Dev Blog #58: HUD

[LukeFF]

Hey everyone! Today, we want to show you what is new with the GUI in Korea. IL2 Series. Enjoy! 

https://media.il2-korea.com/news/dd_58

[Aapje]

Looking forward to the sector menu, so I don't have to map the rarely used (and only used outside of combat) commands to buttons. I often forget those assignments anyway. And right now I simply ignore communication, because it is not very doable in VR and because it doesn't seem to work well anyway. Hopefully this will change with Korea.

It looks like you can mostly only add indicators to the screen and not remove part of the bottom left HUD or the bullet indicator. Is that correct? I would like it if all HUD elements can be disabled (separately).

I also feel that the HUD has a lot of information that I would like to be able to strip away, so more of the actual game is visible. In particular the units (like km/h, ft, etc). But also the type of gun. This is all information that may be fun to look at if you are new to the plane, but will get old fast. And for the climb and G indicators, the choice to have either only the numbers, or only the dials.

Also, the bottom HUD elements are very white indeed, which draw a lot of attention to them and away from the game. Is there an option to either increase the transparency or make the white more grey?

Another thing on my wishlist would be to have customizable presets for the HUD selection, so that you can change your entire HUD to a different preset if you switch planes. For example, people may want a different selection of HUD elements depending on the type of plane (jet, piston, fighter, bomber), what indicators the plane itself has (for example, only having ammo indicators for planes without one), etc.

[Dash,Polder]

Yeah, what he said and the ability to make them smaller, much smaller.  Very important to immersion levels in VR.

[kestrel79]

Looks like a nice step up from IL2 GB. I always liked their simple clear design of stuff in the HUD and GUI 

[sevenless]

New adaptable HUD is looking great! Especially I am glad to also learn about the new command structure for your sqd and flight!

[JL1]

Very nice!  I really like the HUD customization. Detailed systems also look very interesting - looks like the damage model will be a lot of fun.  The map looks like a nice improvement as well.   

Edited January 23 by JL1

[AcesDarthBubu]

Lovely, good to know devs are also factoring the way VR users play, I for one think that not having need to temp take off the headset to check on certain things is a cool feature. 

For wingman controls, will the issuing of command still be keypad based ? As a VR gamer, I use voice attack to issue verbal command that are bind to keypad inputs. Hopefully this is not going away.

[PanzerAce]

Cool

[KOKSair]

Спасибо за новости ! Будет ли обсуждаться тема обзора и видов в игре ? Интересует вопрос, можно ли в игре сделать фиксацию взгляда игрока на центре экрана в любом выбранном месте. Не путать с фиксацией на обьекте.

Edited January 24 by KOKSair

[nachinus]

This sounds like a huge improvement for all kinds of players. One of the most interesting Dev Blogs so far.

[Mohawk]

Very Nice , But will we be able to move the HUD elements  of choice to a separate side monitor, so as to keep the flight monitor uncluttered ??  

say one monitor for the flight view and one just for the hud elements.. one could just add a cheep side monitor for such a purpose ...

., it would be like a drag and drop the hud elements from one monitor to the other ..that would be great if possible ?? == will this be doable ?  ==keep some here and move some there type of thing..   also a movable map to side monitor would be great !!

Edited January 24 by Mohawk

[IckyAtlas]

I find all these features very good to have in a learning and training period. You learn with a manual and an instructor.

All the overlayed information acts a little as an instructor that reminds you of the functions etc. However their luminosity, color  and opacity (all three!) must be controllable.

After some training period we must be able to make all these various screens disappear.

But as it should be for a flight sim, we will have to fly the planes as a pilot and this means with nothing displayed on the screen besides the real cockpit.

Real cockpit means instruments are working, and all switches and levers etc. will be active and are to be used directly on the screen. Basically when you fly you do not use the keyboard, but the mouse or a mouse type interface. The cockpit is THE interface. This is what I understood Korea will do. And that we will have a simulated pilot body in the cockpit.

I hope nothing has changed here.

 

[Mohawk]

1 hour ago, IckyAtlas said:

 

Real cockpit means instruments are working, and all switches and levers etc. will be active and are to be used directly on the screen. Basically when you fly you do not use the keyboard, but the mouse or a mouse type interface. The cockpit is THE interface.

 

I believe what you just described is ( the clickable cockpit ) as in DCS , which is how it (Should Be ) and wanted ...  But I do believes this will not be the case in IL2 Korea ?   now if they could ?  make the map a movable map to a second monitor ( like a kneepad map ) not in the main flight screen would be a plus .. even in real A/C you have to look away from the instrument's or the outside view to look down at the kneepad map == looking to the side would be kind of the same, and if you can turn off the aircraft icon on the map for VFR navigation ..

[Woody]

On 1/24/2026 at 12:44 AM, AcesDarthBubu said:

For wingman controls, will the issuing of command still be keypad based ? As a VR gamer, I use voice attack to issue verbal command that are bind to keypad inputs. Hopefully this is not going away.

I'm the same and use voice attack to play the game in VR, let's hope they also keep the key inputs.

Also AcesDarthBubu, have you tried voice attack 2 yet? I have it but not tried it.

[Avimimus]

21 hours ago, IckyAtlas said:

But as it should be for a flight sim, we will have to fly the planes as a pilot and this means with nothing displayed on the screen besides the real cockpit.

Real cockpit means instruments are working, and all switches and levers etc. will be active and are to be used directly on the screen. Basically when you fly you do not use the keyboard, but the mouse or a mouse type interface. The cockpit is THE interface. This is what I understood Korea will do. And that we will have a simulated pilot body in the cockpit.

I hope nothing has changed here.

My sense: The cockpit instruments will be fully readable (and one should be able to fly without the hud). However, from past statements by the developers, I gather that interacting with the controls will be done by HOTAS or Keyboard or controller (rather than mouse).

I personally think this is a good decision: These aircraft had relatively simple systems, and most of the controls could be operated by touch. It is just as realistic to use the controller (or even to remember keyboard commands), as it would be to use the mouse. It might even be more realistic.

 

 

 

[AcesDarthBubu]

2 hours ago, Woody said:

I'm the same and use voice attack to play the game in VR, let's hope they also keep the key inputs.

Also AcesDarthBubu, have you tried voice attack 2 yet? I have it but not tried it.

I am actually on VA2, never tried v1 though. 

[Woody]

5 hours ago, AcesDarthBubu said:

I am actually on VA2, never tried v1 though. 

I have been using VA1 for years and it's been great, also I was able to inport my settings from VA1 to VA2.

[IckyAtlas]

On 1/26/2026 at 3:38 PM, Avimimus said:

I personally think this is a good decision: These aircraft had relatively simple systems, and most of the controls could be operated by touch. It is just as realistic to use the controller (or even to remember keyboard commands), as it would be to use the mouse. It might even be more realistic.

Yes and No. Using the mouse is indeed not realistic, but it prepares the system to become more realistic. Let me explain.

If you have designed the cockpit so that all visible buttons levers etc. can be activated when acted upon in the screen then that is per se realistic.

Using the mouse to do it is not so realistic and by the way you could have both systems: mouse and controller. 

What will be very realistic is when in VR I will be able to use a haptic glove and touch the button on the cockpit in VR space. 

To have this you need clickable cockpit instruments. 

Edited January 27 by IckyAtlas

[Col.Sanders]

On 1/27/2026 at 2:18 PM, IckyAtlas said:

Yes and No. Using the mouse is indeed not realistic, but it prepares the system to become more realistic. Let me explain.

If you have designed the cockpit so that all visible buttons levers etc. can be activated when acted upon in the screen then that is per se realistic.

Using the mouse to do it is not so realistic and by the way you could have both systems: mouse and controller. 

What will be very realistic is when in VR I will be able to use a haptic glove and touch the button on the cockpit in VR space. 

To have this you need clickable cockpit instruments. 

I do not believe they are forward looking when it comes to VR. I believe after jumping ahead of the pack in GB they have now fallen behind and seem to be setting up Korea to fallen behind before it evens starts. Dynamic Foveated Rendering is a requirement for the future of VR and as you say hand tracking. Of some sort will be too. They are building systems that will exclude these future innovations, although they can be added, there is not reason not to add upfront. 

[Aapje]

Hand tracking is pointless without clickable cockpits and hand tracking doesn't work properly anyway, unless you buy additional hardware, like the PointCTRL.

The most popular/affordable headsets do not support eye tracking. That they announced support for DLSS is probably way more significant for VR, to be able to achieve good results with relatively modest GPUs.

[Col.Sanders]

4 hours ago, Aapje said:

Hand tracking is pointless without clickable cockpits and hand tracking doesn't work properly anyway, unless you buy additional hardware, like the PointCTRL.

The most popular/affordable headsets do not support eye tracking. That they announced support for DLSS is probably way more significant for VR, to be able to achieve good results with relatively modest GPUs.

The whole point is that they are developing a sim that is supposed to be for a decade plus. Things like hand tracking I can live without, but it is the future of VR.

DFR is crucial to high resolution headsets which are the future and is quickly growing amongst the community. Also eye tracking is moving towards being standard even amongst lower res headsets like steam frame. DFR is way better than DLSS in VR and DLSS adds significant ghosting or other graphical issues. It had gotten better with the most recent releases but is still far off from really being good.

Excluding a crucial technology from the get go because they don't understand it is not a good idea. They will just have to add it in later once they have bloated the software further. It is better to integrate technology upfront. Right now GB runs worse then DCS because of DFR, this was not the case a year or two ago.