[Resolved] Map issues: park with statue (v14)

[usha]

There are several issues on the park map with statue:
-- you may want to check how entrances to the park fit the mesh, as shield icons representing the cover are slightly off from some of the directions (eg. when rotating).
-- a mafioso's body has fallen through the corner of the base of the statue
-- i can take cover inside a table
-- at least one of the pavement tiles near the statue has also some crevice, a hand of killed character felt through texture there.

(a few pics in the attachment)

[usha]

There is also an issue with visibility through trees. I'm not sure whether it's only on this map or also on the others, but even when I have Wall Vision turned on it doesn't show silhouettes of characters on the other side of a tree here. Well a tree is not a wall. But I think it would be better if we would be able to see through them too?

[Daithi]

Thanks ushas. Fixed the incorrectly mapped benches, and improved the situation with the cover display around the entrances. Concerning the character silhouettes through trees, I agree. I've experimented with this, and the more objects I add to the silhouette system, the more expensive it becomes. There are further constraints, if I add trees to the system, all obstacles will have to be added. This won't be a problem for a gaming pc, but it's going to hurt frame rate on older laptops. I'll likely have 3 settings, 1) show characters through LOS obstructions 2) show through all obstacles, 3) disable.

[ushas]

Thanks for explanations.
Yeah, performance didn't crossed my mind:) For those three additional notes below you can assume that I don't understand how these things work nor what is practical.

• I was thinking that the silhouettes system would actually work nicely as a highlight feature, highlighting all units at will. Especially during night missions I wish I would be able to use something like this for faster recognition where they are. So say it's mapped to 'Tab' key and when I hold that key the game will show silhouettes for everybody on the screen regardless if obscured. It may work well next to those 3 settings you've mentioned. Though I'm unable to forecast if having silhouettes disabled in general and using sparingly the highlighting feature would work for somebody on the older laptop well...
  
  
• I apologize in case it's stupid question. Would performance differ if you use outlines instead of silhouettes? For example, some interesting outline options are discussed in this blog but I dunno how it translates to the game:
  http://xroft666.blogspot.com/2015/07/glow-highlighting-in-unity.html
  
  
• The game has high obstacles like walls and buildings but doesn't use the height for gameplay purpose other than the cover, as far as I know. In such cases some games offer transparency in the camera direction, either partial or full, cutting walls from some height up. It lets you see more than just characters. Otherwise in some situations buildings can obscure sizeable part of the scene.
  
  Perhaps something like in this example for walls and buildings would be great:
  http://chrisrolfs.com/hide-objects-blocking-player-view/
  
  Personally, I would love to have wall transparency together with silhouettes/outlines as both would improve the clarity of the core gameplay. But again I'm completely clueless to the cost, be it from the one manpower or performance perspective.

[Daithi]

No worries and cheers for suggestions!

1) Haven't experimented with this yet, but I think this could be quickly achieved by adding a plane with a transparent texture, set as an obstruction in front of the camera. Haven't figured out how this would interact with the existing settings, but I'll have a look at this.

2) I don't think the way the characters are drawn will make much difference, most of the cost is likely in determining what is obstructed and the extra camera which is required to draw the silhouettes.

3) Could be implemented, but I think the silhouette is fairly functional. The problem isn't that the game wouldn't benefit from this, as you've touched on, but that development is close to a zero sum game - if a day or two is taken to do this, it means something else gets chopped.