Alien Cloaking : Chameleon style

Gregzenegair · July 2009

Hi there,

The purpose is : instead of having aliens cloaked and appearing semi transparent when cloaked, wouldn't be better to have them still looking solid, but with the texture of the wall behind them drawn upon their skin (like chameleons do)?

I know it would require a post treatment to the image that should be more complicated to make than the usual transparent models, but it would be much more realisitic and looking cool to have solid skin imitation of what's behind aliens.

Harimau · July 2009

I agree entirely. I made this suggestion in some other thread (don't remember where) some time ago.

Gregzenegair · July 2009

Right, you shortly posted it into the Official twitter discussion topic.

But I made a new thread into Ideas and Suggestion to be enlighten.

Hawkeye · July 2009

You don't know the half of what's involved to do something like that. There's a good reason why you don't see this effect in any video games out there now. It would take an insane amount of time to understand how to do something which is pretty much done already by simply cloaking the model. Then you run into issues of being between the wall and the floor and creating an algorithm which determines which it should base itself on to make the skin, all on the basis of how they would be viewed from a third point of view. Stuff like that can be done, but it's a bit like asking for the kind of graphics only ray tracer could provide but in real time. The point is that if it were as simple as that, it would have already been done, believe me. Most modern games use a graphics engine which utilizes a series of tricks to make it more realistic but yet quick to render. Rendering something that would take at least a full second to even understand *how* to render the skin to make an alien look camoflauge much less actually carry through with it is completely out of the question.

We're talking from a theoretical point of view of course. In a more practical sense, I wouldn't want ns2 to be delayed just for something like that, as neat as I think it would be if it worked well.

Daworm · July 2009

Unfortunately due to the pervasive ness of nanites, Chameleon cloaking is rendered useless.

Why? All I can say is

Nanites

Gregzenegair · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hawkeye @ Jul 10 2009, 12:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1716703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>You don't know the half of what's involved to do something like that.</div>

Right, I know it would be harder to render ... But I though it could be feasable without need of raytracing and such complexity things, just a post treatment of the 3D model where you apply directly on the texture what it is behind the alien... in fact ray tracers ...

Ok so cloaking in NS2 will stay as it was in NS1.

PS : what are those nanites exactly, everybody talks about nanites like it is the godness thing ever. what are abilities of nanites ? Any thread ?

locallyunscene · July 2009

It would look cool but it would be strictly worse for Kharaa. Cloaking was changed to 95%, but you cloaked faster, for a short time(meaning you were 95% transparent at highest level of cloaking). Surprisingly this made cloaking near useless with just this gentle nerf and i think the same would happen for any partial cloak.

Avata · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hawkeye @ Jul 10 2009, 06:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1716703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>There's a good reason why you don't see this effect in any video games out there now.</div>

FALSE

Metal Gear Solid 4 (the latest one anyway) has just this type of player driven camoflague. It's hardly rocket science, and no raytracing is nessesary... different textures in wall and floors would conflict, but that can be made the players problem. Also, infested areas would likely only have one texture type, giving aliens a home ground advantage, and making cloaking less effective in marine powered areas.

Crysis had a neat solution too, but this is an advanced version of NS1 cloaking, not what the OP is talking about.

ryknow69 · July 2009

Nanites is the excuse the Team uses to explain everything, why bullets don't hurt marines and so on.

sinbu · July 2009

That's true that MGS4 (Metal gear solid) had it, but even on multiplayer, the Snake character would be cloaked as well based on how camoflagued he is. If it said 90%, he would have the colour of the texture and be 90% cloaked online from the other player's perspectives

FocusedWolf · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hawkeye @ Jul 10 2009, 06:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1716703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>You don't know the half of what's involved to do something like that. There's a good reason why you don't see this effect in any video games out there now. It would take an insane amount of time to understand how to do something which is pretty much done already by simply cloaking the model. Then you run into issues of being between the wall and the floor and creating an algorithm which determines which it should base itself on to make the skin, all on the basis of how they would be viewed from a third point of view. Stuff like that can be done, but it's a bit like asking for the kind of graphics only ray tracer could provide but in real time. The point is that if it were as simple as that, it would have already been done, believe me. Most modern games use a graphics engine which utilizes a series of tricks to make it more realistic but yet quick to render. Rendering something that would take at least a full second to even understand *how* to render the skin to make an alien look camoflauge much less actually carry through with it is completely out of the question.

We're talking from a theoretical point of view of course. In a more practical sense, I wouldn't want ns2 to be delayed just for something like that, as neat as I think it would be if it worked well.</div>

Wait couldn't this be accomplished with some sort of shader.

How about if a skulks skin was transparent in some areas where the non-visible body parts on his back-non-visible side where clipped so you couldn't look through the skulk and see any other part of him... just the wall behind. So the parts that aren't transparent could be "edges" of its body... it would make for one very very trippy looking stealth skulk (wouldn't see much when it's flying at you lol)...

Daworm · July 2009

FW - I had to read that three times to figure out what meant and have to say...

... no.

Why?
Nanites prevent noclip view on objects...

PhiXX · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Jul 10 2009, 04:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1716735"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>It would look cool but it would be strictly worse for Kharaa. Cloaking was changed to 95%, but you cloaked faster, for a short time(meaning you were 95% transparent at highest level of cloaking). Surprisingly this made cloaking near useless with just this gentle nerf and i think the same would happen for any partial cloak.</div>
quoted because that's exactly how I'm feeling about the cloak ability.

Avata · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Jul 10 2009, 10:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1716735"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>It would look cool but it would be strictly worse for Kharaa. Cloaking was changed to 95%, but you cloaked faster, for a short time(meaning you were 95% transparent at highest level of cloaking). Surprisingly this made cloaking near useless with just this gentle nerf and i think the same would happen for any partial cloak.</div>

Problem is that while 95% is near useless... 100% is unbalanced. MT then balances it again by making it nearly useless.

There must be a middle ground somewhere

locallyunscene · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Avata @ Jul 14 2009, 08:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717256"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Problem is that while 95% is near useless... 100% is unbalanced. MT then balances it again by making it nearly useless.

There must be a middle ground somewhere</div>
I agree for the most part, but I don't think changing the transparency will improve things because it's been tried. Either you're invisible or you're not. If you're not invisible, then it doesn't seem to work well enough. If you are invisible, it doesn't really matter <i>how</i> you're invisible because no one can see you.

FocusedWolf · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Daworm @ Jul 14 2009, 12:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717241"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>FW - I had to read that three times to figure out what meant and have to say...

... no.

Why?
Nanites prevent noclip view on objects...</div>

Now i remember where i saw this.

HalfLife 2 does it... i remember when i was working with the sdk to make a view model weapon... i found that if i didn't export the model with the normals facing outward... that when i viewed it in the model viewer (or in the game) that it would not be possible to see that portion of the model. Only when you were looking at the polygon face where the normal faced out could it be visible.

Therefore just have a model of a skulk right... you make it so the normals point out on all faces... and then you punch some transparent holes in the models texture / skin / material (which ever you call it) .... then when you view the skulk... it would be possible to look through it unobstructed because no part of the skulk body / skin could be viewed through that hole (even visible areas of the skin would be invisible).. (this would require the game engine to not render faces that have their normals facing in a direction which is not perpendicular to you... it probably does this anyway to enable certain lighting effects...or as a general engine optimization)

That should accomplish the desired effect... with no insane processing required... Halflife 2 can do this right now i believe. Yes it can... actually... you just have to configure the conversion of the materials that needed to be transparent in areas with some commands (i did it with big batch file that automated it all :P) and then you can have a reddot where the dot is visible but the "glass" isn't... not to be confused with hl2 rendered scopes that have some zoom...

It's even possible to not have totally transparent holes, but somewhere between visible and not (HL2 can do this atleast... i forget if you had to use some shade of gray to influence the alpha of the transparency or what...)

Avata · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (locallyunscene @ Jul 14 2009, 10:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Either you're invisible or you're not. If you're not invisible, then it doesn't seem to work well enough. If you are invisible, it doesn't really matter <i>how</i> you're invisible because no one can see you.</div>

As I mentioned in another thread, this is just lack of imagination on your part...

<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O3F0fH5AGXQ/SKTZwzoUZhI/AAAAAAAADNg/ZE_HcULaUrw/s400/predator+invisible_light-bending+cloaker.jpg" target="_blank">Example of "invisible but still detectable"</a>

<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9178/DirectX-Comparison--style--border--2px-solid---width--300px--height--244px-.jpg?1241332133" target="_blank">Screenshot of the same effect done in the Half-Life 2 engine by applying "water" to the human model</a> (Bottom middle and bottom right frames)

This WILL still need to be tweaked, because the raw example of HL2 doing transparency with light refraction is a bit too subtle. You might have to exagurate the light refraction effect bit by bit to find a nice balance between "so close to hidden it's not funny" and "omg there's obviously something standing there"

The beauty of this "Light refracting invisibility" is that it's hard to see when no one is moving (As in the screenshot) but as soon as the observer or subject moves... the distortion is apparant, and you know there's something there. Just like in the predator movies...

It works on so many levels that NS1 tries to solve in other ways and fails.

Imagine this: In NS1, the first level of cloak is MOSTLY visible. In NS2, using <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9178/DirectX-Comparison--style--border--2px-solid---width--300px--height--244px-.jpg?1241332133" target="_blank">this technique demonstrated in HL2</a>, you could make the 1st level of cloaking 100% invisible... but exagurated the light refraction, so that a skulk (for instance) distorts the image behind him so much that it <a href="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~liku/courses/cse781/final781/sphere_refr.jpg" target="_blank">looks more like this</a>, even more dramatic than that. Even at a "magnifying glass" like transparancy, a cloak would still be useful for dim rooms and dark corners, and even useful as long as the room has no straight lines (Nearly impossible to do with NS1's polygon count, more likely with Ns2's polygon counts)

For each level of cloaking advancement, the refraction diminishes, and the player naturally becomes less obvious. The light will always refract to some degree, but the more powerful the cloak, the more range the player has, being effective in more and more places.. while always giving the marine a visual clue to look out for even if it isn't totally obvious. Because it's a realistic method, you can add balance in so many ways. Are aliens TOO effective in the dark?? Well then increase the reflective property of the cloaked model... Now when you shine a flashlight at a cloaked alien, <a href="http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~liku/courses/cse781/final781/venus_refl_refr.jpg" target="_blank">it will look glassy</a>. Are they too hard to spot when moving? Well then either turn off cloaking (boring but practical) or make it less effective by increasing the refraction when moving, or increase specular levels, making them look like a ghost when moving, or decrease transparency slightly, making them still cloaked in the middle, but <a href="http://rise.sourceforge.net/images/old_gallery/cornell_dispersion.png" target="_blank">giving an outline shadow to spot</a>. (Subtle in this example, might want to be exagurated for the purposes of the game. Again, all a matter of just tweaking values)

Granted, some of the images I've used as examples are created using hard core ray-tracing engines and more. But the basic effect is acheivable with the HL2 engine and DirectX 8 upwards (Obviously 9 is better, and 10 is better still). But keep in mind also, these examples were created with "realism" in mind. It's easy to tweak material settings to make some aspects stand out and other aspects disappear to balance game play.

All of the examples here are a type of cloaking that litterally makes you invisible, but you can still be seen and shot at because your presense is noticible... Especially in well lit rooms, and dramatically when you're moving, and this is all without introducing motion tracking or turning off cloaking when you move... It just works that way naturally.

Cereal_KillR · July 2009

The main reason why 95% was changed to 100% was mostly the fact that it favored certain players and not all. Some could barely see the cloaked unit, while for others it clearly stood out.

I'm hoping that passing to NS2 will make for a better cloaking solution. Having an Onos perfectly invisible while staying in the middle of Holoroom is plain silly. Ideally, I think that cloaking should only help smaller lifeforms, be very useful for ambushing, but horribly inefficient without planning.

homicide · July 2009

Might consider giving the effect to all skulks within dynamic infestation (no upgrade required).

Harimau · July 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Avata @ Jul 15 2009, 10:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717425"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>As I mentioned in another thread, this is just lack of imagination on your part...

<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O3F0fH5AGXQ/SKTZwzoUZhI/AAAAAAAADNg/ZE_HcULaUrw/s400/predator+invisible_light-bending+cloaker.jpg" target="_blank">Example of "invisible but still detectable"</a>

<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9178/DirectX-Comparison--style--border--2px-solid---width--300px--height--244px-.jpg?1241332133" target="_blank">Screenshot of the same effect done in the Half-Life 2 engine by applying "water" to the human model</a> (Bottom middle and bottom right frames)

This WILL still need to be tweaked, because the raw example of HL2 doing transparency with light refraction is a bit too subtle. You might have to exagurate the light refraction effect bit by bit to find a nice balance between "so close to hidden it's not funny" and "omg there's obviously something standing there"

The beauty of this "Light refracting invisibility" is that it's hard to see when no one is moving (As in the screenshot) but as soon as the observer or subject moves... the distortion is apparant, and you know there's something there. Just like in the predator movies...

It works on so many levels that NS1 tries to solve in other ways and fails.</div>
Wow. I like that.

Wafflewarrior7 · August 2009

Yeah! maybe they could add like a halo effect for the cloaking, so you see a slight blur, not the inside of the model.

NeoSniper · August 2009

personally I'm fine with the 100% cloak. For the transition or partially cloaked effect when moving too fast I'd like the TF2 cloaked spy effect that your teammates can see..

Sewlek · September 2009

some time ago in NS1 cloaking was only 99% (or less im not sure about numbers anymore), and it was almost completely useless. The "pros" always had seen their enemies (gamma hack) and SC has never been chosen as first chamber. Cloaking is useless if you can detect your enemy without using special abilitys (like scan)

Sumo-Soldier · September 2009

i just hope its not like other games where cloaked players still have a clearly visible shadow LOL.

RobB · September 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Schimmel @ Sep 1 2009, 12:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1725754"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>some time ago in NS1 cloaking was only 99% (or less im not sure about numbers anymore), and it was almost completely useless. The "pros" always had seen their enemies (gamma hack) and SC has never been chosen as first chamber. Cloaking is useless if you can detect your enemy without using special abilitys (like scan)</div>

Powerstrip ruined NS1 and cloaking. Because of the Powercheaters maps where well lit since those could even see in pitchblack areas without light.

MuYeah · September 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Sep 1 2009, 12:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1725762"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Powerstrip ruined NS1 and cloaking. Because of the Powercheaters maps where well lit since those could even see in pitchblack areas without light.</div>

Powerstrip provides no usable advantage to those with a high quality monitor and using the highest possible gamma and brightness settings (which are both locked within a low range anyway..)

Powerstrip allows anyone with a worse quality monitor to up their settings and become equal to the first set of players I mentioned.

RobB · September 2009

negative. I had only a low to mediocore computer and monitor and was still able to kill people in the mentioned area WITHOUT powerstrip, both as alien and marine.

but powerstripers where able to see me there because they cranked up the gamma on the fly with ease and could see in pitchblack, they said it themselfs. usualy you are forced to use your flashlight, but they didnt need to.

Dead-Inside · September 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Avata @ Jul 15 2009, 03:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1717425"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>As I mentioned in another thread, this is just lack of imagination on your part...

<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_O3F0fH5AGXQ/SKTZwzoUZhI/AAAAAAAADNg/ZE_HcULaUrw/s400/predator+invisible_light-bending+cloaker.jpg" target="_blank">Example of "invisible but still detectable"</a>

<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9178/DirectX-Comparison--style--border--2px-solid---width--300px--height--244px-.jpg?1241332133" target="_blank">Screenshot of the same effect done in the Half-Life 2 engine by applying "water" to the human model</a> (Bottom middle and bottom right frames)</div>

Instant visibility. I mean seriously, there's no way I'd ever miss that.

However, it'd be neat to have that shadereffect with 1-2 chambers and while cloaking to 100% (gradually becoming obtuse and blurry and seethrough).

RobB · September 2009

The point of that is to promote sneaking. if the player is standing still the cloaking is perfect, if he moves you can see the "smearing".

AvP works the same way.

sheena_yanai · September 2009

That means, if we get some fancy metal gear solid cloaking based on some shader, i just have to show up with some old card without support for that and i get perfectly visible cloaked alien . Since the engine is meant to be downward compatible with older systems, uwe cant use fancy eyecandy on some balance critical gameplay feature wich has to work flawlessly for everyone, without a chance of exploiting hardware incompatibilities, keep it simple is the motto

Dead-Inside · September 2009

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RobB @ Sep 1 2009, 05:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1725781"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>The point of that is to promote sneaking. if the player is standing still the cloaking is perfect, if he moves you can see the "smearing".

AvP works the same way.</div>

If I'm moving I'll see him. If I'm standing still there's a high enough probability I'll see him anyway. It's just bad.

Alien Cloaking : Chameleon style

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