Coins Etc Arent Set To Origin

[Dram]

I've noticed that models such as our coins etc have their origin in the middle of the model - this needs to be corrected because a ) the bounding box for loot uses the origin as 0 0 0 which means that the bounding box is actually on the top half of the model. Also the other problem with not having their origin set to the bottom of the model is that you can't align them correctly in D3ed as the origin is currently in the middle of most models and means that a bit is always underground or hovers a bit.

 

We need to fix this imo.

 

Also, please make future models with the origin at the bottom.

 

 

Unless there's a specific reason as to why the origin is in the middle?

[Domarius]

There shouldn't be.

[Ishtvan]

Sometimes the bounding box is set to be two opposite corners (mins and maxs) with the origin in the middle, so people might have put the origin in the middle for that reason. The bounding box can be arbitrarily defined though, so it would only take a little vector addition to put the origin at the bottom and shift the bounding box up.

 

It might also have been done for the old version of the frobcode that only checked the distance to origin and not the actual hitting of the bounding box, but I don't think this is necessary anymore. Although, the origin is still used as the point for all rough distance-checks in the code, so if you put it in the bottom of a stack of coins, you could conceivably get into some frustrating situations later where you can't do something looking at the coins from the top and have to crouch down and do it to the bottom, even though the coins appear to be closer to you there.

[Domarius]

So we need to have a standard where we model with 0,0,0 at the center of the object, and the bounding box code needs to be adjusted to assume this is always the case?

[Dram]

Well all of my loot models have the origin at the bottom and are used for loot items. They frob fine. You can set the bounding box to go below the origin yes in editor mins and maxs, but it means that the model will either float in the air or be buried slightly. For loot items at least we should have the origin set to the bottom. A slightly floating chair is not a problem - as you won't notice it, but a cup hovering 5cm in the air is quite noticeable, as well as a coinstack is.

[Ishtvan]

We don't have to worry about frobbing anymore, it's checking the surface of the bounding box now, not the origin. I think it should be okay to put the origins at the bottom as long as the mins and maxs for the bounding box is correct.

 

For moveable items like chairs though, we'll have to check into how moving the origin effects the physics. I think the physics system might assume that the origin is also the center of mass, which means it should be put at the center of mass, not the bottom, but I'm not sure. If an item is moveable, it should drop to the floor at the beginning of the map even if it starts out hovering a bit above the floor, so maybe the origin have to be at the bottom.

 

Is our loot going to be moveable? It would look kind've weird if there were a fire arrow explosion or something and everything flew off the desk except for some loot that stayed glued there.

[Domarius]

Hey yeah, I never really thought about that... too used to T2 I guess

You have my vote.

[Dram]

It would look equally dumb if a coinstack flew around bound as a coinstack rather then many coins flying round

 

But yeah, we should consider this, as it is pretty important to gameplay whether we make loot moveable. If it's moveable, it means there can be potential problems (such as a mapper makes a drain and some idiot hits the loot accidentally with a fire arrow. He does'nt know where that last piece of loot is that he needs and finds it in the drain. But then, we're not catering for idiots I guess, so moveable loot it is imo. Hopefully everyone else will support this. Perhaps we start a thread named "moveable loot?"

[Springheel]

I would think everything that you would realistically expect to be moveable should be moveable.

[Dram]

I would think everything that you would realistically expect to be moveable should be moveable.

Indeed. I'm for letting the player stuff up, as long as we warn the community in general about this it should be fine. It'll mean people will get better due to the fact that they have to be more careful then in Thief.

[Domarius]

As long as the FM author has a choice to set it per object... maybe some of them wont like the idea of a stack of coins mesh or even a pile of coins mesh, being pushed around in one clump like its all glued together, and would rather it just stayed still.

 

Although that could lead to a "dynamite fishing" style of loot collecting. "Hm I wonder which of all these expensive plates and cups are actually worth something?" *fire arrow - KABOOM - leaving only loot items behind* Hehe.

[Ishtvan]

Yeah stacks of coins are a bit problematic. In RL you could knock over a table with stacks of coins and get hundreds of coins scattering and rolling off in different directions, but we can't really do that because of computation limitations. (We could try, but I'm pretty sure the physics system will start to chug calculating the trajectories of hundreds of objects.. it chugs if you blow up that test stack of bricks in the D3 test map, on my machine). So maybe we should leave stacks of coins glued in place.

 

Some large loot items would be pretty easy to do though, like candlesticks, large jewelry, gold nuggets, plates and vases (although some plates & vases would have to break if they hit something with enough momentum).

 

I don't think it will introduce a huge number of issues. Don't forget that T3 had some moveable loot items, like the one you could shoot down in the Museum mission, and it seemed to go okay there.

[Springheel]

So maybe we should leave stacks of coins glued in place

 

I think it would be less distracting to have the coins go flying into a corner and stay stacked together than just stay glued to the table, personally.

[sparhawk]

Yes. A stack of coin is a single object, and players can relate to that. It would look rather silly and out of place though, if you fired a fire arrow into the table and everything flies around EXCEPT that stack of coins.

[Dram]

Yes, I say make it fly as a stack, who really cares? If the FM author wants it to break apart in mid air he can use the single coin and stack that up on itself. BTW, I changed a coinstack to a single coin and saved it as coin_g or something. Obviously looks just like a coin.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to let loot objects break though - that's going too far imo.

[Ishtvan]

I guess flying as one cyllinder of coins would be okay too.

 

As for stuff breaking, you'd expect it to happen if it was precious china or a precious vase and you dropped it out a 2 story window or something. The only issue would be if there's some loot requirement and the mission becomes un-winnable because you break too much loot.

[Gildoran]

That could be fixed by making it possible to fail a loot objective.

[Dram]

That could be fixed by making it possible to fail a loot objective.

 

Actually, you bring up an excellent point!

 

I was playing Thief 2 last night and at one point I got badly injured (accidental fall and got attacked) and so I thought that at about this point you'd probably turn back. By making it possible to fail a loot objective you could do that (not healthwise - the health thingy just gave me the idea)

[Ishtvan]

You'd have to catch when a loot object breaks and count up the total loot and see if it's still possible to meet the loot objectives (total loot and specific type objective for the type that was broken, if that exists).

[Springheel]

Wouldn't loot be able to break when you're not around? Say AI bump into a table as they're avoiding each other and knock a crystal goblet off and it breaks? Suddenly the player can't get enough loot, but they wouldn't have any way to know it. That's a bad situation.

[Dram]

Spring has a point. For this same reason the stuff in Oblivion does'nt break (vases etc).

[sparhawk]

If AI can break vases on it's own, then I would say either the mapper or the player has screwed up. Either the AI was placed such that this can happen - mappers problem. Or the player dropped an item somewhere the AI could break it - players problem.

[Dram]

Yeah that was the first thing that popped into my head, but I thought you'd all think thats a lame excuse

[Springheel]

Either the AI was placed such that this can happen - mappers problem.

 

How would you keep this from happening other than never putting AI in an area where breakable loot is found?

 

I suppose the seriousness of the problem depends on how easily loot breaks. If rolling off a table and hitting the floor is enough to break it, that could be a problem. If it requires being thrown against a hard surface, that's pretty unlikely to happen without the player's direct intervention.

 

What happens when loot breaks? I doubt we'll have a broken version of every single loot model. Is it going to just disappear? spawn random shards of something?

[Domarius]

Is breakable loot really an essential feature?