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Small idea


Noisycricket

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If it sounds like it would take a long time and isn't really necessary, put it in the Dark Mod box marked 'Things the community can do after release if it really cares about it so god damned much'.

 

Correct.

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Maybe not as far as you're concerned.

 

Note: I'm not saying it should be in the first release, but it shouldn't be overlooked as an option to be added in at a later date once the mod up and running and has a constantly stable community and fan base.

 

Our goal is to provide a 'traditional' first person experience. I can pretty much guarantee that if body awareness is ever added, it will be a community mod, not part of the toolkit by default.

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Better yet, wear a real hood & turn your head when you turn in the game :laugh:

 

That hood doesn't really go to well with my shortbow, last time I tried to shoot an arrow into my door (again!) to simulate the arrow sound, I got the hood tangled into the bow, then snapped the bowstring on my nose, and dropped my shortsword (steel) on my feet, and while frantically trying to catch it so it doesn't alert the teddybears posing as guards, I hit my forehead on the desk....that hurt! Plus, then the muffled cry and moan made my mother (posing unwittingly as civilian in the other room) look in and say out loud "What was that?" At that point I got an heart attack because I thought I was really in the game...

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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Also with a sword attachment, for melee combat.

 

And the sword and bow attachments should each press a certain set of buttons on the Wiimote (a different set for each one) when they're attached, so we can detect the difference automatically and switch weapons on-screen as well.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I don't know of a single game using body awareness that doesn't rely on pre-scripted animations for climbing ladders, or most other kinds of 'interact with the world' actions.

 

Dark Messia of MIght and Magic IMO. Not 100% sure though, but I was surprised when I noticed that it had a body showing, because I didn't notice it in the clunkiness of the controls. :)

 

I think it can be done, but the major prolem is, that we don't have enough animators to make it look good. I don't really care seeing a body. In RL, I'm not all the time aware of my body, because the brain simply ignores such useless information. Having a player shado is quite a different thing, but the same problem is there. No animators.

Gerhard

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That hood doesn't really go to well with my shortbow, last time I tried to shoot an arrow into my door (again!) to simulate the arrow sound, I got the hood tangled into the bow, then snapped the bowstring on my nose, and dropped my shortsword (steel) on my feet, and while frantically trying to catch it so it doesn't alert the teddybears posing as guards, I hit my forehead on the desk....that hurt! Plus, then the muffled cry and moan made my mother (posing unwittingly as civilian in the other room) look in and say out loud "What was that?" At that point I got an heart attack because I thought I was really in the game...

:laugh:

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well I think those are a bit facetious "straw man" examples.

 

I think Thief 3 did body awareness correctly (apart from the jerky movement, of course), where you can look down and see your whole body, see your legs/knees prominently when crouched, etc, and I really like it a lot. Halo does this decently as well. It's one of the extremely rare things I think Dark Mod is inferior to T3 in.

 

However, because it's so hard to "get it right", and because it really doesn't matter too much anyway since we're all used to floating arms by now, I believe it is a good decision to do at TDM does :)

 

BTW, the hood thing this thread is about is maybe a good idea, but it made me think of Metroid Prime HUD, and when I try to picture the hood there on the edges I think it would just not work and look silly instead.

 

Actually I don't like to look down and see my body and legs in an fps. I think it's unnecessary and oftentimes distracting simply because it obscures your vision. Plus it will probably be ugly as sin simply because the textures that close up can't have fantastic detail, no?

 

But I absolutely love this hood idea :wub:. Well that is if the hood actually swayed and wasn't just static.

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I think Thief 3 did body awareness correctly (apart from the jerky movement, of course), where you can look down and see your whole body, see your legs/knees prominently when crouched, etc, and I really like it a lot. Halo does this decently as well. It's one of the extremely rare things I think Dark Mod is inferior to T3 in.

I think Thief 3 got it completely wrong. You should not have to simulate certain aspects of body awareness if you are doing it at all and Thief 3 implements those aspects. Clunky movement, head-bob and gait matching that is just wrong, weird all or nothing movement and the much applauded but utterly ridiculous arms hitting things and knocking them off tables etc. It's not an anti-clumsy training tool and none of these things are noticeable in RL because we're built to incorporate them. It's not that different to implementing a balance issue in FPSs. We don't need it, it's stupid.

I want your brain... to make his heart... beat faster.

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I think Thief 3 got it completely wrong. You should not have to simulate certain aspects of body awareness if you are doing it at all and Thief 3 implements those aspects. Clunky movement, head-bob and gait matching that is just wrong, weird all or nothing movement and the much applauded but utterly ridiculous arms hitting things and knocking them off tables etc. It's not an anti-clumsy training tool and none of these things are noticeable in RL because we're built to incorporate them. It's not that different to implementing a balance issue in FPSs. We don't need it, it's stupid.

 

 

I can't quite follow your post...

 

I agree that the movement, head-bob, and gait were crappy. I hadn't thought about the arms bumping things, I never had a problem with that when playing T3, I didn't even know it could happen (or maybe I just forgot about it, it's been a while). I don't know what you mean about the "balance issue" - do you mean some sort of gauge to keep the character balanced so he doesn't fall over?

 

All that aside, do you have a problem seeing your torso, legs, and arms there? That's the main thing I'm talking about, just the visual thing, instead of seeing empty nothingness.

 

But again, it's a very minor thing for me, I really don't mind seeing nothing.

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I think what SE means is, that games don't get more realistic, if you start to simulate all this real life issues you are automatically doing all the time. Eye blinking, balancing on your feets, breathing, and all that. Yes, you do it all the time, but you don't notice it because your brain blocks out such useless information, unless it becomes vital for some reason. I only notice that I have to breath, when I'm underwater.

So simulating all this "real" things serves only to draw attention to it, which is quite ridiculous. It would make sense to simulate this, if you would wear a body suit. But even then it would be a waste of processing power, because your brain is accustomed to doing this automatically, so all the sensors would constantly be triggered with movements that are done automatically and wouldn't enhance the gamefeeling at all. If you are in medical treatment after severe injuiries, this might be a good idea, but not in a normal game.

Gerhard

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That is exactly what I mean spar.

 

Komag - being able to see your arms, feet and body is not body awareness unless the model interacts meaningfully with the game world. If you tagged a visible body onto Garrett in T1 or 2 it would still lack almost all features of body awareness because there is no in-game physical model. The only thing it would have is an aid for feet placement but the little shadow that is there does this anyway.

I want your brain... to make his heart... beat faster.

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I think I see what you mean.

 

So according to how you describe "body awareness", I guess I don't really care about it either, but I would still like to see my body there (so, just "visible" awareness then).

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At that point, it's really mostly a matter of aesthetic taste then.

I think that's my stand on it, too. I wouldn't mind seeing the PC's body as an aesthetic matter; it would be a different look that would be interesting.

 

The first time I played Thief, I still remember, I had just finished Tomb Raider 2, and was annoyed about the invisible body, but mostly I was still thinking in terms of foot placement for jumping puzzles, which turned not to be big in Thief, so after a while of playing I didn't notice it anymore; and by the time of T3, I had actually been prejudiced in the other direction. I bet if you could see the body, it would encourage more physical puzzles, so it would have some effect on gameplay in interesting directions ... whether that's good or not is, again, mostly a matter of taste.

 

I think either way could look good; but if it's possible to make it an option, it might be good just for variety's sake.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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LOL hood awareness :)

 

Regarding the hood idea, the player's peripheral vision is already very limited by having this narrow view that's projected on to your monitor. It might make sense to see the edges of the hood when turning if your FOV was really ~170 degrees or whatever it is IRL, but ingame your FOV is already clipped down to 90 deg. I don't think we need to reduce it farther when turning just to emphasize that you are wearing a hood. For a hood to block an FOV that is already clipped down to 90, the edge would have to be pretty much right in the middle of your face, which is a pretty significant wardrobe malfunction.
That would be my main reason. We're always fighting the limited view of the monitor - increased FOV than in real life for that window, small HUD elements, etc.

 

 

I have always "agreed" with the invisible body in FP games. I just feel like it's me and the game world, and that's it. When the character's body shows up, I get reminded it's me controlling the character, who's in the world. Different feeling.

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Did anyone ever play a game called Trespasser on PC? its a really old one, like built for windows 95, and it was an FPS set in the Jurassic Park world, where you crash land on one of the islands where they're busy breeding dinos. Heh, it even had voice-overs done by David Attenborough and Minnie Driver of all people.

It was a horrible game, suffering from terrible code; but it was one of the first fps' to implement Body Awareness and a minimalist HUD. Basically you looked down at a little heart tattoo on the avatar's chest.

And boy, it was a nice chest :laugh:

 

Personally I don't have much problem with Body Awareness, but if it is implemented I think it needs really high res textures and detail; I find in some games it looks a bit weird when you've got heaps of normal and bump mapped, high-detail wall and floor textures, but when you look down theres this shapeless blur of colour that's supposed to be your body.

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Wait. I was under the impression that this hood awareness idea only came to play when the player turned his head quickly (the hood sways slightly at the edges of the screen opposite of the direction being turned). Not to be there all the time obviously.

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