Should FD revisit the HUD colour scheme?

[Chaparral]

I hope you all get a chance to visit Terry's thread on HUD alternatives:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...le-HUD-Colour-Color-Configs-(please-add-yours!)[/URL]
If we approach this concern from a point of immersion, it is not unreasonable to assume that commanders would customize their work environments to suit their tastes as much as possible. The booming business in paint jobs, weapon colors, bobbles, etc. support this opinion. Many other games have varying degrees of HUD customization built in as well. Is the orange functional in most cases - yes. Does it lend itself to player desire for customization do to personal needs based on taste, physiology, and hardware - no. I have actively contributed to Terry's thread on alternative HUDs, but I would gladly pay for in-game customization (that preserves green friendlies and red enemies).

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Yes. This is the VR forum...

I prefer to default having tried other. CV1 user.

 

[shadragon]

But that doesn't give you red hostiles and green friendlies, and human skin tones does it.

I like my hostiles in red and friends in green. Easy recognition and lower chance of shooting a sec ship.

That does restrict my color choices, but it's no biggie.

 

[Exigeous]

I have a condition that makes certain shades of red light painfull to look at for more than a few seconds at a time, I wear special glasses when at work to filter it out from the screens and lights used.

First I'm very sorry to hear that you have to deal with something like that, I imagine much of the world is not good to look at. Would I be rude in asking what the condition is called, very curious to hear more as vision fascinates me. Do or can you wear your glasses with the Rift? Is VR harder on you than standard red/colors from monitors?

Fortunately there is at least a way to modify the HUD colors even if it's not really easy at all, certainly not without the tools that have been created. I'm glad they fixed the issue with the avatars being blue/base color as that was pretty goofy.

As several have stated I think the coolest change would be differently styled HUDs per manufacturer. We already have different external and internal styling from the various manufactures, hell I'm pretty sure all the Lakon ships use the exact same dash module, at least the Type 9 has the same crack in the right front dash support. Ah the goofy things you notice in VR, right? And those damned stray cables above your head in the Anaconda. Hell it looks like it's a coax cable held in place with plastic cable clamps you'd get today at Home Depot!!

I know it would be a significant investment for Frontier as not only would they have to create a new UX/UI but then all the coding behind it. I've really liked that Star Citizen works that way, I was actually rather surprised. While I'd hope they'd add something like that for free as it would be a visual mod I wouldn't be upset if they made that a DLC, so long as game play isn't affected in any way I can't about them. I may not spend that money myself but those that are willing don't get an advantage over me. One could argue a different HUD might offer benefits that would give someone an advantage, so long as that wasn't hugely the case I can't say I'd be upset. Hell if they'd give us some kind of skinning system so players could create them that too would be great. I'm sure our community could come up with some rather fantastic ideas. Finally the ability to change various elements based on what you're doing, for example a combat HUD, that too would be awesome. I mean come on, if something like the new Corvette has a digital and changeable dash based on your driving conditions. The track mode for example is rather great on the track as you get that nice huge tach that is far more important than a speedo on track. It's one of my favorite features when driving it on track, I've had a few students with them and really enjoyed it. It would also be nice if consumers could modify their in-car dash but I don't know that I see that coming for various safety and legal issues (possibly able to adjust the milometer)

~X

 

[Uueerdo]

I would respectfully counter your statement using this logic.... you state HUD customisation is "very far down the line" and you wish "no more micro transactions". But think perhaps from this perspective ..... In-store micro transactions (like the £1 laser colours and decals) allow for a self sustaining creation of this coding separate to the main game.
In addition, the longer term benefits of micro transactions would enable Frontier to expend their team thus speeding up development across the board.

Flimley

I would think about agreeing except that (as is apparent from this thread) this is becoming less of a cosmetic matter and more of a usability one.

- - - Updated - - -

....and seeing as the palette seems to be a shared resource for other things...

I really wonder who/how/why they came up with that brilliant idea to begin with.

 

[BigF]

First I'm very sorry to hear that you have to deal with something like that, I imagine much of the world is not good to look at. Would I be rude in asking what the condition is called, very curious to hear more as vision fascinates me. Do or can you wear your glasses with the Rift? Is VR harder on you than standard red/colors from monitors?
X

Its actually a trigger for something I have called Episodic Migraine basically the red frequencies of light cause my eyes to hurt and then trigger the migraine process which for me can get quite drawn out. The glasses I have have a slight percription but are tinted green which is the colour that filters out the red frequency that is the issue. For info look up colourimetry, it is also used for dyslexia as it helps with the reading on white paper, something I noticed when I was being tested for the calibration of the glass colour.

Down side is the glasses make an Oculus rift seem quite cheap. The lenses alone cost over£300.

I use them mostly at work as I'm an IT engineer. Back in the days of high rez crt monitors it could get bad, although back then I didn't know so much about it.

Most people think I'm wearing sunglasses indoors. It's quite common and depending on the light colour that bothers you dictates the glass colour. Red light- green glass, green light- red glass, yellow light - blue glass, blue light yellow glass etc.



LCDs are much better. For example something that really hurts is the You Tube logo, and my kitchen hyper bright led lights. In sunlight a nice pair of sunglasses works just fine.
I can't wear the glasses with the rift it's too uncomfortable, so tuning the colours and using Dr Kai's tool to fine tune glare and had colour modding works for me.


When using my Rift it's quite nice still there are certain bits that make my eyes go wiggly but they don't last more than a few seconds. The Orange is just on the edge of annoying for me, so had to be changed.

The trouble with a rift is once you've tried it for combat it's difficult to go back. Exploration is fine on my LCD as you generally want the best quality image your card and screen can give.

 

[Exigeous]

Its actually a trigger for something I have called Episodic Migraine .... (lots of cool stuff) ....The trouble with a rift is once you've tried it for combat it's difficult to go back. Exploration is fine on my LCD as you generally want the best quality image your card and screen can give.

Thanks for sharing all that, as I said before very interesting read. I've always considered myself lucky that I don't need glasses, I'm sure you learn to not be bothered by contacts but I don't think I can wear them, stuff with my eyes freaks me out. I'm also very lucky in that I've never had a migraine and I've probably had less than 10 headaches in my life, or at least what I'd call a headache. I've dealt with a lot of pain, hit by a car at 60mph at 13 (16 months to recover), broken ankle and severely separated shoulder (surgical repair), hit a wall at 60mph in a racecar, etc. For the last 6 years I've dealt with an diagnosed chronic back pain issue that at times requires some very powerful stuff. I digress...

I'm just about to order a set of replacement leather face pads for my Rift, after 800+ hours of game time in it my stock foam guard is pretty funky and getting a bit ripped and damaged. The company makes an insert that is around 10mm thicker adding space for easier glasses use. No clue if that would help but from what I read it was great for glasses wearers. The company is VR Cover, I haven't tried them yet but will post up a mini-review when I get them, so far the reviews I've read were very positive, specifically for the leather version.

You couldn't be more correct about going back to non-VR for combat. The few times I've done that since getting my Rift I always think "how do non-VR players do this, it's so hard to track a target!". I've had a TrackIR in the past and though it was awful. I know some love them and that's great but for me it was junk. Certainly no comparison to the Rift. When players in Discord ask me about VR my response is always "you're playing a beautiful and fantastic space sim/game - I'm flying a F'ing space ship. Which would you choose???"

 

[BigF]

I just got my covers from VR Covers delivered the other day. Ohh so much better. My foam started making my face itch if I wore it too long.

VR Covers was a great company to deal with, and the product is really well made. Anyone looking at the foam on their VR kit and thinking they need a new one check out Vr covers.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think a part of it is that Frontier's choice of the HUD color, orange, requires multiple subpixels to display, whereas using a color that requires a single subpixel to display (red, green, blue). On current generations HMDs, this simply makes smaller text harder to read, simply because there isn't enough pixels for higher resolution, leading to what is effectively 20/40 vision in-game.

Another part of it, at least for Vive users like me, is that for some reason when Elite: Dangerous sends graphics to SteamVR, there seems to be a boost in brightness, making the game look washed out. Yesterday, when I gave the "Night Mode" setting a try, I noticed an immediate jump in legibility, even in the comm panel, which I used to have to lean forward to read. It also helps that I keep my gamma correction settings low, so I can experience "true darkness" in the game.

Sorry. Forgot to mention I am using an OR CV1. I think they should give some choices of colour plus some choices of position of the GUI as well.

I would prefer the side pop up menus a bit further forward in front of me instead of directly to my side.

 

[Exigeous]

I just got my covers from VR Covers delivered the other day. Ohh so much better. My foam started making my face itch if I wore it too long.

VR Covers was a great company to deal with, and the product is really well made. Anyone looking at the foam on their VR kit and thinking they need a new one check out Vr covers.

Are you using the leather, cloth or (can't remember the third) cover? I heard not great things about the cloth one but that the thin leather one is rather excellent, what's what I plan to get. Also read it gives a slightly better FOV since the lenses are closer to your eyes.

 

[StiTch]

No they should not strictly "change" the scheme.

Orange is a colour known to be comfortable and easily visible for such displays, but VR really wants green, which is more defined. But we aren't going to change everyone's colour scheme for the few VR users (and I say that as a rift owner).

Which means the answer is...yes, five points to the man at the back! An in-game resource for editing HUD outputs that doesn't change radar/avatar colours (you were spot on about this bit, while changing colours isn't strictly an issue most custom output matrices will merge colours, preventing you distinguishing between different types of contact on the radar)

Any more questions?

 

[Exigeous]

...An in-game resource for editing HUD outputs that doesn't change radar/avatar colours (you were spot on about this bit, while changing colours isn't strictly an issue most custom output matrices will merge colours, preventing you distinguishing between different types of contact on the radar)

Any more questions?

While I agree that having something in game would be cool the changes that are made to the scanner don't bother me at all. I simply learned what they look like in my color scheme. NPCs are sold blue, commanders hollow blue. Allied NPCs are green, others are blue. Wingmates are red, etc. While I absolutely agree it would be nice if doing a custom HUD color didn't change the scanner would be better I'm happy with the current system. As for the avatars I believe that's been fixed for a while now, at least none of my avatars on the mission board, etc. look funky.

 

[BigF]

While I agree that having something in game would be cool the changes that are made to the scanner don't bother me at all. I simply learned what they look like in my color scheme. NPCs are sold blue, commanders hollow blue. Allied NPCs are green, others are blue. Wingmates are red, etc. While I absolutely agree it would be nice if doing a custom HUD color didn't change the scanner would be better I'm happy with the current system. As for the avatars I believe that's been fixed for a while now, at least none of my avatars on the mission board, etc. look funky.

Mine still look funky, tbh I'm not so worried about the avatars, they for me are not a game breaker.

I think that although the majority of users don't want or need the changes, just adding it as a legitimate option would be nice for the few that do and anyone who the decides to try it to make some individuality that bobble heads and alphabet letters can't give.
Make it a customisation option to buy, I can buy green lasers in the shop for a £ how about optional hud mods.

I'd be interested in the hud colours you use to see whats different in mine, maybe yours are better and will still work for me.

On the subject of covers I have the material ones, they seem to be different to the ones on the website videos, so my guess is some product changes have been made. I have some lense adaptors on mine to change the ocular distance, this is the main reason I can't put my glasses on with the rift on as they bum the lenses as well as being uncomfortable.

Eaither way for me they are a massive improvement over the itchy foam.

 

[Exigeous]

Make it a customisation option to buy, I can buy green lasers in the shop for a £ how about optional hud mods.

While that would be cool I'd hate it if they took the current free way of doing it and changed that to a microtransaction. It's not a bad idea at all as your logic between the two makes a lot of sense. As I said I think it would be cool if they had a different HUD for each brand of ship. Why would a Lakon and deLacy ship have the exact same HUD? Do BMWs and Audis have the same dash?

If they created various HUD layouts you could buy now that I'd be interested in. Make them $10-$15 each and they'd make a killing on that. Given the whole damn game is $30 (without Horizons) the profit they'd rake in from that would be huge.

I'd be interested in the hud colours you use to see whats different in mine, maybe yours are better and will still work for me.

Here you go, let me know what you think. If you tweak it I'd love to see your changes.

<MatrixRed>-0.38, 0.89, 2</MatrixRed>
<MatrixGreen>-0.15, 2, -0.5</MatrixGreen>
<MatrixBlue>1.75, -1, -0.3</MatrixBlue>

...they seem to be different to the ones on the website videos, so my guess is some product changes have been made.... ...they are a massive improvement over the itchy foam.

Thanks for the continued feedback, will be ordering mine today...

 

[dementia]

The colours used should be more finely configurable. You have to use the green based HUD for clarity but it messes up the other colours (friend, foe, etc, etc.). I'd like to be able to adjust the colours of all the HUD elements individually so I can change the only the ones that need changing.

This has been a request since VR was first supported in ED years ago so I doubt it is on anyones priority list at Frontier so we may never see it.