Alternative Loading Screens?

[mftetsudou38125]

Yesterday I downloaded FlightGear 3.6 with the new detailed Cessna 172P. I was amazed with the improvements on the graphics, performances, new features, and all the other things. So many things have changed since I started FlightGear (I don't remember how many years ago) that I almost felt like I was flying in a different, much better flight simulator.

One thing that hasn't changed in a while, is this.



The loading screen (and by the way I'm really sorry if it was meant to be temporary for until the release of FlightGear 3.6). I definitely saw something that could be improved on.

Even with my limited skills and knowledges on designing, with 2 and a half minutes of photoshopping I was able to create something like this.



Now, I know it still looks pretty stupid, but I created it just for demonstrative purposes. I know there are people out there in this community who are much better than me at designing stuff.

- I don't know. Maybe there's a reason why it's kept like this. Or it was meant to be temporary.

EDIT: I do love the pictures in the splash, I just feel that it should be bigger.

[Thorsten]

I actually prefer the original version (color balance is more realistic, screen doesn't try to 'jump' at you...)

Also note that it's far from obvious that we are allowed to use company or organization logos (specifically, we may not use the NASA logo as we're not endorsed by NASA).

Can you perhaps elaborate what it is you'd like to see improved?

[mftetsudou38125]

Yeah, I agree, I made the picture waayyy too bright. It didn't seem like that yesterday, I don't know why.

I thought that putting the logos were ok because...

yeah. I was trying to make something resembling this.

I do think that even just changing the background color (currently black) and the font could improve the screen very much.

[wlbragg]

How many times did you try loading the aircraft?
Did you know there are multiple splash screens? Some may be more to your liking than others.
Glad to hear you enjoy the improvements to the c172p and FlightGear as a whole. It has come a long way in the last couple of years. I am impressed by something every time I load the sim.

[mftetsudou38125]

Yeah, the speed of the development is truly amazing. I wouldn't be able to imagine how great it would be if my computer could run with all the features on (currently I have to disable some options for framerate...).

What about something like this? (Using the picture from the original splash)


Or if it has to be square than something like (Also using the picture from the original splash)


I'm sure that so much work has gone into building this plane, and I don't want the first impression of the plane to be with very thick black borders. It would look great if the pictures took every pixel of the screen (or the window).

[Thorsten]

Part of the splash is actually generated by FG itself. By and large only the square pic in the middle is configurable.That's a low-level measure to prevent practices like re-branding FG to sell it - unless you go to some trouble exceeding changing a few images, the splash will always read Flightgear and show the project URL.

A serious fork can eliminate that, but a quick copy does not.

(Personally I do like the black, but that's a matter of taste).

[mftetsudou38125]

Oh, there we go, it had a purpose. I get it. Thanks!

[dg-505]

It would look great if the pictures took every pixel of the screen (or the window).

Well, currently that's not possible, because the startup screens have a fixed resolution and if I recall correctly they should (or must) be power of two ( 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc.), while the FlightGear window can have different resolutions, so there can be parts which are not covered by the startup screen and are hence black.

[Hooray]

Regarding custom splash screens, please see: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Create ... sh_screens

It would look great if the pictures took every pixel of the screen (or the window).

Part of the splash is actually generated by FG itself. By and large only the square pic in the middle is configurable.That's a low-level measure to prevent practices like re-branding FG to sell it - unless you go to some trouble exceeding changing a few images, the splash will always read Flightgear and show the project URL.
A serious fork can eliminate that, but a quick copy does not.

currently that's not possible, because the startup screens have a fixed resolution and if I recall correctly they should (or must) be power of two ( 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc.), while the FlightGear window can have different resolutions, so there can be parts which are not covered by the startup screen and are hence black.

Regarding the limitations of the current splash screen code, we once contemplated disabling the hard-coded version (there is a property switch for that) and using a Canvas instead: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Canvas_Splash_Screens

The main/only thing missing to do that is moving the Nasal interpreter out of the SGSubsystemMgr instance and adding it separately, so that it becomes available much earlier, at which point you could even render fully animated Canvas textures (i.e. not just static images):

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Initializing_Nasal_early

[mftetsudou38125]

Great to see some work being done. I can imagine so many possibilities of what can be done if that is implemented.

[ludomotico]

Regarding the c172p splash screen, there was an "informal contest" some months ago and we decided on ten screens, which are shown randomly. You can find them in the root c172p directory.

In any case, you are very welcome to propose your own splash screens to the team!

[Hooray]

I think it was onox who implemented some kind of scheme for supporting random splash screens using the existing method.

The Canvas based route isn't too difficult either - in fact, the scripting side is trivial, because it just involves copy & paste using the snippet at: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_Snippets

However, like I said, the C++ code needs to be a little restructured to ensure that 1) Nasal is initialized earlier, 2) Canvas is initialized directly and 3) subsystem-specific features (think fgcommands, bindings etc) are added/removed on demand - at some point, I did provide patches in response to core developers discussing this on the devel list, but they didn't fare too well a few months later when other things took precedence.

The underlying method is however straightforward, and it would benefit other parts of FG - such as getting rid of legacy OpenGL code to help unify the 2D rendering back-end via Canvas: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Unifying_the ... via_canvas

And using the Canvas system would allow all sorts of fancy graphics to be shown during startup, including even airport/taxiway diagrams but also animated instruments/MFDs (e.g. imagine showing Gijs' 747 PFD during an ILS approach to visualize the FlightGear initialization sequence in flying terms)