Blog update - A good sign
Max
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Technical Director, Unknown Worlds Entertainment Join Date: 2002-03-15 Member: 318Super Administrators, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
Comments
Please keep the blog updates coming, they just keep getting better <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
All this low-level development you're doing Max turns out to make an excellent read.
PS: "Got comments" isn't linked here.
I know that I most likely cannot stop you, but please consider that you will divide the gaming community when the commander orders the team to move to "Hauptdatenverwaltung" and half of the marines do not know what he is talking about.
I always brought the argument in the labeled mini-map discussion back in the days and look what we have know. When you have a map part that is labeled "computer core" players will accept it after a while, even if they do not know what computer core means. Same goes for marine equipment and alien names. Think of the confusion (especially on european servers, where you might end up with 4 or more different languages used by the players)
One player asks for a jetpack another one for a düsenbündel another one for a busepaquet and a fourth one for a toberafascículo. Let the gorge be a gorge, data storage be data storage and the hive should remain a hive.
Please <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
Oh I can see it now, mappers writing code into their map so when they come on the server it sees their steam id and gives them their own player texture.
EDIT: Some more sensible suggestions
Allow devices eg lifts to be destroyed and the texture change to show it is broken.
Make things that go in and out of water look wet when in water.
Weldables could have their texture change instead of a HUD progress bar.
Sieges change colour when near something they can attack.
This would allow alien texture creep to work as aliens take over an area wouldn't it? Is this still being coded separately?
You could have a small name tag on the hive or chambers to say who built it, so if you look up close you could see who built it.
I'm not sure if I understand everything, but does this mean that you can blend two textures on a model? If so you can go from one texture to another gradually depending on the players damage or state of evolution. Or blend two different color textures to create a third color?Or does it mean that you can swap textures on a model in game?
Although I kinda like the progress bar around objects when you build them you can put this into the texture of the object now...if your not making a whole animation for the buildup, but then you need a another for damage maybe.
Silly idea section:
Textures on weapon barrels could change depending on their temperature. For the typography idea; one could make silly tattoos on the side of the aliens or marine arms. Like kill/victory markings on planes.
Could you have hand held motion sensors like in AvP with this idea?
I'm not sure it's related but I kinda like what they have in Quake where the crosshair changes to red when low on health.
Cheers
I'm not sure if I understand everything, but does this mean that you can blend two textures on a model? If so you can go from one texture to another gradually depending on the players damage or state of evolution. Or blend two different color textures to create a third color?Or does it mean that you can swap textures on a model in game?
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Procedural texture generation... Does this mean that the skins on models could be changed on the fly (which by itself would open the door to all kinds of cool ideas), ingame without having to reload the map? That is, if I'm understanding it correctly.
The one thing i'm worried about all the client side scripting is security. Could you modify game elements to your own advantage? would this make hacking easier? (not that people wouldn't find a way to hack anyway)
How is scriptability limited? Instead of combining a face texture, a body texture and skin hue modifier, can you, for example, turn a skulk into a neon glowing skulk with a bullseye printed on it?
Of course these are all possible even if NS2 were not using a scripting language, but I don't want it to be exploited simply by altering a few variables in a text file.
I know that I most likely cannot stop you, but please consider that you will divide the gaming community when the commander orders the team to move to "Hauptdatenverwaltung" and half of the marines do not know what he is talking about. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, this sounds like a big problem. Nearly every European player knows enough english so that he/she can play the game without any problems. Not to mention, that in some countries people don't even like to localize the programs they use into their native language (I, for example, prefer using english windows xp instead of finnish localized version). Dates, time displays etc are nice to be localized, but not too much. Keep place names in english, don't localize them!
And other thing regarding to NS2TR: It seems that you are releasing the NS2TR with the scripting features available for trying different customisations, is that true, Max? If so, could you consider that advanced players (who know programming) could implement some small and nice features and if they are good enough, you could import them into the final game?
I, for example, would love to implement a macro teamsay feature, where you could create macros like "bind q say_team Need medpack, got h% health", where %h would be replaced with your current healt. I bought this as an example about a small feature which some player have been missing for a long time and is willing to implement for free of charge and which you could then copy-paste into the final NS2 or just leave it if it doesn't fit. You could got a bunch of usefull features for minimum work. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
- Garo, From Finland
I imagine though there'd be some kinda performance ceiling on all this stuff? I mean, scripting isn't exactly known for being fast! I was reading the other day about Pirates of the Burning Sea how they used Lua in the beginning, but they've now removed it all because it was really hurting performance.
Anyways, I'm a complete sucker for having UI on in-game objects. I hope you do things like ammo counters on the guns or having the HUD projected up onto a surface on the inside of the helmet or something, Halo 3-style.
Oh, and maybe having things like the option menus on walls when you load the game up. Kinda like the ready room on steroids. Load the game up and it drops you straight into the game world, and you join servers and things by walking over to a wall which has the server browser on it.
or thanks to aligarto?
I dont know prahaps if players wished to go in and edit each sign then fine it says KSHKSLIEKDK to the leet speaking noob but since i havent adjusted my sign it still say com core?
as per the topic tho texture's altered by enviroment OMFG YES CLIMAX
the texture from going in water to comeing out of water to drying, textures from aliens regening from chared flame throw fire, textures of bullet holes sealing up as a fade metabolises, just the amount of health and healing having a direct effect on how rapidly these wounds recover.
Could you have a dynamic rust over lay that changes form same tiled texture to same tiled texture so no two panels looks the same even tho their base texture is idential, NO MORE TILED BS that has to be contnuously broken up by takey stuck spot terrain obstical's. Imagine a full square bare corridor with the same tiled texture where every inch is unquiely over layed and continously exciting.
Could these base texture also be effected and altered by say direct flame from a flame thrower, depending on the matieral of course, surface fire that smoulders and leaves a black char mark which evently flakes off. gg naplam.
Slippary heal spray over lay textures that acctuly alters the surface proparies forceing a rine to stear with his mouse like a drunk man, trying to shoot halusinations of sulks, aiming to far right and sliping left on spit and bile from the gorge he just wasted?
Haveing a direct heal spray or direct bile bomb hit a marine tiriggering a slime texture over lay like egor and bicker man from ghost buster, the texture over lay actively triggering a DOT effect of pain as the bile eats the armor and a new texture over lay show a pain stricken face in angwish as the rine still trys to stand up with a HUD overlayed in snot.
Dents and scratch marks, randomly chosen textures over layed across the surface of marine structures to match the current damage type...
Could a sort of bump map effect texture be overlayed, would it then have a corisponding specular map. Structures apearing dented and mangled when acctuly its a cleaver use of real time generated sprits and texture, over lays.
Cracks on safety glass seeping liquid, trails from aliens and rines leaveing stired dust paths as there MP boots clank across the smooth steel plated surfaces, your a rine croutched in the courner you take out sevral sulks your running low on ammo your hud needs to be wiepd from green blood. Blood all around you, you stand up there is a croutched marine sillowette in the courner where no blood has been splatered, your buddie looks at you and goes you knows your rather bright.
A room drained with water, the the lvl of the once water was, dews down the wall.
A radius a area in cold deep space rines have a aura if in a area to long textures marked as glass or steel props begin to form condensation tiggered by hte marine aura.
I know we dont want marine/human blood or gore but I mean serious the T-een rating, with no blood and gore 8 years ago is not the teen rating of today, with blood gore and spit vomit, leaking naplam fuel, you could go a long way with over lays, not so much to some people likeing but if aliens have green blood, rines should at least have the normal red blood fer say.
Honoustly textures aside rines are not the most silent of creatures your a couple of hundred pounds with at least 30kg on you of equipment in millatry GP's your going to make a ###### ton of sound when you jog thru a map of not securely welded down steel plates and griding. The occational burp, fat, gun reload magazine drop stray uncollceted exspelled brace casing rattleing down a down hill slop. Your leaning against or touching a wall, you may bump it with a solid steel gun. Your Soilder a marine your not a ninja stealth assassin. On topic, but keeping with the minor topic I just brought up
marines are pritty harty soilders, they litter, they ocationaly spit, but what about the not so iron guted marine. You just blew the head of a sulk its insides stink, whats the odds of you waiting around in that area and possable throwing up at the stench as it just happens to hit a nerv. not so pritty is it nice texture over lay. a lot of noise, sounds Kharaa can hear.
Dead alien chambers seeping goo textures as well as a mangled chamber. Dead sulks with a few extra shot gun rounds blasted into them quite simply become a puddle of bacterious the slides nicely thru alpha mapped area's like grates and so on. Hive just got seiged not only did it take over lay texture damage but on its final exsplosion the partical sprite effect were ever it lands add a event to the partical to add hive bacterium debree texture over lay as the infestation slowly begins to subside from the surounding coridors.
Prolly none of these are possable but heres a rusted pipe texture, Its got a dust layer that took a bit of work with boot foot prints, its has quite a few layers. The dust would be similar to how I think rines foot prints and so on could looks with texture over lays.
<img src="http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/180/a/2/Big_rusty_pipe_texture_by_NEX17.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
The procedural texture thing is really incredible. And since you can script anything in the maps, I wouldn't be surprised to see Tetris and Pac-Man on the monitors in the ready rooms <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
I agree with the localization thing. Localization should be global for all players on one server so if you join a Danish server, you would expect either Danish or English. (Though I think most danes prefer the game in English <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />)
I agree with the localization thing. Localization should be global for all players on one server so if you join a Danish server, you would expect either Danish or English. (Though I think most danes prefer the game in English <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />)
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Would this not create problems with having to learn multiple names for the same area? Playing on one server where the room has name X and another server where the room has the name Y. In NS, there are many of the location names in one of the text files for lables (I forget the name). I think at one point they were considering localizing the names but decided against it.
Would this not create problems with having to learn multiple names for the same area? Playing on one server where the room has name X and another server where the room has the name Y. In NS, there are many of the location names in one of the text files for lables (I forget the name). I think at one point they were considering localizing the names but decided against it.
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Have you ever felt like a thread is going around in circles? I definitely have.
Perhaps make an attempt at a similar algorithm for cracks spiderwebbing across a window.
*Mouse thinks happy thoughts*
I know that I most likely cannot stop you, but please consider that you will divide the gaming community when the commander orders the team to move to "Hauptdatenverwaltung" and half of the marines do not know what he is talking about.
I always brought the argument in the labeled mini-map discussion back in the days and look what we have know. When you have a map part that is labeled "computer core" players will accept it after a while, even if they do not know what computer core means. Same goes for marine equipment and alien names. Think of the confusion (especially on european servers, where you might end up with 4 or more different languages used by the players)
One player asks for a jetpack another one for a düsenbündel another one for a busepaquet and a fourth one for a toberafascículo. Let the gorge be a gorge, data storage be data storage and the hive should remain a hive.
Please <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
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Good point Faskalia. I think it would be worth distinguishing between locations and signage for just this reason. Maybe location names are listed on the HUD and/or minimap and the signs are just for flavor?
I wonder if we could put decals on players this way too? For instance, a script could make Constellation members have a special crest on the back of their helmet?
This is a common problem with game entities and textures and an excellent solution.
I can even picture game state triggering changes through map or control room.
To express either aggitation or success
1 hive equals black background "Stabilizing..."
2 hives equals yellow warning signs
3 hives equals red evacuation signs
But with all these ideas spewing out ...
I wonder if you should cap or cache some of these scripts execution.
ie RunOnce or 1 msec to run or RunWhentriggered.
I have some concern with these getting out of control since they would execute before a rendering pass??
(I am guessing)
Maybe you guys should achieve running prototype before experimenting too much.
That way you can have performance comparisons between builds.
or maybe you already have this base....and I worry too much :-)
Keep up the good work!
Good point Faskalia. I think it would be worth distinguishing between locations and signage for just this reason. Maybe location names are listed on the HUD and/or minimap and the signs are just for flavor?
I wonder if we could put decals on players this way too? For instance, a script could make Constellation members have a special crest on the back of their helmet?
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Would it be possible to put the players names on their uniform, proper marine style? Or bandages for those who have needed a lot of med packs? It would be cool to see some kind of change in structures when they are damaged. Will the Dynamic Infestation also have a texture change when it is damaged?
I also agree with the language point. What do you do as a commander if half your marines are speaking different languages and don’t understand where you want them to go or are telling you they see the aliens in some place that isn’t on your map. Also what happens if people (Maybe a French or Spanish player) look at the signs (In French or Spanish) and see it’s their own language and type that place name as where the aliens are, and then half the other players on the team have no idea where that place is because they have an English Mini map and see all the signs in English.
Maybe the language change should be a server setting, so if (for example) you have a Spanish server you can set everything to be Spanish and that way you can cater for those Spanish players who might get fed up of having to read English all the time. Then anyone who comes onto your server will just have to learn Spanish or copy the names of the places letter by letter when using team say or say.
It happens already, without any name changes, when you are on (say) a French server, everyone else will be speaking French and you just have to deal with it or go away, it doesn’t stop you playing the game, it just stops you playing as a team player. I live in the UK, so I get this from time to time when I just pick a server without thinking about where it might be.
So I personally think that a server with mixed language place names would be way to complex for commanders and players alike; give servers the option to set a language (which makes all players who join that server see the same language) but don’t give that option to the player. That way every player plays on the same field with the same names for each goal and everyone else just has to learn the lingo.
The issue of cheating by modifying scripts has come up a few times on the forums. This isn't a problem since the server will check to make sure you aren't running modified scripts when you join. Making all of the Skulks bright pink via a script isn't really any different than making them all bright pink by copying over the original texture map, but we'll probably always enforce consistency for scripts.
There are some interesting suggestions in this thread. The only caveat is that you wouldn't want to use this mechanism on all of the walls or anything like that since that would require it to create a unique texture map for each. The textures are also tied to materials, which means you'd have to have a separate material applied to each wall as well. If you're interested in some of the details of how those materials are setup, I just added a new type of <a href="http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Material_Proxies" target="_blank">material proxy</a> where you specify a script function to execute during the update.
I'm not worried about the performance of the procedural textures. My original approach was to generate them in software and then transfer the data to the graphics card, but by making a few modifications to Source I was able to get it all hardware accelerated. I also included a flag so that if something isn't going to be changing during the course of the game so that it only gets generated once. I may make a few more optimizations, but I don't think this is going to be something that will really affect performance.
Good point Faskalia. I think it would be worth distinguishing between locations and signage for just this reason. Maybe location names are listed on the HUD and/or minimap and the signs are just for flavor?
I wonder if we could put decals on players this way too? For instance, a script could make Constellation members have a special crest on the back of their helmet?
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Speaking of decals on armor, I think an extension of this would be to create distinct insignias for each squad and place it somewhere on the character. For instance, Squad 5's insignia could be <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tsa.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::tsa::" border="0" alt="tsa.gif" /> and could be changed on the fly depending on what squad the individual was in. It's great to think about the extra capabilities of such a system. An evolving environment would be criminally good and would suit NS in such a spectacular manner.
I'm assuming this generates the possiblity of actually manifesting what was typically the UI onto a physical manifestation in game?
Nanite-created bandages for the heavily wounded sounds awesome though.
Does that mean that "stuff" other than just textures could be dynamically generated and altered within the course of a round?
<i>...hooking directly into the material system...</i>
Does that mean that "stuff" other than just textures could be dynamically generated and altered within the course of a round?
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If you can think of something that is a material but isn't a texture, you're totally welcome to dynamically create it <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />