Carwash Cockpits & Components - New Component Screenies.

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:15 pm

Carwash Cockpit II - 'Industrial' - Version 0.2
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VIDEO

DOWNLOAD - Use the mirror below preferably!

Download Mirror (please use this!) Cheers Karin!!!

Info
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This ancient 'Industrial' cockpit has seen better days. Countless previous owners have left their mark on this work-a-day bridge and it's probably seen more of the galaxy than any ten pilots. But it was built to last. More recently a secondary targetting system was added to the main console and the display patched through to the main viewsceen. Unfortunately this meant the ship's main systems had to be rerouted to a secondary screen, bolted in place wherever there was room...

The previous owner obviously dreamt of sandy beaches and blue seas, but if that's not to your taste you can change his dashboard picture by replacing the 'picture.bmp' image with one of your own (use the same filename). The image must be square however or you'll get distortion.

This cockpit replacement is designed primarily with Track IR users in mind. Unlike my first cockpit however, all instruments are visible for non Track IR users by default.

Install
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Unzip the contents into a 'hud' subfolder of your EL root like this:
C:\\sw3dg\\EvochronLegends\\hud\\allthefilesfromthezip.*

Notes
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Unlike my first pit this model is all my own work. There are no 'bits' from other people's models. So use it at will

All the textures used are free too. They came from www.cgtextures.com

Known Issues
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* Textures incorrectly scaled, tiled and rotated on some faces. - Not sure why it's doing this because in some places it works fine but

in others it doesn't. Basically you get some ugly tiling on some of the textures, most notably the main scratched metal surfaces and the

Warning stripes. In the 3D editor (Sketchup) these textures have been applied so that there is no tiling and the pit looks much better.

It's bloody annoying.

* Screens sometimes move 'outside' their boundries during aggressive maneuvers. Not a lot I can do about this apart from make the

monitors the screens are 'in' a lot bigger. Feedback on this appreciated.

* Unoptimized - Some Texture are WAY larger than they need to be. Will change this for next version.

Enjoy!
Carwash

Changelog
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v0.2
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Converted for Evo Legends.
Reflect/lights added.
Glass textures tweaked.
Gauge position tweaked.

v0.1
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First release (test version in ER)

Disclaimer
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This mod may destroy your computer and/or life. Use at your own risk.

[Edited on 3-10-2009 by Carwash]

[Edited on 3-11-2009 by Carwash]

[Edited on 3-11-2009 by Carwash]

[Edited on 3-23-2009 by Carwash]

spelk · Post by **spelk** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:26 pm

Looks really cool Carwash, good effort Sir. Looks ideal for a miner, with a rusting bucket and a gambling habit on Rigel V.

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:45 pm

Plus a sneak-peak at the next pit in what I expect will become a deluge of themed pits for EL. This one's designed to be a small fighter where the pilot is laying almost on their front. A space-bike

VERY early days yet, but already I've got better results with the reflection textures. This one's gonna be a beaut. Expect chrome exhauts pipes crawling over and along the sides of a sleek cigar of raw fighter power

(Yes, I'm aware of the phallic undertones... But that's bikes and rockets for you all over isnt it?)

[Edited on 3-5-2009 by Carwash]

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:32 pm

Excellent work Carwash....looking forward to seeing the final pic

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:37 pm

I Really like the cockpit 2 design and look forward to giving it a spin around the Legends Universe

....Thanks for your designing a Hot piece of work, Kudos!!

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:51 pm

Glad you like it. Have you tried the Industrial pit in EL yet? I'm keen to get useful feedback so I can improve it. What works for you, what gets in the way, what's broken etc...

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:01 pm

Originally posted by Carwash
Glad you like it. Have you tried the Industrial pit in EL yet? I'm keen to get useful feedback so I can improve it. What works for you, what gets in the way, what's broken etc...

Not yet, but will today and I will be happy to give you feedback...just fired up the 'ol computer and saw your post

I am anxious to give it a try and will download it soon

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:06 pm

Righto, I'd appreciate a download mirror from someone, hosting custom cockpits is not what my ISP intended my tiny piece of free webspace to be for...

Accountant · Post by **Accountant** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:16 pm

Nice work, I love the creative design of your cockpits.

* Screens sometimes move 'outside' their boundries during aggressive maneuvers. Not a lot I can do about this apart from make the monitors the screens are 'in' a lot bigger. Feedback on this appreciated.

I had this trouble with my cockpit, too. To fix this you need to move the monitors (LCD screens, whatever) in your model either back or forth so they match the position of the generated screens. The generated screens have a specific position in the 3d space of the cockpit and the cockpit model has to be adjusted to match. I found that what is normally the middle screen is considerably forward of the other two, so keep that in mind if you decide to make adjustments.

-Accountant

Post by **Vice** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:46 pm

Awesome cockpit Carwash. For the target object and sphere on the target MFD, I will be updating the game to dynamically adjust the position of the sphere and object so that is stays centered on the right side of that display. This cockpit gives me a good test platform to fine tune that. As for the display movement, Accountant's advice should work. The zdepth just needs to be adjusted to match the rotational movement. Also, since EL lets you control the depth of the gauges, that can also give you some fune tuning options, but the z distance for the cockpit will make the biggest different. Might involve scaling the display frames a bit to match the changed distance, but it would likely be a lot easier to just increase the scale of the entire front structure as you move it out so that there's no perceptable change in shape/scaling.

[Edited on 3-5-2009 by Vice]

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:38 pm

Hi Carwash....Just tested your cockpit 2 version from a non-tracker point of view. It is really Awesome and really gives me a fantastic view while giving me the feeling of still being in a cockpit....I did notice some things that distracted me while flying the cockpit and have included the following photo with some things that I would like to see different.....and in case the writing does not appear on this size photo let me just say that I feel the light blue on the Rear ring could be removed and the lower texture continued all the way around, and the light blue around the screen frames could be removed and replaced with a darker color/texture and the same with the white outline around the instrument on the panel, either replace with darker color/texture or none.....Excellent work though and if you can make the white outline in the Stealth mode more transparent that would be Great.

Post by **Vice** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:44 pm

Oh, as another recommended step, when you save the textures in smaller sizes, use a 1:1 ratio format. That will allow the graphics engine to render them with alpha blending, smoothing them out a bit and helping to reduce the pixel popping crawling. Some examples of supported texture resolutions are:

32X32
128X128
256X256
512X512
1024X1024

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:55 pm

Hi Carwash....here is a picture while in Stealth mode, Anyway to make the white more transparent?

Thanks again for your hard work on the Mod

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:08 pm

Thanks for the feedback guys.

@Braveheart, it's odd that you're getting screen misalignment. On my screen it's all fine unless you're making extreme moves and even then it only 'pops out' a little bit. I think this may have something to do with aspect ratio as your screens look to be more widescreen than mine, Vice could this affect gauge placement?

As for the stealth mode whiteness I'd never even considered this. I don't know what to change to make them more transparent. Vice?

Also, what's zdepth?

I'm a total noob when it comes to 3d modelling.

[Edited on 3-5-2009 by Carwash]

Post by **Vice** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:15 pm

@Braveheart, it's odd that you're getting screen misalignment. On my screen it's all fine unless you're making extreme moves and even then it only 'pops out' a little bit. I think this may have something to do with aspect ratio as your screens look to be more widescreen than mine, Vice could this affect gauge placement?

I think he's actually making a hard turn in that first screenshot, causing the displays to leave their centered locations. You'll notice that in his stealth shot, the displays are lined up. So with the zdepth alignment applied, it will probably look correct when performing hard turns.

As for the stealth mode whiteness I'd never even considered this. I don't know what to change to make them more transparent. Vice?

Are those structures culled? They may just be rendering both sides, which would double up on the transparency addition. Some might just be reflecting more light at a certain angle.

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:17 pm

Culled??

See above statement on newbishness.

Post by **Vice** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:21 pm

Culled just means rendering only the visible side. If your model is set to render both sides of a surface, it double-renders the surface/face for two sides, doubling the results of transparency and rendering more surfaces than needed. Non-culled surfaces could produce solid white like that when transparent. In your 3D editor, just check to make sure only the visible side of each face is rendered.

[Edited on 3-5-2009 by Vice]

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:33 am

Yup, hard right turn it is....should have mentioned that

your right Carwash any hard turn will do it and I do have widescreen. For being a newbie at this you are doing great work....one of these days I will have to learn how to mod myself

in the meantime I will have to look and be impressed on how well all of you do your modding.....Great Work Carwash keep it up

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:13 pm

aaand Zdepth?

Post by **Vice** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:15 pm

Distance. In short, just moving it forward or backward from the perspective of the camera. If you move the front structures ahead a bit, then increase their scale so the display structures appear to remain in the same placement (even though they've been moved forward), it may help line up the gauges with the display structures better so when the player makes sharp turns, the movement is closer to the movement of the gauges themselves.

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:48 pm

gotcha, ta!

Karin · Post by **Karin** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:24 pm

I've mirrored the file for you, feel free to update your original post with this download location if you'd like:

http://www.spaceman.ca/evochron/carwash/hud.zip

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:50 pm

Ta! BTW an updated version is on the way. Hopefully I've fixed the Zdepth issues (screens moving outside frames) but so far I'm stumped by the culling (white stuff in Stealth). I see nothing in the sketchup model that stands out as 'doubled up'. I'm happy to distribute the sketchup model directly if there's a demand fo it so people can mod the mod as it were...

Carwash · Post by **Carwash** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:58 am

'Steel Horse' WIP video

VIDEO

GOt the Zdepth nailed now too so the screens are rock solid inside the frames.

Post by **Vice** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:46 pm

Cool!