[Dev Blog] Peeking Inside Buildings

Development
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http://stonehearth.net/2014/05/13/desktop-tuesday-peeking-inside-buildings/

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did you fix it, or did I? :smile:

either way, woohoo! :+1:

edit: hmmm… combat perhaps? :pray:

We’re pushing towards an Alpha 4 release roughly a month from now. That release will be focused on building improvements. It will have the new vision modes, play/pause control, and more!

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Or customizable buildings!

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wow… absolutely love the camera controls and “vision mode”!! :+1:

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I was in the middle of fixing it when you updated it, then I added the video link :smile:

I’m loving what I’m seeing! Keep it up!

Edit: @sdee I was so extited! I saw the little block on the front corner of the house had a border around it and I was all like “OMG Did they take my suggestion!?!?!” then when the walls were brought down I saw it was just a log. :cry: xD

Trolled by a log. . . :laughing:

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Really like the way they have done with the different vision modes, especially the mode where only 1 row of the walls are shown and it will look even better once floors are included. One small comment would be that I hope some sort of hot key will added to switch between vision modes as going to click the button every time will become an annoyance. Also cant wait to see the additions they have made to the way you can design buildings.

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Love the progress on the buildings. Keep up the good work. :thumbsup:

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I believe it’s already there… if i’m not mistaken, the “V” provides this… will watch again to confirm…

edit: confirmed! :smile:

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I like the new sun. More squarey :smile:
Also the new moon looks better. More sinister and sleepy

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Yay! happy Tuesday everyone :smile:
I’m glad I checked the blog before going to sleep!
Loving the progress on building and speed :blush:
And that cute sleepy moon :last_quarter_moon_with_face: …

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Aw man, almost a month to wait until this hits?! :frowning:

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This looks great :slight_smile: congratulations on the progress guys!
I’m sure we’ll see more of this in the next TD’s!

Although I’m cheekishly hoping for combat / custom buildings.

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Love the progress!!!

@Tom mentioned in the video they are debating removing the roofs in RPG mode, I vote to have the roof come off in this mode. When we get to more complex buildings/bigger buildings, the roof will hide more than the walls would.

I would also remove the corner posts too. they will not be needed once floors get implemented.

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Me too! They really resemble stained glass, and it looks really cool! :sun_with_face:

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seconded… or perhaps a fourth mode, that strips off the walls + roof?

so, standard mode, stage 1 (remove walls), stage 2 (remove walls + roofs), stage 3 (strip all down to single foundation blocks)… :+1:

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I feel like this has been proposed already, but I wanted to visualize it for myself. So in regards to the RPG-view, I think it needs to be tweaked. The Sims figured it out well, and I think we should take from them, and use the view they have. I enjoyed it a lot in the Sims, and so there’s no reason why not to make a similar one. Example:

sims3.ng.03.lg.jpg800Ă—452 148 KB

1) No visible ceiling
2) No visible pillars at the front
3) Only show the inside corner, and the two walls in the back, essentially as a “canvas” of sorts.
4) Show the floor/ground throughout

Here’s a visualization I made with paint. Hope it makes sense:

House.png615Ă—511 128 KB

Please make this happen, and I’ll be an extremely happy camper :smile:

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I definitely think this should be the main display for buildings! I personally think that the support column and part of the roof obstruct far too much of the interior as of now.

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Cool :slight_smile: I sort of agree with the last 2 posters about the visuals. When I saw this video, my mind jumped to two things:

1) Two or more story buildings - Going off of that original “grand city” SH concept art, there might be buildings with several levels? How would the system handle floors above floors?

2) Large-scale cities - In the same “grand city,” how would we deal with say 10+ buildings in the view field? Would every single building become transparent? This seems fairly disorienting, and if nothing else, too ugly/busy. Is it possible that this could adapt to an on-click or on-highlight version where it would just apply the new view to the selected structure?

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Glad you’re enjoying RPG mode. :wink: I think, as with everything else, we’re going to have to do a bit of experimentation before we hit on something that works really well.

One difference between Stonehearth and The Sims is that The Sims constraints its focus to one house, and one character in the family is usually highlighted. So you can do things like collapse all walls where that character is, and only in that house.

Given that Stonehearth happens on a town scale, as opposed to a person scale, how would you guys constrain the wall-culling so that you can see what’s going on in multiple buildings at once? How would you handle interior walls?

Edit: [quote=“Roughshod, post:18, topic:6144”]
it possible that this could adapt to an on-click or on-highlight version where it would just apply the new view to the selected structure?
[/quote]

That’s certainly an option! Other thoughts?

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personally, i dont have a problem with all buildings being subject to the current mode (no constraints necessary)…

however, perhaps an option in one of the vision modes, whereby the walls are only removed when moused-over by the player (as @Roughshod suggests) would work (for those individual buildings/floors)…

but on a grander scale, other than some sort of drag-select, or multi-click scenario, i’m not sure how else you would single out batches of buildings to be included in the wall-culling…

so the possible scenarios would be:

  • select vision mode
  • drag-select multiple adjacent buildings to be culled
  • ctrl-click multiple non-adjacent buildings to be culled
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