Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Spoon on May 07, 2014, 06:35:14 pm
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Since there has been a start of a small discussion on the subject here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87500.msg1747414#msg1747414
I figured we should have an poll on this and let democracy run its course.
Opinions
Currently with the 3.7.2 RC, the mainhall does not scale by default like it used to and scaling has to be enabled manually in the launcher.
For those who are unaware on what is being voted on, here's screenies:
(http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s490/kingspoon/screen0322_zps11c88b17.png)
(http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s490/kingspoon/screen0321_zpsec4d2c9d.png)
(http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s490/kingspoon/screen0319_zpse0c25763.png)
(http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/s490/kingspoon/screen0318_zpse341cf81.png)
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I prefer 4:3 for the sharpness.
:P So you finally joined the cult of Snuffy?
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Or a mod added it :p
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Be aware folks the poll is not about what it will always look like, it's about the DEFAULT and that you can modify in the launcher!
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I prefer 4:3 for the sharpness.
:P So you finally joined the cult of Snuffy?
No, but I added it to avoid a riot!
Be aware folks the poll is not about what it will always look like, it's about the DEFAULT and that you can modify in the launcher!
You're not adding anything that isn't already in the OP
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1. I fear change.
2. Pillarboxing a lovely golden rectangle-ish screen down to 4:3 is a sin against nature.
3. Even Sesame Street has moved to widescreen so Snuffy votes should probably count as no pillarbox votes too.
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You realize that the menu's native resolution is (currently) 4:3, and thus the stretching is actually the "change," right? :p
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If there was some sort of auto-artwork that could be added (or defined by a modder) to fill the black pillar-boxes in 4:3 mode, would that change anyone's opinion?
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87253.msg1743049#msg1743049
Also consider the patch that Yarn created which would allow modders to specify real 16:9 (etc) mainhalls, would that address any of the concerns here?
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87253.msg1743626#msg1743626
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If there was some sort of auto-artwork that could be added (or defined by a modder) to fill the black pillar-boxes in 4:3 mode, would that change anyone's opinion?
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87253.msg1743049#msg1743049
It would change my opinion from 'this is bad' to 'AGH GOD NOOOO'
And yeah it'd be great to have mainhalls for every aspect.
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You realize that the menu's native resolution is (currently) 4:3, and thus the stretching is actually the "change," right? :p
to quote some guy who writes stuff:
<lurkttuta> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McAeQiLmEYU&noredirect=1
(this was actually in response to "fs1 > fs2" but it's totes apropos)
The FS interface has never, ever included pillarboxing. It has always displayed the interface to fit the screen, whether that entailed stretching the interface itself or just running in 1024x768 (and thus stretching the interface for anything != 4:3). Stretching = retail
Yeah I know I can change it, I'm just whining because I'm a grumpy old codger.
Also I'm with battuta on the topic of sticking crap in the black boxes. That has never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, looked anything but terrible.
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The FS interface has never, ever included pillarboxing. It has always displayed the interface to fit the screen, whether that entailed stretching the interface itself or just running in 1024x768 (and thus stretching the interface for anything != 4:3). Stretching = retail
Retail could run in only two resolutions: 640x480 and 1024x768. Both of those are 4:3. This means that the game was completely unable to run in non-4:3 resolutions. When running retail FS2, any stretching or pillarboxing that happens in non-4:3 resolutions is done by the scaler in the video card or the monitor, not the game. Thus, the statement "stretching = retail" is simply incorrect (as is "pillarboxing = retail").
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In my opinion, pillarboxing is the correct solution, since it displays the art as it was intended by the artist. In addition, as resolutions get higher, stretching the interface becomes ever more cumbersome, with it reaching ridiculous levels once you get to multiscreen setups.
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Fun fact: It's actually doing a slight letterboxing on my screen :P
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While filling the pillarboxes with "stuff" is terrible (I agree), I think adding a few lines of information about the build, mod, some spec or other in the lower left corner with the right font style and size would do wonders to the "pillarboxed" version.
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In my opinion, pillarboxing is the correct solution, since it displays the art as it was intended by the artist. In addition, as resolutions get higher, stretching the interface becomes ever more cumbersome, with it reaching ridiculous levels once you get to multiscreen setups.
100 % agreed.
Stretching is a way to distort the original content. This pillarboxing is an ESSENTIAL feature that IMHO should have been implemented 7 years ago when widescreen monitors started to get more common. The only thing that it does is that it MAINTAINS the original mainhall visuality of the FS2 retail game. Not only are the random people in the mainhall shown correctly, but the ALL the text is also easier to read and they look overall nicer than those horrible stretched bitmap -characters.
Besides, if I play FS2 retail, there ARE black pillars already on each side, because my GPU settings always maintain the correct aspect ratio. Of course, the downside of FS2 retail is that it doesn't allow 16:9 resolutions (at least not without hacks) in-missions.
The good thing about the current FSO build is of course that it allows to dynamically switch to a horizontally expanding in-game view, once the mission starts.
Besides, soon the gates are open for genuine 16:9 mainhalls and such.
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There's also another point that I think nullifies Battuta's take on this, you know, all the stuff about "omg these pillarboxes give me the horror sensation that I'm playing a 90s game" which is the simple fact that this *is* a 90s game, and everyone who is buying it in GOG and (eventually) on STEAM aren't exactly fooled into thinking they are buying a 2014 game or whatever.
My biggest concern isn't with the mediavps behavior of the main campaign and all the mods that use the main menu as is without changes. My main concern is with those mods that were built and designed with the stretching in mind from the start. I know the developing of the new system will eventually render this moot, but until then shouldn't the mods themselves be allowed to override this flag?
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While filling the pillarboxes with "stuff" is terrible (I agree), I think adding a few lines of information about the build, mod, some spec or other in the lower left corner with the right font style and size would do wonders to the "pillarboxed" version.
Now that's a good idea. My main objection is not to the actual pillarboxing, but to the impression that the game is somehow mis-installed. This would solve it. You could also include a "Use the -stretch command line to get rid of this" type message to make people aware of how these things work.
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Yeah, that's actually a pretty good idea.
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My main concern is with those mods that were built and designed with the stretching in mind from the start.
But are there any, really? So far I haven't encountered even one custom interface that was designed to be anamorphic. Practically every fanmade mainhall around here is designed to be shown correctly as 1024x768 (4:3).
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I was in the process of creating an anamorphic mainhall, but I ceased that project when this became a thing.
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I don't see any reason that a mod flag couldn't be enabled to override that launcher option and say that it definitely supports stretching to anamorphic resolutions. But still, with the current setup, you have to design your mainhall on a 4:3 canvas, and it still gets distorted to 16:9, or worse depending on the monitor setup. Are we really saying that we should still have the default on a 3-monitor (48:9) setup to be stretched across all three instead of just filling the middle one properly? An anamorphic mainhall should be completely feasible when we get code to properly support non-4:3 interfaces, but for now maintaining the 4:3 AR when the content doesn't have a way to explicitly say it works in other ARs seems the way to go. This change of default behavior isn't going to be the only way people on widescreen will be experiencing any mainhalls for the rest of time guys, it's just going to handle retail and older mods that weren't designed with widescreen in mind, and have no way to be updated to use pending improved interface features.
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I was just thinking about how one might want to play vanilla FS2 and thus the pillarboxing makes sense, but then later might want to play The Antagonist or Wings of Dawn or whatever, and the pillarboxing might not make much sense then, and in such a scenario one has to be constantly changing the flag or just being minimally annoyed by it.
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In my opinion, pillarboxing is the correct solution, since it displays the art as it was intended by the artist. In addition, as resolutions get higher, stretching the interface becomes ever more cumbersome, with it reaching ridiculous levels once you get to multiscreen setups.
I agree with the E. But I think we should set "run in window" as the default mode. That way the game can be run in 640 x480 or 1024 x768 as the artist intended. This would get rid of all the stretching concerns and you could enjoy the pillarbox appearance throughout the entire game and not just in the menus or the main hall. This would also provide a consistent appearance regardless of the monitor or multiscreen setup.
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Why would you want to pillarbox throughout the entire game when you could run at your monitor's native resolution with no downside or distortion? It's not like in-game rendering gets stretched.
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I was just thinking about how one might want to play vanilla FS2 and thus the pillarboxing makes sense, but then later might want to play The Antagonist or Wings of Dawn or whatever, and the pillarboxing might not make much sense then, and in such a scenario one has to be constantly changing the flag or just being minimally annoyed by it.
Mods used to be able to have their own launcher flags in a mod.ini file. Not sure if it still works in wxlauncher, but that's how it was in 5.5g.
I'm happy either way, as long as there's an option to put it into 4:3 easily for mainhalls. If that's the case, I could care less what the default is.
(@Battuta, I think Macfie is being facetious, he doesn't agree at all with The_E)
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omg that sarcasm also flew right above my head, his comment seemed so nonsensically dumb to me that I didn't even dare to reply.
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I would really ask everyone to keep the trolling and sarcasm to a minimum. It's stupid and not helpful.
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Could the default be set to pillarbox if the ratio goes past 3:1 and stretch otherwise? I can at least concede that stretching doesn't work for triple monitor setups.
I'm quite surprised that the pillarboxes are so far ahead in the vote count. My brain instantly corrects for a stretched image just as if it were viewing a painting off-axis (though that goes in the opposite direction), whereas the pillarboxes are a persistent intrusion into the domain of the art that detracts from the sense of immersion every time my eyes move the the edges of the image. It's a different quality of disruption that draws attention to the medium itself rather than what is on it, like a painter leaving bare canvas visible within the frame, or a bunch of stagehands in Slayer t-shirts smoking and goofing around inside the proscenium arch.
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Just curious, do you anti-pillarboxing people have monitors that aren't black? I don't understand how they don't just blend in with the surrounding frame that's already there.
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Nope, both my screens are super black.
Like swashmebuckle, I'm suprised too. And what he says is so true.
But it seems like the majority likes to have big distracting black boxes on the edges :sigh:
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See, and I look at a clearly-stretched image and immediately think, "Okay who the hell screwed up the aspect ratio here?" Different strokes and all. :p
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See, and I look at a clearly-stretched image and immediately think, "Okay who the hell screwed up the aspect ratio here?" Different strokes and all. :p
Most mainhalls don't look much different when stretched. Again, this is purely for menus, not for gameplay.
HLP's tongue emote is so infuriating and antagonistic that I think using it should increment some kind of hidden 'randomly blank my posts' variable.
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Take it easy Batts, we are discussing things that ultimately aren't going to impact us at all, only the newcomers.
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The contrast between the black plastic frame of my monitor and the illuminated black LCD pillarboxes is pretty eye-catching to me, and they definitely don't blend together into a single background that I can zone out. Maybe if the monitor were of a type that could produce a black level closer to what it looks like when the screen is off it wouldn't seem as bad, I'm not sure. As it is though, the pillarboxes are sticking out there announcing that we aren't using this part of the screen for some reason. The interface just abruptly ends...and then the screen ends.
I think my brain sees it like a puzzle where it's obvious that these two things are supposed to line up and fit together, and someone just left it one step away from being done. It isn't gonna ruin my day or anything, it just feels like an amateurish formatting error.
I also just checked on my mod that has little letterboxed areas on the bottom and top of the mainhall screen for menu items and text legibility, and the combination of letterboxes and pillarboxes just looks stupid. So letting mods force it one way or the other would certainly be good for me.
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swash, this discussion isn't about a thing that will force "anyone" do X or Y. The option is there, you can stretch it back NOW. The discussion is about what is by "default", which ultimately only inflicts itself unto newcomers. If they are directed to the option in a non obscure way, they will eventually be able to decide for themselves as well.
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I've played a lot of retro games, and stretching in every one of them looks terrible. Playing Super Metroid, Raiden II, or Star Fox 64 stretched is such an eyesore that the only way for me to play those games is with pillarboxes. FreeSpace 2 is no exception, and for the longest time I could tell there was something off with the mainhall.
At the time, there was no solution except to play in a lower resolution or in windowed mode. Now that there is an alternative, keeping the aspect ratio should be default, and anything against the norm should be the switch.
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swash, this discussion isn't about a thing that will force "anyone" do X or Y. The option is there, you can stretch it back NOW. The discussion is about what is by "default", which ultimately only inflicts itself unto newcomers. If they are directed to the option in a non obscure way, they will eventually be able to decide for themselves as well.
I understand, and I would like for my mod to be able to force overrides of the default option (depending on the user's resolution) so that my mainhall isn't undermined by pillarboxes for users that haven't elected to force them one way or the other via launcher flag.
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My opinion is that if someone is forced to have a stretched interface over three monitors, they're going to get turned off to the game. They will likely want to get right into the action after long downloads and not have to worry about stretching issues. Pillarboxing keeps more players. Those who stick around and have one low res monitor and want to switch back to classic stretching will eventually find the option to do so.
I also think it's a great idea to have info in the pillars.
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My opinion is that if someone is forced to have a stretched interface over three monitors, they're going to get turned off to the game. They will likely want to get right into the action after long downloads and not have to worry about stretching issues. Pillarboxing keeps more players. Those who stick around and have one low res monitor and want to switch back to classic stretching will eventually find the option to do so.
Nobody here has suggested forcing anyone to have a stretched interface over three monitors.
I also think it's a great idea to have info in the pillars.
I will go to obscene lengths to prevent this from happening.
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I also think it's a great idea to have info in the pillars.
I will go to obscene lengths to prevent this from happening.
I will march next to you on that one...
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What's your objection to having the build info etc appear in the pillar boxes?
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a good interface should look good regardless of the resolution or aspect ratio, without asymmetrical stretching. black bars are ugly and ruin the interface, but if your background image is a really high resolution 4:3 image, scale it (proportionally on both axes) to fit the width and procedurally crop it to fit the height, it should look good on any aspect ratio. such an image would need the subject in the middle with a lot of buffer space around it to make sure the part you want is shown. interface elements should also be placed dynamically rather than use static coordinates or percentage values.
this would only work for new mainhalls. however you can support legacy 4:3 mainhalls if proportionally stretch the vanilla 4:3 mainhall to fit the screen width and then do vertical panning on the whole interface to interact with elements that would otherwise be clipped off the screen. it would pan down as you mouse into the top quarter of the screen, and up when you mouse over the bottom quarter.
tldr: pan'n'scan
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tldr: pan'n'scan
That sounds horrifying.
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What's your objection to having the build info etc appear in the pillar boxes?
I think for me the only thing more distracting than pillarboxes would be pillarboxes with text in them. It would be hard to imagine anything that could ruin the impact of a lovingly composed main menu screen as efficiently as having a bunch of white text on a black field crammed alongside it. Maybe ads for male enhancement?
Has there been a discussion about moving build info text and that type of stuff to the initial pilot select and/or barracks screens? It seems like that would be a much better place for it since those screens are strictly business, whereas the main hall is a hub screen where you have a chance to really make an impression on the player like Volition did with their lively hangar scenes.
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You all know that if your black areas on your monitor don't vanish into the background (i.e., are pitch black), you need to adjust your brightness and contrast, right?
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I know it's hard, but at least pretend to stay on topic.
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This is amazing feature for multi-monitor users, move the mouse over three monitors is a bit hard and looks really streched :)
Many thanks :yes:
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So do I have to assume that pillarbox -haters don't play any retro games anymore? As in games from the 90s?
Let's take DOS games for example. If you want to play any DOS games nowadays, you'll have to use DosBox (http://www.dosbox.com/), which at least on fullscreen creates pillarboxes automatically for every game that exists. I find myself playing old games like X-wing, Tie Fighter and Star Control 1&2 once in a while, and I barely notice those pillarboxes anymore. Instead, by keeping the original aspect ratio I can get as close as possible to the original experience of playing those titles with CRT -monitors. Same thing goes for some of the first 3d accelerated titles, like Mechwarrior 2 and later Codename Eagle and Hidden & Dangerous. They are all letterboxed since no widescreen mods exist for them.
Or how about some games that have been "restored" or "enhanced"? Let's take for example the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (http://store.steampowered.com/app/228280/). The developers of this restored version decided to letterbox all the menus but expand horizantally the gameplay view itself, which is exactly what the new FSO build is doing right now. If that solution is good enough for professional game developers, why shouldn't it be good enough for FSO community? Remember though, that Baldur's Gate: EE developers FORCED this letterboxing in the menus, while FSO gives a choice for the players.
Practically no commercial grade games have gone the other way and defaulted menu-stretching for a long time now. It simply has become inadequate game design.
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I have the fullest respect for the obscene lenghts some modders will go to avoid anything to be put in the pillarboxes they themselves will never experience, I understand the aesthetic concern they are trying to express here and I share it. This is why I said it needs a very particular sensitivity, and personally I would go for the most minimalistic detail that would ensure to the players that the game "understands" is being pillarboxed and it's alright, without encurring in weird fugly and uninspired amateurish "horror for emptiness" that newbies in design tend to experience.
So with that in mind, would this minimal thing be still too ... "breaking the immersion"?
(http://i1174.photobucket.com/albums/r613/lmldias/pillarboxes_zps8686afce.jpg)
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Yeah bro, none of us play retro games anymore. We have no idea what we are talking about. But if we did, we would launch FS2 in dosbox.
Also funny that you mention BG:EE, its very likely that they did not want to letterbox by choice but as a necessary evil because they didn't had access to any of the source art files. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190432/postmortem_overhaul_games_.php?page=4
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I am not overly concerned with what other games are doing in this regard.
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Also funny that you mention BG:EE, its very likely that they did not want to letterbox by choice but as a necessary evil because they didn't had access to any of the source art files. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190432/postmortem_overhaul_games_.php?page=4
Isn't this exactly the same situation with FSO? We don't have access to wider mainhall art files either, probably because they don't even exist. As such, letterboxing is the lesser evil here the same way as it is with BG: EE. I brought the game up into this discussion, because it represents a pretty accurate parallel with our situation.
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Now that I think better, my proposal is idiotic. It has the Freespace Update logo but what happens when you want to play Wings of Dawn or The Antagonist or any other TC? One could devise a small logo for each mod and the default would be the Update logo, but it's probably over-complicating things for not that much of a detail, one that is obviously not even wanted by some...
Anyways, I see this is a very emotional issue for some of the most prolific modders here, that should be taken to account.
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So do I have to assume that pillarbox -haters don't play any retro games anymore? As in games from the 90s?
Let's take DOS games for example. If you want to play any DOS games nowadays, you'll have to use DosBox (http://www.dosbox.com/), which at least on fullscreen creates pillarboxes automatically for every game that exists. I find myself playing old games like X-wing, Tie Fighter and Star Control 1&2 once in a while, and I barely notice those pillarboxes anymore. Instead, by keeping the original aspect ratio I can get as close as possible to the original experience of playing those titles with CRT -monitors. Same thing goes for some of the first 3d accelerated titles, like Mechwarrior 2 and later Codename Eagle and Hidden & Dangerous. They are all letterboxed since no widescreen mods exist for them.
Or how about some games that have been "restored" or "enhanced"? Let's take for example the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (http://store.steampowered.com/app/228280/). The developers of this restored version decided to letterbox all the menus but expand horizantally the gameplay view itself, which is exactly what the new FSO build is doing right now. If that solution is good enough for professional game developers, why shouldn't it be good enough for FSO community? Remember though, that Baldur's Gate: EE developers FORCED this letterboxing in the menus, while FSO gives a choice for the players.
Practically no commercial grade games have gone the other way and defaulted menu-stretching for a long time now. It simply has become inadequate game design.
If I play old games with forced aspect, I play in a window or force stretch it with my nerd powers. So please stop trying to convince me to change my preference with *FACTS*.
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I don't think the discussion should center anyone's "preference". We have the solution for everyone's particular preference already. We should discuss what is the image, the impact on the person seeing FSOpen for the first time. Eventually these people will learn the flag and use it appropriately.
In this sense, the job is about managing expectations, and with this in mind, it's probably a good thing to wonder what the rest of the industry is doing to "good old games", in the sense that if FSOpen does what everyone else is doing, then it won't be weird or strange for anyone else getting FreeSpace anew.
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Indeed. People are focusing on the pillarboxes or stretching as if this is something the user will be stuck with forever. This simply isn't true.
As I see it, we only really have a few issues. Either,
1) People are going to run the game, get the pillarboxes and think they set the game up in the wrong resolution.
2) People are going to run the game on a multi-monitor setup and get a ridiculously stretched interface.
the only way most of the comments on this thread are in any way important is if
3) It isn't clear how to turn stretching on or off.
So can we keep the discussion to these issues please?
Now personally I don't see the problem with 2) If you have a multi-monitor set up, FS2 is probably not the first game you've encountered a problem with. People with eyefinity set ups are probably used to launching a game and immediately having to go to the options screen to stop the horror they're confronted with. As long as 3) is handled well, I really don't see the issue here.
To be honest though, I think this is something that could and should be handled via the launcher. The launcher already groups resolutions by aspect ratio, why not simply pop up a message saying "You have selected a widescreen ratio - menus will be pillarboxed unless you turn on the -stretch option in advanced options." This would be especially great if we include a couple of side by side screenshots in that pop up.
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I hate pop-ups but I can easily imagine something very very near that solution working great, exactly. If the option is just too obvious for everyone to see what is happening, this becomes a non-issue very very quickly.
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I don't know about everyone else but if I set my monitor to a 4:3 res I end up getting the monitor to stretch it for me anyway, which I still hate but if I got a proper AR game to show up, I'd assume it was behaving correctly.
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In this sense, the job is about managing expectations, and with this in mind, it's probably a good thing to wonder what the rest of the industry is doing to "good old games", in the sense that if FSOpen does what everyone else is doing, then it won't be weird or strange for anyone else getting FreeSpace anew.
Exactly.
What I was describing with these old games was the experience that I think majority of people have come to expect for older games. And how FSO should resonate to these expectations. Seeing that letterboxing menus is clearly winning the poll, I think we can safely talk about the majority in this regard. NOT EVERYONE, THE MAJORITY.
So please stop trying to convince me to change my preference with *FACTS*.
Please stop being a martyr when absolutely no one is threatening your personal *PREFERENCES*.
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Why is this still being argued about?
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Because people are passionate about how to best present this game to newcomers. There's nothing wrong with debate like that, but lets still try and keep all comments as constructive as possible.
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Why is this still being argued about?
A poll majority does not always reflect a good idea, though in this case I'm sympathetic to it. Though not the to suggestion we should be putting stuff in the pillar boxes.
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I'm one of the ones who voted for pillarboxing for default (for reasons I think Lykurgos88 enumerated quite well already), but I am also dead-set against any crap getting put into the pillarboxes.
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If that _were_ to happen, it would probably only be on debug builds.
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So my suggestion would be that we have the game naturally default to pillarboxed because most people prefer that, then we let mods override to stretched if they want to (So if I were a noob that didn't set any flags I would play Wings of Dawn stretched and JAD pillarboxed as their creators preferred), and then we have mega-overriding launcher flags to force stretch-o-vision or force pillarbox for the people who just can't look at menus any other way.
It would also be nice if the mod option to override to stretched could detect if the user's aspect ratio was >3:1 and not do the stretch in that case. I think this would allow everyone to present their work in the way they think is best while allowing the user to override either way if they don't like the mod creator's decision.
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So please stop trying to convince me to change my preference with *FACTS*.
Please stop being a martyr when absolutely no one is threatening your personal *PREFERENCES*.
Yay hostility. I shall use my nerd powers to move on. How about we go with the vote, move on, and work on modern interface modability? Because screw being involved in lame hostile threads.
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It would also be nice if the mod option to override to stretched could detect if the user's aspect ratio was >3:1 and not do the stretch in that case.
Could(n't) that be simplified to just "never stretch across multiple screens"? I can't think of any situation where anyone would want that to happen, and I doubt people have screens with aspect ratios anywhere near 3:1 anyway.
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Yeah that sounds good to me. Is this a proposal that seems reasonable to everyone and can actually be executed?
-Default is pillarboxed
-Mod.tbl option (or something like that) to revert to stretched (except for on multi monitor setups)
-Launcher flags to override in either direction
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How about we go with the vote, move on, and work on modern interface modability? Because screw being involved in lame hostile threads.
Agreed :yes:
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Yeah that sounds good to me. Is this a proposal that seems reasonable to everyone and can actually be executed?
-Default is pillarboxed
-Mod.tbl option (or something like that) to revert to stretched (except for on multi monitor setups)
-Launcher flags to override in either direction
It should be doable, although it may be a bit more complicated than it seems at first glance because I'm pretty sure that command line options (aka launcher flags) are processed before mod.tbl options are. And the absence of a launcher flag wouldn't be able to override anything so you might need either two params (e.g. -force_stretch & -force_nostretch), or switch the current flag to accept a parameter (e.g. -stretch_menus no and -stretch_menus yes). In other words we need 3 states rather than the 2 currently provided.
1) use default (default can be set in mod.tbl with multi-monitor exclusion if stretch is the default)
2) force yes
3) force no
My only other concern is karajorma's 1st point:
1) People are going to run the game, get the pillarboxes and think they set the game up in the wrong resolution.
That's about the only thing the current proposal doesn't cover. While we have had a number of instances of this occurring within the community when this change was introduced, I believe that's more of a result of past expectations rather than 1st impressions. So I don't think that this will be a problem for new users. *BUT*, I'd like to hear other peoples opinions on this as well and have a healthy debate if there are contrary opinions.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that whatever is planned will (as I understand it) just be a stopgap measure anyway, because at some point we'll have true widescreen mainhalls anyway, which will render the whole thing moot. It seems like it'd be wasted effort to pour too much complexity into such a system.
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Although not addressed here, I think the blurriness of the low-resolution opening cutscenes and mainhall interface blown up to modern resolutions is going to do more to make new people think they have the wrong resolution set than whether the mainhall is stretched or pillarboxed.
Although stretching bothers me when watching tv/movies because of everyone's fat heads, the mainhall stretch does not bother me at all. For instance, in FS2, you only see one person whose face is slightly stretched (and even then it is only when you hover over him and he turns to you), but most of the mechanical bits look OK stretched. I wouldn't even notice without seeing side-by-side.
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I don't see how pillarboxing would give the impression of running in the wrong resolution.
The fact that the window it's running in is the correct resolution should give the correct resolution right away.
Fullscreen is so last decade.
(and since people cannot into jokes, I'm just going to make it clear that I'm saying this in jest)