Hey Look I Made A Door Lol....

[AluminumHaste]

I know it's useless for blocking vis.

[New Horizon]

I know it's useless for blocking vis.

 

Hey, looking good. I wouldn't say it's useless however. Depending on where you position such a door, you could likely fake whatever is behind it by capturing an image and simply scripting some kind of a 'blend' function on the glass when the door is closed. So if all you should see is the brick wall through the glass, just do a 30, 50 or whatever percent blend and close off whatever is behind it. Might work...I'm not sure. Someone with more mapping experience will likely step up and correct me.

[Domarius]

I think you just accept the fact that it's got glass on it and therefore shouldn't be used to block visibility. Dromedders have been doing that for years.

[New Horizon]

I think you just accept the fact that it's got glass on it and therefore shouldn't be used to block visibility. Dromedders have been doing that for years.

 

Yes, but why render everything behind the glass when a simple trick will improve your performance? Dromed could get away with something like that, modern engines can't. You have to optimize where you can if you expect the level to run half decent. I'm just saying, you 'can' block visibility...if you use some tricks..and the level will run all the better for it.

[Dram]

Hey, looking good. I wouldn't say it's useless however. Depending on where you position such a door, you could likely fake whatever is behind it by capturing an image and simply scripting some kind of a 'blend' function on the glass when the door is closed. So if all you should see is the brick wall through the glass, just do a 30, 50 or whatever percent blend and close off whatever is behind it. Might work...I'm not sure. Someone with more mapping experience will likely step up and correct me.

 

Yep, by exposing a parameter in the material file you can have the material properties change - exactly how the frob does it with parm11. I also did this for the window light effects.

[Dram]

Actually, it'd be simpler by skin-swapping

[AluminumHaste]

It would only be useful if the door split rooms that were small, and were completely closed off from the rest of the level anyways. Other than that, I was just trying to make it look like the door in Half-Life 2.

[ZylonBane]

Yes, but why render everything behind the glass when a simple trick will improve your performance?

Because there IS NO simple trick that's sufficiently robust. The static texture solution fails to take into account parallax, dynamic lighting, and the presence of AIs.

[New Horizon]

Because there IS NO simple trick that's sufficiently robust. The static texture solution fails to take into account parallax, dynamic lighting, and the presence of AIs.

 

We have some systems in place to help with those too, otherwise I wouldn't have suggested it.

[ZylonBane]

Well really, the only solution that would never look "wrong" would be a texture that was continuously rendered from the player's POV, and done so at screen resolution. In which case you may as well not bother.

[Ishtvan]

If the door glass was already heavily distorting the image (like frosted glass or thick, uneven glass), you might be able to get away with a lower resolution render.

[OrbWeaver]

Of course mappers could just avoid placing glass doors in front of areas with changing scenery, or keep the vis area behind the door small enough that the non-blocking door is not an issue.

[AluminumHaste]

Of course mappers could just avoid placing glass doors in front of areas with changing scenery, or keep the vis area behind the door small enough that the non-blocking door is not an issue.

 

That's funny, that's what I've been saying all along.

[kohan69]

How would one program the door's glass to be half-visible for the NPCs ?