I guess that I'm confused by the lack of understanding for the window as view-screen concept?
I suggest a start from the diplomatic mission, Standoff. Take a view such as those Cardassian ships which can be seen as we moved from each Ready Room view port to another. Limit that view to only one "window" representing the view-screen on any of the established bridge maps. It doesn't even need be as full-sized a skybox as used in Standoff. It needn't be a panoramic view structured around the entire bridge map. Only within a limited radius from the point of the view-screen on any given bridge map.
It may well be mapped just like a window. But it needn't be interpreted that way in the finished product. As previously suggested the PoV for our view-screen would be from the most forward point of the starship's bow. There wouldn't be any need for any of the host starship hull to be displayed whatsoever. I would certainly make use of forced perspective as needed.
Granted an image of streaking stars or slipstream might be more challenging. In which case, a 2D .gif image - as previously suggested - would be sufficient I'd think?
Is the issue that for numerous view-screen display themes, there must be an actual new bridge map to go with each one? Can the images generated for the 'window/view-screen' not be generated separately from any of the pre-fab bridge maps? Load time would change to accommodate the addition. But wouldn't it be worth it for the results?
Clearly, none of what any of us are suggesting is something that can be done by one Dev. In a short amount of time. I expect that it would require a team to layout enough variety of these view-screen maps to make it worthwhile.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
One think I'm curious about, is the little interact window that pops up whenever some one is speaking, and it displays their face. Could something like that be mapped onto a wall rather than the UI?
I'm not a programmer by any means so I'm just spitballing, but it never hurts to brainstorm. :P
In the grand sense of "Yes, anything with enough time and money thrown at it can be done"
Yes.
In the pragmatic sense of "That is entirely handled through the UI, and there is no way to hook that into a texture projected on to geometry in the world."
No.
Psiameese, I'm still slightly confused by some of what you say. But the base point of making the viewscreen a window, I do understand. Whether it's forced perspective with small objects or not is beside the point. That does not alter what would have to be done to accomplish the base idea.
However, I (personally) still feel that is not going to feel right.
What is desired (from my interpretation), is a 3d representation of what is going on outside of the ship, projected into a space that is apparently (to the viewer) to be behind the screen. My argument is that will always feel like a window. You argue that it's up to personal interpretation. Sure, you can believe it to be something else, but at the end of the day, what we've done is JJed up STO.
That's only practical when locking specific bridges to specific ships, so the game doesn't have to determine which combination of ship parts a player is using.
The point wasn't that it's only practical for those bridges, because they were made for that ship. But the possibily they could do it for other bridge sets as well.
Because they merely use the same ship models in game, enlarged them to realistic size (or via trickery of the camera to make it look it's the correct size), and just set the viewpoint of the window to the corresponding location on that ship model, so you see the ship's hull. So they should technically do this for all ships in the game with any bridge set.
Granted an image of streaking stars or slipstream might be more challenging. In which case, a 2D .gif image - as previously suggested - would be sufficient I'd think?
People pulled it off in the Foundry already. I forgot the mission, but Cryptic surely remembers it as well. It's the mission with the disabled Admiral and he's in a giant arboritum in the middle of a Horizon-class Science Ship (you know the golf ball with the shields). And there were star streaks, which was used to imitate a ship at warp. So Cryptic should not have any trouble with this, and Slipstream wouldn't be any different than the Hyperspace graphics you see with Star Wars.
In the grand sense of "Yes, anything with enough time and money thrown at it can be done"
Yes.
In the pragmatic sense of "That is entirely handled through the UI, and there is no way to hook that into a texture projected on to geometry in the world."
No.
No need time and money, when the technology is already there. :rolleyes:
I have been re-watching various episodes of TNG and other series - as well as reading the TNG tech manual - and have come to the conclusion the viewscreen is supposed to be a "visual representation" of what the sensors-array is doing ( for lack of a better word) . That's apparent because it's quite often you hear Picard - or any other captain- saying "put in on screen "even though the object is many lightyears removed from current position of ship .
They can also magnify any object the sensors are "seeing" . Furthermore the sensors are covering the entire ship so they can put stuff on viewscreen which is behind the ship .
so that means it's not a window at all and leaves room for interpretation . In generations Picard and data are shown in the astrometrics lab to analyze a situation ( by means of a 3d tactical viewscreen ) something which was done on main viewscreen early in series , i.e. TOS and early seasons of TNG
I have been re-watching various episodes of TNG and other series - as well as reading the TNG tech manual - and have come to the conclusion the viewscreen is supposed to be a "visual representation" of what the sensors-array is doing ( for lack of a better word) . That's apparent because it's quite often you hear Picard - or any other captain- saying "put in on screen "even though the object is many lightyears removed from current position of ship .
They can also magnify any object the sensors are "seeing" . Furthermore the sensors are covering the entire ship so they can put stuff on viewscreen which is behind the ship .
so that means it's not a window at all and leaves room for interpretation . In generations Picard and data are shown in the astrometrics lab to analyze a situation ( by means of a 3d tactical viewscreen ) something which was done on main viewscreen early in series , i.e. TOS and early seasons of TNG
I completely agree with this assessment. The issue I have is that there is not a good way to represent this very well in game. The only real way to make the viewscreen FEEL like it's showing things in 3d, is to cut a hole in the wall and put stuff back there. My problem with this is that it will feel like a window, or worse, it will feel like a puppet show. I still think that jeffel82's interpretation above is the closest to what it should be, but I can't represent that properly in game, so we're still left with 2D, or Window.
In the grand sense of "Yes, anything with enough time and money thrown at it can be done"
Yes.
In the pragmatic sense of "That is entirely handled through the UI, and there is no way to hook that into a texture projected on to geometry in the world."
No.
However, I (personally) still feel that is not going to feel right.
What is desired (from my interpretation), is a 3d representation of what is going on outside of the ship, projected into a space that is apparently (to the viewer) to be behind the screen. My argument is that will always feel like a window. You argue that it's up to personal interpretation. Sure, you can believe it to be something else, but at the end of the day, what we've done is JJed up STO.
I agree, and I do think that the half life way of doing it is better, but we should still keep this as an option.
This was possible eight years ago, I see no reason it couldn't be used today. It would be perfect for viewscreens!.
I'm just about the farthest you can get from an expert, but I'm pretty sure there's light years of difference between an MMO, with all of its concurrent demands on user hardware and network speed, and a single-player, offline first person shooter.
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
I'm just about the farthest you can get from an expert, but I'm pretty sure there's light years of difference between an MMO, with all of its concurrent demands on user hardware and network speed, and a single-player, offline first person shooter.
Exactly.
Not to mention there's plenty of difference between 'possible with modern-day technology' and 'possible with the pieces of technology we have available'.
It's technically possible to have a car that runs Windows 8, but that doesn't mean it's even remotely possible on the car I own. Sure, you could rebuild it with a capable computer from the ground up, but that's adding technology, not using and tweaking what you have on hand.
Take a look at my Foundry missions! Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
This may come as a surprise to some, but companies tend to like to guard their own software. There is no technology sharing. When a company comes up with something cool (say, interactive video textures), that's great for them, but anyone else that wants those, is going to have to reinvent the wheel themselves. And that's ONLY if they have the time/money/energy/desire to do so, and that's ONLY if it is made a priority.
Obviously, that tech exists somewhere. It has been done, and it could be done again. So could portals. So could seamless maps. So could flying from your bridge. But we don't automatically inherit those just because they were done before in another game.
As for that technique, yes, that is more what i think viewscreens should be. 2d animated screens.
But I already explained how you could pull it off. :P
We're dancing in circles now. What have you already explained how to do? From my understanding, you've repeatedly mentioned doing a shadow box (smaller scale, forced perspective, full 3d environment drawn past the viewscreen plane). As far as I'm concerned, this is identical to the viewscreen as window approach. This is also nothing like drawing our UI as a texture on geometry in the world.
This may come as a surprise to some, but companies tend to like to guard their own software. There is no technology sharing. When a company comes up with something cool (say, interactive video textures), that's great for them, but anyone else that wants those, is going to have to reinvent the wheel themselves. And that's ONLY if they have the time/money/energy/desire to do so, and that's ONLY if it is made a priority.
Obviously, that tech exists somewhere. It has been done, and it could be done again. So could portals. So could seamless maps. So could flying from your bridge. But we don't automatically inherit those just because they were done before in another game.
As for that technique, yes, that is more what i think viewscreens should be. 2d animated screens.
We're dancing in circles now. What have you already explained how to do? From my understanding, you've repeatedly mentioned doing a shadow box (smaller scale, forced perspective, full 3d environment drawn past the viewscreen plane). As far as I'm concerned, this is identical to the viewscreen as window approach. This is also nothing like drawing our UI as a texture on geometry in the world.
What about technology from one of Cryptic's or PWE's other games? Dan Stahl mentioned something about customizable ship interiors requiring technology from Neverwinter's Foundry system in a previous Ask Cryptic. Think it was last June or July.
We're dancing in circles now. What have you already explained how to do? From my understanding, you've repeatedly mentioned doing a shadow box (smaller scale, forced perspective, full 3d environment drawn past the viewscreen plane). As far as I'm concerned, this is identical to the viewscreen as window approach. This is also nothing like drawing our UI as a texture on geometry in the world.
Right now, with the Foundry we can have star streaks in an interior map. People have done this to some great creativity. So it's a matter of turning them on / off to indicate entering or exiting warp.
Since you said skyfiles are not able to be modified, that would be a problem so you would be limited to blank space and merely have objects appear / disappear (which is possible with the foundry).
And with the viewscreen, you said you can't have animated 2D objects, which is fine. So you can either go with a static 2D picture and merely have the pictures themselves as objects and turn them on / off accordingly. But like I said, it is possible to make a fairly convincing 3D viewscreen by merely having a scene outside the viewscreen (which acts as a window when on). So you can have a faux bridge scene in talking to another captain, but when you move about, you can see a difference in perspective due to the environment. And with the Foundry you can turn them on / off, correct?
With ship models, you guys can have them as objects and move them according to the script so it looks like movement is happening. If ship models were available in the ground and interior maps, we could pull this off (minus the object moving).
The only problem I could think of is that this wouldn't be possible with the flat screens of the Odyssey and the Bortas.
Personally, I think Interiors need quite a bit more work than just modifying the viewscreen. Working on writing up a "Foundry requests" document, but here's what i've got so far:
New "Foundry" features requested
The below requests are based on experiences from using the "Architect" tool, and "Supergroup bases" in City of Heroes.
1. Allow authors to choose a specific style for each of the following areas; Floors, Walls and Ceilings
This is one feature that I really liked about creating "Supergroup bases" in City of Heroes. Instead of having to create multiple wall props with various styles, you could do away with multiple props, and only have 1 with a customizable style selection.
2. Add new "default layouts" for rooms, specifically shaped as; squares, rectangles, circles, ovals
Specifically, these layouts should be accessable under "Interiors" for map selection. The layouts would be using a default "wall" prop, arranged accordingly to layout style (i.e square, circle, oval etc). Default layout should also include atleast 1 door, and 1 turbolift.
3. Selecting a "wall prop" should allow the option to either include/exclude a visible interactive panel (think Galaxy-style), which in turn could have either Federation, Klingon or "Generic" LCARS.
This may come as a surprise to some, but companies tend to like to guard their own software. There is no technology sharing. When a company comes up with something cool (say, interactive video textures), that's great for them, but anyone else that wants those, is going to have to reinvent the wheel themselves. And that's ONLY if they have the time/money/energy/desire to do so, and that's ONLY if it is made a priority.
Obviously, that tech exists somewhere. It has been done, and it could be done again. So could portals. So could seamless maps. So could flying from your bridge. But we don't automatically inherit those just because they were done before in another game.
As for that technique, yes, that is more what i think viewscreens should be. 2d animated screens.
As a budding Developer myself I am more than familiar with game engine a**hattery.
But since HL2 is an eight year old game at this point, I'm sure every thing about it has been reverse engineered at one point or another (including video textures) so it's not impossible that we could see it in this game. I realize it's not a priority, but since it's not impossible, it should be considered, particularly with an IP that it would fit so well into.
Seriously, if you made this, you could make entire missions based around it, and it could be used to improve half the missions already in game, and improve most of the social zones. So it would be a very worthwhile mechanic once you got around to it.
Blocks of room "parts" that you pick from and snap together. Usable doors (blue) that don't connect to something just don't open. A turbolift block can be labeled and you assign which one connect to which etc.
This would open up "room" (get it) for a whole plethora of C-Store items. They could sell by style -- "TNG Room Pack #1" etc. Not only could you use them in your ship interior, but those that buy these packs could also use them in their foundry missions, giving them that little extra flare. So you appeal to two groups that way. Foundry folks will want to have a great looking mission map to entice people to play it and those that want to have the custom interior for their ship will want it as well. You could also allow people to "sell" floor plans -- listing what C-Store packs it uses etc. Those that are so inclined could try to recreate all the decks of a type of ship. People could preview it and buy it.
I think the opportunities are great for all those involved.
"Yes, anything with enough time and money thrown at it can be done"
But that doesn't mean that any/all tech is readily available at our fingertips.
We certainly do benefit from things Neverwinter does, as NW does from us. But each waits for the other to get their stuff in order before trying to adopt it. That, I believe, is the case with NW's Foundry work, which is still going.
I really do not know anything about Foundry Ship Interiors, so I won't comment on that.
Azurian, you keep repeating the things I say, and vice versa. Yes, we can swap out skyfiles, yes, we can hide/unhide geometry (with some limitations). Yes, we could make a viewscreen/window kind of thing that works roughly as you are laying out.
What I keep saying, and you don't seem to be hearing, is that I think that will look/feel wrong.
Which doesn't really matter, as much of this is moot since the things you are laying out would require months of work to hook up, even for just major hubs, on all bridges. Trying to throw communications (other people's ships bridges and people on the new 3d viewscreen) is a herculean effort that would not work well. We would be far better off trying to develop Portal tech that lets us set up a camera somewhere, and project that as a texture onto the screen. But we don't have that, and I can assure you we will not be developing that tech, so please don't go down that road.
My point is, YES a 3d "window" viewscreen is possible. But I don't like it, and it would be so much work that I can't see it happening without a full season of development time devoted solely to revamping Bridges. And I don't see that happening as it's a tricky slope with people who have already spent money on the bridges they have.
This discussion reminds me of a historical analysis about why it took over 8 thousand years for people to get around to the industrial revolution.
The conclusion: ancient peoples had a lot of innovations that were 'ahead' of their time. These innovations did not get carried forwards because the people who created them didn't share the tech they used to make them.
Azurian, you keep repeating the things I say, and vice versa. Yes, we can swap out skyfiles, yes, we can hide/unhide geometry (with some limitations). Yes, we could make a viewscreen/window kind of thing that works roughly as you are laying out.
What I keep saying, and you don't seem to be hearing, is that I think that will look/feel wrong.
Which doesn't really matter, as much of this is moot since the things you are laying out would require months of work to hook up, even for just major hubs, on all bridges. Trying to throw communications (other people's ships bridges and people on the new 3d viewscreen) is a herculean effort that would not work well. We would be far better off trying to develop Portal tech that lets us set up a camera somewhere, and project that as a texture onto the screen. But we don't have that, and I can assure you we will not be developing that tech, so please don't go down that road.
My point is, YES a 3d "window" viewscreen is possible. But I don't like it, and it would be so much work that I can't see it happening without a full season of development time devoted solely to revamping Bridges. And I don't see that happening as it's a tricky slope with people who have already spent money on the bridges they have.
Hubs? I what I said was only for player bridges.
If you don't want to do it, that's fine. It's your game after all. I just thought it be something worth exploring.
When I find time after all this Winter Event / Season 7 grinding to spend time on the Foundry, I'll throw one together and lets let people decide.
I mean what gets shown on the "viewscreen."
Or, in other words, What geometry are you looking at. I presumed that you were running with this shadowbox/window approach based off of the original viewscreen discussion where the screen would swap to display whatever the last map you were in was. If that's the case, that means there is a ton of variables to account for, and a lot of assets/organization that has to go into it. Vs. if it were a screenshot of the system, or what have you. So even if we ONLY did the major hubs (ESD, DS9, Drozana, whatever), that is still a lot of work.
I mean what gets shown on the "viewscreen."
Or, in other words, What geometry are you looking at. I presumed that you were running with this shadowbox/window approach based off of the original viewscreen discussion where the screen would swap to display whatever the last map you were in was. If that's the case, that means there is a ton of variables to account for, and a lot of assets/organization that has to go into it. Vs. if it were a screenshot of the system, or what have you. So even if we ONLY did the major hubs (ESD, DS9, Drozana, whatever), that is still a lot of work.
You can easily have a 2D picture of a system or HUB and have it show accordingly on a viewscreen.
But what I'm talking about is something unique for like a Featured Event, where you are on a bridge, you get a hail, and you talk to that individual without that popup screen. This idea would work for Hubs as long as it was in instanced areas. But for the public, well even I know that's rather complicated.
Tech, even old tech, is not ubiquitous. As I said earlier:
But that doesn't mean that any/all tech is readily available at our fingertips.
We certainly do benefit from things Neverwinter does, as NW does from us. But each waits for the other to get their stuff in order before trying to adopt it. That, I believe, is the case with NW's Foundry work, which is still going.
As I was visiting ESD for the first time in god knows how long, I noticed something interesting. Right there on Earth Space Dock, there is a giant holographic banner in the transporter room that displays it's name. Unlike other holographic displays, this one flickers and is otherwise animated. How was that made? Isn't that the very thing we want?
No, not really. What you're talking about in HL2, is essentially a video.
The "Holographic" look that is so common these days, is achieved by scrolling multiple textures over each other. So, yes, it moves, we basically just tell it how fast to move in what direction.
A modified version of this is used for things like the animated LCARs. Instead of moving at a constant speed, it jumps by some given distance, multiple times. But as I've mentioned before, since it is still one texture, this method is very resolution dependent, and the more frames you want, the less resolution each frame can have.
So, for the case of an animated talking head, the HL2 method involves playing a video (multiple frames in sequence) on a piece of geometry. I could make an animated talking head texture, and put it on the geo, but it would loop infinately, and there is no way to tell it to start at a specific frame and end at a specific frame.
You can easily have a 2D picture of a system or HUB and have it show accordingly on a viewscreen.
But what I'm talking about is something unique for like a Featured Event, where you are on a bridge, you get a hail, and you talk to that individual without that popup screen. This idea would work for Hubs as long as it was in instanced areas. But for the public, well even I know that's rather complicated.
Apologies, I thought you were trying to apply that to every bridge, everywhere, with custom viewscreen geo for every map, and with custom comms included.
Yes, doing it once or twice for a featured episode would be much more reasonable, and likely, but would require a fixed, common bridge for your captain to be on (we couldn't take "your" bridge, and apply it custom for each player's personal bridge).
No, not really. What you're talking about in HL2, is essentially a video.
The "Holographic" look that is so common these days, is achieved by scrolling multiple textures over each other. So, yes, it moves, we basically just tell it how fast to move in what direction.
A modified version of this is used for things like the animated LCARs. Instead of moving at a constant speed, it jumps by some given distance, multiple times. But as I've mentioned before, since it is still one texture, this method is very resolution dependent, and the more frames you want, the less resolution each frame can have.
So, for the case of an animated talking head, the HL2 method involves playing a video (multiple frames in sequence) on a piece of geometry. I could make an animated talking head texture, and put it on the geo, but it would loop infinately, and there is no way to tell it to start at a specific frame and end at a specific frame.
Totally different animals.
Oooooooooooooh. Okay. Makes sense enough.
I guess now we figure out how to play video on a piece of geometry......
Apologies, I thought you were trying to apply that to every bridge, everywhere, with custom viewscreen geo for every map, and with custom comms included.
Yes, doing it once or twice for a featured episode would be much more reasonable, and likely, but would require a fixed, common bridge for your captain to be on (we couldn't take "your" bridge, and apply it custom for each player's personal bridge).
Now you get it!
If it's Episodic Content, you very likely will be traveling to another ship or to a base that you could access the view screen. At least until the tech could be made to add such features for every bridge set. (Perhaps you could start with new bridge sets?)
Tech, even old tech, is not ubiquitous. As I said earlier:
But that doesn't mean that any/all tech is readily available at our fingertips.
We certainly do benefit from things Neverwinter does, as NW does from us. But each waits for the other to get their stuff in order before trying to adopt it. That, I believe, is the case with NW's Foundry work, which is still going.
I really do not know anything about Foundry Ship Interiors, so I won't comment on that.
Azurian, you keep repeating the things I say, and vice versa. Yes, we can swap out skyfiles, yes, we can hide/unhide geometry (with some limitations). Yes, we could make a viewscreen/window kind of thing that works roughly as you are laying out.
What I keep saying, and you don't seem to be hearing, is that I think that will look/feel wrong.
Which doesn't really matter, as much of this is moot since the things you are laying out would require months of work to hook up, even for just major hubs, on all bridges. Trying to throw communications (other people's ships bridges and people on the new 3d viewscreen) is a herculean effort that would not work well. We would be far better off trying to develop Portal tech that lets us set up a camera somewhere, and project that as a texture onto the screen. But we don't have that, and I can assure you we will not be developing that tech, so please don't go down that road.
My point is, YES a 3d "window" viewscreen is possible. But I don't like it, and it would be so much work that I can't see it happening without a full season of development time devoted solely to revamping Bridges. And I don't see that happening as it's a tricky slope with people who have already spent money on the bridges they have.
My approach is a LOT simpler.
Put all the bridges on one map.
When hailing other ships from your bridge, trigger a cutscene of the other character/player's bridge with an NPC costumed like the other player/character. And have UI viewscreen overlay.
I can see quite a few content applications that would have.
When hailing other ships from your bridge, trigger a cutscene of the other character/player's bridge with an NPC costumed like the other player/character. And have UI viewscreen overlay.
I can see quite a few content applications that would have.
I have a pretty strong feeling that is neither simpler nor is it more practical.
Currently the way standard, non-themed ship interiors are built is that all the "choosable" interiors (large, medium, small) are placed on the same map as each "choosable" bridge. That is, each choosable bridge (sans TOS and Belfast sets) has a copy of each type of ship interior included. And we also see how limiting that is ending up. We can't have more variation of ship interiors with this setup without a drastic increase of file size for the map to include all the geometries of all the map parts. Your solution to put all the bridges on the same map would be no different. Every time a new bridge comes out they would have to increase the map size, which would add strain to everyone's machines whenever they wanted to visit their interiors.
A better way would be to implement what seems to be coming with Neverwinter's Foundry: prefabbed rooms that can be attached to custom maps (whether "custom" means player made or Cryptic/system made may be another story). In this case, the bridges being the prefabbed rooms.
As an aside (since this doesn't really depend on interiors), I'd like if hails/PM's were handled in a separate window, with a headshot of the player the communication is between, as if it were a NPC contact window. I'm not sure if they can hook up a chat interface to that UI window though.
Comments
I suggest a start from the diplomatic mission, Standoff. Take a view such as those Cardassian ships which can be seen as we moved from each Ready Room view port to another. Limit that view to only one "window" representing the view-screen on any of the established bridge maps. It doesn't even need be as full-sized a skybox as used in Standoff. It needn't be a panoramic view structured around the entire bridge map. Only within a limited radius from the point of the view-screen on any given bridge map.
It may well be mapped just like a window. But it needn't be interpreted that way in the finished product. As previously suggested the PoV for our view-screen would be from the most forward point of the starship's bow. There wouldn't be any need for any of the host starship hull to be displayed whatsoever. I would certainly make use of forced perspective as needed.
Granted an image of streaking stars or slipstream might be more challenging. In which case, a 2D .gif image - as previously suggested - would be sufficient I'd think?
Is the issue that for numerous view-screen display themes, there must be an actual new bridge map to go with each one? Can the images generated for the 'window/view-screen' not be generated separately from any of the pre-fab bridge maps? Load time would change to accommodate the addition. But wouldn't it be worth it for the results?
Clearly, none of what any of us are suggesting is something that can be done by one Dev. In a short amount of time. I expect that it would require a team to layout enough variety of these view-screen maps to make it worthwhile.
I'm not a programmer by any means so I'm just spitballing, but it never hurts to brainstorm. :P
Yes.
In the pragmatic sense of "That is entirely handled through the UI, and there is no way to hook that into a texture projected on to geometry in the world."
No.
Psiameese, I'm still slightly confused by some of what you say. But the base point of making the viewscreen a window, I do understand. Whether it's forced perspective with small objects or not is beside the point. That does not alter what would have to be done to accomplish the base idea.
However, I (personally) still feel that is not going to feel right.
What is desired (from my interpretation), is a 3d representation of what is going on outside of the ship, projected into a space that is apparently (to the viewer) to be behind the screen. My argument is that will always feel like a window. You argue that it's up to personal interpretation. Sure, you can believe it to be something else, but at the end of the day, what we've done is JJed up STO.
The point wasn't that it's only practical for those bridges, because they were made for that ship. But the possibily they could do it for other bridge sets as well.
Because they merely use the same ship models in game, enlarged them to realistic size (or via trickery of the camera to make it look it's the correct size), and just set the viewpoint of the window to the corresponding location on that ship model, so you see the ship's hull. So they should technically do this for all ships in the game with any bridge set.
People pulled it off in the Foundry already. I forgot the mission, but Cryptic surely remembers it as well. It's the mission with the disabled Admiral and he's in a giant arboritum in the middle of a Horizon-class Science Ship (you know the golf ball with the shields). And there were star streaks, which was used to imitate a ship at warp. So Cryptic should not have any trouble with this, and Slipstream wouldn't be any different than the Hyperspace graphics you see with Star Wars.
No need time and money, when the technology is already there. :rolleyes:
They can also magnify any object the sensors are "seeing" . Furthermore the sensors are covering the entire ship so they can put stuff on viewscreen which is behind the ship .
so that means it's not a window at all and leaves room for interpretation . In generations Picard and data are shown in the astrometrics lab to analyze a situation ( by means of a 3d tactical viewscreen ) something which was done on main viewscreen early in series , i.e. TOS and early seasons of TNG
What tech are you claiming already exists? I may have UI, and I may have Geometry, but that doesn't mean I have the tech to mix the two.
That's like saying, "I have amber with an ancient mosquito in it, and I have frog DNA, so I should have Jurassic Park!"
I completely agree with this assessment. The issue I have is that there is not a good way to represent this very well in game. The only real way to make the viewscreen FEEL like it's showing things in 3d, is to cut a hole in the wall and put stuff back there. My problem with this is that it will feel like a window, or worse, it will feel like a puppet show. I still think that jeffel82's interpretation above is the closest to what it should be, but I can't represent that properly in game, so we're still left with 2D, or Window.
But I already explained how you could pull it off. :P
Not necessarily. The reason why I ask is because Half Life 2 actually did this way back in 2004. The giant Tv screens in the opening sequence with Dr. Breen's ranting, the random Televisions scattered throughout the game, the security cameras in the prison level (that you can interact with!), Eli's recording at the bottom of the Citadel, and Mossmans discovery of the Borealis, were all shown via "footage" mapped on to flat surfaces.
This was possible eight years ago, I see no reason it couldn't be used today. It would be perfect for viewscreens!
I agree, and I do think that the half life way of doing it is better, but we should still keep this as an option.
Exactly.
Not to mention there's plenty of difference between 'possible with modern-day technology' and 'possible with the pieces of technology we have available'.
It's technically possible to have a car that runs Windows 8, but that doesn't mean it's even remotely possible on the car I own. Sure, you could rebuild it with a capable computer from the ground up, but that's adding technology, not using and tweaking what you have on hand.
Conjoined, Re-emergence, and . . .
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Obviously, that tech exists somewhere. It has been done, and it could be done again. So could portals. So could seamless maps. So could flying from your bridge. But we don't automatically inherit those just because they were done before in another game.
As for that technique, yes, that is more what i think viewscreens should be. 2d animated screens.
We're dancing in circles now. What have you already explained how to do? From my understanding, you've repeatedly mentioned doing a shadow box (smaller scale, forced perspective, full 3d environment drawn past the viewscreen plane). As far as I'm concerned, this is identical to the viewscreen as window approach. This is also nothing like drawing our UI as a texture on geometry in the world.
What about technology from one of Cryptic's or PWE's other games? Dan Stahl mentioned something about customizable ship interiors requiring technology from Neverwinter's Foundry system in a previous Ask Cryptic. Think it was last June or July.
Right now, with the Foundry we can have star streaks in an interior map. People have done this to some great creativity. So it's a matter of turning them on / off to indicate entering or exiting warp.
Since you said skyfiles are not able to be modified, that would be a problem so you would be limited to blank space and merely have objects appear / disappear (which is possible with the foundry).
And with the viewscreen, you said you can't have animated 2D objects, which is fine. So you can either go with a static 2D picture and merely have the pictures themselves as objects and turn them on / off accordingly. But like I said, it is possible to make a fairly convincing 3D viewscreen by merely having a scene outside the viewscreen (which acts as a window when on). So you can have a faux bridge scene in talking to another captain, but when you move about, you can see a difference in perspective due to the environment. And with the Foundry you can turn them on / off, correct?
With ship models, you guys can have them as objects and move them according to the script so it looks like movement is happening. If ship models were available in the ground and interior maps, we could pull this off (minus the object moving).
The only problem I could think of is that this wouldn't be possible with the flat screens of the Odyssey and the Bortas.
New "Foundry" features requested
The below requests are based on experiences from using the "Architect" tool, and "Supergroup bases" in City of Heroes.
1. Allow authors to choose a specific style for each of the following areas; Floors, Walls and Ceilings
This is one feature that I really liked about creating "Supergroup bases" in City of Heroes. Instead of having to create multiple wall props with various styles, you could do away with multiple props, and only have 1 with a customizable style selection.
2. Add new "default layouts" for rooms, specifically shaped as; squares, rectangles, circles, ovals
Specifically, these layouts should be accessable under "Interiors" for map selection. The layouts would be using a default "wall" prop, arranged accordingly to layout style (i.e square, circle, oval etc). Default layout should also include atleast 1 door, and 1 turbolift.
3. Selecting a "wall prop" should allow the option to either include/exclude a visible interactive panel (think Galaxy-style), which in turn could have either Federation, Klingon or "Generic" LCARS.
As a budding Developer myself I am more than familiar with game engine a**hattery.
But since HL2 is an eight year old game at this point, I'm sure every thing about it has been reverse engineered at one point or another (including video textures) so it's not impossible that we could see it in this game. I realize it's not a priority, but since it's not impossible, it should be considered, particularly with an IP that it would fit so well into.
Seriously, if you made this, you could make entire missions based around it, and it could be used to improve half the missions already in game, and improve most of the social zones. So it would be a very worthwhile mechanic once you got around to it.
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/6808/stodeck.jpg
Blocks of room "parts" that you pick from and snap together. Usable doors (blue) that don't connect to something just don't open. A turbolift block can be labeled and you assign which one connect to which etc.
This would open up "room" (get it) for a whole plethora of C-Store items. They could sell by style -- "TNG Room Pack #1" etc. Not only could you use them in your ship interior, but those that buy these packs could also use them in their foundry missions, giving them that little extra flare. So you appeal to two groups that way. Foundry folks will want to have a great looking mission map to entice people to play it and those that want to have the custom interior for their ship will want it as well. You could also allow people to "sell" floor plans -- listing what C-Store packs it uses etc. Those that are so inclined could try to recreate all the decks of a type of ship. People could preview it and buy it.
I think the opportunities are great for all those involved.
But then again, the old fashioned way of doing it isn't bad either.
These pics are a few months old, but this is what I did with making a homebuilt TOS Era Romulan D7 Interior:
D7 Conference Room from TAS (You should see what's behind that Camera.
Romulan D7 Bridge
D7 Engine Room
But that doesn't mean that any/all tech is readily available at our fingertips.
We certainly do benefit from things Neverwinter does, as NW does from us. But each waits for the other to get their stuff in order before trying to adopt it. That, I believe, is the case with NW's Foundry work, which is still going.
I really do not know anything about Foundry Ship Interiors, so I won't comment on that.
Azurian, you keep repeating the things I say, and vice versa. Yes, we can swap out skyfiles, yes, we can hide/unhide geometry (with some limitations). Yes, we could make a viewscreen/window kind of thing that works roughly as you are laying out.
What I keep saying, and you don't seem to be hearing, is that I think that will look/feel wrong.
Which doesn't really matter, as much of this is moot since the things you are laying out would require months of work to hook up, even for just major hubs, on all bridges. Trying to throw communications (other people's ships bridges and people on the new 3d viewscreen) is a herculean effort that would not work well. We would be far better off trying to develop Portal tech that lets us set up a camera somewhere, and project that as a texture onto the screen. But we don't have that, and I can assure you we will not be developing that tech, so please don't go down that road.
My point is, YES a 3d "window" viewscreen is possible. But I don't like it, and it would be so much work that I can't see it happening without a full season of development time devoted solely to revamping Bridges. And I don't see that happening as it's a tricky slope with people who have already spent money on the bridges they have.
The conclusion: ancient peoples had a lot of innovations that were 'ahead' of their time. These innovations did not get carried forwards because the people who created them didn't share the tech they used to make them.
My character Tsin'xing
Hubs? I what I said was only for player bridges.
If you don't want to do it, that's fine. It's your game after all. I just thought it be something worth exploring.
When I find time after all this Winter Event / Season 7 grinding to spend time on the Foundry, I'll throw one together and lets let people decide.
Or, in other words, What geometry are you looking at. I presumed that you were running with this shadowbox/window approach based off of the original viewscreen discussion where the screen would swap to display whatever the last map you were in was. If that's the case, that means there is a ton of variables to account for, and a lot of assets/organization that has to go into it. Vs. if it were a screenshot of the system, or what have you. So even if we ONLY did the major hubs (ESD, DS9, Drozana, whatever), that is still a lot of work.
You can easily have a 2D picture of a system or HUB and have it show accordingly on a viewscreen.
But what I'm talking about is something unique for like a Featured Event, where you are on a bridge, you get a hail, and you talk to that individual without that popup screen. This idea would work for Hubs as long as it was in instanced areas. But for the public, well even I know that's rather complicated.
As I was visiting ESD for the first time in god knows how long, I noticed something interesting. Right there on Earth Space Dock, there is a giant holographic banner in the transporter room that displays it's name. Unlike other holographic displays, this one flickers and is otherwise animated. How was that made? Isn't that the very thing we want?
The "Holographic" look that is so common these days, is achieved by scrolling multiple textures over each other. So, yes, it moves, we basically just tell it how fast to move in what direction.
A modified version of this is used for things like the animated LCARs. Instead of moving at a constant speed, it jumps by some given distance, multiple times. But as I've mentioned before, since it is still one texture, this method is very resolution dependent, and the more frames you want, the less resolution each frame can have.
So, for the case of an animated talking head, the HL2 method involves playing a video (multiple frames in sequence) on a piece of geometry. I could make an animated talking head texture, and put it on the geo, but it would loop infinately, and there is no way to tell it to start at a specific frame and end at a specific frame.
Totally different animals.
Apologies, I thought you were trying to apply that to every bridge, everywhere, with custom viewscreen geo for every map, and with custom comms included.
Yes, doing it once or twice for a featured episode would be much more reasonable, and likely, but would require a fixed, common bridge for your captain to be on (we couldn't take "your" bridge, and apply it custom for each player's personal bridge).
Oooooooooooooh. Okay. Makes sense enough.
I guess now we figure out how to play video on a piece of geometry......
Now you get it!
If it's Episodic Content, you very likely will be traveling to another ship or to a base that you could access the view screen. At least until the tech could be made to add such features for every bridge set. (Perhaps you could start with new bridge sets?)
My approach is a LOT simpler.
Put all the bridges on one map.
When hailing other ships from your bridge, trigger a cutscene of the other character/player's bridge with an NPC costumed like the other player/character. And have UI viewscreen overlay.
I can see quite a few content applications that would have.
I have a pretty strong feeling that is neither simpler nor is it more practical.
Currently the way standard, non-themed ship interiors are built is that all the "choosable" interiors (large, medium, small) are placed on the same map as each "choosable" bridge. That is, each choosable bridge (sans TOS and Belfast sets) has a copy of each type of ship interior included. And we also see how limiting that is ending up. We can't have more variation of ship interiors with this setup without a drastic increase of file size for the map to include all the geometries of all the map parts. Your solution to put all the bridges on the same map would be no different. Every time a new bridge comes out they would have to increase the map size, which would add strain to everyone's machines whenever they wanted to visit their interiors.
A better way would be to implement what seems to be coming with Neverwinter's Foundry: prefabbed rooms that can be attached to custom maps (whether "custom" means player made or Cryptic/system made may be another story). In this case, the bridges being the prefabbed rooms.
As an aside (since this doesn't really depend on interiors), I'd like if hails/PM's were handled in a separate window, with a headshot of the player the communication is between, as if it were a NPC contact window. I'm not sure if they can hook up a chat interface to that UI window though.
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