Multiple Analogue Tachos and boost gauge

mianiak

Just thought I'd share this and put back in to the community some of what I have taken a lot of out. I don't know if this has been done before, but I couldn't find anything about it, so here it is anyway, I hope it could help someone.

Recently I had to get a boost gauge working and there was no way I could do it without sacrificing another gauge. So I started playing with rpmled and came up with a technique to make analogue gauges out of it.

Basically, set it up the same as you would a digitach with your 32 materials, then it's just layer over layer of mesh for each stage so that the next mesh covers the previous one. Then make a blank background and then the face needs to be transparent and infront of the needle.

For the boost gauge, just work out what rpm the turbo kicks in and set it accordingly.




Here it is as a boost gauge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHVni_SZvQ

and here it is as multiple analogue tachos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-33zTO_AI
 
Nice try.
But multiple tachos with different start point and various needle gfx representation is impossible imo.
 
Just to add to this, I discovered a very weird phenomenon. Let's see If I can find a way to explain it.

Taking note with the needle on how the next one covers the previous one preventing it from showing up which gives the impression of a moving analogue gauge (which is the basis on how this whole thing works)
I had a problem arise where some covered the previous one's but some didn't cover the previous ones. I spent a good day and a half trying to figure it out, it was about driving me nuts, then by accident I noticed that the poly that was 'poking through' had a higher number than the poly number of the poly that was supposed to cover it up. (as in polygon number ## in 3dmax).
So I edited it and made it so that a lower numbered poly was behind the next one and low and behold, it worked perfectly.

So what this means is that you can have a face covering another face with hardly any space between them and without having any zfighting issues, as long as the poly covering the other is a higher number in 3dmax.

In these pics, you see poly 388 is covering poly 385, this works correctly when in game.


In these pics you see poly 388 is covering poly 396, this causes poly 396 to render ontop of poly 388 when in game and causes the needle (rpmled) to stay turned on when it gets to that point instead of being covered and 'turning it off'
 
I once had to fake a digital tacho using an analog gauge but never the other way round, good trick!

and thanks for sharing your experience.
 
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