Hud-projection mod
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^ I can confirm he took this very serious and intends to take this to quite awesome new levels. IMHO so far the green reflector part is the best I’ve seen so far.
Torturing FanOfBMS432 with my feedback and researched videos and pics, I am pretty much convinced by now there exist 2 main HUD tinted versions apart the reflector base’s green:A dark, black to brownish one for USAF F-16CJs/C+// Europe F-16AMD/Bs and another version with a strongly violet (to pink) tinted HUD seen with Aegean F-16CJs. I collected quite some shots verifying this.
Block 40/42s (not my object here) have the strong violet tinted like with P_Harpoon’s mod and the brownish version AFAIK. Just found a pic with a brownish Block CG HUD.IMHO we could use both color versions for the default HUD, one for USAF jets and one for the Aegean jets e.g.-aka the Aegean database(s), maybe interisting.
I’m also convinced that Block 50/52 F-16s have a pretty strong dark/golden coating on the canopy where earlier versions vary in the coating color, BLock 30/32s seem to have a greenish coating e.g.
I would love to hear a RL Viper driver’s statement, after all we mainly gather info and guess.
Cheers, look forward to this one.
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Very nice work !
Keep it up my friend .
With regards .
Nikos . -
… a little teaser to the next update, coming in the near future
I hope you like them…
And as always, any comments are welcome!
Regards,
Fan -
The violet needs to be lighter.
The green within projection circle is wrong.
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I assume you worked on the topper HUD, äh, top HUD. That looks better now if I’m not hallucinating.
Since you told me the reflections are WIP I won’t comment on them in detail atm, regarding the tint:
After all those videos I have seen IMO the coating is not so subtle as we thought:
E.g. on one USAF Thunderbirds video the coating on the canopy appears relatively strong and on the average F-16 RL video seen from the pit, the outside world appears slightly yellowish which can only be caused by the canopy coating or a camera effect which i doubt.The green part of the reflector circle area looks sophisticated and excellent. But: You upsized the wideness of the circular area? IMHO the last and 2nd released version looked best there:
What I would humbly recommend is to make the HUD tint slightly more red-I still say it is too much towards the blue side:
For comparison:
20-And in this video, you can click almost randomly in it after ca. 40 mins and will get a view on the HUD vs the bright Aegean daylight:
It is really interisting that so far I haven’t seen a single violet HUD outside a HAF BLock 50 or USAF Block 40 HUD:
The tint seems to be the same for both with the exception of the Block 40 HUD having the 2nd darkbrown coating on the upper HUD glass section:
here-to proove my point more, is a video of the Turkish Air Force Demo team from inside, check the HUD:
As opposed to this HAF video where you can identify the colour very closely at ca .0011/12.
Or here at 007
To close my comments (guys, here I’m not nitpicking, FanOfBMS432 explicitly asked me to help):
Kickass as usual: Criticism:
The tint might be too blueish and too strong this time
The green circle size/dimension looked IMHO better in Version no 2. As we know now, 2 versions exist. Seems you either can to make a choice for blueish/pink or dark brownish or make them both.:D
All up to you, Mark!:rolleyes:Here is some more food with videos.-…
Of course, all repetitive and you already have those…
Standard USAF Block 50/52 HUD coat…
At 2.15
So far one of the strongest arguments for strong relfections, USAF Thunderbirds…
I would say it may be also dependant on the camera and quality used.
Belgian Air Force (Green to slightly violet canopy coating AFAIK) for comparison, dark tinted HUD, again an old vid:
F-16 CG Viper West, under cloudy conditions…not he best reference but fun…
Cheers and keep up your motivated excellent work, Mark! I like your 2nd very much and the HUD top in this last one, also you have succeeded in keeping the green fonts alive!:D
PS: Edit: In this link also posted here above…
At Second 0.13, you can take a clean shot and have a cool reference of how the strongest tone vs dark daylight background may appear.
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PS: You’re doing a great job!
Cheers, keep it up
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Thanks guys!
I assume you worked on the topper HUD, äh, top HUD. That looks better now if I’m not hallucinating.
Yep, A LOT of time i needed to spend on identifying which exact bits (!!) control the glass top section. Just for fun this proved to be just 2 sets of pixelstrings of 16 pixels each!!!
I guess this took me around 50 hours!Since you told me the reflections are WIP I won’t comment on them in detail atm
Yep, still are. Looking to go to the hud imprint version of the 2nd release, however, I do need to make the imprints by hand, as otherwise all hud symbology is overfading… The imprint in the last pic is handmade, but too whitish still
the coating is not so subtle as we thought
Agree, also current coloring still too blueish. I’ll add more red to it and faint the overall effect more.
But: You upsized the wideness of the circular area?
The green within projection circle is wrong
Yes, I did. It became too large, which I - indeed already - knew. Just wanted to get your opinion on this, that’s why I kept it for these pics. The point of it, is that the projected HUD-symbology doesn’t fit the smaller green circle (with standard values that is). What I’m going to do, is to: 1) make the circle (quite a lot actually) smaller, and adjust the projection area of the HUD-viewport + projected symbols itself. It’ll become a bit smaller and compressed, but will be more realistic.
Cheers, keep it up
thanks mate, you know I will!
Regards,
Fan -
It is really interisting that so far I haven’t seen a single violet HUD outside a HAF BLock 50 or USAF Block 40 HUD
In order to know where you’ll see such colored HUD’s, you have to know what this violet represents and what is the function behind this. Search my older posts, you can find the answer there.
This violet HUD is standard for HAF Blocks 50, 52, and 52+ Advanced.
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One more thing. It most definetely isn’t as dark as in those pics. At least not from the angle the pilot is seeing. In RL the more angle you look at a glass the more reflective it appears to be.
I believe these pics are closest to RL.
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PL_Harpoon:
One point is that these are not the violet tinted HUDs. The latter seem to have quite an immersive coating, like you also used on your Block 40/42 version…Raptor, as much as I’d like to know about the background, I’m a bit too lazy to skip 100+ posts to find the answer…:)
A short reference would be appreciated since I really never saw them on e.g. a Netherlands’ F-16 video or any USAF Block 50 video, so I assume it has something to do with environmental specifics and needs of Aegean pilots. But that’s guessing.Cheers
Tom
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Raptor, guess you mean this…
"I have requested this feature in another thread.
The new HUD glasses (from Bl5x and up) have a special chemical coating from the internal (pilot look) side to allow only the green colors to be correctly reflected from the internal projection system. This feature was added to allow correct display of the LANTIRN FLIR image on the standard HUD, remember that originally this LANTIRN function was implemented to the Bl4x afts with the special holographic wide-angle HUD.
So YES, the pilot sees from his ACES II this violet color to the whole HUD glass, and the green circle in its normal position similar to this thread’s mod. From the front side of the HUD/plane the glass appears crystal-clear, it has no violet colors but under certain view-vs-sun angles it turns to the well known bright green, this is due to the outcome of the chemical coating and it is founded in many other new aft designs like F-22, Rafale etc."
Still curious why USAF Block 50s and Belgian/Netherland MLUs have a brownish coating.
Guess that’s also a state of the art thing, maybe the violet is the latest and greatest.This 2.14
VS 0.07
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IIRC violet(pilot side)/green(front side) is from a raster HUD which can display raw FLIR feed, only found on USAF Block40/42 and foreign newer vipers eg. Block50+/52+/60, as well as Rafale/F-22 alike.
All other uses WAC HUD that doesn’t have this special visual appearance. -
@ FanOfBMS: That one is too much colorized… !
IMO … curent one is perfect … stop touching it
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Thanks D-J,
It’s not perfect imo however. Apart from the coloring, which is indeed (too strong and too blueish), this version doesn’t have a topglass, and fades the symbology uneven. Furthermore, the double imprints (below section) are not the right case. Also, the ‘cut off’ (controlled by the 3993.dds) is not good at all in this version. Currently, I’m mixing the best of both worlds, to get to a stable release version now.
However, to go short: the next version will be an improved version of the one you stated ‘as perfect’ here
Regards,
Fan -
Furthermore, the double imprints (below section) are not the right case. Also, the ‘cut off’ (controlled by the 3993.dds) is not good at all in this version. Currently, I’m mixing the best of both worlds, to get to a stable release version now.
However, to go short: the next version will be an improved version of the one you stated ‘as perfect’ here
Regards,
FanCool!
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FanOfBMS, I was riding in the jumpseat a couple of days ago on a reposition flight. The Captain allowed me to take a couple of quick photos of the HUD at his eyelevel and point of view during cruise flight. Though these photos are from a civilian airliner, the projection technology is the same as that found in the F-16 & F/A-18 era of aircraft.
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Thanks for the input.
allowed me to take a couple of quick photos of the HUD at his eyelevel and point of view during cruise flight
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You willing to share those? i assume you are not referring to the posted pics, because these can be found on the net for some time now…
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And, what’s your advise on this project/status?
Regards,
Fan -
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Mark, I’d be happy as a mudhen if you made 2 versions, one for standard brown textured Block 3x-5xHUDs and one for -e.g. Aegean (EMF)…PL_Harpoon already got the Block 4xs covered, so that would be the HUD paradise, covering all the known modern F-16 versions.
In any case Kudos, I assume you reach the 200 hours worklevel for this mod?!
Thorsten
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He Thorsten,
hahaha! LOL yes, the ‘200’-mark is already (far) passed. But, it’s called fun/hobby right?
As you know, now also for the public :-), yes, I’m going to make also a brown textured Block 3x-5xHUDs and (a bit later I guess) the Aegean EMF version.
Currently it’s version 137 (!) which is being tested and now reaching a more-or-less steady state.
A few things I do need to fine-tune, before this version will be released.
After release, I’ll be concerned by the coding possibilities of HUD-symbology.
Regards and thanks - again ! - for your support mate,
Mark