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Up Topic Development / Art Workshop / [Concept] "(Magic) baloon"
- - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-08 19:31
After spending some time thinking over the (magic) baloon design I came up with the idea of abandoning the "parachute concept".

Just think of it for a while.
- If we have a parachute like the one that was used in Worms series, it would look somewhat weird but realistic. You jump, open up your parachute and float further down safely, not bothering yourself about actual height. When you land on the ground the parachute vanishes (which was acceptable for Worms) and you can move further on.
- Now we have a (magic) baloon instead of a parachute. Alright, we carry a hollow "piece-of-rubber" in our hands, then jump from the cliff, then... what then, actually? Quickly inflate the baloon with the power of your lungs? You would be dead long before you make your first three blows. Carry a pump with you? Ridiculous. Inflate the (magic) magic baloon using magic?.. Since I pose myself against any magic in Open Clonk I find this solution inacceptable (I suppose we should rather think of some engineering solutions of floating problem - and any problem in general as well - leaving some "magic aproach" only as a last resort). What happens when you land on the ground? Deflate the balloon? Let it go? Pop it? Too many questions and definitely too little realism.
- The first solution to all these problems that I came up with was about making a balloon uninflatable/unpoppable/indestructible. You cary it in your hands and use only when you jump, but...

Then I had (at least, I thought it was) a brilliant idea. I would not spend my words describing it - lets take a look at the picture:

As you can see, now we have a wearable object which is used permanently while it is put on. (We have not agreed on a concept of wearable objects yet but it would be used the same as divers helmet, body armor and other similar things). From the moment the clonk puts on this bizarre backpack the gravity for him is slightly reduced allowing to make long&high leaps and float down slowly. We can even think of some animation for baloons hiding inside the backpack and revealing out of it...

Need some feedback (hope you like this idea).

P.S. If this concept is aproved after all (which I would like greately) then we would have to suspend its discussion until better time (since we agreed to abandon the idea of implementing wearable objects in the first OC release). Thus it should be removed from the TODO list.
Attachment: backpack.svg (7k)
Attachment: UV-description.tga (65k)
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Parent - - By Randrian [de] Date 2010-03-08 19:39
Well, it acutally was called "magic" balloon for a purpose. If you would want to make it realistic, the clonk should carry a bottle helium with it to inflate such a balloon and the balloon actually being lighter then air...
I don't know if we need to be that strict about magic/non_magic and realism.
Other objects aren't realistic too. What about the jar of wind? But it adds a good deal to the gameplay for some levels.
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Parent - - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-08 20:20
The jar of winds is a pain... =) Since we removed the third slot it have become very difficult to use it simultaneously with loam/dynamite (now you have throw away either JoW or shovel to be able to build bridge/blast rock - and it can be picked up by your opponent). I like JoW, I really do. And since we keep it away from settlement scenarios the magic balloon will do too.

Concerning the post... Could you just skip my somewhat poinless blabbering in the beginning and start with... lets say the picture? =)
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Parent - - By Randrian [de] Date 2010-03-08 20:36
Well, the problem was, that the picture somehow wasn't there when I wrote my post ;-)

Your picture looks good and this seems to be a clonky idea. But I don't know if we really want this "parachute" to be always active or just on activating it like (I think) it was meant to with the balloon. For now we could just make it an inventory object, which is "worn" when it is in on of the hands.
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Parent - By TheBuilder [us] Date 2010-03-08 22:34
I think hes saying that you would pick up the "magic balloon", equip it, and then whenever the clonk wearing it is falling, it activates.  Otherwise, the balloons inside it just stay inside it.  And once the clonk wearing it is no longer falling, the balloons just go back inside.

If i'm wrong sorry, just want to help.
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Parent - - By Asmageddon [pl] Date 2010-03-09 10:05
I think we should have 2 slots for settlement/melee, but 3 for parkours, so player can have shovel+loam/dynamite+something else
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Parent - - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2010-03-09 18:15
I generally think it would be better to have more than 2 items in all scenarios. Considering OpenClonk seems to be heading in the direction of less Clonks to control in each round, only able to carry 2 items per clonk is very few. As you have stated, 2 object slots is not enough for parkours, because we are only controlling one clonk and so we cannot have clonks with different functions to carry out. However, this is fitting for a different discussion.
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Parent - - By Asmageddon [pl] Date 2010-03-09 22:32
Well, another option would be to make a function, that defines amounts of items clonk can carry, so on start/respawn lets say "pClonk->SetInventoryLimit(4);" is called, which sets clonk inventory to 4 slots.
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Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2010-03-10 13:55
...scrolling the left inventory with the mouse-wheel and as an alternative two other keys for switching? I would like this.
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Parent - - By Randrian [de] Date 2010-03-10 14:15
buuut I love the mouse wheel for zooming
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Parent - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-10 14:18 Edited 2010-03-10 14:38
In lots of applications (MS Office, OOo, Firefox, IE, Gimp, Photoshop and others) for zooming the Ctrl+LMB combination is used. I would suggest leave simple wheeling for inventory scrolling or something like that.
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Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2010-03-10 17:26
I think, zooming is not something, that you have to do quick, so it could be done by a more complex way.
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Parent - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-03-10 17:55
Actually, it is. I'd often want to zoom out quickly e.g. to see the next checkpoint in a parkour. Or I'd want to zoom in to fight someone in close combat (throwing stuff, etc.).
Parent - - By Caesar [de] Date 2010-03-10 14:32
I have a soft mouse wheel. You can't switch the inventory with that, it's just impossible.
Parent - - By Atomclonk [de] Date 2010-03-10 17:24
Orly? I mean... I hope its not too hard to implent a tweak for this.
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Parent - - By Caesar [de] Date 2010-03-10 17:32
I haven't seen a game where I could use weapon/speed/whatever-switching with my mouse-wheel, so I guess it is hard.
Parent - By Asmageddon [pl] Date 2010-03-11 23:44
I doubt if it really is that hard, probably just nobody cared :D
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Parent - By Ringwaul [ca] Date 2010-03-08 23:31
I think these festive rubber balloons look very odd. Just my opinion, but something like this could be better. Of course scaled down so that it's not massive like in the picture. I do like the backpack that hold's the balloons though; my original design used a metal ring with the flattened deflated balloon inside, so I think your solution is better.
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Parent - By Newton [de] Date 2010-03-09 01:37 Edited 2010-03-09 01:39
Don't like it at all. Neither the concept as wearable nor the design of the balloons. I actually took the idea of having a (magic-)balloon from the game psychonauts. There, the ballon just pops out of nowhere (or blows up really fast) and the character hangs on it with one arm. Look at this scene from the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJHv-q5ILt0#t=3m50s

For the graphics, I thought it could either look very sparkly-transparent-magic or something like Ringwaul suggested.
Parent - By Nachtschatten Date 2010-03-10 00:10
I must say I like your basic idea a lot. Not because it would be "more realistic" or something, I don't mind a little magic. However, the advantage of this thing being a wearable object is having both hands free. You might be able to do something in mid-air, shooting with bow and arrow perhaps. Compared to the magic balloon you have to grab, you're not as defenseless. Also, it would provide more action to the gameplay.
That being said, I'm with Ringwaul on the graphics.
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- By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-09 18:21
Well, at least a backback can be used later for some other objects :-)
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- - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-29 18:14
Alright, here is a new magic balloon concept based on Ringwaul's and Newton's suggestions:

I had two ideas concerning its application.
1) Clonk always carries this balloon and it is thus always used when selected
2) Clonk carries a balloon by holding the round part of it (not the hilt/handle) - a bit similar to the way he carries a boompack. When used (MB pressed) the balloon quickly floats up and clonk grabs it by the hilt (thus falling speed is decreased). When on land (not used anymore) he pulls it towards himself and grabs the baloon with both of his hands again.

The hilt is a very simple object (the only thing that is not going to be modified if this concept is approved =):

Also I thought about something like this recently (though I like the first concept better):


Don't ask me about any feedback on this concept - I do not think that it is very good. But I posted my idea anyway for few reasons:
1) to ensure everyone that I haven't forgot about my responsibility of creating magic_balloon object :-)
2) to stimulate further brainstorming process;
3) in the end... maybe someone likes it...
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Parent - - By Newton [de] Date 2010-03-29 18:56
I think a globe with just a short line hanging from it is enough for the model. Then a good texture and done.

It is true that probably if the clonk has the balloon, he always wants to fall more slowly. However, there is no interface for that (yet?). And if he has the balloon in his inventory anyway, it doesn't hurt that he has to click on use to make use of it.
Parent - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-03-29 19:25

> a globe with just a short line


Wouldn't it be TOO simple? Hm... at least I thought that this "belt" extruding from the sphere a bit looked quite nice...

> It is true...


This is exactly the reason I wanted a "wearable" object (simply because it fits wearable objects concept very well)
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Up Topic Development / Art Workshop / [Concept] "(Magic) baloon"

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