Time of Day

[Draconisaurus]

We should hammer out NOW what time of day we want the game to be in for each level.. I ran into at least one old discussion of this somewhere in the old threads, maybe even in one that I moved in here. But yes - reworking the time of day (and perhaps weather) that the game takes place in could vastly affect the mood of the game. A starting proposal:

BE - Dawn/Pretty sky
JR - Morning/Scattered clouds
IT - Noon/Overcast-Storm?
PL - Afternoon/Sunny
PV - Evening/Light cloud cover
LAB - Dusk/Pretty sky
AS - Night/Stary sky
SUM - Dawn/Pretty sky


Another possibility might be that it is actually raining in all or part of JR, and then when you get to IT, it's done raining but now everything is wet... This would make it quite advantageous to rework many of the textures to be darker, but do we really wanna take the time to do that? If there's enough interest in doing the town like that, I might go for it.. It might also mean starting IT as a fresh level (not a major setback - I can import it directly from the GRF). This is about the time we could really use a new mipmap generator. Maybe we'll have one by the time Tres R is done.

BE - Dawn/Pretty sky
JR - Morning/Dark overcast-storming
IT - Noon/Light overcast (some skybreak)
PL - Afternoon/Sunny
PV - Evening/Light cloud cover
LAB - Dusk/Pretty sky
AS - Night/Stary sky
SUM - Dawn/Pretty sky

[TheRaptorKiller]

Cool I like this. Your Ideas here are great, I like the first weather and TOD set-up. By the way how do you make rain all over the level?

[Draconisaurus]

By using the rain settings Big Red set up in ATX. It's not terribly simple.. though it's not too hard AFTER you figure it out the first time. See East Dock for examples - rain is controlled by several external files as well as potentially triggers, but I'm not sure if I used any actual triggers for it in ED or not..

What makes you prefer the first one? I was starting to rather like the second.

[machf]

How about this?

BE - Afternoon, rainy
JR - Dusk, cloudy
IT - Night, starry
PL - Midnight, rainy
PV - Dawn, misty
LAB - Morning, cloudy
AS - Noon, sunny
SUM - Afternoon, cloudy

[Draconisaurus]

Well.. That' interesting, but 1) I definitely want the Plains to be a hot-feeling level, so midnight is not good IMO.. 2) IT is where everyone's houses are going to be, don't really want them to be that darkened.. 3) I just don't think having the final level of the game in on a cloudy afternoon is very dramatic. What were your reasonings?

[machf]

BE - Afternoon, rainy - the plane was in a storm before crashing, make it shortly after that
JR - Dusk, cloudy - rain stops but there are still clouds and it's getting darker (duh!)
IT - Night, starry - in TLW they reached the town at night, why not do the same? It's going to be better when a raptor appears from behind a building...
PL - Midnight, rainy - since the plains are supposed to be vast open areas where you can't hide, let's make it so that the dinos can see you but you can't
PV - Dawn, misty - fog at the bottom of the valley and near the sea, limited visibility while you walk among trees and mountains, not quite daylight yet
LAB - Morning, cloudy - what comes between dawn and noon, after all? (duh!)
AS - Noon, sunny - you're climbing a mountain and you must suffer the tropical heat at noon with the sun burning right above - what could be worse?
SUM - Afternoon, cloudy - comes after noon, of course... (duh!)

[Draconisaurus]

Well.. That's a bit more convincing I already guessed on TLW link with the town at night.. but you've sold it a bit more now. At this point, my main concern is the end of the game, still.. Cloudy afternoon just doesn't equal dramatic climate. I suppose it's something to be thought about - there's also the fact that the Ascent levels are very long (and yeah, being hot while going up a mountain sounds good I guess..). We could potentially try to have Summit in the evening or something..

Still a little dissatisfied with a night-time Plains. "The heat on the Plain was extraordinary... like a solid wall." What does everyone else think about that and the town at night, despite the custom houses? One way to deal with this could be to have lights on in some homes?, and use brighter textures inside.. We could try making darker textures for many other buildings, if we want.

Here's a new potential version:

BE - Dusk/Rainy
JR - Night/Light periodic rain
IT - Midnight/Starry
PL - Dawn/Misty
PV - Morning/Misty
LAB - Noon/Cloudy
AS - Afternoon/Sunny
SUM - Evening/Cloudy

Main point was to not have the Plain totally dark and move the time-of-day for Summit forward a bit.. but it does add a lot of mist to the Plains, and potentially "robs" PV of some mistiness.


EDIT: Just thinking... We could try making the town dark by having really dark clouds overhead, instead of putting it at night..

[TheRaptorKiller]

By using the rain settings Big Red set up in ATX. It's not terribly simple.. though it's not too hard AFTER you figure it out the first time. See East Dock for examples - rain is controlled by several external files as well as potentially triggers, but I'm not sure if I used any actual triggers for it in ED or not..

What makes you prefer the first one? I was starting to rather like the second.

WAIT changed my mind I really like the last one now I like stormy and rainy makes it more of a tropical Island and the plains with mist would be really beautiful, naturally speaking.

[Anna]

IIII.. Don't really know what I prefer, as long as there'll be a level with dawn and a level with rain, then I'm happy .
Just a note: Just because the plane went down in a storm, it dosn't mean that it HAVE TO rain in BE, since Anne could have fainted for a long time, and then first waked up, when the storm has passed .

[Second Illiteration]

I like summit with a sundown kind of feel to it...the sun is going down, it has a very final feeling to it, the end of the day, end of your journey. Also I like the idea of having lots of different times where it's raining...possible on some levels to have it rain during part of the level but not all?

[Draconisaurus]

WAIT changed my mind I really like the last one now I like stormy and rainy makes it more of a tropical Island and the plains with mist would be really beautiful, naturally speaking.

By "last" do you mean my second option, machf's, or my modification to machf's?

IIII.. Don't really know what I prefer, as long as there'll be a level with dawn and a level with rain, then I'm happy .

Alright. But some levels with various times-of-day/weather will feel drastically different, I bet there are some combinations which you would dislike..

Just a note: Just because the plane went down in a storm, it dosn't mean that it HAVE TO rain in BE, since Anne could have fainted for a long time, and then first waked up, when the storm has passed .

That's actually a very important point, thanks for noting it..

I like summit with a sundown kind of feel to it...the sun is going down, it has a very final feeling to it, the end of the day, end of your journey.

I feel the same, TBH..

Also I like the idea of having lots of different times where it's raining...possible on some levels to have it rain during part of the level but not all?

That's certainly possible. Any suggestions?


Trying out a new one again.. Hmm, I don't really want to START the game at night-time (does anyone think it could actually work?), and thus it's not possible to have SUM at dusk if we want to have at least one full night level. Beach isn't long enough for that, anyway. However, We can simulate the same general feeling, I think, by putting it in dawn... And there's just something cool about the idea of going through the pine-covered hills of Ascent at night, even though it would not allow for machf's hoped sunny heat beaming on you whilst you climb... Oye. I might need to set up a poll about this. I'll do that next.

BE - Dawn/Pretty clouds
JR - Morning/Overcast
IT - Noon/Dark cloud cover~rain on/off
PL - Afternoon/Sparse clouds~light rain on/off
PV - Evening/Sparse clouds
LAB - Dusk/Sparse clouds
AS - Night/Starry
SUM - Dawn/Pretty clouds


...Upon further consideration, here's another good possibility:

BE - Dusk/Gathering clouds~starts raining
JR - Night/Raining on-off~stops raining
IT - Night/Starry
PL - Early Dawn/Misty~light fog
PV - Late dawn-Morning/Light fog~clearing
LAB - Noon/Scattered clouds
AS - Afternoon/Scorching sun
SUM - Dusk/Pretty clouds

It loses the Plains in day and Ascent-pines at night, but I think it satisfies many of the voiced desires.... Still going to run a multi-option poll in a sec.

(..You know what would be fun? A hurricane in Trespasser. I wonder how you'd set it up.. Sounds big enough that it would need its own mod.)

[Second Illiteration]

I like that last one that you just posted

[Draconisaurus]

I'm starting to like it too.. we'll see how the poll goes.

[Nick3069]

You should keep in mind that the beginning cinematic takes place when the sun is shining and the end cinematic takes place at night. If the game end in the morning, then it's a very long helicopter ride.

[Draconisaurus]

You should keep in mind that the beginning cinematic takes place when the sun is shining and the end cinematic takes place at night.

More good points.. Though it looks to me like the intro takes place at something like dusk, from the light coming into the plane.

If the game end in the morning, then it's a very long helicopter ride.

Not necessarily - have you traveled by plane before? It can take a while to go through customs and then get home from the airport. Not to mention - I doubt seriously that the helicopter took her straight to her home city. She may even have had to undergo questioning.