Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: glzsqd on February 01, 2015, 03:13:42 PM
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Any one care to explain how I would go about this?
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Get in touch with Bustr
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Any one care to explain how I would go about this?
PM Bustr he's pretty much the god of gun sights.
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I have the first prototype ready. The gunsight is the X wing vs Tie fighter cross hair I'll post it later tonight
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If you are making gunsights to give yourself something that looks good to you, and you can aim with it. You are on your way.
If there are effects you want to impose on that "window within a window mask" area that displays your bitmap drawing. I have some experience for what it's worth. I suspect you have my historic package and that is not what you want to create. Nor interested in using gunsights in the manner the manuals I provided outline.
Just remember, the color red will disappear in the clutter of several enemy Icons. And causes eye focus issues between focusing on the far field then switching to the near field. Cyan, orange, yellow, white and magenta work better for that.
In the end, (speaking of end, I've seen at least one literal gunsight with a lady..well) what ever you aim with, the game physics will not be changed by it. So you will still need to understand how gunnery works as effected by "G" forces, elevation orientation, relative speed and distance. The active gyro's in the K14 attempted to remove this skillset from the pilot's workload to make gunnery the realm of the average pilot versus the natural.
The darker value of a color in the mask, the lighter it shows in the game gunsight. So the opposite holds true for luminosity. Most colors will be washed out to look white in any case between 08:00 and 16:00 unless held over something you are shooting at. And remember, don't get disappointed when what works for you like a semi aimbot. Other players scratch their heads and complain about the clutter of your aiming structures and don't understand your explanation of how to use it.
I will venture about half the air combat players in our game use a dot. And the single biggest reason, is to unclutter the view through the reflector plate glass viewing area.
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bustr,
do you have in your collection a gunsight with a green dot and a small circle around it?
it used to be in aksketch gunsight pack but file not found on internet anymore.
will be glad to use it again. thank you!
the rUG
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I have the 2009 Sketchworks zip file. Hope it's in there.
http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/hpoEWYt8/file.html
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Thanks Bustr...
I looked for these sights on AK.com and had no luck. We can get them back in our archive now.
I would like to know more about how to create/modify gunsights. Do you have a guide of some kind?
Thanks again!
:salute
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I have the 2009 Sketchworks zip file. Hope it's in there.
oh my lawwwd! thank you!
it's the green_dot gun sight that i love!!
watch out gents i can shoot straight now!!!
:rock :rock :rock
:salute
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Thanks Bustr...
I looked for these sights on AK.com and had no luck. We can get them back in our archive now.
I would like to know more about how to create/modify gunsights. Do you have a guide of some kind?
Thanks again!
:salute
Gaussian blur is your friend since you can turn a 1 pixel wide line into a 5 pixel wide gradient. Primary colors show as that color in the gunsight mask. Lighter variations on any color washes out to white in that mask until you place it over something while aiming or during low light conditions. The darker you make a color it starts to disappear and replace the dark gray background mask of the reflector plate glass pixel for pixel only. Creating with a 512x512 bitmap mask, 1Mil = 2 pixel. Cyan, magenta, yellow and orange unlike red don't cause eye focus confusion.
You can wallpaper your bitmap mask with a ghost image like a mudflap girl if you reduce it's H S V, V value between 3-10 if it's monochrome. Or reduce the luminosity of the whole picture. If you add low V value masks, you will clutter your view but, everyone wants to look at a mudflap girl silhouette or, a 19 year old Jenny McCarthy in their 4-Hog....... Just remember you will need to reduce your Mil file size control number to about 112 or 128 to get the image to show up in the game sized to the reflector plate in planes that don't project the image up onto the windscreen or wide glass plate........
Or did you want to know about historic gunsights rather than something giggidy, giggidyish with a bright dot-O-death pasty to aim with?
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You give me too much credit, Bustr.
I'm a noob.
What program do you use to edit with?
Why are some of Sketch's gun sights white on magenta?
Is there only one acceptable gun sight dimension in AH?
What are some common mistakes people make when trying to create a sight?
That kind of stuff.
:salute
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Heres a link to my First custom Gun sight. Any thoughts or comments?
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,365206.150.html
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glzsqd,
The bitmap I looked at has a white background. How did that work out for you as the mask when you loaded it up? I loaded it and had to look around the sides of the gunsight to see forward. Or is it like my cats hide their eyes behind their paws and think they are invisible?
Here try these. Remember to copy both the bmp and mil file for each one to your sights directory.
http://www30.zippyshare.com/v/LPEsXTBg/file.html
You give me too much credit, Bustr.
I'm a noob.
What program do you use to edit with?
Why are some of Sketch's gun sights white on magenta?
Is there only one acceptable gun sight dimension in AH?
What are some common mistakes people make when trying to create a sight?
That kind of stuff.
:salute
What program do you use to edit with?
I use Paint.Net.
Why are some of Sketch's gun sights white on magenta?
Magenta used to be the mask for custom gunsights so when they are displayed in the Window called the gunsight, the magenta will not show up. Sometimes when you open one persons magenta bitmap on your machine to edit it, when you save it, the game does not like it. Black is the other color that acts as a mask which I use. I've never had the problem I do with magenta.
Is there only one acceptable gun sight dimension in AH?
No.
I have not tested all of them but, I suspect you can use everything from 32x32 to 512x512. HTC default is 256x256. I build in 512x512 which for the game can be said is Mil calibrated. 1Mil = 2 pixel. But, in that format you have to include a size control file with the number 256 in it. Then it has to have the same name as the bitmap file but, with a <.mil> extension.
gunsight.bmp needs gunsight.mil
Once you have the mil file you can use any number in iterations of 16 to resize the gunsight. The number 256 will make a 200 pixel diameter ring a 100Mil ring in the game.
If you only use a dot and want to make custom dots. A 64x64 or 128x128 saves on space.
What are some common mistakes people make when trying to create a sight?
1. - You need to keep about a 5 pixel boarder clear of any other color to your bitmap. Or the other color will bleed into your gunsight's reflector plate. Looks bad in the F4U's and Tempest.
2. - You need to save your bitmap in 8bit or it won't show when you load it.
3. - When you are using lighter colors, sometimes after a save in the art program. When you pull up the gunsight to test it, you have pin holes like you put black in those spots. Then you either have to change the luminosity value of the whole gunsight or place a slightly darker version of the color in each of those points.
4. - If you change to a custom FoV at the Video Settings option when the first game splash screen is up. You are also shrinking the gunsight reflector plate. This means you are also shrinking your gunsight. If you have a work of art with lots of structures in it. Suddenly they block your view. And very often you need to hit zoom to make them coherent.
5. - Red looks macho, neet and all that stuff. It also causes problems with focusing your eye past into the far ground then back onto the red structures. Also, the first time you attack a large group of cons, your red gunsight and the red Icons clutter up together. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Orange don't do this to your eye. Cyan is the least disruptive and most effective in the game. But, some guys got a thing going for red.
6. - Point and click gunsights really only work for rockets and dive bombing. And then the amount of time you put into using it develops a muscle memory of sorts. That is why a few times a year someone comes in here asking for a specific custom gunsight someone gave them years ago. They used it so much at one time, the combination of the structures and aiming aids with their muscle memory gets in the way of using other gunsights to shoot rockets or drop bombs. It takes time to develop the same skill with a different gunsight.
So to there are no point and click semi aimbot air to air gunnery gunsights. In most cases, bad aim is due to a laundry list of things you need to correct before worrying about your gunsight. Or bribe Hitech into giving us an active K14 gyro compensating gunsight. But, then you would be stuck in four rides. And if your air combat piloting skills are not very good. Those who's skills are better than yours, will still clean up on you. Just much faster with an active lead computing gunsight in the MA. It would still come down to who has better skills.
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Bustr,
This was exactly what I needed to understand the process. Your last two paragraphs make a lot of sense. I've been using the Mark IX for the last 7 or 8 months at the recommendation from Ryno's Gunnery Course and I've developed the muscle memory for it. AKDream gave me a A-G sight years ago that provides 'reasonable' aim points for JABO rockets and bombs. I haven't really seen a better one but I'd like to try to refine it. Sketch has one for the Wirbelwind in the folder that I tried last night - 'Wirbly' - with some success.
I know a few people who just put a dot in the center of their monitor with a dry erase marker. That works too, I suppose, if it's what you are used to. My Asus monitor has a gunsight mode that will put a circle and crosshairs right in the middle of the screen. I haven't tried it though.
I'm going to play with the 'Dreamsight' and I'll let you know how it works out.
Thank you for all you do for Aces High and those knuckleheads like me that won't quit learning something new.
:salute
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glzsqd,
The bitmap I looked at has a white background. How did that work out for you as the mask when you loaded it up? I loaded it and had to look around the sides of the gunsight to see forward. Or is it like my cats hide their eyes behind their paws and think they are invisible?
The Black background Didn't made the sight nearly invisible against the sky and water. The white background made it allot better on my end, this is what i see
(http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r561/folanjohnp1/PIC_zps75537a23.jpg)
The gunsight is from an old star wars game and shouldn't be as practical as some of the others that are out there, although funny enough my aim has improved since I started using it.
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oh nooooooo now i know what your view will be when ya squeeze the trigger ... System: You shot down MAGIC58 #41 :bolt:
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I suggest making custom rocket gunsights displaying lines with a range indicator. I have this one sight just absolutely perfect for the P51D rockets and you can pick off AA from a mile out.
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The Black background Didn't made the sight nearly invisible against the sky and water. The white background made it allot better on my end, this is what i see
(http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r561/folanjohnp1/PIC_zps75537a23.jpg)
The gunsight is from an old star wars game and shouldn't be as practical as some of the others that are out there, although funny enough my aim has improved since I started using it.
Interesting, if I save your bitmap directly to my sights folder and use it, the white mask acts like a black or magenta mask. If I open it in an art program first to look at it and then use it. The game shows me the white mask. Maybe Waffle can explain that phenomenon.
Its a 100Mil diameter with cyan vector rays at 27 degrees, medium blue center dot\oblong, and a medium blue rectangle 50Milx85Mil. But, if you don't use zoom, the thickness of those ray structures are ideal for none zoomed shooting. 15 pixel wide lines show up very well in non zoomed mode. I will venture you use the horizontal sides of the rectangle for low E 10-20 degree deflection shots while relying on the vector rays in higher E turns and to point down at a con passing under you to line up the vector for a deflection shot. The bottom of the dark blue rectangle you probably use for dive bombing and determining elevation for firing from above while diving down on a con. Over the years some players have liked the HTC 6-star K14 reticle for the same reasons.
Why don't you make a cleaned up copy of it that looks like a WW2 gunsight would possibley have projected it? Going through the steps of accomplishing that will teach you a lot about making gunsights. Just use cyan and medium blue and it will stand out like your screen capture. You can make your center blob a round dot.
You can do this with a medium blue 50Mil ring then pull cyan 27 degree 15 pixel wide lines. Then place a 6-12 Mil cyan dot in the center. By the way, your center dot in your bitmap is below the center point the convergence app aims at. Essentially giving you a relative speed compensation out to about 400yds with a 50 cal in a level 6 chase.
The center dot being a vertical oblong, makes me wonder if the actual bitmap in it's game, isn't wider and the rectangle actually a square with a round dot in the center. I seem to remember years ago seeing the reticle from that game and the center was a box while the ray vectors went out farther on each side representing the wings of the X-Wing you were flying in. Did you compress the sides to fit this game? Weren't the ray vector lines more uniform across their length and less stretched tear drop shaped, with the green dots on each end representing the blasters?
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The plan is to clean it up, the one I have there is really just a rough draft so to speak. The sight itself is probably warped, was cropped from a Screen shot i had lying around. I used MS paint, but I'm currently reloading Photoshop so ill be able to play around with it abit more.
I noticed the center dot seemed off in game so i just kinda blotched one in where I felt it would be centered.
The ray vectors did indeed represent the Blaster cannons for the X-wing. Ill post the other Sights I've managed to throw together in the last couple of days.
Thanks for the response
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I suggest...
Do they let you play AH there in North Korea Stealth?