Magical Shadows..with NO source?

Since the bad news, I have been running the game on MAX (MAX, too teh max) settings for screenies. While in AP, I noticed the shadow of a chopped flying over me..yet..nothing was in the sky. Now have I EVER seen a chopper in the air.

I know there is a blime in ap, flyers in mercy etc..but this was a full on attack chopper shadow, I could see the blades and the shape, like an Apache.

Then just now, I saw the same shadow along the ground in Bricks..again..nothing above me.

Is this just some magic thing that cant be seen?

No idea, but now I want Malta to get invisible black helicopters.

The truth is out there...

No, there really is an Apache flies above Atlas Park regularly. You can't get near it because it flies above the War Walls, but you can get pretty close.

A-HA! I knew I took screenshots of them! Now that I look, though, they seem more like a hybrid of Apache and Comanche to me. Weird.

Ah ha! Thanks guys. I knew I wasnt seeing things.

I have my settings of Max. Literally..I cant turn ANYTHING a single notch higher, at all. But given how hige Dave is in his shots..there is no way Id see that from the ground. Unless its just some video driver issue. Either way..thanks for the info.

You can still see the whirlybird from the ground level, but if I recall the shadow is never directly under it. If you stand around Atlas Park's open areas you might see it fly past ... I want to say that it always flies in a straight line over City Hall, but I'm not certain of that. It's how I first saw it, though.

So, funny story with that helicopter. I was assigned as the everything designer for the neutral tutorial, which meant designing the zone, missions, layout, powers, etc. World design wise, I wanted to get a sense of danger in the area and that a lot of things were going on. The first thing I thought of was, wouldn't it be cool if there were helicopters and jets flying around?

I talked to one of our animators, and this was on a Friday when no producers were around (<_< >_>). He grabbed the helicopter geometry we already had and animated the blades to spin. I spent a while trying to figure out how to get the thing to patrol on a regular path. I used all the new techniques we had developed - patrol routes, unique behaviors, etc. But in the end, the helicopter patrol just wasn't smooth enough; it was jerky and would stop at each patrol point for 1/10th of a second, but that was long enough to bug me. I was banging my head against my desk trying to figure out HOW to get a smooth patrol path. Then, it hit me. Not the desk, but a realization.

The blimp in Atlas Park.

I did some archaeological digging and found out how that blimp worked, and discovered it was a simple but robust system. Soon enough, I had helicopters and jets flying around in the tutorial. And then, just to help add to the idea that things are going down, I added the helicopter into Atlas. To keep it consistent, I also added (I'm pretty sure) another one in Perez Park, since it's supposed to be flying over to Galaxy City.

It's a small thing, but it was something that I was really excited when I found out how it worked and that it could be used in a lot of different ways to help worlds feel more alive.

I only discovered the Atlas 'copter recently as well. I was flying up to the blimp for fun, and I heard it - it's loud! Took me a while of turning this way and that, but I finally saw it, and thought it was pretty cool.

I chased it, that chopper is fast. Unfortunately it beat me to the war wall and flew off.

Very cool story, Dr. Aeon. Thank you.

Indeed, an awesome story!

I agree that it would have been great to have civilian air traffic up there. Aside from the military or Longbow choppers (I'm guessing Longbow?) it would have been cool to see news station and PPD helicopters flying around ("... lookin' out over that Golden Gate Bridge on another gorgeous sunny Saturday and I'm seeing that bumper-to-bumper traffic ...").

Was thinking about this more..how high are the Warwalls and teh chopper? At least 100 feet? More? In direct sun, would the shadow of a chopper even BE visible on the ground? And if so..only if the sun was right above..and the shadow would be sooo diffused.
Not saying it still doesnt look cool and all..but..

I spotted the helicopter shadow during the big protest last week, but no one in my team believed me. Now I have proof that I am not insane - well, maybe not definitive proof, but it's a start...

The funny thing about the black chopper is that the shadow travels perpendicular to its movement in the air.

I spotted the helicopter shadows immediately after they came out, but it took me a few months to realise what they were. They scroll by so fast and I typically have my camera pointing ahead rather than down, so I couldn't tell what the shadow was of. After a few times, I assumed these were just groups of Longbow Eagles flying by, since one time I saw the shadow, I saw a group of them flying about.

I think I actually spotted a helicopter directly before I put it together that this was a helicopter shadow I was seeing. I mean, I THOUGHT it was a helicopter shadow, but talked myself out of it since... Helicopters don't fly over Atlas Park, right? Cool addition, definitely.

And no, I don't believe the shadow of an object flying so high would be visible on the ground, especially not sharply defined. But City of Heroes has no shadow distance falloff. Or rather, it has shadow falloff based on distance FROM YOU, but not distance between the shadow-casting object and the object the shadow is cast on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.