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Progress Bar for Loading Screen


Springheel

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Saw it yesterday and forgot to comment. It's pretty cool! :)

 

One minor gripe: The only thing I don't like about it artistically is the way that the drops are present in a faded form before they fully appear. IMO it would look much cooler if they simply appeared. Unfortunately that would probably make it harder to judge how much time is left... Still, since D3's progress counter is woefully inaccurate anyway, maybe we wouldn't be losing much? *shrug*

 

As for the loading screen, I wonder if it would be possible to do something similar to Assassin's Creed, where it loads the map essentially in the "background" and has a 3d loading environment where you can move around in normally etc. Dunno how we could do this apart from running another D3 process in the background and then switching to it. Either way it's probably too much time for little gain.
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One minor gripe: The only thing I don't like about it artistically is the way that the drops are present in a faded form before they fully appear. IMO it would look much cooler if they simply appeared.

I actually experimented with it this way (no faded drops) and I concur, it looks better (IMHO).

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I actually experimented with it this way (no faded drops) and I concur, it looks better (IMHO).

 

Without the faded drops it's not much of a bar, since you can't tell how much more there is to go (which is almost not relevent since the progress isn't really accurate, but still). It's just a matter of commenting out one window to remove them, so it's easy to do if people prefer them as a purely artistic element.

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Doom3's loading progress is always woefully inaccurate (sad.gif)... wish we could address that somehow. I think I recall someone saying it's more accurate when the PAKs are unpacked, but that doesn't seem to help here.

Just remembered, I think this fix was with TDS, not Doom3.

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Not had much time to study this thread so just gut reaction feedback to the loading screen...

 

Like the screen itself. Like the blood drops but don't really 'feel' it as a progress bar. I see why those faint impressions try to give a hint though.

 

I'd prefer that the blood drops remain but just as an animation and without the faint pre-impressions - so they don't even need to be in-line.

 

Then create and add a separate standard TDM progress loader based on the light gem wire frame. This could then be used by default on all maps and anyone who can add a cool animation as well like the blood drops can do so.

 

Does the image of the statue give too much away, as a kind of spoiler? The player knows there is a statue but doesn't reach until it is a kind of climax in the game. Maybe the statue image could be feinted out, or obscured in some way. I don't feel strongly either way though.

 

I also feel the title screen would benefit from some supplemental text eg, 'A Dark Mod stealth mission by Jdude' maybe even an evocative line from the story. It looks rather isolated and empty as it is. Maybe even add the TDM logo since it's an official mission.

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Then create and add a separate standard TDM progress loader based on the light gem wire frame. This could then be used by default on all maps and anyone who can add a cool animation as well like the blood drops can do so.

 

There's already a default loading bar, but I don't think it fits this loading screen particularly well (and it wouldn't be any more accurate than the tears).

 

Does the image of the statue give too much away, as a kind of spoiler? The player knows there is a statue but doesn't reach until it is a kind of climax in the game.

 

I considered that, but identifying the statue isn't part of the mission. In fact, the player character, growing up in a religious world, would already know who St. Lucia is, and would be able to identify her, while the player would not. So in effect the loading screen gives the player necessary information that his character would already have.

 

 

also feel the title screen would benefit from some supplemental text eg, 'A Dark Mod stealth mission by Jdude' maybe even an evocative line from the story. It looks rather isolated and empty as it is. Maybe even add the TDM logo since it's an official mission.

 

Yes, there will be flavour text at the bottom of the screen. If Jdude wants his name on there somewhere he has certainly earned it.

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yeah, I could never get that loading bar to keep going until the map started. Though with Den I did get the impression it continued while my Hard drive flashed loading, then the progress paused at the end and I assumed data was being processed. But with saint lucia I can see my drive still flashing even when the tears end.

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I guess it's just the amount of data that needs processing on this map. When I use the same loader for a smaller map, it's much more accurate.

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How accurate where the original Doom 3 levels?

 

All I can think of that when the final stage of the progress bar is added that some more significant change is made. That might be as drastic as clearing the screen and putting up some new graphic from the map else just adding something to the screen like 'stand by - processing' I don't mean that literally but just as example. Something to indicate something is happening.

 

Maybe there is an opportunity to add some more story text - a mood paragraph for the player to read.

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Maybe there is an opportunity to add some more story text - a mood paragraph for the player to read.

 

Yes, that's doable.

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