Crafting interface

Now that crafting takes you into a close up just like NPC conversations perhaps we can do away with the crafting GUMP completely by moving the craft & exit buttons onto the station surface, some of the station close ups would need to be tweaked to create a greater working area though. I wonder if this is the plan?

 

I still quite hope they will get rid fo the extremely annoying fixed camera for crafting (and NPC conversations). I feel so restricrted whenever I craft and there are people running around and talking and I cannot turn my head to see them.

I would not mind if the surface of the crafting table would be active and you could really place items there, but I want the free camera back

 

Had to think of the technical issues for minute but it's an interesting idea and one that could work although it would require that Net live without the free camera.

Basically what I see is this.. first you have a static, fixed camera at an angle that gives you a clear view of the station. Not the random angle we get now. I phrase it that way because each station it built differently.. this is one of the technical challenges as if we took the view shown for say.. tailoring.. the station itself would block our view. So each station would need it's own unique angle.. easy enough.. just design a value associated with each station defining camera position and orientation..

Then, instead of icons in the workspace it actually shows you the object sitting on the station.. because icons would look weird and that would involve making an invisible gump overlaying the station.. which would be easier but again.. weird.. Therein lies another technical challenge as you don't want meshes intersection and causing all kinds of clipping.. also weird.. So what you're probably do is predefine locations for tools, fuels etc.. no recipe will likely have more than 10 ingredients so if you could fit that many predefined spots for items to show up you're golden. (I get 10 from an old hangout where they talked about the number of ingredients on different level stations.. 10 was the max.. current known thinking).

In theory at least.. every craft component should be able to be placed on display eventually.

If they did do this it probably wouldn't be until mid-near end beta but it's a cool idea. The caveat (apart from the technical challenges) is that only the crafter would actually see the objects on the station. Otherwise only one person would be able to use a public station at a time and that gets problematic.

 

Ok I just thought of a problem.. and the solution to the above..

What happens if you tried to put.. let's say two (just thought of another problem.. and another solution.. will get to it in a minute).. sword blades on a smithing station? Or worse yet.. a sword blade and an axe head?

Well there are two ways to handle this.. one.. abandon predefined locations on the station and deal with it like you would with the decorating system.. OR.. do not allow components on the station that are incompatible.. For example, if you put the longsword blade on the smithing station first.. you couldn't put anything on the table that wouldn't work with that blade. Would make discovery SO much easier.

Second problem.. what if I wanted to put a table or cabinet on the carpentry station? They're valid components to upgrade from but far too big to fit visually without the use of icons.. solution: unless.. a scaled down version of that object were shown instead. For that matter, to get anything to fit they could always scale it down.. so long as it's visually recognizable.