Breath Indicator

[Crispy]

I think a typical side-scroll is easier to digest at a glance.

I agree. I didn't like the one that shrank to the centre.

[Darkness_Falls]

I prefer the side-scroll, however the shrink-to-center one was kind've growing on me. To be safe, should probably do the side-scroll one. (Shrinking one would be controversial.)

[Darkness_Falls]

I strongly preferred the coloring of Gildoran's to Springheel's (so I've incoporated that more of that darker blue into my proposal below), and it had animation going for it. However, I feel Gildoran's had way too many tiny bubbles in it (looked like sparkly soda water); SH's also has too many bubbles, imo. I'd prefer SH's, with fewer bubbles, richer blue color, with bubbles sparkle highlighted more... as seen in proposal below, compared next to SH's:

 

 

When shrunk down to the size it is in the UI, I feel mine looks more like bubbles in water than Gild's or SH's.

 

I tested mine, and it appears to animate slightly, but that's just because the bar shrinks (compresses) from right to left as air depletes -- as SH's does. So bubbles appear to move. I'd rather have there be true animation, if somehow possible... but the illusion (compression) is good enough, I suppose, if animating proves hard.

 

Here's the file if you want to play... airbar.tga (place in \doom3\darkmod\guis\assets\hud directory to test)

 

PS: In-game, there's a little gap on the left end (and I assume the right end, too) of the airbar and healthbar, where the little UI brackets that they fall inside of extend farther out than the actual air/health meters do. This makes it look like there's some air/health missing. This caused active thought processes in my mind that shouldn't have occurred. I feel the air/health bars should be shoved over/expanded to more precisely meet the distance the UI brackets extend out to.

[Gildoran]

The reason why I preferred the shrink-to-center one was because a shrink-to-side one looks really lopsided and ugly to me when centered. IMHO, shrink-to-side bars only look good if put to one side of the screen, like the D3 stamina bar.

[Springheel]

Have you tried that blue in dark environments like the bonehoard? It looks almost neon there. I kept the greenish tint because that's the colour T2 used, but it's a 2 sec job to modify the hue.

[Darkness_Falls]

I had tried Gild's on Bonehoard, but not mine. I tried mine (and yours) on the bright test_water map. Will go see Bonehoard. Gild's was kind've a saturated neon blue, too, but that's what I liked. (Seemed a better compliment/balance to the saturated red the health bar has than green.) Didn't care much for the green after seeing Gild's. Personal taste differences, I guess. I think I liked Gild's hue more than mine even, but don't know what the RGB values were for his.

[New Horizon]

I like the current version, think it works quite well. I'm wondering if these indicators should be a 'tiny' bit bigger? Just a wee bit wider and taller....or would that offset the balance?

[Darkness_Falls]

Screens. I guess on my monitor, the blue doesn't look neon. Look balanced to red for me. Maybe you have a new very vibrant LCD monitor or something?

 

Screen 1

Screen 2

Screen 3

Screen 4

Screen 5

[Springheel]

The blue is much, much more saturated than the red in those shots. Still, it's an easy fix. I'll make some tweaks to shift things more towards the blue, and will try out your bubbles.

[Darkness_Falls]

Might be a tad brighter than red... but I still like. I'll try Gild's bubbles (although CVS isn't working for me), and then look forward to maybe more of a blue shift from your green.

 

And here are black void areas on the bars that I think need to go away (mentioned in my Post #53). Looks odd (misleading) in-game to not see the health/air bars extend out to bracket edges:

 

 

 

The bars need to extend out to the very edges, imo. Something like this:

[Springheel]

What do people think about the tunnel vision idea? Currently D3 does a red glow around the edges of the screen, that gets bigger as your HP go down, but that appears only the moment you take damage and starts to fade immediately until the next time you take damage.

 

Adding a black glow around the edges that gets larger as you take more damage should be pretty straightforward. I can't decide whether it would increase tension as you try to find your way to the surface, or just be annoying since you can't see well just as you need to the most.

 

A possible compromise might be just replacing the red fade with a black fade, so that you get tunnel vision but only intermittantly? Might be rather pointless, however, I don't know.

 

Opinions?

[sparhawk]

I'm not that keen on it, but we might give it a try. The problem I have with such effects is, that I often played Thief with a low HP number, because I didn't bother to drink a healthpotion and the aim is to not get into conflicts anyway. This would mean that I would have to constantly drink healthpotion when this happens, and when I don't have one, then I'm stuck with a limited view. Don't know if I really like this.

Another issue I have is, that it may sound nice to get in more realism, but often enough it's more annoying then achieving the desired effect.

[Darkness_Falls]

I think I'd prefer the compromise (black fade, intermittent). (For reasons mentioned by Spar.) Maybe add some "blurry vision" in the mix with each black fade, too? I don't like the red very much.

 

RE: blurry vision, do you think the thief have slightly blurred vision whenever he's under water anyways? Wonder if it'd seem more realistic. He's not wearing goggles, so why give him crystal clear vision. Might lead to some interesting gameplay scenarios. You see creatures swimming in the water, but can't make them out 100%. Or makes it harder to find inventory items under water, too; just as it would be harder in real life. Glint flashes (not like D3's) would become more handy under water (e.g., see a silver coin or keys flashing under water). <Edit: I just saw NH has a light gem/water effect bug thread that, once fixed would maybe make this happen?>

[Springheel]

RE: blurry vision, do you think the thief have slightly blurred vision whenever he's under water anyways? Wonder if it'd seem more realistic.

 

Well, we were going to test an underwater overlay with a slight blur or heat haze effect. I actually did some tests and can verify that a simple blur won't affect the heat haze effect of the surface in a negative way (you can test this by watching the red blur that happens when you take damage underwater). Haven't gotten around to implementing anything yet though. Maybe tonight.

 

Of course, the same thing could also be implemented by mappers by putting fog effects in the water, couldn't it? That would then allow for variety--clear water might not create blurry vision at all, while dirty water could be quite murky. If that's easily done, it would be a better solution then trying to come up with an overlay that is appropriate for all types of water.

[Darkness_Falls]

Murky water idea is great, too. Love it. An overlay for all types of water just seemed to make sense. Open your eyes under any water in real life (murky, or not), and unless you have tranparent eyelids u can close, everything is blurry-vision.

[Springheel]

Murky water idea is great, too. Love it. An overlay for all types of water just seemed to make sense. Open your eyes under water, and unless you have tranparent eyelids, everything is blurry-vision.

 

Depends on the water. Everything gets blurry *at a distance* because light doesn't travel as well through water. But the amount of blurriness close up isn't very significant in clean water.

 

It might be nice to add a little heat haze effect as an overlay, but only if it didn't cancel out the surface heat-haze texture, which I suspect it would (though I haven't tested it). I'm not sure on the practicality of using fog effects in water, as I don't know how D3 does it--maybe a mapper can tell us more. If it can't be done, a subtle overlay might be appropriate.

[Darkness_Falls]

The reason why I preferred the shrink-to-center one was because a shrink-to-side one looks really lopsided and ugly to me when centered. IMHO, shrink-to-side bars only look good if put to one side of the screen, like the D3 stamina bar.

I know what you're saying. Shrink-to-center is easy to use once you know how it operates, too. I don't feel strongly either way.

 

As for making the health meters larger or taller, I don't think we need to. An effective animation of bubbles floating around in their small airbar there (not scrolling up, or compressing to the side) might be good.

[Darkness_Falls]

Depends on the water. Everything gets blurry *at a distance* because light doesn't travel as well through water. But the amount of blurriness close up isn't very significant in clean water.

I coulda swore any clear water I've gone in (swimming pool, river/lake), it's been pretty blurry. If keys were held 5 inches from my face under water, I'm sure it'd be discernable..but wouldn't be crystal clear vision, imo. I admit, haven't tested for a while. Let's just wait to hear from mapper on options, and see map tests.

[Ishtvan]

I guess it depends what distance you're talking about. I always thought things got pretty blurry beyond about 6 inches or so. I don't know the real physical reasons, but I would guess it's because the lens of our eye is designed to operate in air, and the lens gets screwed up when we immerse it in a material of different refractive index like water.

 

Your eyes get blurry just from tearing up too, but maybe that's a different effect because there's a thin layer and then another air interface.

[Springheel]

I guess it depends on what we mean by blurry too. I've dived for coins in a ten foot pool before without having major difficulty seeing them, so I don't think keys would be a problem, though I doubt I could read the date on them from more than a few inches.

[sparhawk]

Depends on the water. Everything gets blurry *at a distance* because light doesn't travel as well through water. But the amount of blurriness close up isn't very significant in clean water.

 

I really can't see our Thief swimming in a clean and well maintained pool quite often, but still < i think if the mapper has some control over the murkiness of the water, it would be good.

[Darkness_Falls]

I've also dived for keys at bottom of pools before. To my recollection, they just became a blob oject while I searched; with light flashes (glints) aiding in the hunt. (Granted, it was in the outdoor sun.) Clean pools would likely be rare for our thief, yet not out of the question. T2 had an indoor pool... and deep fountains and well water on maps could often be clean.

[Springheel]

've also dived for keys at bottom of pools before. To my recollection, they just became a blob oject while I searched;

 

I don't know, I do a lot of snorkling, so maybe I'm misremembering the difference between having a mask on or not.

 

Anway, I can try a generic blur effect and see how it looks.

[Springheel]

Hmm, actually it doesn't look half-bad. There's a little bit of visible 'edges' in the fade, however. I'll see if I can get rid of that.

 

Currently I have it set to go visible when the player loses air, for testing, but then it stays visible when he gets out of the water until his air replenishes. How would I set it to occur only when the player is actually underwater?

[Gildoran]

Does it really make sense for it to be only underwater? I thought the whole idea was that when the player is almost completely out of air, s/he gets tunnel vision, and it only lasts while their air meter is very low regardless of where the player is.