[Suggestion] [Legacy] - Animated Images for Modding & IDS multiplier Preset

[Misunderstood Wookie]

Animated Image Files for Modding
Incorporate greyscale .gif or multiple sets of images like the way the missile target lock works (MTDS2- 1-10) set of images so that modding allows animated graphics for HUD elements.

Kudos if it is already possible by using a naming factor like MTDS2.png uses.

Just a thought as I would love to animate a few gunsight elements and provide a few animated effects around the cockpit.


IDS Preset
So I noticed using the numpad numbers you could raise or lower your IDS speed value, this might be crazy but could we maybe get a option to have IDS be on a preset so that the default IDS multiplier was say set too x5 instead of x1

[Edited on 2/3/2016 by Misunderstood Wookie]

[Marvin]

The use of GIFs has been suggested ... more for quest imaging than anything else. But Vice's explanation made it clear that the additional coding would be prohibitive.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

All good cheers for response.

[Radikal]

The use of GIFs has been suggested ... more for quest imaging than anything else. But Vice's explanation made it clear that the additional coding would be prohibitive.

What about animated jpeg files? Is it just that the coding would be prohibitive for any animation?

[Vice]

GIF files can have internal animation, which isn't something that can be supported. JPG's could be, but PNG is the standard format providing some compression benefits but still with 1:1 image quality.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

So if something like was to be available for modding, it would work similar to the huds heat animation requiring a set of appropriate images one for each frame?

[Vice]

Like the MDTS lock and alert indicators, the half-dozen or so that currently support animation, yes, a series of images.

[Marvin]

Well, if you can figure out how to do that with PNG files, that would be so cool. (Think of all the animated monitors in the cockpit.)

[Misunderstood Wookie]

He already has it working , most of the animated gunsight elements already are a series of .png images which are played in sequence. My suggestion was mainly to get .gif to work but since this work all vice has to do when he gets time is make the other cockpit elements also work with the animation system then we could say have animated borders around the displays things like that.

Best to animate I could see would be to make an animation set in photoshop or import the base image into an animation effect studio program and just export each frame as .PNG. exciting things if we could animate everything.

[Vice]

Animation is selectively applied due to the potentially enormous memory overhead required to support it. Even the small images currently available for the alerts, warning indicators, and lock indicators consume the 128X128XDepth for each frame times all of the indicators that use it. And those need to be preloaded and held in memory to be ready to apply as textures (it's not feasible to try and load them from disk every time they need to play). Performance in texturing is also a factor (which is why the 128X128 is used). So you could probably imagine the kind of memory spike you'd get trying to handle a huge set of additional 512X512 or 1024X1024 images, not to mention performance implications, depending on how often you wanted them to play/loop. A weak system could be dropped to a slideshow or just crash out while even good performing systems would suffer significant framerate reductions. Better to use solid good looking individual images for the higher resolution elements and employ the smaller animated ones for the indicators that can use them effectively.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

Hmm fair enough, just wondering how other engines manage to have animations everywhere but probably a completely different type of integration which uses GPU over memory.

I had some ideas for this actually, some textures I noticed would be better off switched over to a particle system like the docking shield, thrusters and that kind of thing. There are advantages to this method such as the player has control over how many particles can be displayed, and the LOD they appear at. This would actually boost performance for some I think.
Not to mention this method would allow for much more complex visuals at the expense of GPU rather than memory overhead.

I am sure you probably tried already and found it to be a negative impact or require too much re-writing which is fair enough.