3D Cockpits

[nozmajner]

I think it's possible to place everything properly, but that would need mouselook (and even limited zoom) to be believable and usable. It would look odd and forced for sure, if the view is fixed and everything crammed in the 4:3 area in every cockpit. KSP got cockpits right in my opinion for example. Flightgear's cockpits are nice too, but the almost unlimited rotation and zoom possibility is too much in my opinion. Zoom doesn't necceseraly solve the control hitbox problem in every case though, like in a combat situation, but most of the time the player would have time to muck around with them. And the keyboard will always be there too of course.
This means more modeling, to accomondate a larger cone of vision, but at least the way I work, I'd put those in anyway so I can see how the whole thing is put together. And some of it needs to be there anyway, even for a fixed view to accomondate different aspect ratios and to allow for custom FOVs, even if that's a hidden option.

That default one here has every instrument visible on a 4:3 screen, I made it like that almost from the start (this stands for my latest HUD mockups too).
I think there isn't much need for 2D overlays here, only a reticule and the prograde markers and similar stuff that is put over stuff around you, like target markers. The bare minimum. These could be considered to be projections on the helmet/eye, and the internal views as full VR controls. This way they wouldn't obstruct clickable controls too much. And the reticule could stay in the center while the player looks away.

What are the information the flight UI intended to contain anyway? The current stuff are already placeable sanely in my opinion. The above cockpit contains almost everything from my mockups, and there's room for some more.

Adding/removing stuff: if we think it through properly, what kind of instruments we want, we can plan ahead. And I think with a proper library of premade objects it's not too much work to add or remove an MFD screen if needed.
On the above cockpit, the screens could be moved around easily. You just need to play a bit with the UV layout to ensure proper baked-in lighting. But that part took about half an hour to lay out after I unwraped everything, and the prefabs would have UVs layed out anyway, so it's just a bit of puzzle play when you are doing the layout. Most of the time on that cockpit was took by the modeling and UV-ing the parts.
Some parts look a bit like if they were floating, actually they are on hinges, there's evena bit of geometry visible for the ones on the left (I didn't modeled it for the right side ones though because they are obstructed anyway).

And these screens could be real MFDs, so the player can choose what he wants to see on them in a given situation. There isn't much need for orbital data, when you are in combat on the outskirts of the system, for example. Or a message log isn't needed every time, so it could share an MFD with the contact list for example.

And the way I imagine those MFDs, they would have small displays on their buttons with icons to tell the functions, and they could be touch screens at the same time, in the name of redundancy to allow for failures and such.

And we could come up with one or two basic layouts as industry standards. I think they could be loose enough to provide for a bit of spatial/graphical variety but ensure consistency. Like the way I'm trying to treat my latest HUD mockup: everything on the right is something internal, like temperature, wep and thrust data (some of them to be added to the mockup), the central area arond the scanner is for flight data, and everything external, like contact list, target and maybe even comms data to the left side. And the absolute minimum around the reticule, like relative speed, distance, and basic target information. We could place instruments in the cockpit with a similar train of thought.

[robn]

I've had a good chat with nozmajner today and while I'm still not totally sure he's convinced me that it might at least be possible. So I'll get on with that PR and we'll go from there.

[Hiro Pavonis]

I understand that we have an interface 3d is interesting, but only for the purpose of vision.
I think Pioneer is better playable with a broad view of the exterior.
With a model of 3d interactive commands, it reduces the field of view in game play.
and a glass full space is perfectly useless to the driver but not for passengers (panorama cruise).
rather we should think of a 2d frame that simulates the display monitor of the outer chambers. said this to show the cab, I think it's an option to conceive in the game.
or 3 d design a cabin to access the functions of Doking.
perfectly useless, but perfectly Impact (WOW) :)

[Nyankosensei]

I understand that we have an interface 3d is interesting, but only for the purpose of vision.

3D Cockpits can become part of the gameplay, if you buy a ship with less visibility is more hard to fly it, big ships need more instrumental flight than visual, with some right instruments can become really an hard and interesting game, other proupose for cockpits building is have some screens with external camera for view behind and down, for commands of the ships i like the idea to make all the screens touch with some clickable area and no more analog controls

[Hiro Pavonis]

If you were to interact without having to use the outside view, the result would be similar to a virtual slot machine.
Would lose the sense of having generated all the work of construction of planets, stars, etc..
In my opinion, however, could serve to continue the game on a smart phone.

but that's just my view, nothing more!

[paper_rocketship]

I registered an account in order to comment on this.

I have a possible solution to the issue of consistent user experience, that will also reduce some of the work needed in the short term. Basically, this idea is being discussed as if every ship will have a unique 3D HUD model. However, that does not necessarily have to be the case. I propose instead that we come up with an organization system for ships that classifies them into different categories: light, medium, and heavy as a quick example. And then we make a 3D cockpit just for those classifications. This way, we only have to design 3 cockpits, and 3 consistent user experiences. (or however many classifications you decide on).

In the future, this may require some additional work, specifically recreating the actual ship models to also be more consistent with these classifications. (and just be more consistent in general). But that can be left up for debate. It shouldn't be a problem if this is something that was going to happen anyway.

EDIT: just read the rebalance topic, and he's already proposed some possible ship classifications that could work for this
http://pioneerspacesim.net/forum/viewto ... ?f=3&t=117

[nozmajner]

There's classification, but it just selects the ship icon on the market right now, and says the class there too.
The problem with your idea is that there are different manufacturers with distinct styles. And their cockpits are quite different. These three ships are all couriers for example, but you could only use the same cockpit for the last two, and barely even then.

[paper_rocketship]

I see. It's been a long time since I investigated this game, I wasn't aware there were so many finalized ships in the game (when i originally played, the only ships were placeholders).

Might it work to have the cockpits based on the manufacturer?

[nozmajner]

I'm definitely aiming for that. I want to make a good amount of prefabs for each manufacturer, we can use to furnish the cockpits, so actual modeling is only needed for the place itself.

[Marcel]

Looking at the experimental cockpit, I see that the simulated info screens would be a bit too small to read. Could there be a mouse-over or mouse-click function that would expand the screen so the player could read and interact with it? For example moving the mouse over the screens would make them pop up to an interactable overlay and back down when the pointer moves out of the overlay.