Looking and listening through a keyhole

[grayman 2737]

Oooh! Oooh! Pick me, pick me!

 

How about func_peek or func_peer?

[Destined 546]

Sorry, I am late for the discussion (especially the visual indicator). I like arcturus' suggestion, as it clearly indicates that there is something there. Would it be possible to link such a light cone to the frob highlight? That way, it would be clearer that it is only a visual indicator for the peeking entity (just as the frob highlight itself) and no representation of the light conditions on the other side.

 

I would vote for func_peek as this descirbes it clearly and shortly.

[Abusimplea 141]

How about func_peek or func_peer?

"func_peek" is better than "peer", because "peer" has a totally different meaning when interpreted as a noun.

[Skaruts 65]

It's the kind of thing that often breaks immersion for me personally, when you can do something to this object here but not to that other exact same object there; like fake doors that can't even be interacted with, it always brings me the good old invisible walls we all loved to mind.

 

I'm not against it, I just avoid using it in my maps, unless I run out of ideas or time. A boarded up door, probably. A door with a glass window, I'd rather do that than a keyhole thing. A keyhole gives you a FOV of about 5 degrees anyway if more on the realistic side. You only see what's conveniently placed right in front of it. Keyholes were never intended to be peeked through.

 

I don't imagine this being of that much use, though. Might be a worthy second way of knowing whether the patrolling guard is passing by in the hallway, but I don't imagine mappers having 10 or 20 actual uses for this in any single map. It would be the occasional evesdropping scene or something, which isn't something any mapper can do (involving conversations and other advanced mapping stuff) and you usually don't find more than one or two of those in a mission -- if any at all. It may become a mechanic that's rarely used, such that the player may not even recognize the visual cues anymore when he sees them. He may even skip the entire point of it and just pick the lock and step in.

[Skaruts 65]

To be clear, I'm not saying it shouldn't be in the game. On the contrary, it could be a nice mechanic. My train of thought came from noticing people seemingly thinking of it mostly as a way to look into rooms, and not out from rooms, and I think perhaps the latter ought to be taken more into account.

[Destined 546]

Well, looking out of one, means usually looking into another room... For me it is the same thing. Regarding thr low field of vision, it is mainly useful for hallways that lead away from the door or bigger rooms. The farther away stuff is, the more you can see. Using it for watching passing guards in a narrow hallway running left to right is rather useless, but seeing the pathway of the guard on the other side of a hall might be less so.

[ERH+ 645]

Will it include T2 scouting orb mechanism? I'm imagining remotly controled small automaton that need still to hide in shadow, but can lurk under most of furniture.

[grayman 2737]

Will it include T2 scouting orb mechanism? I'm imagining remotly controled small automaton that need still to hide in shadow, but can lurk under most of furniture.

 

That's beyond the scope of what I'm doing.

[grayman 2737]

It's been a while (I've been mapping), so here's some status...

 

All the (known) code and support files are in place for peeking through keyholes and wall cracks.

 

The keyhole support has been tested, including:

 

- Looking both ways through the keyhole

- Panning up/down/left/right (somewhat) while peeking

- Hearing what's on the other side while still hearing what's on your side

- Aspect ratio support for the keyhole overlay image

- Ending the peek if you stop leaning

- Peeking through keyholes even if the door is open

- If the door is opened while peeking, peeking ends

- Prolly a bunch of other stuff I can't remember

 

Peeking through cracks provides the same features, minus anything that's door-specific (i.e. walls don't open while you're peeking).

 

The crack feature has to be tested. I'll create overlay images as a placeholder and the artists can figure out if they want something better.

 

I'm almost at the point of asking for keyhole models. AFAIK, we don't need a wall crack model. Doesn't make sense. Prolly need some crack decals, though, where a model-less peek entity can be placed.

[grayman 2737]

Finished.

 

I'll write a Wiki when I can.