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Author Topic: Idea for Interface  (Read 13494 times)
Culture20
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #60 on: March 15, 2004, 03:06:10 am »

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Problems with 3d combat:
Orz Turret: Hard enough to aim with it in 2d now in 3d?
Supox: Another strafing keys for up and down? Way too harder....

I'd assume the Orz turret only rotates in 2D, even in a 3D environment.
Supox:  you already have those extra keys for roll & pitch

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P.S Oh yea forgot, another big problem: Who will do all of this?  Roll Eyes

Well, I thought it was obvious from my post, but a classmate and I are starting the basics.  I'm going to try and keep it as true to SC as possible at first, but I'm asking questions here to iron out points that don't translate from 2D to 3D easily.  Ship-Balance doesn't matter; I'm curious to see how the extra dimension really affects gameplay.

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I planned this idea as 3rd person and 3d. Its very very hard to discribe over a forum. The camara could not be locked behind the ship because you couldnt see anything behind you. You would have to program the camara to pick a view where it can see your ship and the aponent, and maybe any near asteroids/plantes/mines.
If you dive down, then you appear back at the top. Its like the square arena in sc2 but instead its a cube.
The controls would be hard. You could use the mouse for stearing. Most turns you in all directions. The mouse buttons are roll left and right. Then with your other hand youd have to cover 3 bottons. Thrust/fire/special. How you could rotate the orz turret with this interface is beond me. Maybe it could rotate automatically:D

So if you laid out the 3D map into 4D, it'd be a hyper-torus?  Neat!
« Last Edit: March 15, 2004, 03:15:12 am by Culture20 » Logged
Deep-Jiffa
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #61 on: March 15, 2004, 04:17:30 am »

I meant that it will be even harder to control the turret thus making the Nemesis weaker when controlled by human and much more powerful when controlled by CPU.
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ShofixtiWithAK-47
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #62 on: March 15, 2004, 04:33:18 am »

The melee I was thinking of is a little less complicated then it seems. What I mean by the spherical idea is that the ship isn't limited to a single plane, rather it can go above or below the ship it's attacking. I suppose calling it a sphere would make the battle seem impossible to finish, I was thinking more of a giant oval, per se, and an option is to fly your ship above or below your opponent. I suggested a lock-on system maybe, just so ships like the Kohr-Ah didn't have to try to hard to aim. Maybe something like that automatically turns your ship in the right direction.

Why would option 1 be unfun? You wouldn't move any slower, just everything would be in proportion.
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #63 on: March 15, 2004, 05:55:42 am »

No doubt about it though. You would have to change the way the weapons fire on many ships. (Or like how the chmmr zipzats orbit)
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #64 on: March 15, 2004, 06:37:52 am »

I predict a steep learning curve, because you wont always be facing the direction that your ship is, that is if you are trying my idea word by word, or if you are making the camara lock behind your ship.
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Culture20
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #65 on: March 15, 2004, 06:55:27 pm »

ShofixtiwithAK47:
I think DJ was refering to his own #1, not yours.  I don't think it would be un-fun, but I do think it would be technically impossible to run on current-day machines (and still make the planet look like a sphere).  A proportionally sized planet that looked like a planet would have so many triangles that you'd bog down in computation.

Chrispy:
I'm only doing XvT camera modes; I can't fathom the idea you expressed, especially how one would pilot a craft when one's view of said craft is constantly changing (without one's control?).
« Last Edit: March 15, 2004, 07:00:57 pm by Culture20 » Logged
Death 999
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #66 on: March 15, 2004, 08:48:55 pm »

Well, you could have multiple projections into 2D. Split-screen view for each player.

One would be the First-person (project away depth).

Another camera angle could be looking at the two ships from the planet's surface. This would smoothly follow the ships.

Another angle could look at the two ships from a point of view which maximizes their proper motions (i.e. captures as much as possible of the motion of the ships). This would dance around a bit.

Another angle could look at the ships and the planet from a point orthogonal to the plane containing the three of them (in the case that they are lined up, keep the old angle). Note that in the case of ships flying in a plane, this comes out the same as the current view.


All three would scale the ships depending on how far away they were.


Another strategy would be to put a low-pass filter on the camera angle changes. That would give the impression of an acceleration more clearly (by displacing the ship from its normal position), but would allow for camera angle changes.
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Culture20
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #67 on: March 16, 2004, 12:56:14 am »

So, would the camera from the surface be a fish-eye lens?

I don't really understand the view which maximizes visible movement.  I assume you look from an angle orthogonal to the two vectors?  If the two have the same vector (or directional component thereof), the view would keep the direction it held just previous to the "error".

I really like the last view; I'd forgotten that you could include the planet  and make a plane out of the 3 of them.
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Death 999
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Re: Idea for Interface
« Reply #68 on: March 16, 2004, 07:31:15 pm »

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I don't really understand the view which maximizes visible movement.  I assume you look from an angle orthogonal to the two vectors?  If the two have the same vector (or directional component thereof), the view would keep the direction it held just previous to the "error".


You do seem to understand it. The position of the view is, for ship positions X and Y, ship velocities U and V, and a function for determining viewing distance f...

(X + Y / 2) - ((U x V)/|U x V|) * f(|X-Y|)

one possibility for f would be f(x) = x
so the two ships and the viewpoint will form an equilateral triangle.
or f(x) = max(x, A)
so there is a minimum viewing distance

And as mentioned the viewpoint could be on 'springs' so it moves to the ideal viewpoint more smoothly. Some experimentation would need to be done with the damping on the virtual springs.

Remaining Problems:
If something gets in the way of the view it could be very distracting. Maybe nearby obstructions could be rendered transparent, and only as they got close to the ships would they become opaque.
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