My Periscope vs SH5's Periscope

[Tomi_099]

Originally Posted by sober

@SOBER !!
ABSOLUT AMAZING !!! I LOVE IT !!!

[martes86]

Those are some good ideas. Maybe they can be carried out when SH5 comes out.

[Frederf]

Originally Posted by finchOU

you forgot to mention that having all that extra stuff can degrade night vision especially if its white light! It makes it harder to break out those are to see targets.

Very good point. Trying to strain to see on a dark night past bright white distractions on the periscope view is a pain. It actually requires more work from the developers to do all of the periscope view in both day and night versions. By making a "universal" simple periscope the developers only need make one version for all times of day. Less work!

Sober's Picture

Yes, render-to-texture where the outside view is rendered onto the eyepiece is nice. It may be not super realistic if one normally presses up tight to the eyepiece such that it consumes the full eye's view but at least it keeps the world in one piece for the player. It does take a stronger computer and a more advanced game engine to render-to-texture an outside view as well as an inside scene.

voice command

Voice control could be awesome. It's a layer above and beyond what's described here and could just as well be applied to the stock SH5 interface as my alternate "reimagined" one. It seems obvious that a game where the player is a captain of a large crew where most actions are representative of real life verbal orders that harnessing the player's voice to accomplish his tasks is the most natural. Flight sims use joysticks, racing games use wheels, surely naval captain games use a microphone?

I'd like to think of a multi-zone space that is functional practically for real torpedo targeting tasks. I'm a bit lazy to get out photoshop so I'll see what I can do in text. Imagine each box is a station and the lines between boxes show which stations are accessed from other stations. We try to construct a natural flow where each station does its task with adequate focus but there are not so many stations that the overhead of transitioning stations distracts from the job at hand.

        [REPEATER DIALS]          [TDC]
                  |                  |
                  |                  |
[EYEPIECE]---[PERISCOPE BODY]---[CONNING TOWER]---[CONTROL ROOM]
               |         |
               |         |
    [REC. MANUAL]     [PLOTTING BOARD]

[609_Avatar]

Excellent concept and exactly what I would want!!!

[karamazovnew]

Ever since we've learned that we no longer have to mod the interface in Notepad, I've been asking myself how much freedom we will have in modding SH5. Here's why... SH3 was blocked at one resolution and aspect ratio, making modding a bit easier. The position was given as relative to a parent. SH4 made things much harder due to 2 main reasons:
1: multiple resolutions which were brilliantly controlled using just 2 variables, allowing a LOT of flexibility in positioning and scaling items, but a nightmare to plan ahead.
2: German AND American interfaces: which were only possible by making the interfaces as simple as possible and loading items through an external index file. All identical items (like the backgrounds) were rewired through the image address by hardcode). Not a major pain in the ass, but still...

All in all:

1. Making new items:
____1.1: Static images: easy to do
____1.2: New buttons: impossible to do, as only the items in the Layout Page could accept commands. The only way was to make DIALS and hide the needle. Dials could indeed process commands but it was then impossible to show "pushed" status.
____1.3: Making new circular dials: extremely easy to do, but we were prevented from adding dials in all the screens.
____1.4: Making new linear dials: not so easy. The only one I know of is OLC's linear compass.
____1.5: Creating new variables: impossible

2. Rewiring hardcoded items:
____2.1: Moving a hard-coded item from one screen to another: impossible (at least in SH4)
____2.2: Changing the type of an object: impossible to do but it could be emulated
____2.3: All other changes were possible and easy: position, image

3. Hard-coded items:
____3.1: the periscopes bearing line (dial)
____3.3: the periscope depth (impossible to scale up with resolution to do the formula it used
____3.3: torpedo buttons
____3.4: stadimeter button: there was no command visible
____3.5: in SH4, the retractable panels: quite moddable as you could move them to either side and make them as big as you wanted. But there were only 2 of them for the Uboats and 3 for the Fleet boats.
____3.6: most labels (understandable because of the need for 2 languages in the interface)
____3.7: those zoomed order dials which increased by a fixed ratio
____3.8: the order bar in SH4. A bit easier to add items but I wish we had the old type of integrated orders.

The major problems in modding the interface were due to these facts:
1. most hard-coded items don't obey normal rules (that includes the hiding panels) AND those rules are never accessible because they are buried deep inside unaccessible code.
2. not all commands are visible (the stadimeter for example)
3. impossible to create new dial viariables
4. impossible to mod the key/mouse commands
5. impossible to change some camera behavior
6. impossible to create scripts.

Until we actually have a look at the SH5 interface files, and by interface I also mean the 3D one, we can't know if a clean interface is even possible. You see, just cleaning up the periscope is not enough, you need to do a LOT of changes to integrate everything nicely.

As for voice commands, a long time ago, in the SH5 page I asked about making commands compatible with voice applications.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=156171

Such parametric commands would also have a MAJOR impact on the interface itself and the way we send data to the game engine.

As a default interface, I think SH5 sports a very slick interface. I quite like it the way it is now. It already hints to a lot of possibilities and it also seems very easy to clean up fast . But I doubt that it will be possible to make a full immersive 3d interface. It all depends on mouse/keyboard and camera controls and how far we're allowed to scripts things.

[martes86]

As I recall, UI elements seemed to form the backbone of the Python coding, so I don't see why that kind of stuff couldn't be modded.

Cheers

How you fellas even know where to start with these things always amazes me and I commend you, for what is now, just your thought process. I hope you can make it a reality and this is by far the best, and most promising, thread concerning SH5 that I have read since the full details of the game were released.

Nice one Gentlemen

Maverick

[Highbury]

Excellent well thought out OP. I agree 100%

Originally Posted by Frederf

Voice control could be awesome. It's a layer above and beyond what's described here and could just as well be applied to the stock SH5 interface as my alternate "reimagined" one. It seems obvious that a game where the player is a captain of a large crew where most actions are representative of real life verbal orders that harnessing the player's voice to accomplish his tasks is the most natural. Flight sims use joysticks, racing games use wheels, surely naval captain games use a microphone?

You know, even in my racing sims I use a microphone... in rFactor there is a 3rd Part App which simulates your Team Boss/Crew Chief on the radio. He tells you lap times, how others are doing etc. The interesting thing is they also have it so I can ask questions, give input into if I want damages fixed on a pitstop, and all verbally in a game that has no voice recognition built in. You can even configure it to recognize the phrase, or phrases you want to use for a certain command. If a 3rd Party developer could create this for rFactor, there is a real possibility someone could do the same for a Kaleun at the periscope feeding speed, bearing etc to his crew!

[SeaStorm]

Very interesting thread. Keep it up.