Tranquility (On Hold, 2017-08-12)

[Josh771]

Option 3 is a helluva lot of code work, but it's such a winner in my book. If you ever do settle on it, you can always ask for my help brainstorming on DECORATE/ACS work.

I love Receiver, so I couldn't really care less about the "Doom-feel" if you can manage a "Receiver-feel" in Doom. (And then my mind goes wild with thoughts of detailed weapon modification systems and controls for breaking your weapons down, etc... sorry, I'm not expecting that level of ridiculous from you, just some minor ridiculousness will do).

Anyway, that's my two cents. I can relate to your feelings about sprite work; it makes a project take twice as long or longer to run a one-man band like that. Maybe an artist in the community will offer a helping hand somewhere down the road?

EDIT:I'm imagining some kind of crazy 2.5D HUD weapon made of all these overlays - like if the nice 3D-looking effect of your crosshair could be applied to an entire weapon. THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME. I'm not really expecting that, of course, but still...

[JimmyJ]

If you think it would be feasible option 3 sounds like it'd be amazing, but it sounds like it'd also be quite the immense undertaking. Option 2'd be fine to me but no sprites at all such as option 1 is a a hit to the immersion for me.

[Caligari87]

#3 is my pet favorite too. The main thing is the problem of smoothly shifting perspective without a true 3D model. I suppose it could be achieved with something like a few dozen voxel-like "slices" of gun on separate overlays, but even I'm not that crazy.

More likely the simpler outcome would be something like the front and back profile would make up the sight overlays for general use. Then separate frames like left or top views where the sights are hidden, and each "piece" (slide, frame) is a separate overlay.

Unless there's a better way to implement it, I worry it may look rather ugly in practice, and not at all like a real gun.

[Josh771]

#3 is my pet favorite too. The main thing is the problem of smoothly shifting perspective without a true 3D model. I suppose it could be achieved with something like a few dozen voxel-like "slices" of gun on separate overlays, but even I'm not that crazy.

More likely the simpler outcome would be something like the front and back profile would make up the sight overlays for general use. Then separate frames like left or top views where the sights are hidden, and each "piece" (slide, frame) is a separate overlay.

Unless there's a better way to implement it, I worry it may look rather ugly in practice, and not at all like a real gun.

I think you could easily get away with centered, left, and right perspectives of your first-person guns and simply switch sprites at certain x-offset thresholds. After all, monster sprites change at set angles, why not the player's weapon?

But I just can't give up on option 3; it's so awesome you have to do it. Oh no, what if you pick something other than 3? How will I survive?

[wildweasel]

I vote for Option 3 - going for Receiver-esque graphics also absolves you of any responsibility to show hand movement.

[Caligari87]

After some more thought and a little experimentation, I think the problem with 3 is that the current sight behavior can't really be replicated with a flat weapon sprite because there's no way to visually "connect" them as a single object. It's just visually ugly and would only draw attention to the fact that the weapon is not actually connected to the sights. The only solutions I can see would either necessitate A) keeping the floating layered sights and using the dynamic weapon sprites as representative-only (like how it currently works, just... uglier) or B) dropping the floating layered sights in favor of a flat, dynamically-animated weapon-as-crosshair.

A lot of this is also riding on the fact that my art skills are even worse than I thought, and I loathe the possibility of shipping a mod with flat grey floating rectangles for a weapon. Not even Receiver is that ugly. I thought I could come up with something, but the visual semantics of an abstract 2.5 hud weapon are just not working out nicely...

[wildweasel]

Considering that the floating sights are quite possibly the most awesome feature of the mod thus far, I think I'd be willing to accept that the weapon sprite itself is just plain invisible...as long as the sights themselves can be made distinctive enough, or take a page from SidDoyle's Special Weapons mod and have a weapon icon on screen and a series of Rogue Spear/Ghost Recon 1-style progress indicators (or even web browser-style "throbber" animations) for things like reloading and switching weapons.

[Somagu]

Well, I can think of a compromise, actually, but only in theory and I have no idea if it could actually work practically.

Leave the crosshairs proper as those super cool sight pictures, the first person gun itself still being invisible, but create a hud element that shows the gun from a side or diagonal perspective for things like checking if a round is chambered or a magazine being visibly removed or a shotgun being pumped or etc. etc.. It's worth a thought, if nothing else. I have no idea if you can make it practical or not look like total butt.

[Caligari87]

That's sort of a blend of #1 and #2, and I'm considering it may be the way to go. Maybe I'll bug Mike12 for a dehanded version of his Beretta...

[wildweasel]

Well, I can think of a compromise, actually, but only in theory and I have no idea if it could actually work practically.

Leave the crosshairs proper as those super cool sight pictures, the first person gun itself still being invisible, but create a hud element that shows the gun from a side or diagonal perspective for things like checking if a round is chambered or a magazine being visibly removed or a shotgun being pumped or etc. etc.. It's worth a thought, if nothing else. I have no idea if you can make it practical or not look like total butt.

I do like this idea, actually. But it will require some compromises to make it clear that the gun on screen is NOT supposed to be the gun in-hand. Be careful where you place it, most of all - if it's angled to the left, try placing it on the opposite side of the screen from where it'd "logically" go if it were being held. Or perhaps even mirror it, so the ejection port is visible, in case you want to try depicting things like stovepiped cases.

Actually, to expand on this: angle the gun to the right of the screen, stick it in the right corner, and instead of showing the full grip (there's not much to show aside from it looking neat), show an X-ray of it so you can have it double as an on-screen ammo counter. Yes, this will take a lot of effort. It does sound cool in my head, though.

[Josh771]

I do like this idea, actually. But it will require some compromises to make it clear that the gun on screen is NOT supposed to be the gun in-hand. Be careful where you place it, most of all - if it's angled to the left, try placing it on the opposite side of the screen from where it'd "logically" go if it were being held. Or perhaps even mirror it, so the ejection port is visible, in case you want to try depicting things like stovepiped cases.

Actually, to expand on this: angle the gun to the right of the screen, stick it in the right corner, and instead of showing the full grip (there's not much to show aside from it looking neat), show an X-ray of it so you can have it double as an on-screen ammo counter. Yes, this will take a lot of effort. It does sound cool in my head, though.

This sounds like it's going in the direction I'd originally planned for Special Weapons (before someone started making awesome weapon animations and I shifted gears). I was going to show things like extended magazines, suppressors, etc. on your weapon icon, and I was even going to animate things like the slide when firing, or actually show a magazine dropping and another one being inserted.

Of course, I'm hoping to get actual Doom-esque centered HUD sprites now. Also, wildweasel's thought for an X-Ray ammo counter is friggin' amazing. I'm gonna have to demand beg politely that you do that now, because I just want so badly to see it in action. Also, are you planning on making more of those awesome 2.5D sights (like AK-47/MP40 sorts of sights)?

All this artwork, though. That's work. Why do all the best ideas take so much artwork? Guess that's why I like roguelikes so much.

[Caligari87]

You silly people and your x-ray ammo counters! Don't you know you need to pull the mag out and look at the vents to see how many rounds are left? Besides, how else are you going to load individual rounds?

This definitely seems a bit more approachable, perhaps as a "schematic" or line drawing style... Part of what's difficult about HUD weapons (for me) is the perspective, whereas a side-on or isometric view of the weapon would be a lot easier to manage from an art creation and animation perspective.

Also, are you planning on making more of those awesome 2.5D sights (like AK-47/MP40 sorts of sights)?

Yes, the sight graphics themselves are easy enough and the code is deceptively simple. My plan though is to abstract them a little more, kind of like this.

[Caligari87]

Bump for new version, Alpha 2017.05.29! This ZScript re-write is technically a slight regression in features but I felt it important to get out there for wider feedback. Please let me know what you think, along with any criticisms or suggestions.

[-Ghost-]

Eh, to be honest I really don't like the pistol on the HUD rather than actually held. My least favorite part of the old Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games is that you're basically a camera drone with a crosshair; it feels like way less feedback and satisfaction when you're shooting. I can respect that if that's the direction you want to go in, since it's unique, but it's definitely not the way for me.

[Caligari87]

It's not optimal I know. But unfortunately I don't have the skills to create all the myriad required graphics for a held weapon, said weapon wouldn't be able to integrate with the floating sights I'm using, and the weapon is designed with multiple overlays which only work in flat perspective, not fake-3D perspective. I'm open to alternatives if anyone has any suggestions.