Tag: macross

Posted on
by

So I dunno if you know what a (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display) is but I’m a sucker for these – at least virtually.

Games like perfected the look and this is where I want to go with my HUD app for my / home cockpit too.

Screenshot from the game Rebel Galaxy Outlaw with it's very colourful cockpits full of VFD like displays.

The segment displays are heavily inspired by project (https://augmented-ui.com/) where I’ll borrow some more elements. Learned the neat fake scan lines from there too. And yes the 8 segment display works by shifting bits under the hood 🤓 This isn’t really needed for an app but I have plans to add some real segment displays eventually (I do have a whole box full with these!) so I wanted to know how to implement this anyway.

Video from an earlier stage in the development demos the scan line effect.

The bars are configured with parameters in size, count, percent, colours and thresholds 😁 I also added a random chance of 5% to shift the hue a little bit because just as in real life nothing is perfect.

A colourful button box surrounding a display that shows various data from the game running in the background stretched over several own displays for immersion.

And yes they are fully themed so switching the colour theme also affects the virtual VFDs.

I’m also going to replace the older horizontal bars, that look way too boring in comparison.

It’s still very early but I hope to get some rad animations going too. See https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards to get an idea in which direction this is going 🤓

See the dedicated project page https://SimPit.dev for more details on this inspired panel.

Quick demo time: I got a touch display 17.3″ that will replace my rather old one in my VF-1 inspired cockpit panel.

Pick your poison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4LsyqYPCA / https://makertube.net/w/nCopvNbkvkwR9XcG5QPQ3i

Mostly because of the bad viewing angle. I’m not a huge fan of touch but sometimes it is really useful and if I already spend money why not go the extra mile 🤓

Posted on
by

Played (closed) Alpha with my inspired . I’m simply in awe that I can replay missions from (or ) with more modern graphics and modern interface devices again. I spent _so many_ hours playing these games as a kid.

This is the heavily cut VOD of the live stream over at @bekopharm@live.famkos.net (pick your poison):

https://makertube.net/w/r1LRrqDWnhw4wRk92uNfzo /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2jxqT_5sU

This time I play with the native Linux version and my X52 Pro joystick (which means I actually have a chance of hitting stuff too). The following missions were played:

Historical Mission 2 / Wingmen Are Important
Historical Mission 3 / Sattelites Near Coruscant
Historical Mission 4 / Beating The Odds
OP 1: Destroy Imperial Convoy (Uncut)
OP 2: Reconnaissance Mission (Uncut)
OP 3: Fly Point During Evacuation (Uncut)
OP 4: Protect Medical Frigate (Uncut)

XWVM is not an official product from Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney. It is not endorsed or authorized by either. It is a fan recreation of the game engine used to play X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the sake of accessibility and requires the original game assets to work.

Kudos to the XWVM team, they are doing a stellar job here.

The dedicated project website for the Macross inspired SimPit is https://simpit.dev

Posted on
by

This uses my X4-SimPit extension for X4: Foundations, that sends ship telemetry via a socket to my node-red plumbing pipeline, which in turn forwards data to Websockets, SocketIO and MQTT. Various subscriber listen on the new messages to run blinken lights and my HUD app. I’m using the well known message format also used by Elite Dangerous so it’s compatible with that game as well.

Pick your poison: https://makertube.net/w/nUoG2ZPeAW1QhT3A2BXRrM / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp1PkVhH9cc

Oh yeah… and on Linux PC 🤓

Let me know what you think!

X4-SimPit code (pending changes) is here: https://github.com/bekopharm/x4-simpit
The cockpit panel has a dedicated project page here: https://simpit.dev/

Posted on
by
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown by Bandai Namco Studios Inc.Bandai Namco Studios Inc. (エースコンバット7 スカイズ・アンノウン｜バンダイナムコエンターテインメント)
『エースコンバット7』バンダイナムコエンターテインメント公式サイト

A jet next to a huge explosion in the sky. Two smaller images depict the perspective of the pilot and the player sitting inside a ViperPit playing the game with XR glasses.

Got some help carrying the from the basement into my man cave today and since I got the peripherals operational again already, and got Ace Combat 7 on a sale, which seemed to be a good fit, I decided to play that first:
https://makertube.net/w/wiKFYNPaKhhCmrrz3aGLYb / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEPK0lHX_3s

Little did I know what a pain in the neck it would be to get this running. No, Linux wasn’t the problem. That was just Press Play, as usual.

There is however no settings menu for joysticks so any mapping has to be done by manually editing the `Input.ini` of the game in an text editor, which is a guessing game. Head tracking is also a no go. I pulled the old trick to map the head tracker to a virtual XBOX controller but the game comes with an annoying deadzone where the camera snaps to the center.

Ah well, got it all working okay-ish in the end and enjoyed some pew pew in the skies. There seem to be plenty of mods too so trying that will be next 🤘

🤓 Painted the button box, added more buttons and the LCD and set it to playing the DRADIS animation[1] of the Pegasus just for show:

Next is wiring everything up (and when that is done finishing the frame for the display) and add decals.

Same thing really to see how it feels:

[1] The Loop was created by David Gian-Cursio (https://www.gian-cursio.net/2016/07/battlestar-pegasus-dradis-screens/) for Diaspora: Shattered Armistice (a total conversion for the FreeSpace Open engine).