I notice that scope reticles are contained in mesh files.
I'm not good with nifscope so is there any way to extract the reticle image as a .dds so I can edit it with Photoshop?
If so, can this .dds be used in the same way gun textures are, e.g. by putting the scope01.dds in the appropriated texture folder?

Or am I on the wrong track entirely and reticles can only be handled through nifscope?

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

The reticles in FO3 are not texture files, they are mesh with shading applied. Changing the reticle appearance means there's modeling envolved. I'm currently modeling an M14 EBR and I altered an existing ACOG reticle to have the http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/Khugan/M14%20EBR/reticle.jpg shape recently. I had to make the V shape in Blender and apply red emissive and specular in Nifskope.

Khugan

Damn, thats what I was afraid of.
Could you tell me, is there an easy way (a la nifscope for dummies) of changing the size of a reticle? I'd like to get a mildot reticle that could actually be used for accurate range finding, but a lot depends on getting the reticle to the right size.

That ACOG looks sweet. Nice work!
I don't suppose you have any plans to do a Mil-Dot Gen2 reticle (http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/GEAR_Gen2_MilDot_Reticle_lg.jpg) do you?

There is not much in Nifskope that you can do to accomplish your goal. (that I know of) It would take much trial and error as far as accuracy in game is concerned. I think you would almost need to make a range in some world space (not a bad idea) with accurate distances. Honestly I don't know if it is possible, but maybe it is. Are there any game ballistics gurus around the forums?

Just looked at your link, and yes that could easily be done as far as appearance, but accuracy I dunno.

Khugan

There's no bullet drop in FO3, so the accuracy of the markings is a moot point - they won't work anyway.

I have managed to get one of Pellinors reticles dialed in (at a third scale) to act as a pretty accurate range finder. Unfortunately its a TMR, which I find is great for judging distance, but I really prefer a Mil-dot for shooting.
The Gen2 ones seem to have the best of both worlds, imo. If someone could make a Gen2 Mil-dot with the same dimensions as Pellinor's TMR that would be ideal, I think.

As for the drop, FO3 allows for gravity effects on the projectile, but it seems to be extremely tricky to adjust, especially for the sniper rifle. Friction isn't modelled, unfortunately, so the ballistics can only be linear, not a proper curve.
I have spent some time target shooting against restrained talons and raiders, but at anything approaching decent sniper range (450'+) I have encountered a few strange things. Hopefully I can get it sorted.

You bastard!

I'll see if I can get a reticle together for you as soon as I have time. I do hope you can figure out something. This sounds very interesting.

Ha ha, think of it as giving meaning to their otherwise worthless existences! Besides they are much more responsive than bottles or cans.

That would definitely be awesome, if you could manage it. As I said, if it were the same size (internal dimensions between the thick bars) as Pellinor's TMR, it would be ideal.

One thing I noticed in testing the sniper rifle is that is seems to pull about half a mil to the right.
I'm not sure whether this is due to the reticle or the animation (using bullet time it does seem that the sights jerk slightly to the right upon firing) but in either case at 450' (I have truncated the range to fit within the game engine, so 1 real yard = 1 game foot) it means a difference of about 8". This equates to a miss if you are looking for a headshot at that range.
Whatever the reason, a half mil offset on the reticle should pretty much fix the issue.

I am close to finishing my rifles and just got the sniper version in game. I think I am going to make the reticle you want and use it on this, of course I will send it to you for your own use, but I want to make sure I get this right. You want a Gen2 Mildot which is basicly dots with marks halfway between the dots?? The pic you posted has extra little marks that look almost like errors. Am I wrong? Secondly you want it set to Pellinor's TMR. Correct? All black markings?

Cheers mate!
That is fantastic of you.
Here is the schematic from the designer of the reticle.
http://www.premierreticles.com/pdfs/2009-5-25xxGen2.pdf
If you make the 'A' dimension the same as Pellinor's TMR then it will gel well with my current calculations. If you can possible make the lines a touch finer than Pelinors, that would be outstanding.
Also I believe that in inner red cross is actually illuminated, but I'm not sure if this is possible in nifscope.

Fyi, here is the designers paper on use of the Gen2.
http://www.premierreticles.com/pdfs/2009-HowToGen2.pdf

Current, using the TMR I have manage to dial in the scope to accurately gauge distance very accurately (<3% variance from true) but getting the drop correct is a major challenge.
That was the easy part.
I have no idea how the gravity system works, but its very weird. If I calibrate it for about a 4 mil drop at 550', then shoot a group from 350', I see a 3.25 drop (I would expect closer to 1.5). But worse, at 100 the drop is over 7 mills! The round seems to drop sharply once it leaves the muzzle, gain altitude around the middle of the trajectory then drop again. More like a weird mortar round than a bullet.
Its going to take a fairly systematic investigation into the interplay between Max range, velocity and gravity in order to figure out the relationship between these factors, and get them properly dialed in. Unfortunately I haven't had the time recently.
Modding this damn game can be frustrating sometimes.
But, I'm not giving up yet though!

In any case, I have it so that its more than possible to make headshots at nearly 600 feet.
A few pics taken out around 570':
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/Range-570.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/Reticle-570.jpg

Don't go if you have a minute, posting what I have so far momentarily

OK http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/Khugan/M14%20EBR/mildot1.jpg the whole reticle, and http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/Khugan/M14%20EBR/mildot2.jpg is closer up. Now, I can read your post.

Mine over Pellinor's
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/Khugan/M14%20EBR/compare2.jpg
http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii181/Khugan/M14%20EBR/compare1.jpg

Pellinor's is off center ever so slightly. This may happen on export. I don't really know for sure, but I can leave mine where it is, or I can match it exactly to his and send you that. I have no clue if that small amount will effect anything.

Khugan, I think I just PM'd you the following, but I couldnt find it in my sent folder so not sure if you will get it:


http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/Khugan-GEN2-Overlay.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/GEN2-Comparision.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/Gen2-range-chart.jpg
As I may have mentioned before, because the game can not model real sniper rifle distances (600+ yards) I adjusted the drop to work to a truncated scale of 1 game foot to 1 real life yard. E.g. In real life, 7.62x51 rounds drop about 4 mils at 550 yards, so in the game I calibrated a ~4mil drop for about 550' (11733 game units).
Also, a note on the range chart. Its not a mistake that the rifle shoots 1 mil high at 50'. I calculated the drop to simulate a rifle zeroed to 100', so closer than this it will shoot slightly high. Zeroing for 100yards is fairly standard procedure.

I have no doubt it is possible, and I will get on it asap. I have a request of my own.
Could you explain to me how accuracy in the game is achieved? I make a rifle in a 3d program ok? And the rifle is backwards so when you hold it in game, your aiming down the stock, but since the projectile node is where it should be, it fires and flash fires out of the stock! Stupid I know, but what is the correlation between between the model and the aimpoint? I assumed that the center in the 3d editor would also be center in game, but when I saw how far off center some vanilla rifles are, and the vanilla scope reticle, I started to wonder...

Thanks Khugan, thats fantastic of you!

I'm afraid though that I cant tell you anything related to models, nodes or aimpoints. I have some experience with spreads, damage and ballistics using the GECK, but next to nothing to do with Nifskope or modeling (if I did I wouldnt be troubling you for scope reticles!).
It does seem however that there may be some difference (as you mentioned) between the center in the game and the editor. You noted earlier that Pellinor's TMR seemed to be off, so I made an overlay using the GEN2 template, but it actually seems to line up pretty well.
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff292/VonGrantoven/TMR-GEN2-Overlay.jpg

Sorry I can't be of much help on that.

I don't know why it's insisted that reticles have to be done with a modeling program. You can certainly change the crosshair mesh to a plane large enough to cover the lens and attach textures to it. I only stayed with the mesh style because it keeps the file size to a minimum for the same appearance. (Although that appearance is butt ugly in-game due to no AA on UI NIFs.)

I have an old project (they're all old now...) that uses UI texture overlays instead of a scope mesh attached to the weapon, which gives super-clear crosshairs that can be recolored, resized, and moved at will through FOSE. The project was to make the reticles illuminated, fit perfectly to any aspect ratio, and be able to adjust for windage/elevation. I think I'll get back to that soon after I finish updates on some others. (I've been busy with more important things for the past few months.)

Oh, and that offset error is actually from the original Scope01.nif, which I used as a template. Actually, there are a bunch of errors in those files left over from the original. The one for the offset is in the "crosshair" node, specifically the Translation values that aren't 0. I don't use Blender for modeling, so I had to export/import the crosshair mesh in NifSkope without ever seeing its final position up close. That's what I get for assuming the original was done right... :rolleyes:

Hey Pellinor,
No need to knock yourself out over any errors. If there are any, it doesn't seem to affect the utility of the scope.
With my recent forays into trying to put some realism into sniping I was able to bang out headshots at over 12000 game units (nearly 600') using your TMR, though personally I prefer the Mil-dot pattern (mainly since thats what I trained with).
I did try the mil-dot variants in your pack, but unfortunately they were a bit larger than the limited game zoom is able to handle. Getting the size right is essential to being able to use them for range finding.

It was insisted because I knew no better. It was insisted because every reticle (including yours) I edited was mesh. Since the texture file attached to the original nif file that skews the FOV could easily contain a few more kb of pixels to make crosshairs, there may have been a practical reason for not doing it. It is good to know now, it can be done. Two mysteries solved. You have answered Gurachn's question and I have answered yours.

EDIT:
Any ETA on the texture reticle? I am working on an EBR and that would be sweet on the sniper version.

One more note regarding what I said earlier about the sniper rifle seemingly pulling about a half mil to the right.
It is definitely not reticle related.
It seems to be coming from the animation, specifically from the "AttackLeft".
Changing this removes the problem.

I have a slightly off topic question, but since you are all here...

I'm wondering if it's possible to create a "scope" that provides an open sight experience like a mini reflex sight? I tried stripping way all of the ring detail on a red-dot scope NIF, but I am left with a view that masks the sides of the field of vision, much like watching 4x3 SD TV on a 16x9 widescreen TV. Does the game engine do the matting or is it likely built into the NIF? If the latter, is there an easy way change this?

I have seen some examples of this being done with some of the Ironsights mods, I think AlexScorpion's.
Run a seach on Nexus and you should be able to find a video showing something similar to what you are describing.
The image would not be collimating, of course, but parallax isn't an issue in the game in anycase.

There's a setting in Fallout.ini called fScopeScissorAmount that controls how much of the rendering is cut off while scoped. You'll want to set it to 0 to render the entire screen. I'm not certain, but I think the setting was added in one of the patches along with some others.

Nice idea, but not at the price of messing up all the weapons. I was hoping to accomplish this through through the scope rather than animation.



Sound like the answer, but alas, it does not seem to work. Where do you find these settings? Is there a list of valid settings that can be inserted into the ini file?

Pelinor, I asked this question earlier, but maybe you would know the answer.

Thanks,
Khugan