I was thinking about a 'graphical' way to check for actor to actor visibility :
- *Check for Visible Actors (VA) visible by the Observer Actor (OA) with the usual ray tracing system
- Use a very small temp graphical buffer (BF) to render the VA from OA point of view (first person) :
- Define a small viewport, with a small FOV (zoomed in), to render a 10x20 picture of what OA sees when looking at VA,
- Make the VA visible in the map (not to the player, since it will only be rendered to the BF for the test),
- **Color everything but the actor in black (using light or vertex color or any trick), and set the actor color to red.
- **Check the total red color ammount (RCA) of the rendered picture.
- The RCA is the base visibility value.
*:optionnal, for performance; **: "is that possible ?"
You can then applly view modifiers to RCA : reduce the result if its night unless OA has night goggles, reduce the result if the VA has some sort of camouflage, augment the result if the OA has detection devices (heat camera, targeting computer ...), and so on ...
Pros :
- Reliable estimation of how 'visible' the VA is, even behind multiple complex objects, based on what the OA actually sees,
- "Naturally" harder to spot far enemies : The further the alien is, the less red pixels will be rendered,
- Give good support for visual detection devices and camouflage,
- Could be used to estimate % chance of hit.
Cons :
- Is it possible with quake engine ?
- Render / color ammount check time ? Since the detection must happen at every step of the OA, this detection system cant take long or wont be appropriate.
Other possibilities :
- A similar render of the enemy could also be used ingame in a side window to show the player what the OA actually sees (applying effects depending on the detection devices the soldier has) and check if the shoot would hit.
- Even more, you could use this window to tell the soldier where to shoot on the target :
For instance when an enemy is behind a small wall, you might want to shoot a little above the wall instead of just aiming for the enemy center. Think about the farm map, with the fences arround the fields that are just at the right height to block any shoot from a crouched soldier to an enemy center point (i HATE those fences).
Bad idea ?
