Avatar Insight

[J'Kla]

I was contemplating a specific puzzle and went and asked a direct question of Chogon the respose has been interesting and may give us an insight to what may be possible.

My Question
I know some of this will be possible with the open source but what I plan may need a change to the generic avatar.

Given that the original idea if Uru was Caving also known as spelunking (USA) I have been looking at creating a puzzle for the open source that uses some of the most basic cave exploring techniques.

Also given that access through any given opening in Uru appears to be tied to the avatar bounding box rather than the avatar visual boundaries.

Would there be any way to make the bounding box for the avatar slimmer front to back rather than side to side so that a gap could be created through which an avatar could pass sideways but not forwards.

Also given that the Female avatar is shorter than the male make a gap so that the female avatar can pass but not the male.

Following the same logic and using the slow swim animation make a low squeeze animation to get through a low gap and make access provisional on having the back pack and a safety helmet but removing the back pack and pushing it ahead as you would in a real cave exploration.

Chogons' Response

Hi JKla,

With the open source you should be able to do what you want. However, the current avatar physical shape is a capsule which is an elemental physical shape and is very fast for the physics engine to resolve. By making the physical shape more complex it will make the physics engine work harder to resolve collision and causing lags as more avatars are added. Also, as we found out, a number of the puzzles in Uru rely on the size and shape of the avatar physical to work properly. Also, another thing you would have to take care of is that the shape and orientation of the avatar physical stays the same. Things like the swim behavior the visual avatar is horizontal but the physical stays vertical, which doesn't matter when you are swimming around.
But like I said, being open source you can do what you want, I'm just pointing out some of the obstacles you may encounter.

Thanks,
Mark

[Aloys]

Having a new collision system for the avatar would indeed be very difficult (although that would be useful)

Also given that the Female avatar is shorter than the male make a gap so that the female avatar can pass but not the male

That's possible: You need to have two different collision meshes (one for each avatar) and you must write some proper Python code to detect the avatar and use the right collider accordingly.. Robert did that in his Shell and it worked perfectly.
As for the 'sideways' idea I don't know. It would be very cool but I'm clueless. Is it possible to limit the avatar movements to sideways through Python? Whithout hacking the main Python pak file (like the flymode)

Another problem with the current avatar collision scheme is that the collision mesh is slighty larger than the avatar.. So there are places where the avatar seem to fit it perfectly but it is blocked anyway.. They probably did this because of the arms animations, so that the collision mesh is large enough to encompass them and they don't go through the walls..
So there are places where you it's sometime useful to create separate collision meshes that are larger than the visual geometry for the avatar to fit in. For instance if your visual geometry is bellow the avatar arms. (like rocks or very low barriers/railings etc)

[J'Kla]

I posted a follow up question to Chogon seeking some clarification this looks like we would be creating extra testing but we know we are in for that anyways.

JKla wrote:

The concept of an elemental physical shape I can understand but if it is based on a square it can be a rectangle if its a circle it can be an ellipse and if its 3D then if its a square then it is not a cube (result of experimentation with avatars and openings) and the same applies to a sphere.

Ok the horizontal low squeeze has issues to be solved another way but rectangular doorways lead me to question your previous answer for the sideways thing.

From Chogon to JKla — Fri Jan 23, 2009 7:24 pm — Subject: Re: Generic change question

You can use any shape you want, including a mesh which I thought you were eluding to. A bounding box could be used, which is an elemental shape but rounded bottoms do work better on ramps and step ups. Alls I was trying to imply is that it is easy to change the avatar physical shape but very difficult (and time consuming) to make sure it works in every situation.

--Mark

[greendragoon]

It seems like best, or at least more Cyan-like, solution would be to create a custom animation that does not rely on collision detection. The example I'm thinking of is the ladder animation. While on a ladder, the collisions are turned off. What may be possible is that you create a new animation where the avatar turns sideways and inches his/her way through a crack in the wall. Then all you would need is an in and out regions to bring the avatar in and out of this reduced mobility state. You could even throw in a check so that if the avatar is male, he just shrugs and shakes his head.

Keep in mind, I really don't know how hard it will be to add new animations to the avatars. Or for that matter, the process of adding a new ladder-type state.