With the main difference being the scale of combat. The JK series has you fighting three jedi at most, how irritating would it be if every time you kill a dark knight the game slowed down and the camera spun around you?Nettacki said:
Camera Effects
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Functaztig
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Ohhh have you guys ever played the Prince of Persia 2 Thrones? When the prince is doing speed kill, the screen's corners goes blur-ish and his blade shines. Wouldn't it be cool if the corners goes blur as horses are charged into full speed or couched lance? Or when the sword chops through an enemy/being chopped, there is a little bit of bullet time and the blade goes shinny? Just some random ideas, don't go personal, lol
Tralfaz
Count
Id focus on getting gameplay done well, and fixing bugs before I "prettyed it up", horses arent fast enough to justify blur, if a blade is clean(start of battle), then Id go with the "shiny" option, but a sword or whatever is going to get bloddy fast, and not be shiny anymore, so its kinda pointless. Im not really a big fan of "cool" effects, I prefer better gameplay any day of the week.
I claim that including Camera Effect (shaking of the used point of view) are a really good idea.
(1) Camera Effects do add to the immersion.
(A more immersive game is a game that does a better job convincing you that you are there fighting those dark knights).
While it is clearly just cosmetics ("prettying it up", "frost on the cake", bell and whistles" call it like you want) it is a very important part of it.
More so that, say, cast shadows (which obviously eat up quite a bit of GPU horsepower).
Camera Effects are probably effective also when view is in 3rd person.
(2) If Camera Effects are used with sense (sparingly and gently), they don't hinder gameplay (while still very effective at boosting immersion).
Camera Effects should come from two sources: received impacts (mainly), and "earthquake effect" when many horses are galloping nearby you.
Impacts should have a strength (and duration) proportional to the strength of the hit. So, a single arrow hit would make camera wiggle considerably for say a full 200 msec, while the hurricane of stun-locking blows from the mob would be just a sustained tremor. The "earthquake" should be very subtle. I cannot be sure that it would be harmless to gameplay (and, if turns out not to be, they should not be used). But chances are that it would be. You don't get motion-sick with the kind of Camera Effects I have in mind.
(3) Camera Effects, if limited to a shaking of the point of view (no motion blur, etc), predictably have a effect of performance which is totally negligible.
(1) and (2) are just guesses. Even if you can safely bet on (1), and on (2), the only way to find out for sure would be to try them out. Take (3) for a fact.
(1) Camera Effects do add to the immersion.
(A more immersive game is a game that does a better job convincing you that you are there fighting those dark knights).
While it is clearly just cosmetics ("prettying it up", "frost on the cake", bell and whistles" call it like you want) it is a very important part of it.
More so that, say, cast shadows (which obviously eat up quite a bit of GPU horsepower).
Camera Effects are probably effective also when view is in 3rd person.
(2) If Camera Effects are used with sense (sparingly and gently), they don't hinder gameplay (while still very effective at boosting immersion).
Camera Effects should come from two sources: received impacts (mainly), and "earthquake effect" when many horses are galloping nearby you.
Impacts should have a strength (and duration) proportional to the strength of the hit. So, a single arrow hit would make camera wiggle considerably for say a full 200 msec, while the hurricane of stun-locking blows from the mob would be just a sustained tremor. The "earthquake" should be very subtle. I cannot be sure that it would be harmless to gameplay (and, if turns out not to be, they should not be used). But chances are that it would be. You don't get motion-sick with the kind of Camera Effects I have in mind.
(3) Camera Effects, if limited to a shaking of the point of view (no motion blur, etc), predictably have a effect of performance which is totally negligible.
(1) and (2) are just guesses. Even if you can safely bet on (1), and on (2), the only way to find out for sure would be to try them out. Take (3) for a fact.
Do they ****e. They're another of those bloody stupid things that seem to have crept in from Hollywood and cause the complete reverse. Someone kicks you in the shin and all of a sudden you have a minor epileptic episode. Then there's the host of FPS characters who appear to have jelly holding their head to their neck, rather than a spinal column. It's almost as stupid as force feedback.mtarini said:
They're completely pointless then. If you're going to put them in, they should either hinder gameplay or else signify something.
Hippo's maybe, horses ?!
Depends on the effect and how it's done. To get anything decent it's going to be costly for those with older graphics cards, to do it without eating GPU time is likely to result in a lot of people wondering what went wrong with their mouse.
ahah! seriously, though, a well crafted shaking of the point of view, of the right lenght (very short and sudden) and intensity (mild), does communicate that you received an impact.Archonsod said:
It just does. What can I do to show this point?
Maybe you are imagining something like the shaking inside the USS Enterprise after they took a direct phaser hit or something, where everybody and the camera is shaking incontrollably for entire long seconds.
No-no-no.
"SMASH!" The after-impact effect should last for less than it took you to read that word. During that period of time, the point of view and direction suffers a pseudorandom gaussain disturb - a short, hi-freq, but low amplitude tremor - on the view direction, fading out with time. Say 200msec in total. A 3 degrees average, gaussian distributed, disturb. Real numbers to be used should be tuned, of course.
I am failing to see your point here. What is the signification or effect on gameplay of the shadow that is cast by characters on the ground? Or of 3D grass? (both
of which do eat a lot of GPU, differnetly from what we are discussing here).
Or of countless other things around in the M&B coating? Immersion has a value in a game. I don't thing M&B would be as addictive as a text based adventure (and Interactive Fiction is a genre which I love).
Depends on the ground...
In this case ( "earthquake effect"), tremors should suggest a vibration of the ground (and also, maybe, low freq sounds you feel in your guts rather than in your hears).
This kind of stuff in reality is perceived through your feet or at most your skin, both of which are absent in the feedback a computer can give you.
That's way it could make sense to remap that to an exaggerated (compared to reality, but still mild) camera effect simulating that.
It *might*. Whether that would work or not, should be checked by trying it out.
How the effect can be done? See above.
There is absolutely no way that the above described effect (tremor added to view direction, maybe view point too) can affect performance. On any graphic card. Really. No way.
Ok, I did not resist to try it out.
I modified a small toy application (a Computer Graphic course exercitation) to test how would the camera effects be like.
You can get it here: just uncompress and execute.
http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/~tarini/tmp/test_camera_effects.zip
(source is included).
In the toy app, you drive a racing car similarly on how you drive the horse in M&B (with AWSD keys)
(but, here you have to keep the button pressed while moving the mouse, to change the direction you are looking at).
I just added "javelins". Press space anytime and an javelin is shot at you.
If you don't move, it will probably hit you. See the example of camera effect on impact.
If you move, the javelin will probably miss you.
Do it moultple times. See? The camera effect does a good job telling you that you received an impact.
You can immediately tell that you have been missed or hit. It is intuitive.
It does not cause motion sickness, and does not feel like an hepilectic attack.
To me it feels just like you received an impact.
And still, the effect is not nearly large enugh to disturb gameplay.
That is what I am talking about.
By contrast, pressing "z" you get an impactless javelin (no camera effect) shot at you, as in M&B now. See?
That javelin seems ethereal in comparison.
True, in M&B you have sounds, and sometime blood, and text messages telling you that you have been hit.
But CAmera Effects are an extra important way to communicate that, which is very useful.
Is such a small piece of software as the toy app, that was coded that in no time.
In M&B the implementation effort would sure be larger, but not a big one I guess.
It is a simple thing, and a small improvement; but still an improvement.
I insist that this has no impact on performance whatsoever.
(Don't mind the blue car in the toy app. Its simple AI is just instructed to manouver its position in front of the red car.)
PS: I would add that in M&B another occasion needing an impact to be felt more is when the player scores a hit with a couched lance.
Right now it does not feel that you have hit anything very much.
I modified a small toy application (a Computer Graphic course exercitation) to test how would the camera effects be like.
You can get it here: just uncompress and execute.
http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/~tarini/tmp/test_camera_effects.zip
(source is included).
In the toy app, you drive a racing car similarly on how you drive the horse in M&B (with AWSD keys)
(but, here you have to keep the button pressed while moving the mouse, to change the direction you are looking at).
I just added "javelins". Press space anytime and an javelin is shot at you.
If you don't move, it will probably hit you. See the example of camera effect on impact.
If you move, the javelin will probably miss you.
Do it moultple times. See? The camera effect does a good job telling you that you received an impact.
You can immediately tell that you have been missed or hit. It is intuitive.
It does not cause motion sickness, and does not feel like an hepilectic attack.
To me it feels just like you received an impact.
And still, the effect is not nearly large enugh to disturb gameplay.
That is what I am talking about.
By contrast, pressing "z" you get an impactless javelin (no camera effect) shot at you, as in M&B now. See?
That javelin seems ethereal in comparison.
True, in M&B you have sounds, and sometime blood, and text messages telling you that you have been hit.
But CAmera Effects are an extra important way to communicate that, which is very useful.
Is such a small piece of software as the toy app, that was coded that in no time.
In M&B the implementation effort would sure be larger, but not a big one I guess.
It is a simple thing, and a small improvement; but still an improvement.
I insist that this has no impact on performance whatsoever.
(Don't mind the blue car in the toy app. Its simple AI is just instructed to manouver its position in front of the red car.)
PS: I would add that in M&B another occasion needing an impact to be felt more is when the player scores a hit with a couched lance.
Right now it does not feel that you have hit anything very much.
Maybe if they hit you in the head. Would be a bit silly if they hit your horse.mtarini said:
Dark Messiah uses it IIRC. Doesn't really work there either (but then it's supposed to play like an action movie, hence the slowdown and similar dramatic effects). To be honest, I think Oblivion's blur would work better, an incredibly short 'losing of focus' rather than 'my spine has liquified' type of thing.
What, and you always have Borcha shaking in the opposite direction to the rest of the party?
That's the problem. Taking a couched lance to the face shouldn't produce the same reaction as a puny 0 damage hit from someone's face. If you're going to shake the screen then it should signify something (given the circumstances, it should signify something bad).
No, the PC has a soundcard and speakers and can replicate the sound frequencies to give you the same rumble effect. Just up the bass on the speaker and it does it already
You're rapidly shifting the viewpoint, which requires a rapid redrawing of the screen. At the very least, you're looking to push the graphics card to working twice as quickly as it would for a normal turn.
Archonsod said:
You are probably right about the horse (not 100% sure). But, when an arrow hits you (anywhere, not just the head), a shaking would be appropriate.
can you try the test I've made? Spine does not look liquified at all to me.
Beside, a blur (1) costs a lot more computationally and (2) is a lot less immediate and (3) models pain/medical problems rather than an impact.
I think immdiate impacts must be communicated to the player!
bwhahahahahahah!What, and you always have Borcha shaking in the opposite direction to the rest of the party?
I absolutely agree! Make CE magnitute depend on taken HPs! (before armor soak)
Not true for the ground trembling under your feet. But I agree, "horse induced earthquake" should be tested first.No, the PC has a soundcard and speakers and can replicate the sound frequencies to give you the same rumble effect. Just up the bass on the speaker and it does it already
I am ready to bet it would be nice and not silly-looking with odds 1:1, but no more.
That's not how it works. The frame rate is independent. You just perturb the view direction of the next few frames following the impact.
Any frame that gets drawn within (say) 250 msec after an impact, gets its view direction is perturbed.
If you are running at 30fps, it will be the next 8 frames or so. If you are running at 10fps, it will be the next 3.
And the magnitude of the perturbation depends on how close in time the impact was.
(That's how everything works... arrow movements, animations... everything.)
Even in the arm? I could see a shake if it connected with the chest or head, but the arm, gut and the like shouldn't cause that much of an effect, unless it's coming out of a cannon.mtarini said:
Not at the moment, unless it'll run under Solaris.
Depends how you do it to be honest. You can achieve a similar effect by rapidly downgrading the image quality rather than applying an actual blur effect. You get more of a fuzz than a blur, but it would still look authentic.
It's not to be honest. If you've ever seen it at work in Oblivion when you take a solid hit the screen kind of swims out of focus for a split second. It works a lot better than a shake, feels like you're eyes are unfocused rather than you're body being shook.
Impacts as a rule won't cause a shake, at least not at the kind of strength you're looking at. A blow to the head (or even a painful hit to the gut) will cause you're eye's to defocus though. The body isn't rigid enough to shake - if something hit's you that hard you're going to fall over or at least stagger (different story if you're already lying on the floor).
Probably after armour to be honest. Otherwise a rock which has bounced off your helm would cause you to shake despite doing zero damage.
The ground generally doesn't tremble as a rule, unless you're standing on a hollow. You need something larger and heavier than horses to make the ground shake.
I'll take your word for it. I still can't see how it wouldn't cause a problem though, especially on lower end cards. You're going to be texture swapping if there's anything in the new frames that needs it, which could be a killer on low end cards.
As soon as you are on a PC, have a look at that toy app.
It is far from perfect, but I find it convincing (in that camera shaking is a very effective way to communicate that you received an impact).
Try it yourself:
Stare at a fixed point on your monitor, and slap yourself very midly on the cheek (I know this is prone to jokes).
See, it shakes for a tiny fraction of a second.
Now try doing the same bumping yourself with a punch on the middle of your chest, quite midly of coure. See? similar effect.
Larget impact (like the ones in M&B) would make it shake quite more, and for a longer fraction of a second.
(additional try: have someone give a bigger impact to your chair: shakes!)
for slower computers (if you want to try it out, just set "MOVING_QUALITY" to 50 (percent) in the configuration file).
The effect is that it goes blurry, and it is even faster than the frames on focus.
Well, I say blurring and camera shaking are two different "camera effects" that do not excude each other.
(still, camera shaing is pretty easy to do and free to perform. The other one can be a lot more tricky, depending on how the rendering engine is done.)
Quick blurring is probably appropriate for direct head-hits only, and maybe general almost-zero-HP situations too.
Camera shaking is appropriate for impacts (many kinds, but not all kinds - and some kind more than others), and even for when you impact someone with a couched lance.
Just imagine wearing a motorbiker helmet and getting hit by a rock. It would be much bigger effect than the small lap on the cheek!
There is a lot of stuff moving at any time and the frame rate always goes as fast as it can, unless when it goes really fast and then it is not a problem anyway.
(edit: spellcheck)
It is far from perfect, but I find it convincing (in that camera shaking is a very effective way to communicate that you received an impact).
Impacts (even very small ones) do cause a shake because they put you off balance and you correct almost immediately.
Try it yourself:
Stare at a fixed point on your monitor, and slap yourself very midly on the cheek (I know this is prone to jokes).
See, it shakes for a tiny fraction of a second.
Now try doing the same bumping yourself with a punch on the middle of your chest, quite midly of coure
. See? similar effect.Larget impact (like the ones in M&B) would make it shake quite more, and for a longer fraction of a second.
(additional try: have someone give a bigger impact to your chair: shakes!)
Now that you said it, yes, I agree. In facts, in a project I've made (http://qutemol.sourceforge.net) I actually render to a smaller screen buffer and then enlarge it,
for slower computers (if you want to try it out, just set "MOVING_QUALITY" to 50 (percent) in the configuration file).
The effect is that it goes blurry, and it is even faster than the frames on focus.
You convinced me here too.
Well, I say blurring and camera shaking are two different "camera effects" that do not excude each other.
(still, camera shaing is pretty easy to do and free to perform. The other one can be a lot more tricky, depending on how the rendering engine is done.)
Quick blurring is probably appropriate for direct head-hits only, and maybe general almost-zero-HP situations too.
Camera shaking is appropriate for impacts (many kinds, but not all kinds - and some kind more than others), and even for when you impact someone with a couched lance.
Which makes peferct sense to me. It did not damage you, but sure the impact was there for you to feel!
Just imagine wearing a motorbiker helmet and getting hit by a rock. It would be much bigger effect than the small lap on the cheek!
Good that you take my word! I teach computer graphics and game programming after all.
There is a lot of stuff moving at any time and the frame rate always goes as fast as it can, unless when it goes really fast and then it is not a problem anyway.
(edit: spellcheck)
mkeller
Sergeant at Arms
mtarini, I agree that camera vibration effects would be a great addition to M&B. I know that I, at least, vibrate when I punch myself in the chest (even when it doesn't hurt so much, which goes to prove your thing about the motorbiker helmet)! Getting hit in the arm makes one shake as well, but just a little bit - basically you turn slightly toward the side you were hit on, and then resume your original position.
And I don't see why everyone thinks that vibration would cause a performance problem on older computers. It would only slow it down as much as moving your mouse from side to side does.
And I don't see why everyone thinks that vibration would cause a performance problem on older computers. It would only slow it down as much as moving your mouse from side to side does.
mkeller said:And I don't see why everyone thinks that vibration would cause a performance problem on older computers. It would only slow it down as much as moving your mouse from side to side does.
If you're unlucky enough to be stuck with an onboard card or similar, it could involve rapid loading and unloading of textures into main memory, then into the card.
Just thinking - anyone played Swat 4 and been hit with one of the rubber ball grenades? That kind of effect would be cool.
Archonsod said:If you're unlucky enough to be stuck with an onboard card or similar, it could involve rapid loading and unloading of textures into main memory, then into the card.mkeller said:And I don't see why everyone thinks that vibration would cause a performance problem on older computers. It would only slow it down as much as moving your mouse from side to side does.
Just not to confuse anyone: there's no way camera vibrations could involve that, no matter what the card is or is not.
It is a simple fact: computationally speaking, camera effects of this kind are just for free. Totally. The point of view, in general, changes every frame camera effects or not.
With camera vibrations it just changes (a little) more. Amount of change is irrelevant. It does not affect anything, not a millisec in 1000 frames, by far not, no matter what.
silverkatana said:Lancer2D said:
That's the only part that I can agree with.
Head-Bob is one of the most atrocious and unforgivable sins ever committed by game developers. Get up from your chair and walk somewhere. While you do so, focus on something you are walking towards. Does it bounce up and down? Now go outside and repeat the process, only running this time. The whole world didn't shake, did it? Grab a book and repeat both steps while trying to read. Couldn't do it, could you? Your brain has the ability to keep your eyes focused on the same thing, regardless of if you are being shaken up and down (except, obviously, in extreme cases, such as if your head gets locked in a paint shaker.) Now if the object you are trying to focus on is being shaken up and down, like the book in your hand, you'll have difficulty focusing on it, because the object is moving.
In a game world, where you perceive everything on a static display, bouncing the camera only serves to make it appear as if the entire world is bouncing around. Barring an earthquake, that will never really happen. If you want to simulate the detrimental effects of motion in a game, it is your cross-hairs that should move and bounce, not the camera.
I know that you didn't mention head-bob in your post. As my second most hated thing in the world of video games (the first being the letters 'E' and 'A') that's just what immediately came to mind. Some of the effects you mention might actually work, but, to be perfectly honest, I don't see any of them being much better than the dreaded "Head Bob."
BTW, I liked your intro. Especially the hot blood part.
Seriously, I don't know what you're on about. I was able to replicate you given task (!), at work in the office space no-less, I was being discreet, so I don't think anyone noticed (but then again, they're used to me wandering aimlessly about..)
Still, I digress, on to the test: my world seriously does bob up and down when I walk, most noticably things that are close to me, far away stuff remain more or less in focus of course. Does this come as a big shock to anyone? Or am I seriously missing something you said? Further, no, my world didn't shake or become blurred (although on occasion it does, however other factors are often in play).
So, to conclude, I absolutely like the head bob and agree with most points made by the poster, the game IMO needs added immersion.
I primarily use the 3rd person view in M&B, which is really uncharacteristic for me, in other games, it's strictly 1st person view. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something wrong, for me at least, with the way 1st person view is used in M&B. I compare with, say, Oblivion (yes I'm a fan, so flame me) where I feel everything feels more or less 'right'. Though in Oblivion, your character moves like on a glider, whereas M&B replicate a person actually walking (cool), with the head bob and more jerky side-movements. In Oblivion the only thing I can see in 1st person view is the weapon I'm wielding and my shield when used. In M&B I can see myself, shoulders, torso, arms holding the weapon etc (which takes up a large portion of the view) and while perhaps more realistic (in Oblivion you have no feet
), I feel it doesn't improve gameplay. If I were ever in a real fight, I'm quite sure my own body and even arms would not take up much of my sight, they would be very peripheral (and blurred, though maybe this could be difficult to replicate).To explain technically, I feel that the 1st person view in Oblivion is actually located where my eyes would be, in M&B it's located sort of in the back of my head, seeing foward. Ino, that doesn't make any sense, but it's the best way I can find to describe it...
Mounted it's even worse, I see way to much horse, and on a different note I can almost count the polys of the horse, it's not pretty... Admittedly, I have limited experience with mounted 1st person combat, maybe it becomes more natural with experience, I don't know.
More immersion points:
I would love to feel that I'm actually being hit, my body whincing under the power of a blow and maybe my body stubling a few feet back to regain balance.
Walking: while heavily encumbered, or walking uphill, my hero seems to walk in a totally un-natural way, taking tiny and very fast steps and arms are flailing fast. To me that's not very hero-like, I would rather see the character taking slower but longer steps, which would more accurately simulate heavy encumberance.
Enough ranting,
Zathan
(though it doesn't shine through in this post, I absolutely love this game
)
SheepInShiningArmour
Regular
I like the idea.
Maybe adding an option to turn it off and on. (:
I think some of the camera effects might be a tad OTT though.
Maybe adding an option to turn it off and on. (:
I think some of the camera effects might be a tad OTT though.
Mad merchant
Recruit
the ability to save your battles and replay them slow motion from any angle, anywhere on the battlefield would be cool too
SheepInShiningArmour
Regular
Eeeeh. I can see that getting really boring after a while.Mad merchant said:
I mean, some battles can last for like, 20 minutes.