New Gun Sight for the Stock I-16, I-16 SPB and I-153
Get it here:
https://www.mediafire.com/download/y3jaq3a1z3bmvsx/00_Gunsight_I-16_I-153.7zFrom the readme file:
New Gun Sight for the Stock I-16, I-16_SPB and I-153
The stock (v4.07) I-153 sight was essentially correct in basic form, although sorely lacking in realism. The I-16 sight was not correct for at least the earlier planes, where the same sight as used in the I-153 should have been installed.
I could locate online just a couple of low-resolution photos of this sight. And so my effort here is in no small measure borne of guesswork, using the stock sight as a template of sorts upon which to flesh out detail. For instance, the Sun shade's mechanism for rotating it up into position was not discerned in those images, and so its base glass holder simply lies horizontal in the manner of the stock version, with no other part or parts being present which would suggest the mechanical operation.
Note that the stock sight did not incorporate a moveable Sun shade, and neither does mine; I've not (yet) progressed to the coding of operable mechanisms.
I did see in an image what appeared to be a lower extension of the sight, below the hood surface, which I presume to be the lamp housing. I've modeled such a cylinder here.
I've elected to dispense with a crash pad, noting the separation already provided by the padding that rims the hood. And a photo of the sight installed in an I-16 showed no crash pad attached.
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The I-16 originally had its (anachronistic) sight incorporated into the file, Body.msh, which contains many other cockpit elements as well. There was no damaged version of the sight; only the undamaged one. I deleted this sight from Body.msh, and made the new one as a completely separate element, with its own entry in hier.him.
Moreover, I made a damaged version as well, even though so far I've not seen it ever appear; it may not therefore work as intended, requiring deeper (Java?) coding which I'm not able to do.
My 'damaged' version (pricel_d1.msh) differs from the undamaged one (pricel.msh) only in the rotation into place of the iron sight. If for the I-16 you would like to use the 'damaged' version at all times, in hier.him locate the following:
[pricel]
Mesh pricel //new, by WxTech (old sight removed from Body.msh)
Parent Body
//Attaching 0 1 0 -1 0 0 0 0 1 0.10904 -0.00039 0.34195 //L B U?
Attaching 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.039 -0.03 0.49 //
Change the second line to read:
Mesh pricel_d1
This will use the 'damaged' sight instead of the undamaged one, and have the iron sight rotated into position for use. It's OK to leave the following section, [pricel_d1] as it is; the game doesn't care if the same mesh is used for different states. That notwithstanding, this section may not be recognized anyway, but I prefer to leave it in place upon the eventuality (?) of a damaged gun sight state being coded by someone...
An 'undamaged' sight having its iron sight rotated into place will necessarily have both the iron rings and optical reticle visible simultaneously, which can be distracting. If you're so inclined, you could eliminate the optical reticle through Reticle.mat, either by making
ColorScale 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.4
read as
ColorScale 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.0
which makes the reticle fully transparent, or by setting
tfNoTexture 1
which results in no reticle texture being drawn at all. This could be rationalized as a state of affairs in which no gun sight lamps are available, necessitating the use of the iron sight.
Of course, you could do the same for the I-153, replacing the 'undamaged' sight with the 'damaged' one.
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About the iron sight position of rotation when not 'damaged', which involes some supposition on my part...
The tighter confines behind the I-153's small canopy forced the forward ring outside the canopy, the shaft protruding through a hole in the perspex. There would be no hindrance to rotating the iron sight clockwise so as to fully clear the line of sight; I've set the rotation to 135 degrees clockwise.
The greater room behind the I-16's canopy permitted the iron ring to remain inside. But as modeled, at least, there seems to be a limit to clockwise rotation imposed by the close confines of the perspex on the side. And so I've elected to rotate the iron sight 45 degrees counter clockwise. I could have rotated it farther downward, but the small intrusion of the ring at 45 degrees into the line of sight is no real impediment to aiming.
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The canopy glass incorporates my standardized 'dirt' scheme. As part of this 'dirt' scheme' I reversed the surface normals for the canopy glazing polygons in the files, Glass.msh. This was achieved for each vertex by multiplying the three relevant numbers by -1, so as to reverse the signs. This now makes the 'dirt' more visible on surfaces when *facing* the source of illumination, and much less prominent when facing away.
To control the intensity of the 'dirt', vary the opacity in the file, Glass.mat. The relevant number is the last one on this line:
ColorScale 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.4
The texture, Glass.tga, already has some transparency built in. But you can further adjust it in the .mat file. Currently I have the value set to 0.4. If you lower this to 0.0, the glass will become completely transparent; increase to 1.0 and the 'dirt' will be quite obvious.
If you wish to revert to the stock canopy glass behavior/appearance, delete:
Glass.tga
Glass.mat
Glass.msh
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The in-cockpit viewpoints are set in the view hooks sections of Body.msh shown here:
[Hooks]
CAMERA <BASE>
CAMERAAIM <BASE>
[HookLoc]
//0 -1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.03905 0.43073 0.61265 L B U
//0 -1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.03905 0.34722 0.59265
0 -1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.039 0.431 0.61
0 -1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.039 0.19 0.609 //F4 U3.5
IMPORTANT! Newer game versions may have additional viewpoint hooks (I'm an old dinosaur using 4.08.). If this is the case, and you don't have an extracted Body.msh from your game version, you should try to obtain the view hook data to be included. I welcome any input from current game version users on the matter in this thread.
CAMERA sets the 'normal sitting' viewpoint; CAMERAAIM sets the 'gun sight' view as toggled by the default SHF-F1 keys. In [HookLoc], the first line defines CAMERA, the second line CAMERAAIM. Here I've retained the original data, but 'REM'ed out' those two lines with the characters "//"; the lines to be read by the game follow. not preceded with "//" characters.
The characters "L B U" which I've added as a reminder indicate that increasing the last three values of each line move the viewpoint left, back and up, in meters, respectively. (The first nine values define the transformation matrix.) These values here suit my tastes for my head tracker setup. You likely might wish to alter them to suit your own situation.
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Hier.him has necessarily been altered so as to properly locate the sight, reticle and reticle mask. If you have another mod for a plane having its own version of hier.him, you should transfer my data for:
[Z_Z_RETICLE]
[Z_Z_MASK]
[pricel]
[Pricel_d1]
to the other mod's hier.him, then disable/delete mine. In any event, that version of hier.him (or any other file appearing in duplicate) which is read first is the one used by the game. You need not delete mine if the other is read first, by appearing earlier in an alphabeticially arranged file folder listing.
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I've sized the optical reticle so that the inner ring subtends an angular diameter of what I gather to be the correct 133 mils, with the ticks being separated by very nearly 10 mils. NOTE: The 'American' mil is 0.001 radian (with 2pi radians in a circle), and the Russian' mil is 1/6,000 of a circle. This is a ratio of mil dimension 'Russian':'American' equaling 1.047198. That is, the 'Russian' mil is some 4.7% larger.
If my sizing is incorrect, and you wish to change your reticle size, proceed as follows.
- Pause the game, set the FOV to 10 degrees (which is 167 mils, as set by a full circle comprising 6,000 mils), and center the reticle.
- With a ruler, measure the display width. The scale equals the width divided by 167. For example, if your display width is 450mm, the scale = 450 / 167 = 2.659mm/mil.
- With the ruler, measure the inner circle diameter. Its angular diameter equals the linear diameter divided by the scale. For example, if the ruler shows the inner circle's diameter as 350mm, its angular diameter = 350 / 2.659 = 131.6 mils.
- Calculate the ratio by which you should multiply the current reticle dimension (in Z_Z_RETICLE.msh) so as to obtain the correct dimension. This ratio = desired size / current size. For example, if the current size of 131.6 mils should actually be 120 mils, the ratio = 120 / 131.6 = 0.91185.
- In Z_Z_RETICLE.msh, multiply the eight instances of the number defining the four corners by this reatio. For example, for the I-16 the mesh places the four corners at +/- 0.631m. Replace all eight instances with the new value which equals 0.631 * 0.91185 = 0.5754. Remeber to not change the signs!
Based on a photo of a real sight's reticle, I've shortened the tick mark lines by about 1/3, as compared to their length in the stock reticle pattern.
The stock reticle was supplied as a quadrant, or 1/4 of the full pattern. The full reticle was then built up from this, requiring 4 times the number of faces to construct. I've made a single, full reticle, as is done for all other planes in the game.
(NOTE! This full reticle graphic cannot be simply copied to other RU plane folders without first modifying their Z_Z_RETICLE.msh files appropriately.)
I do not employ the usual dual-layer reticle scheme, where a sharp and a blurred pattern are merged. The 'fuzzy halo' representation is not realistic, even though it does better suggest a certain degree of luminance for a bright-on-dark pattern. This unrealistic scheme more reflects the limited dynamic range of a camera when photographing the projected reticle, where 'blooming' due to overexposure (of the rather brighter reticle), or an enhancement of scatter/reflections, results. The eye's much larger dynamic range makes it less susceptible to such effects. And the 'cleaner' reticle presents a lesser obstruction to target visibility.
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I supply altered hood .tga and .mat files: for the I-16 called "kapot"; for the I-153 called "hood". I lowered the specularity, as they were deemed *far* too shiny, I dulled the color somewhat, and I altered the shadowing on them.
I supply altered textures for the leather padding on the hood edge, as contained in the "prib_two" textures.
For the I-153 I supply a slightly altered texture for the inside walls, the texture being called, "door.tga". I merely toned down the hue and brightness of what appears to be a leather or wood surface, which was formerly too 'bright pink' for my tastes.
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The I-153's canopy glass poses a bit of a conundrum for me. The two vertical discontinuities separating the front and side panels are represented as thin 'sheets' of zero thickness. What are they supposed to represent; a metal 'divider', or bonded edges of the perspex panels? Originally they shared the same texture as the edges of the reflector glass, suggesting bonded edges. I tried to introduce some partial transparency, but this was not feasible due to being able to see *through* parts of the wing and cowling where these strips were superimposed. And so I had to make these strips opaque, electing to make them nearly white, with a subtle darker gradient at their lower ends. This texture is the horizontal strip at the extreme upper left of the pricel.tga. You may wish to alter this, if you have suitable graphics editing software.
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I give permission for the free use of this work, in whole or in part, by any person or entity, without restriction.
WxTech
Oct 24, 2015
Author
Topic: New Gun Sight For Stock I-16 and I-153 (Read 8977 times)
