One Hour One Life Forums

Uncle Gus

Moderator

Registered: 2018-02-28

Posts: 567

A proposed change to the viewport of the client

I know there are game engine reasons why we can't arbitrarily change the zoom level of the client, but I am wondering if it would be feasible to imrpove the visibility and control of the client using just what is already visible.

When you spawn into the game, you can see something like this:

Then when you move left, the camera gradually moves left like this:

And right looks like this:

And moving up looks like this:

And moving down like this:

So there is already a decent range of vision in the client already, you just can't see all of it at once. If we scaled down the size of the images rendered on the screen, we could fit all of it like this:

The advantages of this are not just the increased visibility of surroundings, but the fact that the player is always centred. I found it annoying that the camera moves around as I move, especially since crafting anything involves a lot of moving back and forth. I guess the counter argument is that in the current state, as long as you have everything nearby, when you move back and forth, your character moves on the screen without the screen itself moving, but I still wonder if it would be better like this.

Jason, did you ever have a setup like this in your development of this game? If not, would it be difficult for a rookie like me to implement to try it out?

Turnipseed

Member

Registered: 2018-04-05

Posts: 680

Re: A proposed change to the viewport of the client

i would appreciate something like this...

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Be kind, generous, and work together my potatoes.

Neato

Member

Registered: 2018-04-21

Posts: 2

Re: A proposed change to the viewport of the client

Just some brief thoughts on that idea...

Pros:
Can spot bears and wolves easier to avoid/hunt them
Get a better sense of your surroundings
Can communicate easier with less chat messages being run off the screen/out of view
May be able to see or find a murder/griefer quicker
Might make it easier to ride a horse

Cons:
Small items would probably be a huge pain to spot such as berry seeds or arrow heads
Full baskets of snares, carrot seeds, thread, etc would be even harder to tell from empty baskets
Treading on snakes may occur more often since they'd be a bit smaller and camouflage so well into the desert background
It's more "realistic" to have a field of view focused on whats centered infront of you versus the 360 degree approach

Turnipseed

Member

Registered: 2018-04-05

Posts: 680

Re: A proposed change to the viewport of the client

Just some brief thoughts on that idea...

Pros:
Can spot bears and wolves easier to avoid/hunt them
Get a better sense of your surroundings
Can communicate easier with less chat messages being run off the screen/out of view
May be able to see or find a murder/griefer quicker
Might make it easier to ride a horse

Cons:
Small items would probably be a huge pain to spot such as berry seeds or arrow heads
Full baskets of snares, carrot seeds, thread, etc would be even harder to tell from empty baskets
Treading on snakes may occur more often since they'd be a bit smaller and camouflage so well into the desert background
It's more "realistic" to have a field of view focused on whats centered infront of you versus the 360 degree approach

it would be nice to zoom in and out with mouse wheel

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Be kind, generous, and work together my potatoes.

Xuhybrid

Member

Registered: 2018-03-16

Posts: 85

Re: A proposed change to the viewport of the client

I would like an option to do this.