Alpha 10.5 EXP - Improved LCD Panels

Any more informations for : "TextMeshPro" ?
Any information for multi-color, etc.... options ....
Tutorial ?
How to use ?

 

Thanks Hummel =)
Any change to get some logic control for LCD (other than ON/OFF ^^) ? or Vessel/Base Stats ? Cargo stats ?

Without MOD ?

 

but THIS would be the important...

 

Any tutorial to create this things ? How ... =)

I think it's great that everyone posts their find, but never explains how it was done ...

 

@Watcher330 Hummer-o-War did post the link that including some examples pretty easy to do
just copy and past some of those to a LCD and see what happens, about 90% of those examples work
just play around with it a little.


i am sure there will be some youtubers like,
@LiftPizzas , @jrandall , @spanj or @XCaliber making some nice tutorial for it.

I follow and love them all. maybe we can have some challenge who makes the best tutorial and maybe @Hummel-o-War can send the winner some game keys to give away and the winners tutorial will be posted on the forum.

 

Here's some of what I did playing around with it, just to show some of what's possible:

 

Just a couple of minutes of experimenting...


The possibilities boggle the mind. And since you can link to signal logic, the little landing markers for example only appear when in range. That's just using color and size. So many other options!

I do wish you could link it to things... hook into inventory, fuel, and other data. Perhaps we'll have to wait for a mod update for that?

Two curious bugs (will make bug reports). First, when I selected the new 1x1 panel and placed it on the floor to make the runway lights, it had information in it. But not my information. It was an 8 level station or base elevator list, showing each deck and what was on it. I've not built anything that tall, yet.

Second, and this existed prior to 10.5, if you have lines that wrap, it messes the cursor up. Each wrapped line will move the cursor one place to the right of where it REALLY is. So, when you place the cursor and hit backspace, you do not delete the character you think, but one some number of spaces to the right of where the cursor is. Was a huge problem in formatting the 2x1 wide LCDs, since you have to wrap things almost a full width to fill that screen, and editing them was a real chore.

It's worse, now. Before, it just moved one space and stayed that way throughout. Now, every line it moves another space, making it confusing. Doing that ammo list above, for example, each line wraps in the edit screen because of all the color tags. So, by the last line my cursor was WAY out of line with where the text was, and editing was an art, and challenge. Lol, even just now I notice that cursor issue made me mess up, and my PL Charge line says only L Charge ;-). Oops.

 

Just thought of something... an offline editor for this would be a really useful tool. One that used the same exact display rules, so spacing was the same? Or maybe it would work just knowing the exact right fonts and being able to load them into a text editor? Then building complex, multi-color and style displays would be a lot easier, and you could just paste them into the LCD?

That's how I did all mine before... I'd make them in the game, but then paste them into a text editor for easy editing and use in other builds.

 

Please do not understand this wrong. The feature is great. But actually unnecessary. You could already insert symbols before (Copy & Paste). Also different font sizes.

What we really need is that the displays show real information. Ammunition, oxygen, fuel, etc.

 

https://github.com/GitHub-TC/EmpyrionScripting

 

A good change overall. Some things that are needed:

1. Need the ability to vertically center the text. I think the need for centering is so common that there should be checkboxes for horizontal/vertical centering. You probably need to implement the vertical centering yourself since there is no tag for it.
2. Rather than just documenting the various tags, you should add buttons that would insert them. That would be particularly useful for a color palette. But even for the bold/italic, it would be a helpful convenience.
3. The font sizes are out of sync. If you specify 10 in the slider, specifying <size=10> is not the same size. This is probably the difference between pixels and point size but neither of those has meaning in the context of the LCD panel. The size from the slider should be the same units that are used in the tag.
4. Need the ability to set font, even if there are only a small number of fonts available.
5. TextMesh Pro has the concept of "styles". These might be useful if you made them per-structure somehow.

Not directly related to this feature, but a few LCD-related requests:

• There should be tags defined to show info for the current structure, for example:
  • %Mass%
  • %Energy.Output%
  • %Energy.Consumption%
  • %Energy.TimeRemaining%
  • %Energy.Fuel.Percentage%
  • %Energy.Battery.Percentage%
  • %Shield.Percentage%
  • %Shield.State% -> ON/OFF
  • %Oxygen.Percentage%
  • %Oxygen.State% -> ON/OFF
  • %Ammo.Flak%
  • %Ammo.Laser%
  • %Ammo.Plasma%
• It would be cool if LCD backgrounds could be transparent, like glass. This would allow the texture of the underlying block to show through like the holographic screens do.
• Holographic screen 1, 2, and 3 would be nice as LCD variants.
• It would be nice if you could introduce a "sign" or billboard which is similar as an LCD in concept, but is not powered, and not emissive. It would look more like you just painted letters onto the surface.
• It would be nice to have larger sizes of LCD / signs, like 1x2, 2x3, etc. so you can put billboards on buildings.

 

There is an "LCD Projector" in the inventory, usable on all structures, but it just puts a half block size LCD panel out, that does nothing unique. Is this ultimately meant to actually project the LCD image across to the nearest facing blocks?

 

I have to change my mind.

Yesterday I spent some hours with the displays. You can do a lot. And it is fun.

I agree with @Ian Einman . The tags open up unlimited possibilities. And that without mods. And a transparent display would be great.

 

After the last 'Update 2019-09-04 (Build 2633)', the screens that I set up the day before cease to display anything when I try to make any changes to them