HawgTouch - Clickable MFCD frames for multi-monitor setup!

[epoch]

Lovin' it. Thanks for your efforts.

 

+Rep incoming.

[ClearDark]

Great job Dark and a great community addon... thank you very much!

 

I was going to get helios but I felt $70 + another $20 for the instruments was too much considering that there are several instruments that aren't working (ED not exporting the data for them).

 

Got 2 questions...

 

Does this work on touch screens?

 

Do you have any instructions on how to make other instruments work too?

 

1. HawgTouch works on touchscreens. I myself don't have one and I use it with the mouse but HawgTouch was designed around touch screen setups

 

2. I will be releasing a new version very shortly with expanded "modding" capabilities allowing users to create multiple controls with multiple graphics and button states. All easily done through XML editing.

 

I might even throw together a simple "editor" once the version is complete and stable.

 

In the next version I'll include a CDU module and explain in detail on how to create your custom controls

 

I'm glad people are finding this as useful as I did :)

[sascha77]

And another question for you, Dark:

 

I just did a 60% version of your bezels, fit in all the buttons and everything looked great. But: When I fired up HawgTouch with the smaller pngs, the transparent parts just stayed coloured. I checked the RGB values in Photoshop and they were exactly as they should be (255,0,255). I also checked your originals I had backed up to see if there was an alpha-channel PS might have forgotten to save, but nothing... what am I doing wrong..?

 

Note: The only real changes I made were:

 

PNGs: Resized them in Photoshop by 60%, then just "saved" (not "save as ..)

 

left/right XML-files:

Entered correct coordinates for every single OSB

[jeffyd123]

Thats great news Dark... thanks.

 

If I can help with graphical assests let me know.

 

Jeff

[sascha77]

Opps.. never mind.. just found out about Photoshop's magic eraser ..

 

BTW: If anyone is interested, I'll gladly share the "shrunk" HawgTouch bezels and setting files. They'll fit an MFCD-size of 260x260. It's not that difficult to do, but "fitting in" the OSBs is a bit time consuming... :)

 

Reducing the MFD-size (and consequently being able to reduce desktop-size/game resolution) has helped the performance quite a bit for me. Nevertheless: My GFX-card is now running a good 10°C hotter than with a single-monitor-setup... :D

Edited March 12, 2011 by sascha77

[Slammin]

aha very nice! It works great except for cutting my framerate from 60 to 25. :(

 

Be sure to connect your monitor to the same video card as your main monitor if you are running nVidia, otherwise do expect bad stuttering and crappy fps.

[Slammin]

Nevertheless: My GFX-card is now running a good 10°C hotter than with a single-monitor-setup... :D

 

 

If you are running nVidia, it's running hotter because when you have two monitors hooked to the same card, running at different resolutions, the card will remain at 3D clocks instead of downclocking to 2D mode. I cannot verify the resolution part, but my card goes up about 10c when I connect two monitors as well.

[SilentEagle]

Be sure to connect your monitor to the same video card as your main monitor if you are running nVidia, otherwise do expect bad stuttering and crappy fps.

 

Yea, they are connected to the same monitor, but I'm guessing going from 1920x1200 to 3200x1200 is what ravaged my gtx470's decent performance.

[sascha77]

^ Same here Eagle. I had just bought this Gigabyte GTX460 and was very pleased with its performance in single-monitor-mode (had a GTX260 before). But then of course multi-monitoring spoiled her for me ... ;)

 

A good way to keep the performance hit down is to reduce the overall in-game-resolution. I haven't quite managed to set it up that way, but I'm working on it. Check out this screenshot by a wiser user than me over on SimHQ:

 

Edit: Argh.. can't post the pic...

 

 

 

Now, I've already reduced MFD-size to 240x240 and I reduced my 2nd monitor's res to 1024x768. Overall in-game-res is now 2944x1080. Hopefully I'll be able to get that down to 2370x1080 with the MFDs laid-out as in the screenshot. But even at 2944 and with smaller MFDs the performance-hit is noticably milder than on 3200x1080 with MFDs on 400x400 (which I ran first).

 

But: I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how to switch off the in-cockpit MFDs and keep the "external"-ones. I'm guessing that would be the biggest help in keeping FPS up.

Edited March 12, 2011 by sascha77

[MadTommy]

While i understand you fps issues are annoying it has nothing to do with "Hawg Touch". Its the cost of displaying two sets of MFCDs and increased resolution.

 

It would be nice if this thread could be about this great addon.

[Druid_]

^^ Absolutely !! A great add-on that will please many including myself. Thanks very much ClearDark for sharing.

[sascha77]

While i understand you fps issues are annoying it has nothing to do with "Hawg Touch".

How can sharing experience with the setup neccessary to *use* HawgTouch and discussing how to minimize the resulting FPS-hit not be helpful?

 

Yes: Technically it has nothing to do with this great app, but people who use it are bound to run into these kinds of obstacles. Why not discuss them right here in the HT-thread where people who are looking for solutions are bound to end up? :confused:

Edited March 12, 2011 by sascha77

[MadTommy]

There is an entire sub forum dedicated to multi monitor setup and issues. That would be a better place to discuss your issues with multimonitor displays, they have nothing to do with this addon.

 

anyway..

 

I'm having an issue making a new frame, i wanted one that took up less space but i am confused by a transparency issue?

 

It looks like this previewed, the white is transparent, png.

 

 

But when i use it in Hawg Touch 70% of the frame is transparent. I quite used to photoshop and working with transparency.. but this has me baffled. (i haven't aligned the buttons yet..ignore that)

 

 

What is going on?? What am i doing wrong? :cry:

Edited March 12, 2011 by MadTommy

[ClearDark]

There is a slight bug in the currently released version of HT. Right now the code gets the pixel at 10x162 (Top/Left) and sets that pixel color to the transparency color of the window.

 

In the image I provided in the initial release, the pixel at 10x162 is Fuschia (255,0,255).

 

For you to overcome this little bug you can set 1 pixel at 10x162 as Fuschia and the whole window will paint correctly.

 

Alternatively, you can wait for for the next version of HawgTouch that addresses that issue and adds better customization options. Allowing you to build multiple panels with your own buttons and functionality.

 

I've asked jeff to create the UFC graphics that will be included in the next version.

 

Among the features:

 

- Ability to create as many "panels" as you want with your own custom controls

- 4 types of controls supported:

* Click buttons (currently the only button available in HT)

* Rocker switches

* Two state switches

* Three state switches

- Changed data structure a bit to support different "Profiles" for different purposes

- Several bugfixes and tweaks

 

Hope this helps!

 

BTW If anyone volunteers to create a little logo and an icon for the program it would be greatly appreciated. I'm a coder by heart and my graphic skills are non-existent :P

BTW2 : Your MFCD looks awesome! much better than mine! Hopefully you can share it with us when you are done making it :)

 

Thanks for the good feedback! it drives me to make this little program better n better for the help of this great community!

Edited March 12, 2011 by ClearDark

[MadTommy]

Ok cool i understand.. thanks ClearDark :thumbup:

 

And yes i'll share anything i do on this, including my configs etc.

 

EDIT: i made pixel 10x162, Fuschia (255,0,255) but no joy. :(

 

Happy to wait for the next release unless you think it might be something else? I can still use my frame as the background will be black anyway. :)

Edited March 12, 2011 by MadTommy

[sascha77]

- Ability to create as many "panels" as you want with your own custom controls

- 4 types of controls supported:

* Click buttons (currently the only button available in HT)

* Rocker switches

* Two state switches

* Three state switches

- Changed data structure a bit to support different "Profiles" for different purposes

- Several bugfixes and tweaks

 

Ohh.. so that means an external scratchpad would be doable with a future release? That would be awesome ...

[ClearDark]

Ohh.. so that means an external scratchpad would be doable with a future release? That would be awesome ...

 

Yep! a UFC module will be included in the next release. Most of the code work is done and I'm finishing up things and making sure there are no bugs or unexpected behavior! A new version will be out in a day or two

[sascha77]

^ Great!

 

Do you think an "exported" CMSC would be feasible as well (both technically and workload-wise)?

 

With those 4 elements (2 MFDs, UFC and CMSC) on a 2nd screen, I think the ALT-F1-view would really become an option ... :)

[ClearDark]

^ Great!

 

Do you think an "exported" CMSC would be feasible as well (both technically and workload-wise)?

 

With those 4 elements (2 MFDs, UFC and CMSC) on a 2nd screen, I think the ALT-F1-view would really become an option ... :)

 

I'm sure that with enough time and user contribution you would see the entire A-10C cockpit available in HawgTouch, all in due time :)

 

I think that with the upcoming version, most of the panels in the cockpit can be created with HawgTouch, including the CMSP, CMSC, AHCP, Engine panels ect`.

 

As the need arises more features will be added to support more complex controls :)

[MadTommy]

New MFCD frames

 

I wanted a frame that took up less space, so i made one. All new frame + buttons

 

Right click on images and 'save as'. They are PNG.

 

Resize as you want them. This frame is 1050x1045px. Internal area designed to fit a MFCD display of 820x820px. I made it big, as its better to reduce rather than enlarge.

 

To help you work out your config: Left, right & bottom frame are 115px and the top is 100px (not quite sure why it has end up non symmetrical, but it does not really matter.

 

 

 

These are not worn and only slightly weathered, it was not worth the effort to do this in my opinion, nor do i want a tatty old MFCD :P

 

EDIT: i have attached the button alignment file in the zip. (only LMFCD, you can copy the setting to the right if you are gonna have them both this size.)

MFCDLeft.zip

Edited March 13, 2011 by MadTommy

[MadTommy]

ClearDark..

 

I'm not sure if I've found a bug or not...i get this crash when i use a certain frame size.

 

Problem signature:
 Problem Event Name:	CLR20r3
 Problem Signature 01:	hawgtouch.exe
 Problem Signature 02:	1.0.0.0
 Problem Signature 03:	4d78bb51
 Problem Signature 04:	System.Windows.Forms
 Problem Signature 05:	4.0.0.0
 Problem Signature 06:	4ba1e14e
 Problem Signature 07:	676
 Problem Signature 08:	43
 Problem Signature 09:	System.ArgumentException
 OS Version:	6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
 Locale ID:	2057
 Additional Information 1:	0a9e
 Additional Information 2:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
 Additional Information 3:	0a9e
 Additional Information 4:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

 

I've attached 2 png files created from the same photoshop file, one is 1050x1045px the other is 630x627px. The smaller one causes the app to crash, the larger one does not. To reiterate, they were from the exact same source file. Really weird. I have tried this numerous times, remaking the png, using different configs etc etc. Seems to be a bug.

 

Just trying to help.

[ClearDark]

Wow! Your MFCD looks so awesome. I'm really liking it! I'm going to use it myself!

 

I'll be looking into the crash issue when I get home from work (Yes, I work sundays :P)

 

I'm sure its a little thing, I'll post a workaround or the source of the cause when I track it down!

 

Thanks for the report Tommy!

[ClearDark]

I have identified the bug!

 

The 2nd image pixel at 10x162 is a transparent color. The code tries to set the transparency key to that pixel but it can't be transparent because it has to be a solid color (.NET restrictions)

 

The bigger image has a grayish color at 10x162, a solid color, hence you see some missing "dots" when that one loads.

 

As explained in the previous post, this bug is addressed in the next release of HawgTouch :)

 

I'll be releasing it as soon as the UFC module will be ready. Hope this helps :)

[Susto]

...But: I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how to switch off the in-cockpit MFDs and keep the "external"-ones. I'm guessing that would be the biggest help in keeping FPS up.

 

Open the file "MFCD_init.lua" located in ..\Scripts\Aircrafts\A-10C\Cockpit\MFCD\indicator

 

Go to "set_full_viewport_coverage(viewport)" function and remove the GENERAL purpose.

 

--BEFORE--

purposes = {render_purpose.GENERAL,

render_purpose.HUD_ONLY_VIEW,

render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_OUTSIDE_COCKPIT,

render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_INSIDE_COCKPIT} -- set purposes to draw it always

 

 

--AFTER--

purposes = {render_purpose.HUD_ONLY_VIEW,

render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_OUTSIDE_COCKPIT,

render_purpose.SCREENSPACE_INSIDE_COCKPIT} -- set purposes to draw it always

 

 

Best regards,

 

Juan Andres "Susto"

http://www.alasrojas.com

[Susto]

Excellent program

 

Thanks a lot for HawgTouch, ClearDark. It works exactly as advertised and makes using MFD *a lot* easier in multimonitor setups.

 

I have three 1280x1024 monitors attached via TH2Go and HawgTouch works flawlessly, as you can see here: http://img850.imageshack.us/i/hawgtouch.jpg/

 

A big thumbs up for an excellent work!

 

Best regards,

 

Juan Andres "Susto"

http://www.alasrojas.com