Fog

Kalabalana

<div class="IPBDescription">Playing around with how we could get fog into the game</div>Imagine marines rushing an alien hive, the room has a thick white low laying blanket of fog on the ground, and every now and then in different areas you can make out glimpses of skulks in the room as they move into position.

Creepy! I only wonder how something like this could be incorporated, and if it should.

Any ideas?

BadMouth

So essentially, hive rooms are dearth traps and marines have no way to survive them. I'd say no.

BlackHawk

I think he means it would add to the feel of the encounter, not a instant death trap

Vman

I feel it would add a good sense to the game. Wondering where the skulks are, albeit it obviously isnt much of a cover for anything bigger. This could help out alot without being cheap if its just centered around the hives 'general' area. No its not a death trap, but it would definitely make someone stop and think before early rushing a hive. I would imagine though that a good quick scan from commander could grant sight through the fog in that area so its not 'too' bad of an Idea. It would be a death trap to some marines with such a death-wish who just wanna rush into the hive alone or in a very small group. It would make taking hives a bit more than a camp-fest as well. Since when an alien dies and respawns they generally would spawn as a skulk. Marines wouldent 'always' know where they are within the hive and It could save the aliens some cheap camping tactics.

WhiteZero

As long as the fog effect is in the engine, it will probably be easy.
The server and/or the mapper would define area cords and set the fog density.

M00_cow

This would probably make DI op, but maybe a small fog could be associated with DI as it slowly creeps forward?

Maybe Fog could be associated with have three hives up and it pisses off when you don't?

Either way, Fog is the kinda thing (along with smoke) that kills FPS, and i hate games where those who have great computers, are at a disadvantage to those who have lesser computers because the people with lesser computers don't have trouble with Fog/smoke because it doesn't look good? Understand what i'm saying here?

I remember back in Cod 2, when you turned off certain features, you could eliminate half of the smoke. It was semi hax.

Bacillus

<!--quoteo(post=1711079:date=Jun 8 2009, 09:02 AM:name=M00_cow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (M00_cow @ Jun 8 2009, 09:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1711079"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I remember back in Cod 2, when you turned off certain features, you could eliminate half of the smoke. It was semi hax.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why any visibility affecting effects are tricky for the competetive play. I'd keep it very map specific at max.

Kalabalana

Ahh Vman, someone who actually understands the game quite well, thank you for your input.


as for the fog implementation and respective fps drops; I'm sure max or flayra could think of good way to incorporate it with a low cpu footprint now that they have their own engine.

Given the min specs for this game, and the overall average system of the 2009 gamer, I think fps shouldn't be an issue.

S!K

I'd say yay on that. It would make it harder for marines, but it would still be sexy. Would add suspense. This would be successful only if you could really tell where movement was on the fog. I dont see how any physics on any game has ever been able to do this successfully to be honest.

Don't think it could happen, but I wish.

FocusedWolf

Yes keep it on the table for mappers wanting to create unique experiences throughout a map (not just the evil hive) but just don't make it so every freekin hive on every freekin server is a fps dropping death dealing room. Or else so help me god i want NS2 turrets to emit a laser "gas" that kills all aliens that enter marine start :P

Hawkeye

Generally speaking, fog shouldn't be too draining of computer resources. It simply adds a calculation to the end pixel color based on how much distance the current ray has been in the fog. I'd like the idea, but I wouldn't want the comm to determine where the hive is simply by finding the fog at the hive site. I think that would be a little tricky to implement, as it is a mapping aspect, not a dynamic entity in the map. The alternative is to always have fog, even when there is no hive there, which strikes me as a little strange. The fog is implied to be produced by the hive, right? I suppose you can have areas of the map in which there's just fog because of a reactor leak or something, but I think that's not what you intended this fog to be about.

Scythe

The hardcore will always find ways around things that obscure visibility. They'll tweak their graphics settings to remove the fog, just like they did to make cloaked skulks visible in 2.0. Either you draw the model or you don't, there's no middle ground that will be effective for all cases.

--Scythe--

Align

just port over smoke.spr, done

RobB

NS 1 was intended to have fog, but the rendering had a bug cutting the silhouette of cloaked aliens out, giving away their position.
obviously has been dropped because of this since the engine couldnt be reprogrammed on this level within a reasonable amount of time / work.

Racer1

I'd like to see fog on the floor of the hive rooms -- just high enough so skulks could be enveloped in it but still see above the fog (since their eyes are high up on their bodies). Preferrably, the fog would be volumetric, and actually leak out of the hive itself, kind of creating a faint fog aura around the hive as the fog falls to the floor. Even if the fog was sprite based, it could still add a bit of atmosphere, if a bit lame.

Presumably, if the NS2 team creates volumetric flamethrowers, they can create volumetric fog.

RobB

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(since their eyes are high up on their bodies)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the viewcam is in their maw.

Avata

i mentioned in another thread the idea of giving the owener of rooms advantages, and fog was one of those.

For instance... There is a room with 2 res nodes in it. This room is an "atmospheric Processing" room. When is has power on, sunroof closes (lights out), the engine starts up, and the room fills with fog, the vents open up, and the main door in and out becomes an airlock (2 doors, neither open at the same time). This means when the humans hold the room, advantage aliens.

Aliens come in, kill everyone, plant DI. Power cuts out, sunroof opens (Lights up!), vents close (no escape, no fog), doors open wide (turns the room into a shooting gallery), fog clears (aliens can't hide). This means that when aliens hold the room, advantage humans.

The opposite can be true of course. Some rooms get designed for holder advantage. Alternatively, in one map, have one room with marine advantage always, and the opposite (or adjacent) room is alien advantage. The map now has 1 room that is easy for your team to hold, and another that's easy for the marines to hold.

And part of that gameplay dynamic is controlled entirely by the presence or absence of fog.

Then Umbra and the acid thing lerks do will hopefully use an update fog style which will look cool... and maybe Gorges could have a squid type ink squirt feature (alien style smoke grenade)