[EL] Evochron TNG - a HUD mod

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 10:12 pm

Evochron The Next Generation: a HUD mod ver 1.0
(See what I did there?)

Premise:
This started as a HUD mod to make things less busy and easier to read. It seems to have transmogrified itself into some kind of ambience mod. Thanks to Vice releasing a cockpit viewer utilty program. While a minor PITA, this mod is nothing but simple edits, Nothing to write home about.

Options:
- If you want the larger radar, rename "gauges.txt.bak" to "gauges.txt" located in the HUD directory.
- If you want the blinding white light of hyperspace back, remove "hidefade.txt" located in this mods root directory.

Installation:
JSGME - If you have JSGME, it should unpack into your mods directory without any trouble.
No JSGME - just unzip the hud subdirectory contained within this rar file, into your Evocrhon Legacy install directory.

Permissions:
Public Domian. Use, edit, merge, recompile, etc, etc, as you see fit. I could care less.

Known issues:
- Laser weapons won't sound exactly like a phaser. This is because the weapon pulses and doesnt acutally fire as a constant.

- While you can still adjust the color of the HUD in the options menu, the coloration will not reflect what the menu says. This is because the game expects blue tinted HUD textures by default. In order to maintain theme, I had to change the base texture color from blue to tan. I found this neccessary because Evochron Legacy doesnt seem to allow you to adjust the gunsight and the rest of the HUD independent of one another. The gunsight remains as the default blue, and will properly reflect menu adjustment options.

Credits:
vice
- for gauges.txt that enlarges radar hud.
- evochron cockpit viewer.

The changes are very subtle:
mods shown in screenshots but not included:
- font
- chat window to left

The not so subtle changes.

------

Download:

HUD: Evocrhon TNG ver 1.0 - JSGME ready

Now with this at a stopping point... now i can finally go back to playing.

[Edited on 3-19-2016 by Ducimus]

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 2:02 am

Looks good. What kind of pixelation do you get with the enlarged radar?

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 2:19 am

What do I need to do to get that larger radar? Thanks.

Never mind, I found it.

[Edited on 3-1-2016 by 49rTbird]

Misunderstood Wookie · Tue Mar 01, 2016 2:33 am

I like it. Seems more people are jumping on the hud bandwagon which is a good thing.. less clutter is really good, I like that it keeps the vanilla style of the hud as well. It's different from my team's project which is good more choices for people is a good thing.

Keep up the good work.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 3:13 am

From post: 186124, Topic: tid=12501, author=Marvin wrote:Looks good. What kind of pixelation do you get with the enlarged radar?

The texture surrounding the radar globe. Vanilla its a pretty low resolution to begin with 512X512 i think. I upped it to 1024 but didn't notice any difference aside from the hud color options menu being skewed in its presentation, so i left the texture at its default size.

From post: 186129, Topic: tid=12501, author=49rTbird wrote:What do I need to do to get that larger radar? Thanks.

http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12360

From post: 186131, Topic: tid=12501, author=Misunderstood Wookie wrote:I like it. Seems more people are jumping on the hud bandwagon which is a good thing.. less clutter is really good, I like that it keeps the vanilla style of the hud as well. It's different from my team's project which is good more choices for people is a good thing.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks. The thing about the HUD is its in your face, ALL the time. Its not some gameplay feature that is only occasionally encountered. I like functionality, and I like ease of use. I think the next thing I'm going to have to address is the target reticles.

Misunderstood Wookie · Tue Mar 01, 2016 4:39 am

Funny you mention that as that is what I am working right now as well

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 5:31 am

From post: 186134, Topic: tid=12501, author=Ducimus wrote:The thing about the HUD is its in your face, ALL the time.

Like Legends and Mercenary before it, EL has 3 HUD modes: off, minimum and full. The "off" mode would make for cool cruising ... except it also turns off all the cockpit readouts.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 1:20 pm

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't want a HUD. It's just that if there is something that bothers you about it, that something is always there to remind you. To put it another way, its like playing a FPS where the gun firing sounds are ear screeching loud, or too soft. If the sound file is accessible, there why not adjust the volume scaling on the file?

Marcellus · Post by **Marcellus** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:49 pm

I like the simplified wing commander style radar at the end, not a big fan of the globe radar style. Can you make a download version of that?

[Edited on 3-1-2016 by Marcellus]

[Edited on 3-1-2016 by Marcellus]

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 10:39 pm

From post: 186177, Topic: tid=12501, author=Marcellus wrote:I like the simplified wing commander style radar at the end, not a big fan of the globe radar style.

Press the NumPad plus (+) button. For range, press the NumPad Enter button.

matchbox2022 · Post by **matchbox2022** » Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:08 pm

From post: 186177, Topic: tid=12501, author=Marcellus wrote:I like the simplified wing commander style radar at the end, not a big fan of the globe radar style. Can you make a download version of that?

[Edited on 3-1-2016 by Marcellus]

[Edited on 3-1-2016 by Marcellus]

To each their own

Your avatar is great. Super underappreciated movie..

Marco · Post by **Marco** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:15 am

How do you install this with a steam install of EL?

I really like the green HUD.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:38 am

From post: 186191, Topic: tid=12501, author=Marco wrote:How do you install this with a steam install of EL?

I really like the green HUD.

Just like you would any other mod. Get JSGME, there's a link floating around here someplace. If you can't find it, I KNOW you can find it at subsim.com. I used to mod Silent Hunter 3 and 4 for a number of years awhile ago and I always get a kick when i see JSGME mentioned in other game forums; because that utility was actually designed/programmed by a member of the sub sim modding community many years ago. Anywho......

JSGME aside (you don't really need it unless you run a lot of mods or the games directory structure is complicated), just unzip the hud subdirectory in the rar file to your Evocrhon legacy directory.

Your steam install directory may be different then mine, but the path will be the same. On my system it is:

C:\\games\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Evochron Legacy\\

Just unzip the hud directory in the rar file there. It won't already exist, but it will once you unpack it. To uninstall just delete the hud subdirectory. No muss, no fuss.

Post by **Marvin** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:42 pm

From post: 186199, Topic: tid=12501, author=Ducimus wrote:I used to mod Silent Hunter 3 and 4 for a number of years awhile ago....

I knew it. Only one Ducimus roaming the Internet. Btw, JSGME can be found at SeeJay's website. Jones did modders a major favor with that little program.

Marco · Post by **Marco** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 8:51 pm

Thanks for the replies. I'll check out that tool on seejays website.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 8:51 pm

From post: 186203, Topic: tid=12501, author=Marvin wrote:
From post: 186199, Topic: tid=12501, author=Ducimus wrote:I used to mod Silent Hunter 3 and 4 for a number of years awhile ago....
I knew it. Only one Ducimus roaming the Internet. Btw, JSGME can be found at SeeJay's website. Jones did modders a major favor with that little program.

There's more then one Ducimus floating around. There's just not that many of them.

Anyway, i'm going to stop working on this. I was just killing some time while I wait for my el cheapo Thrustmaster HOTAS to arrive from amazon. However, It's starting to take up too much of my free time, which is a precious commodity for me these days. I uploaded a slightly updated HUD along with the reshade.me settings im using.

Post by **Marvin** » Sat Mar 05, 2016 10:37 pm

From post: 186379, Topic: tid=12501, author=Ducimus wrote:There's more then one Ducimus floating around.

Munchausen said he only knows one who could put together a package like the one you put together for Silent Hunter. Maybe when you get more time (and EL has a wider selection of mods) you'll be able to do something similar here.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:41 pm

In case anyone besides myself actually uses this, i uploaded a new version. Looking at other hud mods gave me the idea to clean up the gunsight a bit more. It was still a bit busy with superfluous art. I also added a slight shade to the areas where the digital readouts on the HUD are, in hopes to make it easier to see in some environments.

Removed reshade settings, after playing with them for awhile, I think their junk. Ambient occlusion does nothing but create lag with no discernible benefit. The image was being sharpened too much, the bloom and such were completely unnecessary, and the color corrections just didn't mesh well. Reworking said file with just a few items. Given how varied the environments are, I think keeping things simple is a much better approach.

matchbox2022 · Post by **matchbox2022** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:35 am

I'll give her a spin.

I find reshades are ok, bloom and adjusting colour hues can be a nice effect.
But you're right, some systems it really ends up bogging down, and if the game engine can't do the effect...its bogged for zero reason.

But turning down the gamma and amping contrast and saturation makes my game look freaking amazing, and no fps hit at all.

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:17 pm

So I couldn't help myself and started playing around with that cockpit viewer vice made. I simply could not resist.

Believe it or not, I am not a Treky. I originally wanted to do something with space shuttle control layouts. Problem is, the way the cockpit is rendered, your dealing with what appears to be flat screen LCD readouts around the cockpit, which simply wouldn't do with a dials and flip switches, so....... Star Trek The next Generation seemed to be a logical choice.

I'm not done yet. I'll upload when I am. Maybe I'll do some star trek sounds to do along with this theme. *shrug*

EDIT:
screenshot changes moved to first post.

[Edited on 3-19-2016 by Ducimus]

matchbox2022 · Post by **matchbox2022** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 4:14 am

Now we need phaser sounds ;p looks good! How tough was that?

Ducimus · Post by **Ducimus** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 12:24 pm

From post: 186795, Topic: tid=12501, author=matchbox2022 wrote:Now we need phaser sounds ;p looks good! How tough was that?

Phaser sounds in. Plus a couple extras.

Procedurally, not tough at all thanks to vices cockpit viewer. Artistically, it posed some creative problems due to how some textures were reused to save on system resources.

Post by **Marvin** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 4:29 pm

Just a word on JSGME. If you don't use it to install parts or all of this mod and you're installing over other mods, you will probably lose (delete) the previous mod(s). If you're using JSGME, any time you install one mod over the other, the previous mod is saved ... even though JSGME asks you beforehand if you want to replace one mod with the other. It still saves the replaced mod. It also works with default files ... just remember to "un-do" all JSGME mods before installing a newer version of the game (else the default file will replace your mod ... if what I just wrote makes any sense).

matchbox2022 · Post by **matchbox2022** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 11:29 pm

Wow. You really went all out.
I think it is damn impressive and haven't even tried it yet!

WarriorneX · Post by **WarriorneX** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 5:51 am

Lol, I was about to smash my head in my keyboard because I wanted to see all the details as found in the pictures, but I had my textures set to medium......

Once I changed my texture to high.... it was like BOOOM OVERHAUL PIMP-MY-COCKPIT YEEAAAAH!....

Looks amazing now I just need a bubblehead in the dash, and I'll be a real space trucker pirate mercenary!!!!