Jump to content

Windows or a way to making voxels transparent


Atlas5

Recommended Posts

I was thinking about creating orbital stations and buildings with cut out spots which would be windows. But I don't think there is windows in this game, at least not yet. I think its silly to create a city with walls and defenses when we can't even create a closed and secure building or base. I know they were talking about creating useable doors, but what about windows. 

 

If they do maybe it would be cool to create a painting tool or color picker with the option of making the selected voxel clear. This way you can see through it but not walk through it.

 

What does everyone think about this?

 

Should they give us windows?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC this was mentioned in some video (maybe someone more proficient than me with less braindamage can remember) - they plan on doing transparent voxels. In all videos you see windows of all sorts but with no glass - cause it's not yet implemented.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh yeah they've got to get us some windows.

 

In Landmark there were glass voxels and element based windows and they both had some benefits and drawbacks.  So i kind of hope they give us both in DU.

 

Elements are handy because they can be rotated to any angle and overlap with voxels.

 

But voxel glass let you create curved windows or any crazy shape or thickness you wanted

 

I'm going to miss the way curved voxel glass warped light when you looked through it in Landmark.  I hope they do something similar with voxel glass in DU.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was thinking about creating orbital stations and buildings with cut out spots which would be windows. But I don't think there is windows in this game, at least not yet. I think its silly to create a city with walls and defenses when we can't even create a closed and secure building or base. I know they were talking about creating useable doors, but what about windows. 

 

If they do maybe it would be cool to create a painting tool or color picker with the option of making the selected voxel clear. This way you can see through it but not walk through it.

 

What does everyone think about this?

 

Should they give us windows?

 

Hahaha. Imagine a city with all these intricate designs and structures, but without windows. It would look ridiculous. I hope they do the transparent voxels and add a slight haze or sheen to them so they look a bit more realistic. I wonder if there would be an editor tool that could change how see through the voxels were. As if editing a Photoshop picture's transparency. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there,

 

In the near future, windows will be available under the form of decorative Elements.

However, implementing voxels made from a transparent material, nothing is clear planned at the moment in the roadmap, so if it's implemented, it will be most likely after the official release.

 

The challenge of making transparent voxels functional enough to use it for windows: Developing this type of materials to the point of being able to make windows of custom size, with a perfect transparency with no blur or deformation when whatching something placed on the other side of the windows is not an easy task. And it will cost a significant amount of development time. So as always, we will concentrate first to core mechanics and mandatory content before starting developing transparent materials that could be used in an industrialized way.

 

In any case, we will keep you informed about the evolution on this topic when we will have fresh news about it :)

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Completely transparent blocks with no blur, deformation or colour would be annoying and break immersion : invisible walls, constructs... would be a problem in pvp. There's always the need for a little colour on the glass at least.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Completely transparent blocks with no blur, deformation or colour would be annoying and break immersion : invisible walls, constructs... would be a problem in pvp. There's always the need for a little colour on the glass at least.

 

Something can be completely transparent, with no blur, no deformation and no color but can still be visible by light reflection on it.

Transparent and Invisible are two different things ;)

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think most people would like better to have some kind of window voxel at release, even with colour/blur/deformation, than nothing xD A transparent voxel could always be added later  :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The challenge of making transparent voxels functional enough to use it for windows: Developing this type of materials to the point of being able to make windows of custom size, with a perfect transparency with no blur or deformation when watching something placed on the other side of the windows is not an easy task. And it will cost a significant amount of development time. So as always, we will concentrate first to core mechanics and mandatory content before starting developing transparent materials that could be used in an industrialized way.

 

It would be an arduous task to code so don't worry about it. Focus on the very important and crucial elements first and then mess around with this stuff later. This would be a cool idea later in the future for creating large windows or transparent walls. When you come out with windows, are they going to be specific sizes or could you make them as large as you want? I only ask because if you can make them any size you want, the need for transparent voxels will be semi pointless.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think most people would like better to have some kind of window voxel at release, even with colour/blur/deformation, than nothing xD A transparent voxel could always be added later  :P

With the increasing amount of people coming up with "flying coffin spaceship" designs that have glass on their bridge, I'd say have aluminum being turned into reinforced bulletproof glass ( as it is the thing that bulletproof glass is made out of IRL ).

 

Observation decks and SPACE-ships do not mix.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's more about expectations. For transparent voxels set in a flat plane, I would expect to have very little distortion. While transparent voxels set into strange shapes and around corners, I would expect quite a bit of distortion.

 

On skyscrapers, one would like tinted/one-way windows. Windows that one could see out of but not necessarily into. But how would one accomplish this with voxels? One method could be to have a normal transparent voxel sandwiched against a more reflective but still transparent voxel. The idea being that one could see out from the completely transparent side while from the other side, the reflective voxel will take precedence. This could be further "optimized" as on the further LOD models, the reflective voxel could lose its transparency and save on a bit of graphics processing. The idea is that one could only see inside with ones nose pressed against the window but one can see outside from any distance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Nyzaltar, on this subject, may I ask how the windows will work as "decorative elements" that you mentioned in the post above? Would they be two way windows which you can look through, or would they be simply something purely decorative?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

We've seen forcefields in one of the vids (March dev diary) so why not incorporate those into doors and windows with scripted transparency, color, and effects? Especially since they've said they're not going to have rotating/sliding elements at release.

 

Edit: I know this won't allow curved windows and such but it's better than nothing until we get variable translucent/transparent voxels

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...