radar sphere size

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Thu May 01, 2014 7:50 am

Is there a way to make the radar sphere larger? I have a ccpitblue1 texture that is just a black box, essentially, and when looking at it this way, the central radar sphere seems to take up a very small proportion of the screen. I have the meanings of the blip colors memorized, so I don't need the helpful hints on the side.

Post by **DaveK** » Thu May 01, 2014 10:59 am

From post: 169478, Topic: tid=11371, author=Nigel_Strange wrote:Is there a way to make the radar sphere larger? I have a ccpitblue1 texture that is just a black box, essentially, and when looking at it this way, the central radar sphere seems to take up a very small proportion of the screen. I have the meanings of the blip colors memorized, so I don't need the helpful hints on the side.

I think that I read i the forum that you can reposition the sphere so it closer to you and hence appears larger. There are plenty of HUD mods that you can mine for an instrument panel layout that either gives you a bit more room or that you can alter in a graphics programme. I did something similar to let me put ship's coordinates and % shield strengths in the panel

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Thu May 01, 2014 1:27 pm

from the customization kit readme refering to gauges;

Optional 3D gauge/display positions (used to accomodate custom cockpits):

gauges.txt = 1st value sets the left display's vertical position, default is 0.0
2nd value sets the left display's horizontal position, default is 0.0
3rd value sets the left display's rotation angle, default is 20
4th value sets the center display's vertical position, default is 0.0
5th value sets the center display's horizontal position, default is 0.0
6th value sets the center display's rotation angle, default is 0
7th value sets the right display's vertical position, default is 0.0
8th value sets the right display's horizontal position, default is 0.0
9th value sets the right display's rotation angle, default is 20
10th value sets the target object's vertical position, default is 1.98
11th value sets the target object's horizontal position, default is 2.77
12th value sets the 3D radar sphere's vertical position, default is 0.0
13th value sets the 3D radar sphere's horizontal position, default is 0.0
14th value sets the left display's distance, default is 0.0
15th value sets the center display's distance, default is 0.0
16th value sets the right display's distance, default is 0.0
17th value sets the target object's distance, default is 0.0
18th value sets the 3D radar sphere's distance, default is 0.0
19th value sets the 3D radar sphere display's shadow horizontal position, default is 0.0
20th value sets the 3D radar sphere display's shadow vertical position, default is 0.0
21st value sets the 3D radar sphere display's shadow distance position, default is 0.0
22nd value sets the left display's shadow horizontal position, default is 0.0
23rd value sets the left display's shadow vertical position, default is 0.0
24th value sets the left display's shadow distance position, default is 0.0
25th value sets the right display's shadow horizontal position, default is 0.0
26th value sets the right display's shadow vertical position, default is 0.0
27th value sets the right display's shadow distance position, default is 0.0

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Thu May 01, 2014 2:40 pm

If I m move the sphere closer, will all the radar blips move closer too?

Also, won't it pop out of the screen and look funny if it's closer?

Capt_Caveman · Post by **Capt_Caveman** » Thu May 01, 2014 3:26 pm

sphere and blips are all moved and scaled together
no problems there

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Thu May 01, 2014 4:04 pm

I might try making the sphere closer and see how that plays out. If it works nicely, I might include screenshots of the mod.

Thanks!

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 1:44 am

I tried various values for this and I could not notice any difference.

Default is 0.0

Tried:

1.0
-1.0
2.0
-2.0
0.5

They sphere looked the same in each case. The values of the rest of the gauges.txt do not go over 3, so I figured that using smallish numbers would give a noticeable result. Perhaps Vice can add some wisdom here...

Post by **Vice** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:01 am

Line 18 will adjust the distance placement (so after you adjust that, you may also want to adjust the vertical placement as needed to align where you want). One key to remember is to place the gauges.txt file inside the \\hud folder and not the root install folder. If that checks out, also make sure you didn't accidently name the file gauges.txt.txt or something.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:04 am

Misplaced the file. I'll try again.

What number should I use to make it big enough to fill up the square, but not big enough to cover up the lateral vectors? Should I go with negative values?

Post by **Vice** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:22 am

Yes, negative values will move it back. It'll probably take a bit of experimenting to get the placement you prefer. I could only guess what two values might line up with the box but remain below the lateral velocity gauges. I'd start with tenths of negative numbers for the distance value first, maybe start at -0.5 and go up or down from there to get the overall size you want, then adjust the vertical placement to get the elevation you want relative to the size you select.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:29 am

Here's what worked for me:

distance -0.5
v-offset 0.2

Here is what it looks like:

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:31 am

Another idea I had was that I wondered if you could use transparencies on the PNG files for the MFD, so that the information would appear to be floating in front of some background.

Post by **Vice** » Fri May 02, 2014 3:45 am

Another adjustment you might want to try is line 4 which specifies the elevation of the lateral velocity gauges. A value somewhere in the 0.05-0.2 range might place them up higher and out of the way of the 3D radar sphere.

Post by **Marvin** » Fri May 02, 2014 3:49 am

Interesting adjustment.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 4:15 am

Thanks. I'll give it a go.

Post by **DaveK** » Fri May 02, 2014 9:17 am

Very interesting - at my age, having the important bits of the HUD bigger is good - I'm happy to lose some of the eyecandy if necessary!

Busch · Post by **Busch** » Fri May 02, 2014 1:29 pm

Looks like you're getting there, Nigel.

Did you gin up your own grid.png file? Noticing no secondary hash marks on the latitude/longitude lines in the above screen shot. Really clean presentation. Does your globe tweak fill the entire 'box' and shadow area ? Or is there a bit of a margin ? One of my concerns in attempting to re-craft the gauges.txt file is what's now being addressed with the horizontal and vertical drift/strafe indicators within the radar globe MFD. That's aside from my main concern about doing something really ignorant and crashing the game.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:25 pm

The larger globe looks fine and stays on the screen. It does not intrude on the strafe indicators. If you look at the screenshot, the top of the globe is slightly to the left of the lateral drift indicator.

Modifying the gauges.txt file was not hard, but it did require some trial and error. I don't think anything in the file will cause the game to crash, but I did find that some of the earlier trials caused the sphere to vanish entirely.

Had I been wearing my head tracking hat, I might have had a better time finding my sphere as it moved around the cockpit!

However, at one point, the sphere was actually hanging in front of the windscreen. I thought this was a kind of bizarre placement, but I could see through it, and I thought that were the cockpit more transparent, this information might display against a clear background, so I wondered about using transparent PNG files for the MFD indicators.

In older Starwraith games, if you turned off the HUD, the MFDs were not black, but you could see through them, to the cockpit material behind them, so I thought it would be interesting to have the MFD info displayed on a transparent screen, with the cockpit visible behind them. Just eye candy, though: it would not add to the clarity of the display.

Busch · Post by **Busch** » Fri May 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Thanks for the tips, Nigel. I think that I'll give it a shot, enlarging and moving the radar globe MFD down a bit and moving the others further to the right and left respectively. My luck had been of the non-existent type of late, so it may take me a bit to do this.

Post by **DaveK** » Fri May 02, 2014 10:02 pm

Me too - especially if Vice takes on blip size changes request

Post by **Marvin** » Sat May 03, 2014 1:01 am

Nigel, could you bundle the mod (graphic and file) and pass it on to SeeJay for inclusion in his selection of mods?

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Sat May 03, 2014 2:14 am

Yes...yes I can.

Go here: http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtop ... #pid169582

Busch · Post by **Busch** » Sat May 03, 2014 2:21 am

Thank you, Nigel !

Very