Windows - an idea

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

                <staring out...>

I was sitting, relaxing, looking out my window this morning.

I was contemplating the windows in the new Castle Interior Tileset Six is working on.
There's this rather generous space behind the pane, you see.
What could I do with that?

Animated texture on a placeable, perhaps?

Or scriptable window VFX?

Maybe a Window Beast with all those possible animations? Perhaps take a page from playwrights and give the WBeast multiple limbs - a foreground swaying grass limb and a midground crowd-passing-by limb and a background clouds-drifting limb and a beam-of-sunlight-shining-in limb...

Or maybe just a huge wheel slowing rotating past with a continuous scene of waves or countryside...

Maybe a menacing shadow peering in now and then...

But there should be something out the window.

<...over the eastern sea>
               
               

               
            

[Baaleos]

               there is a video on youtube of a proof of concept for a rocking boat tileset.

Basically, the boat remains constant and stable, but the sphere/sky and ocean, are the things that rock.

Doing a similar thing with windows would work.
It would be same as a tickertape sort of thing, where the texture continuously scrolls to the left, or right.

As for the other ideas?
Not sure what you mean by Window Beast - other than a beast that climbs in through a window?

Would be interesting to do, maybe as some sort of appear animation.
eg - Beholders are able to come out of holes in the ground, maybe humanoids could climb through windows to make of with innocent victims in the night?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

Baaleos wrote...
Not sure what you mean by Window Beast - other than a beast that climbs in through a window?

I think it is a metaphorical beast. Not a real beast, but something that has animations (which makes it quite beastly '> so the word is not a bas choice).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Rolo Kipp wrote...
What could I do with that?

Some ideas: Bloodsong's Useable Windows,Gaoneng's Castle Interior Windows, Lord of Worms Wagon Travel Interior and then Goudea's windows, which kind of take the previous ideas to a whole new level:


I like the idea of doing it with a phenotype (i.e. the "Window Beast"), too.  There is all kinds of craziness you could get up to with that concept but AFAIK, there has not been a proof of concept yet produced.  I seem to vaguely recall there might be some unexpected issues down that road but nothing I can think of off the top of my head.

All of the other possiblities you mention seem sound.  It depends on what you're shooting for and what you're willing to do to get there.  You could trade elegance for brute force and have x number of animated (through activation, but default animations might work for certain things) placeables hanging out and doing their various things as you wished them to.  Or you could shoot for something more elegant, but which might cause more hair-pulling through a phenotype.

IMO, there is some High Wisdom to be had on this whole environmental concept by studying Walt Disney's implementation of the multi-plane camera and Max Fleischer's implementation of the rotograph- used to make some of the best Popeye cartoons, ever.

In contrast to how a multiplane camera works, here's how a rotograph is set up:


You can simulate both in NWN and the effect is the same.  One of my mantras is that just about everything aside from walkmesh/PWK/DWK and perspace is an illusion.  You're seemingly free to do just about anything that doesn't butt heads with those.

Baaleos wrote...
Would be interesting to do, maybe as some sort of appear animation.
eg - Beholders are able to come out of holes in the ground, maybe humanoids could climb through windows to make of out with innocent victims in the night?

Fixed!  '>

Seriously though, this is a good idea.  If you view this portion of a NWN promotional video from 12 years ago, I think it's arguable that Bioware was toying with using the same sort of effect...but with spiders.  IMO, the tilting of the rootdummy as it climbs over the ledge could not have been done with walkmesh alone and looks to be the result of a special cappear animation.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 06 juillet 2012 - 05:43 .