[REL] Large Optics for TDW UIs
 

Hello fellow subsimers!

Real life gone and took me away from SH5 and this wonderful community for a good 1.5 years, but now I'm hopefully coming back to play and mod SH5. And I bring a little present :)

Large Optics for TheDarkWraith's NewUIs v 7.4.2
Version 1.0

http://imageshack.us/a/img46/9522/9ewx.th.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img23/3837/bgpb.th.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img443/4038/ad1z.th.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img23/606/tmip.th.pnghttp://imageshack.us/a/img23/937/2rxp.th.png

Description

This mod provides larger (thus more accurate) oculars for your binoculars, UZO and periscopes. Arclight's scopes were always my choice for TDW's UIs, since they resemble the actual graticules that can be seen described in various reports. But I always felt kind of limited with those tiny oculars. After all, our discrete image on screen is nowhere near what could be seen through real optics, so why limit yourselves further by decreasing visible area? Thus I went and created this mod :)

Binoculars and periscopes have markings utilizing milliradians system (if you don't know what that is, see "Range estimation" below). Thus RAOBF markings are disabled: use scope's markings instead.
UZO does not have any markings at all, except vertical bearing line (and stock game's waterline).

There are no "scratches" on the images. Reason being that if your lens or ocular is scratched, you won't actually see anything useful.

Binoculars are huge :) After all, it's a commander's 8x (largest magnification amongst all optical devices on your boat), 7.1 degree field of view piece, your main means for observation at surface. Very helpful if you have IRAI installed, because you now can take your readings before those pesky destroyers spot you :) Vertical field of view is somewhat limited due to clipping, but do you really want to marvel at those airplanes heading your way when you should already be under? There's also no magical bearing indicator. Use binoculars for observation/range estimation and UZO if you need accurate bearing readings.

Due to scaling, RAOBF gets clipped a little at the top and bottom. Personally, I don't see this as a huge problem since markings for 90, 100, 110 and 120 at the top are still visible, and measurement markings at the bottom are used extremely rarely, if at all.

This mod is best used with:

• TDW's "Toggle Marking Lines" code patch installed
• HideTDCDialsWhenUsingRAOBF option set to True in TheDarkWraithUserOptions.py file
• gap's HD 1 deg Scope Bearing v 1.0 mod

Range estimation

Binoculars and scopes have milliradian scales that allow to estimate/measure distances: "10" on the attack scope corresponds to "100" on the observation scope and represents roughly 100 milliradians (~5.73 degrees at low power magnification, at high power it's 4 times less: 25 milliradians or ~1.43 degrees).
One large mark on the binoculars represents roughly 10 milliradians (~0.573 degrees).
The markings are used as follows: given a target of height H that takes up M markings, its range R can be calculated:

where k is:

• 100 for attack scope low power and binoculars
• 400 for attack scope high power
• 1000 for observation scope low power
• 4000 for observation scope high power

Example:

Imagine you're observing a Liberty Cargo (mast height ~26m) through an observation scope at high power and ship's mast reaches "100" mark. Then the range will be:

If you'd go up to conning tower and observe the ship through attack scope now (don't forget high power), its mast will reach "10" mark. Let's check the range:

RAOBF should give you something close to this value (between "10" and "11" on the range ring).

If you now surface and observe the target through your binoculars, it will take up 2.5 marks:

Mental rule for k:

"Normally x100, additional 0 for observation scope, additional x4 for high power magnification" ;)

Take note that horizontal scale on the observation periscope is in degrees. I don't know for sure why that is, and the sources are scarce, but I believe this could be helpful for navigation and for estimating target's angular size i.e. to set salvo spread angle.

Installation

Install with JSGME after TDW's UI mods, noting the following:

The mod consists of two parts: main mod and a supplement for specific display aspect ratio.
Supplements for different aspect ratios are provided, pick one that fits your display (or resolution).

Additionally, alternative versions of periscopes are provided:

• alternative attack scope: attack periscope with horizontal marks at the top
• darkened scopes: oculars of the observation and attack periscopes are darkened to simulate loss of light (especially noticeable in attack scope, put those night filters to good use!)
• darkened scopes alternative attack scope: darkened attack periscope with horizontal marks at the top

When installing darkened scopes, install main mod first, then Darkened Scopes, and Darkened Scopes Alternative Attack Scope last.

Example mod order:

• ...arbitrary mods...
• NewUIs_TDC_7_4_2_ByTheDarkWraith
• ...additional NewUIs mods...
• ...some more arbitrary mods...
• Large Optics for TDW UI
• Large Optics for TDW UI 4 by 3 (OR "...8 by 5", OR "...16 by 9")
• Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes
• Large Optics for TDW UI Darkened Scopes Alt Attack Scope
• ...some more mods (but see "Compatibility" below)...

Compatibility

This mod is incompatible with any mod that changes either of:

• Data/Library/Cameras.cam
• Data/Menu/Pages/Page attack periscope.ini
• Data/Menu/Pages/Page binocular.ini
• Data/Menu/Pages/Page obs periscope.ini
• Data/Menu/Pages/Page TDC.ini
• Data/Menu/Pages/Page UZO.ini
• Data/Menu/Skins/German/Gui/Layout/Periscope_Mask_1024_SH5.dds
• Data/Menu/Skins/German/Gui/Layout/Periscope_Mask_1024_SH5_OBS.dds
• Data/Menu/Gui/Binocular.dds
• Data/Menu/Gui/Layout/TBT_1024.dds

If any mod installed after Large Optics changes any of those files, you will get wrong images and/or inaccurate markings.

TODO

• Deck gun optics

Permissions

Feel free to use image and/or .cam files from this mod as you see fit (e.g. in your own mods). Credit me if you feel like it :)
Keep in mind that .ini files in Data/Menu/Pages are based off TheDarkWraith's UI mods and thus are subject to whatever terms he deems necessary.

Credits

TheDarkWraith for his excellent mods and patches
Arclight for his periscope mods (this mod is greatly inspired by his work)
Subsim.com community for its awesomeness
skwas for Silent 3ditor
Ubisoft for Silent Hunter games
Inkscape developers for Inkscape
GIMP developers for GIMP
Shawn Kirst for GIMP DDS plugin

Downloads

Download v1.0 for TDW NewUIs v7.4.2

Ooooooo

:Kaleun_Applaud:

Thank you Radcapricorn. Maybe a must-have mod ! :up:

:yeah:

Very nice! Tnx! :up:

The mod works fine with TDW UI's 7.5.0 also...

Few questiuons...
No changes for UZO station?
Upper and bottom side of the RAOBF aren't visible on the screen, this can be spotted on your screenshots also...Those areas are necessary for manual speed and range estimation. Orange horizontal and vertical marks from RAOBF screen are also removed. It would be nice if You can fix this...:up:

Added to sobers mega mod list :up:

From the first post ''Binoculars and periscopes have markings utilizing milliradians system (if you don't know what that is, see "Range estimation" below). Thus RAOBF markings are disabled: use scope's markings instead.''

@Trevally, arnahud2 and gap:

:salute:

That's good to hear. I haven't been able to test with 7.5.0, but so long as those .ini files are the same as in 7.4.2, it should indeed work as intended.

What do you mean? UZO "buttocks" ocular with american graticules should be replaced with round one of the same size as the scopes. If it's not, then there's a bug. Please post a full screenshot so I can see what resolution you're using and determine what should be fixed.

sober already beat me to it :)

Wow, thanks, sober! :woot:


Request to anyone interested in this mod:

I have only been able to test thoroughly for 4:3 and 16:10 aspect ratios, 16:9 was only confirmed by a friend of mine, though I haven't seen it in work myself. If you find any discrepancies in ocular sizes and/or inaccurate calculations (via manual estimations or RAOBF), please post screenshots with descriptions of what doesn't work.

Also, original scope mods (Arclight, emtguf, Manos) provide .cam files for more aspect ratios. If anyone could install the mod at those funky resolutions and post screenshots of each station (both scopes, UZO, binoculars), I could brew up .cam files for those as well. Calculating them is easy, but I'd like to make sure I correctly understand how the image scaling works in TDW's UI in different resolutions.

You're welcome, Dida44 :)

I didn't change anything regarding target selection (don't know if I even could do it). Spacebar should work just fine, it does for me.

OK, that's for range finding but I really get used to calculate targets speeds with RAOBF and right now I cant see clearly ships lengths between 70 and 130 meters (upper invisible part)...
My question is simple, can you make RAOBF wheel just a littlebit smaller without changing periscope size so that everything of previous functionality could be preserved?

ok, standby...

This is how the mod is installed, last in my list...

...and this is what I got...
http://s6.postimg.org/rhbns5m9d/SH5_...9_10_23_35.jpg

No worries. With big mod compilations there's almost always some kind of issue showing up now and then ;) Glad you like the mod!

I see. I didn't think that would be that big of an issue, since I myself don't ever get down to a notch precision and I still could see the marks for 80-120 meters just fine (not the numbers, just the marks themselves). But I really shouldn't put my own perceptions before mod's usability now, should I? ;) I'll see what I can do.

A-ha, this is with NewUIs 7.5.0, correct? It's gotta be an incompatibility in the ini files. I'll look into it later today, haven't even downloaded 7.5.0 yet.

Exelent...And you're right, no need for numbers but it would be nice if RAOBF could be just a little bit smaller so we could see those marks clearly...

Exactly, 7.5.0!. I can upload ini file for you if you like...

:hmmm: This is a bit concerning. I've just downloaded 7.5.0 Test Version 5 and all relevant ini files are identical between 7.5.0 and 7.4.2, and when I install Large Optics over 7.5.0 all stations change correctly.

This means that somehow on your install either Data/Menu/Pages/Page UZO.ini or Data/Menu/Gui/Layout/TBT_1024.dds wasn't overwritten when you installed Large Optics (or maybe both weren't?). I can't think of any reason for this... Well, I can think of one, but you're not running SH5 on Linux through Wine, are you? :)

Can you upload both of those files somewhere so I could take a look at them? Preferably in two states: before and after installing Large Optics.

I use test version 12, the last one... Do you want to check this first?