The great indoors. Now outside.

[Jimmini]

In the pre-alpha gameplay video of Sui Generis, the outdoors seem to be separated from the indoors. There's also an old post from Agnes, confirming that for...

...the time being we are planning to make indoor / outdoors separate but loading times should be very quick!

I really don't like this separation in games. Not necessarily because of the loading times, but more because it's just very unnatural, unsmooth and limiting in terms of gameplay.

Two months ago, Bare Mettle posted that they are...

...doing a major overhaul to environment composition features, which will allow for a lot more varied and interesting visual content.

A recent post from Tony revealed that the...

...recent improvements to the terrain system allow the devs to seamlessly transition between regular tilesets and natural terrain which previously wasn't possible.

Since both terrain types can be mixed at will now, is there still any reason to separate the environments? Of course, I wouldn't care about such a separation between vast areas (ie. between outdoors and underworld), but it would be really nice if I could just walk into buildings naturally like I can enter rooms in Exanima.
It would have the added benefit to not having to teleport characters from on side of the door to the other, which, I could imagine, could lead to some issues in character placement, due to the physically simulated nature of characters. What happens when I place some furniture in front of the door and someone enters? Doesn't sound like something you'd want to combine with physics...
It would also be nice when following or escaping from someone. Not only wouldn't it be immersion breaking like it would when characters disappear into thin air, but you could also hold the door shut by force to keep the other one in/out. Additionally, you could drag/hold objects while "transitioning", without the need to place them in the inventory (which isn't always possible). It would also perfectly align with Bare Mettle's general goal of avoiding artificial mechanics in the game.
And what's more satisfying than trapping people in their own homes? Bringing rocks from the outside and building a natural paradise, right in your home, of course!


I smell hype.

 

[fluffydino2000]

Excellently put

 

[Jimmini]

Excellently put

Thanks!

And I think we all know what the risks of teleportation are:

We should avoid this from happening again!

 

[HopeDIV]

While it seems the current system is mostly made for Exanima's current needs, it most certainly has SG in mind.

That said there could be a bunch of reasons for why haven't no loading between the indoor and outdoor areas could be problematic. From the number of props (Of which large houses/indoor areas are likely to have a decent amount of), to rendering issues. I haven't any real knowledge of that area but I would temper your hopes.

However I most certainly agree that it would be far more immersive, nothing like clicking on a door and poof blackness.

 

[Jimmini]

...

Why do you think the current system was mostly made for Exanima? As I understood it, Madoc made two terrain systems, one for organic/natural terrains (ie. outdoors) and one for more technical/geometric terrains (ie. indoors). Both Sui Generis and Exanima make use of both of these systems (Exanima will have outdoor arenas in the next update). They also work on both titles simultaneously, and not one after the other.
I never made such a system myself, but I don't think it would be that much of a problem to have all these objects in the same environment. Objects that don't currently move and don't collide with ones that do, are not physically simulated. Neither are those, that are far away. The rendering workload wouldn't increase that much, either. Why should it? Especially since the game has basically a top-down view. Their engine is capable to stream practically infinitly large worlds on the fly. Why would some books and furniture change this? These objects could equally well lie outside, on the grass. Even The Witcher, Grand Theft Auto, and many more have this. And Madoc is way more talented than those spoiled kids. I assume the biggest problem to implement this, was that they had these two systems that couldn't be combined, which they can now.
The only thing that I could imagine being a hurdle, would combining these separated environments in retrospect, ie. combining the facade of a building with it's interior. But that completely depends on how they made both of them, on which I have no information. But I doubt even that to be much of a time investment, as I would think the dimensions to perfectly fit, unlike in Fallout, where there could be a multistory building within a tiny shack, since Bare Mettle values such consistencies a lot.

 

[Orlacktherof]

Perhaps the concern is with clipping issues? It might not be game breaking stuff, but would be annoying, such as in CS:GO, de_Train had a problem where in a staircase there is a small bump caused by the corner of a clip(invisible wall) in a room below.

 

[Madoc]

The basic problem with this is that the camera does not follow the character through the door. It's like asking the camera to be inside and outside the building at the same time, it just doesn't work in general.

If you take an extremely simple example like a small hut, you could cleverly design it with a chopped off roof that fades out, and indeed we have functionality a bit like this already, though you still have potential problems with situations such as an object or a person being on the roof. When it comes to more complex, large buildings with multiple rooms and even floors making the transition is just not really possible anymore.

 

[Orlacktherof]

Are we going to atleast be able to physically hold items in the character's hand to be able to carry stuff between load zones?

Also are optimizations going to be included in the next update?

 

[Jimmini]

...

Thanks for taking the time to clear this up, Madoc. It's always nice to see you here.
I already had the suspicion that it may have something to do with the camera. But how about switching the views like you do now, but still have only one environment? You could open a door by dragging it, walking in, at which point the view fades to black and changes to the indoors view you already have. This way you would get the best of both worlds. You would have one environment, but two optimized views. It wouldn't be as smooth as entering rooms in Exanima, but would still eliminate most gameplay restrictions (keeping doors shut, holding objects, etc.) and avoid dissolving characters. Am I missing something?

 

[Salexiss]

I too think it should be done like transitioning between rooms in Exanima, with blackness filling everything except the room you are in.
And then there are windows (and keyholes, crevices, gaps, cracks etc.). With them the most logical way is the cone of vision, so you won't be able to see what you are not supposed to. And here actually the "memorization ability" would be cool to have. Like an ordinary person will have everything turn black after their vision is obstructed, while someone trained in visualisation would be abe to "remeber" how everything looked like before they left, up until the last positions of everyone in the room.
Sorry for the rant, had ideas pop out one after another.