Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

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pd
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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#31 Post by pd »

Another thing that popped into my mind: The weapons or other systems, that a ship is equipped with could be shown with icons floating next the ship. When combat starts, non of those would be visible, only once a ship makes use of a certain sub-system, the icon will appear. Usage of advanced scanners might also be a way to let those show up. This way you wouldn't have to scroll in and take a close look at every ship, trying to find familiar looking turrets and stuff, because this would be tedious and boring. Opinions please!
Last edited by pd on Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#32 Post by Geoff the Medio »

The Silent One wrote:Note that the time period of 3-5 seconds ("turn") refers to when ships move, and not the phase where the player is giving orders!
You're reading what you want to see into an intentionally ambiguous statement. It's not "During turns, which are between the times when orders take effect..."

The intention is that the "turn" refers to the full cycle of order-giving and playing out the events in real time (though the former might be omitted in any given turn). You could, roughly, refer to the "paused order-giving phase" and "real-time phase" to distinguish the (possible) parts of a full turn. If you didn't pause on a given turn, then the full turn would take 3-5 seconds, though if you did pause, it could take much longer.
It certainly wouldn't make any sense to limit the time to give orders to such a small amount of time as 5 seconds.
It could, depending on the desired flow of the battle. When this was being discussed, some people (eg. me) wanted a fully turn-based system since FO is a strategy game, not a real-time tactics game. Others, (Eg. Aquitaine) wanted to reimpliment Total War. The flexible compormise is phased time, where the turns "play out" in real time, but orders can also be given while it is paused. How long the pause can be will probably be a game configuration or server setting, which could vary from no pausing allowed, to indefinite pausing.
Right now, there is no time limit on the order phase, so there is also no need to have all information directly accessible.
The conclusion does not follow from the premise. Even in a fully turn-based game, you'd still want as much easily visible information as possible. That doesn't necessarily mean visible on the hull as a part attached to the base model, though.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#33 Post by pd »

Let's get back on topic and discuss what I've proposed.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#34 Post by eleazar »

pd wrote:The weapons or other systems, that a ship is equipped with could be shown with icons floating next the ship.
Can you provide an example of a game (with comparable complexity of ship design) that uses such a system— preferably one that's not turn-based?

It seems mostly likely that such a system would result in the ships being much/mostly obscured under icons and data.


:arrow:
Of course there is a completely different method of displaying combat which is worth discussion. Rather than attempt to photo-realism, space battle could be like the condensed but data-rich symbolic display that a battle commander might use. The following are too simplistic for our needs, but these show the general ball-park: Weather or not we use this sort of basic symbolic approach for everything or not, i'm pretty certain that the display will need to move in this direction as the map is zoomed out. Even if we brutally ignore realistic scale, (as more or less we must) our system-battle maps will probably be quite big. The beauty of a ship model is irrelevant if it's only 3 pixels big.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#35 Post by pd »

eleazar wrote:
pd wrote:The weapons or other systems, that a ship is equipped with could be shown with icons floating next the ship.
Can you provide an example of a game (with comparable complexity of ship design) that uses such a system— preferably one that's not turn-based?
No, unfortunately I can't. I usually don't play any games.
It seems mostly likely that such a system would result in the ships being much/mostly obscured under icons and data.
This depends a lot on what gets an icon and what doesn't. Do you think it's better to have the ships obscured under 3d models of turrents or other systems? Does this make things easier?
Weather or not we use this sort of basic symbolic approach for everything or not, i'm pretty certain that the display will need to move in this direction as the map is zoomed out. Even if we brutally ignore realistic scale, (as more or less we must) our system-battle maps will probably be quite big. The beauty of a ship model is irrelevant if it's only 3 pixels big.
I think a mix of fixed ship models and icon overlays for sub systems could work pretty nice. Much better than 3d meshes for sub systems anyway, because 3D models of weapons are irrelevant too, if the ships are only 3px big. Your overall argumentation seems a bit vague to me. First you are saying that the ships would be obscured under those icons. Then you say, that an icon system can't be avoided and your last sentence has nothing to do with any of this.

So, if I get this right, what you are basicly saying is, that we should use 3D models for sub systems if the player is zoomed in. Once zoomed out there should be icon overlays. If so, I don't think it's worth the effort of creating those 3d models for sub systems at all, because they could be shown with icon overlays at all zoom stages, which saves work, is easier to recognize and will get us better looking ships.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#36 Post by utilae »

I generally agree with PDs point of view on this.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Being able to distinguish one ship design from another easily is most important during actual tactical battles, which is when the players have already "shown their hand" and revealed (at least some of) the details of their designs. At that point, information hiding (about desgins) isn't a very convincing reason to make ships hard to tell apart... particularly since they'll look the same to their owner, not just other players.

Imagine playing StarCraft, WarCraft, Wesnoth, or chess where you had to click on or pick up a piece and examine it's label every time to tell apart the unit types... Granted, there are some games where information hiding is the whole point, eg. Stratego, but the analogy to those other games seems more appropriate given the relatively complicated designs and various weapon types that are possible. Also, in Stratego, you can at least see what type your own pieces are at a (semi-) glance...
I think it is unimportant that Ship A looks like a heavy war ship and Ship B looks like a carrier, etc. If you look at many scifi shows, eg star trek, ships don't always have a clear indication that makes them appear obvious to be a certain role. I think if it wasn't clear immediately what role a ship is at a glance, it would be better, since if the enemy does not know your ships role, then strategic advantage is yours. I think that good scanners, can however reveal the ships role and other information through the use of limited icons and text information (like in Moo2).
pd wrote: I guess, I just can't live with having big turrets and other stuff mounted on the hull. It's not just about beauty, but about successful design in general.
I too hate the idea of turrets all over a ships hull. I would prefer a random shape, with a texture and flat texture attachments for engines, and weapon ports. It would be way better.
pd wrote: What will be possible is to have relativly small 'gun emission points', which could be placed pretty much freely on the surface of the meshes. So that if the player decides to put a laser weapon somewhere on the left side of the ship, it will actually fire from there. Those should be relativly small and simple, so that they're not much of an effort to create and fit to the racial designs.
Agree. However, I think it should be a little less precise. If the player chooses engines or weapons on the front of the ship or on the side, then a 'gun/engine emission point' appears on that side, but is not exact to the slot the player put it in, possibly even random poistion on that side.
pd wrote: Another thing that popped into my mind: The weapons or other systems, that a ship is equipped with could be shown with icons floating next the ship. When combat starts, non of those would be visible, only once a ship makes use of a certain sub-system, the icon will appear. Usage of advanced scanners might also be a way to let those show up. This way you wouldn't have to scroll in and take a close look at every ship, trying to find familiar looking turrets and stuff, because this would be tedious and boring. Opinions please!
I like the idea of limted icons. Perhaps, "role X" icon. Though since combat will be mostly turn based, I think we can do like Moo2 and show a text window upon scanning a ship manually.
Tortanick wrote: Well personally I don't see pd's small gunports being that useful for telling what a ship can and can't do. But then I didn't think big gunports are that useful either. So add them if you think they'll improve the appearance and ignore them if you don't.
I don't want players to be able to tell what a ship can do by looking at my ship. They must have proper scanners first, and this would display text to them, which says "carrier". It would be simpler and not much hassle.



Overall, I would like ships to be a complex shape, with a texture skin and texture points to represent engines and guns, as flat internal ports (think of the ships hull protecting its internal engine/weapons). I would like to give the player the ability to autogenerate a hull shape, choose a texture. There would be no external models attached to represent guns or engines, as it would look ugly. Maybe the player is limited to certain texture types based on race and technology, so if your race is organic or has organic ship tech, then they get texture skins that look organic, green, etc. In choosing the shape of the ship, the player would do so through random generation, based on choice. The player might for example start with a cube, then make its surface spiky or smooth, then choose a texture. So it would be nothing advanced.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#37 Post by eleazar »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Being able to distinguish one ship design from another easily is most important during actual tactical battles, which is when the players have already "shown their hand" and revealed (at least some of) the details of their designs. At that point, information hiding (about desgins) isn't a very convincing reason to make ships hard to tell apart... particularly since they'll look the same to their owner, not just other players.

Imagine playing StarCraft, WarCraft, Wesnoth, or chess where you had to click on or pick up a piece and examine it's label every time to tell apart the unit types...
Geoff makes good points in the quoted section and in what followed. Does it really need to be said that the way sci-fi TV displays different classes of ships has no relevance to what makes a usable game?
utilae wrote:...since combat will be mostly turn based, I think we can do like Moo2 and show a text window upon scanning a ship manually.
(emphasis mine)

Rather than repeat what's already been explained in this thread. I recommend you read a bit on the basics of combat in FO, and try to understand it.
Aquitaine's original explanation
Preliminary v.4 design document

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#38 Post by pd »

Could you please comment my post? And could we please discuss icons vs. 3d models(of subsystems)?

I feel like I'm the only one trying to find a better solution, even if it's not my role.
Imagine playing StarCraft, WarCraft, Wesnoth, or chess where you had to click on or pick up a piece and examine it's label every time to tell apart the unit types
Icons provide a much better way to recognize this and are superior to 3d models placed on the hulls.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#39 Post by utilae »

eleazar wrote:
utilae wrote:...since combat will be mostly turn based, I think we can do like Moo2 and show a text window upon scanning a ship manually.
(emphasis mine)

Rather than repeat what's already been explained in this thread. I recommend you read a bit on the basics of combat in FO, and try to understand it.
Aquitaine's original explanation
Preliminary v.4 design document
I wrote that understanding the basics of space combat, before we decided this, I basically started pushing for phased combat first. So I am very clear on how things work. Now my idea still stands.
I think we can do like Moo2 and show a text window upon scanning a ship manually.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#40 Post by The Silent One »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Even in a fully turn-based game, you'd still want as much easily visible information as possible.
I didn't argue that. What I wanted to express is that if the player is given enough time to plan his orders, the interface doesn't need to be loaded so that everything is visible at one glance; instead, detailed information can be placed into sub-menus.

However, you're right that I already have a preference how space combat should play out, and it is utilae's proposal. This is very much how I would like space combat to be
(with some small exceptions, e.g. I don't see a need to divide a movement and an attack mode, and if we do, that should be done by holding down ctrl).

If a time limit should be imposed on the order phase, think it may impair strategy, but if it is a server option, that's fine.
pd wrote:When combat starts, non of those would be visible, only once a ship makes use of a certain sub-system, the icon will appear.
Sounds good; it would be especially useful if we had specific icons for each weapon (eg. different icons for plasma cannon/phasor/death ray). I'm certain I have seen this at work somewhere, but I can't remember where.
- It was a little different, though: if a weapon was used, the icon would fade in, and after a short period would disappear again; so basically, the icons would show "this (weapon) system is in use right now". This way, only one or two icons would be shown at one time, preventing that the models would be obscured by icons.
pd wrote:Much better than 3d meshes for sub systems anyway, because 3D models of weapons are irrelevant too, if the ships are only 3px big.
I agree.
utilae wrote:I think we can do like Moo2 and show a text window upon scanning a ship manually.
Also agree here.
eleazar wrote:space battle could be like the condensed but data-rich symbolic display that a battle commander might use
These can be useful for tactics, but personally I want to see brutally looking ships loaded with the meanest guns blowing each other to pieces... y'know, realistic action... your suggestion may be an alternate way to display combat, but I wouldn't like it as the primary method by which you command your forces.
If I provided any images, code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#41 Post by Geoff the Medio »

The Silent One wrote:...if the player is given enough time to plan his orders, the interface doesn't need to be loaded so that everything is visible at one glance; instead, detailed information can be placed into sub-menus.
Not "everything" has to be visible, but anything fundamental, like the basic functionality of a ship, shouldn't be on a "sub-menu" or otherwise hidden, regardless of how much time the player has to browse this information. That would be a poor interface even in one-turn-a-day PBEM tactical game.

And again: FreeOrion battles are not traditionally turn based. They are "phased time", which is in some ways more like real (continuous) time than turn-based. In particular, some players will prefer to not have any pauses to give orders, and the interface will need to make this practical to play.
eleazar wrote:...space battle could be like the condensed but data-rich symbolic display that a battle commander might use.

...i'm pretty certain that the display will need to move in this direction as the map is zoomed out.
Supreme Commander has a continuous transition from low-level detail view to very high level strategic view with icons for units (or groups of units). A number of reviews I've seen have commented that this is actually bad in practice, because you end up spending a lot of time zoomed out to get the big strategic picture, and rarely zoom in to see all the nice details...

And really, if we're so concerned about what the ship models look like, and want to be able to see ships shooting at eachother and blowing up and such, then being zoomed out so that ships are 3 pixels across or replaced with strategic view icons might not be a good feature to build the interface around...

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#42 Post by pd »

Silent wrote:It was a little different, though: if a weapon was used, the icon would fade in, and after a short period would disappear again; so basically, the icons would show "this (weapon) system is in use right now". This way, only one or two icons would be shown at one time, preventing that the models would be obscured by icons.
I like this, this way the player really has to keep an eye on the enemy ships. This could be coupled with sensor technology, with more advanced sensors it would take longer for the icons to disappear.
Geoff wrote:Supreme Commander has a continuous transition from low-level detail view to very high level strategic view with icons for units (or groups of units). A number of reviews I've seen have commented that this is actually bad in practice, because you end up spending a lot of time zoomed out to get the big strategic picture, and rarely zoom in to see all the nice details...
1. That doesn't mean it has to be the same way in fO, does it? Just because some mysterious reviews say this failed in a completely different game, is not a reason to not try a similar way in a game, we are doing from scratch.
2. What do you suggest instead, if you dislike the idea of icons? There is no alternate way besides 3d representations, yet.
Geoff wrote:And really, if we're so concerned about what the ship models look like, and want to be able to see ships shooting at eachother and blowing up and such, then being zoomed out so that ships are 3 pixels across or replaced with strategic view icons might not be a good feature to build the interface around...
I've mentioned this ike a hundred times now, that it's not just about the look of the ships, but also about the disadvantages a system using 3d models for subsystems has over an icon based system, concerning usability and the effort to create it. It'll be hard to avoid having to zoom out during battle - no one is arguing that, so a way has to be found to still being able to recognize what a ship does. What would work better than icons? 3D models won't even be visible, if the ships itself are hard to make out. 1 icon can easily tell 4 things: the type of a sub system(LR, SR,...), the tech itself(laser, disruptor, ion beam), the level/refinement/upgrad and the player color. 3D models of subsystems hardly tell 1 of those things, even if zoomed in.
Last edited by pd on Sat Aug 11, 2007 10:08 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#43 Post by eleazar »

PD wrote:So, if I get this right, what you are basicly saying is, that we should use 3D models for sub systems if the player is zoomed in. Once zoomed out there should be icon overlays.
Not at all.
I'm saying:
  • while zoomed out the display should be totally iconic and symbolic, not that the 3-pix ships should have a hovering cloud of a dozen overlaid icons.
  • that a totally iconic, symbolic display might be the best thing even while zoomed in close.
  • but if we use realistic 3D ship models while close, the best way to display most subsystems is to build them on the exterior.
Obviously some things will need to be displayed as some sort of graphic overlays, the most obvious being a selection indicator and bars for damage and ammo. Maybe for some other things. But i'm highly doubtful that this never-before-seen-interface of a swarm of icons over generic hulls is could work well. It seems like a great recipe for confused, cluttered display— and a lot of work.



Geoff the Medio wrote:
eleazar wrote:...space battle could be like the condensed but data-rich symbolic display that a battle commander might use.

...i'm pretty certain that the display will need to move in this direction as the map is zoomed out.
Supreme Commander has a continuous transition from low-level detail view to very high level strategic view with icons for units (or groups of units). A number of reviews I've seen have commented that this is actually bad in practice, because you end up spending a lot of time zoomed out to get the big strategic picture, and rarely zoom in to see all the nice details...
If i understand you, the complaint against SC, is that the zoomed-out-view is so useful that players choose to spend a lot of time with it? I don't see why it's bad that the player might chose one view over another— as long as it's player choice.
IGN review wrote:Supreme Commander is gorgeous game, though you'll spend curiously little time admiring its beauty. The strategic zoom is responsible for this, which quickly allows players to dart in and out of the action at any point of the map. It's one of the game's best features by far, greatly facilitating battlefield management, though it has the unfortunate side effect of hiding all the wonderful explosions and intricate unit designs. When fully zoomed out, all the units in the game take on the aspect of small geometric shapes. After spending some time with the game, you'll notice each shape corresponds to a specific unit type. For instance, a diamond with a dot in the middle is artillery. A diamond with a curved line is an anti-air unit. A triangle with a curved line is an interceptor. If you see a circle, you'd better shore up your defenses because an experimental unit is headed your way.(emphasis mine -eleazar)
Something that "greatly facilitating battlefield management" sounds great for FO. IMHO it's not good game design to make the strategic view less useful because we're afraid that the player won't spend enough time staring at the eye-candy. Why should we care if a player isn't interested in the eye-candy?
Geoff the Medio wrote:And really, if we're so concerned about what the ship models look like, and want to be able to see ships shooting at eachother and blowing up and such, then being zoomed out so that ships are 3 pixels across or replaced with strategic view icons might not be a good feature to build the interface around...
We need to build the interface around gameplay, and i believe the gameplay that we have already established will require for some of our types of battles a relatively zoomed-out-view for much of the time.
Battle takes place in an entire system with potentially lots of Starlanes
and 10 planets, and possibly other built structures of significance. Any or all of these may be important in a given battle. Even with a extremely compressed scale individual ships will be quite small if the player wants to see most of a wide-ranging battle at once. And if at all possible we should allow the player to see it all at once if he feels the need to. Being forced to rapidly scroll between various points of battle to keep up with all the action is IMHO a major obstacle in many/most RTS games to real strategic play.

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#44 Post by pd »

I'm saying:
* while zoomed out the display should be totally iconic and symbolic, not that the 3-pix ships should have a hovering cloud of a dozen overlaid icons.
It's not decided, what has to been shown at all, so 'a dozen' might be way off
* that a totally iconic, symbolic display might be the best thing even while zoomed in close.]
So, a cluster of 'a dozon' icons alone, is better than a 3d model surrounded by icons to visualize a ship on close-up?
* but if we use realistic 3D ship models while close, the best way to display most subsystems is to build them on the exterior.
Why is this the best way? It still is easier to recognize the sub-systems with icons, even on close-up. I imagine it to be confusing and tedious having to rotate around the ships to get an idea of what sub systems there are. While icons dispay this from any perspectice, more instantly and more clear.
Obviously some things will need to be displayed as some sort of graphic overlays, the most obvious being a selection indicator and bars for damage and ammo. Maybe for some other things.
Everyone agrees with that.
But i'm highly doubtful that this never-before-seen-interface of a swarm of icons over generic hulls is could work well. It seems like a great recipe for confused, cluttered display— and a lot of work.
You tend to overplay things. Multiple things can be conveyed easily using a single icon, much easier than with a 3d model at least. Are you talking about work for the player or for us? Obviously it shouldn't feel like work for the player, but if you mean work for us, than I believe it's less work to create an icon than model a 3d model, create texture coordinates and paint several textures for it(color, spec, lum, bump).

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Re: Ship Apperance / 3D Models / Designs

#45 Post by Geoff the Medio »

pd wrote:
Geoff wrote:Supreme Commander has a continuous transition from low-level detail view to very high level strategic view with icons for units [but] you end up spending a lot of time zoomed out to get the big strategic picture, and rarely zoom in to see all the nice details...
1. That doesn't mean it has to be the same way in fO, does it?
No, it doesn't, but the observation is something to keep in mind.
2. What do you suggest instead, if you dislike the idea of icons? There is no alternate way besides 3d representations, yet.
I didn't say I disliked icons...

Also, in case there was confusion, the "icons" I referred to in Supreme Commander replaced whole units when zoomed out. They weren't just to provide details about an already-visible unit.

(Much of the rest of your (pd's) post seems to have misinterpreted the meaning of the Supreme Commander "icons" in my post.)
eleazar wrote:If i understand you, the complaint against SC, is that the zoomed-out-view is so useful that players choose to spend a lot of time with it? I don't see why it's bad that the player might chose one view over another— as long as it's player choice.
The point is that because the game is best played at the strategic level, you rarely get to see the eye candy during actual gameplay. This is unfortunate, because just seeing tactical / strategic maps with faction-coloured icons instead of eye candy can greatly reduce the enjoyment of a controlling a battle, which is the whole point of the system ot start with. Another way: in this case, gameplay depends a lot on having eye candy... to the point that some games (GalCiv 2) eliminate the "gameplay" from space combat, and just have eye candy, and other games (MOO3) that have particularly poor visuals are particularly criticized for it.

Obviously it would be better if we could somehow design an interface that lets the user have both eye candy and good strategic / tactical control, though it's not necessarily the case that we can completely sacrifice the former for the latter.
IMHO it's not good game design to make the strategic view less useful because we're afraid that the player won't spend enough time staring at the eye-candy. Why should we care if a player isn't interested in the eye-candy?
The goal would be to avoid having to make the choice. Maybe it's not possible, but consideration of other sacrifices that could be made to make it more workable should probably be made. It's generally been assumed that ships will be drawn out of scale with planets, and that planets won't be to scale with their distance from the star / eachother, but how out-of-scale might this be?

Regarding this, and for the argument about whether icons or modelled parts would be best when zoomed in, I think mockups are going to be necessary...

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