[Black Wolf]

Does anybody know (from within the code or some other source) how FS2 decides where to put the static anis on the HUD, and what size they have to be? Is it through some table or pcx file that I've never found, or is it hardcoded?

The reason I ask is that, while attempting to make HUD art for the SW mod and another project I'm supposed to be working on, I often find It would be far more convenient to have a different shaped object than those that FS2 allows, or, almost as often, to have it in a different place. If it is hardcoded, would it be likely to be too difficult to put this into a table, or monochrome PCX File in the same fashion as the mainhalls are handled? That would make this process a lot easier and ultimately would lead to a far superior final product. These are two TCs after all, so a new HUD would seem appropriate, especially for the secret one.

One final hud request - is it possible to make new guages for the hud, and how complex would this be? If it was to be implemented, even something as simple as a modifyable counter, defined by a table and some sexp style notation would be ideal for the purposes I have in mind. NB. if any coders need more details, I'm sure I'd be able to get GE's approval to discuss the actual reasons I want these things.

I know it's a lot of requests, but the first one (finding out whether the HUD Can be modified from the outside without SC changes) is probably the most important.

[Killfrenzy]

That would allow different huds, and would open up the TC market. Think about SW, WC Saga, TBP, The Swarm War, TAP, S:AAB and the rest that would benefit from custom HUDs!!

[Goober5000]

It's hard-coded in the source.  Putting the locations in a table would be possible, but since the coordinates are scattered through a great many files it would be rather difficult getting them all organized.

As for the images themselves, it's certainly possible and quite easy to change what they look like.  Just make a new ani with the same colors.

[Black Wolf]

Yeah, you can change the shapes, but not the sizes, which in turn limits the shaps you can have.

If it's too hard though, I guess I can work around it.

[penguin]

Originally posted by Goober5000
It's hard-coded in the source.  Putting the locations in a table would be possible, but since the coordinates are scattered through a great many files it would be rather difficult getting them all organized.

As for the images themselves, it's certainly possible and quite easy to change what they look like.  Just make a new ani with the same colors.

I've always said this would be a fun one to do.  It would be cool to have a different look when you're flying a Vasudan fighter, and like KF said, it would open up the whole TC market.

OT: has anyone made a Vasudan font?

A lot of the 'base' coordinates are in hud/hud.cpp, but they're scattered elsewhere throughout the hud/*.cpp files.  There's a lot of hardcoded assumptions throughout (e.g., you only have room for 3 ships in the escort list).

There are two sets of coords, one for 640x480 and another for 1024x768.  If someone is going to go to the trouble of putting it in a table, it might make sense to make this table more expandable by tweaking GR_NUM_RESOLUTIONS (e.g., allow 1600x1200), though this would be a much larger change and affect things other than the HUD.

[mikhael]

We need to pull all those assumptions into its own header that we can include in all the places were the assumptions were originally made.

I have an idea as to how to make the whole thing loaded from a table, but it'll take a while of poking at it to work it out. If someone wants to discuss it and try to implement it, I'll brain dump my ideas.