New gauge clusters?

[roket]

That's why we need @roket science!

you could definitely make your own gauge clusters, but it sure aint gonna be easy.

its clear Ford is going for a more procedural approach (judging by how the 220mph speedometer works on every theme), which makes sense for development times. if you could somehow dump and decompile the programming for the IPC, you could maybe figure out how Ford assembles an instrument cluster theme and make your own. its very likely you will be working with some proprietary image formats and C++ code, but could be theoretically doable. if you're really, really stupid lucky, its possible that no programming could be needed at all and all the themes are a JSON and some images.

you would also need to hack the APIM's code to add your theme to the list of valid ones, or overwrite an existing theme if you dont want to do that. just know that, even if all of this is done, its gonna get undone come the next OTA update for either or both of those modules

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[GrabThatBlue]

you could definitely make your own gauge clusters, but it sure aint gonna be easy.

its clear Ford is going for a more procedural approach (judging by how the 220mph speedometer works on every theme), which makes sense for development times. if you could somehow dump and decompile the programming for the IPC, you could maybe figure out how Ford assembles an instrument cluster theme and make your own. its very likely you will be working with some proprietary image formats and C++ code, but could be theoretically doable. if you're really, really stupid lucky, its possible that no programming could be needed at all and all the themes are a JSON and some images.

you would also need to hack the APIM's code to add your theme to the list of valid ones, or overwrite an existing theme if you dont want to do that. just know that, even if all of this is done, its gonna get undone come the next OTA update for either or both of those modules

Ho-ho-hold your horses. The only thing I found out I could do is changing my side mirrors HAHA!!

 

[VileKnight]

Ho-ho-hold your horses. The only thing I found out I could do is changing my side mirrors HAHA!!

You opened the door… time to step through it.

 

[roket]

That's why we need @roket science!

just realized that you were on the topic of the vehicle graphics, not cluster themes like the original topic was. i was making assumptions, but it looks like it might be a bit easier to modifiy than i thought, for cluster themes and SYNC itself.

it looks like Ford has been using Unreal Engine HMI (human-machine interface) for a while on both the dash and SYNC 4. (this means that SYNC 4 and 4A are some hack-together of Blackberry QNX and Unreal engine running on effectively mobile integrated graphics. now that is amazing!) you can find more info in this 37 minute video about the topic: . i found this video by accident because i swear i saw something in PTS about "Unreal HMI" in the past and i couldnt remember where, so i looked it up and found that. actually, while looking one more time, i found it!

i will gush about this a bit later because i love this kind of stuff to no end. Unreal Engine has been cracked wide open, helped by it being open source and open to contribute to, so the difficult part really becomes getting it out of the module and making it usable so people can do stuff to it. most of the stuff i said about it being procedural is probably right, and also makes the non-colorable and unchanged vehicle model even more unforgivable. i have some experience with Unreal Engine myself and those two features would have been so incredibly easy to implement.

Ho-ho-hold your horses. The only thing I found out I could do is changing my side mirrors HAHA!!

dont worry, this is a path only capable of traversing if you have the time, connections, resources, and patience to walk it, and the vast majority of people dont (including me).



now for the technical gushing, so feel free to ignore this while i talk into the void:
that video linked shows some interesting unfinished/beta layouts of some stuff, and i gotta say that in some ways, we got a worse final product.

for one, there used to be the text "Ground Speed" above the actual speed. but thankfully, we didnt end up with the beta "miles" shortening to "mls", probably because Ford realized that that's talking about a liquid, not distance.

i also like the beta layout of SYNC better, they used that unused "Beosound" dial more, like for tuning the radio and stuff.

this little graphic also implies that BlueCruise is capable to be displayed on the dash, because thats how it looks on other Fords.

it also seems like Ford is implying that blueprints are used in the software, which means modifications are even easier because its all just nodes hooked together. here's an example i made for a game im making for camera controls for a player that can change orientations due to gravity:

at they literally talk about this in-engine configurator they made with different trims and wheels and colors and stuff but they didnt put it in the final product it seems! (also Yellow Splash used to be called Lemon Splash??)

looks like at one point, the non-GTD had the red mode buttons and the ASS OFF indicator was green

Ford also used to allow full suspension and steering customization regardless of drive mode, including an unused Off-Road setting. obviously, these didnt make it to the final version, but that "Off-Road" part interests me with regards to the Mach 4 rumor

 

[AZ_Ryan]

A new guage cluster update would be nice. One thing the S550 did a little better was the digital guage cluster. The sport and track mode versions were astheticly larger and better looking IMO. Even the normal screen was less bland than the S650 version.

And those '67 digital guages just look kinda lame. Which is disappointing since I have a classic mustang and its a cool idea. They could have done it much better.

Glad to know I'm not the only one bothered by the generic GT animation that doesn't match my car. A small detail and would have made a huge impact.

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