Reaction To New Update.

[Macsen]

Haha, don't know what you're smoking, but you need DEPTH to have things go in and out of focus, and the monitor is FLAT.

I hadn't smoked a thing. I was drunk to Churchillian proportions though.

 

Doesn't matter that the monitor is flat, the bits you aren't looking at still blur. Try looking deep into those black colums on both sides of this message, and the text in the middle will blur. I see no point in being able to see around the page in real time if we're going to blur/darken your view.

[demagogue]

Maybe this is answered somewhere and I missed it, but I thought of a concern.

 

Will you still support text written unmediated directly on the screen, e.g., plaque style. It's just so useful to have that sometimes, since it allows meta-messages in-game, you can break up a game into *chapters* with it (like Willow Island) or cueing stuff like new objectives or adding information about world-objects (e.g., you frob a book and it tells you the pages are all blank, rather than writing that in brackets in the pages itself), you can run credits like Deceptive Perceptions, subtitle dialogue or make it easy for builders to drop voice-acting altogether and throw in subtitled dialogue on-the-cheap (Emilie Victor)... I mean, there are so many cases when this kind of text comes in handy that I hope TDP will still support it on top of this.

 

Also, thinking about things like Deceptive Perceptions, how will you handle post-frobbed cued events by a book if it's in real time? Usually, you'd think you'd want to give the player time to read the text before the *event* hits, esp when it's a shocker or time sensitive. I can think of lots of examples of this...

Edited March 12, 2006 by demagogue

[Dunedain]

demagogue makes a good point. Will the TDM also have the option of going into

a full screen "book reading" mode when reading notes, scrolls or books (game pauses

while reading and/or flipping through pages) if the FM author wants to use that? It

would be needed for scripted events or that sort of thing where timing is important

after first reading an item. Or if the FM author just prefers that style of text presentation

for use in his Thief missions.

 

Also, has anyone ever figured out for sure what font Looking Glass used in

Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age in the Hammerite books

and such that Garrett finds in the Hammer cathedrals and other places? I know

there was much discussion over this among the fans and there were several opinions

on which it might be, but I'm not sure if the fans had ever reached an agreement

that the correct font had been discovered. It would be great if the TDM could use

that cool Thief font for it's notes, scrolls and books.

 

I like the parchment, it looks like you could reach out and touch it. It has a nice

realistic grain and texture to it.

[Gildoran]

It'll be possible to write things directly to the screen, though it might take some scripting from the map author. Actually, the way I've been trying to set up books is by providing the necessary script functions so that the code for readables can be mostly written with D3 scripting.

 

Currently, there isn't an option to go into full-screen paused reading mode, but I'd like it to be possible to construct such readables. There's no guarantees about that happening though.

 

As for handling post-frobbed events, I'll probably add optional settings for activating triggers or calling functions when a player starts/stops reading a book. That way, to simulate the necromancer tower in Life Of The Party, you could maybe set something like "stopTarget" to "reviveZombies" on the necro book and then have an entity named "reviveZombies" that brings them to life. Then, the player can read the book safely, but as soon as they stop, the zombies would stand up and attack the player. Likewise, I could probably add options for setting off things when the player reaches a certain page.

[Domarius]

I hadn't smoked a thing. I was drunk to Churchillian proportions though.

 

Doesn't matter that the monitor is flat, the bits you aren't looking at still blur. Try looking deep into those black colums on both sides of this message, and the text in the middle will blur. I see no point in being able to see around the page in real time if we're going to blur/darken your view.

Maybe with your eyes - but the lenses in my eyes and every other human on planet earth with no lens defects operate on the same principals as the ones in cameras etc. You must focus on things at a certain depth for them to become clear - everything else blurs. On a flat screen this simply doesn't happen, because there is no depth.

 

A hundred other people will agree with me; this is scientific fact. Whatever you are talking about is obviously not the same thing.

[Gildoran]

Macsen is saying that it's hard to see what's in your peripheral vision. I know that if I look at the black bars at either side of this forum, I can't read the text because it looks too blurry.

[bob_arctor]

Is he talking about the Point of Focus of the eye, which won't cover the background if the player is looking at the text?

[Dram]

Macsen is saying that it's hard to see what's in your peripheral vision. I know that if I look at the black bars at either side of this forum, I can't read the text because it looks too blurry.

I would'nt say blurry - I'd say just not in focus thus you can't read it. But not blurred - that you cxan still se clearly.

[Springheel]

What exactly is the difference between 'blurry' and 'not in focus'?

[oDDity]

Something which is blurry has to be made blurry, while anything can be out of focus depending on how you look at it.

[Springheel]

Blurry describes how something looks to the viewer, not anything inherent to the object itself. You can make anything blurry depending how you look at it as well.

[oDDity]

Yes, but blurry requres some external influence to intervene between the subject and your eyes, while being out of focus is a natural property of how your eyes work.

[OrbWeaver]

It's an irrelevant semantic distinction. "Out of focus" refers to the physics of light interaction, and is independent of any conscious experience (a camera can be out of focus even when nobody is looking at it). "Blurry" is just the subjective description used by people when referring to the visual effect caused by a lack of focus, alongside other factors such as illness or intoxication.

 

The inability to read text in your peripheral vision is less to do with focus and more to do with the reduced density of cones outside of the fovea, causing a loss of resolution.

[bob_arctor]

Exactly. Although I feel the use of "in focus" is providing two senses: focus as in the focal distance away from your eye, and focus as in using your fovea to see part of your vision in good colour detail due to high cone density.

The latter is what is being talked about: you only see clearly a tiny bit of vision.

[SneaksieDave]

The point Macsen is making is basically "don't tell me where I'm allowed/supposed to look - ever." If I have a readable in front of me, great, that's what I would be reading 90+% of the time. But perhaps it's not what I feel like looking at at a given second, like when a guard passing through view 100ft away. Since the computer is not (yet) wired directly to our brains, it has no idea where I feel like looking at any given second, so it doesn't know what to really make blurry and what not. Bonus - the eye already does it. It's a nice idea as a game device/cue, but it's otherwise unrealistic and crippling.

 

No blur, no redundant effects which natural vision already takes into account.

[Macsen]

Yes, everyone listen to SneaksieDave, he's translated my incoherent gobbledygook into sense.

[Dram]

Ok, here is a rough example of what out of focal range and blurred is. The pic on the right is blurred while the one on the left is more like under a black veil - not too realistic with the blackness, but it imitates how you can't make out details ~60 degrees to the sides.

 

Now do you get what I mean Spring?

 

lol, well said Sneaksie

[bob_arctor]

I still think their "blurred" is "the vision not coming through the fovea, hence having poor detail due to low cone concetration".

 

You picture doesn't make sense.

There are less details, a lower resolution if you like, in the peripheral vision.

How I would simulate that?

Blurring. Try it. Look at something out the corner of your eye. It's just shapes your brain is trying to slot together to say "you have perfect vision in a 180° cone!".

[Dram]

There are less details, a lower resolution if you like, in the peripheral vision.

 

That's pretty much what it seems like yes. Anyways, it does'nt matter anymore, they've solved Mac's hidden meaning so yeah

[Domarius]

It doesn't matter because it's not being done that way. They're darkening the screen.

 

The "out of focus" blur effect was cool in Black where it simulated the concentration required to re-load your gun, but I don't think that applies here anyway.

[ZylonBane]

I think most people were overreacting to the word "blur" anyway, as if I were proposing an effect similar to smearing Vaseline all over a camera lens. All I ever had in mind was a subtle but noticeable softening of the scene behind the readable.

[Dram]

I think most people were overreacting to the word "blur" anyway, as if I were proposing an effect similar to smearing Vaseline all over a camera lens. All I ever had in mind was a subtle but noticeable softening of the scene behind the readable.

Hehe, yeah we do that often

[demagogue]

Yeah, for aesthetic reasons I could see how a slight softening of the background would look good. It would really make the readable stand out and just add a veneer to the whole setup, like special thought was put into the look and feel of it.

 

The main catch I guess is that things are still going on in real-time and it would be helpful to see that an AI was charging you and not have your attention blunted by the effect, particularly when put in such a vulnerable position (cf. the SS2 or DX inventory screens). So my thinking is that these sorts of considerations simply outweigh whatever advantages the soft blurring might add... not that it's a bad idea in itself; I can actually see the merit of it, but given competing goals this one should take priority.

Edited March 14, 2006 by demagogue

[ZylonBane]

Please, the only way a guard would be rendered invisible by a slight blurring would be if he were so far away that he was only a few pixels tall. You're essentially arguing that a slight decrease in screen resolution (from, say, 1024x768 down to an effective 640x480) would blind you. Clearly this is false.

 

The human eye reacts more to motion than detail anyway.

[Macsen]

Seems like a pretty flimsy justification for a 'cool' effect. I'd rather be able to see clearly past the sides of the paper, and see no reason why we should prevent the player from doing so. If I want blurring effects I'll take off my glasses.