Lightgem Again

[sparhawk]

THere is still a problem ith the tilting compass though. It increases the number of lightgem bitmaps required exponetially YOu need a bitmap for every possible tilt and rotation the compass could be at, WITH THE 15 DIFFERENT BRIGHTNESS LEVELS FOR EVERY SINGLE ANGLE.

We're talking about 1000s of bitmaps here. ANother solution will have to be found. I vote the obvious answer which is a separte gem and compass. Sovles every problem.

No. The bitmap is for the gem only. I never meant to make the WHOLE thing a bitmap, only the gem itself. And the compass is a seperate object wich can rotate aorund it. But there are some problems with this anyway. Even if the two were combined, we still would only need 16 bitmaps because the skinning is always the same and the rotation is done by the engine.

 

The seperate objects only makes sense if we replace the gem with only a flat texture. But then the rotation wouldn't work becuase it could penetrate the gem on some angles. when it is rotating.

 

I have to test this with a 3D app to see how it works.

[sparhawk]

I vote the obvious answer which is a separte gem and compass. Sovles every problem.

Is this image of you constructed of two seperate objects? If so I guess it still is a sphere. Would it look the same if you render the sphere onto a plane and then do the rotation? I guess this will cause visual problems then.

[TYROT]

dear Team

 

I know you will discuss this in your close threads..BUT

 

Please do not make them together... Lightgem is a lightgem..compass is compass.

 

SO what we gonna do next? Are we gonna blend MINE with Arrow, BlackJack with nuclear missile.....And Compass with Duck...and Duck with burrick...

 

Im voting for "Burrick and Zombie plus Noblewoman's Boobs and Priest's dick" combo..

 

Please.... seperate them......This is simply setting up a dynamite in the core of Thief Spirit..

 

 

BEST

[sparhawk]

I vote the obvious answer which is a separte gem and compass. Sovles every problem.

I just found a nother reason why the gem and the compass should be seperated. This way both can be switched on or off independently. If we have a single model for both, then you can either have both or none.

 

OK. So we will seperate them and that's it. Fuck Polygons.

[_Atti_]

and the gem should be fiixed and 3d...by that way we can get rid of the unvisible polys of it...

also..since the compass fits with the gem perfect there wont be poblems rotating it around it..

 

and as Sparhwk said by this way they are separated and any can be switched off

[sparhawk]

and the gem should be fiixed and 3d...by that way we can get rid of the unvisible polys of it...

That will not work. If you siwtch off the compass you can still see them. And how many polies are we talking here? 30? 50? Not enough to have that much trouble.

[_Atti_]

wel if its fixed then its fixed..so polys on its its back are not visible any time since its fixed...

howver yea its not much...

[oDDity]

Ok, if the gem is a sperarate object and pefectly spherical, and is the only thing in the 16 bitmaps then it will work. SOp the bitmaps will just consist of 16 spheres for dark to bright.

Everything else has to be part of the 3d model, and we'd want to keep that 3d model as llw poly as possible. This one is 50 triangles, though it doesn't exactly look uber.

 

This one is pretty drab looking just for testing. We can use normal and spec maps for HUD items, right?

[oDDity]

Yes, we could also use a fixed 3d half sphere for the gem, there really isn't much difference because we'll still need the series of 16 bitmaps for it. Whether we render them on the 3d sphere or as 2d.

The plus of 3d is that the gem could cast a shadow on the compass, the plus of 2d is that it uses less polys and would look better being pre rendered.

Edited December 22, 2004 by oDDity

[sparhawk]

We can use normal and spec maps for HUD items, right?

Sure. Objects in the HUD are just objects and rendered the same as any other objects. The only difference is, that they have a fixed location and the are not affected by camera movement, and they have their own light. The scene render lights will not affect it. But technically there is no difference. You can take your Zombie model and put it in the lightgem and you would see it just like you see it in the game.

 

I just tested this with Blender and it seems to work. So the gem can be a nicely rendered sphere projected on a plane with alpha to mask off the borders of the plane. As long as it is a sphere the comapss can rotate in any direction without a problem.

[Domarius]

You can easily construct levels, especially cave levels, where you will not know where up and down is. And it also helps in the water, because there it is quite easy to loose orientation.

You know if you're facing roughly up or down, because, in all FPS games, when you look directly up or down, you just rotate on the spot. We can think of this as our "sense of gravity", and not rely on the compass tilting - your real life compass wouldn't tilt, and after all, wouldn't it be the aim of such twisting caves to deliberately make you disoriented?

My main reason for pushing this is because a pre-rendered compass will look much much nicer, same for the light gem, and since we spend so much time looking at them, it would be great to have them looking beautiful.

And to make a pre-rendered compass, we can't have it tilt because of the amount of bitmaps needed.

[Springheel]

Ok, just for my own curiosity, is there anyone other than Sparhawk that thinks it is important for the lightgem to tilt?

[sparhawk]

You know if you're facing roughly up or down, because, in all FPS games, when you look directly up or down, you just rotate on the spot.

 

That doesn't really help you, once you lost oritentation. I don't know why everybody is so opposed to a rotating compass. It's not as if this would change ther entire game, and there ar people (like me) who wants it.

 

We can think of this as our "sense of gravity", and not rely on the compass tilting - your real life compass wouldn't tilt, and after all, wouldn't it be the aim of such twisting caves to deliberately make you disoriented?

 

No. The aim is to go through the caves and reach your objectives. It's not really fun to get lost and having to reload to return to a known spot and walking the entire way. That's one reason why I didn't really like the bonehoard mission in T1.

 

My main reason for pushing this is because a pre-rendered compass will look much much nicer, same for the light gem, and since we spend so much time looking at them, it would be great to have them looking beautiful.

 

The gem can be prerendered and it would look really good. And the compass would be enough if it has a good texture.

 

And to make a pre-rendered compass, we can't have it tilt because of the amount of bitmaps needed.

 

I know.

[sparhawk]

Ok, just for my own curiosity, is there anyone other than Sparhawk that thinks it is important for the lightgem to tilt?

There are thousands of Thief players, you don't think that I'm the only one? And there is no real reason why it should not be able to tilt.

[BlackThief]

There are thousands of Thief players, you don't think that I'm the only one? And there is no real reason why it should not be able to tilt.

hm, strange that no one else in our team belongs to these thousands of thief-players....

[sparhawk]

hm, strange that no one else in our team belongs to these thousands of thief-players....

Seems we have all kind of players. Not everybody is against magic like Oddity is. Not everybody likes the robots as some of us do. Some don't care for Zombies and some don't care for static lightgems.

Some even don't want any lightgem and comapss at all. So we don't need to do any, right?

 

It's not as if we are doing this for a specially selected class of players which all share exactly the same vision in all aspects.

[pakmannen]

I'd like to see a tilting compass. It's only realistic anyway. Also, I would prefer if the gem wasn't a perfect sphere. In my opinion, a gem like the one in Thief 3 (a kinda squished sphere) looks a lot better. Like oofnish model. (I know that means we can't use a pre-rendered version.) The problem with the other models (in my opinion) is that they are too big and bulky.

[Fingernail]

I also wanted a tilting compass, like Thief 3. I really quite liked the T3 lightgem.

[oDDity]

I prefered the optional compass, perched on the side like T1&2. I've no idea why nyone would ever need a compass, but even for those that do, they don't need it there constantly, it's only necessary to bring it up if they're lost (yeah like we're going to have levels big enough to get lost in - I wish)

I despised everything about the T3 HUD, including the combined compass and lightgem cluttering up the screen.

[Domarius]

That doesn't really help you, once you lost oritentation.

Why not? I know I've used it myself when I wasn't sure which way was up.

 

Rake the mouse upward. It stops and goes no further. You know you're looking up. Rake the mouse downward. It stops and goes no further. You know you're looking down. Move the mouse upward about half that distance (just watch the screen) and you know you're facing horizontal, roughly, and the compass makes sense again.

 

I just want a pre-rendered compass

 

If we vote now, it would be roughly tied, judging from the posts. I guess it still needs discussing.

[Springheel]

I'd like to see a tilting compass. It's only realistic anyway. Also, I would prefer if the gem wasn't a perfect sphere. In my opinion, a gem like the one in Thief 3 (a kinda squished sphere) looks a lot better. Like oofnish model. (I know that means we can't use a pre-rendered version.) The problem with the other models (in my opinion) is that they are too big and bulky.

 

Problem is, if the compass tilts, the gem HAS to be round, or else it will be totally obscured by the compass when it tilts.

 

I also wanted a tilting compass, like Thief 3. I really quite liked the T3 lightgem.

 

Are we all understanding what we mean by 'tilt'? Because the compass in T3 did NOT tilt. By 'tilt', we mean moving up and down on a z axis as the player looks up or down.

 

 

 

If people are really concerned about losing their z-axis orientation, why not just include a "look center" key, like T1/2 had? It's easier than butchering the lightgem.

 

Let me just post again the list of problems I see with tilting:

 

1) At certain orientations, the compass will obscure the lightgem.

 

2) At other orientations, the lightgem will obscure the compass arm that's pointing the direction you are facing.

 

 

Example: From this orientation, the compass is useless, and you can barely see the lightgem (if it weren't so round, you couldn't see it at all. There are LOTS of angles where this would happen.

 

3) The compass must be high enough on the screen so that when it is tilted totally forward (looking straight down on it) there is room for the arms, meaning it has to be given more room than it would otherwise.

 

1 and 2 are especially important. A player should NEVER have to readjust his orientation in order to get a good look at the lightgem.

[SneaksieDave]

1 and 2 are especially important. A player should NEVER have to readjust his orientation in order to get a good look at the lightgem.

Agree. My vote would be for T1 style - separated (use of the compass is very rare for me, if ever - only time is if I'm saying, "WTF? Where the hell am I?" - again, very rare), and simple. Tilt? Sure why not. But separate, because I don't like a lot of crap on my screen, and when it's not used, it may as well not exist.

[New Horizon]

But if the Northern tip is obscured by the light gem you know by process of elimination, where North is. I see where the theory of such problems are, but once in practice I think it will work. The compass is going to be in motion. When the player is standing and looking straight ahead, the compass will be tilted towards him like this / now if the player were to look straight up the compass would tilt accordingly --- and lie flat. Chances are, the player is not going to run around looking straight up. Give it a shot before we shoot it down. If it doesn't work, we just anchor the compass at the default angle. No worries.

[sparhawk]

That reminds me of something else. When the compass is removed. the lightgem would probably look like crap.

So we have to make sure that it also looks good in such a case.

[mrDischarged]

I'm one of the minimalistic HUD fans. Actually, if it were for me the HUD'd be completely blank and the lightgem would be replaced by an increased heartbeat rate/volume.

Anyhow, I say make them separate and make them toggleable. They're not the actual game, they're just helpers.

 

 

mrD