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More Moondial Madness!!!

Discussion in 'Developer Work and Blog posts' started by Scottie, Apr 21, 2017.

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  1. Frederick Glasgow

    Frederick Glasgow Avatar

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    Will this be placed in lots only, or will POT owners be able to place this as a town feature without a lot being used?
     
  2. Scottie

    Scottie Master Artisan SOTA Developer

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    Excellent question! The sizes of the larger two Ornate versions are merely based, in some way, in the Keep and Village Lots, but will also be able to be placed by POT owners as a town decoration feature... If fact, that was the primary thought behind their creation! ^_^

    Scottie ^_^
     
  3. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I'm just hoping for a public observatory somewhere, with a big telescope and a giant moondial.
     
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  4. Frederick Glasgow

    Frederick Glasgow Avatar

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    Thank you for the information, this is great news.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 2, 2017
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  5. Scottie

    Scottie Master Artisan SOTA Developer

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    This may indeed happen, at some point, along with my specially-designed basement Moondial Chamber (which I still REALLY wanna do)... But these will need to wait until Starr gives a go-ahead on them, which might be in some future milestone... ^_^
     
  6. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    And I REALLY want you to do it. :)
     
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  7. Scottie

    Scottie Master Artisan SOTA Developer

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    So here we are again, with me having finished everything on my side for all four differently-sized versions of the Ornate Moondial. Beyond this point I hand them all off to both a Programmer as well as a VFX Artist who will be bringing these beauties to completion in the next steps! We'll see these eventually be able to not only track the proper locations for all the celestial bodies, but additionally be place-able as decorations on tables, inside large chambers, on home lots, and in various locations around player-owned towns! On top of that, we'll get to see the addition of particle effects such as various aetheric energy static expulsions (such as those on the power generators seen elsewhere in the game), starry sparkles here and there, and a wavering effect for the constellations themselves! In the image below you can see them laid out on my underground test map I've created, and displayed in little vignettes from smallest to largest, left to right!
    [​IMG]

    I needed to work on a number of details to finish these up, only a few of which are evident in these images (since most of my changes and fixes are "under the hood" for the sake of poly-count, efficiency, functionality, prefab and materials set-up, and resource juggling in Unity). The things you might be able to notice that I touched by looking at these images are the quality level of the base device itself (which received added polys to make sure the "energy bands" are nice and crisp looking), the addition of glowing engravings on the upper and under-side of the wider "sun ring", and the placement of a red light-source that animates with the Sundered Moon to artfully represent the molten core within its shattered surface as it orbits our world.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Moving on to my outdoor test map, I've placed both a Village Lot (to the right) and a Keep Lot (to the left) to give you an idea of how massive the two largest of the Ornate Moondials actually are! The enormous dragon statue can be seen for size comparison, and far down below on the lower right you can just barely glimpse both the "room-sized" version, as well as the wee-little "tabletop-sized" version. ^_^ Each of these four versions increases dramatically in size from the smallest to the largest, as you can easily see here!
    [​IMG]

    Switching now to a night sky, you can get an even greater sense of their grand effect when seen from a first-person, ground-level perspective. Imagine these nestled in between fortress walls and player houses, or even being the center-piece of an exciting celebration in a town square, or a night market hosted within someone's walled keep!
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    And, of course, getting up close and personal with the base of the mechanism itself, you can see the impressive scale of the largest version, and just how easily a celestial-themed dinner party could be held within the embrace of the constellational sphere itself! I just love how all of these different sizes look in comparison to one another, and hopefully you can imagine the effect even the smallest ones will have when seen displayed in some cozy den or study surrounded by other hand-picked furnishings and decorative curiosities... I, myself, have never found the time to lay claim to a house somewhere for the sake of "nesting", but seeing these finally get finished is making me want to start experimenting with interior décor on my own!
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Hopefully you've enjoyed my part of this process. At some future point, once the rest of the effects and functionality have fallen into place, Berek and I will capture a bit of video showing the final results in action! As always, thanks so much for your generous support and kind encouragement!

    Scottie ^_^
     
  8. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    Simply awe inspiring @Scottie ! A truly amazing work!
    [​IMG]
     
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  9. Senash Kasigal

    Senash Kasigal Avatar

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    Nice work!

    And there my money goes ....
    I reserved already a place in my POT for the largest version. :)
     
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  10. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    these are beautiful! ...but if they're going to be (both visually and audibly) noisy the way things like moon towers are i'm suddenly much less interested. i don't use my windmill. i don't use my kobold radiant energy capacitors: the ones in skrekk have a nice serene glow but the add-on ones are visually very active. ...and it's a sign of poor engineering.

    also, these will need to be aligned with the compass and, hence, the sky, yes? things placed on lots currently align themselves with the lot by default, but that wasn't always the case: it was added in R13. is it possible to flag something to align itself to the compass instead of the lot when being placed?
     
  11. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    I have no idea where I would put the large one.. but I must have one! :) If only because it would seem weird for me not to have one. :)
     
  12. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

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    Super cool. Thanks for sharing, Scottie!
     
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  13. Scottie

    Scottie Master Artisan SOTA Developer

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    I can't speak for how these have been set up once they leave my hands, but it's good to give specific feedback in a reported bug form if you'd like to see some post-production changes in any of these... I totally get where you're coming from when talking about "too much of a good thing" when it comes to adding too many additional VFX or sound FX to an asset to the point it becomes distracting or annoying... The whole "diminishing returns" or even "detrimental results" becomes a real issue that should be reported if you feel strongly about it... And, of course, because some folks LOVE crazy stuff, and others don't, we'll be seeking to achieve a happy medium (especially considering that the more FX we throw at something, the more costly it is to server/client efficiency)... Besides, with recent changes happening as we switch Unity versions, and upgrades to VFX basics (that effect multiple assets at once), some things that once looked good now don't, and we don't always catch it... So I say, if there's a specific object that you find too egregious, submit a bug describing what you'd like to see changed about it, and we'll consider how to handle it... Just to show that I do appreciate feedback, after having read your post I was just conferring with Damon, our current VFX guy, as he began working some cool arcing energy effects into the Ornate Moondial base... They had indeed at first felt too "frenetic" for us both, so we tamed it down a bit to simply look "cool" instead of "chaotic"... As far as the sound goes, I truly have no idea what they're imagining for it, but I would agree that subtle and mellow is better than clanky and noisy... Hopefully you'll enjoy the final product!

    That I'm not sure of... I know that to plot the attacks of the Cabalists you don't need to compare it to the actual sky... It doesn't really matter how one places it, simply stand in a way that aligns a constellation sector of the sky with the central planet, and see which moons fall between them... I can understand liking the idea of aligning it to a cardinal direction, though... There may be other objects that would eventually feel better being aligned in such a way as well (regardless of how the lot is aligned)... I do know that the change to "lot-alignment" was made because almost all current objects benefit from doing so... I spoke to Rick, though, and we entered a request to see if there would be an easy way to add a toggle-key or some other means to toggle between "alignment modes" when placing deco... Perhaps the programming team could eventually fit such a thing into the schedule!

    Anyway,...glad you like the look of the Ornate Moondials!

    Scottie ^_^
     
  14. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    @Attenwood's gonna have your head for cluttering up his nice clean bug forums with personal opinions!

    it just seems weird to me to see the sun setting in the west in game and the sun be on the northeast side of the moondial, but it's not a big issue. if it's an easy change, yay! if not, don't worry about it.
     
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  15. Scottie

    Scottie Master Artisan SOTA Developer

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    That's why I would say, don't write it up as an "opinion piece" as much as consider whether the concerns you have are actually detrimental enough to wanting to use it as a deco that you purchased, to warrant changing it because it's truly problematic enough that others may not want to buy and own one themselves once they see how annoying it is in the game... We're all in this together, and if it's truly "that" annoying, we should consider fixing it... If, however, after due consideration you honestly believe it may just be a matter of "opinions may vary" then it's probably not something worth writing up...

    Scottie ^_^
     
  16. mike11

    mike11 Avatar

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    Sorry, late to feedback this.
    - to the one with glowy constellation : looks amazing!
    - to the ones with with the paper cutout look - don't like them, my suggestion would not be to shrink them but to modify the texture to include the symbols directly on the surface of the dial itself.

    thx!
     
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  17. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    I actually love how they look. The shapes remind me of little individual holograms. ;)
     
    Last edited: May 15, 2017
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  18. Duke James Murphy

    Duke James Murphy Avatar

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    So Scottie, to the elephant in the corner of the room - what release will these come out and will there be craftable versions? I just want to thank you and your friend for your hard work too.
     
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  19. 2112Starman

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    I plan to buy one of these for my PoT, I have the perfect spot on my island. I would like to say that I dont own a dragon stature because you guys are frankly asking way to much money for them. I hope the moon dial is not so outrageously priced. If it is, I'll probably just end up with a small one in my house.

    The yew tree is a great example of something huge and at a great price that me and many others have purchased.
     
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  20. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    I, for one, like the table version.
    Will buy one of two for sure.
     
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