[karajorma]

What's your objection to having the build info etc appear in the pillar boxes?

[Nuke]

a good interface should look good regardless of the resolution or aspect ratio, without asymmetrical stretching. black bars are ugly and ruin the interface, but if your background image is a really high resolution 4:3 image, scale it (proportionally on both axes) to fit the width and procedurally crop it to fit the height, it should look good on any aspect ratio. such an image would need the subject in the middle with a lot of buffer space around it to make sure the part you want is shown. interface elements should also be placed dynamically rather than use static coordinates or percentage values.

this would only work for new mainhalls. however you can support legacy 4:3 mainhalls if proportionally stretch the vanilla 4:3 mainhall to fit the screen width and then do vertical panning on the whole interface to interact with elements that would otherwise be clipped off the screen. it would pan down as you mouse into the top quarter of the screen, and up when you mouse over the bottom quarter.

tldr: pan'n'scan

[AdmiralRalwood]

tldr: pan'n'scan

That sounds horrifying.

[swashmebuckle]

What's your objection to having the build info etc appear in the pillar boxes?

I think for me the only thing more distracting than pillarboxes would be pillarboxes with text in them. It would be hard to imagine anything that could ruin the impact of a lovingly composed main menu screen as efficiently as having a bunch of white text on a black field crammed alongside it. Maybe ads for male enhancement?

Has there been a discussion about moving build info text and that type of stuff to the initial pilot select and/or barracks screens? It seems like that would be a much better place for it since those screens are strictly business, whereas the main hall is a hub screen where you have a chance to really make an impression on the player like Volition did with their lively hangar scenes.

[jr2]

You all know that if your black areas on your monitor don't vanish into the background (i.e., are pitch black), you need to adjust your brightness and contrast, right?

[The E]

I know it's hard, but at least pretend to stay on topic.

[coffeesoft]

This is amazing feature for multi-monitor users, move the mouse over three monitors is a bit hard and looks really streched 

Many thanks   

[Lykurgos88]

So do I have to assume that pillarbox -haters don't play any retro games anymore? As in games from the 90s?

Let's take DOS games for example. If you want to play any DOS games nowadays, you'll have to use DosBox, which at least on fullscreen creates pillarboxes automatically for every game that exists. I find myself playing old games like X-wing, Tie Fighter and Star Control 1&2 once in a while, and I barely notice those pillarboxes anymore. Instead, by keeping the original aspect ratio I can get as close as possible to the original experience of playing those titles with CRT -monitors. Same thing goes for some of the first 3d accelerated titles, like Mechwarrior 2 and later Codename Eagle and Hidden & Dangerous. They are all letterboxed since no widescreen mods exist for them.

Or how about some games that have been "restored" or "enhanced"? Let's take for example the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The developers of this restored version decided to letterbox all the menus but expand horizantally the gameplay view itself, which is exactly what the new FSO build is doing right now. If that solution is good enough for professional game developers, why shouldn't it be good enough for FSO community? Remember though, that Baldur's Gate: EE developers FORCED this letterboxing in the menus, while FSO gives a choice for the players.

Practically no commercial grade games have gone the other way and defaulted menu-stretching for a long time now. It simply has become inadequate game design.

[Luis Dias]

I have the fullest respect for the obscene lenghts some modders will go to avoid anything to be put in the pillarboxes they themselves will never experience, I understand the aesthetic concern they are trying to express here and I share it. This is why I said it needs a very particular sensitivity, and personally I would go for the most minimalistic detail that would ensure to the players that the game "understands" is being pillarboxed and it's alright, without encurring in weird fugly and uninspired amateurish "horror for emptiness" that newbies in design tend to experience.

So with that in mind, would this minimal thing be still too ... "breaking the immersion"?

[Spoon]

Yeah bro, none of us play retro games anymore. We have no idea what we are talking about. But if we did, we would launch FS2 in dosbox.

Also funny that you mention BG:EE, its very likely that they did not want to letterbox by choice but as a necessary evil because they didn't had access to any of the source art files. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190432/postmortem_overhaul_games_.php?page=4

[The E]

I am not overly concerned with what other games are doing in this regard.

[Lykurgos88]

Also funny that you mention BG:EE, its very likely that they did not want to letterbox by choice but as a necessary evil because they didn't had access to any of the source art files. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190432/postmortem_overhaul_games_.php?page=4

Isn't this exactly the same situation with FSO? We don't have access to wider mainhall art files either, probably because they don't even exist. As such, letterboxing is the lesser evil here the same way as it is with BG: EE. I brought the game up into this discussion, because it represents a pretty accurate parallel with our situation.

[Luis Dias]

Now that I think better, my proposal is idiotic. It has the Freespace Update logo but what happens when you want to play Wings of Dawn or The Antagonist or any other TC? One could devise a small logo for each mod and the default would be the Update logo, but it's probably over-complicating things for not that much of a detail, one that is obviously not even wanted by some...

Anyways, I see this is a very emotional issue for some of the most prolific modders here, that should be taken to account.

[mjn.mixael]

So do I have to assume that pillarbox -haters don't play any retro games anymore? As in games from the 90s?

Let's take DOS games for example. If you want to play any DOS games nowadays, you'll have to use DosBox, which at least on fullscreen creates pillarboxes automatically for every game that exists. I find myself playing old games like X-wing, Tie Fighter and Star Control 1&2 once in a while, and I barely notice those pillarboxes anymore. Instead, by keeping the original aspect ratio I can get as close as possible to the original experience of playing those titles with CRT -monitors. Same thing goes for some of the first 3d accelerated titles, like Mechwarrior 2 and later Codename Eagle and Hidden & Dangerous. They are all letterboxed since no widescreen mods exist for them.

Or how about some games that have been "restored" or "enhanced"? Let's take for example the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The developers of this restored version decided to letterbox all the menus but expand horizantally the gameplay view itself, which is exactly what the new FSO build is doing right now. If that solution is good enough for professional game developers, why shouldn't it be good enough for FSO community? Remember though, that Baldur's Gate: EE developers FORCED this letterboxing in the menus, while FSO gives a choice for the players.

Practically no commercial grade games have gone the other way and defaulted menu-stretching for a long time now. It simply has become inadequate game design.

If I play old games with forced aspect, I play in a window or force stretch it with my nerd powers. So please stop trying to convince me to change my preference with *FACTS*.

[Luis Dias]

I don't think the discussion should center anyone's "preference". We have the solution for everyone's particular preference already. We should discuss what is the image, the impact on the person seeing FSOpen for the first time. Eventually these people will learn the flag and use it appropriately.

In this sense, the job is about managing expectations, and with this in mind, it's probably a good thing to wonder what the rest of the industry is doing to "good old games", in the sense that if FSOpen does what everyone else is doing, then it won't be weird or strange for anyone else getting FreeSpace anew.

[karajorma]

Indeed. People are focusing on the pillarboxes or stretching as if this is something the user will be stuck with forever. This simply isn't true.

As I see it, we only really have a few issues. Either,

1) People are going to run the game, get the pillarboxes and think they set the game up in the wrong resolution.
2) People are going to run the game on a multi-monitor setup and get a ridiculously stretched interface.

the only way most of the comments on this thread are in any way important is if

3) It isn't clear how to turn stretching on or off.

So can we keep the discussion to these issues please?



Now personally I don't see the problem with 2) If you have a multi-monitor set up, FS2 is probably not the first game you've encountered a problem with. People with eyefinity set ups are probably used to launching a game and immediately having to go to the options screen to stop the horror they're confronted with. As long as 3) is handled well, I really don't see the issue here.

To be honest though, I think this is something that could and should be handled via the launcher. The launcher already groups resolutions by aspect ratio, why not simply pop up a message saying "You have selected a widescreen ratio - menus will be pillarboxed unless you turn on the -stretch option in advanced options." This would be especially great if we include a couple of side by side screenshots in that pop up.

[Luis Dias]

I hate pop-ups but I can easily imagine something very very near that solution working great, exactly. If the option is just too obvious for everyone to see what is happening, this becomes a non-issue very very quickly.

[chief1983]

I don't know about everyone else but if I set my monitor to a 4:3 res I end up getting the monitor to stretch it for me anyway, which I still hate but if I got a proper AR game to show up, I'd assume it was behaving correctly.

[Lykurgos88]

In this sense, the job is about managing expectations, and with this in mind, it's probably a good thing to wonder what the rest of the industry is doing to "good old games", in the sense that if FSOpen does what everyone else is doing, then it won't be weird or strange for anyone else getting FreeSpace anew.

Exactly.

What I was describing with these old games was the experience that I think majority of people have come to expect for older games. And how FSO should resonate to these expectations. Seeing that letterboxing menus is clearly winning the poll, I think we can safely talk about the majority in this regard. NOT EVERYONE, THE MAJORITY.

So please stop trying to convince me to change my preference with *FACTS*.

Please stop being a martyr when absolutely no one is threatening your personal *PREFERENCES*.

[z64555]

Why is this still being argued about?