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Tweaks to Frob highlight


New Horizon

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@Spring, NH: Valid concerns. Though rebb's effect does beat TDS's hands-down IMO - the pattern is neat and he's chosen better colours.

 

I do like the idea of at least making loot frob-highlight differently from non-loot, even if that's as simple as boosting loot's frob brightness more than non-loot's.

 

I too am curious for technical details. :)

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@Spring, NH: Valid concerns. Though rebb's effect does beat TDS's hands-down IMO - the pattern is neat and he's chosen better colours.

 

For me, it's a concern about addressing what people in the community didn't want to see in TDM, and a Deadly Shadows frob approach is one of the things they didn't want. Our current system uses a hybrid approach and even it has received complaints of being far too washed out looking. This is because a colour is used in addition to simply hi-lighting the object, and it does the same thing TDS did...it obscures what the player is hi-lighting.

 

Rebb's version does look better, and I certainly appreciate the effort he has put forth, but I feel if we were to suddenly change techniques mid-stream, it would be a bad case of back peddling...especially after I've personally spent a lot of time over the last few years promoting our frob hilight as a return to the classic style.

 

I do like the idea of at least making loot frob-highlight differently from non-loot, even if that's as simple as boosting loot's frob brightness more than non-loot's.

 

This can easily be done with the existing system.

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What about a special effect (as opposed to a different highlight style completely) that only plays on loot items and only when they are being closely inspected (hightlighted)? Like a shimmer or such, subtle, and most importantly and thus bearing repeating: only when highlighted; not all the time like TDS stupid loot glint, beckoning you like a lighthouse across the whole courtyard...

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What about a special effect (as opposed to a different highlight style completely) that only plays on loot items and only when they are being closely inspected (hightlighted)? Like a shimmer or such, subtle, and most importantly and thus bearing repeating: only when highlighted; not all the time like TDS stupid loot glint, beckoning you like a lighthouse across the whole courtyard...

 

Yeah, I think we had discussed a light shimmer happening when a loot object was hilighted.

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Isn't it possible to blend a texture in and out? Some kind of subtle 'pulsing' effect might work well to indicate loot. Something that actually requires you to focus (frob) on the object for a few moments.

 

If we did something like this I would certainly want it to be an optional effect, however.

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sure, let the rgb values depend on a sin table for example.

 

There is the little technical flaw in that plan that the same material can be used for loot and non-loot entities and the material doesn't know which entity it is used on, but the hightlight depends on the material, not the entity/face.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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There is the little technical flaw in that plan that the same material can be used for loot and non-loot entities and the material doesn't know which entity it is used on, but the hightlight depends on the material, not the entity/face.

 

Then you just create a custom loot material file with only loot references.

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Then you just create a custom loot material file with only loot references.

 

Which will not work, because mappers can declare any entity loot, and these entities will not have the correct material. That needless complicates things for mappers :)

 

We could explore to set param11 (which decides overlay or not) to different values for loot and non-loot and thus the material shader could show different effects depending on loot entity or not. Not exactly sure where in code that value is set, tho.

 

I am not sure the added complexity is nec., tho. Wheren't there arguments that we should "keep it simple" that were used to shoot down the effects on arrows, so wouldn't the same apply to more fancy frob highlights?

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Wheren't there arguments that we should "keep it simple" that were used to shoot down the effects on arrows, so wouldn't the same apply to more fancy frob highlights?

 

Have you been following this discussion at all? The two situations are not even remotely related.

 

The arrow effects were 'shot down' because they were superfluous, and didn't work within the context of the weapons.....and the gas effect obscured aiming.

 

We're not interested in adding fancy frob hi-lights in this discussion, we're trying to figure out a reasonable and subtle way to improve the highlight AND find something simple and subtle to make hi-lighted loot easier to recognize...without shooting a beacon across the map like Deadly Shadows did.

 

It's a discussion at this point.

 

Thanks for bringing up again though, it was certainly helpful!

 

:angry:

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Thanks for bringing up again though, it was certainly helpful!

:angry:

 

I'll withdraw.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I'll withdraw.

 

There's no need to withdraw, just stay on topic and quit rubbing salt in old wounds.

 

You had a good suggestion here....

 

We could explore to set param11 (which decides overlay or not) to different values for loot and non-loot and thus the material shader could show different effects depending on loot entity or not. Not exactly sure where in code that value is set, tho.

 

...no need to bring up past issues.

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There is the little technical flaw in that plan that the same material can be used for loot and non-loot entities and the material doesn't know which entity it is used on

 

That's technically true, but in general mappers should not be using the same texture for loot and non-loot objects to begin with, since it completely destroys the player's ability to tell visually whether something is valuable or not.

 

The grey area is when you deal with specialty loot objects, like a valuable book or collectible flower. I can see that being difficult for mappers--trying to locate the appropriate material shader and create an alternate version might be daunting.

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I guess I don't see the need for making loot recognizable on frobbing. Playing through our existing FMs, it was pretty easy to tell what was loot just based on the visible textures (which had been our plan all along), and if I picked up something thinking it was loot and it wasn't, I just learned not to do that. Making loot hilight a different color is one of those things where we could do it techincally, but why should we do it?

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I let a friend play the Outpost map, and he had considerable difficulty figuring out what was loot and what was not. He had to pick up virtually everything he saw. It's fine for us, as we're dealing with these models on a regular basis, but how often is the average player going to play a TDM mission when it is released? Once every two or three months? That's a long time to get familiar with all the models.

 

I'm still not sure how I feel about the idea, but that's the other side of the issue.

 

 

That said, I think a system that is not totally consistent (because it relies on mappers to set something, frex) would be worse than no system at all.

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I have tried another solution for the frob highlights. Replace the two highlight stages with this:

 

// on goblet1 for example
goblet1
{
...
   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend         gl_one_minus_dst_color, gl_one
       map           models/darkmod/props/textures/goblet1_d
       rgb            0.7 * parm11
   }
...
}

 

This is how it looks:

post-2303-1232118466_thumb.jpg

 

It's a very simple solution for what it's supposed to do but that is propably only possible with a post processing shader.

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I have tried another solution for the frob highlights. Replace the two highlight stages with this:

 

// on goblet1 for example
goblet1
{
...
   {
       if ( parm11 > 0 )
       blend         gl_one_minus_dst_color, gl_one
       map           models/darkmod/props/textures/goblet1_d
       rgb            0.7 * parm11
   }
...
}

 

This is how it looks:

post-2303-1232118466_thumb.jpg

 

It's a very simple solution for what it's supposed to do but that is propably only possible with a post processing shader.

 

Not sure I understand. What is this doing specifically, aside from making the item fullbright like T1/2?

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Well, thats what it I wanted it to do. It draws the highlighted object with (approximatley) uniform intensity. No colour tint and no clipping into white. It's simple but I think it looks ok.

 

Ahhh, ok. This is how I had originally setup the frob hi-light materials. I thought you were saying that it did something else. Don't go too high over 0.5 though, or else the objects will wash out....0.5 is 100% full bright.

 

Ideally, I would like frob hi-light to simply be this, instead of the two stages....and perhaps for loot then, we could incorporate the shader tech that rebb came up with, just to add that little extra oomph to entities identified as loot.

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The grey area is when you deal with specialty loot objects, like a valuable book or collectible flower. I can see that being difficult for mappers--trying to locate the appropriate material shader and create an alternate version might be daunting.

I agree. This could be a problem in trying to distinguish.

 

I let a friend play the Outpost map, and he had considerable difficulty figuring out what was loot and what was not. He had to pick up virtually everything he saw. It's fine for us, as we're dealing with these models on a regular basis, but how often is the average player going to play a TDM mission when it is released? Once every two or three months? That's a long time to get familiar with all the models.

Hmm. It seems like people had no difficulties finding loot in Saint Lucia, I can't recall anyone ever posting on here that they had problems with that, but actually trying to find that last piece of loot. Maybe they're all thief vets and are used to the "typical loot" models.

 

Isn't it possible to blend a texture in and out? Some kind of subtle 'pulsing' effect might work well to indicate loot. Something that actually requires you to focus (frob) on the object for a few moments.

 

If we did something like this I would certainly want it to be an optional effect, however.

 

 

Hmm, like a more golden color for loot? (well that would be problematic for golden loot).

 

A sparkle would definatly tell people what it is, but people who played TDS would probably cry. But than again, if you made it subtle enough or small enough, it would have to be really small I think.

 

I do like the pulsating idea, a very slow one. Yet its distingushable from all other highlighted items.

 

What about a very, very light almost lens flare type effect? Or a swirling grainy look in the frob light?

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Seems to me the best candidate is a close proximity light or glint on the loot entity and make it optional. Not a distant loot glint like in TDS but if you are within a few feet examining say, a table or shelf of items, as you browse over them the loot ones glow or glint. So you still have to search and look closely but not pick up every item. Those who don't like it can turn it off.

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Regarding the loot vs. non-loot issue: we actually had at least two complaints from people having problems to recognise loot items. The vases in the armory in Saint Lucia are one good example.

 

Hmm

 

yeah, now that I think about it, I do remember looting those, and not knowing I could do that before.

 

SNAP!

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happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

Moddb

 

Gamers Outreach, a nonprofit that uses videogames to raise money for chairty.

|=-=------=-=|

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Seems to me the best candidate is a close proximity light or glint on the loot entity and make it optional. Not a distant loot glint like in TDS but if you are within a few feet examining say, a table or shelf of items, as you browse over them the loot ones glow or glint. So you still have to search and look closely but not pick up every item. Those who don't like it can turn it off.

 

No no, we'll burn in hell even if we do that. lol

 

What was suggested a few posts back would be perfect. Some way to identify the loot to the game, without too much extra effort, so that when loot is hi-lighted...it does something slightly different.

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