Enemy Visibility In Accordance To Lighting?

[FishFace]

Yeah, in addition, if you're using a zoomed in virtual camera, you'd capture the light shaft anyway. But... Point still applies

[Ishtvan]

Checking the -surface- behind the thief could also be misleading. If I'm standing in front of a shaft of light I'm still going to be silhouetted, even if the wall behind me is dark.

 

You may be thinking of another effect, which I would call "eclipsing" to separate it from silhouetting. This is when the player crosses between the AI and a light source which is far away from the AI.

 

For example, consider the player crossing right in front of a torch in a dark outdoor area. An AI is looking in that direction, but very far away from the torch. From the AI's point of view, even though the torch is a small point very far away, it creates a corona in their vision. (To be technical, this would be the far field of the light source, effected by fog in the air, moisture on the eye and whatever optics are in the eye). When the player blocks off the light source from the AI by crossing in front of the torch, the whole corona in the AI's vision disappears, which is quite noticable.

 

We're not talking about that "eclipsing" effect for now, just silhouetting by creating a dark contrast against a diffusely lit background. (It can still apply to stuff like the moon though, since that is effectively a large area of lit texture in the skybox)

 

@FishFace:

 

You are correct that the method proposed would register a contrast against just a single point behind the player. If you want to consider more of the area behind the player to avoid single bright points throwing you off a lot, you would have to pull the rendercam back a bit to look at more points in that area, and then average the brightness value. That adds more processing though, the more points you average. Same with more points on the body. Ideally you would take the entire outline of the player's body, but that doesn't seem practical.

[FishFace]

Eclipsing would also be amazing, but would run perhaps a higher risk than sillhouetting of throwing us off. At least at first, no player would consider the fact that he's eclipsing a light source while moving, although it would be fun to have to adapt to, perhaps. Still, even this would be handled by the proposed system to an extent if, as I proposed, you induce heavy penalties for moving (almost all eyes are very perceptive of movement) therefore, as you sillhouetted the corona, you would have a very high contrast at that point. As you move, you would gain a penalty for movement, which would boost your visibility even higher.

 

@Isht again:

 

I'm not quite sure that's what I mean. What's necessary, (ideally) I think, is a system whereby it is the outline, rather than a point on the foot you are talking about... Actually having typed that I'm not sure that is what I'm talking about. Start again.

 

~

 

Yes, I agree, an averaged background would probably solve this problem, I guess it would be up to the devs to tune it for speed and quality... What would be advantageous to the camera solution is that if you take an equal-res capture for an AI further away, it's less detailed and therefore accurately reflects the degradation of sight quality as everything gets further away (individual light sensitive cells being triggered, etc.)

[Guest KoHaN69]

That's not the way the lightgem works/worked classically.  Otherwise there would have been no reason for it to get brighter when holding a weapon, or running, because neither of those things are going to suddenly cause more light to fall upon you.

 

 

Bh

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

No.

 

More objects you posses in hands (ie: unsheathed sowrd or bow)

 

the more reflected lesser light is off you

 

hence you are more visible

 

(ie: put a foil and a cloth in a dark room, whats more visible?)

[Guest KoHaN69]

For example, consider the player crossing right in front of a torch in a dark outdoor area.  An AI is looking in that direction, but very far away from the torch.  From the AI's point of view, even though the torch is a small point very far away, it creates a corona in their vision.

 

 

roger that