[bizzybody]

An idea for the way out there in the future list.

Run SCP with 4 or 5 monitors, positioned to give the player simultaneous forward, top, right, left, and optionally rear views. It'd be neat to have a 'full cockpit' simulation like that, and possibly easier to avoid/follow other ships around you.

As to how to get or generate all those views at the same time... A. one really stonking powerful PC with three dual-head PCIe videocards B. a mini-farm of PCs- one each per view, running SCP somehow synchronized to the main PC.

I've seen this done for flight sims that run on a PC to give a huge panoramic view for the pilot.

[Nuke]

ditto, i got 2 screens. would be nice if i could get my forward view on one screen and turret boresight on the other.

[WMCoolmon]

Yes to the first question, at least if you're running Linux with TwinView on an NVIDIA card. I've attached the screenshot showing the results on my current setup, which is a 1024x768 screen with a 1680x1050 screen. Be warned, it's not pretty (But it is big).

A hesitant no to the second question. In theory, if you knew that you were going to be running 2 screens, what you could do is set up some kind of boresight on the second screen simply by slapping a black rectangle on that screens coordinates (eg 0,0,1024,768 for my left screen) and then drawing your boresight in those coordinates. If you wanted actual graphics there, you'd have to do some gimmicking involving mn.renderMission(), backbuffer flipping, and camera control that I don't think is entirely possible with scripting right now.

Widescreen screencap goodness

[Nuke]

heh, cool. any chance in getting rtt cameras?

[WMCoolmon]

Not right now, the existing scripting stuff hasn't gotten enough use for me to believe that adding it will get any more use than the existing stuff has. There's already enough stuff in to seriously consider wholesale replacement of the retail HUD; the feedback that I've gotten from people doesn't suggest that people are holding out because they can't do a rearview mirror.

[Nuke]

i got a hud in the works, not really gonna be an improvement to the retail hud (which is so good its hard to improve upon), but really just a different aproach to the whole system. it will really be a composite of the best features ive seen in various huds, including actual hud systems from military aircraft. but its on hold while i work on my advanced weapon and fire control suite. im really doing of stuff with mod -> script integration. i want to write script that can be modded without knowing how to actually script. like i got it to where you can enable blindfire by adding #bf to the end of the weapon name string in the table.

[quadrophoeniX]

WMCoolmon, have you noticed that objects will not be drawn corrctly anymore if you alter the -fov too much? it starts with the endines "disappearing at the sides and if you increase fov more even the ships will pop off at the edges...It's been a long time since I tested that, need to reconfirm the values but I noticed it even on decent 16:10 settings as well as on a Matrox triple head I quick tested (didn't buy it because it wouldn't work too well with SCP ;-) )

[Turey]

WMCoolmon, have you noticed that objects will not be drawn corrctly anymore if you alter the -fov too much? it starts with the endines "disappearing at the sides and if you increase fov more even the ships will pop off at the edges...It's been a long time since I tested that, need to reconfirm the values but I noticed it even on decent 16:10 settings as well as on a Matrox triple head I quick tested (didn't buy it because it wouldn't work too well with SCP ;-) )

The ships popping off the side of the screen are due to:
1. the use of -fov
2. the use of non-4:3 resolutions.

This has been known for a while.

[Kaine]

I've experienced the ships disappearing from the edge of the screen even at 1024 x 768. is there a temporary fix (maybe involving -fov) for this?

[Turey]

I've experienced the ships disappearing from the edge of the screen even at 1024 x 768. is there a temporary fix (maybe involving -fov) for this?

If ships are popping off the edge of the screen at any resolution, you can use -fov to compensate for it. Just play around with it until it gets better.

[WMCoolmon]

Specifically, try lowering the value from the default.

[Draco429]

Are there any adverse effects to this method?

[Backslash]

Not right now, the existing scripting stuff hasn't gotten enough use for me to believe that adding it will get any more use than the existing stuff has. There's already enough stuff in to seriously consider wholesale replacement of the retail HUD; the feedback that I've gotten from people doesn't suggest that people are holding out because they can't do a rearview mirror.

Well the apparent lack of use of the existing scripting stuff isn't because of a lack of wanting to.  I know both WCSaga and FringeSpace are very interested in custom HUD solutions, they just don't have anyone who knows anything about how to do such with scripting.  So uh... sounds like unless we/they successfully recruit someone with the knowhow (or the time to learn it) we'll be waiting for Nuke to blaze the trail

Are there any adverse effects to this method?

Besides a noticable change to the field of view, you mean?  Well either it works or it doesn't quite...  I've never found the right value for my screen but don't let that stop you.  --And I've never seen the problem happen in 1024x768 with a normal fov, unless the fov changes in-game like when the 'cutscene bars' are used or when you die.

[bizzybody]

A rearview mirror! That'd be the perfect thing to do with widesceeen monitors. Put the 4:3 ratio forward view off to the left or right, then divide up the rest of the screen space into panels showing the other views.

[Nuke]

Not right now, the existing scripting stuff hasn't gotten enough use for me to believe that adding it will get any more use than the existing stuff has. There's already enough stuff in to seriously consider wholesale replacement of the retail HUD; the feedback that I've gotten from people doesn't suggest that people are holding out because they can't do a rearview mirror.

Well the apparent lack of use of the existing scripting stuff isn't because of a lack of wanting to.  I know both WCSaga and FringeSpace are very interested in custom HUD solutions, they just don't have anyone who knows anything about how to do such with scripting.  So uh... sounds like unless we/they successfully recruit someone with the knowhow (or the time to learn it) we'll be waiting for Nuke to blaze the trail

that might be some time out. ive been neglecting my modelling for awhile now and my job season is starting to kick into full gear. so theres plenty of time for somone to beat me to it. if anyone wants to come up here and do my job for me i can devote all my hours to scripting/modding, that would be cool

[WMCoolmon]

Not right now, the existing scripting stuff hasn't gotten enough use for me to believe that adding it will get any more use than the existing stuff has. There's already enough stuff in to seriously consider wholesale replacement of the retail HUD; the feedback that I've gotten from people doesn't suggest that people are holding out because they can't do a rearview mirror.

Well the apparent lack of use of the existing scripting stuff isn't because of a lack of wanting to.  I know both WCSaga and FringeSpace are very interested in custom HUD solutions, they just don't have anyone who knows anything about how to do such with scripting.  So uh... sounds like unless we/they successfully recruit someone with the knowhow (or the time to learn it) we'll be waiting for Nuke to blaze the trail

Well, from my perspective it looks as though nobody wants to, because I haven't gotten any feedback. I recently (almost a month ago) updated the scripting.tbl page in the wiki and haven't gotten any feedback on it. Is that because it was confusing? Or was that because it was so good that everyone who read it didn't have any questions? Or is it just because nobody wanted to read it? Or is it because everyone who wants to read it doesn't know about it?

In the end it just looks like it had no effect for anybody and so that's how I'm going to consider it when I'm deciding how to apportion my free/coding time.

Whereas if I were to get messages more along the lines of "I want to learn scripting, what are some good sources of documentation?" or "I'm going to have some free time next weekend to experiment with HUD scripting, are there any good sources of info on it (could you write something up)?" or even "I have no clue how conditional hooks work, you weren't very clear when you talked about them in the wiki."

I would at least know that people were trying.

[karajorma]

BtRL actually had a few missions that made heavy use of scripting in them. But cause we're going with a 3.6.9 based branch we had to pull them out and stick them in storage for the full game release.

You're going to see all kinds of use of scripting once the demo is done. Hell you're going to see me using it. The demo has been the main delay to me learning the system. But I've seen what Axem and Wanderer are capable of and I'm already excited thinking what I'll be able to do with it.

[takashi]

i never knew it could do so much...

(puts scripting in SoL tryout mission)