Witchspace and docking sequence upgrade

Ironass · Post by **Ironass** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 7:53 am

Hi all

The Witchspace blue tunnel is a bit unreal or lacking or something.

Here I go, banging on about the BBC b version again, but hyperspace on the BBC b was a blast! It got your Adrenalin into overload and got you ready for battle!
Can anything be done to pep it up a bit?

Also, docking sequence...
You get through the letterbox docking bay and just at the end you get a blue/red tunnel effect that doesn't look like it does anything any justice.

The BBC b disc version attempted to show you the inside of the station and another ship that was docked in there already...

Having said all that, I still am enjoying it immensely! It's a great improvement on elite! Thanks

Post by **Kaks** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 12:00 pm

Well, it's not much of a spicing up, but you can always change the colours from blue/white to whatevever colours you want...

The relevant settings are inside planetinfo.plist:

Code: Select all

	hyperspace_tunnel_color_1 = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.7);		// R, G, B, A values 0.0 to 1.0
	
	//hyperspace_tunnel_color_1 = (1.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.5);		// default value, same as docking tunnel
	//hyperspace_tunnel_color_2 = (0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.25);	// default value, same as docking tunnel

Cheers,

Kaks.

Ironass · Post by **Ironass** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 8:19 pm

Thanks for that Kaks.

It was just that I was hoping to boost the vibe; rack up the rush of adrenalin.

After a drowsy dock and flogging off the spoils of shot-up ships, I could do with a whoosh of whitchspace that gets me ready for my next nemesis...!

Never mind...

fronclynne · Post by **fronclynne** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:13 pm

Ironass wrote:
Thanks for that Kaks.

It was just that I was hoping to boost the vibe; rack up the rush of adrenalin.

After a drowsy dock and flogging off the spoils of shot-up ships, I could do with a whoosh of whitchspace that gets me ready for my next nemesis...!

Never mind...

1.75L of gin will get you ready for battle . . .

Dave McRoss · Post by **Dave McRoss** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 7:48 am

fronclynne wrote:

1.75L of gin will get you ready for battle . . .

Roy Fokker's Effect?
Yeah, it can work. Maybe.

Bugbear · Post by **Bugbear** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 11:59 am

Probably totally impossible / unfeasable....

...but for anyone who has seen the series 'Andromeda', imagine if the slipstream animations...

http://andromeda.wikia.com/wiki/Slipstream

Darkbee · Post by **Darkbee** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:28 pm

Am I completely losing my mind, or did the Atari ST version of Elite actually show other ships inside the Space Station when you docked? I might have to check now when I get a chance.

I agree though that this is one area where digressing from the original and bringing it more up-to-date wouldn't hurt the game at all. Having said that, needlessly long animation sequences get old, fast. So a compromise would no doubt have to be struck.

It's certainly less than awe-inspiring when you approach a Griff remade* Space Station, and then you dock. The End.

*Insert your fav awesome Space Station design here

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:39 pm

Darkbee wrote:
Am I completely losing my mind, or did the Atari ST version of Elite actually show other ships inside the Space Station when you docked? I might have to check now when I get a chance.

I think you're right, and the Atari and Amiga versions did this. IIRC the docking sequence lasted a little longer and ended with a view of the inside of the dock, with a downward-pointing arrow on the back wall, and your viewpoint lowered along that arrow. At the same time there were outlines of other ships visible in the left and right corners, perhaps even randomly.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:46 pm

Even the BBC Master version of Elite generated a random Docking Bay scene each time you docked (The Master making the most of that 64k (or even 128K) it had available.

Post by **Kaks** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:40 pm

I did think about tweaking the code that deals with the backgrounds plist, to allow Oolite to pick one of an array of background images at random, like what happens with sounds & descriptions already.

Can't remember for the life of me if I actually implemented that, though!

pagroove · Post by **pagroove** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:18 pm

Kaks wrote:
I did think about tweaking the code that deals with the backgrounds plist, to allow Oolite to pick one of an array of background images at random, like what happens with sounds & descriptions already.

Can't remember for the life of me if I actually implemented that, though!

Sounds good! Did you already experiment with it?

Post by **Kaks** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:38 am

Turns out I hadn't implemented it in the end.

It wasn't too big a change though, so I've just made the necessary changes to trunk.

Starting from the next trunk build you should be able to experiment with it yourself!

pagroove · Post by **pagroove** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 7:50 pm

Kaks wrote:
Turns out I hadn't implemented it in the end.

It wasn't too big a change though, so I've just made the necessary changes to trunk.

Starting from the next trunk build you should be able to experiment with it yourself!

Maybe Deepspace can make a cool Docking Screen for it.

SiriusCG · Post by **SiriusCG** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 10:03 pm

So, I'm curious. I didn't play any of the Elite versions that featured a "scene" at the end of the docking sequence.

If I read this correctly, one would produce some pre-rendered graphics depicting the docking area, create an array in backgrounds.plist and have the program code choose and display one of those scenes. This choice can be made randomly, or from a subset of the array based on the system or station one docks in?

Cheers.

Post by **Kaks** » Thu Oct 28, 2010 10:31 pm

Almost!

Using just the plist you can only get a random background chosen from the whole of the array associated to a screen, I'm afraid.

However, if you use javascript, you can override any backgrounds shown using any picture at all, depending on whatever condition you want, without needing to use screenBackgrounds.plists at all.

It's obviously much more labour intensive than the more 'lassez faire' .plist approach. However, with some judicious use of the this.guiScreenChanged event, a series of if() statements, and setScreenOverlay() / setScreenBackground() - the last two described inside http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Oolite ... ce:_Global - you should be able to do just about anything humanely possible to the way each screen looks!

The js approach, though not used yet afaik - possibly to keep things relatively simple - has been fully possible since 1.74
Incidentally, I reckon (memory like a whatsitsname) that's actually why I never implemented the random choice thing at the time, since it would be relatively easy to simulate it using javascript!