Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Terrain Editor => Topic started by: crowbaby on October 05, 2002, 09:29:04 AM

Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 05, 2002, 09:29:04 AM: Would it be possible in a future version that we could skin plane specific gauges? If it could be implemented in a similar way to the optional sounds, e.g. default is "ALT" "TEMP" "RPM", etc. but if there is a bmp named "190A8ALT" this would be used instead for the named plane.

Obviously i'm completely ignorant of the programming involved, but could this be done, available to everyone as plane specific sounds are, or just in the same way as we can now change object textures in the terrain editor?

I think it would add a lot to immersion, and with a bit of tweaking allow folk to have metric cockpits.

(i'm looking at the site
and dreaming) (http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/fw190cockpit/CockPitMap.html)
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: vorticon on October 05, 2002, 11:09:47 AM: YOU CAN SKIN EVERYTHING. you just have to edit the correct bitmaps an make sure things are relativly close to where they should be i suppose
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 05, 2002, 11:18:39 AM: I know it's possible to skin everything, i'm already having fun with hangers :)

the only problem is - gauges are generic, if i reskin them to look like my beautiful 190 gauges, then every plane will have metric, not just the 190 - i'd like to see an option where we could reskin them for specific planes.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 09, 2002, 07:51:29 AM: e.g.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 09, 2002, 07:53:13 AM: i think it adds something :)

but obviously i don't know how much work it would require, and i'm only guessing that there's a demand for it.

(metric altimeter is a bit of a botch job, but it works)
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: newguy on October 09, 2002, 10:11:22 AM: thats a sweet looking cockpit crowbaby. I havent even looked at gauges yet, but is it be possible to remove the ammo counters? Not the ones you have in, which the germans used in many planes, but the generic ones? Your right that would add to immersion :)

newguy
ASSASSIN
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 09, 2002, 10:23:50 AM: Unfortunately the position and functioning of the guages can't be changed, and i think that would be a hell of a programming headache anyway.

What might be possible is to just 'tweak' the programming a little so that different planes could use different bitmaps for their guages/needles/etc. rather than the generic ones that we have now. After all, we rarely get to see other planes up close (unless we're chasing a good stallfighter) but we all spend hours looking at the insides of our cockpits...
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 14, 2002, 03:49:24 AM: The A6M5b:
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 14, 2002, 03:50:42 AM: I didn't spend as long on this one, i couldn't justify more than a dozen hours on a feature that hasn't been implemented yet :)
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: Sky Viper on October 14, 2002, 05:41:51 AM: Quote
Originally posted by crowbaby
Unfortunately the position and functioning of the guages can't be changed, and i think that would be a hell of a programming headache anyway.

What might be possible is to just 'tweak' the programming a little so that different planes could use different bitmaps for their guages/needles/etc. rather than the generic ones that we have now. After all, we rarely get to see other planes up close (unless we're chasing a good stallfighter) but we all spend hours looking at the insides of our cockpits...

I'm no programer, but I wouldn't think it too difficult to add a math function to display in metric.
Perhaps, they could just put a button on the clipboard?

BTW, AWESOME look Crow!
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: 10Bears on October 14, 2002, 12:04:07 PM: That's beautiful work Crowbaby!

Maybe down the road HTC will let us subdivide the texrc folder.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: ramzey on October 14, 2002, 12:53:06 PM: 10Bears HTC cannot do that:( that give possibilyty to cheat.
Only aproved skins by HTC, included in oryginal HTC files can by placed in the game

Crowbaby nice work:)
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: 10Bears on October 14, 2002, 02:47:22 PM: Sorry for misunderstanding.

subfolder for FW190A-8, KI-61 etc so he can have his Japanese or German lettering

All these subfolders placed in the texrc folder to be build into terrain... not a cheat.

Hey BTW you cockpit artists will include at least one pin up? :)
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: ramzey on October 14, 2002, 02:54:48 PM: now im understand:) sounds good for me:)

pin up? like Stalin photo in la7 cockpit? :D :D :D
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: pokie on October 14, 2002, 05:09:38 PM: Quote
Originally posted by 10Bears
Maybe down the road HTC will let us subdivide the texrc folder.

Ya, that would be a good idea. The texsrc folder can sure get crowded :)

Pokie
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: Kweassa on October 14, 2002, 07:45:50 PM: That is just EXCELLENT!! Crow, you sure know how to skin them interiors!

HTC, we really need a sub-directories accounting for each plane textures as in sound folders!!
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: ramzey on October 14, 2002, 07:57:17 PM: but that must be integral part of AH, chose skin option
That cannot works same like sounds or gunsights.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: Kweassa on October 14, 2002, 08:59:13 PM: Actually, it is VERY much like the sound folders, almost exact same in general concept.

Texture skinning's actually pretty simple in theory, and as we can see in the case of the terrain editor, the 3D model uses both exterior and interior depictions by simply using textures in BMP format. If it was something hard-modelled like the cockpits in IL-2, it would be 'integral'.

Thus, the problem is when the terrain is loaded, the 3D model chooses different BMP textures to "paste" on to the polygons. The exterior textures are pasted individually, according to planes, while the interiors are pasted with only one generic source. If HTC can designate the interior texture source to be also pasted in a plane-specific manner, the problem can pretty much be easily solved.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: hitech on October 15, 2002, 08:30:17 AM: Not with out some major changes cowboy.

The resone lots of planes share gauges is simply download size and tex memory requirements.
Title: Request to Hitech?
Post by: crowbaby on October 15, 2002, 08:36:53 AM: I understand. I had been hoping it would be a small change, ah well, i'll have to learn to skin the outsides instead.

I do appreciate you letting us know, thanks.