Ufo Design

[Guest Jim69]

Doh, that would suck big time

 

I'm gonna try and translate it into 3D, I find it much easier to criticise like that so I'd imagine it will help all of you as well. Also could help bring some idea's as to stuff to add to walls etc.

[Guest Jim69]

Hey

 

I have come across yet another problem which lowly little me can't solve. Best way to describe is with a picture, so sorry about the drawing. I will give a quick explination as to what it is.

 

Basically the top image is of one idea of solving the problem. In this design I have opted for aestetics over current convention because this spider web design is not only a heck of a lot easier to design in 3D but it will look much better. The problem? The walls become longer than 1m as the concentric circles become bigger. How much bigger I don't know yet, I'd say we cap the circles at 3 so maybe the outter one could be a little bigger than 1m and the rest smaller.

 

In the second one I have kept the lines the same length ( I know, bad drawing but u get the picture, more sides as the circles become bigger ). Problem? We can only create a one level corridor in this system, and by that I mean that the wall will be nice and curved on one side but on the other will be the back of the more inner circle. We could do this but I would prefer the above one if only for ease of design and aestetics.

 

However this isn't for me to decide as I think the plan was to create UFO's in exactly the same was as buildings, 1m chunks for destruction. We can still destroy the chunks but we would need destroyed chunks for each circle ( which I think we would need anyway because of the way the walls are angled to become circular in pattern ).

[Guest Jim69]

Damn, I did it again, sorry. Here's the pic.

 

BTW, the shape I have drawn is not a suggestion as to what we should use as it doesn't look remotely circular, we would need to get a decent shape that is economal with poly's yet still aestectically pleasing.

[Breunor]

As to strategic chokepoint/playability, I think having a single entrance enclosed by a small airlock would fit the bill. I'd say ufos would have them anyway for safety issues in case the outer door failed as the weakest point in the hull. Beyond the airlock you could have various angles to cover the inner door.

 

I think you could make the wall sections 1m Jim, it's a matter of positioning the openings in decent spots and spacing the rooms so that the sections line up. I think the radial design will provide several tactical challenges, and once we have a 3D tileset to work with, several interior layouts can be studied to see what can be made using what we have.

 

For example, say your central power source room was almost 4m in diameter, the outer wall would be 12m (lots of rounding, 12/3.14 gives 3.82m diameter). Add a 1.5m hallway around that for a 7m diameter, and you get a 22m circle. With some work it could be done IMO.

[Guest drewid]

The main point of doing the 1m block thing is to make it easy to build structures and have destroyed replacement sections.

 

However since this UFO would be built by rotating the blocks around the centre (effectively) it doesn't matter so much.

 

We just need to make blocks that are 1-2m wide (roughly), so a wall section a long way from the centre might be in 2 or 3 pieces.

 

We're not completely restricted to a grid. Trust me it'll work.

[Guest Jim69]

Yeah, I was thinking about this at work also. I agree that it is certainly possible for 1m wall sections, I could definatly do it, but I could also do it the other way if I cap them at say 2m for the largest one, the inner circle may be .5m but it would look better. I am happy to do it either way really, just providing an option to think about.

[Guest Jim69]

D'oh! Forgot my point completly. The reason I was suggesting that the blocks be inline is because otherwise it makes it very hard to have double sided walls without looking strange. I'll draw ya a sketch if you don't know what I mean.

[Guest drewid]

You'll have to do a sketch, I don't get why that would be a problem, I'm probably missing something.

 

Once I've posted up the lab facility this lunchtime I'll have a go at it in 3d to get my head round it more. You'll need more polys on the outer edge of the wall, but that's not a problem.

[Breunor]

I agree that the walls sections could be greater than 1m, just not less IMO. We'd want the option to shoot it and walk through, but even if it's less than 1 meter, it would make it fun to shoot through smaller gaps without being able to walk through. The other plus of larger chunks for walls is that the number of polys would be less too.

 

My main concern with variable sizes is that you have to create additional textures for each size, so you're not stretching the same one to fit different widths. Texture memory was a limiting factor last I heard. If that can be worked around, then it shouldn't be an issue.

[Guest Jim69]

Well, the texture I was planning to use is very flexable. It could be stretched to 5m I think without looking crap because it is just shades of copper with black on the outside. Here's a pic:

 

Gimmie a bit of time and I will explain the problems in glorious detail with diagrams n all. You are privilidged ::

[Deimos]

Jim, instead of the browny colour can you try it with a the blue or maybe a lighter silvery colour. The brown doesn't really sit right as a ufo colour

[Guest drewid]

That'll do it. Not too worried about the texture cos you can always tile it rather than stretching anyhow.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Can we (within the style guidelines that is) make the ufos different colors? Like we make small scouts normal grey w/irridium sheen, whereas battleships are darker/blacker with irridium sheen? How about abductors are cobalt bule with the sheen?

 

I just feel that different shades of ufo color would be intresting and might look pretty good.

 

Sorry If I wasn't coherent above, but what I meant was this. scouts are normal silverish grey, mediums are a bluish grey, large ufos are tinted sort of dark blue, and battleships are tinted black? All with the irridium sheen mind you. Just a thought.

[Deimos]

Now that's an idea I like Cpl.F, the colouration can be just subtle enough to see but it will add in a whole new dimension of how the player feels about each type of craft. The more offensive the craft the more uneasy the player should feel about it. The psychological effect of a hulking batleship that looks ominous is too much to pass up.

 

It won't be that hard either as the iridium sheen will be applied seperately to the skin of each craft. Ok it'll take a bit more work on the various skins for each craft but I think it'd be worth the effort.

 

Even if we couldn't do it for v1.0 definitely for +versions

[Guest Jim69]

Prehaps even different shades for different races, like Sectoids get a blue because offensively they are passive whereas Muton's get angry shades of read because they are aggressive warriors.

 

Edit: Is flickering lights an option as well? That would look cool for severely damaged UFO's and add some mood to proceedings.

Edited September 24, 2003 by Jim69

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Flickering lights would add to the mood of a ufo recovery mission, I like it. It would also make sense, surely some of the lights would be damaged?

 

Hey, maby the aliens could see in a different light spectrum than us? So instead of white/yellow light, we could have a blacklight? That might get cheesy though.

[j'ordos]

The ultimate party UFO: featuring blacklights, reflective walls and high-power stroboscope (just beware of the gatekeepers :: )

 

Different hues for each type of UFO, I like it! I don't know if I like the idea about different colours for each race though, unless we're giving each race different UFO designs, which I don't think will make it into v1

[Breunor]

I like the idea of color variation based on craft type, but not by alien race. The interior lights was brought up a while back, we talked about dark reds, blues, or greens coming from the power sources, console panels, and other props in the ufo. The aliens function fine at night, they have big eyes for the most part, so they'd probably have darker ufos as well. Perhaps some kind of light emitters, perhaps even the ridges of the wall sections could be given a faint light source?

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

How about luciferin-based lightsources? Add an eerie yellow-green glow without heat that'll last years...

 

(fyi: Luciferin is the stuff in lightning bug bottoms)

 

-The Captain

[Breunor]

Yes, that would give a nice effect, I was thinking about luminescent moss type of glow (but not from moss of course). Having it glow from along the floor would let you see movement, but not highlight the faces of aliens so much, giving it a creepier feel.

[Guest drewid]

Now that's an idea I like Cpl.F, the colouration can be just subtle enough to see but it will add in a whole new dimension of how the player feels about each type of craft. The more offensive the craft the more uneasy the player should feel about it. The psychological effect of a hulking batleship that looks ominous is too much to pass up.

 

It won't be that hard either as the iridium sheen will be applied seperately to the skin of each craft. Ok it'll take a bit more work on the various skins for each craft but I think it'd be worth the effort.

 

Even if we couldn't do it for v1.0 definitely for +versions

I agree, I really really like the idea of the big shipd being a menacing black.

[Guest Jim69]

This is a rough outline of what I was thinking for the UFO in 3D for a better view.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Which ufo is that? The 2 small shapes look kind of odd to me, maby if they were more symetrical. At anyrate, good concept!

[fux0r666]

Facehugger, again, these don't represent any ufo in particular they are just examples of the look of the interior, not the layout.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

I have to admit, when I heard about the 'rings of water' design, I pctured something more like this. The left is the ship (same basic design as Jim69's) in relief (the grey lines being ridges in the floor), and the right with the ridges removed for clarity (red is a door). I think the 'overlapping rings' looks more alien than just two disks melded...it makes the vessel look more organic, like the two parts grow through each other.

 

-The Captain

[Deimos]

With Jim's last submission, I'm really getting a feel for this concentric ring style of ship. Even more so with Cpt.B's pic. That would be a very interesting ship to assault. I'm guessing the entrance would be at the top as it seems the larger central area would be best served as the power plant with the smaller area circle serving as the control room.

 

As said before it would be difficult to send a blaster bomb down corridors like those.

 

I'm guessing (obviously) but to me that size of craft both Jim's and Cpt.B's looks like it would be about large scout sized seeing as the blocks are 1m based.

 

Expanding Cpt.B's design a little in the pic I've added where the power and control consoles could be best placed and added an entrance and a few more doors. This way it gives the player multiple ways to search the ship without being overly obvious that its designed for the player.

[Guest drewid]

I haven't thought about it too much, but that latest design looks great, but very difficult to make out of a reasonable sized block set.

 

Worth mocking up to see where problems might be.

Also may cause problems with line of sight (seeing through corners)

 

I'm not saying it can't be done or anything, just that it needs further investigation

[Guest Jim69]

I haven't thought about it too much, but that latest design looks great, but very difficult to make out of a reasonable sized block set.

 

Worth mocking up to see where problems might be.

Also may cause problems with line of sight (seeing through corners)

 

I'm not saying it can't be done or anything, just that it needs further investigation

Yeah, I figured that too. Each ring would need at least it's own set, prehaps even 3, one for the standard wall, one for a door and one for an end cap. This isn't really that much tho because the rings would be reused for all the ships, with prehaps bigger ones for the bigger ships.

 

Yeah, I was working with the large scout in mind, it is roughly to scale but not completly.

 

I like the last couple of designs, I was trying to think of a way to make the floors more interesting and this could create less uniform UFO's so they aren't all the same layout.

[Guest drewid]

I was thinkg about possible issues with all the various intersections in the bigger part of the ship. getting an all-encompassing block set could take a -lot- of blocks.

[Guest Jim69]

I think the best way to go about it is to have as many blocks that can be reused as is possible but when the time comes to do intersecting blocks we may have to just make custom blocks for every ship. Really, if there are 10 custom blocks and 6 tiled blocks per design that still isn't a very big space.

 

I know that the plan was to have just the one block set per UFO but that may not be possible. We all know about best laid plans We can just put this down as a negative against the design when it actually comes to making a concrete decision as to whether this is a viable option or not. I agree that we need to do a little more research into it, i.e. make a prototype of the rough design, maybe even a complicated one so that we know the extents of the design, and then we can start doing all the plans according to exactly how we want them.

 

I'm gonna try and do the large scout that Facehugger did and Deimos modifyed so we can see if it will work or not. Luckly we do have a lot of time to play around with because we are always gonna be ahead of the programmers.

 

Edit: Sorry, that was Boxershorts rather than facehugger, damn I get confused between u two ::

Edited September 27, 2003 by Jim69

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Umm Jim? I didn't do a large scout. I believe that Cpt. Boxershorts did that.

 

Would it really be that difficult to make block sets? I mean, the way I figure it, you would only have to make one ring, then add places for doors. You could do the same ring, different shape, and different door locations and people will think it is different. Of course, I am no artist, so I don't know what im talking about .

[Guest Jim69]

I know, read the edit

 

Well, at first glance it seems simple enough. But when you actually get into it you realise that for the blocks to intersect needs a new block. Plus any doorway obviously needs a new set, and this is only from a rough copy idea of what is needed. Who knows what problems there might be? But there will be quite a few blocks needed, plus a new set for each ring so there could potentially be quite a few different things needed. That's why I'm going to try to put it into 3D tomorrow so I can see what the problems would be.

[Guest drewid]

Umm Jim? I didn't do a large scout. I believe that Cpt. Boxershorts did that.

 

Would it really be that difficult to make block sets? I mean, the way I figure it, you would only have to make one ring, then add places for doors. You could do the same ring, different shape, and different door locations and people will think it is different. Of course, I am no artist, so I don't know what im talking about .

With the original idea that would be true, but the second floorplan contains section where concentric rings overlap,

 

While we could literally just overlap blocks it could lead to artifacting on the screen, so it would be better to do a new block for that intersection. you'd also need blocks to butt up against wall left, curved corridor right, and the opposite, and also doors to do the same, and an intersection for each radius on every other radius, both left right and every possible angle and so on and so on. :crying:

[Guest Jim69]

It is possible to create easy connecting blocks if you grab the corresponding verticies on each ring and scale em down, then there shouldn't be any artifacts and will make work a heck of a lot quiker. Still gotta get those blocks very close to each other to do this tho or it will just look crap. The walls on the corridor could be a little problem however, tho I'm sure there is a technique for this as well. Maybe we could create some kind of piller system at the joins so they don't look so dodgy? There has got to be an easy way around it, if we could use some kind of piller at the joins to hide the fact that they don't join properly it would be much less blocks to tile.

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

On the other hand, wouldn't standardizing the disks make it easier? If the layers of one circle were actually even (unlike my attempt), and the connection points standardized (ie: the walls must touch when rings are joined), all the intersections would be the same size. You'd only need one disk as a template, and once all the possible blocks were made for it, you'd be set, and could build as complicated a ship as you like.

 

I'm not a 3d guy, but I'm a programmer, and I could probably design an logical abstraction for this without too much trouble. I can't imagine that actually drawing it up could be that much more difficult (famous last words).

 

-The Captain

[Guest Jim69]

I'm not sure what you mean, could you do a quick sketch?

[Deimos]

Judging from what's been said it looks like apart from the block sections you'd need corner blocks or both obtuse and acute angles to fill the corner sections. Obviously if it were a box shape we'd only need four 90degree L shaped blocks to cover all the permutations we'd need, however we'll need (just from the cursory glance) four blocks of around 120 degrees (not an accurate figure) and four of about 70-80 degree blocks. That should cover all the corners we'll need unless we get into ever more esoteric shapes inside the craft.

 

For the doorways possibly a way round it would be to make up a three block section with the single width doorway in the middle of it. Why three blocks? Well as the door will be just over one block width the door mechanism can be built into either side of the door. For the double width doors we up that to probably a four block width with similar suggestions for the door mechanisms either side of the double width door.

 

The single width doors done this way are going to limit the designs slightly so I guess we should look at other ways of doing the interior doors as well.

 

One thing I think we should consider is how the doors will animate. IE do they slide up, down, left or right as that'll have an impact on how the doors are modelled.

[Vaaish]

for animation purposes they would probably be easiest to have slide down. Maybe the aliens have a type of deformable metal that sinks into the floor withoit the need for a well below for the door to fit into.

[mamutas]

when I saw a picture first, i thought: 'wow, great looking maze! i wonder what is it for?' and then i realized that it is an alien ship.

if i would be an alien, i would not be happy to fly on such ship: 'ok, two more corners and i will be in the bathroom... oops! too late...'

 

just a practical view... i think it could be fun in game, but it needs to be tried out...

[Guest Jim69]

when I saw a picture first, i thought: 'wow, great looking maze! i wonder what is it for?' and then i realized that it is an alien ship. 

if i would be an alien, i would not be happy to fly on such ship: 'ok, two more corners and i will be in the bathroom... oops! too late...'

, that is a point: Where is the WC?

 

I think surfice to say that they are designed by the aliens to prevent any assualts. And yeah we need a lot of blocks, the real question is whether it would be worth it.

[Deimos]

Do aliens need to go to the little boys room? I'd love to know where it comes out from

[Guest Jim69]

One thing I'd say about the most recent design is this: I don't really know about the ridges in the floor idea, I can't think of a quick way of doing it and it may be more trouble than it is worth. Unless someone here can think of a quick way of doing the floors in this way.

[Deimos]

I though about that and the answer would be to build a complete floor for the end design. Don't bother with a floor till we've got the finished designs and then it won't look like a tiled floor.

[Guest Jim69]

OK, ignoring the floor I am going to have a crack at the latest design then and see what problems arise.

[Guest Jim69]

I just had a thought: We are making very heavy work of this when there is a simple solution: Why have destroyed tiles put in for the damaged interior UFO walls when we can just put a rubble model rotated to the rough angle that the wall was at? The reason I suggest this is because having a model put in that is rotated to the exact same angle as the block we need plus the exact same size seems like a lot of unnecessary work. We still need the tile system system, yes, to save on the amount of model files required, but we could make it a little easier if we just put rubble down. That's what X-Com did and they only had 8 angles to rotate so I think we can get away with it. I don't think projectiles will destroy it anyway so we could have it melted down and have the same model for each wall block without worring about angles. IIRC the only way the walls got destroyed in X-Com was because of a crash but that might change so I keep this in mind.

[Vaaish]

I just had a thought: We are making very heavy work of this when there is a simple solution: Why have destroyed tiles put in for the damaged interior UFO walls when we can just put a rubble model rotated to the rough angle that the wall was at? The reason I suggest this is because having a model put in that is rotated to the exact same angle as the block we need plus the exact same size seems like a lot of unnecessary work. We still need the tile system system, yes, to save on the amount of model files required, but we could make it a little easier if we just put rubble down. That's what X-Com did and they only had 8 angles to rotate so I think we can get away with it. I don't think projectiles will destroy it anyway so we could have it melted down and have the same model for each wall block without worring about angles. IIRC the only way the walls got destroyed in X-Com was because of a crash but that might change so I keep this in mind.

minly we also need there to be a floor in the craft and if you are making a floor tile with the wall missing you might as well just go ahead and make the destroyed wall portion too.

[Guest Jim69]

Ah, but not if we make the floor seperatly, as Deimos was suggesting. It would save on models as well and offset the increase needed to do the capping wall sections.

[Vaaish]

you are talking about 3 separate modesl to take te place of a single segment. why not just simply make the wall with floor piece and then edit the model to make the destroyed wall segment.

[Guest Jim69]

Well, firstly I am talking about 2 seperate models, one entire model for all the floor and 1 model for the wall chunk curving down to the floor. Basically the reason is that it is going to be very difficult to replace the model exactly where the previous one went without leaving a seam hense causing unnecessary clipping problems between the walls. In this way whatever new models are created will be completly offset by the lack of a destroyed tile model for each wall tile we have, that could get very complicated.

 

I personally think that this is a good idea, will save work and space when it comes to peeps downloading which is a good idea. Considering the only real way to destroy UFO walls is from the UFO crashing IIRC then it should be a good enough effect considering the bonuses we can get by doing this.

Edited September 29, 2003 by Jim69

[Breunor]

If you want try to make a few chunks each way, and then you can decide which is easier. I'm leaning towards Vaaish on that point, once you've made a particular wall section you can just deform it so that the base is left with the rest "melted away" and such.

 

Hey Mamutas, they don't use a toilet per se, perhaps they vomit up their waste after digestion?! "Quick man, where's the vomitorium? I've been holding down this human for half the trip, I'm about to burst!" Actually what humans might find indirect and annoying might appeal to the aliens, perhaps hard straight corners and lines are annoying to them and too distracting? It's just another reason they're alien to us I guess.