I did a mod for JF-18 that makes the default cockpit view have a little wider perspective than the stock view. Not to be confused with the "TSH wide view", this mod only changes the default view so that the default perspective is a little wider than stock. If you have TSH 3.06 you will still be able to zoom out to an even wider view.

I have a 24 inch monitor and I run JF-18 at 1920 x 1200. I like the hi resolution but I didn't like the fact that at that resolution, the cockpit was a little too big to fit on the screen. So I made the perspective a little wider and now I can run the game at 1920 x 1200 and the perspective is much better. I don’t know if many of you run JF-18 at such a hi resolution, but if you do, then you might like this mod.

Here are some pics.

Wide Cockpit 1 at 1920 x 1200 res.
http://news.webshots.com/photo/2639546650025714458ZtyRcY

Wide Cockpit 2 at 1920 x 1200 res.
http://news.webshots.com/photo/2432607580025714458HKjlVe

Slikk

Slikk,

I got your emails with the means to do this, but let's discuss here first.

Frenchy struggled to integrate wideview into TSHv3; for a long time he said he did not understand how it was originally implemented in TSHv1. But here it seems as if you've simply modified the default FOV setting, or something that controls the FOV, in a simple manner. No matter how you've done it, it is a wonderful achievement, because it gives JF-18 real widescreen support. Kudos to you.

Could you please post the hex address(es) you modified to change the FOV? I would love to have 16:9, 16:10, 15:9, 12:3 and 15:4 aspect ratios fully supported, without the screwiness of the windeview cockpit toggle.

Hey great news! I keep seeing all these wide screen monitors that I'd like to get, but I don't because I would not be able to fly this sim on it (or it wouldn't look quite right). Maybe now I'll finally take the plunge

Ripcord

Yeah... thanks, Slikk...

Just when I thought I'd be okay with this CRT monitor until it died, you have to go and do THAT, making it obvious that I now need a widescreen LCD monitor.

Alright, Mr. Smartguy, how about coming up with a way to explain to Mrs. Hedgehog why I need a widescreen LCD monitor?

Lol Hedgehog, looks like you're gonna have to do some extra stuff around the house so you can get on Mrs. Hedgehog's good side so you can get that wide screen LCD monitor.

Joe

It's been a while senses I worked on this mod, I've had it for a while now. I told a few people about it in HL when it was brand new but they didn’t seem too interested so I just kind of sat on it until now. If I remember correctly, not only did the cockpit FOV perimeters have to be altered but some of the other cockpit functions had to be altered as well. For example: The ADI that shows up in the MDI had to reattached, and the FLIR had to be altered as well or they wouldn’t follow the cockpit correctly when you pan your head around in the cockpit. Also, I had to do this the hard way because I didn’t have to original program that TSH used to open the .exe so I'm not sure if the info on how I did this would help or not, but here goes.

For the Wide cockpit 1: At line 10658 of the .exe I had to change this value (€) to this value (‘). This step was repeated at lines 20822 and 20846.

For the Wide cockpit 2: At line 10658 of the .exe I had to change this value (€) to this value (˘). This step was repeated at lines 20822 and 20846.

Hope this helps.

Slikk

so great,could u release it?if TSH can add zoom to 3D cockpit.that is perfect.

Slikk,

I've been playing around with this, and it looks like the first option is almost perfect in terms of keeping the original vertical FOV intact in a 16:10 resolution; the image is just the slightest bit Vert-, resulting in the bottom row of buttons in the left and right MDIs being only partially visible.

Unfortunately this modification to the original field of view does not survive wideview/normal toggles with the FLIR in use; this is the same problem exhibited in any resolution greater than 1024x768 with the FLIR in use. I tested in 1280x800, and without any wideview use it was great, and I could use the FLIR without problems. However, as soon as you switch to wideview and then back again while FLIR imagery is displayed, the FOV returns to default. To correct this problem and restore the modified FOV, you have to take the FLIR imagery off of the displays and then toggle wideview ON and OFF again.

One last problem is that the FOV changes but the HUD overlay stays the same size; the larger the FOV, the more the HUD overruns the HUD glass. For this reason I think your first FOV setting is much better than the second.

Overall I would say this works pretty well if you don't use wideview (and with a widescreen monitor the need for wideview is reduced). Personally I never use wideview as I find the resulting image too distorted. I will play around more and attempt to come up with the exact FOV to match the 4:3 default image. If I can do that we can put out a release with proper fields of view for 5:4. 15:9, 16:9, 16:10, 12:3, and 15:4 resolutions.

I have limited experience in hex editors. I show line 20822 to be "75", and it's the same in the unmodified TSHv3.06 executable as it is in your modified executable, so clearly I'm not looking in the right place (or using the right program to look).

I added your ICQ number to my buddy list but you're offline right now. I'd love to chat via IM for a few minutes so you could straighten me out.

Say, what exact character is this, anyway? I can't seem to reproduce it in on my keyboard. My apostrophe looks like this (') and the unshifted tilde character looks like this (`).

I won't even begin to think about typing the cent character.

Sorry Joe, but I must have sent you the wrong version of the wide view mod. As I said it's been a while sense I worked on it. I have sent you the right version of the mod and with this version you will absolutely be able to zoom out and then zoom back in again and the FLIR will follow. The correct version of the mod will allow you to have three levels of zoom. With the FLIR off, the zoom is extra wide. With the FLIR on the zoom is wide but is more useful than the extra wide view. The view reverts back to normal if toggled with the FLIR in the on position. The monitor that I use cannot achieve all of the different resolutions there are in the TSHv3Manager but the mod was tested with all of the resolutions that would work with my system. There might be slight differences at some resolutions but for the most part it worked without any problems.

Slikk