Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

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aliswe
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Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

Post by aliswe »

Hello,

I am requesting some preliminary feedback on a change I wish to introduce (code not written yet). It's to do with the first second of starting a game, for example the Alpha campaign.

First off, the main menu screen should really take half a second or so to fade TO BLACK.

Secondly, the game should take its first half second or so to fade FROM BLACK.

Why I split those two is because I believe coding will be needed in two different parts of the project.

Thirdly, I want to look into the "zooming" or "landing" of the camera on game start. It's looking OK but upon closer inspection it's acting really strange.

Sometimes, it goes from up to down, like landing an aircraft. Sometimes, it goes from down to up, like the ascension of a helicopter. When starting the alpha campaign, on first run, the effect executes successfully. If I "Quit game", and run the same Alpha campaign again, the effect is barely noticeable (maybe 1/10th of a second with only about 10 pixels movement). The subsequent times, there is no "zooming" effect at all.

I'd like to check that code and perhaps adjust the logic to being consistent every time, and perhaps tweak it just a little bit, it doesn't feel 100% natural as it is currently.

Reason I'm asking about feedback is because I don't want to work on something that in the end will not be accepted because it's not prioritized or w/e.

BTW: Hi, I'm Bjorn Ali from Sweden. I really care (and get hung up!) about first impressions. I'm actually not new here, I made a patch about 10 years ago, also on a small detail with regards to smoother arc rotating (with the right mouse button).

Take care,
Bjorn Ali
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Berserk Cyborg
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Re: Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

Post by Berserk Cyborg »

We will pretty much take any feature/improvement patch provided it works and has been tested.
pastdue
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Re: Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

Post by pastdue »

As a quick note: fading the main screen likely touches code that has been refactored as part of:
https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2100/pull/489

So it would probably be best to base your work off of that PR (which will be merged as part of 3.4.0), to avoid having to re-do it.
aliswe
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Re: Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

Post by aliswe »

Sounds good!
aliswe
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Re: Idea for patch, feedback wanted: Fade when starting game

Post by aliswe »

On second thought, this branch compiles but doesn't run for me - in WSL (not very surprising!) - and I am currently stuck on the Windows regular build bco PhysFS. Feel free to assist me on that issue ...

So I've decided to wait a bit with this suggestion, and try to improve upon the zooming logic (based on the master branch) as long as the Vulkan branch is unmerged. When it is, I'll have no choice but to troubleshoot the Vulkan stuff in WSL.

Thanks a lot guys!
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