Baldo mods the BF2 Demo

[Baldo_the_Don]

I completely forgot there is a Battlefield section on this site.

I've done some modding on the BF2 demo. I might reinstall BF2 sometime, and, oh man, tweaking it to my liking will be such a wonderful slog, but for now, I play around with ideas in the BF2 demo. See attachments.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I can't edit the sniper scope crosshairs, but I can add something to them.

Attached a screenshot of a red illuminated chevron on the Dragunov. It's nice to be able to aim in the dark, you know?

Did something similar for the M24 and the Barret. I should try something for the SA80, too. Maybe.

[Baldo_the_Don]

One thing that bothers me about BF2 is how when it comes to iron sights, sniper crosshairs, and general 3D object aiming systems, well, maybe your sights are zeroed, maybe not. It seems best just not to expect great accuracy beyond some distance, you know?

The M24 and Barret are not too terribly off. They might be half a pixel low, half a pixel left. The Dragunov is a whole pixel left and a pixel high. About.

I tried making the illumination on the Dragunov compensate for that, but it looked misaligned and confusing, so I just centered it on the chevron.

I did make the illumination for the M24 and Barret zeroed, though. I used the same graphic for both weapons. A 23px cross with 3px bars, but the centers of the bars ar empty. See attachments.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Well, this is what I did all day today. Granted that I understand this ACOG reticle is way too large for the magnification on this weapon, and that the subtensions on the horizon and verticle are purely cosmetic, I'm asking about the brightness of the illuminated chevron: what do you think, guys? Does it look about right? I think it might be too fuzzy or blurry, as you prefer to describe how unsolid the edges look, but every image I've googled kind of looks like these screenshots.

Previous attempt shown here:

https://novahq.net/forum/showpost.ph...1&postcount=55

[Baldo_the_Don]

Okay, get this...

Some testing got me the idea that the fence you see in the screenshot is 5m from post to post.

The math says that 5m is how wide 3° is at about a 95.5m radius.

I gave the M4 in the screenshot 6x zoom. Took it to the construction site on the Gulf of Oman map. At the north end of the pool is a longish rail. Took position south of the first post on the west end of the rail. Faced north, went prone, set the crosshair on the left edge of the first post, then adjusted position on the north-south axis 'til the left edge of the sixth post was touching the edge of the screen. When I ADS, the left edge of the second post touches the edge of my screen. 6x zoom confirmed. See attached screenshots.

So, having some decently confirmed test conditions, I call your attention back the screenshot with the 5m/3° fence. The horizon I drew is a fairly accurate 3°, and knowing how many pixels wide I drew one degree (60px), I could math up the width of the chevron (5.53px) and the ranging hashes.

The vertical placement of the hashes is fudged, yeah, but they're fudged methodically. And I think I drew the 4 too large, but I don't know...

Basically, I'm claiming to have more nearly achieved actual ACOGgity with this modification. This is not a FAKE-OG!

Edit: Did some more testing and made the 100m, 200m, and 300m zeroes more accurate. 400m zero seems a bit low, but it's hard to test that thoroughly and may be unfixable without reducing bullet velocity since drag doesn't seem to be thing in this game. 500m to 800m zeroes are fudged. Also tweaked alpha levels and chevron colors trying to make it more easily visible on any background.

[Baldo_the_Don]

This may be my final attempt. Maybe.

I increased the projectile velocity from 850 to 910 meters per second, so the chevron could be shorter again, closer to the 72° it's supposed to be.

Then I tweaked the alpha to allow the red glow a bit of opacity 'cause that damn beach kept completely swallowing the chevron.

I don't know, but without some contrasting color around the bright pink glowy center, the chevron disappears against the sun, the bright beach, and snow would also eat the chevron, but put a little opacity in the alpha over the red glow (which is physically impossible in real life), and there's an edge to work with.

In DFBHDTS, there would be the bluish lens to dampen the brightness of the background enough to make a pinkish-centered red dot pop, but there is no lens graphic to work with here...

Oh no... I've had another idea. Damn it.



Edit: Idea worked! On the last screenshot, you can see that brilliant chevron even on the beach, and the careful observer may note my signature dirt and scratch effect. I think I got some good modding done this morning.

Edit again: OKP7 on the AK74u.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I was looking at the original BF2 red dot texture and cursing the brutality of DXT5 compression, and I could kind of see what they were going for, so I tried to recreate it. Not pixel for pixel, just what seemed to be the attempted aesthetic.

The result is in the screen shot for you to see and judge. I think, like the original, that it's too large and vague, but prettier.

Edit: The .jpg compression was a bit awful, so I put up the .png instead.

[Baldo_the_Don]

My Schmidt & Bender P4L2BE special on the M4 at 3.5x zoom.

Edit: I'm going with a light green crosshair. Just seems to work more clearly than red.

Edit again: Been doing a lot of experiments with the crosshair color on this .dds. Some notes:
- A red crosshair needs a little white added (RGB 255, 128, 128 seems best) to get it to glow correctly on brighter backgrounds. Then it needs a bit of red bordering to keep it from just being pink.
- A blue crosshair does not show up at all unless the background is dark or mostly blue, then it's still barely there.
- Green pops like a firecracker! Even down to RGB 0, 64, 0. Single lines, unbordered, razor sharp.

Now, I understand the human retina has twice as many green receptors as red or blue, and that may explain this, or possibly some other node blend effect works better with red and blue and I've yet to find it, but that green reticle is magnitudes easier to see and use in this game, and I wonder what's up with that?

[Baldo_the_Don]

I'm not sure what's going on here.

All sources I have access to make it clear that a 5m fence 250m away reads 20 mrads wide. The treads on the T-90 from front to back are a bit more than 5m, and the screenshot is in accordance with that.

Now, using the same methods and sources, my calculations state that a human that's 1.7m tall is 8.5 mrads, vertically. I drew the range finder on this PSO-1 accordingly.

So what's going on in that last screenshot? That guy is verifiably 200m away from me in this screenshot. I drew the range finder assuming the 1.7m (5' 7") person's feet touch the the top of the underline and the top of the head just touches the bottom of the highest pixel in the curve, and assuming soldiers in this game are actually more like 1.8m (5' 11") tall, the bottom of his boots should be flush with the bottom edge of the underline, the top of his head should be aligned on the top edge of the uppermost pixel in the curve, under the 200m mark, a total of 9 mrads, or 44px on this screenshot. He's actually 32px tall. That translates to about 1.33m. 4' 4".

I'm so confused.

Edit: I redrew the curve to fit the man. It's a fudging, but a necessary one.

Well, none of this was necessary, I'm not leaving a 7x zoom on the AK74u, but the excercise in WTFery was eye-opening, if not enlightening.

Edit again: Illuminated Hensoldt.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Or how about this trick? Simple black PSO-1 reticle with dim red backlighting. See attachments.

Will be attempting my first PSO-1-1 today.

Edit: Yep. PSO-1-1. It's a bit of a mess, but viable. 3.5x magnification, the 20 mrad subtensions fit exactly on a 5m fence 250m away, post-center to post-center, I checked the range finder out to 200m, it functions correctly. Red backlight isn't great, but I'll keep tweaking it, or abandon the idea and go with an illuminated chevron, maybe.

I'm having fun, and that's what's important.

Edit again: It's gonna be a red chevron. Reworked the curve and added detail to the numbers. I like it.

Similar retreatment on the PSO-1.

Last (?) Edit: Ten minutes ago, I googled that a HMMWV is 1.87m, ground to roof. The bottom of the passenger compartment is 0.41m from the ground. So underside to rooftop, the HMMWV is 1.46m. Twenty minutes ago, I confirmed that, from 100m away, in the stadiametric range finder I drew for the PSO-1-1 tailored to the height of a soldier 100m away, that that 1.46m is indistinguishable from the height of the soldier on the .50 cal. in that HMMWV.

Soldiers in BF2 are 1.33m tall. I'm going to have to remove the '1.7' from my rangefinders, if I'm going to be honest. Maybe.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Measure twice, cut once...

Although, realistically, if the ruler you're measuring many more times than twice with is a repair or demo request with a less than reliable distance readout on the HUD, you can't be too surprised to find that the 5m fence you've been calibrating your milliradian reticles on is actually 6m, give or take, depending on which 6-ish meter fence on the map you're actually using, leaving all that clever math you did ready for the recycling 'cause garbage in, garbage out.

Haste makes waste is another good one, so when you finally decide to take the time to research verifiable dimensions for the M1A1 Abrams and the HMMWV, you discover the wonderful, solidly rounded 1.8m from the inside of the left front tire to the outside of the right front tire on the HMMWV. There's also the sort of mudflap/fender foremost point of the Abrams that's 312" (7.9248m) away from the rear face of the brake light.

You have some serious zoom tweaking to do.

Then you have to redraw your rangefinders, using math to set the curve starting points instead of screenshots of a dude 100m or 200m away, and how about that?! The soldiers in BF2 are not 1.33m tall! They look more like 1.65m, which at 5' 5" still seems shortish, but not an oompa-loompish 4' 4 3/8" like you thought.

So that worked out for me today, so far. Tweaks on the P4L2BE pending.

Edit: screen069 makes the 1.65m soldier sort of clear. screen070 shows that the soldier, the space between the lines left of the soldier, and the green crosshair are all 19px tall.

Edit again: (screen072) I redrew the PSO-1 to require less magnification. I really can't draw it any smaller and keep the chevron chevron-shaped. The chevron is less bright and less blurred as well. This reticle used to be 4px per milliradian, it's now 3px, and where it used to be at 7.15x zoom, it's now 6.33x. I drew the numbers in a more authentic looking font, everything is generally more authentically formatted (according to the photo I have of the PSO-1 reticle), and I made the lines 50% transparent to imply they're finer than they are.

(screen073) PSO-1-1 with similar treatment on the chevron brightness, chevron blur, and line transparency.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Shall I explain?

The inside of the large ring on the P90 sight is 180 moa. 3°. The HMWWV wheels, center to center, are 1.80m.

3 ÷ 360 = 0.0083333

1.8 ÷ 0.0083333 = 216.00086 ÷ 6.2831853 = 37.377604

So 3° is 1.8m about 37m away.

In-game, got in front of a HMWWV, dropped a repair request on the left front tire, adjusted my position, dropped another, adjusted, dropped, adjusted, dropped, repeat 'til the distance changes from 36m to 37m. Then backed up a tiny bit and made a screenshot.

Opened the screenshot in Photoshop. Measured from the inside of the left tire to the outside of the right tire: 59 pixels.

I draw all these modded sights to match the HUD units: 800×600. I play at 1280×720. 720 ÷ 600 = 1.2

59 ÷ 1.2 = 49.166666.

I need to draw the inside of the ring 49 px wide. I want the outer ring to be 2px thick, so I add 4 to 49 and that's 53.

Complete the graphic, make the modifications, get back in the game, now we test the size.

49px = 180 moa. 53px = 194.69387 moa ÷ 21600 moa = 0.0090136

HMMWV is 1.87m tall. 1.87 ÷ 0.0090136 = 207.46427 ÷ 6.2831853 = 33.018964.

According to the math, the ring and the HMMWV should be the same height from 33m away. I refer you to the screenshot attached. I think the ring might be a half pixel too large, but considering that from having the idea to draw a P90 ring sight to making that screenshot took me about half an hour, I feel okay about that half pixel margin. Note that I aimed at the left edge of the windshield to drop the repair request, so the distance is from the windshield, not the front of the HMMWV.

It's not often in my life that I know exactly what I'm doing and can present evidence of that knowlege, and I find the sensation thrilling, to be honest.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Over in this thread:

https://novahq.net/forum/showpost.ph...58&postcount=4

I attached a revision of the PSO-1-1 with larger, more authentically fonted numbers. It was okay, but at 5×10px, they felt too large to me.

I did a new version of the PSO-1-1 with numbers more correctly sized and more resembling the font used in the reference photo I found. I didn't think I could do it with characters 3×6px, but I think it's fine, give or take a weak pixel or two.

I also used that reference photo for measurements to more accurately format all the lines, accuracy being difficult at this resolution.

And I redrew the 'curve', which is actually twelve extremely carefully drawn straight lines between each 25m point. I spent as much time as I could getting it as close to pixel perfect as possible and still remain married. I hope.

I tried dimming the chevron and darkening the black lines, but it was unsatisfying.

I like it better now.

[Baldo_the_Don]

I've been modding the BF2 demo again today. See, I made a Kobra T reticle for the AK-74u before I knew what I needed to know, and I got something that looked fun enough, and left it at that.

What I needed to know, and what took me a while to find out, then took me another while to actually implement, is that the Kobra T reticle is 50 moa wide, so my first Kobra T reticle was way too large.

Using the math I explained in previous replies in this thread, I established that I needed the reticle to fit the HMMWV wheels exactly center to center looking at it from the front from 123.76m away.

I present the attached screenshot as a result.

[Baldo_the_Don]

Unasked-for-update: The BF2 demo refused to start. I had to uninstall, then reinstall it. I have to redo all the modifications I made. Ugh.