[Kolgena]

The readability of the 3D radar is superior to the 2D radar when trying to determine location of objects, especially for back hemisphere coverage. However, there are some things I'd like to see changed, or at least open to user customization.

1. Radar icons are currently incompatible with 3D radar. It would improve readability a ton even if only capital ships were delineated somewhat differently. I'm not sure if there's a way to get icons compatible, but having different shaped dots for fighters/bombers, transports/freighters, and capitol ships would be more than lovely. (I'm wondering if a hack with the current icons will work: Say a capital ship icon is 64x32, and a fighter is 8x8. The fighter icon gets stretched to something huge and blurry in 3D radar. However, if we make the fighter icon 32x32 by adding extra empty space, the fighter might render much smaller. The idea is to have each icon on the same sized canvas to get proper scaling. Of course, this would cause a pretty big waste of memory, even if it were to work. I'd try this out myself, but I lack anything that opens .dds since I fail at computers)

2. Something's up with the three circles on the orb. At certain angles, the sphere seems to almost fall apart. I suspect it isn't rendered with perspective, which is why it reacts strangely. Also, the default colors are ugly, so it would be nice to customize the colors used or even decide if they're rendered at all.

These are just some things that I think would be nice to have. I have no idea how hard they'd be to implement, and whether anyone has the time or desire to get it done, so I'm merely throwing it out there for curiosity sake.


Edit: Regarding point number 1, my hack works (and I found a lovely nvidia dds plugin for photoshop), though I don't know what I'm doing and have generated icons that are 1kb in size. If someone can tell me how I should be saving these files so they don't bloat to 10x bigger, please do. I plan on making a 3D radar pack if possible.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[BirdofPrey]

I never had a problem with icon size, but making them a bit smaller doesn't sound bad.   What I think is really missing is a distance marker.  I'd very much like to know how many of those ships are in a position to shoot me and which are half the map away.

[mjn.mixael]

Kolgena, perhaps show a seen of what it looked like before with the icons?

[Kolgena]

Will do later tonight. The icons are also up for dl in the Modding forum is someone wants to try them out for themselves and compare them to the VP download in the MVP release thread.

Immediate disadvantages I've noticed that exist with the orb radar right now include:

1. The vertical lines coming out of the dots are gone. They used to tell you how far away something was based on how long they were. Since the icons themselves don't get bigger/smaller according to distance like (I think) they do in 2D radar, you longer have any way of telling how far away anything is.

2. The lines also helped to define 3D location of the dots, as for whether they were "coming out" or "going into" the screen. If you move around, the parallax makes it really easy to tell where they actually are, but if nothing's moving or you only glance down for a split second, it can be confusing.

3. Orb radar used to enlarge dots that were being targeted. This no longer happens because the dots are replaced by icons. The icons themselves do not change when targeted.


Edit: Attached a pic of the exact same mission (massive battle 2) but without the fixed icons. The direction I'm facing (and my ship position) is also almost identical to the first shot, as you can sort of tell by the three colored rings and locations of ships.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Droid803]

Love the 3D radar. Hate radar icons. (so messy, ugly, smothering each other, and useless).

Wish there was a way to just have the point on the line be slightly bigger for capships, and that's all I want.

Maybe even RADAR.TBL for customizing that stuff (lol, more likely, something in HUD GAUGES)

[mjn.mixael]

The icons are not meant for use with the 3D Radar currently. Kolgena altered them for it.

Personally, I think the 3D Radar could use an overhall... It's style doesn't match the rest of the hud and the way it's just layered on top of the original Radar thing just looks hodge-podged to me. Hence why I don't use it.

Retail radar + Icons looks quite nice though.

[Kolgena]

Yeah. I dislike the

Love the 3D radar. Hate radar icons. (so messy, ugly, smothering each other, and useless).

Wish there was a way to just have the point on the line be slightly bigger for capships, and that's all I want.

Maybe even RADAR.TBL for customizing that stuff (lol, more likely, something in HUD GAUGES)

Undefined ships in your radar table will show up as the default dots. If you really want, set your cap ships with icons and leave out the fighters.


Also, I agree with mjn about the radar. It could do with an update, though it's by no means urgent.

[BirdofPrey]

I use the 3d radar heavily, but I'd love to see it upgraded.  What would it take do do something like that?  Would someone with limited experience like myself be able to pull something like that off?

If not here's a list of suggestions:
1, get rid of the regular radar, the 3 colored rings can also be replaced with something else.  My though was make them cylindrical bands with minimal thickness, and have them take the HUD color, possibly do something to differentiate the axes so you can use is like a combined compass and artificial horizon like you can now (assuming you know what color each ring is), possibly also have waypoints show up somewhere outside the  radar circle to further aid orienteering.
2. Change the iccons, come up with something smaller that won't take up the whole sphere like the current ones.  Instead of pasting them on the surface, use them like the dots are: have them render a certain distance from there sphere based on how far they are from you.  To aid in localization, possibly connect a line to the surface of the sphere and do something to show if they are in front of behind you (dim one half maybe)
3. adjust the size:  Make the sphere itself a bit smaller, it's just a guideline, at the same time, make the maximum distance icons can be from the sphere further out than it is currently.  Take advantage of all the space the is between the other status displays, to make it as easy as possibly for the pilot to determine direction and range and to allow for there to be a fair number of indicators without clumping up.
4. Threats indicator.  in addition to making sure we can clearly tell what we have targeted, do something to indicate ships that are attacking and/or locking us up (make them blink maybe?).  Also show inbound missiles, and more importantly, make hostile bombs clearly indicated, have both of them stand out by making them a different color than the rest of the icons (probably yellow since thats the color of the reticule threat indicator)

[jr2]

Does radar range setting currently work with 3d radar?  And, is there a way to make a sort of 'zoom' feature, where close range ships are ignored and far range ships are amplified?  That'd be nice. 

[CaptJosh]

Far as I know it does. I used it in U-War where limiting the range is helpful sometimes.

[Wanderer]

$3D Radar Blip Size Multiplier: ? (see wiki)