LetterBox only at the bottom.

Kosmos · #1 03-12-2005, 10:46 AM

So I can't find it now, but there was a post about the letterbox.

People want a black letter box only at the bottom of the screen.

The current way that it was being moved I think was messing up the location of the combatbubbles or something.

There is a comand on the list for

combatbubble_use_base_loc

I would think that's to set the base location of the combatbubble.
This may be in relation to the character, or the frame.
I know it was mention that it was based off the edge of the frame I believe.
So this command might change that.
There is also an
combatbubble_use_shift
and
combatbubble_startheight

any of those might be able to help someone working on a mod like this.

If you do, please send me a message or comment here, so I can add your findings to the list I'm creating for the commands and default values, ranges and what they change.

Deathbane27 · #2 03-13-2005, 12:48 AM

These affect the numbers or "Resisted!"/"Miss!" text that appears when something is attacked.

combatbubble_startheight: Apparent range -10 (bottom of screen) to 10 (top of screen). Affects the starting point for the text. Unaffected by any letterbox settings.

combatbubble_use_shift: No apparent effects to changing.

combatbubble_use_base_loc: No apparent effects to changing. Probable that I don't have the correct syntax.

By the way, it's the names, not the combat bubbles, that gets shifted when you alter cl_letter_box_position. Demonstration:

cl_letter_box_position 0.5 (default):

cl_letter_box_position 0 (all black portion at bottom of screen):

(That's not a problem by itself, but targetting gets screwed up if the camera isn't perfectly level.)

insomniac · #3 03-13-2005, 01:24 AM

/sigh.... think simple! or something..
Getting tired of suggesting this, so here.. proof of concept:
an anamorphic black box
move, resize, and lock it.

a top-only frame is prolly possible too.

ger · #4 03-13-2005, 01:55 AM

That's very similar to what I did for the custom graphical letterbox frames I use. It's a lot easier than trying to get the letterbox frame to scale differently on the top and bottom.

Kosmos · #5 03-13-2005, 01:59 AM

But why make things simple when we can make them so complicated?
It's ever so much more fun that way!

Deathbane27 · #6 03-13-2005, 04:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by insomniac

/sigh.... think simple! or something..
Getting tired of suggesting this, so here.. proof of concept:
an anamorphic black box
move, resize, and lock it.

a top-only frame is prolly possible too.

Two problems with that as compared to getting cl_letter_box_position to work properly:

1- Your point of view is still centered at the center of your screen, instead of the center of the viewable area.

2- Plopping a black box over the screen won't increase your framerate, but setting a high letterbox amount can.

Kosmos · #7 03-13-2005, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deathbane27

Two problems with that as compared to getting cl_letter_box_position to work properly:

1- Your point of view is still centered at the center of your screen, instead of the center of the viewable area.

2- Plopping a black box over the screen won't increase your framerate, but setting a high letterbox amount can.

Hmm there is a

cl_setpov (Client Set Point of view) Not sure if that's related. Not tested yet.
I think that probably has to do with cameradistance settings though.but most of those are the 'ics' commands. so maybe the cl_setpov is related.
I think it's probably the Fkey setting for the two viewepoints you can toggle between. Default is 1st person and the alternative is all the way out, or 5.0 I think. Not sure.

there is also a 'r_lookat_pov' command that might be related.
again, I've not made it to testing that one yet either. It's on my list of ones to play with.

Kosmos · #8 03-15-2005, 09:40 AM

Thanks for the feedback on those commands DeathBane I'll work them into the document I'm working on when I get to the commands we don't have available through the ui.

I know everyone has given this a shot, so far it seems the only really working option creating the new window that bottom.

I like to dink with these things just to see how they work, and the letter box is pretty intersting.
I want to play around with the camera control and see if I can find anything interesting like the max camera distance. I loev that one, and play with it like that all the time now.
I was dinking with the cl_setpov command last night.
0.5 seems the default spot, about halfway. seems to be the location of the main camera.
Setting it to 0.0 put it at foot level. But it goes all scewey lol!
I was doing my testing on the far journey and the camera drops below the deck, then it just sort of 'flops' around. lol
It also locks you from being able to move it at that point of view.
Moving it to 1.0 worked ok, but again it loks the camera in place.
There are quiet a few commands that are all going to be related to one another for that, but its fun to mess with.

Back to the letterbox.

It seems that everyone things that nothing is getting rendered under the black borders? but I'm not sure about that. If you set your letterboxs up like normal and move the camera around, the chatbubbles character names go under the black part, They are semi transparent for a bit, past the borders.

I'm convinced there is another setting that we would need to change along wih the letter box postion command.
We just haven't figure out which one yet.

The other alternative is to make that top bar transparent. Somehow.
It's one of the problem child problmes I guess. And low on the priority list.

If would could get it working with just a couple of commands that would be better then using another window.