space engineers cool text for lcd panel manufacturer
Battery , AddInfoThat will help telling the two output modes (alternative data sources) apart, by putting one of the following small texts between the central symbol and the percentage value.
Additionally in the MultiIcon view, the SingleIcon view, the NoIcons view and the just Text mode, you can set the the available width for the textlines with Length=(followed by a decimal number)
FSD can clone the text content of other displays. These texts can be fixed or could be generated by other scripts (like Automatic LCDs 2 by MMaster or Isy"s Inventory Manager)
LCD Panel, clone:0 position(100,50) fontsize=0.5 TextColor(255,128,0)This would clone the text contend of the first screen of the block "LCD Panel" to the position (x=100 y=50) in an orange color with a font size of 0.5.
The same rules about the RGB values, brackets, the missing pace between "...Color" and the opening bracket "(" etc. like for the default view mode and the SingleIcon view mode apply here too.
This also true when only using Text: after the Separator character without using any block/group name. (resulting in only a simple text line with the specified color)
This way you can ether reduce the number of LCD Panels needed or greatly enhance the amount of information you can display with a given set of screens/panels.
For this purpose (and many others) you can add a special keyword line starting with "FSD options:" into the Custom Data field of the PB (running FSD v2) itself.
Caution: There has to be no space between "layoutrate" and the equals sign "="This will set the rate of changes for the screen layouts. (in changes per minute)
You can overide individual LCD/Cockpit screen settings by using a special keyword line starting with "FSD options:" in the Custom Data field of the Programmable block itself.
All keywords for this override options must be in a single line and this line must be located above an optional "ShowStats" line or else the used keywords affect only the LCD panels of the Programmable block.
Only "FSD options:" is case sensitive. All other keywords for the overide options are not case sensitive. Different keyword can be strung together but must be seperated with " " , "," or ":"
The same is true for the rate of display layout changesYou can turn the rate up or down. But it due to visual reasons it should remain a fraction of the FpM.
Well first of all, text panels and LCDs are the same, they are IMyTextPanel blocks and thus share the same features, work the same but merely got different names and models.
You have to take ownership over the block in order to change the settings for it. Once you did that you have to change the display text to either public or private and then change the according text fields to contain whatever text you want inside it.
After many requests, we have decided to release our internal Replay Tool that we use to create our trailers. It allows you to record the movement and actions of multiple characters in the same world. You can use your video recording software of choice to capture these moments for cinematic purposes! It’s also super useful for epic screenshot creation. The tool allows you to be the director of your own Space Engineers film where you can carefully position and time different engineers with their own specific roles. We are extremely excited to see what the community will create with this!
Important: because it’s an internal tool, it has a very basic user interface and required advanced users to be used. We believe this is OK, because most video creators who would want to use it to create epic cinematic Space Engineers videos are advanced users.
There are now Steam trading cards to collect for Space Engineers! Collect a full set of cards to earn items that help you customize your Steam profile including backgrounds and badges.
There are fourteen new decorative blocks for people who want to buy them and support the development of Space Engineers, which are available on the Space Engineers Steam Store page. Within the package you will get following new blocks:
Beds can preserve characters’ inventory and toolbar while they"re offline and keeps them alive as long as there is oxygen available. Is considered to be the same as the Cryo Chamber Block, except oxygen is used from the environment. Space Engineers don’t work from nine to five, they work whenever they’re needed: day or night, during peace and war. But when it’s time to call it a day, every engineer looks forward to resting in these beds.
Standard and Corner Desks can be used as seats, which allow players to sit on the chair attached to it. Combine these blocks to produce various designs and sizes, creativity has no limitation. Whether designing new schematics or charting a fresh course to another world, desks are essential for any engineer looking to get some work done.
Kitchens are purely decorative. The kitchens in Space Engineers come well-equipped and include stunning visual details. Space Engineers overcome challenges everyday when they’re working on new planets or among the stars.
Planters are purely decorative, but they make outer space a bit warmer by housing life in a special glass container. Build your own garden on the space station. Planters not only help to liven up spaces, but the flora housed inside these capsules also remind many engineers of the homes they’ve left behind in order to explore the universe.
Couchescan be used as seats, so take your time to relax and take a break. You don’t need to always run, fly or work, you can enjoy your cozy room and enjoy the view. The last thing anyone would ever call a Space Engineer is ‘couch potato’, but who wouldn’t like to relax after a hard day’s work on this comfy furniture?
Armory and Armory Lockers can be used to decorate interiors and store weapons, ammunition, tools and bottles; both are small storages (400L), where you can keep your equipment. Space Engineers use lockers in order to ensure that keepsakes from home, toiletries and other items are kept safe.
Toiletscan be used as a seat. The latest and greatest interstellar lavatory technology has made many earth dwellers jealous of the facilities enjoyed by Space Engineers.
Toilet Seat that can be used as a seat and is fit for the creator of the legendary Red Ship; most engineers don’t want to get up after ‘taking care of business’.
Industrial Cockpits are used to control your ships. This industrial cockpit in both small and large grid versions will make your creations look much better. Offering unmatched visibility, the industrial cockpit enables engineers to experience stunning vistas while traversing landscapes and space.
Console blocks project blueprints for downscaled ships and stations, as well as display pictograms or customizable text. They are fantastic functional LCD panels where you can project your creations and show them to your friends. The sleek and crystal clear picture offered by this console allows Space Engineers to display designs and other important information.
Keen Software House needs to stay profitable in order to continue development and support of Space Engineers, and to take risks, to invest into experiments that may not pay off in the short term, and to develop innovative concepts.
Sometimes we have to invest in people, teams, or projects, without knowing if they will work out. You need to give them time. And if you want to have a high bar for innovation, expecting novel things, you need to take the risk.
Why are they high-risk? Because they are hard to do, and usually it takes many iterations until we figure out the right way to do it. It usually takes a few iterations to perfect it. This means that doing water can take a few weeks (if we get it right from the start) or a few years (if we need to experiment, iterate, throw away past experiments, look for specialists in this area, etc). Same for the engine rewrite and AI / living worlds for our games.
A:Actually, even this update isn’t paid. The major part of this update (LCD screens, Replay Tool, new music tracks, smaller improvements) is free for everyone. Only the smaller and not mandatory part is paid - Decorative Pack, which you can purchase here.
A: To support future development of Space Engineers and other leading-edge projects we plan to work on at Keen Software House. Players kept asking us for something they could buy to support the development of Space Engineers, and the Decorative Pack is a great option for them.
A: Right after Space Engineers left early access and all hot issues were resolved. Most of the work was done by the Art team, the rest of the developers is working on other long-term updates.
A: We want more people to play Space Engineers, which means we must lower the barrier of entry. When the Space Engineers community grows, everyone benefits from this - more content on Workshop, more mods, more new ideas, more people to play with. This means that all non-mandatory features should be optional, so only those who really want them can pay for them. That’s why we decreased the price of Space Engineers, and made the Decorative Pack an optional purchase.
Looking at our upcoming plans, I can say that we are going to work on another package similar to this one. It’s not a secret that we want to bring you more things you asked for in the past, such as new skins, new weapons, new economy system etc.
Space Engineers is a voxel-based sandbox game, developed and published by Czech independent developer Keen Software House. In 2013, the initial developmental release of the game joined the Steam early access program. During the following years of active development, Space Engineers sold over one million units. In total as of 2019 the game has sold over 3.5 million copiessource code was officially available and maintained by KSH to assist the modding community.Beta and was later officially released on February 28, 2019.
Gameplay of Space Engineers begins with the player selecting or joining a world with specific settings, such as the number of asteroids (an "empty world" can also be picked) and the available starting equipment. When creating or editing a world, several advanced options are available to change how the player will interact with the world, and how the worlds will appear. This includes changing the speed with which several tools and machines will work, the size of the player"s inventory, and whether procedural generation will be used (effectively making the world infinite). Upon confirming the world settings, a loading screen appears while the world is generated. This screen consists of a random in-game screenshot as a backdrop, the game"s logo, an animated loading icon, and a randomly selected message at the center. The message may be either a helpful gameplay hint, or one of many quotations concerning space, science, and/or engineering. Many of these quotes are from notable scientists such as Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein, as well as authors such as Arthur C. Clarke.
Once in-game, the player is given control of a single astronaut (referred to as a "Space Engineer") and a set of tools comprising a drill, a welder, and a grinder (if spawn with tools is on). Construction begins by choosing any block from the Engineer"s inventory, and placing it anywhere in open space to create a new voxel grid. Additional blocks can then be added to this grid to create a structure.
aesthetic purpose. Armor blocks, the most basic and common of all blocks, can be realistically damaged and deformed through collisions or the use of weapons.keypads, which can be used to view and manipulate the status of other specific blocks attached to the structure. To be functionally connected however, and to transport materials, blocks called "conveyors" must be used to connect the desired machines. "Functional" blocks require power, which can be provided by solar panels or nuclear reactors attached to the same structure. While reactors must be supplied with uranium, and produce large amounts of power while active, solar panels will continually produce a low output of power when there is line-of-sight to the sun. Once being produced, power is automatically distributed throughout the entire structure and can also be stored in batteries.
The size, resource requirements, and availability of blocks depends on the type of structure they are attached to. Blocks such as assemblers or refineries do not have "small" variants, whereas large ships and stations cannot use gatling guns, instead using AI-controlled gatling or missile turrets. Blocks attached to a small ship are considerably smaller, allowing a much greater level of detail, and require fewer resources than those attached to large ships or stations (for example, light armor requires 25 steel plates on a station, but only one on a small ship).
Ships can be deliberately moved and rotated by external forces and a player as long as they are powered and have at least one gyroscope, thruster, and cockpit. To be able to move in any direction and then be able to stop effectively via inertia dampeners, thrusters must be placed on the structure facing up, down, forward, backward, left, and right. More gyroscopes on a ship will increase the ship"s ability to rotate in space, but in order for the inertial dampeners to be more effective, more thrusters must be added in each direction in which dampening is required.
Astronauts floating in space are able to move forward, backward, upwards, downwards, left, or right without restriction by using a jetpack. They are also able to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. Astronauts and structures can also enable or disable inertial dampeners, which automatically attempt to reduce speed to zero when force is not being applied, and the required thrusters are installed.
If the player disables their jetpack within a gravitational field (either on the surface of a planet or a structure/asteroid with a gravity generator), movement is restricted to a plane perpendicular to the direction of the net gravity field(s). Vertical viewing angle is also restricted between −90 and 90 degrees, as in most first-person shooters. Ships and structures are unaffected by gravity generators unless equipped with at least one Artificial Mass block. If the player falls off a structure while within a gravity field, they will fall into space until out of range of the gravity generator, at which point the player"s jetpack will automatically enable itself. However, if the player touches their feet to an asteroid or structure with no gravity present, their "mag-boots" will enable them to walk across its surface and even around edges; though jumping will disconnect the player from the surface, and they cannot traverse the 90-degree angle between a floor and wall.
Several types of cargo ships can spawn randomly and fly through the world, which can be hijacked by the player or harvested for components. Some of these cargo ships are booby trapped to explode when the player attempts to commandeer them, and are sometimes armed with hostile gatling or missile turrets.
All place-able objects can be colored prior to placement using a slider-based GUI. The player can manipulate the hue, saturation, and value of the color to produce a very large spectrum of colors. There are 14 slots where new colors can be saved for later use within the same world. Colors can also be changed after blocks have been placed by clicking the middle mouse button while hovering over a block on the "Color Picker" GUI.
Asteroids and planets consist of terrain voxels, which substantially differ from blocks, and although possible to destroy by the player, cannot be created by them unless in creative mode. Celestial objects are currently fixed in space and cannot move, however, rocks/minerals that have been mined are subject to gravity and will react accordingly. Asteroids also do not currently have gravity associated with them, and can come in several basic forms including spherical, torus, and rod-shapes, as well other variations or combinations of these.
In survival mode, players need to mine, collect, and refine various chemical elements from asteroids and planets in order to craft tools, weapons, and blocks as well as produce electricity. Resources can be mined manually using a hand drill, or by using ships with the necessary equipment. Components are produced by assembling them from raw materials; however, they can also be harvested by salvaging cargo ships. To avoid death, players must monitor their health, energy and oxygen levels. Damage can be inflicted on the player by collisions, weapons, contact with thrusters, meteor showers, or by running out of space suit energy. Collisions at higher speeds result in more damage. As the acceleration value of gravity generators stacks, damage from falling can be much more dangerous when multiple gravity generators are active. A player"s health and energy can be restored using a Medical Room block, or a Survival Kit block. Energy can also be replenished by sitting in the cockpit of any powered structure. The development of survival mode began at the end of summer of 2013.
In the survival mode of the game, all actions, including survival itself due to the power requirements of the space-suit"s life-support system, depend on the gathering and refining of certain minerals. These minerals can be found on asteroids or planets, plundered from randomly spawned ships, or recovered from unknown signals. Raw materials are mined from deposits of ore on asteroids, and are then placed (or sent using a conveyor system) into a basic refinery or refinery in order to refine them to be used in assemblers. The refined materials are formed into various components in the assembler which can then be used in the construction of ships or stations.
Inventories in Space Engineers are very flexible and work in a whole-ship manner rather than in an individual one. All inventories connected to a ship can be viewed from any access panel on the same ship, however inventories must be connected via conveyors and conveyor tubes in order for items to be transferred among them. Inventories of refineries and assemblers will automatically request items to refine from connected inventories when they get low, and will send items into an available inventory when it fills up. The conveyor sorter allows inventories to be automatically removed and sorted from and into certain inventories. Instead of a common slot system, Space Engineers uses a volumetric system, measured in litres, with every item having a certain amount of volume and every inventory a certain capacity that it cannot exceed.
Planets in Space Engineers were released on November 12, 2015, after being in development since February 2015. There are several types of planets, themed after Earth, the Moon, Mars, Titan, Europa, and an "alien" planet.NPCs, and the Earth-like planet features wolves, hostile dog-like NPCs.
Atmospheric flight is possible even on worlds with oxygen-deprived atmospheres. In order to leave a planet, the player will need to use hydrogen engines with sufficient fuel or build a hybrid spacecraft with atmospheric engines (for liftoff) and ion engines (upper atmosphere to space).
Hybrid surface-to-orbit craft are considerably heavier than their space-only counterparts, but can be built compact enough to fit inside a standard hangar.
On August 17, 2017, "unknown signals" were added to survival mode. These signals spawn randomly within a certain range of the player, and indicate the position of a small probe via a GPS coordinate and a repeating tone. Each probe contains components and can be disassembled, preventing the player from encountering dead end situations in which they do not have the components needed to produce the basic machines which are essential for constructing components and other machines, effectively preventing a catch-22.
Each probe also possesses a button, which when pressed has a chance to reward the player with a collectible skin, similar to a loot box. The skin can be for the player character"s helmet, suit, boots, or tools, and can be traded or sold on the Steam Market. Each skin can be obtained for free in-game, with the exception of three sets: the Veteran Set, which was awarded to players who had owned the game before and played between August and September 2017; the Medieval Set, which is awarded to players who also own Medieval Engineers; and the Golden Set, which is awarded to players who purchase the Space Engineers Deluxe Edition.
Space Engineers was developed and published by the indie video game developer Keen Software House based in the Czech Republic. Implemented as a voxel-based sandbox game set in an asteroid field in space, built on their own game engine, VRAGE 2.
The pre-release alpha build was released on October 23, 2013 on Steam, featuring a single-player "creative" mode. On February 24, 2014, the company announced that Space Engineers had sold over 250,000 copies in four months.Space Engineers have been achieved: survival mode and multiplayer.
Following the release, Keen has continued to release various updates to the game. In most, if not all cases, Keen has divided each update into a mechanical and an aesthetic component; the mechanical component being released for free while the aesthetic component (new block models, texture overlays, engineer suits, and emotes) have been released as a purchasable DLC. This may be a compromise between the need for a semi-predictable revenue stream for continued support of the game, and the need to avoid creating a "pay-to-win" situation.
Adds Dispenser and jukebox blocks, a transparent LCD panel (useful for creating custom HUDs), various interior furnishings and window blocks, new catwalk blocks, railings, stairs and half stairs, a rotating warning light fixture, and a small collection of decorative metal crates.
Adds the Frostbite Scenario, the Antenna Dish, decorative engineer cadavers (skeletons in suits, for atmosphere), a 7.5m wide by 5m tall airtight door block, an offset door, a blizzard-themed block texture overlay, a pair of "I’m Cold" and "Checking suit vitals display" emotes, and some LCD posters.
Includes a set of decorative neon tubes, sci-fi versions of various blocks such as the "Ion" and "Atmospheric" thrusters, LCD panels, Interior walls, button panels, sliding doors, and various button panels.
Adds a set of wheels with airless tyres, an exhaust pipe block, a buggy-style cockpit, two automotive-style lighting blocks, an assortment of "barred" window blocks, two view port blocks, three flavours of Storage Shelves (with crafting recipes that correspond to the items shown on the shelves),three block texture overlays ("Concrete", "Dust", "Rust 2", and "Retro future"), a "Scavenger" engineer suit model, and two new character emotes.
Adds a Large (7.5m by 7.5m) Magnetic plate, a set of truss beam blocks and Industrial conveyor pipes, a decorative cylindrical column block, a vertical button panel, remodeled versions of the Large Hydrogen Tank; Large Cargo Container; Refinery; Assembler; and Hydrogen Thrusters. And a hazard pattern block texture overlay.
A model and texture overhaul of the nuclear reactors; battery blocks; airtight hangar doors; rocket pod and gatling gun; and couch block. It also contains a "searchlight" block (a spotlight-camera-turret combo), a heat vent block, a set of bridge windows, a light panel, a "helm" station, a new helmet, a reinforced sliding door, and two new emotes.
Rosa, Marek (May 14, 2015). "Space Engineers – full source code access, total modifications and 100,000 USD fund". marekrosa.org. Retrieved June 16, 2015. Today we have a very important announcement for our modders and our community. We decided to give you 100% complete access to Space Engineers" source code. This comes as a continuation of our decision to give more freedom to modders and community.
"EULA.txt". . Retrieved October 19, 2021. The source code and art assets must not to be mistaken for free software, an open source in a free-software activist understanding, copy-left or public domain software. All source code and art assets remain copyrighted and licensed by KEEN SWH LTD. and you are allowed to use them (modify, tweak, make a derivative work, distribute, etc.) only under following conditions. [...]use this source code only for developing mods for Space Engineers.
If you’ve ever tried to connect an LCD display to an Arduino, you might have noticed that it consumes a lot of pins on the Arduino. Even in 4-bit mode, the Arduino still requires a total of seven connections – which is half of the Arduino’s available digital I/O pins.
The solution is to use an I2C LCD display. It consumes only two I/O pins that are not even part of the set of digital I/O pins and can be shared with other I2C devices as well.
True to their name, these LCDs are ideal for displaying only text/characters. A 16×2 character LCD, for example, has an LED backlight and can display 32 ASCII characters in two rows of 16 characters each.
If you look closely you can see tiny rectangles for each character on the display and the pixels that make up a character. Each of these rectangles is a grid of 5×8 pixels.
At the heart of the adapter is an 8-bit I/O expander chip – PCF8574. This chip converts the I2C data from an Arduino into the parallel data required for an LCD display.
If you are using multiple devices on the same I2C bus, you may need to set a different I2C address for the LCD adapter so that it does not conflict with another I2C device.
An important point here is that several companies manufacture the same PCF8574 chip, Texas Instruments and NXP Semiconductors, to name a few. And the I2C address of your LCD depends on the chip manufacturer.
So your LCD probably has a default I2C address 0x27Hex or 0x3FHex. However it is recommended that you find out the actual I2C address of the LCD before using it.
Connecting an I2C LCD is much easier than connecting a standard LCD. You only need to connect 4 pins instead of 12. Start by connecting the VCC pin to the 5V output on the Arduino and GND to ground.
Now we are left with the pins which are used for I2C communication. Note that each Arduino board has different I2C pins that must be connected accordingly. On Arduino boards with the R3 layout, the SDA (data line) and SCL (clock line) are on the pin headers close to the AREF pin. They are also known as A5 (SCL) and A4 (SDA).
After wiring up the LCD you’ll need to adjust the contrast of the display. On the I2C module you will find a potentiometer that you can rotate with a small screwdriver.
Plug in the Arduino’s USB connector to power the LCD. You will see the backlight lit up. Now as you turn the knob on the potentiometer, you will start to see the first row of rectangles. If that happens, Congratulations! Your LCD is working fine.
To drive an I2C LCD you must first install a library called LiquidCrystal_I2C. This library is an enhanced version of the LiquidCrystal library that comes with your Arduino IDE.
To install the library navigate to Sketch > Include Libraries > Manage Libraries… Wait for Library Manager to download the library index and update the list of installed libraries.
Filter your search by typing ‘liquidcrystal‘. There should be some entries. Look for the LiquidCrystal I2C library by Frank de Brabander. Click on that entry, and then select Install.
The I2C address of your LCD depends on the manufacturer, as mentioned earlier. If your LCD has a Texas Instruments’ PCF8574 chip, its default I2C address is 0x27Hex. If your LCD has NXP Semiconductors’ PCF8574 chip, its default I2C address is 0x3FHex.
So your LCD probably has I2C address 0x27Hex or 0x3FHex. However it is recommended that you find out the actual I2C address of the LCD before using it. Luckily there’s an easy way to do this, thanks to the Nick Gammon.
But, before you proceed to upload the sketch, you need to make a small change to make it work for you. You must pass the I2C address of your LCD and the dimensions of the display to the constructor of the LiquidCrystal_I2C class. If you are using a 16×2 character LCD, pass the 16 and 2; If you’re using a 20×4 LCD, pass 20 and 4. You got the point!
In ‘setup’ we call three functions. The first function is init(). It initializes the LCD object. The second function is clear(). This clears the LCD screen and moves the cursor to the top left corner. And third, the backlight() function turns on the LCD backlight.
After that we set the cursor position to the third column of the first row by calling the function lcd.setCursor(2, 0). The cursor position specifies the location where you want the new text to be displayed on the LCD. The upper left corner is assumed to be col=0, row=0.
There are some useful functions you can use with LiquidCrystal_I2C objects. Some of them are listed below:lcd.home() function is used to position the cursor in the upper-left of the LCD without clearing the display.
lcd.scrollDisplayRight() function scrolls the contents of the display one space to the right. If you want the text to scroll continuously, you have to use this function inside a for loop.
lcd.scrollDisplayLeft() function scrolls the contents of the display one space to the left. Similar to above function, use this inside a for loop for continuous scrolling.
If you find the characters on the display dull and boring, you can create your own custom characters (glyphs) and symbols for your LCD. They are extremely useful when you want to display a character that is not part of the standard ASCII character set.
CGROM is used to store all permanent fonts that are displayed using their ASCII codes. For example, if we send 0x41 to the LCD, the letter ‘A’ will be printed on the display.
CGRAM is another memory used to store user defined characters. This RAM is limited to 64 bytes. For a 5×8 pixel based LCD, only 8 user-defined characters can be stored in CGRAM. And for 5×10 pixel based LCD only 4 user-defined characters can be stored.
Creating custom characters has never been easier! We have created a small application called Custom Character Generator. Can you see the blue grid below? You can click on any 5×8 pixel to set/clear that particular pixel. And as you click, the code for the character is generated next to the grid. This code can be used directly in your Arduino sketch.
After the library is included and the LCD object is created, custom character arrays are defined. The array consists of 8 bytes, each byte representing a row of a 5×8 LED matrix. In this sketch, eight custom characters have been created.
Let’s examine the Heart[8] array as an example. You can see how the bits (0s and 1s) are forming a heart shape. 0 turns the pixel off and 1 turns the pixel on.
The various LCD Panel blocks are a great way to add a human touch to a ship or base by displaying useful images or text. For LCD configuration and usage, see LCD Surface Options.
Note: Some functional blocks, such as Cockpits, Programmable Blocks, Custom Turret Controllers, and Button Panels, have customizable LCD surfaces built in that work the same way as LCD Panel blocks, which are also discussed in detail under LCD Surface Options.
LCD Panels need to be built on a powered grid to work. Without power, they display an "Offline" text. While powered without having a text, image, or script set up, they display "Online".
LCD Panel blocks come in a variety of sizes from tiny to huge (see list below) and are available for large and small grid sizes. Note that LCD Panel blocks all have connections on their backs, and very few also on a second side.
All LCD Panels and LCD surfaces work with the same principle: They are capable of displaying dynamic scripts, or few inbuilt static images accompanied by editable text. Access the ship"s Control Panel Screen to configure LCD Panels or LCD surfaces; or face the LCD Panel block and press "K".
A Text Panel, despite its name, can also display images. On large grid, it is rectangular and does not fully cover the side of a 1x1x1 block. On small grid it is 1x1x1, the smallest possible LCD block in game.
On large grid, you choose the Text Panel when you need something that has rectangular dimensions that make it look like a wall-mounted TV or computer screen. If you want to display images, this one works best with the built-in posters whose names end in "H" or "V" (for horizontal or vertical rotation). On Small grid, you place these tiny display surfaces so you can see them well while seated in a cockpit or control seat, to create a custom display array of flight and status information around you.
Corner LCDs are much smaller display panels that typically hold a few lines of text. They don"t cover the block you place them on and are best suited as signage for doors, passages, or containers. They are less suitable for displaying images, even though it"s possible. If you enable the "Keep aspect ratio" option, the image will take up less than a third of the available space.
These huge Sci-Fi LCD Panels come in sizes of 5x5, 5x3, and 3x3 blocks, and can be built on large grids only. These panels are only available to build if you purchase the "Sparks of the Future" pack DLC.
They work the same as all other LCD Panels, the only difference is that they are very large. In the scenario that comes with the free "Sparks of the Future" update, they are used prominently as advertisement boards on an asteroid station.
This LCD panel can be built on large and small grids. The transparent LCD is basically a 1x1x1 framed window that displays images and text. It is part of the paid "Decorative Blocks Pack #2" DLC.
What is special about them is that if you set the background color to black, this panel becomes a transparent window with a built-in display. In contrast to other LCD Panels it has no solid backside, which makes it ideal to construct transparent cockpit HUDs, or simply as cosmetic decoration.
While configuring an LCD Panel, the GUI covers up the display in-world and you can"t see how the text or images comes out. In the UI Options, you can lower the UI Background opacity to be translucent, so you can watch what you are doing more easily.
But it will decrease the performance of the game - you need to have powerful GPU for that, as each screen is essentially another frame to render. Thus if your FPS is 40, with another camera-on-screen it might drop to 20 (if low FPS was caused by taxed GPU, not overloaded CPU). And it will incur some cost in CPU performance.
But it will decrease the performance of the game - you need to have powerful GPU for that, as each screen is essentially another frame to render. Thus if your FPS is 40, with another camera-on-screen it might drop to 20 (if low FPS was caused by taxed GPU, not overloaded CPU). And it will incur some cost in CPU performance.
The original mod worked fine, almost no performance impact whatsoever. It was well designed, didn"t do anything it didn"t need to, and used a dynamic pool of your available frames so that it literally couldn"t drag your FPS down. The worse your frames, the less the mod did. If you got over 60, it used those for even smoother displays. Xocliw showed it off on the community stream. He showed it directly to Marek, showed it working beautifully, while having none of the drawbacks it was claimed such a mod would have. And then Keen ignored the potential and changed a bunch of things and the mod died.
The original mod worked fine, almost no performance impact whatsoever. It was well designed, didn"t do anything it didn"t need to, and used a dynamic pool of your available frames so that it literally couldn"t drag your FPS down. The worse your frames, the less the mod did. If you got over 60, it used those for even smoother displays. Xocliw showed it off on the community stream. He showed it directly to Marek, showed it working beautifully, while having none of the drawbacks it was claimed such a mod would have. And then Keen ignored the potential and changed a bunch of things and the mod died.
Duke Nukem 3d had a camera view to screen feature in a game with user generated maps/layouts 22 years ago. Granted it wasn"t 1080p but I don"t think anyones expecting that from a Text panel. Unpossible!
Duke Nukem 3d had a camera view to screen feature in a game with user generated maps/layouts 22 years ago. Granted it wasn"t 1080p but I don"t think anyones expecting that from a Text panel. Unpossible!
From what I can see in the Steam and Keen forums, this mod wouldn"t be difficult to implement but suffers greatly from a performance drain. This could be mitigated with a slider on the link controlling frames per second for a capture rate.
From what I can see in the Steam and Keen forums, this mod wouldn"t be difficult to implement but suffers greatly from a performance drain. This could be mitigated with a slider on the link controlling frames per second for a capture rate.
glad to see this thread bumped i find it ridiculous that this isn"t already in the game. Surely you could implement this with some sort of anti-rastorization method where you just don"t render the parts of the ship eclipsed by the display just like if you gave dirt or whatever a transparent texture back in minceraft, that"s how rodina does it; and even without the fact that this method would be way more efficient, you would also end up with a better, more spacey, implementation "cause it would have perspective.
glad to see this thread bumped i find it ridiculous that this isn"t already in the game. Surely you could implement this with some sort of anti-rastorization method where you just don"t render the parts of the ship eclipsed by the display just like if you gave dirt or whatever a transparent texture back in minceraft, that"s how rodina does it; and even without the fact that this method would be way more efficient, you would also end up with a better, more spacey, implementation "cause it would have perspective.
@zooltan no, the camera monitors would show a display of the camera view after you look through it. Its framerate was like 1Hz and it only lasted for so long but considering I was playing it on a x486 (I think)...
@zooltan no, the camera monitors would show a display of the camera view after you look through it. Its framerate was like 1Hz and it only lasted for so long but considering I was playing it on a x486 (I think)...
An option in game settings with sliders to limit darn thing. Probably I would think of getting new computer since cam feedback was so cool back in a day. But I guess it"s to much of an effort, shame mod isn"t working anymore.
An option in game settings with sliders to limit darn thing. Probably I would think of getting new computer since cam feedback was so cool back in a day. But I guess it"s to much of an effort, shame mod isn"t working anymore.
But the real issue with this is rendering a scene to a texture that gets applied somewhere in word.. It"s the same as trying to render a dynamic reflection, it"s incredibly intensive and difficult to implement.
But the real issue with this is rendering a scene to a texture that gets applied somewhere in word.. It"s the same as trying to render a dynamic reflection, it"s incredibly intensive and difficult to implement.
Old mod was great, as long as you didn"t have dozens of screens running. IIRC there was a "performance" slider to make it more user friendly to lower spec machines. If you could at least consider it Keen, that would be great!
Old mod was great, as long as you didn"t have dozens of screens running. IIRC there was a "performance" slider to make it more user friendly to lower spec machines. If you could at least consider it Keen, that would be great!
While the actual rendering is client side, the camera can be several subgrids - maybe kilometers - away and see a different part of the universe. A camera would be like an additional player, spawning in local asteroids and streaming grid data from the server to be rendered on the remote camera feed. Or cameras are 100% local and intended for cameras in close proximity only, with no load on the server and very low PCU amount. (Maybe have separate server/client PCU?)
Rendering performance impact could be made O(1) by updating a set amount of screens per frame at a preset resolution. I.e. A surveillance room with 10 camera feeds would update every screen at 6 FPS instead of 60, as in this example surveillance camera clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2oNWHv0zSQ
(Effective frame rate of the three cameras would then be 10 FPS. Camera feeds should only update when the player is actually standing in front of and looking in their direction. Screens being "freshly" activated would take the next slot in the update queue for a max 1 frame delay, unless several screens activated in the same frame.)
While the actual rendering is client side, the camera can be several subgrids - maybe kilometers - away and see a different part of the universe. A camera would be like an additional player, spawning in local asteroids and streaming grid data from the server to be rendered on the remote camera feed. Or cameras are 100% local and intended for cameras in close proximity only, with no load on the server and very low PCU amount. (Maybe have separate server/client PCU?)
Rendering performance impact could be made O(1) by updating a set amount of screens per frame at a preset resolution. I.e. A surveillance room with 10 camera feeds would update every screen at 6 FPS instead of 60, as in this example surveillance camera clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2oNWHv0zSQ
(Effective frame rate of the three cameras would then be 10 FPS. Camera feeds should only update when the player is actually standing in front of and looking in their direction. Screens being "freshly" activated would take the next slot in the update queue for a max 1 frame delay, unless several screens activated in the same frame.)
It is possible, but that was never a simple mod; that entry on the Steam workshop was just to add the terminal controls, the actual code was in a plugin (Client Extender) that you had to install alongside the game.It allowed you to write frames to textures and had a priority queue system so it would never drain your FPS more than you allowed it, and you could give client-side priority to cameras; if you"re in a big battle with a bunch of different people who also use LCD feeds then, from your perspective, yours would be updated first and fastest regardless.
It is possible, but that was never a simple mod; that entry on the Steam workshop was just to add the terminal controls, the actual code was in a plugin (Client Extender) that you had to install alongside the game.It allowed you to write frames to textures and had a priority queue system so it would never drain your FPS more than you allowed it, and you could give client-side priority to cameras; if you"re in a big battle with a bunch of different people who also use LCD feeds then, from your perspective, yours would be updated first and fastest regardless.
I saw Camera, LCD, then it was obvious I could link a camera feed to one of cockpit LCD to have a view..... even at low resolution, and even with limitation numbers.
I saw Camera, LCD, then it was obvious I could link a camera feed to one of cockpit LCD to have a view..... even at low resolution, and even with limitation numbers.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Other than possible incapability due to technical difficulties, I really don"t understand why developers disregard highly requested features like this and push out totally unrelated content for long periods of time...
In short, as many people out there, I really believe that this should"ve been in the vanilla game since the LCD"s were introduced and also believe that it would elevate the game play so much.
Having the ability to view a camera image from an LCD in a basement - which is what I nearly always end up building in order to protect my gear from meteorites - would be a massive boon.
Also, displaying multiple camera images on LCDs means that a ship could have a decent bridge buried deep inside it and still have good visibility of the surrounding space, without needing to cycle through cameras while sitting in a control seat.
Having the ability to view a camera image from an LCD in a basement - which is what I nearly always end up building in order to protect my gear from meteorites - would be a massive boon.
Also, displaying multiple camera images on LCDs means that a ship could have a decent bridge buried deep inside it and still have good visibility of the surrounding space, without needing to cycle through cameras while sitting in a control seat.
A few other suggestions would be to resize the screen if adjacent displays share a tag, an option of linking it to a remote grid would be useful too for situational awareness of your current position while controlling a remote vessel.
A few other suggestions would be to resize the screen if adjacent displays share a tag, an option of linking it to a remote grid would be useful too for situational awareness of your current position while controlling a remote vessel.
The mod is smart about it and makes it so that the LCD can "share" frames instead. So it can update at 30 fps but it doubles the GPU Render Load, or all the way down to 1fps which divides evenly amongst other LCDs. So if you had the setting at 30fps they"d each run at 15fps, which would divide further as you added more.
The mod is smart about it and makes it so that the LCD can "share" frames instead. So it can update at 30 fps but it doubles the GPU Render Load, or all the way down to 1fps which divides evenly amongst other LCDs. So if you had the setting at 30fps they"d each run at 15fps, which would divide further as you added more.
I don"t know the limitations of this engine, but that what we ask for here, is used in many games like Portel or Prey (the old one) and is used, when some NPCs are in a monitor. For example, in Half Life 2, when Wallace Breen has his speeches on the monitors, the actual NPC is loaded in a separate room on the map, where the NPC gets recorded by a virtual camerajand is streamed directly to the ingame TVs and monitors, the player can see and they do it that way, because, according to the devs, tihs is much easier then make a actual video clip to play back on the screens. So it schouldn"t be wichcraft to make something like that. Except the engine really can"t cope with that.
The Mods we had, are more or less a collection of workarounds to make this feature somewhat functioning, but someone with unrestricted access to the source code, should be able to implement, at least the frame work, for such a function, without all too heavy performance impacts. Furthermore we are in an age, of ridiculously powerfull GPU like the Nvidia 30 Series and Space Engineers never was a casual game, requirement wise. And for those with a too weak system, we could make a tab in the world settings to disable this feature.
I don"t know the limitations of this engine, but that what we ask for here, is used in many games like Portel or Prey (the old one) and is used, when some NPCs are in a monitor. For example, in Half Life 2, when Wallace Breen has his speeches on the monitors, the actual NPC is loaded in a separate room on the map, where the NPC gets recorded by a virtual camerajand is streamed directly to the ingame TVs and monitors, the player can see and they do it that way, because, according to the devs, tihs is much easier then make a actual video clip to play back on the screens. So it schouldn"t be wichcraft to make something like that. Except the engine really can"t cope with that.
The Mods we had, are more or less a collection of workarounds to make this feature somewhat functioning, but someone with unrestricted access to the source code, should be able to implement, at least the frame work, for such a function, without all too heavy performance impacts. Furthermore we are in an age, of ridiculously powerfull GPU like the Nvidia 30 Series and Space Engineers never was a casual game, requirement wise. And for those with a too weak system, we could make a tab in the world settings to disable this feature.
The examples you use, only have a few limited "Cameras" active at the same time, and several of those probably uses a different technique (Like a simple pre-rendered video for the speech)
The problem is, no matter the engine, rendering an extra camera will always cost a full extra render pass; which will scale for every camera you have active.
The examples you use, only have a few limited "Cameras" active at the same time, and several of those probably uses a different technique (Like a simple pre-rendered video for the speech)
The problem is, no matter the engine, rendering an extra camera will always cost a full extra render pass; which will scale for every camera you have active.
The rendering load could be alleviated by defaulting to a low-refresh camera mode where the camera only updates at, for example, 15 fps or lower and an optional high-performance mode where the camera updates like the player camera.
The rendering load could be alleviated by defaulting to a low-refresh camera mode where the camera only updates at, for example, 15 fps or lower and an optional high-performance mode where the camera updates like the player camera.
i would make lcd refresh rate based on distance to closest player, that is looking at that lcd - so game would crank up lcd fps only when someone is actually looking at it and "freeze" display when nobody is around or looking on something else ....
i would make lcd refresh rate based on distance to closest player, that is looking at that lcd - so game would crank up lcd fps only when someone is actually looking at it and "freeze" display when nobody is around or looking on something else ....
I also find it very strange that this is so hard to implement... Duke Nukem 3D dynamically rendered security cameras onto display screens just fine 25 years ago (before even basic 3d graphics cards were even in most gamer"s PCs) along with a few N64 games, like Goldeneye. Not to mention more recent games like Half Life 2. There are a lot of ways to keep it performant on modern systems. Here"s a few suggestions that little old me can think of to keep system performance from being too negatively impacted.
If a remote camera LCD isn"t in visible range to a player, then don"t gather render data from the camera nor render the camera onto the LCD. I do not believe this is something that a modder could do, since it would require access to a player"s rendering data and being able to detect if any remote camera LCDs are within what"s being rendered.
Any camera feeds are sampled at a lower resolution and also rendered to LCDs at a lower resolution than when a player views through the camera directly. With a lower resolution on both sampling and rendering I would expect GPU stress to be lower as well.
Nested camera LCDs (any LCD"s rendering a camera that are THEN viewed by a later camera and rendered to a later LCD) would be only rendered at 1fps and only when the player is looking at the later LCD, otherwise it is not rendered. Or just don"t render nested camera LCDs at all, though that might confuse some players if done without explanation.
I also find it very strange that this is so hard to implement... Duke Nukem 3D dynamically rendered security cameras onto display screens just fine 25 years ago (before even basic 3d graphics cards were even in most gamer"s PCs) along with a few N64 games, like Goldeneye. Not to mention more recent games like Half Life 2. There are a lot of ways to keep it performant on modern systems. Here"s a few suggestions that little old me can think of to keep system performance from being too negatively impacted.
If a remote camera LCD isn"t in visible range to a player, then don"t gather render data from the camera nor render the camera onto the LCD. I do not believe this is something that a modder could do, since it would require access to a player"s rendering data and being able to detect if any remote camera LCDs are within what"s being rendered.
Any camera feeds are sampled at a lower resolution and also rendered to LCDs at a lower resolution than when a player views through the camera directly. With a lower resolution on both sampling and rendering I would expect GPU stress to be lower as well.
Nested camera LCDs (any LCD"s rendering a camera that are THEN viewed by a later camera and rendered to a later LCD) would be only rendered at 1fps and only when the player is looking at the later LCD, otherwise it is not rendered. Or just don"t render nested camera LCDs at all, though that might confuse some players if done without explanation.
Many games implement in-view screens of the game world. This isn"t new and not impossible just something Keen chose not to implement with their time. Other priorities. The LCD displays in the game and the cameras seem like a perfect match.
Many games implement in-view screens of the game world. This isn"t new and not impossible just something Keen chose not to implement with their time. Other priorities. The LCD displays in the game and the cameras seem like a perfect match.
Ill be honest, I don"t care about the GPU limitations and all the technical issues. Sorry but thats not for us players to worry about, we come up with ideas and devs make the judgements and solutions. If this feature works it would be a massive improvement to the game.
Ill be honest, I don"t care about the GPU limitations and all the technical issues. Sorry but thats not for us players to worry about, we come up with ideas and devs make the judgements and solutions. If this feature works it would be a massive improvement to the game.
I tested this plugin, and it works, but for me, it tends to generate some visual light bugs, as well as having a huge performance penalty. I think if the devs would add this feature straight into the game code itself, it can be much better controlled in terms of possible bugs and as previously mentioned a player could select render resolution and frame rate themselves to suit their needs as well as reduce the performance penalty depending on their specific GPU computing power.
I tested this plugin, and it works, but for me, it tends to generate some visual light bugs, as well as having a huge performance penalty. I think if the devs would add this feature straight into the game code itself, it can be much better controlled in terms of possible bugs and as previously mentioned a player could select render resolution and frame rate themselves to suit their needs as well as reduce the performance penalty depending on their specific GPU computing power.
While it"s a cool idea that have it"s own merits, it"s a different goal from what desire (which is a seamless intergration of camera feed onto our ships on various screens.)
While it"s a cool idea that have it"s own merits, it"s a different goal from what desire (which is a seamless intergration of camera feed onto our ships on various screens.)
I was searching about the best camera for photography then I found an article on google which gave the best info about top cameras and lenses. The article was from
I was searching about the best camera for photography then I found an article on google which gave the best info about top cameras and lenses. The article was from
Cool idea but one feature at a time. Once we get (if we do, at all) camera footage on a screen, we can then consider the possibility of a multi-screen set up.
Cool idea but one feature at a time. Once we get (if we do, at all) camera footage on a screen, we can then consider the possibility of a multi-screen set up.
Whats the reasoning behind declining this sugestion? Is it the usual BS about performance impact or any other of the usual exscuses or are you finaly ready to admit your incompetence, of which we are all alredy well aware?
Whats the reasoning behind declining this sugestion? Is it the usual BS about performance impact or any other of the usual exscuses or are you finaly ready to admit your incompetence, of which we are all alredy well aware?
It"s not rhetoric, it"s simple reality of economics. If you can"t afford what"s necessary to run a feature, then you can hardly expect the feature to be made available to you anyway, can you? I too would like if my car was as luxurious as a Bentley. Alas, I couldn"t afford a Bentley, so, why should I be entitled to having VW make my Polo be like one for what I paid for that Polo?
It"s not rhetoric, it"s simple reality of economics. If you can"t afford what"s necessary to run a feature, then you can hardly expect the feature to be made available to you anyway, can you? I too would like if my car was as luxurious as a Bentley. Alas, I couldn"t afford a Bentley, so, why should I be entitled to having VW make my Polo be like one for what I paid for that Polo?
I was not refering to the message, that was true enough. your statement is also true. but if your polo and bentley were made in the same year, is one more primitive than the other? I was reffering to error 404"s use of the word primitive in the context of consoles and its derogatory connotation in this sense.
I was not refering to the message, that was true enough. your statement is also true. but if your polo and bentley were made in the same year, is one more primitive than the other? I was reffering to error 404"s use of the word primitive in the context of consoles and its derogatory connotation in this sense.
I get it, you want to justify your purchase, but at the end of the day the fact of the matter remains. The functionality consoles and their ecosystems bring is fundamentally and distinctly more limited than what the PC offers even at the worst of times, and "primitive" is one applicable word for that. Sure, you can decide to become terribly offended by someone"s choice to forego wrapping that truth in a sickeningly cloying wadding of diplomacy and baby-speech and walking on the eggshells that are your own life decisions, but I somehow doubt there"s any benefit to that. Might as well stand above those things and spend your energy on more productive matters.
I get it, you want to justify your purchase, but at the end of the day the fact of the matter remains. The functionality consoles and their ecosystems bring is fundamentally and distinctly more limited than what the PC offers even at the worst of times, and "primitive" is one applicable word for that. Sure, you can decide to become terribly offended by someone"s choice to forego wrapping that truth in a sickeningly cloying wadding of diplomacy and baby-speech and walking on the eggshells that are your own life decisions, but I somehow doubt there"s any benefit to that. Might as well stand above those things and spend your energy on more productive matters.
The troll face says it all. PC gamers also have low end hardware. There is a bit of psychology at work here though. If your PC can"t handle the camera-to-LCD feature you may chose to turn it off for now, maybe consider a GPU or RAM upgrade or just accept it for now. For cool screenshots you can always turn it back on temporarily. You feel like it"s all in your hands. On a console on the other hand, graphics and complexity are often locked down, like the number of planets or asteroids. You can"t upgrade a hardware component or decide for yourself if camera-to-LCD is worth the performance hit. Others decide what your console can handle. You begin to feel disenfranchised compared to a PC gamer with comparable hardware.
The troll face says it all. PC gamers also have low end hardware. There is a bit of psychology at work here though. If your PC can"t handle the camera-to-LCD feature you may chose to turn it off for now, maybe consider a GPU or RAM upgrade or just accept it for now. For cool screenshots you can always turn it back on temporarily. You feel like it"s all in your hands. On a console on the other hand, graphics and complexity are often locked down, like the number of planets or asteroids. You can"t upgrade a hardware component or decide for yourself if camera-to-LCD is worth the performance hit. Others decide what your console can handle. You begin to feel disenfranchised compared to a PC gamer with comparable hardware.
I have a lot of critique for Keen and their decitions, but I agree with them on this one. I am a software developer, with 8 years of experience in game engines and I don"t know of any way to implement this in a way that performs well and satisfies what players expect.
I have a lot of critique for Keen and their decitions, but I agree with them on this one. I am a software developer, with 8 years of experience in game engines and I don"t know of any way to implement this in a way that performs well and satisfies what players expect.
As can be seen in t