[chief1983]

Yeah you can leave them open, they don't have to be airtight.  Whatever cuts out the most polies or makes UV easier is probably preferred.

[ssmit132]

Might be a bit difficult to fly a ship that's not airtight. 

[Nuke]

meshes havent had to be solid for quite some time. and then it was mainly a requirement of the bsp compilers we had in the early days of modding. you can reduce a great deal of polies by leaving stuff open. the original fs models, all the turrets seemed to not have any underside polies. what i want to know is if anyone has attempted to copy an animation or weapon model from she ship that would work the same in the cockpit model.

[Einstine909]

OK, so after hanging out in #hard-light, I got back into the mood of finishing up the cockpit I was modeling. The problem I left off as was the balance of realism (cannon) and the visibility. If I go with the cockpit that the FS1 into vid shows, the view is very restricted to the top of the screen (1/3 left) this would make playing very difficult. So, what does HLP think of this? Cannon or visibility? It would also help to know what FS2's default FOV is... off to the wiki for that...

edit:

After some more chatting, we came to the conclusion that the "real" HUD was restrictive to where the camera was placed. By getting rid of that it made the visibility much better while still achieving the same effect.



Yay or nay?

[Commander Zane]

That's a lot like VA's 14'th post on the first page, but with a lot less features.

[Dilmah G]

Personally I would prefer something like VA's concept. Just a small heads up display with the aiming reticle at least, other than that, any cockpit is better than none But yeah, it looks good.

[chief1983]

Looks pretty good.  The default fov is .75 radians, which is already a bit high.  Most people use a narrower fov to increase the sense of scale, although I use a higher fov in multi than in single player.

[William Wolfen]

*snip*
Yay or nay?

If it ever comes to pass that cockpits are usable, that is pretty much exactly what i wanted, though a hud with the targeting reticule on it would be desirable, though just having it sit in the middle of the screen as normal would be fine.  Either way, keep up the good work!

[Scooby_Doo]

Well with moveable views...

[Dilmah G]

Dawwwwwwwg

[Col. Fishguts]

Looks pretty good.  The default fov is .75 radians, which is already a bit high.  Most people use a narrower fov to increase the sense of scale, although I use a higher fov in multi than in single player.

Btw, would it be possible (from a coding point of view) to render the cockpit model with a fixed (hard-coded) fov ? Since a lot of people use custom fov settings, the final appearance of a cockpit model would vary quite a lot, possibly making it more obstrusive than originally intended or otherwise look weird.
Also, lining up a cockpit model with HUD gauges only makes sense, if the model looks exactly the same for all fov settings.

[Herra Tohtori]

Btw, would it be possible (from a coding point of view) to render the cockpit model with a fixed (hard-coded) fov ? Since a lot of people use custom fov settings, the final appearance of a cockpit model would vary quite a lot, possibly making it more obstrusive than originally intended or otherwise look weird.
Also, lining up a cockpit model with HUD gauges only makes sense, if the model looks exactly the same for all fov settings.

Why don't you just make it a 2D cockpit then? I'm sure you could do something similar to MSFS panels or X-Wing cockpits quite easily.

It wouldn't work well for 3D cockpit. Especially if you pivot the view around the cockpit; it would look supremely weird if the cockpit and the background were rendered in different field of view.

I'm going to just repeat my suggestion and opinion that cockpits will only be truly usable when FS2_Open gets in-game adjustable field of view commands similar to IL-2 Sturmovik series of games.

[chief1983]

I don't see why it couldn't already be an extension of the TrackIR stuff.  We can already pan around, and we know we can set the FOV so it seems like all the pieces are there.

[Col. Fishguts]

Btw, would it be possible (from a coding point of view) to render the cockpit model with a fixed (hard-coded) fov ? Since a lot of people use custom fov settings, the final appearance of a cockpit model would vary quite a lot, possibly making it more obstrusive than originally intended or otherwise look weird.
Also, lining up a cockpit model with HUD gauges only makes sense, if the model looks exactly the same for all fov settings.

Why don't you just make it a 2D cockpit then? I'm sure you could do something similar to MSFS panels or X-Wing cockpits quite easily.

It wouldn't work well for 3D cockpit. Especially if you pivot the view around the cockpit; it would look supremely weird if the cockpit and the background were rendered in different field of view.

I'm going to just repeat my suggestion and opinion that cockpits will only be truly usable when FS2_Open gets in-game adjustable field of view commands similar to IL-2 Sturmovik series of games.

Because I want the lighting effects and cockpit movement when turning (à la Starlancer), and for that you need a 3d cockpit. I'm not sure if you would notice if the cockpit geometry had a different fov than the rest... since it is much closer to the eye point than the rest. (actually, that's a really interesting question)

I'm just thinking from a modelers point of view... if I go through the trouble to set up cockpit geometry so it lines up with the HUD nicely... and then notice that it looks crap with different fov settings, it sortof is a buzzkill.

[Herra Tohtori]

Personally, I tend to think that fitting the HUD to the cockpit avionics to achieve a "gauged cockpit" look is somewhat hackish anyway. No offense, but HUD is not supposed to be like that. Also, it will fail hard as soon as one turns their head in the cockpit just as much as it will with different field of view settings.

I would rather just have the cockpit have good-looking static or slightly animated panels, with an option of putting in render-to-texture gauges/displays when that particular feature gets put into the engine, and leave the HUD what it most likely is; a helmet-mounted head-up display.

Also, yes you would notice the difference between fields of view. Particularly when you turn your head. There would be a difference in angular velocity of outside and inside rendering when the point of view is in turning motion. This would especially affect anyone willing to use TrackIR, but would also likely be noticeable with how the left/right/up/rear views work at the moment.

chief1983: That sounds interesting and promising...

[William Wolfen]

I think that the HUD from the game is just a regular, fixed position HUD, as at the time the game was made, helmet mounted ones were a more of a WIP than anything outright usable if I'm not mistaken.

[Col. Fishguts]

Well, the HUD is visible in the Apollo in the FS1 intro, and it's just like a current jet fighter fixed HUD.

But Herr Doktor raises some good points about what happens when you turn your head, so locking the fov for the cockpit doesn't make much sense.

[Nuke]

freespace lacks of features that modern fighters have had for years. such as te ability to lock a missile onto every target in range and launch simultaneously, or look and lock capabilities. or visibility enhancements (such as filling in blind spots with video from cameras all over the aircraft) in fact freespace missile tech seems to predate the nam era in terms of effectiveness. i tink they were kinda going for a ww2 feel. as cool as a helmet mounted display would be, it would feel out of place in freespace without a bunch of other features.

i kinda like the way the hud works in trackir mode. ive written scripts before to do things like aim turrets, select targets, and lock missiles just by looking at it. i like the concept helmet mounted display, but it kinda goes against the ww2 style of the game. id rather have the hud rtted and mapped to some polies (or rendered to the hud to overlay over some fixed points in 3d space), for cannon ships. that doesnt mean the idea of an hmd should be abandoned, since it coud be an awesome feature for certain ships.

[Lavandel]

Long time since last post.... Anything happening on this front?

[Scooby_Doo]

I'm building external cockpit in my fighter models, but I do know if they've fixed the Z-rendering issue.