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Glowing_Ashes

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Hey so I want to apologize in case someone else has already brought this up or if information about this has already been said as I am rather new to learning about this game and such, however it would be absolutely brilliant in my opinion to have customizable cockpits. 

 

In the gameplay I have seen, there has been and insane amount of freedom you have to build your ship and the environment around you, but one thing I noticed is that the cockpits for ships seem to be pre-set, or at least a list of ones you can choose from. Now I could be wrong in saying that, but pretending I'm right, to me it would be amazing if there was more options for our cockpit. 

 

Our entire ship, and thus what we spend a great deal of the game in, and what very well might become a part of us, is completely build around our cockpit. We want to make it look appealing and sexy and of course the best space ship in the entire galaxy, but to do that would be impossible with an out of place cockpit. If we could have a great range of designs for them, not limited to the basic one as seen in the trailer. Such as flying saucer dome-like area that allow for 360 degree views just by moving your mouse, to perhaps not even symmetric ones such as the millennium falcon. There could be ones of every shape and size and perhaps even have customizable dimensions and such for the user to decide upon themselves. Even one that's just a glass ball barely held in place could make for an interesting concept. 

 

If this has already been thought of, then also one quick thing to add is that the inside of the cockpit is just as, if not more important than the outside. It's where the player will spend all the time piloting the ship (obviously) and it will be alot of what the player sees. To really immerse them I think it would be great to be able to choose where certain items were to go in the cockpit such as the gas and levers and random buttons and such to fly it, as well as gauges and meters and status screens. It would really make the player feel like it was his ship. Perhaps even have sort of like a mechwarrior feel to it where you can look around your cockpit freely as well as seeing yourself use the controls to your ship, even to the extent of getting out of your chair and walking around your ship if thats a possibility.

 

I'm sorry for the such the long post but I feel like this would really add to the game. My apologies.

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I would also like cockpits to be as customizable as possible.  If a cockpit is composed of several parts, then even with a few variations of each one, that quickly allows for a large number of possible combinations.

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The Devs are having an HTML5.1 approach on UIs in-game, meaning the want to have different widgets being present on a cock-pit, screen (any control unit in other words) for the game.

As far as that kind of customisation goes, it's a thing they do work and want to have in-game.

If those widgets are mechanical, that remains to be seen. They probably will go for a "holographic display" in order for the HTML5.1 interfaces to be depicted that way. As for "levers"... well, it's space... more importantly it's futurespace! :P Why have levers, when you can have holographic displays? :D


 

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Hey Twerk,

 

I'm excited about UI customization, and it certainly makes sense to have something as easy as HTML5 for custominzation. 

 

Can you direct me to where you obtained this information?

Absolutely

 

Here : http://www.dualthegame.com/technology

 

COHERENT GT, a powerful tool for such a game :) Think of the possibilities... within reason of course, for example, I don't expect it to be so loose as to boot up flash games from ArmorGames from within the game, but for making our descriptions and menus? Yes. Interfaces? Absolutely. Hot-keys? You bet.

 

 If they allow us to script with HTML5 our own interfaces when it comes to control units, we as a community could be the ones to make interfaces for different languages in-game, not to mention pink font. Just saying. I miss it.

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I'm definitely hoping they give us a few options to tint or re-skin elements like the cockpit.  

 

But even if we can only re-tint them.  We'll still have the ability to build our own cockpit any way you want out of voxels.

 

In the last video where they build the freighter you can see them use a non-element cockpit.  I don't know for sure about smaller sized ships but i'm guessing you could still build a cockpit instead of using the element even on the smallest ships.

 

It can be tough to achieve the same level of detail with voxels that you can have with pre-made elements.  But hopefully there will be decorative interior elements like the corridor pieces we've already seen, to help with that.

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"

In the non-element cockpit, there was no voxel for glass. That's bad news if a lucky shot comes flying for your head.

"

Does this mean they don't intend on adding the ability to use glass for custom cockpits, or that they just didn't have it in their example?

If they don't create the ability to design your own cockpit windows, I will be a little peeved, since one of my cooler ship ideas pretty much reqires it!

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Does this mean they don't intend on adding the ability to use glass for custom cockpits, or that they just didn't have it in their example?

If they don't create the ability to design your own cockpit windows, I will be a little peeved, since one of my cooler ship ideas pretty much reqires it!

 

Yeah i'm hoping glass just wasn't ready yet.

 

We have to have glass.  I need it!  

 

Whether it's a voxel material or modular glass elements or both.

 

Hmmm wait was there glass on the window of the huge space station in the other videos?  I feel like there was.

 

 

 

edit: Nope no glass on the station in this video either 

i have faith they will get us some glass though.

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One wild idea came to mind. If there were closed cockpits eg. A cockpit you could not see through. Instead there would be a screen inside the cockpit from where you could see outside the ship. Every ship wouldn't need windows this way. Little like this one.

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Yeah i'm hoping glass just wasn't ready yet.

 

We have to have glass.  I need it!  

 

Whether it's a voxel material or modular glass elements or both.

 

Hmmm wait was there glass on the window of the huge space station in the other videos?  I feel like there was.

 

 

 

edit: Nope no glass on the station in this video either 

i have faith they will get us some glass though.

It's really easy to make transparent things in a video game. I'm sure there will be glass voxels.

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It's really easy to make transparent things in a video game. I'm sure there will be glass voxels.

Or, you know, an "opacity" paint. It's 2016, we got the technology to go to Mars, we can surely make voxels transparent :P

 

 

 

Thing is, they probably haven't finished polishing the 3D-Meshes for the game. That's called a "developmenet demo"  that is being showcased in their videos. Demo = Demonstration.

 

I know many of you younger lads and gals do not grasp the definition of a "demo" in this Early Access age, but it's how good games are actually made.

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Glass was one of the things that they had a lot of trouble with in Landmark.  They had both voxel glass and prop or element glass pieces.  And they both had their problems and benefits.  It may not be as easy as it sounds.

 

The voxel glass material had a few problems but there were a few things i loved about it.  Mainly the fact that it could have depth and would warp things that you looked at through it, which could be beautiful sometimes, especially from a distance.  You can see a little of the voxel glass in my signature pic.

 

The problem with the voxel glass was in the texture it had or the part of it that was visible, especially up close.  There were two versions, one had a bumpy texture like an ice sculpture and the other one had a pattern of circles on it that was supposed to be elfy or crystalline or some crap.  For whatever reason the Landmark artists seemed to have a lot of trouble with creating subtle textures.  I think it was just because none of the artists ever once actually looked at their work in use.  So hopefully DU won't have that problem.

 

All the DU textures i've seen so far have been beautifully subtle and modern looking.  So i have high hopes!

 

The element glass also had some good and some bad.  Because they aren't made out of voxels and can overlap with them, they can be a lot more versatile.  And the texture was much more subtle and modern looking up close.  But at a short distance they were almost invisible and because of LOD being shorter on elements in Landmark they would actually completely vanish at an average distance.

 

I guess what i'm hoping for is a glass that looks clean and modern up close but is still prominently visible at a distance.  I love building things with lots of glass   B)

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The other thing that might be challenging is the idea that the glass will have to be capable of armor levels just like normal voxels. (Assuming that the glass is voxel-based, of course.) Obviously not the same level of armor as normal voxels, but armored nonetheless. You don't want it to be TOO much of a weak spot for an enemy attack.

 

Also, imagine you took a shot directly to the glass, not enough to destroy it, but enough to do some damage. They would have to: ignore the visual effect of damage, add a "crack" effect, or go with the standard "missing voxels" damage and ignore that your cabin is now visually open to space, though supposedly not physically so.

 

Then there is the visual effect of the shot itself. You will not typically have explosions happening right in front of you, the will usually be on the other side of opaque voxels, or a slight distance away. Glass will mean a whole new view of explosions. Just think of the difference between watching rain hit something 15 feet away vs. hitting your windshield. Quite a difference!

 

I am all for glass, as I mentioned before. I just recognize some challenges that the NQ team will (hopefully) work out, if and when they implement it into the game.

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Glass was one of the things that they had a lot of trouble with in Landmark.  They had both voxel glass and prop or element glass pieces.  And they both had their problems and benefits.  It may not be as easy as it sounds.

 

The voxel glass material had a few problems but there were a few things i loved about it.  Mainly the fact that it could have depth and would warp things that you looked at through it, which could be beautiful sometimes, especially from a distance.  You can see a little of the voxel glass in my signature pic.

 

The problem with the voxel glass was in the texture it had or the part of it that was visible, especially up close.  There were two versions, one had a bumpy texture like an ice sculpture and the other one had a pattern of circles on it that was supposed to be elfy or crystalline or some crap.  For whatever reason the Landmark artists seemed to have a lot of trouble with creating subtle textures.  I think it was just because none of the artists ever once actually looked at their work in use.  So hopefully DU won't have that problem.

 

All the DU textures i've seen so far have been beautifully subtle and modern looking.  So i have high hopes!

 

The element glass also had some good and some bad.  Because they aren't made out of voxels and can overlap with them, they can be a lot more versatile.  And the texture was much more subtle and modern looking up close.  But at a short distance they were almost invisible and because of LOD being shorter on elements in Landmark they would actually completely vanish at an average distance.

 

I guess what i'm hoping for is a glass that looks clean and modern up close but is still prominently visible at a distance.  I love building things with lots of glass   B)

That's a problem with the game engine itself in Landmark. It ran on DirectX 9 (yeah, Planetside 2's engine wans't built withe amazing graphics in mind).

 

DU's engine is built on Dx11. There's a great disparity in quality between those two engines as you may understand :P

 

Also, Landmark's game engine, had terrible issues when it came to LOD and some funnier issues with tesselation (white tower in the distance looking ...welll, blue, for some weird reason). 

 

In general, I think the engine can handle glass for cockpit "props" if I am to use a Landmark terminology, but glass voxels are really not that much of a deal if the engine is stable as of its LOD mechanics (meaning the glass won't vanish beyond a certain distane away from it) and given how much NQ focuses on LOD for their engine, I guess they are past beyond that issue, it's only a matter of time until the finalise that detail.

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