Enhancing Our Directions: PR Compass

[Arab]

It's a really good idea.

[ghost_dog]

I don't believe color coding would be good looks like a cartoon, just increase the fineness make it clear detailed.

[Wicca]

Cuz in real life, soldiers have a moving compass on their screen... Oh wait.

[Mora]

Google glass military edition.

[Celestial1]

I've never had a compass scream at me until this thread. Color coding the compass will only make it extremely distracting. Let's not do that, for my the sake of my eyes not bleeding, thanks.

[Viperelite]

I've never had a compass scream at me until this thread. Color coding the compass will only make it extremely distracting. Let's not do that, for my the sake of my eyes not bleeding, thanks.

Honestly I would rather have no on screen compass, but instead you press a number key and the guy pull out an actual compass you can hold to orient yourself.

[ComedyInK]

my reason to keep the compass always displayed.

One: BF2 R is not ArmA.
- With current BF2 graphics, it's not the easiest thing to find your orientation in the woods. Flat textures, lack to dynamic shadows, and any discernible object would make it slightly more difficult to find your way in heavy woods.

Two:
- The Compass would have to be an actual item that you pull out, as I don't think there would be a way to toggle it on/off on the screen due to the engine.

Three:
- Even though you people would love to think otherwise, PR is still quite arcady in it's mechanics, trying to do too much with what little you have throws off balance or the universe.


Anyway, update the damn compass for 1.0. It doesn't need flashy colors, letterings, or symbols, all it needs it's a high resolution to make it easier to read off-hand. I still get confused and say 365 instead of 345 when reading the compass because of how bad the 4 looks.

[MertSahin]

thats because your eye colour is very ugly comedy

[IWI-GALIL.556FA]

I think current version is just fine!!

[Insanitypays]

Maybe this should be implemented into REAL LIFE...

[Trooper909]

Honestly I would rather have no on screen compass, but instead you press a number key and the guy pull out an actual compass you can hold to orient yourself.

Don't you think PR has enough elements of Arma as it is?

[Tim270]

The thing is, although not impossible, the have a actual working compass might need some trickery and then take up a weapon slot, which we only have 9 of and on most kits they are all/mostly used. Its just not worth it.

[Raklodder]

my reason to keep the compass always displayed.

One: BF2 R is not ArmA.
- With current BF2 graphics, it's not the easiest thing to find your orientation in the woods. Flat textures, lack to dynamic shadows, and any discernible object would make it slightly more difficult to find your way in heavy woods.

Two:
- The Compass would have to be an actual item that you pull out, as I don't think there would be a way to toggle it on/off on the screen due to the engine.

Three:
- Even though you people would love to think otherwise, PR is still quite arcady in it's mechanics, trying to do too much with what little you have throws off balance or the universe.


Anyway, update the damn compass for 1.0. It doesn't need flashy colors, letterings, or symbols, all it needs it's a high resolution to make it easier to read off-hand. I still get confused and say 365 instead of 345 when reading the compass because of how bad the 4 looks.

Then why don't you increase your in-game resolution, my compass looks more than fine?

[ComedyInK]

playing on 1920x1080 everything on max mate.

[=MeRk= Morbo5131]

IMO the font needs cleaning up a bit on the in-game compass. I like the coloured sectors idea, and with the white bars one, they should be on N/E/S/W rather than NE/SW etc, I don't know why, it just makes more sense in my head.
Also, wouldn't it be possible for players to change the colour of the compass/font via ingame options? You can do it with the crosshair in vBF2 after all

[Trekkie]

IMO the font needs cleaning up a bit on the in-game compass.

You're not the only one. So I've been working on it. Here's the first thing I came up with that might be good in-game.

And here's the targa file for it if anybody wants to try it out... I don't really know how to try it in-game, I'm new to modding.

I've also got some other ideas for less squarish numbers and letters but my main objectives were:

1. Make dots that actually correspond to degrees... what we have so far has three notches between each 5 degree mark, none of which line up with any degrees, making it hard to call out a precise bearing. So I did asymmetrical 3-pixel blobs to get away with interpolating without anti-aliasing. And to me it's better. I don't know. I'd love to try it in-game.

2. Make the numbers more legible, even if it means making them more ugly. So I want to try to render up a font like some of the cleaner ones we see in scopes and stuff. But if I can antialias things or change the resolution of the compass, I want to know that now, because then it'd be a cinch to render out a nice clean dotted line between the notches, as well as some very legible numbers and letters. Looks so ghetto in pixel art form, especially where the pixel to degree ratio isn't something convenient like 2:1, 4:1, even 3:1 would be awesome.

Of course, this all started out with me making a version where just the 4's and 6's are fixed so they don't look like each-other, and the 8 is a bit clearer, not sure whether it looks out of place. And then I took it too far. Here's the .gif and .tga versions of that. But still only 3 dots between notches instead of the 4 that we need to mark degrees.