Well...
- First of all, what's with all the funny lines? That's another thing the game does to pull you in, create atmosphere. Totally useless in combat, obstructs vision.
'All the funny lines' are there more as a reference than anything. This is a very rough draft preliminary sketch, and I made it while staring at my H3L helmet (as you would know if you'd read the description under the pic in the first link). Mostly, they're the bezels on the outside showing through, although some are actually supposed to be the outer edges of the shield. The only way they'll be present in the final product is if that is modelled identically after what the Chief wears. For now, the lines are just a guide for me for where **** goes.
- Heart rate monitor: I know you love this health monitoring stuff, but as I said earlier, the soldier can feel his heart. He doesn't need some number that keeps changing all the time without actually telling him something useful.
That's about what I thought of the matter when it was proposed that I place just the HR and BP on the display, because I couldn't understand at the time how HR alone would be useful and there are no non-invasive methods of gauging BP without the cuffs, which would restrict bloodflow. Fortunately, I happened to bring this up in casual conversation with a MD, and she suggested programming it to provide an alert when HR spikes 20 beats above or below a given range - the initial symptom of entering into shock. Basically, it's a warning measure to remind a wounded soldier to 'get the Hell out of Dodge and into Cover' before s/he can lose consciousness.
- Power Gauge: While this is definitely necessary, I'm not sure if it belongs on the HUD, especially in such a prominent place. The suit will have to run a rather long time to be useful, so this is not an element that the wearer needs to constantly monitor. Might make more sense to move it to some kind of tacpad on the arm.
I'm still not sure whether I'm going to include a tacpad, although I can see the use. Whatever the eventuality, I certainly wouldn't make it necessary to the function of the suit's primary equipment, as relocating the main battery gauge there would imply - it's too fragile and choice a target, for one thing. If anything, it would behave like a networked unit. As it is, I couldn't really figure a better place on the HMD; it's not really where you're going to be looking most of the time but it's also not so far from there that you have to wait for a major lull to check it.
- Video comms... what for? Showing pictures uses a lot of space. That makes sense if you're Facebook and have nothing useful to display, but it's going to get you shot in the field. Aside from that, where is the feed supposed to come from? Internal helmet camera? How's that supposed to work?
Field briefings, detailed status updates, etc. There's plenty of use for video communicationsif you can minimize the distraction and train to work around what remains. This would also be the section where feeds from other helmets would appear (health feeds for medics, vid records from a lost helmet, etc.).
For briefings and other examples of squad communication where the vid comm is used but the external environment is not helpful (such as a squad strategy session when separated, making it useful to be able to differentiate the individual speaker visually), there is supposed to be an internal camera, yes. That said, if I knew how it was supposed to work....
There is also an external camera for recording events as they occur and for use in field briefings and squad strategy sessions requiring views of the objective. The entire vidcomm suite is, I suppose, one possible reason for integrating a tacpad....
- Scope link viewer: The concept of using a camera to look through the scope does actually make sense, because it allows you to keep your head down longer. This is even being tested in reality as far as I know. However: That is something you might want to show larger. Only when needed though.
I don't know that I need to show it any larger, as it were. It's currently positioned directly in front of the right eye, supposedly the most common used to sight through a scope, regardless of dexterous orientation. Normally, it's absent with the possible exceptioin of the diameter division; as soon as a pressure switch is toggled to activate the Scope Link Camera, this division solidifies and its interior is populated by the view through the scope as recorded by the camera. This constant presence is to help prevent disorientation when suddenly activating the SLC.
If you meant something besides the literally obvious, as it were, please elaborate.
- Integrity: Something else I'd move to the tacpad. Also note what I said earlier about quantifying damage.
I may have to go back and review what you said. That aside, following Tsau-Mia's suggestion of integrating ablative chips into the hardsuit as integrity sensors, it makes at least some sense to enable a message to pop up briefly when that integrity is compromised (even if only at certain intervals) and to remain present but out of the way when integrity is heavily compromised. You're less likely to look at that tacpad or your armor during or after every firefight, so you might end up entering into another unaware that some part is about ready to fall off, leaving you unprotected. Compromising somewhat, the sensors and collaborative unit
could be configured to allow the tacpad to read out a detailed view of the integrity status, enabling the wearer to decide for oneself the immediate risk inherent.
- Radar: Don't think copying the game here is the best idea. Why not put the info into the wearer's field of view? Actually mark suspicious movements and such.
I'm assuming that your average soldier is only trained to read standard RADAR, if that, and that such is what we generally see exemplified in various games. That in mind, it's less sensible to expect the wearer to have to learn yet another system just to know when an attack
might be coming from a given vector.
Besides which, I suspect it's taxing enough to expect the system to recognize and differentiate vehicles and tagged allies from the remaining environmental noise. For it to be able to evaluate in real time the nature of various movements would likely require a far larger unit than can be reasonably worn.
- I assume "mic" is supposed to be a microphone? What's that doing in a sketch of the HUD elements?
The microphone is actually just below the HMD and is displayed both to show its position and to help differentiate where the HMD ends and the helmet begins. It's also so that someone examining the concept understands that the space directly below the center of the HMD is not vacant.
- Radio status: No idea, guess what to display and whether to display anything at all depends on how you want communications to work. There's no need to show a symbol for the default situation.
Here's something you can try for yourself: Take your sketch, make all the areas that are going to display something gray and then print it onto a DIN A5 or half a letter sized transparency. Hold that right in front of your face while looking around. Now imagine half of that stuff was coloured, blinking and moving. I bet you'll have a harder time than usual finding the kitchen to get a drink :-D
O_O
...that...sounds...so...FUN! I'm going to run on out to Office Max tomorrow after my visit to Verizon to replace my phone and pick some up, then hope that it'll actually work with my printer! *eyeroll*
...actually, come to think of it...I just might... You can only figure out so much holding a damn piece of paper three inches from your face while mapping out an idea...
Another general thing: You seem to be starting with aesthetics. The military doesn't care about that, and neither does function. You should start at the other end, sooner or later something worth displaying will come up.
Yeah, I understand that. I'm mostly just trying to get the basics out of the way right now without it getting so busy nobody will want to wear it. That's also why most of the stuff is actually set toward the extremities of the shield/HMD. I'm sure I'll move some of it around as the project progresses and that various items will go through multiple reimaginings, but this works for the moment.
Well, I'm going to try and drop off so I can have my wits about me when I go to VZW, Office Max and the local 'Shack (the last with hopes of inspecting RF modulators), but don't let that prevent further and closer examinations, critiques and suggestions!