I'd like it if you could specify in the units script a screenshake, specifying how strong the shake is, how long it will occur for, and some range value for how far that shake is before it drops off. Perhaps defined in a TDF with a numeric ID as it currently is...
Aswell as the option to call some shake() function of all units in that range incase they should react aswell.
And please, I dont want the whole screen shake hoo haa previous discusison has had, any sane modder would only have that sort of immense shake that moves the mouse 1/4 of the way across the screen so it only occurs when what your clicking fills the entire screen anyway.
Scripted ground shakes
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Felix the Cat
- Posts: 2383
- Joined: 15 Jun 2005, 17:30
felix, this is exactly what I said not to say, this has been discussed and no sane modder would make the screen shake so violently that it would make clicking units impossible at times.
Imagine you've zoomed in to see a krogoth up close, and its stomping on the ground which shakes.
Now how do you think this shaking will interfere with the game? Your so close it doesnt matter where you click because anywhere will select the krogoth regardless of wether its shaking or not, and if its moving then it'll probably move offscreen within a few seconds anyway.
And what about if you zoom out? Well the shaking dissipates quickly and is no longer visible once near normal zoom levels.
What I requested is fully under modder control, so if it were implemented you would not have screenshakes ingame, unelss the modder deliberatly add them in.
Your reply reminds me of the desperate AA fan who thinks adding a feature to spring means adding it to AA, and doesnt realize that caydr may not use that feature at all.
Imagine you've zoomed in to see a krogoth up close, and its stomping on the ground which shakes.
Now how do you think this shaking will interfere with the game? Your so close it doesnt matter where you click because anywhere will select the krogoth regardless of wether its shaking or not, and if its moving then it'll probably move offscreen within a few seconds anyway.
And what about if you zoom out? Well the shaking dissipates quickly and is no longer visible once near normal zoom levels.
What I requested is fully under modder control, so if it were implemented you would not have screenshakes ingame, unelss the modder deliberatly add them in.
Your reply reminds me of the desperate AA fan who thinks adding a feature to spring means adding it to AA, and doesnt realize that caydr may not use that feature at all.
So graphics are bad? A lot of people I saw that gave presentations at the International gaming conference would beg to differ with you, they dont call it a distraction, they call it immersion, providing a background and drawing the player more into the gameworld. Whereas the ideal gameworld under what you said is a group of numbers and letters hovering over a DOS console, with sprites and 23D graphics seen as a distraction.It's a distracting graphical gimmick.
We're playing a game, not filming a movie.
Examples include the Cybran factories in supcom, and the energy core in Dawn of War: Dark crusade. The Necron energy core generates a mild shake when upgraded, and the cybran factories shake the screen when you zoom in up close to see them, usually they ahve to fill at least half the screen before it becomes major, but at that level it doesn't matter anyway.
The same is used in a lot of space strategy games. When you follow some space craft or capital ship and zoom in on the engines the screen usually slightly shakes. Anyway it's just a feature so why not... shouldn't be too difficult to move or randomly rotate the cam and reset it.
This'd need a shake intensitiy variable and a distance from camera to object when the shaking ought to happen.
This'd need a shake intensitiy variable and a distance from camera to object when the shaking ought to happen.
As long as the +noshake code is implemented as well I'm fine with it. 
In TA the problem was the mouse cursor would stay still while the screen underneath moved, so it if the shake occured at a wrong momement, you would misclick (hence irritation and bad playing experience for the user). But if the cursor was following the shake, maybe that issue would be solved, and there would be no wrong mouseclick and it would be possible to keep on clicking even during long earthquake, and so we'd have the cool gimmick without the annoyance. Of course, the cursor would have to know how to follow screenshake only when over the main window and not when over the gui, it would have to know not to escape out of screen, etc... so it's probably a bit more tricky than just "make cursor follow shake", but if done well I wonder if it would effectively remove the annoyance bits from the screenshake.
In TA the problem was the mouse cursor would stay still while the screen underneath moved, so it if the shake occured at a wrong momement, you would misclick (hence irritation and bad playing experience for the user). But if the cursor was following the shake, maybe that issue would be solved, and there would be no wrong mouseclick and it would be possible to keep on clicking even during long earthquake, and so we'd have the cool gimmick without the annoyance. Of course, the cursor would have to know how to follow screenshake only when over the main window and not when over the gui, it would have to know not to escape out of screen, etc... so it's probably a bit more tricky than just "make cursor follow shake", but if done well I wonder if it would effectively remove the annoyance bits from the screenshake.
I think any situation where the shaking actually affects the clicking of units at zoomed out level is going to have to be an intentional thing by the modder, like omg wtf pawn nuke gone off I cant see anything!
And I think that the global screen shakes of OTA would be a bad thing, as in OTA if a nuke went off, the entire map shook at the same intensity. What I'm suggesting requires a fall off radius, so it would have to be a humongous shake.
These shakes should also be specifiable by explosions, and they should have 2 values specifying how long they shake the screen, and how long they send shake() calls to nearby units which may have a settling down animation ongoing....
And I think that the global screen shakes of OTA would be a bad thing, as in OTA if a nuke went off, the entire map shook at the same intensity. What I'm suggesting requires a fall off radius, so it would have to be a humongous shake.
These shakes should also be specifiable by explosions, and they should have 2 values specifying how long they shake the screen, and how long they send shake() calls to nearby units which may have a settling down animation ongoing....
Did you not read what I said? No modder would be stupid enough to make the screen shake so violently that it makes it hard to select units. I'm talking about allowing small scale shakes, the sort that only happen when your zoomed in. The sort that happen when the unit causing the shake is taking up most of the screen anyway so even if whats under your mouse moves 10cm back and forth, it doesnt matter because at that zoom your target is 60cm across anyway.I hate screenshaking, I have enough trouble clicking what I want to some times to have to deal with that also. +noshake is a must.
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Guessmyname
- Posts: 3301
- Joined: 28 Apr 2005, 21:07
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LathanStanley
- Posts: 1429
- Joined: 20 Jun 2005, 05:16
I like the idea, hell, I'm all for it.
but I want ONE option, and NO its not +noshake or wtf ever..
but rather a SLIDER on the options menu, to scale the amount of shake dynamically.. as a floating point decimal global multiplier
some like alot, some like little... that'd make E V E R Y O N E happy...
but I want ONE option, and NO its not +noshake or wtf ever..
but rather a SLIDER on the options menu, to scale the amount of shake dynamically.. as a floating point decimal global multiplier
some like alot, some like little... that'd make E V E R Y O N E happy...