General Category > Bionic Dues

Tonight's Screenshot: LOS and Sensors and lit Science Bot.

(1/4) > >>

x4000:
Hey all, just a quick screen cap I thought you'd enjoy. :)

This one has Blue's new science bot lighting and animations up there at the top of the screen, and I think she outdid herself.  You can also see a couple of the new weapon icons over there on the left; Ray did a great job on those.

There's also a view of our new "shadowcasting" implementation which lets us do Line Of Sight that is more permissive and less restrictive.  IE, it behaves more like you'd expect.

We also changed things up so that your line of sight and your sensor range are two different things.  Well, they always were, but we changed how they are graphically represented and what that means for who can attack who when.  Enemies can only fire on you when they are in your line of sight now, as with a lot of roguelikes, and they are immediately alerted at that time, too.  But your sensor range extends beyond that, and you can then see the enemies in a sort of glowing yellow diagram form.  If those enemies are alerted (such as by you seeing them and then running away, or by your blowing your whistle), then you'll see those little yellow schematics turn and come for you, then emerge into full color when they hit your LOS.  It's a neat effect.

The LOS rule changes came about mainly because of the addition of the "flavor objects," a number of which you can see scattered around.  These objects provide destructible cover as well as blocking line of sight and in general making the level look more visually interesting.  The problem was, with our old restrictive LOS rules (that were, worse, invisible unless you held down shift to see your targeting overlays), it got pretty confusing.  "Why can't I attack him!?"  Etc.  It wasn't a dire problem, but it was a midlevel annoyance or more.  This new view is more attractive, makes more sense, and avoids all those issues completely.  I'm really happy with it!

Props to Cath on the flavor object art, by the way.

mrhanman:
The artwork seems to improve with each new image you share with us!

About the LOS - does it immediately widen at the end of the single tile tunnel to 3 tiles?  shouldn't it stay one tile for a few tiles out of the tunnel, and then gradually widen to 3, maybe continue to widen the further it goes?  Or am I looking at it wrong?

x4000:

--- Quote from: mrhanman on August 26, 2013, 11:36:05 pm ---The artwork seems to improve with each new image you share with us!
--- End quote ---

Thanks!


--- Quote from: mrhanman on August 26, 2013, 11:36:05 pm ---About the LOS - does it immediately widen at the end of the single tile tunnel to 3 tiles?  shouldn't it stay one tile for a few tiles out of the tunnel, and then gradually widen to 3, maybe continue to widen the further it goes?  Or am I looking at it wrong?

--- End quote ---

Not my algorithm at all.  This is a generalized algorithm called shadowcasting, implemented by a very respectable fellow here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/12/12/shadowcasting-in-c-part-one.aspx  There is a little silverlight game showing it that you can use in the browser.

There is also more generalized information about multiple permissive los algorithms here: http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Permissive_Field_of_View

TLDR: Basically, due to the coarseness of the grid, you will see artifacts.  Various other algorithms can have more or fewer artifacts, but none are perfect and some are way more computationally expensive to run.  We've chosen one that has relatively few artifacts and is pretty darn fast.  And which had working code in C# that we could use. ;)

mrhanman:
Oh, now I see (I think)!  The view into the room widens as you approach the exit of the tunnel.  Based on Mr. Lippert's blog post, beyond the limit of the screenshot, the view should widen, yes?

Will there be the ability to zoom in and out on the board, or is the viewport size fixed?

Aklyon:

--- Quote from: x4000 on August 26, 2013, 11:40:38 pm ---And which had working code in C# that we could use. ;)

--- End quote ---
The most important of parts for people who make updates as fast as you guys do, I'm guessing. :)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page