screen textures on models

(Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. My forum subscription is b0rked. )

It is possible, and I even tried to create something along the lines of a portable navigation device (as a pickup) a while ago, named ScreenPad. Unfortunately my experience with modelling and skinning (especially the latter) is very limited, so I put that project on hold a while ago until I find a decent modeler/skinner who would be willing to help out.

Here are my humble attempts. Technically everything works nicely.

WillySurvive has created a very neat skin for the ScreenPad (thanks! :





The green field on top could be used for some additional display (compass, or closest contact distance, or just some blinking lights, or all of it). I wonder whether a small distance display next to each contact would be fit; and I guess I'll make the dots a bit more along the lines of those of AvP 2, being sharp at first and blurring out. And we definitely need an audible signal on contact like in AvP.

Currently, ScreenPad is implemented as a simple weapon replacement pickup, so you switch to it like you would switch to a weapon. I figure it would be more useful (and more convenient) if it was more like a device that you could hold in your left hand as long as you're using a single-handed weapon.

What do you think?

My first thought here is that it's kind of unbalanced if you can constantly have the screen up. My idea was to leave it as a weapon, but Mychaeel pointed out that it obscures a large part of the screen. Given that, maybe there should just be a button to store the pad back on your "belt". That way you could pull it out while not engaged in combat to scan for opponents, and then quickly store it again when you encounter an opponent for full screen combat.

I'm not real happy with the way the skin looks against the more natural colors displayed in the map. The more I look at the skin the more cartoony it looks.

Feedback on the skin people?

The edges seem better defined in that one, and restricting extra colors to green helps; it looks indeed better to me than the one above. (Thanks for the update, Willy.)



(The texture mapping needs some tweaking at the lower edge of the display; and I guess I should slightly resize and pad the reflective surface as well.)

Other side...

What does it look like to other players when you are holding the screen pad?

ELFFUM's Idea

Mych, when I read Elffum's idea in the post at the top of this thread about having a map on the screenpad I figured it couldn't be done. But I realized that a map of the level could be included in mylevel if the author wanted to.

But there's no way to apply that texture to the ScreenPad skin on the fly correct?

And also no way currently to pass the data that ScreenMap would need, correct?

What if the map author had a 256x256 fully functional surveillance imbedded in the level somewhere? Could that data be copied or used by screenpad? Or would it still be the same problem of having to add to a skin during map start up?

The main problem is not just using a texture embedded by the map author but rotating it on the slide. Since the slide shows the other players relative to your own position and orientation that would be necessary to show the player's surroundings. So I'm afraid we'll have to stick with dots on a generic background.

Of course there could be a way for mappers to create an arbitary slide that replaces the default slide displayed on the ScreenPad if it's present.

Here is the back side of the ScreenPad pickup (I didn't yet implement third-person view, and I won't if the ScreenPad will be used along with another weapon).

The sides might still need some work (hard to see on this shot though). The actual ScreenPad pickup usually is a lot smaller, of course...



(Hmm. What if the reflective surface was environment mapped? Gotta try that.)

Willy : I think the skin works fine for UT, the plasmarifle and the flakcannon for instance are quite cartoony too in my opinion.

I like the idea of an ingame map, and I came up with a suggestion, though it won't work for already existing maps :
As in the screen component a possibility to add a texture, I read you rotated the texture when the player rotated himself... If you have a wireframe map, which the author of a map could add in his MyLevel package with a set name, like "PadChart" or something. If you'd use the pad, you'd see an overview of the map instead of the sonar, and you can tell where exactly a player walks... This way players can chuck the pad away and predict where players will walk, since you can see the movement and the location of the player within the map...

Maybe added to the pad an option to swap between :
1> Teammates only
2> Enemies only
3> Most dangerous players only (Players with most frags)

Mych,

That thing looks awesome...would there be a way for the mapper to edit each one that goes in the map to make it look like the map instead of a circle? Kinda like the ones in the jails that we watch all the time. That would make the thing even better, but I dont know if it's possible.

~BC~

As I said before, the background texture can't be rotated on the display, thus making it impossible to use them simply as a backdrop for the player dots since their position also takes your current orientation into account. If another player is left of you, it'll be displayed left of the middle on the display, and so on---just like the AvP motion tracker does it.

On the other hand, I could add an alternate display mode that always displays part of a larger map (like one displayed on stationary screens), centered on your current position. I suppose I'd have to think of a way to designate the player's current viewing direction on that screen because it would always be displayed in a fixed orientation, but I guess that's doable somehow.

Mappers could then indeed provide a map-specific texture that would be used for that, and I'll certainly find a way to allow the refitting of existing maps (the Unreal Tournament stock maps, for instance) with such a texture without compromising network compatibility.

Thanks for all your feedback, by the way.

Mych, forgive me if you've already answered this and it has failed to sink into my brain.

But what I was clumsily trying to ask is what if the mapper already had a 256x256 surveillance Screen somewhere in their map? One that used only one Screen scripted texture with no fancy overlays or anything like that? I was wondering if that ScreenMap texture could be lifted onto ScreenPad and used as an alternate display? Maybe using the alternate fire key if ScreenPad was a 'weapon' pickup.

If that would be possible then it would be up to map maker to provide such a screen actor and all you would have to do is find a way to get it onto ScreenPad. I don't know if that's possible.

If the map maker didn't provide a suitable Surv somewhere in his/her map then ScreenPad would have no alternate display and would only show the proximity display.

This would put all the burden of creating the Surv display on the mapmaker. Mostly anyway.

If it was possible to do this then a player could supposedly switch between proximity and surv modes on the screen pad.

Plus, such an arrangement would make the ScreenPad more useful for different gametypes since, for example, a CTF Surv would have the flag's location and etc.

But it all depends on if a scripted texture can be lifted out of the map and used on screenpad.

I think...

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You wouldn't have to worry about rotating the map on the screen pad or anything like that. It would be same as looking at a surveillance screen mounted on a wall somewhere except that it could be carried around.

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It can, quite easily; it's a regular Screen actor that's working behind that ScreenPad. You can do anything fancy with it that's possible with a stationary Screen as well.

Well, that's an idea---ScreenSlide actors with a special tag will be added to the displayable slides on the ScreenPad. In addition I'd like to stick to the idea of mappers being able to simply provide a texture that's displayed as a scrollable backdrop for a fixed-orientation alternate display mode. It's just way easier for mappers, and it makes it possible to provide such textures for already-existing maps.

Mych, I sent you a backside texture that's tone down like the frontside texture was.

Here you go:



I like the backside, the only thing I'm not sure about are the sides. What do you think? (I guess I won't get around remapping the sides anyway, so I'm open for suggestions...)

You're right. The sides are weird.

When I made the skins Id hoped you'd be able to pull the ribbed part of the texture 'around' the (veritcal) sides and the bottom so that green ribbed stuff would look like it wrapped around the sides and joined up with the same green ribbed stuff on the back.

And I figured you could just use a chunk of the background gray somewhere for the the other faces that didn't have the green ribbed stuff on them.

If that won't work then I can take the skins and reduce them a bit then paste them back into a 256x256 image. This will give me room to add some art for a side texture.

Hold on... let me try something and I'll get back to you.

Mych, are you doing the skinning in MS3D?

Yes. I downloaded and tried LithUnwrap but found it utterly unintuitive to use, so I stuck to the MilkShape texture mapper.

I'll send you the model with its current texture mapping.