Compass Points

[Synide 0]

Could someone suggest how I could do the following please.

Objective:- Make new clearer Mils & Degrees graduations on the default ArmA compass.

Background:- I have successfully modified the in-game and map compass to be bigger. That was easy, just a config change to scale the compass size. At least now I have the ability to read the frikn thing while playing now.

This modification I have made into a .pbo and is tiny at 189kb.

And can be used in any MP situation so long as the server has the allowable settings.

Now I would like to change the coloring and readability of the Mils & Degrees. Similar to the WGL Compass.

In Photoshop I've split out all the constituent parts of the compass face into layers.

I recolored the Mils graduations and text to red and altered all the appropriate config/p3d settings etc.

I then have created a test version of my altered Compass pbo and ran the game. All is well and good, with no errors etc.

BUT, the readability of the Mils & Degrees is literally crap in my test version.

SO, onto my question...

I would like to create a straight line and then attach compass Mils graduations to it and then transform/bend the line into a circle. And, then use the graphic version of this as a replacement layer in my Photoshop compass face file.

This would allow me to use a 'better' font for the numerals & have crisper graduations etc, etc.

I have attempted to use Photohop to accomplish this by creating a line with the graduations then pathing the line and attaching appropriately position numerals in the right positions (on another layer) and then bending, but I'm not having much success at this in Photoshop.

I have not worked out how I can successfully do this using Modo or 3DSMax either as yet.

What would be the quickest and easiest my to accomplish this and with what prog? Flash?, Fireworks?, Modo, Photoshop, 3DSMax, Maya?

Does anyone have any good suggestions for me?

[Synide 0]

I didn't have any trouble reskinning the compass face with a new .paa, but my attempts to use 3rd-party graphic design tools to 'make from scratch' new pointer graduations was taking too much time/effort.

So, for our clan i just stuck with a slightly modified standard ArmA compass.

The only modification I made was to increase the scale of the thing, from 0.22 to 0.65 for the in-game one, and from 0.35 to 0.60 for the 'Map Screen' version.

The clan response was... 'cool' at least now we can read it !!!

[DaSquade 0]

Any pics of your WIP would be welcome or even a alpha/beta of it would be appreciated. I must agree i find it a bit sad BIS didn't spend (what like 1h or so for a pro?) some extra time in what i feel is like a vital instrument when going to the battlefield.

I had hoped our discusion in the past (ArmA suggestions or something like that) would of brought this to BIS attention and a lot of people actually use this instrument a lot and relay on the acruaty of it. Most of the time you just don't have the time to 'guess' mils and from my online experience it mostly end in a rought N-N-E or simular reading .

I haven't experiment with it (appart from looking up the textures etc). But a more readable version would be more then welcome...

Bit offtopic:

But i noticed it isn't possible anymore (not sure pre patches) to bring up your compass when in scope view where afaik in the other engines you could do that. Ok, maybe this is maybe some form of realisme, but imho it goes into the flow of gameplay...where you need to 'lower' your scope (one click) bring up compass (second click) and bring up your scope (third click) and hope you didn't lost your target during this few seconds....Maybe it is simply a mather of cfg trick, but imho an important piece to get into.

[Synide 0]

I agree.

As I mentioned, reskinnig the compass face is easily done by just inserting a modified .paa in place of 'compass_star_ca.paa' in the ui.pbo>data folder.

And, making the compass bigger is again as simple as 'extending' the ui.pbo with a @mod\Addons\ui.pbo and redefining the 'scale' property of the RscCompass class and the 'RscDisplayMainMap.Compass' to (in my case) 0.60 and 0.65 respectively.

What I wanted to do was create an entirely new compass face image. But, instead of hand painting the graduations for Mils in photoshop I wanted to use a method like creating a straight line with the appropriate graduations and attaching a text layer to this line then bend the line into a circle and then render it > then take the jpg of this render and convert to paa then skin this 'new compass face' into the Compass...

Unfortunately, although I have many tools for doing this at my disposal I am not a 'master' of any of them and consequently was unable to do it in a realtively short amount of time so moved on to other more pressing things.

If anyone could suggest a method for doing the above in any of the 3d progs. then please let me know.

@DaSquade... see your PM for reply.

Cheers, Sy.

[HeinBloed 0]

If you like it, you can use my compass.

Download

[Synide 0]

I appreciate the offer, but I'd like it in mils as opposed to degrees.

thank you anyway.

[opteryx 1562]

Would a compass mod be OK to use in multiplayer?

EDIT: Oh And uuh will it work in MP?

[DaSquade 0]

As Synide i agree i prefure mils over degrees . But your input is appreciated.

EDIT: Like i pm'ed Synide, i did an attempt to retexture the BIS compass aswell (based on the VBS compass, so for personally use and test only!. But i discovered, as i hadn't noticed before somehow, that apperently the BIS compass is based on different mills then the VBS one, witch afaik is what it should be. Meaning, from what i googled, normally mills goes from 0 to 6400 (64) where 6400 is also 0. BIS one on the other hand has reading going from 0 to 6000 (60) . Not sure if BIS just made a simple mistake or it is based on a different kind of compass, but last i just simply dought.

'Since realisme counts ' and i would prefer using the 6400 based mils reading this offcourse will have it downsides as if one with the mod reads a mill the other without the mod will have a different angle on the mils.

Sadly for me i just couldn't get my retexture to show up ingame (very strange), but the mill mistake of BIS makes me wonder what to do...

In case BIS made a mistake, maybe BIS should consider retexturing theirs and meanwhile make sure it is good readable (i prefer the white background with black mills and red degrees ). This looks like an easy task to be done in a patch. Jees if BIS wants my retexture even just to check, but in the end i assume they have access to the VBS one and have even their copyrights over it to use.

[psycosmos 0]

Meaning, from what i googled, normally mills goes from 0 to 6400 (64) where 6400 is also 0. BIS one on the other hand has reading going from 0 to 6000 (60)   . Not sure if BIS just made a simple mistake or it is based on a different kind of compass, but last i just simply dought.

There appear to be three different angular mil used by military organisations, shamelessly quoted from Wikipedia:

The three definitions of the angular mil

There are 2000pi milliradians in a circle. So a milliradian is just over 1/6283 of a circle. Each of the definitions of the angular mil are similar to that value but are easier to divide into many parts.

1/6400 of a circle in NATO countries.

1/6000 of a circle in the former Soviet Union and Finland.

1/6300 of a circle in Sweden. The Swedish term for this is streck, literally "line". Sweden has not been part of NATO nor the Warsaw Pact

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>I don't know why they've choosen the 1/6000 one, maybe they will tell us if we ask nicely

Personally I think each one has its merits, the swedish one is the most accurate compared to real milliradians but gives odd numbers to calculate in the head quickly, the NATO one is a bit more off, but gives nice numbers, like 400 for NNE while the 1/6000 one is the least accurate, but it uses a multiple of 60 (6300 is a multiple of 60 too, but not a nice one), like watches and the deegre for angles.

When I use the word accuracy here, it's only compared to the "real" (milli)rad system. There's no real difference in accuracy between the three systems when determining a certain direction or angle (everyone has to use the same system ofc), but if you want to quickly estimate distances (1 millirad is about 1m at 1000m distance) 1/6300 as the closest to 1/6283.185307179586476925286766559 (to be continued, haha) will give you the best result, followed by 1/6400, while 1/6000 comes in last.

btw.: 6400 millirad = 64 decirad, maybe a nice thing to confuse the people you play with, "Contact! 3 Soldiers 400m at 16 decs!" (j/k)

Errors included are only to test your attention...(I wish) </span>

[Messiah 2]

Would a compass mod be OK to use in multiplayer?

EDIT: Oh And uuh will it work in MP?

modified compass textures/sizes are client side only, thus it would not effect your ability to play MP... unless of course the server is set to reject anyone with modified core files... then you're going to have problems.

can someone tell me where abouts the compass graphics are located?

[mr burns 133]

can someone tell me where abouts the compass graphics are located?

UI.pbo\data

[Messiah 2]

cheers - UK compass here I come

[DaSquade 0]

Thanks for that wiki guide psycosmos. So i think we can say BIS made a small mistake then. In the end no big deal (if you leave out the realisme fact, unless you are leaning throughwords a non NATO country ). But might be confusing if you really would use the mils in MP and communicate between standard BIS compass users and 'mod' compass (6400) users. Anyway, from what i have experienced on many public server communication is pretty low anyway, and compass use is often not done. I suppose if you are in a clan (we used to use mils alot in 'clan' MP) and it is a mather of making the decission to use the mod(6400/6300) or not.

EDIT: maybe a poll regarding the suggestion throughward BIS to go for the 6400system (could include the standard 6000 and the 6300 for our Swedish brothers/sisters and see who prefures what the most). While they are at it let them make a more readable one and maybe a upwards scalled version .