Attitude Indicator

2022 May 5 Update:

Added a simplified "Peripheral Mode" which draws the target around the car, so a player can be looking at their car and still see which way the target marker is pointing in their peripheral vision. The normal attitude indicator does not show up in this mode, so the screen is less cluttered.

What the heck is this?

This plugin was inspired by the NavBall/Attitude Indicator instrument in the game Kerbal Space Program. The purpose of this tool is to show the orientation of a vehicle that's controlled from a third-person camera position. When the car's orientation is constantly changing and the player wants to orient it towards a certain direction, it is not immediately intuitive where they should point the joystick.

How can this help with learning aerial mechanics?

The simplest way to use this is to practice flying while holding down air roll. A new player wouldn't be able to stay in the air long, but the Attitude Indicator helps by showing you which way to aim your joystick. If you are aiming at the blue hemisphere, your car will be aimed upwards (or if using the Peripheral Mode, select "Up" as the target, and aim your joystick the red target drawn on the screen to point up).

If you are comfortable keeping your car aimed upwards, the next hurdle may be your direction while doing aerials, since eventually you would just hit walls. The target marker can help with this. If you set the target to "Velocity (opposite)" in the plugin settings, then the white marker on the outside of the tool will point in the direction that you need to aim your joystick to cancel your velocity (you can also do this by aiming for the little green square with an "X", but the border target provides an option that is more visible in peripheral vision, since the goal is to learn these mechanics without the needing to look at this tool at all).

You can also set the ball as your target, or any cardinal direction, including up and down.

What are all these weird shapes and colours?

• Green Squares: These show the direction to point your car so that you're aimed in the direction of your velocity (or the opposite of your velocity, for the case of the smaller green square with an "X" through it).
• Blue Squares: These show the direction to point your car so that you're aimed in the direction of the ball (or the opposite of the ball, for the case of the smaller blue square with an "X" through it).
• White Wedge on Outside of Tool: This is the target marker, which you can configure in the plugin settings. It shows which direction you should point the joystick to aim at your selected target.
• Green Wedge on Outside of Tool: This is the joystick marker, which shows which direction you are pointing your joystick.
• Red Semi-Circle Wedge Thing: This is the target marker when using Peripheral Mode. The further your car is from the target, the larger the shape grows. If you're looking straight in the target direction, the red target marker will disappear.