TAC Displays, HUD gauges, and brackets.

[mongoose]

While I'm sort of waiting on answers re Ankor's shaders, illuminated dials, etc., I thought I would make some batch files for changing all of the above depending on the aircraft, time of day, etc. I'll make several posts on this thread covering each and once I have checked there are no objections from various originators, I'll upload all together with batch file info.

The first is coloured gauges By exc141ac I believe with the folder hudbg0.zip which I can't find online. Personally I don't have much use for these but some may like them.

 

[mongoose]

The next is a large (one can make it smaller) H2S rader TAC display plus red HUD gauges. The H2S was done by Frosty and we both spent time calibrating when to drop the bombs using only this. I will try and sort that out. I have used this only when I am in nav/bombadier position, otherwise as a pilot I turn it off and use the map if needed. (It would be nice if we could think how to have 2 TAC displays running at the same time!)
The red gauges are from 46th Design. They had an installer one had to operate but I just took the gauges and use a batch file; a lot easier!

 

[mongoose]

The next is the radar I use for the German Nachtjagd night fighters together with a medium yellow (bracket) dot. I have the radar under TOW NF tactical but can't remember who made it. This is only used by me in the funker(?) position behind the pilot. I don't use for the pilot.
The medium yellow dot bracket (also a small one) is by Steven190 but I'm not sure where the upload is.
The other thing I would like is if the target cone was a yellow arrow; smaller; so I could move it just on the TAC to act as a vertical indicator.


I set the radar at 2 miles and then switch to the pilot to find the Lanc.

He was below me! See the small dot.

 

[mongoose]

The last for now is MajorMagee's night_fighter_ai which can be found here under Other plus a red medium dot from the same source as the yellow dot.

The is a Mossie NF looking at a Do217 NJ from 2 miles. The red dot in the top center is the 217. Because the Mossie only has the pilot position I use this only when I think enemy are around. ( Over Europe in other words)

 

[Frosty]

... I have the radar under TOW NF tactical but can't remember who made it. ...

That would also be my doing. After turning the Tactical display into a radar screen you wanted a smaller 'beam' as the real radar set didn't have 360° vision. By coloring the 'radar return' black in one of the CFS3 files, it would 'disappear from the scope' when outside the green area. I even did one that was as small as a couple of degrees. Really hard to catch a bad guy with that. Unfortunately, the bad guy had the AI advantage and had no trouble finding your AC in the dark...

 

[MajorMagee]

There's this one too.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=13&linkid=388

 

[mongoose]

I forgot that as it was a complete circle. Can't your night_fighter_ai be made a similar color etc., as that? How to change the color of the aircraft detected by the radar. I kind of like those black ones?

The other thing for vertical/altitude position of the target would be to change the target cone to an arrow which could then be positioned on or next to the TAC/radar. Any ideas?

 

[Pat Pattle]

Nice to see you getting into it again James!

Unfortunately, the bad guy had the AI advantage and had no trouble finding your AC in the dark...

Is there nothing that can be done with the ai pilots vision parameters? Also, as a thought, can they see through clouds - if I wonder if a 'dummy' cloud could be made to hinder them?

 

[NachtPiloten]

vision

Yes in the pilotconstants you can mess with this

<entry name="VisionRanges" type="int=string"
value="0=None,400=Close,1500=Normal,3000=Far,6000=Extreme" />
<entry name="VisionClasses" type="int=string"
value="0=Blind,1=Below Average,26=Average,51=Above Average,76=Superior" />
<entry name="VisionRangeMods_Class1" type="int" value="0,-100,-400,-800,-1500" />
<entry name="VisionRangeMods_Class2" type="int" value="0,0,0,0,0" />
<entry name="VisionRangeMods_Class3" type="int" value="0,525,875,1125,1000" />
<entry name="VisionRangeMods_Class4" type="int" value="0,1050,1750,2250,2000" />

It changes the display of the targets from bogey being displayed to the name of the plane. Also controls when the target planes begin to appear.

IN the viewui you have this

<Colors FriendColor="0xFF0000FF" EnemyColor="0xFFFF0000" TargetColor="0xFFFFFF00" BogieColor="0xFFFFFFFF" GoalColor="0xFFAF00AF" HumanFriendColor="0XFF00FFFF" HumanEnemyColor="0xFFFF00FF"/>

that changes the color of the blips on the radar

Just look up hexidecimal color codes to see what you need to make them like this http://wiki.sa-mp.com/wiki/Hex_colours

Ah, the possibilities are endless.....

As far as the target cone, just make a new m3d model and replace the stock one in the aircraft/shared folder, there are two in there.

So get it done

 

[MajorMagee]

[SUP]The tactical display's alpha layer controls the darkening of target indicators. To get the pips to have color you have to make the display transparent, but they still darken considerably unless the display is so transparent that it looks nearly as dark as the night sky.[/SUP]

 

[mongoose]

I knew Ted was going to be mean to me! I guess I have to relearn my already limited modeling; GIMP, gmax, etc., which I haven't looked at for 4 years!

Vision: Are you saying this works for ai pilots as well? In any case I suppose limiting them would also limit the player pilot?

We have 2 target cones already? Unless you mean the same in (3) different colours?

BTW what's the text in blue normally on the right with fuel ammo and other info called?

 

[greycap.raf]

BTW what's the text in blue normally on the right with fuel ammo and other info called?

It's also in the ViewUI.xml in the appdata folder.

<HUDText Color="0x88FFFFFF"/>

I use semi-transparent white text, the first two digits after the 0x part control the transparency and the rest define the text colour.

 

[Frosty]

I knew Ted was going to be mean to me! I guess I have to relearn my already limited modeling; GIMP, gmax, etc., which I haven't looked at for 4 years!

Vision: Are you saying this works for ai pilots as well? In any case I suppose limiting them would also limit the player pilot?

We have 2 target cones already? Unless you mean the same in (3) different colours?

BTW what's the text in blue normally on the right with fuel ammo and other info called?

Yeah, that sounds like Ted

I think you 're looking for something called 'HUD text' or the like in the viewUI. It's in the mix with HUD-gauges etc. In the same file there's TargetCone and TargetConeMetric. Maybe that's why there are two models? (Didn't study the file but glanced over it just a minute ago)

[Ah, the Flying Fin beat me to it]

 

[NachtPiloten]

James......

mean, geez it is a good thing I deleted the first message I wrote! Several years ago when the NJG tactical display came out we had a fury of conversations about these parameters. I messed around with mine to get them night friendly and alas after several upgrades and crashes....

The cone, there are two friendly and enemy if I read it correctly. It would be a bit of experimenting to make a new "cone" since we don't know the size of the object.

So James what is it that you want the "cone" to look like.....

 

[NachtPiloten]

[SUP]The tactical display's alpha layer controls the darkening of target indicators. To get the pips to have color you have to make the display transparent, but they still darken considerably unless the display is so transparent that it looks nearly as dark as the night sky.[/SUP]

Major - can you use model viewer to see what the target cone looks like and post a screen shot?

Ted

 

[mongoose]

Well let me mess around with the current cone size and color first, as well as the radar blip colors. I was thinking of a 3D arrow somewhat like the mouse pointer.
I will send you a pic of the target cone if you still want it.

Was there something about the TAC display we discussed that hasn't been implemented in the TOW NF tactical which seems quite good?

What about the ai vision and it's effects on player vision?

Chk email in 5 for target cone pics

RE: IN the viewui you have this

<Colors FriendColor="0xFF0000FF" EnemyColor="0xFFFF0000" TargetColor="0xFFFFFF00" BogieColor="0xFFFFFFFF" GoalColor="0xFFAF00AF" HumanFriendColor="0XFF00FFFF" HumanEnemyColor="0xFFFF00FF"/> END

I see 8 letters excluding 0x while there seem to be only 6 in the color code info??
EDIT. OK are the first 2 letters after "0x" the transparency??

 

[mongoose]

Can anyone work out if one can move the target cone as one can with HUD gauges,TAC Display, and HUD text? I don't seem to be able to with the mouse anyway.

Re the colours, I assume these apply to the target cone as well as the TAC blips?

 

[gecko]

Here's an idea for a "cone". It would actually be more like a box with the front of the box removed, so you are looking into the box at the inside of the back panel and the top, bottom, and left and right sides are pointing back towards you. The pivot point of the box is in the middle of the removed front side of the box. The box is black, or generically radar screen colored with a brightly colored single horizontal bar running across the back panel. This is the target blip. When the box points toward a target, the horizontal bar will appear to move up and down to give the relative altitude of the target, but will have very limited relative bearing direction (the line would move off center a bit). The sides of the box limit the angle at which you can see the target blip, as the box rotates the sides will start to obscure the blip. The distance the sides stick out towards you determines the viewing angle. Combine this with one of the TAC mods and you have range, bearing, and altitude info as you should, but it is limited, with no dead giveaway arrow pointing directly to your target. You'll still have to work for it to get your target lined up enough to have a general idea of where to look to make visual contact.

 

[NachtPiloten]

OK

This sounds doable and I like the idea of making it a challenge. Since the further off axis the target was the less effective the radar.

 

[MajorMagee]

Hex addresses C7 and EB control the transparency of the target cone features in the current targetcone m3d files. The three pairs of values prior to each of those addresses (C4 C5 C6 or E8 EA EB) control the color (BRG values) if you want to experiment with the look prior to building a new model file.