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Make the sky visible

Discussion in 'Suggestions & Ideas' started by Potatobird, Feb 13, 2017.

Mods: Rainbows
  1. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    So, the sky used to be clear back when knights could actually bounce up into it. Ever since that was changed, the sky has been pitch black. However, projectiles still get to go into the sky - such as arrows and ballista bolts. It is intensely annoying to get killed in one hit by something you couldn't even see coming. There needs to be some other way to show the map border if projectiles can still go past it, such as the red dotted line that was in past builds. This seems like it would be an easy fix, considering it was the way things were in past builds. Alternatively, make it so arrows and ballista bolts cannot pass the border either.

    #MakeTheSkyClearAgain
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2017
  2. epsilon

    epsilon Assonist THD Team Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    506
    So will this mean the player will be able to go past this line or will their vertical speed be stopped once they reach it (if they bomb jump)? If they can go past, skilled players would use double or triple bomb jumps to get over any wall since you wouldn't be able to build past a certain point. I'm not saying this isn't a current issue but it's more difficult since you get stopped at the border.
    If you're on the top of your tower you would want to slightly lob your arrows to gain distance so not allowing arrows/ballista bolts to pass the border would be annoying.
     
    bru-jaz and Magmus like this.
  3. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    Yeah, just making the sky visible and doing nothing else is pretty much the best way to fix it.
     
    epsilon likes this.
  4. mcrifel

    mcrifel Haxor Staff Alumni Tester
    1. MIST

    Messages:
    584
    Main problem I have is that the black border is doesn't look to nice, one of my friends saw me play kag once and the first thing he said was that the black border didn't look nice.

    #MakeTheSkyClearAgain
     
  5. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    eeeeeh. I'll consider making it less opaque. I agree that it looks like arse but I also think seeing the map bounds is pretty important. I've tossed up widening the fade a few times though, tbh. The one-tile "and now its black" definitely looks janky.
     
  6. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    For me, it's less about the look and more about the explosive bomb bolts emerging suddenly from the darkness. Wasn't there some kind of dotted red line business a while back, or am I remembering that wrong? I think maybe it was only there when you ran into it or tried to build past it - if you just made it always appear, that seems like it would be fine to me
     
  7. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    I dont think there was ever some dotted red line - there's a semitransparent red zone in the middle of the map at the start of the game, but that hasn't changed for a while? As said I'd be happy to have the sky "black zone" be semitransparent (I might just make the colours totally configurable and do it in kag.as) so that it was properly delineated but you could still see hell about to rain down.
     
  8. Potatobird

    Potatobird Haxor Forum Moderator Mapping Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    777
    Oh, that sounds great too!
     
  9. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    Next build:
    [​IMG]
    Still looks janky but I don't have more time to kill on it today I'm afraid :)
     
    ultimatumm, Magmus, bru-jaz and 14 others like this.
  10. NeoTheOne

    NeoTheOne Shopkeep Stealer

    Messages:
    15
    Looks great! Will this be applied to ALL objects fired (e.g. players, kegs, rocks from catapult)? It's a bit silly to see players skim the top of the map for a while when fired from a catapult at the top of the map.
     
  11. epsilon

    epsilon Assonist THD Team Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    506
    Then what would be the point of the border if you can go past it? If it is only there to stop you from building past a point I don't think it would be needed.
    Does this mean it is possible to make other textures transparent or is this transparency value hard-coded? I've always wanted to make bushes slightly transparent in order to see hidden mines but transparent textures don't work. I feel like I'm just dumb and don't understand how transparent textures work in games.
     
  12. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    Sidenote: the semitransparent sky area is ONLY used for maps that dont have solid tiles in their top layer. For tiles that do, the old, totally black sky is used, which prevents the appearance of weird "hanging" terrain.

    None of this is hardcoded and the interested parties can check out KAG.as for the logic next build.

    @NeoTheOne players still collide with the edges as usual, to prevent "unstoppably" bomb jumping over structures and the like. Making ballista bolts and arrows collide with the top caused desync issues, so we disabled it.

    @eps0003 Basically, the general blended case requires sorting instead of z-buffering, which is slow. It'd be doable with a less ancient/terrible rendering system than the one we have in KAG, for KAG sized workloads, but with what we have, sorting everything is a cost we're not willing to take (that'd be more burden on the CPU)

    The reason this works for the borders, is that they are guaranteed to be rendered after everything else on the playing field. They are, in effect, already "sorted".

    It's the kind of thing that "should" be simple but isn't.

    I'd suggest you go read up on alpha blending vs testing in games if you want more info, as well as depth buffering and how it allows rendering geometry in arbitrary order. I started writing something but even a simple overview requires either a lot of prior knowledge, or a "simple overview" of that prior knowledge. You kind of have to understand how a lot of the graphics pipelines works to really grok why this is such a sticking point.
     
    bru-jaz and epsilon like this.
  13. 4zK

    4zK Horde Gibber Staff Alumni

    Messages:
    70
    nothing ever prevents you from unstoppably bomb jumping across the map when you use the bomb-saw trick, unrelated note but I'm hoping for it to be nerfed since it's a monotonous gimmick that requires little skill and has no real counter

    what comes to the sky seam though, I'm fine with whatever as long as projectiles don't bug out and not render when the distance is too great, which happens to me occasionally
     
    Magmus likes this.
  14. mcrifel

    mcrifel Haxor Staff Alumni Tester
    1. MIST

    Messages:
    584
    On a similar topic, I had an idea for the side borders for them to also be tinted a bit darker but still transparent and that the map goes on for a bit, you can walk there but it gives a message that you can't be there and after a couple seconds you die. This would make it look a lot nicer.

    Also in response to @4zK , saw jumps are fine imo, they ultimately suck. You need 220 coins to get to the other side of the map with keg and it takes a a while to get that money even if you farm for it. And most of the times you miss your keg or you destroy very little. And die rather quick.
     
    Blue_Tiger, epsilon and 4zK like this.
  15. 4zK

    4zK Horde Gibber Staff Alumni

    Messages:
    70
    it's a nice idea, but the execution would probably require too much work just for a slightly nicer look
    I didn't mind the kegdrop stuff until I played a match with more than one guy on both teams doing it constantly, what I tried to say was that my main concern is the encouragement of monotonous gameplay that doesn't require you to leave base and the fact that there are no ways to counter it, unlike there is for everything else, it's just tastelessly low-risk high-reward in my opinion
     
    Fuzzle and mcrifel like this.
  16. epsilon

    epsilon Assonist THD Team Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    506
    It would still be nice to see a transparent border on the sides but being able to walk past it would mean the map would need to go on for ages in case someone tries to walk past before getting killed.
     
    Blue_Tiger likes this.
  17. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    Extending the edge borders isn't going to happen I'm afraid - it'd require something to render the map edges repeatedly and people would expect physics to continue out there. Neither of those are trivial and I'm not going to put that time in for a feature that encourages people to literally walk out of the game.
     
  18. Hospitalizer

    Hospitalizer Shopkeep Stealer

    Messages:
    57
    Thank the gods now how about stopping noob from steal my wheels::(:
     
  19. Pirate-Rob

    Pirate-Rob Haxor Staff Alumni Tester

    Messages:
    270
    While the sky is being fixed, by any chance could ballistas/Catapults have their collision with the sky removed? It's rather glitchy/broken when you set those two up right under the sky line.
     
  20. asger75

    asger75 Haxor

    Messages:
    232
    Noh plz.
     
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