Changing an MFD's colors

[Kveldulf]

I am wondering if its possible to modify the colors in the built in Orbit MFD. The reason for this is I find it difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between my orbit, and the target orbit (I am color-blind, so the colors are identical to me).

 

[GLS]

I am wondering if its possible to modify the colors in the built in Orbit MFD. The reason for this is I find it difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between my orbit, and the target orbit (I am color-blind, so the colors are identical to me).

I'm not sure if MFDs don't have the capability to have "stardand" config files (ala spacecraft), so that people can choose the colors (or other things...)
It shouldn't be hard to put that feature in the new orbiter version... and then it's up to the developers to make their MFDs work for everybody.

 

[Quick_Nick]

I remember this exact question coming up a couple of years ago on the M6 forum. I don't think things really got anywhere, but I could be wrong. I also don't believe it would be too hard for Martin(or an addon developer) to implement something like this. I too am colorblind and have trouble with MFDs that use green and yellow.(or whatever they are ) I normally either ignore the visual part of Orbit MFD or just switch between 'no target' and 'target' modes to see which one stays the same(me) and which one shows up only with target on(the target), but I also have trouble with other MFDs like Sync Orbit MFD which has a list of values and one line highlighted which I can't easily differentiate from the others.

 

[spcefrk]

It might be nice to have an MFD that can switch colors. I know people who have trouble picking out red and green, so an option to switch between Green/Yellow, Green/Red, Blue/Red, etc... would be nice.

 

[craigh]

I'll chime in as well being color blind, for anyone keeping stats. Yellows and greens on MFD's look pretty much the same. I'd love the ability to toggle color combos.

CraigH

 

[Linguofreak]

I'm a full trichromat, but I find that green (especially light green) is often a really horrible color for a HUD. (And I usually operate orbiter in MFD-as-part-of-HUD mode). It's often unreadable against greens and light blues, which are, unfortunately, *really* common colors on Earth. On one other flight sim I have/had (as in, I still have the disk, but my computers seem to have outgrown it) that does/did give the option to use different HUD colors, I often used red, because of the fact that it hardly blends with anything that you find in an Earthside flying environment.

Flight sims tend to use green for HUD's because that's what HUD's tend to use IRL, but as far as good contrast, red is much better (though you might want green or blue for Mars.)

Add me to the votes for adding color switching capability to the HUD and to the standard Orbiter MFD's. (Preferably something that can be done in-sim with a keypress).

 

[lalbanof]

Are there MFD libraries?

Hello,

Excuse my ignorance, but...

From what I have seen in the code for some MFD modules like Orrery and Aerobrake , the actual colors for drawing are usually chosen beforehand by the developer and defined, sometimes as macros, sometimes as classes to be substituted at the appropriate places when drawing or printing text. You would need to go there change the code and compile it. Probably I am basing my experience in just an example or two. Correct me If I'm wrong

To be able to effect changes in an user-friendly manner you would have to have a separate .cfg file with color specifications for the MFD.

Or maybe a library for MFDs including palette changes among others. That could be used directly from Orbiter with a keyboard command.

Tell me if you get to do it.

PD: It is perfectly true, green stinks for a transparent display in Orbiter, particularly on Earth. No sense of depth to make the HUD stand out in the 2D cockpit, and a sky that is almost as bright as the HUD too. Which is why, IMHO, it works in real airplanes, but not in Orbiter.

 

[V8Li]

The MFDs that come with Orbitersim (like Orbit MFD, Map MFD, Surface MFD etc) are not included in the SDK. So a developer won't be able to change the colors -only if that one is Dr. Martin Schweiger- since we don't have the code to recompile with the new colors. There is not an option to change the colors at runtime (in-game) either.

An option to change the colors is easy to implement, it's just a matter of adding a button that can toggle some color values and when the MFD gets refreshed the new drawings will use those colors. I'm sure that now, after you've mentioned it, developers will include such options, at least for graphs, thus increasing the accessibility.

 

[Bendarr]

I realise that this is an older thread but this is the main thread that came up in the search. I am red/green color blind. I was watching tex's tutorial on taking the DGIV from surface to a dock with the ISS and I looked at the IMFD, I literally couldn't see the difference between the ship or the target colors (Green and yellow) so IMFD (for the most part) is mostly useless to me at this point. Has there been any sort of progress made in allowing a color change button or something like that in the time since? Or am I just hosed?

 

[statickid]

I'll try to find it, but i KNOW there is a custom orbit MFD available on O-H that does exactly this, it is identical to pack-in orbit mfd, except you can change the colors... uno momento por favor i'll go look for it now.... >>>zoooom!

---------- Post added at 01:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:43 PM ----------

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3609"]Free Orbit MFD 1.2[/ame]

viola!

 

[Bendarr]

Just grabbed it from your search. Thank you. Now is there a IMFD (Interplanetary Multi Function Display) that is customizable as far as the colors? That's what I'm beating my head against. Orbit I can get to, I can Align the orbital planes ok, it's when I try to use the IMFD to sync the orbits that's when I run into problems with visibility.

Heading off to give it a try.

===========================

Just came back from giving it a try. I was able to modify the colors. Worked very well for me. Thanks!! That just leaves IMFD where I'm having the visibility problems.

 

[Xyon]

You mean this? [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3609"]Free Orbit MFD 1.2[/ame]

Ah, never mind, you found it before I posted. Scrolling down is for wimps!

 

[Bendarr]

No problem Xyon. I'm just hoping that someone can come up with a solution for my IMFD color problem.

 

[SiameseCat]

There's an IMFD5.cfg file in the Config folder; I think this lets you change the MFD colours.

 

[Bendarr]

There's an IMFD5.cfg file in the Config folder; I think this lets you change the MFD colours.

I think you maybe right. For example this line: "Color_01 0x0000DD00 // Current Ship orbit, Source Orbit [Bright green]" If It follows the hex setup for the Free Orbit mfd then the last 6 digits control the color. I'm going to experiment and find out. man it's been years since I've done this.

============================================
ok, looks like I can modify the color codes IMFD that way. Cool. I looked but I didn't see a config file for the sync orbit mfd. That's ones a real killer with yellow and light green. Do you know if there is one? or where?

 

[Izack]

Just adding my presence to the colourblind Orbinauts category. What is this 'yellow' of which you speak??
Also, Bendarr, I think there's a universal 'default' config for the vanilla MFDs. I haven't played with it, but it's under config>MFD.

 

[uel64]

This was very helpful, since I´m green blind. After modifying IMFD.CFG i did also change Default.cfg in Config/Mfd, COL_0_BRT to another value. Now I have some kind of blue what was before the standard green. It seems that COL_0_BRT determines the color of a lot of the MFD-elements. The background of the Surface-MFD scales uses that color, which makes it look totally different than before

But however, with these changes it is possible for me to actually use all the MFD´s :thumbup:

It would be really nice if that would become a config option under Extras in the orbiter lauchpad.

If you can´t make e real difference between the yellow and green lines nearly all important MFD´s are hard to use.

 

[Ripley]

Here are some more info about this problem.
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=193036

We could maybe make an "official" implementation request to Martin?
That must be a simple code-change.

 

[Wishbone]

Thank you guys for bringing this up, I'll re-view my mfd to make sure it doesn't rely on colours...

 

[Pyromaniac605]

In Orbiter 2006 wasn't there a .cfg file where you could change the colour of the mfds?
My memory may not be perfect but I specifically remember changing my MFD colours through a .cfg file. :shrug:

Darren

Edit: Izack already posted it.