[rscaper1070]

So far in my newly acquired Freespace addiction the cockpit view has been a little elusive. After a lot of searching and the help of kindly souls along the way I was able to find most of what I was looking for. In the interest of helping travelers that come after me I thought it would be handy to collect what I found in one post.

How to enable the cockpit view:

In principle, yes.

However, in this case, the solution is rather simple. Take a look at this example:

Code: [Select]

#Ship Classes

$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace

$Name:          GTF Hercules
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace

#End
This tbm, if saved as, say, showship-shp.tbm (note the -shp part, it's important) will switch on the cockpits for the Ulysses and the Hercules Mk 1. However, not all ships have cockpits at the moment.

An explanation: the -shp part in the filename tells the engine that the following data should be used to modify ships.tbl.

$Name tells the engine which entry to modify, +nocreate tells the engine that the following data should be used to modify an existing entry instead of overwriting an old one or creating a new one. Then comes the data we wish to alter, in this case, only the $Flags field. This has a modifier of its own, called +noreplace, which means that these flags should be added to the existing flags, instead of overwriting the old flags list.

I edited voidSkippers post by adding the +noreplace to each entry

FOX2PRO, if you paste the following into notepad and save it as a .tbm file in //freespace2/data/tables/, it will enable the specified ships to display cockpit view;

Code: [Select]

#Ship Classes

$Name: GTF Perseus
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Myrmidon
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Hercules Mark II
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Hercules
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Loki
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTB Medusa
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTB Ursa
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Valkyrie
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTB Athena
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace


$Name: GTF Ulysses
+nocreate
$Flags: ( "show ship" )
+noreplace

#End
These are only the ships I have tested, though. There are many others with cockpits, but I haven't played any of them to see if the viewpoints are acceptable.

I think the best experience you'll get is in the GTB Athena. It looks truly badass if you hatswitch left and right and see the huge engine nacels. It's also one of the few ships that gives you a useful backwards hatswitch view.

EDIT: The Myrmidon doesn't have a cockpit, but it still offers quite a nice view as you can see the stabilisers. Since the Ulysses offers a completely unobstructed view due to the pilot's position, it's probably safe to say that the Myrmidon would as well anyway.

Fixing the viewpoint:

Thanks, now for the 100,000 dollar question. How do you get the view point right in the Apollo? I apologize for asking for tech help in this thread but the only threads I've found on the subject are from 2007 and they weren't quite clear.

Just grab the file I put in the Freespace Port Conversion Discussion thread.

Thank you so much, I've been trying to put this together for three days. Thing is Rapidshare is telling me the file has already been downloaded 10 times and can't be downloaded any more.

Try this one.

New Link for the above post:  http://www.mediafire.com/?15997adv4bxforj
Also it should be said that the file gets unzipped into the mediavps_3612 file.


And This one is for FS2 and beyond. I think this is the best way.

http://www.mediafire.com/?rlnlkphxdjuiuwj
Cockpits on Terran fighters in Mediavps and BP: AoA.
No Vasudans, I'll someday make a mode for them.

For this one you need to create a folder called Cockpitmod in your Freespace 2 directory. Create a sub folder data, then sub folders for maps,models,cache, and tables. Unzip the file and put all the .pof files in models, .tbm files in tables, and the rest in maps.

Then add "-mod Cockpitmod", no quotes, to the Custom Flags line under Features in the FS2 Open Launcher. You don't need your original showship file anymore so disable or delete it. Vasudan Admiral has created an awesome generic cockpit that you can use. Just copy a entry using a GenericCP.pof, replace the ship name,and add it to the AoACockpits-shp.

Like This:

Code: [Select]

$Name: GTF Apollo
+nocreate
$Cockpit POF file: GenericCP.pof
+Cockpit Offset: 0.002 -1.05 1.23
This is the best way for the cockpit view. I was only able to figure it out this morning as the method described in the original thread wasn't working for me. The whole Cockpitmod part came from another thread that for the life of me I can't find again.


Those posts should get you into a cockpit.

Here are some links to older threads that have a lot of information on the work people are doing.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=50349.0

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=48726.0

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?;topic=70804.0

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=69938.0

[Thaeris]

...Could someone forge this into a Wiki page?

[Vip]

...Could someone forge this into a Wiki page?

Or at least make a sticky out of this topic, I always hoped for a single explanation like this

[Javito1986]

I tried putting a cockpit on the GTF Apollo model (by manually adding it to the bp2-pit-shp tbm and slapping that into the mediavps folder... I can't find tbm that includes FS1 ships?) and play the first mission of Freespace 3.6.12. The vision is WAY off, I see the cockpit but most of my screen is taken up by the instrument panel and I can't so much as see my crosshairs. In metaldestroyer's cockpit youtube video's he's using cockpits in FSPort just fine. Where am I going wrong? Is there a tbm for FS1 ships I haven't found?



EDIT: Standby. May have solved my own issue by reading the original post more closely!


EDIT: The file link for the cockpit view fix in the original post is dead. Could I get an updated download link so I can fix my cockpit view?

[rscaper1070]

I feel your pain, I was in the same boat. Luckily I found the file. All credit goes to MetalDestroyer of course. By the way this file has to be unzipped into the fsport_mediavps folder. The bp cockpit mod is a different story. I'm going to edit the original post right now so take a look.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SFSXPXFL

[Javito1986]

Excellent! That did it for me, I have a functioning cockpit in FS1 now. One question though. From certain angles the light creates that unsightly triangle on my Apollo gunsights. Is that just an issue with the cockpit or do I have some mediavp messed up? It's not terrible or anything, it just detracts somewhat from my goal of playing Freespace in the absolute prettiest way possible  

[Cobra]

That's a model thing. Can't fix it without going into the model itself and redoing the whole cockpit.

[rscaper1070]

Yeah, that's a little annoying, but not as annoying as the superfluous gun site right below your real one. I hate that thing.
 

[Thaeris]

What I'm really hoping for in the future, should Diaspora get toggle-able cockpit .pof's, is that FSO will have cockpit files for all the FS fighters rather than the "show ship" command, which produces a bit of a sub-standard result for the cockpit environment.

A cockpit .pof would be more detailed, more efficient (hopefully), and even better, assumably useable.

[The E]

Just saw this. I do sincerely hope that whoever reads this will immediately forget the part in the initial post that was quoted from voidskipper. Because it's completely wrong.

[rscaper1070]

I edited the post and added the +noreplace to each entry. That way people can get the benefit of voidSkippers effort of listing the ships.

[Javito1986]

This should be a sticky. It's not easy to find info on how to get cockpits, I went through it myself. I have them up and running now but it was tricky to get them set up right.

[Mongoose]

I kind of feel like it should be in another folder, though, where people are more likely to look for info like this.  Any suggestions?

[Kolgena]

You know what would be awesome?

In addition to getting rid of the static HUD texture on the modeled display, could we also get rid of canopy glass? In some cases (perseus) it's so low poly that you really can't see out of it properly, and because it reflects light quite strongly, at some angles of flight you can't see jack.

I don't really expect much to be done because this is an optional feature in the first place, but it'd be nice

[rscaper1070]

If you turn off environment maps that will remove the reflections in the glass. The reflections on the gun site remain though.

[Dragon]

Turning envirnoment maps off helps, but doesn't eliminate the effect.
It's a bug that should be fixed.
And there's no way to get rid of sight reflection, which was always there.

[rscaper1070]

Looking backwards in the Valkyrie.

[Kolgena]

If you turn off environment maps that will remove the reflections in the glass. The reflections on the gun site remain though.

Yeah, but then I also lose env maps on everything else.

Speaking of which, it'd also be useful to make the head/part of the upper torso disappear too. Camera clipping issues if you use irtrackr (or w/e) and that valkyrie thing could be pretty easily fixed by doing that.

I'm not sure what the easiest way would be to do this... Either remake the ships without canopies/HUD glass, or assign invisible reflection textures to clear bits for the player's ship only? Yeah, probably not feasible either way.

[Mongoose]

Think I'll toss this into Modding, since that seems to be the closest fit.  Now it's their problem.

[Nuke]

ive always had trouble with interior cockpit glass, so i usually just omit those polygons from the model. nukemod has had some cockpits since at least 2006, and had some internal animation and rtt panel textures since about 2008. progress is somewhat slow at this point. however i think i may soon be able to render the game's hud to a polygon in the cockpit model.

id also like to point out that it is probably beneficial to do 2 detail levels for the cockpit, the one you see looking out, and the one you see looking in. set them up with detail boxes so you can only see the high poly cockpit from the inside, and the low poly cockpit from the outside. this will improve general game performance.

the show ship method is also technically a legacy way of rendering the cockpits. the cockpit model feature was supposed to replace it, where your actual cockpit was in a completely different mesh. however i do not like it for the following reasons: you do not get to see your weapons that may be in your field of view (in the case of some nukemod ships you can see the ships gatling guns spin while they are in use). it is also not possible to animate the cockpit model's subobjects, where as the ship subobjects are capable of being animated with scripting. there was also an issue where you could not replace the cockpit model's textures (this seems to have been remedied, as scripting.html says handles to the cockpit model and by extension its textures are available, but i have not tested them). it may be possible to do some of that with the cockpit models, but in different ways such as rendering polygons in scripting at the correct positions in the cockpit sop they overlay places where panels go, and placing animated interior components in their own files and using model render.