My Sub {roject Is Making Me Sick!

no, seriously... i just added a new roll component to the code so that the sub now rolls around the longitudinal axis, and it is making me seasick...

i wonder if i should retreat on this aspect, as making a game that induces nausea, while appealing to many sailing diehards, would definitely send the wrong message to any potential mild mannered, virtual sub skipper out there not wanting to toss his cookies in a fit of realistic seasickness while playing the game...

:)

(the title is supposed to be My Sub Project Is Making Me Sick... one day i'll learn to type words)

--Mike

Red have you seen "Das Boot?"

If not you must watch it for inspiration.

at least 50 times already...

:)

--Mike

That sounds like a cool feature... at least make it an option!

Also, what's a {roject? I've never heard of a {roject. Anyone else know what a {roject is? Is it like a project? I checked my dictionary but found no entry for {roject. Interestingly, though, Google knows what you mean!

Mike,

Make it an optional toggle on/off - just to be sure of capturing both audiences.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

IPete2.

bad spelling...inattention to what i was typing... trying to code and type on the forum at the same time is not a good thing...

my bad (as you younger generation types say)...

hey... that's a good suggestion... keep it, but make it a selectable realism option... yeah, that sounds good :)

--Mike

Give it a self-destruct thingy - like in 'Alien' - and you have to escape from the sub in a mini-sub.

Largeness.

You can never have to many options in my opinion - keeps the moaners happy...definitely put it in as an option.

I never saw Das Boot but I saw Stalingrad...Stalin had these secret snow submarines which the Germans totally never knew about because instead they had been fed false information about a new type of tank-busting aeroplane made from a special type of inivisible acorns and powered by rumours that could wreck a tank just by wishing it...providing the pilot had the fingers crossed on his free hand of course.
So the Germans foolishy spent all their time blindly firing their finger-seeking missiles into the air which would more often than not do a complete u-turn and send them packing skywards quicker than a home-sick angel...except in more pieces.
So all the snow-subs had to do was fire off their torpedos and take out germany's uh..fleet of tanks. It was all over for the Germans after that, and they went on to lose the war(in case anybody here doesn't know their history like I do).

That was one great film..and I recommend everybody just jump in my head right now and watch it...only a quid ($1.70) entrance - bargain.

Leave it in, make then sick.
Just means that you have to surface more often.

Now that sounds like a cool feature - but allow users to turn it off. Is the roll realistic though? Perhaps it's too strong - also add an option of roll strength.

When are we going to have a playable demo of this game? As far as other graphic engines go, finish this version first so you have all the algorithms for a graphically enhanced version later - in other words get the thing finished! ;-)

Are you going to have realistic physics *inside* the sub so that the crew fall all over the place if the sub rolls through 360 degrees?

Leave it out of V1.

Then you can flog V2 with 'New nausea inducing longitudinal roll!'

thx for the ideas guys... working on it...

Steve... the rolling motion was tied into the existing pitch movement, which i used to implement the roll (since the code was there already and generated a sinusoidal wave value which i could reuse)... i did wind up dampening the effect...

also, i had a vector gimbal locked in one of the axis' for the view... once i released that, so the view could be an independent floating reference, the nauseating effects were reduced substantially...

but now during steep dive angles i have another small rotational problem to solve now because of this...

Matty... the roll angle is limited... the sub will never be able to roll 360 degrees... as a matter of fact, the roll may be limited to +- 15 degrees either direction... gotta do it this way to keep things under some sort of control, else this thing'll quickly escalate past my meager coding abilities...

oh yeah... there's no real physics in the sim... everything is faked to look as close to real as i can get it...

... sshhhhhhhh, don't tell anyone.

:)

--Mike

Could you make a movie showing the scene that makes you sea sick? Maybe you can get more opinions that way :)

sure gimme a sec... right in the middle of globalizing seastate and lighting...

--Mike

ok... here's a quick look...

http://home.att.net/~subbase2/BlitzRoughSeas.wmv

i've dampened down a lot of the rolling, and unlocked the view gimbaling axis', so this may not be as dramatic as when i first tested it... but it should still give you some idea of whats happening...

ok, here's another view...

http://home.att.net/~subbase2/BlitzRoughSeas2.wmv

k... gotta get back to work now... that lil jerk in the last clip when the player is moving along the deck, is the latest new feature that i've inadvertantly added, and i've gotta figure out which calculation needs adjusting to get rid of it...


--Mike

Wow, that's great :D

I can see how it may make you nauseous, but that's just more realistic.

> one day i'll learn to type words

Improve your punctuation with full stops first. :)

Looks brilliant! Love the way the sub moves through the water :o)

cool... thx IK and Ross... still gotta add rain and lightning, some low level clouds, and the sub gets more detailing, and maybe just a lil more movement...

... but basically, that's gonna be the way things are gonna look.

--Mike

I can never see your vids red...what codec do I need?

I really like the ambient noises that you have going here!

May need some playing around to get them so that they aren't annoying after long exposure, though...

I like how the water is coming along, too. I'd say the most important thing to do to get pretty graphics in there is to increase the texture resulution on your submarine or get some kind of multi-layered texturing with alpha channels and a tiled detail layer.
Of course, feel free to ignore me since even the best plasticy shiny graphics couldn't beat the superb motion that is being achieved.


Also, when the sub cuts through waves it looks almost accidental. Have you thought about adding a really dense splashing effect onto there to smooth things out? (Perhaps as an optional effect...)
Actually, that's already done, so I guess my suggestion there is really just to allow room somewhere for extra high density splashing effects :)


Anyhow... Amazing!

@ Lib... no special codec... it's a wmv file, i'm using win media player 10.something or the other... else, right click and save target as to local drive then try...

@ Mr. P... thx for the suggestions... my original take on the noise is that the noise is supposed to be intrusive in certain weather conditions... i want the player a lil stressed by it (along with the rolling motion of the platform), just as if they were in a real storm... the player will have to retreat below decks, inside the sub, to escape it... but, i think you have a valid point there though... i'll look into varying the sound a bit a certain intervals so that it's not just a constasnt replay...

and you are right about the sub texture... always been a big problem of mine...

as for your last suggestion... yes, some additional splashes if the nose goes past a certain angle may be doable...

thx again...

--Mike