[project1dev] Re: Action Camera!
- From: Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 21:36:17 -0700
oh ok
well hey, i personally am not against them, i just think in the middle of a
level they would look weird.
having them at pivotal points though or something would at least make them
not stick out as not matching the rest of the game.
i dont know how eric feels about them though so again i defer to him lol
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Matthew Freeland <mattthefiend@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> ahhhhh that sounds nifty. :D I agree as well that pre-rendered cinematics
> are a bad idea, was just floating the idea.
>
>
> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> letterboxing is what you see when you watch a widescreen movie on your tv
>> and it doesnt cut off the edges.
>>
>> it's the black bars
>>
>> eric was suggesting we use them in our game as an indication that a
>> cinematic is happening which is a pretty neat way to show the player what's
>> going on IMO :P
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Matthew Freeland <mattthefiend@xxxxxxxxx
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Okay I have to ask... what is letterboxing?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Matthew Freeland <
>>> mattthefiend@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well in games like half-life where the game never interrupts your input
>>>> the way they handle it is key lighting and directional sound to make you
>>>> look a direction. That's really smart and fairly easy to do with good QA...
>>>> the problem with this particular case of the boss dying is that you have to
>>>> rapidly reorient yourself after the battle and shift back into exploring
>>>> mode. As the quake effect happens so quickly it's undoubtedly going to be
>>>> missed 99% of the time so I think it's going to be requisite that the game
>>>> pause for a sec after the battle and goes to either a scripted cinematic or
>>>> even a pre-rendered event just so people get a feel for whats going on.
>>>>
>>>> My problem with the active sound/key lighting approach is that it CAN be
>>>> good, but frequently when you have lots of colors and sounds floating
>>>> around
>>>> it's difficult to keep track of what is 'key' lighting. An example would be
>>>> F.E.A.R., i don't know if many of you have seen/played it, but it does the
>>>> whole ambient horror effects really well, but alot of times you get these
>>>> annoying visions of ghosts or demons or whatever they are that try and
>>>> scare
>>>> the crap out of you. Sounds good in theory, but you walk into a room full
>>>> of
>>>> blood stains and weird noises and all the sudden loud scraping noise
>>>> indicating one of the ghosts is popping up happens and while you're
>>>> scrambling to try and find them and make sure ones not going to shank you
>>>> when you're not looking you either fall off a cliff or end up missing them
>>>> entirely because as it was being developed it was assumed you would be
>>>> looking at THAT pool of blood on the left side of the room with the shiny
>>>> light on it, instead of the one on the right side of the room with the 2
>>>> shiny lights on it.
>>>>
>>>> /end rant
>>>>
>>>> God I hated F.E.A.R..
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, we could definitely do things like that.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think the only thing stopping us from doing that right now is the
>>>>> lack of the ability to ignore player input for a period of time.
>>>>>
>>>>> We currently have the ability to offset the camera (its how we shake
>>>>> the screen) so we could offset it along a specified path as events
>>>>> happened.
>>>>>
>>>>> If we were going to go this route wed eventually want a system were you
>>>>> can specify points of interest as a point and a camera looking vector, and
>>>>> have splines interpolate between the points but if you guys and Eric wants
>>>>> to go this route we might have to hold off on advanced features for now (:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Matthew Freeland <
>>>>> mattthefiend@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Alternatively we can make it super cinematic and go to a flying third
>>>>>> person camera that we can script like of like it were actually a scene
>>>>>> in a
>>>>>> movie. Think about it this way... The big scary cave monster at the end
>>>>>> dies, after combat ends it goes to a quick cinematic that is just the
>>>>>> camera
>>>>>> moving on its own free-flying that pans and zooms out all hollywood-esque
>>>>>> and shows the big scary monster falling to the ground briefly followed by
>>>>>> lots of little rocks and debris falling down on its body followed by some
>>>>>> big pieces of the catwalk above and the rocks that block your passage.
>>>>>> Then
>>>>>> the camera sweeps back into the position it was in prior to whipping the
>>>>>> big
>>>>>> scary cave monsters ass. Could be sweet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Wurmz
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I think panning the camera would work better than zooming out because
>>>>>>> if you zoom out, you have no clue if the event is on screen or not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you move the camera, you know for sure what the player is looking
>>>>>>> at
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Kent Petersen <kentkmp@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I kinda like wurmz idea of taking control of the camera and making a
>>>>>>>> cut scene. We could lock player control and fly the camera over. Or
>>>>>>>> even
>>>>>>>> simpler then that would be locking the camera and zooming out. Then
>>>>>>>> zooming
>>>>>>>> back in after the boss dies.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:41 PM, Alan Wolfe
>>>>>>>> <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Wurmz i am in complete agreement. It's an issue that the game does
>>>>>>>>> neat stuff like bridge collapsing and cave in rocks blocking tunnels
>>>>>>>>> and yet
>>>>>>>>> they mostly happen off screen!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> From a code POV I'm up for coding just about anything but if we
>>>>>>>>> come up with a cool feature that would take too long to code, we can
>>>>>>>>> always
>>>>>>>>> do a temp solution now and do the real solution in a later milestone.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Matthew Freeland <
>>>>>>>>> mattthefiend@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Ahoy folks, got a mini technical question as to how we plan on
>>>>>>>>>> directing peoples attention to particular details in their
>>>>>>>>>> surroundings...
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I bring this up because in light of the awesome script which Kent
>>>>>>>>>> has been so wonderful to write... No one will really look up to see
>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>> platforms going squish. So how do we want to present it? Would it
>>>>>>>>>> possible
>>>>>>>>>> to make mini cutscenes where the engine takes over to force the
>>>>>>>>>> camera where
>>>>>>>>>> we want it to be? There are a few other alternatives I can think of
>>>>>>>>>> as well,
>>>>>>>>>> but in terms of the boss dying and then the little micro-quake
>>>>>>>>>> occurring
>>>>>>>>>> immediately after. Even if there is a small pause after combat ends
>>>>>>>>>> before
>>>>>>>>>> the earthquake appears there is still the ultimate problem that all
>>>>>>>>>> 3d game
>>>>>>>>>> development companies have had: making the player look UP. There are
>>>>>>>>>> multitudinous other ways to doing so that don't involve taking over
>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>> players control of the camera which should also be addressed. If
>>>>>>>>>> you've got
>>>>>>>>>> an idea I recommend you make it as difficult as possible just to
>>>>>>>>>> make those
>>>>>>>>>> silly code monkeys work. :P
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> For consistant presentation of the game I think we should probably
>>>>>>>>>> hash this out with some immediacy and might even be worthy of a
>>>>>>>>>> milestone
>>>>>>>>>> entry. Those are my thoughts. Feel free to leave some input!
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> -Wurmz
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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