Widescreen Gaming Forum

After creating some centred hud mods for the likes of TF2 and L4D2, I have decided to take what I have learnt from these forums and implement that knowledge into an automated tool.

EDIT:-
You may now find this tool here...
Delph's Field of View & Aspect Ratio Calculator and Source Enginge HUD Editor



The idea behind this is so that any user can input their resolution of their triple head display, including bezel management ;), select a game, and then select the location of the original hudlayout.res and select the location for the output file. :)

The tool would then do the maths to work out what aspect ratio the user is using for both surround and on a single monitor, and to then take that information to work out how much the xpos values in a given game need to be incremented by.

The next idea is to have a drop down box with a list of games, each game would have an independent .ini file located along side the tool which will be a set of rules or a template if you will, which will tell the tool to ignore certain elements in the hudlayout.res file.
As such by having independent .ini files, these could be updated easy enough by the community if there is ever any updates to a game, or to even add extra new games in the future.

So where am I at with this tool??
I have the script to parse and increment hudlayout.res files.
I have the formula to manually work out how much to increment an xpos value given a known ratio, ie without bezel management.

What do I still need to do??
Work out a formula that can work on the fly with any resolution provided, not just known ratio resolutions so that this becomes automated.
Finish the GUI.
Produce a set of .ini files for games, I will start with TF2 and L4D2 as these are games I have already modded and own, I do not own many other source engine games, so I may be asking this community for some assistance in producing these.

I believe this would be rather useful to the community so any suggestions would be welcome.

You might as well know that I will producing this within my spare time, I still have a lot of work to do on this so I cannot provide an ETA as of yet, other than its a work in progress, for which I wish to get complete as soon as humanly possible.

So my question to you is, would you folks find this tool of use to you, and would any of you be so kind as to help produce some .ini files for some of the games I do not own.
I will likely be searching for this assistance after I have worked out the tf2 and l4d2 .ini files to set as an example.

Have I got your support? :)

i would be very happy about a tool like this! Keep on working :)

Update: Started building interface and have a basic aspect ratio calculator working.
I had started to produce the tool totaly in perl, however trying to get the gui to work correctly turn out to be a bit of a headache, as such after some experimenting I have decided to produce this as a web app relying on Java for the aspect ratio calculator and interface with php and perl to parse files which is still a work in progress.

Here is what I have managed to put together so far. Which may be found here. :)

very nice! keep on working! :cheers

Updated again with number of monitors support, and rounding to nearest intiger when deviding by number of monitors to acquire aspect ratio for a single screen when using bezel management to pass this information to my perl script in order to adjust values inside of .res files. :)

Without Bezel Management...


With Bezel Management...

i like this.

I have now implimented the maths to work out how much to increment xpos values to realign to the center screen. :)

Without bezel compensation


With bezel compensation


Next step is to integrate a method to parse .res files for incrementation, ignoring any hud elements that do not require editing from a seperate element checklist.

The calc now supports more than 3 monitors when calculating hud shift and I have started to impliment .res files so that they update automaticly.



Link is in my sig :)

More to come soon! :-D

The calc now supports more than 3 monitors when calculating hud shift and I have started to impliment .res files so that they update automaticly.



Link is in my sig :)

More to come soon! :-D

That's great news! Only thing I have to say though is that outside of this thread people will be very confused about it because it doesn't mention that it only works on the HUD for source games. You should probably change the text to avoid many unnecessary questions about why your fix doesn't work on _____ game.

Ah, yes, I was getting to that :)

EDIT: done ;)

I will also get round to putting in a bit more of a readme along with some comparison pics to explain.

Have taken onboard what you said MobsterOO7 and added a little more detail. ;)
I have visually tweaked the site to provide more, yet clearer information.

I have now added L4d2 scoreboard and chat box to the tabs and are now auto-updating correctly highlighted in red as you scroll down. :D
I am in the process of verifying the hudlayout to ensure it is as correct as I understand it to be, just in case I missed a value by mistake, as such the L4D2 hudlayout is currently classed as beta.

Next up will be to start adding TF2 hud files.

After this I will be needing the assistence of this forum to provide me with details for other games so that they may also be added :)

More updates coming soon, so watch this space. :)

Delphium, Are you going to support double Layer Monitor Setups (I.E.3x2) or even number Setups (I.E. 2x1)?

I know L4D2 will be fine in a 3x2 as there isn't anything at the top of the screen. But you will Have to act as if you only have 3 Rather Tall Screens. Because if you put in 6 screens then you get tall little skinny Screens (as if you were playing in portrait). How would you go about the placement of the HUD? I'm not sure how I would do it.

Another thing is that in even numbered setups there is a bezel in the middle of the screen. I'm not too sure about the annoyance of the hud being split but i guess that comes with having a bezel in the middle of the screen. So I guess you can ignore that.

- @suiken_2mieu

1 step at a time :D
Supporting double layer setups such as 3x2 should in theory be easy enough to impliment, I would just need to experiment with the Hud's to see how they react when adjusting the "ypos" values. Unless anyone has done some expreimenting already? :)

It will be possible to add input boxes for number of monitors along and number high for a 3 x 2 situation.
This I would likely impliment once I have information regarding the "ypos" values reactions.

As for even number of screens, right now, the tool will shift the items by a full screen's worth, so essenitally for a 4 screen display instead of the bots/other players health bars being stuck on the far left monitor, it would be placed to the far left of the inner left monitor, with own player health and ammo etc would be positioned on the right edge of the right inner monitor
this scales should you have 6 or 8 or 10 monitors that the HUD will be placed to the far left and right of the inner left and right monitors, thus the hud is not smack in the middle of your view, but not far out to the sides like normal.

- @suiken_2mieu

1 step at a time :D
Supporting double layer setups such as 3x2 should in theory be easy enough to impliment, I would just need to experiment with the Hud's to see how they react when adjusting the "ypos" values. Unless anyone has done some expreimenting already? :)

It will be possible to add input boxes for number of monitors along and number high for a 3 x 2 situation.
This I would likely impliment once I have information regarding the "ypos" values reactions.

As for even number of screens, right now, the tool will shift the items by a full screen's worth, so essenitally for a 4 screen display instead of the bots/other players health bars being stuck on the far left monitor, it would be placed to the far left of the inner left monitor, with own player health and ammo etc would be positioned on the right edge of the right inner monitor
this scales should you have 6 or 8 or 10 monitors that the HUD will be placed to the far left and right of the inner left and right monitors, thus the hud is not smack in the middle of your view, but not far out to the sides like normal.

Yeah i noticed that after i posted, but I do like your work, continue on and thanks.

Width: 5760 Height: 1200

Your surround aspect ratio is: 24 : 5

Number Of Monitors: 3

Your individual monitor aspect ratio is: 8 : 5

should that not be 16:10?

Width: 5760 Height: 1200

Your surround aspect ratio is: 24 : 5

Number Of Monitors: 3

Your individual monitor aspect ratio is: 8 : 5

should that not be 16:10?

16/2 = 8
10/2 = 5

The thing about that, is that there is both a factor out of them.

But why still use 16:10 then? Dunno, maybe some marketing bullshit.

should that not be 16:10?

8 : 5 is the same as 16:10 :onethumb

EDIT: beaten to it.

8 : 5 is the same as 16:10

of course, i am so stupid -.-

Awesome tool! Couldn't figure out the other HUD fixes, glad to see someone working something like this!! Many thanks :bowdown