Skulk Wall-Walking View

Matto · December 2006

<div class="IPBDescription">umop 3p!sdn</div>I think for NS2 it would be awesome that when a skulk <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skulk.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::skulk::" border="0" alt="skulk.gif" /> climbs on a wall not only does the world model change, but the player's view changes as well. Say, if you climbed onto a wall, and the whole world would look like its turning until you were on the floor and everyone was walking on the walls. If you were on the ceiling, everything would look upside down.

This would seem disorienting at first, but it would look cool and realistic. I think it would also make walking around on walls and ceilings easier.

However I do not know which of these (below) would suit NS best, as I have only played for a week.
<ul><li>When you jump/leap/let go of a wall, the view spins back to normal view. If you jump from wall to wall, you spin back to normal and then to side view as you touch the other wall. </li><li>When you jump/leap/let go your view stays as the last surface you touched until you land on a different one.</li></ul>
What do you think of this idea? Also, which of the above would you rather have? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />

DoloresHaze · December 2006

you mean like in Alien vs. Predator game ? I'm pretty sure there was already one topic about that. It's hard to decide if this should be implemented to NS. What more, I think it would require more work from mappers.

But on the other hand, man it would be cool <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> i always liked the games where you had no limitations in moving (f.e. Descent)

Mentar · December 2006

Yeah, there was another thread on this already and the general consensus was that it would be to disorienting

Crotalus · December 2006

To tell you thr truth, it wasn't all that disorientating in the original AvP game. The wall walking aspect of the Alien was actually kinda cool, and it really wasn't hard to get used to changing angle views at all. If anything, it actually helped some times. The key thing that needs to be done if this feature were to be implemented in NS2 would have to be smooth camera movement. If it is too jerky, then it will be annoying. For a really good example of how it would work, you should try the AvP game and play the Aliens. It works surprisingly well and is pretty intuitive.

Thaldarin · December 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoloresHaze @ Dec 13 2006, 10:59 AM) [snapback]1587930[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
you mean like in Alien vs. Predator game ? I'm pretty sure there was already one topic about that. It's hard to decide if this should be implemented to NS. What more, I think it would require more work from mappers.

But on the other hand, man it would be cool <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> i always liked the games where you had no limitations in moving (f.e. Descent)
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How exactly would it require more work from mappers when this is a coding aspect of the game? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />

Mentar · December 2006

because just consider when you're walking accross a wall that a mapper has spent alot of time making look pretty with complex geometry made up of 5 dozen angles and curves.

You'll be trying to navigate your way up the wall with your perspective changing every half a second because the geometry you're walking on is rather complex.

I'd love to see you try and wallwalk accross a ceiling that was made using a displacement with your perspective constantly shifting to match the angle of the particular spot you're sitting on.

If they made your perspective change to match the surface you're attached too then mappers will either have to abandon lots of sharp changes in their geometry or pad them all with clipnodes.

DumbMarine · December 2006

<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=3776674990110656512&showtopic=99048" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....showtopic=99048</a>

Crotalus · December 2006

Honestly, stop bringing up dead posts. If we try to revive it, people like you will yell at us for it. If we make a new thread based on a dead one, you will yell at us to bring up the old dead one. So be quiet. The old thread is dead, not alot of people will really be reading it. We need to keep the threads going unless we want them to be forgotten.

I would imagine there would be some way around this. I remember that AvP seemed to have been able to achieve wall walking perspective very well, and it wasn't simple wall geometry either. I don't know, I think we should study AvP and see how they did it and figure out what we could do?

Matto · December 2006

Well, say if the mapper made small columns all along the wall, perhaps if they are too small for the skulk to fit on it you could walk straight over it; rather like walking up a stair in game.

RuBy · December 2006

The only way I can see it being usable is if certain surfaces of the map are assigned variables such as "floor", "wall" or "ceiling" which would translate in a shift in perspective. That is, independent of the topography and supposing all "walls" are vertical your view would simply by shifted to accommodate the entire surface regardless of ridges, ledges and such cosmetic additions.

I don't know if that was clear but essentially there would only be 3 possible perspectives, dependent solely upon the general orientation of the surface. That seems like a lot of work though...

scaryface · December 2006

I think the official response from a long while back from someone whose opinion mattered was that it is possible, and was considered for NS1 but in certain situations would become disorienting: for example, when a skulk is in a narrow vent, the orientation would change constantly since the skulk would repeatedly change the surface it is running on. Also, whoever-it-was said that an algorithm could probably be written to even out the perspective changes, but that the team didn't feel like doing it at the time because it would be time consuming (or something like that)

Anyway, I'm all for this in NS2 at least as an option.

Matto · December 2006

I noticed some people are trying to do something like this for gmod10, but that's with LUA. Source uses C++ doesn't it?
Anyway I think they were making some progress, but it was different- they were trying to make a planet map, and then get the player's view to move as they walk around it.

Mystiqq · December 2006

The AvP way of "wall-walking" is pretty difficult to master. Ive played all the AvP games and i played a bit week ago and the wall walking was tricky at start. I noticed that only when the view changed quickly it got disorientating as you couldnt make up which direction it changed to. A smooth transition between view changes is a must or it gets extremely disorientating very quickly. Not to mention that having some direction indicators just like in AvP is pretty helpful, however, for some reason they used two identical arrows for "up and down", so sometimes there was no way of knowing which way was up and which down.

I prefer the AvP way because it makes more sence and it works just fine in AvP. Yes, its not easy but hey, you live and you learn. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

I would be pretty disappointed if they didnt include the AvP style movement, at least as viable working option to choose. Some might not like it but ive got plenty of experience from AvP to say that it works if done right. Anyways, the maps will need "special" attention because of wall-walking anyways, so im not sure how that would be considered an extra burden for mappers.

I dont want to sound like a AvP fanboy but the fact is, ive not seen any other game do the alien "wall-walking" better than how AvP has done it.

Max · December 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(scaryface @ Dec 14 2006, 01:03 AM) [snapback]1588271[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'>
I think the official response from a long while back from someone whose opinion mattered was that it is possible, and was considered for NS1 but in certain situations would become disorienting: for example, when a skulk is in a narrow vent, the orientation would change constantly since the skulk would repeatedly change the surface it is running on. Also, whoever-it-was said that an algorithm could probably be written to even out the perspective changes, but that the team didn't feel like doing it at the time because it would be time consuming (or something like that)

Anyway, I'm all for this in NS2 at least as an option.
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That's pretty close, although we didn't pursue view rotation past the early "proof of concept" stage because we didn't think that it would ever be good enough to surpass the existing non-rotating view. I'll have to see if Charlie still has a video of view rotation in NS though, since we did have something that worked in general.

The main deciding factor for not continuing with the view rotation actually was AvP. Even though AvP has a great implementation of wall walking, it can be disorienting and doesn't always behave the way you expect it to (the narrow vent is a good example I experiment with a bunch in AvP).

Our assumption was that designers probably had to do a bit of work in creating maps (possibly adding hints to the engine) to make the wall walking work well as it does, plus some good programming behind that. In NS lots of maps had already been created and it wasn't feasible for us to retrofit those to a new system. Plus making NS maps is hard enough and we didn't want to complicate it further. Since it seemed that the best we could hope for was something inferior to AvP, we decided there was no point in continuing down that path.

View rotation is something that's still on the table for NS2, although I think a lot of the original arguments still hold. As a stand alone game we do have the advantage this time around of being able to modify the engine, so it may be possible. We're only going to include it in NS2 if we can make it work perfectly though.

Max

Khaze · December 2006

I would absolutely love a feature like this. I played AvP2 actively for 5 years, and then crossing over to NS skulk wallwalk was... disorienting. You really had no way of telling if you were in the floor, the wall or the ceiling when moving near the corners of the map. Knowing this is, IMO, vital since your character model could be pointing out from behind a corner, and you're thinking you're completely hidden.

The AvP style wallwalk can be disorienting for people who don't play it much, but it only takes a week or even less to get fully adjusted to it, that's the same time as mastering Fade blink/swipe/blink or fighting as a Lerk while flying!

And of course the AvP style of wallwalking would make it much, much easier for skulks to move on to 90 degree angles upwards. It's very tricky to try and cross over from a ceiling to a vertical surface when the surface is above you.

Anyways, my two cents, for what it's worth.

Skulk Wall-Walking View

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