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Pupil Dilation?


firoso

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one thing I realized while playing a game of capture the flag in real life on my college campus a few weeks ago is that you stand and look at somthing in the dark for a few seconds that things seem to clear up just a little more, become a tiny bit brighter so to speak, this effect is due to sustained imagery to a dialated pupil, basically the image will be "baked in" to the retina. This could translate to TDM in a few ways.

 

first, take a snap shot every .n seconds and take a general light level reading from that (not sure if this is easy or requires a great deal of processing power, but on modern hardware i'd imagine not) and then take that compared to the last 10 or 15 samples and curve the gamma accordingly to accomadate for the shrinking and dialation of the pupils. A similar effect could be attached to guards coming from the light into a dark area or vice versa, if a guard is standing in a well illuminated area and looking out into the darkness he's much less likely to see the thief than a guard already standing in darkness.

 

By the way this is random but for a challange, try ramping up all the sensory settings in default.ini in thief:DS to around 3 or 4 (vision etc.) and have a go, it's way more realistic. Quite fun really :-P

 

Feedback please!

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I think the problem with all these suggestions is this desire to make the game as realistic as possible, but in most cases, that realism either adds nothing to the gameplay and in others, can somewhat hinder the gameplay completely. In this case, all I can see is that it would add unnecessary complication to the mechanics, slowdown on the part of the computer (to always be taking screenshots), and an unnecessary mouthful for the programmers involved.

 

Sometimes these sort of effects can help add to the atmosphere however (which is markedly different from realism); in counterstrike source for instance, when running into an outdoors environment from an indoors one, there is a slight blur and gamma effect for a few seconds that accounts for the dilation of pupils.

 

Mostly though, a lot of these suggestions are "nice"...well kind of. I think many though would be simply tiresome after the initial novelty effect. As for the "guards being able to see you from a dark corner easier" idea...how frustrated do you really want to make the player? He isn't going to be processing all this information and it will just make it more difficult for him. He will be caught more often and it really isn't part of the player's control to avoid guards standing in shadows. It just adds too much. Just as the silhouette idea. How often will the player be looking around to see if there is light behind him? How often will a mapper take into account all this? It will lead to problems. If a mapper doesn't give the player options, how can it always be on the player's burden? For example, the mapper gives multiple routes into a building of varying degrees of difficulty. He makes the middle floor marble and the outer wood to encourage the player to circle around the room. But when it comes to guards having an advantage in shadows and silhouettes, it might make the player's life unnecessarily hard where the mapper did not intend it or where the mapper did not give the player options. Simply put, that kind of variability I would call bad game design.

 

Game design is based upon setting challenges aside for the player (called game mechanics) and mixing and matching these challenges in harder and harder arrangements as the gameplay progresses. However, setting aside game mechanics that are difficult for the designer to control (like the aforementioned examples) is simply frustrating for all parties. It's also a bitch to program ;-). So is it worth it? You judge.

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hmm all fair points and I must say very well spoken, one effect I would like to see however for various reasons which I think are rather obvious, but if the player stands still for a few seconds I do believe that the gamma should slowly lighten a small amount, it makes it easier to see in those EXTREMELY dark areas that frustrate us, granted I could just raise my gamma a bit but in my experiance raising the gamme just amkes the game seems washed out and unrealistic :-/ so I like to avoid that.

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hmm all fair points and I must say very well spoken, one effect I would like to see however for various reasons which I think are rather obvious, but if the player stands still for a few seconds I do believe that the gamma should slowly lighten a small amount, it makes it easier to see in those EXTREMELY dark areas that frustrate us, granted I could just raise my gamma a bit but in my experiance raising the gamme just amkes the game seems washed out and unrealistic :-/ so I like to avoid that.

 

I definitly agree that many times, the player is left in the dark with no way to see other than hitting esc on Garrett's mechanical eye and adjusting the gamma ;). However, I think the biggest thing the team needs to work on is the glossy finish and the gameplay mechanics. Little environmental effects (and I'm sure Doom has them abound) are what create the atmosphere, but also the sounds, textures, lighting, etc. Something as simple as seeing the wet sheene on rock, looking up to see a midnight sky, see drips of water ripples in the puddle at your feet, the mud beneath, and the blue torch lying ahead are all things that would seriously set a romantic mood of thieving ;).

 

Personally, it's more about the decor, the objects, the scenery etc. that are what I can't wait for, and what I want the team to focus on. The desk screenshot from this past month is probably the most mood setting of the pieces so far, simply for what it implies. Games are all about illusion and the implication of fantasy is everything. So I'm far more concerned with the total look of everything than anything else currently ;).

 

By the way, glad to have you at the Dark Mod community.

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thanks Ombrenuit, I'm an amature game designer myself but i don't think I have much to contribute besides ideas. I'm only an intermeddiate coder and a horrible artist. I've got a little experiance with world design in Worldcraft/hammer back in the Q2 and HL days but i'm very out of practice and what's worse is the Doom editor, I hate the way that Z is manipulated and the general feel and layout, now if somone made a doom 3 ediotr with the same feel of worldcraft i'd be all over it, especially because I do think that conceptually I have alot to give to the dark mod in the way of missions and story, but I may be a picky pain in the butt, I really can't deal with the damn editor. if anyone has any suggestions tho let me know.

 

actually i've been thinking about that gamma increasing effect, and i dunno how much control doom 3 has over it but adjucting the CONTRAST may be a better idea so it doesn't overbrighten the brights and instead increases the dark levels to a higher level of brightness... BTW I don't know if it's been said at all or not... do we get the OH SO LOVELY (meh...) TDS mechanical eye?

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This effect was actually in Thief: The Dark Project (probably TMA as well, but I can't confirm it) It's all kinds of awsome, and I hope we'll be able to include it in the Dark Mod. (It has been mentioned a few times)

 

Are you referring to the flash bomb effect? As far as I know, the player controlled his gamma throughout those three games. Although I do agree in this case (I'm beginning to have a grasp at what is being implied) after being in the dark for a small period of time, I think it would be interesting to have the player's gamma increased as his eyes take in more light. Although this would take balance to do appropriately, it would make for an interesting circumstance. Suppose you were gazing into a hole in the floor, with ominous noise coming from it (for example, the bonehoard entrance). It would be black as pitch, and even after jumping in, you would have moment of confusion where you could not see until your eyes finally adjusted. And when walking into a brightly lit area from a dark one perhaps there could be raised gamma for a few instants where it is hard to see over the brightness before your pupils lessen?

Edited by Ombrenuit
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Are you referring to the flash bomb effect? As far as I know, the player controlled his gamma throughout those three games. Although I do agree in this case (I'm beginning to have a grasp at what is being implied) after being in the dark for a small period of time, I think it would be interesting to have the player's gamma increased as his eyes take in more light. Although this would take balance to do appropriately, it would make for an interesting circumstance. Suppose you were gazing into a hole in the floor, with ominous noise coming from it (for example, the bonehoard entrance). It would be black as pitch, and even after jumping in, you would have moment of confusion where you could not see until your eyes finally adjusted. And when walking into a brightly lit area from a dark one perhaps there could be raised gamma for a few instants where it is hard to see over the brightness before your pupils lesson?

 

 

YES, exactly what i'm getting at, effects like that, tho the second one would probably be more scripted than a game feature, but yeah if you slllooowly ramped up the gamma in darker areas then it would be believeable and yet you could still play the game without washing out the light areas.

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YES, exactly what i'm getting at, effects like that, tho the second one would probably be more scripted than a game feature, but yeah if you slllooowly ramped up the gamma in darker areas then it would be believeable and yet you could still play the game without washing out the light areas.

 

Heh, it reminds me of sneaking into the house a few times. Avoiding the middles of the rooms (where they are well tread and creak more)--it takes rhythmn to get up the stairs silently and equally distributing weight on each foot ;)--and opening the door to my room slowly enough to not make a creak. Then staring into the dark having to feel for the bed. It takes upwards of one minute or more I suppose before I can finally see as I normally would. Of course, it would get in the player's way if this effect lasted too long, but an effect lasting no more then say 10 seconds would certainly add to the mood.

 

*Edit* But then again, I'm using an average video card (nvidia 5200 that I got specifically for Thief 3). I don't necessarily want to have something killing my computer ;). But heh, I'm going off to college soon so I suppose some extra expense doesn't much matter.

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Heh, it reminds me of sneaking into the house a few times. Avoiding the middles of the rooms (where they are well tread and creak more)--it takes rhythmn to get up the stairs silently and equally distributing weight on each foot ;)--and opening the door to my room slowly enough to not make a creak. Then staring into the dark having to feel for the bed. It takes upwards of one minute or more I suppose before I can finally see as I normally would. Of course, it would get in the player's way if this effect lasted too long, but an effect lasting no more then say 10 seconds would certainly add to the mood.

 

*Edit* But then again, I'm using an average video card (nvidia 5200 that I got specifically for Thief 3). I don't necessarily want to have something killing my computer ;). But heh, I'm going off to college soon so I suppose some extra expense doesn't much matter.

 

well i doubt a Screen light level analysis every 1/4 of a second or 1/2 second would seriously impact preformance much... like if the average light level over the last 50 shots was 50 or so (of 256) rampu up the gamma to make it 75 over the course of say... 10 seconds or so.

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Play the game in a darkened room with the gamma set so you get a fairly realistic full dynamic range of light, and you'll get this effect for free because you're still viewing the monitor with your own very realistic eyes. :)

 

problem, one the monitor only takes up part of your field of view, and 2 the type of light put off by a monitor counteracts this effect, granted this is true to some extent, but not completely.

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You mean how our eyes see a much wider range of brightness than the monitor can show.

 

And indeed, cameras, and film, tv, etc.

 

When the video camera moves from out doors to indoors, and you see a previously black room turn bright, this is the camera shifting its limited "brightness range" up to show a decent picture.

 

Though our eyes do this sometimes, they don't need to do this as often since they see a wider range of brightnes - we can see straight into the room clearly from the outside, though maybe it's a little darker than if we were standing in it.

 

THe effect in HL2 where the image gets brighter and darker is replicating the same effect the camera goes thorugh - this is what HDR is all about - the data for the full realistic range of brightness is in the game, but the renderer only shows a portion of it depending on where you are, just like the video camera does.

 

 

 

On a slightly different note - you shouldn't be able to see in pitch darkness, and we've debated having a special lantern that you can carry with you, to create spooky atmospheres where you can only see a few meters in front of you. The idea is that you should rely on the lantern and the FM authors creativity in this area, rather than cheating by turning up the gamma so that you effectively have night vision.

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The idea is that you should rely on the lantern and the FM authors creativity in this area, rather than cheating by turning up the gamma so that you effectively have night vision.

 

Wow... I really like that Idea Domarius... If you ever get a screenie of this in action post it :-) would it be more like the "flare items" as in you can use it and drop it or would it be more like a Weapon (like the doom 3 flashlight without the whole bashing part) , and would this be some sort of magic lantern that only you can see the light from? (if that's possible) or will it illuminate you in such a way that you'll be easier to see?

 

Btw Domarius, anything I can do to help, I really want to be a part of this team.

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The lantern will be more like the D3 torch in its use. That's the whole point - in the old games, you coudl run out of flares, so authours could not create pitch black areas, they had to rely on the contrived "light mushroom" to ensure you'd never be left in the dark. Whereas in D3 they had awesome scenes where you couldn't see anythign but a few red console lights and some machine humming - then you turned on your torch to illuminate some gruesome scene.

 

Though (as much as I disagree) the other guys reckon you should be able to drop it. Actually this might make it more versatile since you could leave it somewhere and wait in the shadows to ambush whoever entered the light, something like that - basically keep some area lit without giving yourself away.

 

As for being a part of the mod - what can you do? Why don't you start an application thread with the stuff you can do.

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I agree, the lantern is a great idea, especially if it was a hooded one, possibly with animal skins? It would make the entire appratus glow orange in your hands and produce a spooky effect indeed. This is probably one of the best ideas I've seen yet, and I agree, it should be droppable, but also pick-up-able. But should guards react to seeing it on the ground? I don't know...something inside me says it would be too irritating for me to want to have to deal with. But I can see some seriously creepy underground missions where this will come into play significantly.

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Getting inside the skin of Garret i would prefer relaying the ability of "lighten" a room to his mechanical eye. I think it would be more inmersive to let Garret see more "ambient light" because he has a mechanical eye that allow him to it, rather than providing him a lantern. We could think of giving him a "limited night vision".

I just cant imagine a thief who is always living between shadows in need of a lantern. But well, it is my opinion. :blink:

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that effect of walking into a darker area and having your eyes ajust to it and vise-versa as in tds, was called

bloom, and it did add another level of realism to the game overall.

 

 

erm... actually bloom is quite a bit different.. bloom basically takes brighter areas that are offset against the dark and make them kinda bleed the light outward effectively glowing... it's a subtle effect that uses shaders and I'm not sure I like it because it kinda makes the dark vs light problem worse by making light areas even brighter so it's harder to see dark areas, i've had to physically hold a hand over a lit area of my screen before so i could see.

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