[James Ross]

jasondial, on 21 February 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

Now, since x1955 at least, if you ALT+TAB while an activity is loading, it comes up without any scenery - it doesn't load properly.

Unfortunately, this is a limitation of at least XNA, possibly of DirectX too. I have been considering adding a "load windowed, fullscreen when done" but that is the only alternative to watching it load (or running windowed anyway) that I've found.

jasondial, on 21 February 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

We need an option for large HUD text size in 1920x1080 mode.

I don't care about 1920x1080 mode specifically, but adjusting the in-game UI size is coming.

jasondial, on 21 February 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

And the "Resume" button on the latest Experimental menus is too far down and does not show on the screen in 1280x720 or 1280x768 modes.

I believe the menu is designed to fit in to 1024x768 but that will necessarily only be the case with the default DPI setting in Windows (i.e. 100% text size). Larger font sizes make it bigger.

jasondial, on 21 February 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

While I'm on load issues, is there any chance there could be a way to set custom load screens for individual activities? You could use it to give the user imagery and info relevant to the particular activity that is loading. And what about the possibility of using MPEG videos as load screens instead of just an aces? And as always, I apologize in advance if I missed any of these issues being discussed already elsewhere on the forum.

For MSTS content, no. For OR file formats, we could at least do activity-specific images. I don't like the idea of videos at all.

[markus_GE]

If animated images could be supported, like GIF, that could be a compromise, couldn´t it? (That doesn´t mean it has to be GIF - IDK which alternatives there would be, GIF simply came to my mind).

Cheers, Markus

[R H Steele]

jasondial, on 25 February 2014 - 08:22 PM, said:

I guess the points I was trying to make are: more and more people are going to be using flat screens as monitors to run OR and this is something the OR team and route developers should keep in mind; and, route developers (especially commercial rte developers) are going to want the ability to introduce activities with short videos/animations to set the stage for the activity. I currently have 100km of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Angarsk thru Irkutsk and up into the mountains toward Lake Baikal made using DEM and Google Earth markers placed as precisely as possible "on the left rail" (Google Earth's Russia imagery is just now clear enough to achieve such accuracy). I will be releasing a demo version of the route soon but who on earth can read an Activity Description about Siberia and know where they will be and what they will be doing without stopping to do a bunch of geography research first? I need the ability to display a 5-10 sec. video or animated "Intro" that will show them where in the world they are "going" and to set the stage for their actions. I think it would give the user a much richer overall experience and I don't see the harm in giving route developers the option.

Why don't you include the video as a separate part of the package. Zip it all together. Then those that want to, can run the video, others who wish to dive in and run the route or activity can do so.

[James Ross]

jasondial, on 25 February 2014 - 08:22 PM, said:

I guess the points I was trying to make are: more and more people are going to be using flat screens as monitors to run OR and this is something the OR team and route developers should keep in mind;

I presume by 'flat screens' you actually mean TVs, not monitors, since we're probably all using flat screens there. :lol2:

You also haven't addressed the question of what your set-up is such that the menu doesn't fit. It is designed with these things in mind, as I explained, but nothing's perfect. Identify what's actually wrong so we can fix it.

jasondial, on 25 February 2014 - 08:22 PM, said:

I need the ability to display a 5-10 sec. video or animated "Intro" that will show them where in the world they are "going" and to set the stage for their actions. I think it would give the user a much richer overall experience and I don't see the harm in giving route developers the option.

You want that ability, but I would rather you didn't get it, sorry. And the harm is that as soon as you give people an option like that you will find people complaining and/or demanding an option to override it and then you're back to square one. We may certainly provide more detailed and/or scripted intros to activities but I am opposed to video.

[James Ross]

jasondial, on 26 February 2014 - 01:59 AM, said:

After your first response, I double checked and lowered it to 11 and now the interface fits perfectly and the 'Resume' button is visible. But that's not to say that other people using TVs or monitors might not have the same issue. (I have a 24-inch Viewsonic and a 42-inch Panasonic plasma both hooked up to this pc.)

Good news that that was all it was. ;)

The ultimate plan is for the menu to move in to the graphical part of the game and it will then have no choice but to scale to whatever resolution is in effect (there might still be an effective minimum but that's all). For the moment, we're just going to avoid making the menu any bigger.

jasondial, on 26 February 2014 - 01:59 AM, said:

Anyone that would complain to you about that would be ignorant. Tell them they are ignorant and to contact the route designer, not you.

Telling users they are ignorant always ends well. :lol2:

jasondial, on 26 February 2014 - 01:59 AM, said:

those 0-100% progress bars are antiquated and just cause people to stare at them with anxiety anyway

http://msdn.microsof...esktop/aa511486 says that you should use a determined progress bar "even if [the] amount of time cannot be accurately predicted", among other guidance. Perhaps there are better ways to show the loading progress than the current bar, but I don't understand why you call it antiquated. One of the most annoying things for me about some other games is the lack of any sort of progress at all, particularly when it takes a minute or more sometimes.

[cjakeman]

Hi Jason,

jasondial, on 26 February 2014 - 01:59 AM, said:

abandon the bar that attempts to show the exact progress

Don't confuse the OR progress bar with all those others that are rough estimates or get stuck at 100%. Ours is a lovely bit of engineering that gives a surprisingly accurate result.

It's there to reassure the user and for his/her convenience. If you know of research about progress bars and anxiety, then I would like to see it for professional reasons.

Thanks,