A-10C HUD Brightness

[Vitormouraa]

Hi

 

does anyone know how to change the HUD brightness using .lua? I tried to find myself, I found the HUD .lua but didn't see the brightness there. Always when I get in the cockpit I change the brightness to max, this is boring sometimes when you have OCD... :cry:

[Remarkymarkable]

what's .lua?

[Braeden108]

I haven't found a way to change the brightness, but I have changed the color to red for the night mode (which I obviously use in the daytime now) which helps with the visibilty of the HUD a little bit.

 

This post has a way to change it.

 

 

And here's a download link for my modded file:

 

http://www.filedropper.com/hudinit

[Braeden108]

I haven't found a way to change the brightness, but I have changed the color to red for the night mode (which I obviously use in the daytime now) which helps with the visibilty of the HUD a little bit.

 

This post has a way to change it.

 

 

And here's a download link for my modded file:

 

http://www.filedropper.com/hudinit

 

Also note that this is where the file is for DCS 1.5 (and probably 2.0)

 

\DCS World\Mods\aircraft\A-10C\Cockpit\Scripts\HUD\Indicator\HUD_init.lua

[Pitot]

This post

 

Also, as for realism:

This post

 

This could be useful too:

"Originally Posted by xxJohnxx View Post

BTW: It is possible to increase/decrease the contrast of the HUD during the flight...:

---

This post

[Vitormouraa]

Hi, thanks. But I don't want to change the color of the HUD. :) Just the brightness.

[Remarkymarkable]

No, really... what's .lua?

[QuiGon]

No, really... what's .lua?

 

A scripting language used by DCS for various things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lua_%28programming_language%29

[Zabuzard]

Hi, thanks. But I don't want to change the color of the HUD. :) Just the brightness.

 

Since all colors can be encoded via RGB, you can model a brightness change by picking different colors, i.e. changing the color.

 

Example: Lets pick full green (0, 255, 0) in RGB space. A brighter green would be (183, 255, 183), remember, (255, 255, 255) is white. Analogously (0, 150, 0) would be a darker green.

 

However, DCS has some problems in displaying those colors exactly as you want it. It has something to do with HDR etc. You can read various discussions in this subforum about the A-10C HUD color with HDR option enabled. People are complaining about the color not being readable against bright background, like clouds or Nevada.

 

If you're asking the brightness change because of the same problem, I'd recommend you to do the same as others did for fixing the issue. Change your HUD color to black and you're fine.

 

Here's the bigger post, with explanation and images:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2694668&postcount=39

Edited June 8, 2016 by Zabuza

[Vitormouraa]

Again, thank you for your suggestion but I don't want to change the color. The pilots IRL don't have that so I don't see a reason for that, thanks. ;)

[Zabuzard]

Well, I don't get it^^

Changing brightness of a color means changing the color.

Making a green (0, 255, 0) brighter, results in a color like (140, 255, 140).

 

You're asking for a way to have a brighter green in cockpit, so change the color to a brighter green, (140, 255, 140) for example :)

 

Maybe your asking for another thing. Do you wish to increase the saturation of the color (beyond 255)? So that its more visible?

For such stuff you probably need a different approach, since the HUD color already has an opacity of 255 and uses the maximal possible green. Maybe search for the function that gets executed from DCS when using the brightness knob of the A-10C and manipulating it to go beyond the bounds.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Zabuza

[Vitormouraa]

Well, I don't get it^^

Changing brightness of a color means changing the color.

Making a green (0, 255, 0) brighter, results in a color like (140, 255, 140).

 

You're asking for a way to have a brighter green in cockpit, so change the color to a brighter green, (140, 255, 140) for example :)

 

Maybe your asking for another thing. Do you wish to increase the saturation of the color (beyond 255)? So that its more visible?

For such stuff you probably need a different approach, since the HUD color already has an opacity of 255 and uses the maximal possible green. Maybe search for the function that gets executed from DCS when using the brightness knob of the A-10C and manipulating it to go beyond the bounds.

 

What I want is edit the brightness (default value) using the lua, because when I get in the cockpit I always have to adjust the brightness to max, that's really annoying when you have OCD.. as I said above!

 

It's just a fancy thing I wanted to do, nothing especial, like the CMSP programs, I edited them using the lua, so made my own CMS programs and always when I get an A-10 I don't need to edit everytime, Same thing with brightness. Alright, let's say intensity of the CMS light panel. :)

[Zabuzard]

That is not possible with the color changing approach, since it already is at max values.

 

Best thing would be to find the place where the DCS A-10C brightness knob, which you are using, is defined.

 

However, a quick search in \Mods\aircraft\A-10C and \Scripts with "hud, bright, sat, inten" only gave MFCD related stuff:

 

 

Lets hope its not inside the DLL :D That would mean there is probably no "legal" way for you to reach the goal. (DLL injections n stuff are prohibited by ED, I think)

[Vitormouraa]

It seems to be a very simple thing, but no problem.. thanks!

[Deezle]

 

However, DCS has some problems in displaying those colors exactly as you want it. It has something to do with HDR etc. You can read various discussions in this subforum about the A-10C HUD color with HDR option enabled. People are complaining about the color not being readable against bright background, like clouds or Nevada.

Before the EDGE engine was released, using HDR with SweetFX made the HUD washed out. However the default HDR setting we have now seems to make no difference, the HUD is simply unreadable against a bright background, for me, on or off..

 

Other aircraft HUDs are fine, it shouldn't take this long for ED to fix this.

[Flia]

Before the EDGE engine was released, using HDR with SweetFX made the HUD washed out. However the default HDR setting we have now seems to make no difference, the HUD is simply unreadable against a bright background, for me, on or off..

 

Other aircraft HUDs are fine, it shouldn't take this long for ED to fix this.

 

Yes i must agreed. HUD in A10C has very bad readability. When i fly Mirage hud is perfectly clear and readble. Something is wrong with A10 hud in Nevada.

[Pitot]

People are complaining about the color not being readable against bright background

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2694668&postcount=39

 

That seems to be realistic. Take in consideration that the HUD is a kid of a hologram on glass. A light play. If the background is bright - you get bad visibility.

 

when you have OCD..

 

 

Hello, brother.

 

Before the EDGE engine was released, using HDR with SweetFX made the HUD washed out.

 

Basically, the main problem is that the HUD in A10C isn't as crisp as in (for example) in russian planes. It looks, to some extent, like having gaussian blur applied (in A10C).

Edited June 9, 2016 by Pitot

[Vitormouraa]

Thank you guys for the replies!

 

Well, I'm not an A-10 pilot in real life, so that's why I don't really like to talk about this kind of thing, I really don't know if the readability of the HUD is good or bad IRL, and I can't really say if it's good or bad in DCS. Also I don't know if it's a bug, issue or whatever, but I assume the readability sometimes is impossible.

 

I really wanted to change the brightness using lua, doing that I wouldn't need to change anymore in game, everytime I get in the cockpit, that's really useful, Just like the CMS programs, I can configure them using lua.

 

We didn't find the value to change this, but it should be possible, because all the buttons and switches, when you start up the A-10 from ramp, battery for example is in off position, right? that makes me think it must have a file telling it to be in that position. So I think it is possible

 

Cheers.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Vitormouraa

[firmek]

We didn't find the value to change this, but it should be possible, because all the buttons and switches, when you start up the A-10 from ramp, battery for example is in off position, right? that makes me think it must have a file telling it to be in that position. So I think it is possible

 

Cheers.

 

I'm quite sure there was another threat about it. Changing the color - RGB values will not help - this is rather not the problem. DCS (as generally computer graphics) use 4 channels - RGBA - where last one "alpha" channel is responsible for transparency. In other words it defines of how much % of the color (specified by RGB channels) is used to blend it with the background . 0% would display only the background while 100% would result in the background not being blended at all.

Transparency seems to be an issue as HUD is to too transparent (blending too much with the background).

Changing the alpha value in config file does nothing. In result it's not possible to increase the "intensity" of the HUD. Without proper testing and access to the code we're still guessing but overall it seems to be a problem with the transparency and/or blending with the background.

 

It doesn't have to do anything with it being realistic or not – it’s purely a technical, computer graphics implementation issue.

 

edit: found the link to the other threat: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=149993

Edited June 9, 2016 by firmek

[Vitormouraa]

Do you know the button on the UFC (Up Front Control) that changes the brightness/intensity? (I don't know which one is correct in this case) that's what I want, my understanding there is a file telling to this button that, for default, it should be at 30% transparency (example), I think you got it, right? I just wanted to know if that's possible, as you said we are just guessing here. :)

 

About the alpha,

 

243, 116, 13, 255 - Red, Green, Blue, Alpha. Try any graphical editor (like Paint in Windows) to pick new RGB components. Alpha component should not be changed.

 

Olgerd is an ED Team guy, he said to not change the alpha component, what does that mean? is it prohibited? Well, I'll not change anything so! :helpsmilie:

Edited June 9, 2016 by Vitormouraa

[firmek]

I know the button on the UFC. I agree that it's mostly probably actually affecting the transparency while the maximum allowed level is too low.

I (and also some others on the forum) have been trying to change the colors and the alpha - the last one doesn't seem to have any effect - like the value from the .lua file would be ignored.

[firmek]

Anyway, as far as I would love it being otherwise, at the moment the solution for the A10C HUD being hard to read problem has not been found.

[Zabuzard]

As said and linked, most people are switching their day color to black (I did also). It really works fine, try it.

The state we currently have is not as it is in real (I've sit in front of an similar HUD). Yes, you have problems against bright background but not as hard as it currently is sometimes. Try Nevada or fly through a cloud, you could literally read nothing, I mean nothing.

This issue was discussed in several threads here, it has something to do with a change on the graphic computation. The HUD color shouldn't be mixed with the background color so much, but that's a technical issue that should be discussed in those other threads.

 

Back to OPs problem, as said, a quick search on some keywords didn't revealed a .lua file that could be responsible for the UFC knob or similar HUD stuff. It may be possible that the functions that are responsible for that knob are located inside of a dll-File, or other binary stuff. The same may hold for your "starting configuration of the knob"-thing.

 

If that is the case then modification won't be easy and probably is prohibited by ED (reverse engineering, memory manipulation, dll injection, ...).

 

In short: It may be possible that ED didn't gave users the possibility to change the stuff your asking for.

I'd try to search for a responsible .lua with XSearch or similar programs (searchs through all files in a folder for keywords etc.).

Edited June 9, 2016 by Zabuza

[Pitot]

The main problem is that hud symbols are rendered blurry, unlike with Su27 for example, where you can't see the hud at all only in extreme conditions. That is where the problem is to be solved.

[Vitormouraa]

Different modules, different aircrafts...