City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

City Urban Legend, or fact?

Arcanaville

By Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2010-01-14 19:07 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

For those who have been around a while, do y'all remember the legend of the hidden room in Peregrine Island? It was supposed to be something like a holodeck or matrix room that once you got in you were stuck without teleporting elsewhere.

I was on a team with some folks today and we showed some people the Easter Egg room in Faultline, which led to discussion about the room that was rumored to exist in PI.

So... does it really? On the old forums, someone once had posted directions but I can't find them now.

--Virtue--
My 50s:
Tigra Swipe (BS/SR/Dark Scrapper)
Galena Storm (Emp/Ele/Ele Defender)
Master Tolarin (Psi/Fire/Force Blaster)

 

Posted

Yes, it exists, and yes, it's under Peregrine Island. Someone had posted instructions on how to get to it, but you can actually see the room used in one of Aralcox's videos.

Gimme a bit to see if I can track down more info for you.

EDIT: And found this for you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leandro View Post


When you log out outside a door, you come out of that door when logging in. With that knowledge, you can find doors that are half-buried in the terrain in Peregrine Island / Monster Island and log off outside of them, then when you log back in you'll come out of them, and since they're half-buried, you'll be falling under the map.

Once you're there, just fly towards the arena. You'll see a giant blue cube under it. Fly directly below, and type /stuck. The game will think the closest "valid" location to put you in is inside the arena map, in the area behind the doors -- the "Matrix Room" pictured above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Samoa View Post
This does indeed work, but a warning - there's no way out of the room. I'd recommend not going in unless you have an O portal or someone who can TP you out (though I haven't tested TP, an O portal works.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Samoa View Post
Hopefully I won't get in trouble for this, but for all you Matrix-seekers:

-1630.5 1.3 -6497.3

That's the /loc for the door I used to get under the map. It's on Monkey (Cutlass) Isle in PI.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
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378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

 

Posted

Having watched the video I have to say that some people have waaaay too much time on their hands, which is a good thing, otherwise I'd have nothing to entertain myself with!

I wonder how they got all the cool angular camera sweeps?

 

Posted

Thank you!! That was exactly what I was looking for, and this time I finally found it

--Virtue--
My 50s:
Tigra Swipe (BS/SR/Dark Scrapper)
Galena Storm (Emp/Ele/Ele Defender)
Master Tolarin (Psi/Fire/Force Blaster)

 

Posted

See what asking gets you?

 

Posted

Wheres the Faultline one? And whats in it?

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post
Yes, it exists, and yes, it's under Peregrine Island. Someone had posted instructions on how to get to it, but you can actually see the room used in one of Aralcox's videos.

Gimme a bit to see if I can track down more info for you.

EDIT: And found this for you.






Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

that video was pretty frakin aweome.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tigra_Swipe View Post
Thank you!! That was exactly what I was looking for, and this time I finally found it
You're welcome.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
that video was pretty frakin aweome.
Yes, Aral does some seriously amazing work. As for how he does all his camera sweeps? He does all the math and codes all his vids from scratch. I only wish I were that good.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

 

Posted

When they first announced the Mission Architect, I seriously hoped that it would be like a holodeck with that room being the basis for what it looked like without anything loaded. Even though the MA has something a little similar, that room is just awesome. I really wish it got used for something spectacular.

@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk

 

Posted

They should make that an arena map, maybe even an AE Map

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dante View Post
When they first announced the Mission Architect, I seriously hoped that it would be like a holodeck with that room being the basis for what it looked like without anything loaded. Even though the MA has something a little similar, that room is just awesome. I really wish it got used for something spectacular.
From what I recall, that was the original "loading" room for the Arena, before they changed the system so it was unnecessary.

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Posted

Pssst, my picture there

The image doesn't really do it justice, since all the white lines are constantly moving. It actually starts to make you feel a bit ill after a while, since the ground is "moving" but you aren't. You also can't get out, well you probably can now, what with Ouro portals and lots of different types of teleporters but when I went there, you couldn't get out unless a friend TPed you out.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantom Patriot View Post
Having watched the video I have to say that some people have waaaay too much time on their hands, which is a good thing, otherwise I'd have nothing to entertain myself with!

I wonder how they got all the cool angular camera sweeps?
I suspect it was done by calculating splines and curve fitting. I suppose it's possible that they did it manually by, for example, capturing a flight path with a demorecord file and manually tweaking the rough edges out, but holy cow, that would have taken a very long time.

I've actually considered making some videos using these kinds of mathematical constructs before. You would almost have to have something like AutoCAD to pull it off. Or maybe MATLAB. The thing is, if you want the camera work to be smooth in sped-up shots, you'd almost have to curve-fit in four dimensions, with time being the fourth. Otherwise, you might follow the path correctly, but the camera would speed up and slow down, as if you're on a jerky roller coaster. Or you could just calculate it for each dimension independently, maybe. Point is, it would be a lot of work.

However they did it, though, they deserve VERY high kudos. That is hands-down the best camera work I've ever seen in a CoH video. This is the first time I've seen the video as well, and I was sitting here the whole time thinking, "Oh my god, that's exactly what I wish I could do! I'm so jealous!"

The holy grail of a demoedit program, I think, would be to have functionality to be able to input sets of coordinates as well as timestamps and PYR values, and have it curve-fit the whole thing together, generating as output a demorecord file that interpolates the camera timestamps, positions, and PYRs. I'm kind of a math whiz, but that would still be above my pay grade.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)

 

Posted

Yes, Aral's camera work is something I can never hope to match. He uses computer scripts or Excel macros or something to plot out camera courses (I still have his email somewhere). *I* would be the schmuck doing it in-game and then trying to smooth it out afterward.

Here, actually, are Aral's exact words about how he did his camera work:

Quote:
The six parameters of the camera (the three positions coordinates, and the three rotation angles) can be controlled independently at any time (CAM POS and CAM PYR commands). If a change is made within 1 second to one of this six parameters, the CoH engine will do a linear interpolation between the two points. If the time between two camera commands is superior to one second, then the camera will just jump instantly from one position to another.

Sadly, there is nothing worst than a linear interpolation for a camera movement ; It can has its uses on some occasions to obtain specific results (I used this system on the very last few seconds of Night Prayers, for example), but generally it doesn't feel right or natural.

So to generate a smooth and natural camera movement, I control myself each single point of the camera with a granularity of 40 ms. By experience, if I try to use a larger interval the camera movement will feel jagged. So that's it, you just have to calculate 6 camera coordinates 25 times per second ... Easy enough, you just have to be a psychopath ... or write a piece of code to generate them for you (after much debating, i picked the second solution).

But the question remains .. how to generate the camera movements ? Many equations can be used, and it depends certainly on the style you want to give your video. For simplicity sake, on Dies Irae, I decided to use only simple translations, but not done in the referential of the POS command (Cartesian referential <-- the bad guy) but in the one of the PYR command instead (Spherical referential <-- the good guy). It gives more natural results, and better emulates the way a real camera operator will work.

In effect, I just put what I want to shoot in the center of a spherical referential, translate the cartesian coordinates into spherical coordinates, generate my camera movements using simple translation of the spherical coordinates ( i.e. Radius, Theta, Phi), then convert back my camera movements to cartesian coordinates for use in the demo file.

All needed equations for that are available here : http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html

After that, on the following 2 videos, I went further and added a "weight" to the camera to have more natural movement ... but that's another story and I'm sure I bored you to death already

Voilà, you now know about the secret behind my camera
I really wish I could find a 3-d calculating program that I can say, "Okay, here's point A, here's point B," and have it create a line, then drag it and arc it like you can in PhotoShop and then have it map out coordinates.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)

 

Posted

After reading that my brain ******* exploded.

 

Posted

K that's wicked awesome D_R.

I think the devs should find some sort of use for that room.... let us use it in like a mission or something.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Westley View Post
K that's wicked awesome D_R.

I think the devs should find some sort of use for that room.... let us use it in like a mission or something.
^ /signed
That thing looks awesome.
Cutscene, anyone?

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

Epic video and epic easter egg

 

Posted

I love the camera angles on that vid...

....I have a math and science background and am still blinking dumbly at those instructions.

I follow what he's saying but DANG that's a lot of work. Even with spreadsheets!

--Virtue--
My 50s:
Tigra Swipe (BS/SR/Dark Scrapper)
Galena Storm (Emp/Ele/Ele Defender)
Master Tolarin (Psi/Fire/Force Blaster)

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite View Post
I really wish I could find a 3-d calculating program that I can say, "Okay, here's point A, here's point B," and have it create a line, then drag it and arc it like you can in PhotoShop and then have it map out coordinates.
Back in the day, we used to write those for POVRAY, before they added splines to camera movement for animation and made the effort moot. There used to be programs that you could enter camera positions into and they would split out interpolated camera coordinates, but those might be hard to find these days.

Its not a difficult thing to write a script to generate these values for an ad hoc instance, but I'm not aware of a specific tool you could use that would automate this completely, especially because there are different techniques that would accomplish different things.

For example, based on watching the video and reading Aral's description quoted here, I don't think he's using splines for his camera movement. I think what he is doing for some of his smooth camera motion is creating target-centered spirals by placing the target of the camera at the center of a sphere - or rather an inclined circle - and the rotating the camera around the target while simultaneously decreasing the radius by a generally accelerating curve.

For simplicity's sake, lets say you wanted to do this in two dimensions, and the target is at 0,0. I place the camera at 10,0, which is (for my example purposes) at 3 o-clock. I want to move the camera in a smooth arc around and approaching the target. The x,y equations for a circle, if I wanted to move the camera from 3 o-clock to 12 o-clock would be:

x = cos(theta) * 10
y = sin(theta) * 10

as theta went from zero degrees to 90 degrees (or pi/2 radians, if you prefer). I could make a spreadsheet that calculated that easily, for any interval of theta. Using Aral's 40ms rule, if I wanted the motion to take 2 seconds, I would want 50 data points, and I would calculate the motion at 90/50 = 1.8 degree intervals.

To make the camera also approach the target, I would reduce the radius. I could make the camera approach the target evenly, in which case I would reduce the radius evenly from 10 to some small value like 2 (because zero would place the camera up the target's nose). So I would make a spreadsheet with 50 (theta,radius) values where theta incremented by 1.8 degrees and radius decreased by 0.16 (8/50), and calculate x,y values based on the equations:

x=cos(theta)*r
y=sin(theta)*r

If I wanted a more dramatic approach, I would change the radius non-linearly. If the target is not at 0,0 I would only have to add the target's coordinates to the calculated ones to translate the motion to the target's correct location. And then I would just need to calculate the camera's viewing direction for each data point. And in this case, that's actually easy because we know what the camera angle is from the target to the camera, because that is how we calculated the camera location. Theta gives the angle to the camera, so the angle from the camera to the target is the inverse of that. When the camera is at theta=10deg, the target is at view=190deg. I'm thinking this might even be why Aral chose this method of camera movement: you kill two birds with one stone if you move the camera as if the camera was connected to the target's eyes with a stick, and the target swept her eyes around in a smooth motion watching the camera. The camera does the inverse of that motion so you do not need to use heavy math to calculate PYR for the camera.

Doing this in three dimensions is slightly more complex, but the math is basically the same.


Splines make more sense when you are moving *through* an environment rather than around one target. You can use elliptical splines and such, but its often overkill.


Of course, this just simplifies the math. You still need to use the math in aesthetically interesting ways, which is of course the hard part.

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Posted

*looks at Arcanaville*

If you can help me come up with a way of doing that so that my brain doesn't melt, I will dedicate my next video to you.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)