Development Blog Update - Alien view mode experiments
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
Alien flashlight could utilize some of these ideas. Like toggleable feature.
Also I suppose siege effect and repairing or building could use that.
Or could just go with the sonar thing. It just will pulse for a moment, having a cooldown or something and using energy.
Or maybe when its on, marine steps send out a small shockwave of that light(like ripples when throwing a rock in the water)
Any of the ideas yall had would be great. Some great brainstorming. Can't wait to see some of those effects in game.
Love the idea for its marine implementation.
Scanner sweep thing would be awesome. Maybe leaving an alien highlighted for a second or two after its been swept over.
Ahhh so much potential. Great work!
You should do more of these kind of vids, showing off your workstyle!
Max: "Ah yeah sure, thats easy" haha
Those effects are really fricken cool.
The effect at 5:05 looks really nice.
It was disorienting/eye straining for me though when it was continuously pulsing at the end, so something like 5:05 as a 'constant' thing would be nicer on the eyes.
You could perhaps combine the two though, when you turn on the night vision do the pulse effect that looks sweet, then transition to the effect at 5:05 for example.
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OHH! And!
A marine scanner sweep should have that pulsing effect like the last few minutes of the video, but in a blue shade (for marines) when the commander does a sweep, that would be fricken sweeeeet.
really great stuff.
Allright u know what I am watching it again, Max in my book you are a GOD.
More videos would be very nice!
It'd be great if you could enable a whole bunch of these different options in-game for us to choose from, and then you could get feedback on which ones are most popular and which ones work best.
An Idea: Perhaps the marine scanner sweep could affect a single ENTIRE room. When the commander drops the sweep the marines on the ground see ONE of those big waves envelope the room. Make the wave a techy cyan or deep blue color. A slight haze is left over the whole room that slowly fades away AND any cloaked or otherwise aliens in the room are then detected and glow blue for a short period of time, breaking their stealth and making them easier to see. The glowing blue could be the scanner detecting the aliens and the nanites in the suit assisting the user to find the xenos.
The very essence of a scanner sweep!
I dont know if the waves should be used for the alien night vision. Unless it's treated as ACTUAL sonar and the marines/structures only light up and quickly fade to normal right after the wave hits, but the waves are sent out perhaps... every second?
Otherwise the neat 'cel-shading' outline could be used for a nice looking night vision.
I hope the viewmodels outlines will be more subtle, so they won't be too distracting.
Will marine outlines show through alien viewmodels (eg teeth)? Also, will players show up in different colours to structures?
I like the very first effect for alien vision. I don't think of it as being sonar-based, but rather an amalgam of high sensitivity vision with heat sensitivity too.
I like the last effect, but blue, for scanner sweep. Pulse goes out, highlights edges/removes shadows, then when the sweep expires the second pulse goes out, removing the effect. Or possibly it pulses out repeatedly, but have the effect decay to nothing on its own (but its refreshed by the next wave), don't have the even numbered waves remove the effect.
An Idea: Perhaps the marine scanner sweep could affect a single ENTIRE room. When the commander drops the sweep the marines on the ground see ONE of those big waves envelope the room. Make the wave a techy cyan or deep blue color. A slight haze is left over the whole room that slowly fades away AND any cloaked or otherwise aliens in the room are then detected and glow blue for a short period of time, breaking their stealth and making them easier to see. The glowing blue could be the scanner detecting the aliens and the nanites in the suit assisting the user to find the xenos.
The very essence of a scanner sweep!
I dont know if the waves should be used for the alien night vision. Unless it's treated as ACTUAL sonar and the marines/structures only light up and quickly fade to normal right after the wave hits, but the waves are sent out perhaps... every second?
Otherwise the neat 'cel-shading' outline could be used for a nice looking night vision.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That Idea sounds awesome. I really hope they consider this.
Also the range should just be the normal scanner sweep range.
Edit: Oh wait, the already talked about it. heh
IMO, Aliens should have the first effect as a spotlight ability (continiuous infa-red highlighting effect) .. The last pulsating effect should indeed be a scanner sweep, basically like ChickenOfWar outlined with the added effect that the aliens in the room should also see the pulse when a commander drops a sweep in the room.. will be a big "oh %$#^" moment for any aliens hanging around!
here are some comments about alien vision:
1. Don't make it to much visual appealing, simple is always better
2.don't make anything flicker! during combat it would suck seeing the whole room or part of it move!
the best vision i've seen in this video starts in 1:20 - you see marines, objects and the environment looks creepy.
I only hated the skulks mouth was highlighted, seeing that constantly on your screen during combat will get annoying quickly.
what was the final alien vision selected? and will it be turned on pushing F for flashlight as it should be?
Some coding gods of genius in that room. Loved how casual Matt was in the description of planes.
More videos like this would be brilliant, the community feeds off it and you can get quick dirty feedback.
Awesome stuff, going back to have another watch.
These sorts of videos are a great way to get people interested and keep them excited, keep these up!
For me, it'll be wonderful if the vision mode is a combination of pulse + infared (pulse at intervals to refresh the infared)
I did not really like the idea of the pulsing stuff being the alien flashlight, I prefered the continous one.
Also, if marines get a motion scanner, it could do ripples when something moves, like some other guy said. Basiclly, anything moving gets highlighted and causes the sonar effect to ripple out (fades out really quickly), making the object and its surrounding area visible.
Book of Luns 2:11
King James Version
Awesome stuff Max.
After all we've seen during the week i thought it can't get any better. But UW once again proofs it's awesomeness.
I think the radar styled view is too distracting and not very biological. If the aliens use sonar or some similar way to see in the dark then the pictures they see should be snapshots frequently followed by each other. Imagine walking in a completely dark room illuminated by stroboscopes(maybe you've seen this in a disco already). You see single pictures as you move without the updates in between them. Speaking of the just for fun release,... i think UW MUST do this ;)
I really like the effect at 5:05, although it looks like the room is being lit by light reflected from water.
The effect at the beginning/predator on acid is probably the best for the gameplay (doesn't look so cool though).
That said, why not actually make a "just for fun"/test release where we can try some effects by pressing buttons? The Wolfire guys do that in every alpha.