Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Nuke on August 05, 2002, 10:23:21 pm
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i think it would be cool to have a different hud for each spicies. it should also allow for the creation of additional huds (pirate, civilian, new spicies, and so on).
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-edit- Fine...
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I think it makes more sense to have this as a separate topic, since it's quite a bit different from the other one(s) he started.
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I like the separate HUD idea.
Make the Vasudan one look weird (and put a "Proudly built by Akheton&trade" in the corner). And the Shivan one (where you go through the 2nd knossos) could be really fun (except those meddling Terran engineers went and retrofitted it...)
This would require a fair amount of work, as all the HUD stuff is fairly hard-coded.
I have expressed my dream before (about having all the UI, including HUD) be configurable... be especially nice for those TC projects.
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This would require a fair amount of work, as all the HUD stuff is fairly hard-coded.
I have expressed my dream before (about having all the UI, including HUD) be configurable... be especially nice for those TC projects.
If at some point the hud is getting a re-write, we could turn to the Half-Life hud for inspiration. I've written hud code for a HL mod, it's a nicely configurable system.
The engine maintains a Hud List which is, of course, a typed pointer array. To create a new hud item, you inherit the CHudItem class, append a pointer to your huditem in the hudlist, and that's it.
CHudItem consists of a constructor, destructor, a setVisible(BOOL) function and a pure virtual paint() function. The implementor of the hud item has to worry about positioning it (and making it player-setable if he so chooses).
The engine simply runs through the hudlist eacht frame and has every element paint itself.
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I wasn't thinking so much about having a the HUD/UI be configurable from a coding standpoint, but rather have it generic enough that with a table and the associated graphics, you define what the HUD(s) and/or UI screens look like. (I might be misinterpreting your post, BTW).
That way if someone wants to do FS2 graphics at 1600x1200 and play it on their 35-inch plasma display, they can. Or on a Palm Pilot :doubt:
TC projects could have their own UI and HUD (think about the differences between FS1 and FS2, now image Star Wars or Babylon 5, or Ender's Game or whatever) And a full campaign (with no Volition ships, weapons, sounds, music, UI, etc.) could be freely distributable, w/ no licensing restrictions -- you can't legally distribute the FS2 VP files, although they are required to run fs2_open.
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Hmm...I like the idea of a scripting language. It would allow a lot of flexibility and be easy to learn, yet have the ability of being very flexible. :nod:
Of course it'd take quite a bit of time to implement in the engine...
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well, make it so we can use pcx of any size then, as it is now you've got little freedom for creativity...
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it would be nice if we could also have special gauges for different huds. for example a civilian ship wouldnt really need targeting scanners, objective lists, wingman statis and so on, they might instead have a navigation panel (like a gps for space) and auto pilot. shivans might have subspace activity monitors and vasudans might have a hedzbox capacity gauge. in other words you dont need to have everything in the standard gtva hud and you can have other things not included.
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That'd be pretty cool. You put data in the table sorta like turret info and tie it into individual ship classes:
$Guage:
coords(***,***),(Passengers),pass.ani
coords(***,***),(Node Stability),node.ani
Etc etc and use sexp's to control what they monitor or when/how they change.
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I meant a real scripting language. Something like
if( Alpha.1.KillNumber > 5)
{
OutputMessage(Command, "Congratulations, you've reached ace!");
RemoveANI(KillGauge);
AddANI(KillGauge,X,Y,"acekills.ani");
}
Which would display a message from Command congratulating Alpha 1, and replace the standard kills gauge ANI with a special ace one. :D
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Ooh, I love this idea! There's the standard Terran HUD, a curvy wavy organic Vasudan HUD, and a spiky angry-looking Shivan HUD. Think of the HUDs in Descent III for the different ships--get it?
What I'd really like is for the center reticle to read the primary gunpoint coordinates and translate them onto the HUD. SO you're flying a Ulys and you see this for your reticle-
. ' ' .
Your Ursa has this-
-: ..
and so on.
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Not to rain on anyones parade, but doesn't this seem kind of...trivial? I mean, how often will people make campaigns where you'll fly civvyships where there is no targeting rwequired, or where you'll regularly flip back and forth between Terran, Vasudan and Shivan fighters? Sure you did it in the main campaign, but not for very many missions, really.
Not that the idea's niot a cool one - it definitely is, but it just seems to me like an awful lot of work (not forgetting that you'd need to make the dozens of anis for the new huds as well as the sorce to put them in) for a return that will probably not be seen in more than a few missions per campaign. Just MHO mind you.
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This would be useful for The Babylon Project. Custom HUDs for different species would be immensely useful and powerful.
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i think it would be very usefull for misswions where you do not fly for the gtva. i want a campaign as a pirate, a shivan, or just some stupid civilian that gets stuck an the middile of a massive space battle and has no choice but fight or die.
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Dont forgot when pilots fly older craft like the Loki who's hud doesnt have the advanced tracking systems the 2360's craft have... theyd be more fs1'd