Spyglass Animation

[Ishtvan]

Nice!

 

I'm not sure about the shiny brass part of it, seems like our thief would want it a darker color for stealth, but maybe it will look dark enough in low light anyway.

 

Are we planning to have an animation where it comes up to your eye when you hit use item, or would that interfere with the other first person animations?

[Springheel]

I like the gold-coloured version for normal spyglasses, but I agree that the player would probably have something darker. We can easily make a darker skin for the player version.

 

Re: animation. Unlike the lantern, we don't need the player to be able to use the spyglass at the same time they're doing anything else (like climbing, or with weapons out, or whatever), so I don't think we have to worry about conflicts. I also think we'd need some kind of (brief) animation just to transition from the regular HUD to the overlay, or else it would look quite strange. Even with the animation I'm not 100% sure how to do a smooth transition, but we could look at the PDA animation for reference, since that's essentially what it did.

[Ishtvan]

Re: animation. Unlike the lantern, we don't need the player to be able to use the spyglass at the same time they're doing anything else (like climbing, or with weapons out, or whatever), so I don't think we have to worry about conflicts.

I thought the code of the spyglass is exactly like the planned lantern though. It's an inventory item that you select in the inventory and hit "use item" to use. Are you saying we need to lower the weapons and stuff when the item is used? Or were you thinking of making it a weapon?

[Springheel]

Yes, it operates like a normal inventory item. But unlike the lantern, you can't expect to do much else while looking through the spyglass. You aren't going to be using weapons or mantling or climbing vines, for example.

So a very quick animation could raise the spyglass to the player's eyes, at which point weapons are disabled--in fact, everything that is disabled when your hands are occupied should be disabled, just as if you were carrying a crate in your hands. Then when the spyglass is put away another quick animation plays, and you're back to normal. That way, there are no conflicts.

[Ishtvan]

Okay, that should be do-able in the script with Gildoran's immobilization system, I think. Sorry to derail the thread, but I guess it might be sort've pertinent to find out if the model is going to be used in a first person model or not.

 

What if we brought it up to the eye, to the point where you're zooming far into the end like in PinkDot's picture of the end there, then quickly fade out the model and fade in Spring's telescope overlay with a zoomed view?

[Springheel]

What if we brought it up to the eye, to the point where you're zooming far into the end like in PinkDot's picture of the end there, then quickly fade out the model and fade in Spring's telescope overlay with a zoomed view?

 

That should be doable. Calling the overlay with a fade is no problem, so the only tricky part will be timing it so the transition looks good--you don't want to see the telescope model when you look through the overlay, for example.

 

I think if the animation is quick enough (about the same speed as the PDA), then we could have the animation raise the end of the telescope up towards the player's eye, then show a black screen with a blurry hole in the center (at which point the model vanishes), then transition to the overlay. The effect would look like the player is adjusting the focus of the spyglass and I think would look pretty good.

[sparhawk]

The description definitely sounds good.

[PinkDot]

Do you need more detailed model and texture for that anim? Current model was intended to be just a prop and definitely doesn't look good when is fullscreen size.

[Springheel]

I don't think the model has to look that good--the animation would be a second or two long at best, so there wouldn't be any time to make out much detail. Let's try it with the current model first and see how it looks.

[PinkDot]

Well, if you look at some animation, even short, thousands times, than 8 sided cylinder with blurry texture will be noticeable. And it's not a problem to make improved version for that purpose.

 

The other question is - do we really need that animation...? I don't know any game, where you can see player taking binoculars and moving towards his eyes. It's just transition between two view modes, which you can imagine anyway... If it looks good (which mostly means "short enough") than it's OK, but if it's too long it will distract player's attention.

[Springheel]

If it looks good (which mostly means "short enough") than it's OK, but if it's too long it will distract player's attention.

 

That's why I keep emphasizing that it would have to be short. The PDA animation is about a second long, I think. I'm don't feel particularly strong enough to argue for it though, if other people feel like it would be better without one. We could always get the functionality working first and then see how it feels without an animation.

[sparhawk]

The other question is - do we really need that animation...?

 

Yes.

 

I don't know any game, where you can see player taking binoculars and moving towards his eyes.

 

RtCW (I think).

[New Horizon]

I don't think we 'really' need it. It's not a priority animation, but if we try one out...that's fine.

[sparhawk]

IMO it's similar to the lantern animation. It's not strictly needed, but it can add a lot of immersion if properly done.

[Springheel]

The lantern can't be properly done, without tremendous work to address all the conflicts. There's no conflict problem with the spyglass, however. Just so there's no confusion.

[SneaksieDave]

Do I hear a "UseSpyglassAnimation" variable?

 

With how much I use zooming, I'd personally hate to see an animation every single time. I'd just wind up binding zoom to a hotkey (like I do now) and forget the spyglass altogether.

[Springheel]

I'd just wind up binding zoom to a hotkey (like I do now) and forget the spyglass altogether.

 

I doubt that we'll leave a 'zoom' function like that once the spyglass is in...wouldn't make any sense to me.

 

I'm not sure exactly what people are imagining, but any spyglass animation would be about as fast as the 'take out blackjack' animation, which would be done FAR more often.

 

Anyway, I have no problem with implementing the spyglass without an animation first, and see how it looks.

[Springheel]

I was wondering about the spyglass earlier, whether it will use a first-person raise to eye animation or something. I guess we can discuss in another thread.

 

I think we've covered a lot of the discussion here. If we want an animation, we'll need a more hi res model. I don't care a whole lot whether we use an animation or not, as long as whatever we choose looks good.

[Nyarlathotep]

Yes.

Ditto.

 

RtCW (I think).

Also:

Battlefield series

Red Orchestra

Call of Duty (I think)

[greebo]

What about using the spyglass while hanging on a rope? Allowed or not?

 

Playing the animation is fine with me, but do we have anyone who can make one?

[Ishtvan]

Unreal Tournament mod Infiltration and STALKER also had binocs/scope to eye animations. To me it would be rather jarring to hit use item and suddenly be zoomed in.

 

Implementation-wise, we could probably use the existing weapon system to do a first person animation. I.e., put in a spyglass weapon, just for programming purposes, then have the "use item" script on the inventory item give you the spyglass weapon, switch weapons to the spyglass (handling the lowering of the weapon), the "weapon raise" animation on the spyglass would just be the raising to the eye, then switch weapons back to whatever you had, take away spyglass weapon and you're done (the "weapon lower" on the spyglass would lower it down from the eye).

 

Otherwise we might have to create a whole 'nother first person animation controller other than the weapon and that could be a pain.

 

[EDIT: Or, we could try to do it all in 2d by sliding things around in a GUI overlay]

[greebo]

So, I gather that using the spyglass while the player is attached to a rope is not allowed, as we're handling it as a weapon item?

 

My other question was: Who is going to make that animation?

 

edit: @2d sliding: I already had some detailed plans how to handle the zoom in/out transition, but it seems like the discussion is not yet over, so I better hold back.

[sparhawk]

What about using the spyglass while hanging on a rope? Allowed or not?

 

Playing the animation is fine with me, but do we have anyone who can make one?

 

I think we should classify weapons and items as one- or twohanded, so that onehanded items can be handled even while hanging on a rope or a ladder, not while moving on them though. It seems perfectly sensible to me to allow the view through a looking glass while haning on a rope. After all, that shouldn't be to hard to do (realistically not implementationwise).

[Springheel]

After all, that shouldn't be to hard to do (realistically not implementationwise).

 

Fishing out a telescope from your pack and then extending it would probably be VERY hard to do on a rope. Though probably not any harder than drinking a potion.

 

If it is going to have an animation, however, then it really should work like a weapon.

[sparhawk]

Assuming that the telescope is really in your bag and not in your jacket.