one has really made use of it and that scripting can do the same thing, hud_gauges.tbl is on the feature chopping block.  If more people start making use of it then there is cause to not only keep it but also expand on it.  I think it would be good to keep since it allows you to customize the HUD in a relatively basic way, but you don't have to get so complex with it like scripting would give you.

I agree, it would be nice to keep and expand.  I'll do some of it if there are people that want such things.  So far I see, doing a forum search, it supports moving things like the middle shield icon, the two hull/shield status indicators on the bottom, the escort list, and the afterburner/weapons gauges.  That's a good start for stuff to mess with.  I found an example and will shove it in the wiki, but I dunno how out-of-date it is.

So uh... Whether or not there was enough information in the past for people to use it, it's gone (or hard to find) now so we need to start again.  If WMCoolmon and anyone else who knows about it would help me update the wiki entry, it would be great.

[Taristin]

Besides that, I can't find any other documentation.

That has long been the problem with SCP features. They're great and uber powerful, but no one knows how to use them.

[neoterran]

Another problem is that most of us that are knowledgable enough to start getting involved and learning these features, are also incredibly busy with RL(tm) so it's gonna take some time. I really want to get this HUD updated, I'm looking into it, problem is it really requires an artist more than a coder, someone with vision and who understands we want to keep the spirit of the HUD intact, so it doesn't get rejected out of hand etc.

[WMCoolmon]

Actually, I wrote the original hud_gauges.tbl page, but the sorely-needed scripting.tbl page I never got around to working on. Thanks Wanderer.

I've (repeatedly in the priv forum) asked for a feature-of-the-day system, so you could fill out a few fields per feature., and a little box on the SCP would pop up one of the submitted features (picking a new one each time the page is refreshed). Done right you could also have an indexing system, to index features by type.

also what would be nice are more people who add stuff to the wiki. It's really annoying to spend literally hours writing about a feature on the forums, making examples, etc etc and then have people complain because it's not in the wiki. Which nobody can really see new changes in very easily.I imagine if coders did simply write stuff in the wiki instead, people would complain that the information wasn't organized or formatted very well. And if coders spent the time to document, organize, and format everything in the wiki, plus announce new features on the forum, while trying to fix bugs, then people would complain that features weren't being added fast enough!

There are literally pages of discussion on hud_gauges.tbl...however you will have to do a search, because most of the discussion is not in the wiki.