Senses integration.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Remember that many animals can tell things about others creatures, like their health or virility, by their smell.

True.

How would we represent this, though? A mouse-over could reveal info, maybe?

Everyone forgot of mouse-overs so far. Great idea!

Tenebrarum wrote:

Remember that many animals can tell things about others creatures, like their health or virility, by their smell.

Couldn't we use colours to tell you this?

Green = living and edible (prey, or plant/fruit not fully grown)

Yellow = good to eat (fresh fruit and or meat)

Orange = Gone off (mouldy fruit, old carcass swarming with flies (possibly entering the poisonous with the latter)) or living and inedible

Reddish orange = Poisonous

Red = Predator


Then...

Blue = Inedible (Like a brick... Or gravel. That sort of thing)

Purple = Unknown (not yet encountered, interact with it to assign smell a place in above list of smells)



So how's that?

The Uteen wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Remember that many animals can tell things about others creatures, like their health or virility, by their smell.

Couldn't we use colours to tell you this?

Green = living and edible (prey, or plant/fruit not fully grown)

Yellow = good to eat (fresh fruit and or meat)

Orange = Gone off (mouldy fruit, old carcass swarming with flies (possibly entering the poisonous with the latter)) or living and inedible

Reddish orange = Poisonous

Red = Predator


Then...

Blue = Inedible (Like a brick... Or gravel. That sort of thing)

Purple = Unknown (not yet encountered, interact with it to assign smell a place in above list of smells)



So how's that?

That lookis pretty straightforward.

Eh. That doesn't really tell you health or virility.

Considering how smell feedback is way more qualitative than quantitative, I think that mouseovers would be the best solution.

Ulteen has a point though, we'll need a color standarization so people don't get confused.

Djohaal wrote:

Considering how smell feedback is way more qualitative than quantitative, I think that mouseovers would be the best solution.

Ulteen has a point though, we'll need a color standarization so people don't get confused.

QFT

Djohaal wrote:

Considering how smell feedback is way more qualitative than quantitative, I think that mouseovers would be the best solution.

Ulteen has a point though, we'll need a color standarization so people don't get confused.

Agreed.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Eh. That doesn't really tell you health or virility.

Sorry, I wasn't quite awake when I wrote that last post, so I wasn't taking in much information...

But yeah... So, adding on the the colour thing, that I'm glad people liked , we need more detailed information, like health and/or virility, soo...

Hang on, a thought just occurred to me: Maybe the smell could get more 'detailed' the closer you get to the source? You know how when you are far away you just get a faint smell, but then when you are right up to the object it gets very distinct? But implementing this... Maybe a pop-up of details could come up when you do the mouse-over, with more info the closer you are. It might not be a pop-up, but I'll assume it is for this post.

And a thought occurred to me while I was writing that: Smells can linger. How will this work, without spamming up the screen?

Oh, and maybe the health could be a little sort of orb that comes up with a colour inside the pop-up, but paler colours than your own health indicator, starting off white when at a close proximity, then getting more coloured until you are right up with your nose up their armpits, but still fairly pale/murky. This way, you wont get as clear a health indication for other creatures as for yourself. Because you know the clearest out of anyone else how much pain you feel, a smell cannot compare to a direct link to the brain.

And, on the comment on indicating virility, I have an idea to add on to the list of smell colours:

Pink = A creature available to reproduce with (not necessarily of your exact species, but close enough, to allow variation/mild crossbreeding)

I think a separate colour for this is okay, I assume you'd not be able to mate with a predator (and on the rare chance you can, the red predator smell should take priority), or want to know if you can eat a possible mate.

And other information should/could include:

Main thought: Not literally thought, but something like 'hungry'
Hunger&Thirst orb: Hang on...


Not Hungry = Pale orange

Hungry = Vivid Orange (sorry, no different shades of orange in this forum )

Not thirsty = Pale Blue

Thirsty = Vivid Blue

Hungry & Thirsty = Lighter murky brown

Dying Of Hunger And Thirst = Darker murky brown (That's supposed to be brown? )

Dead = Black


On with the list (can I add at this point most of this is going to be under... Advanced smell)...

Energy levels? (Based on amount of sweat stench, but might not work for some organisms... Which opens up a new area of evolution that tries to be 'invisible to smell'... Insmellability)
Age (Going on the basis of old people smell funny)
Mood
Personality? (That might be a bit unrealistic&/unincluded)
Gender... Maybe... Or something on the class thing that insects have, I forget the name. Rank? *shrug*
Maybe a general stench rating?
EG:
Smells irresistible!,
smells nice,
smells okay,
smells... Odd,
smells bad,
smells foul!

Maybe more advanced ratings could be included that I haven't thought of:

Smells addictive ;
Smells bad but... I want another whiff;
I think that is waaay past its best before date;
I think I've smelt that smelly smell before...;
I don't smell any smell...

Etc.

Any other ideas for what to include?



Wow, [/longpostislong] today. Maybe I could go for becoming the leader of 'senses'? Eh, maybe not. I'll just stay an ideas guy for now.

Just wondering, how would you disable that? In case you have smelled your local environment, and nothing has changed, yet you dont want the descriptions.

caekdaemon wrote:

Just wondering, how would you disable that? In case you have smelled your local environment, and nothing has changed, yet you dont want the descriptions.

You mean turning off the mouseover? Probably an option, or a toggle key.

Or you have to right-click to bring it up. But then that might stink for those without good noses... I mean it might make it less of a smell thing and more of an info-box. This should stay as a smell feature, as it is based around smell.

Although, maybe all the senses could contribute to this box? Although, that might make it overcrowded with smell info and sight, electro-sense-thingy, and sound info. Maybe function keys could toggle between different sense info shown in the box, and off completely?

Or maybe this is overcomplicating it...

I believe our old solution was to have 'SenseDigits'.

Each item would get a SenseDigit, for example Q3.

Let's say you're a dog and there's a cat with the SenseDigit M6. If you found anouther cat, it'd obviously smell similar but different, thus its SenseDigit would be M5.

Nooo, I'm, losing my 666 post status!

ParadoxJuice wrote:

I believe our old solution was to have 'SenseDigits'.

Each item would get a SenseDigit, for example Q3.

Let's say you're a dog and there's a cat with the SenseDigit M6. If you found anouther cat, it'd obviously smell similar but different, thus its SenseDigit would be M5.

I doubt that's going to work. As there can be milions of combinations, we would have to show something like AZB192837, and there's no way we could ever have players understand this. There also isn't any reason to use a better method code-wise.

Commander Keen wrote:

Nooo, I'm, losing my 666 post status!

ParadoxJuice wrote:

I believe our old solution was to have 'SenseDigits'.

Each item would get a SenseDigit, for example Q3.

Let's say you're a dog and there's a cat with the SenseDigit M6. If you found anouther cat, it'd obviously smell similar but different, thus its SenseDigit would be M5.

I doubt that's going to work. As there can be milions of combinations, we would have to show something like AZB192837, and there's no way we could ever have players understand this. There also isn't any reason to use a better method code-wise.

QFT

We need to consider our player base. Even if the game told me, I'd still get these mixed up easily.

As to lingering senses? Well, if you have a creature with really good smell, than it's unlikely you'd evolve much else so you screen wouldn't be too filled up, and if not, than only strong scents like cat-posts or urine-marked territory would be sources.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Nooo, I'm, losing my 666 post status!

ParadoxJuice wrote:

I believe our old solution was to have 'SenseDigits'.

Each item would get a SenseDigit, for example Q3.

Let's say you're a dog and there's a cat with the SenseDigit M6. If you found anouther cat, it'd obviously smell similar but different, thus its SenseDigit would be M5.

I doubt that's going to work. As there can be milions of combinations, we would have to show something like AZB192837, and there's no way we could ever have players understand this. There also isn't any reason to use a better method code-wise.

QFT

We need to consider our player base. Even if the game told me, I'd still get these mixed up easily.

As to lingering senses? Well, if you have a creature with really good smell, than it's unlikely you'd evolve much else so you screen wouldn't be too filled up, and if not, than only strong scents like cat-posts or urine-marked territory would be sources.

QFT and I suppose that makes sense.

OH, the codes! The codes are another thing that could go on the mouse-over menu(e) for people who think they want to remember a certain smell.

Commander Keen wrote:

For the rock-eating case, you could see other members of your species doing it, so you would do it too. Too bad if you are a hermaphroditic lone wolf.

That gives me an idea. There should be an "examine" function, where the player would select a thing/animal and the player's creature would try to sniff/grab/take a close view of that thing. Basic information would then be given to the player. Of course, examining things like beehive might not be the best idea...

It might not be even perfectly accurate, sometimes labeling poisonous things as healthy.

i really like this "examine" option gives players the chance to explore everything that nature has to offer like it and we are making this game close to nature as possible so it should be included
i think this should go in a independent thread because it is really taking up this thread ideas.

on to the topic at hand, how can are creature gain more acidic stomach acids?
that is a question i have thought of many times. like what organ would need to be used more often to eventually gain this very useful trait. i would think that eating somewhat rotted food would prepare an animal because lets just say there is a drought and extinctions a lot of dead meat if i was starving i would try to eat anything but if i were to prepare my animal before hand by eating slightly rotted meat and gained the strong stomach acid and then became a scavenger i would do far better then other animals during natural disasters (etc drought) just wondering

Leaving a post in support of the "examine" idea. I remember years and years ago when i came up with the KnowledgeBank idea, that was one thing that was crucial to understanding the world around you. I don't see why it would be different now.

Upboating the examine idea. It should be very useful for showing terratorial boundries.

We need to find a way to comunicate information in a good way though. Obviously text, but that still leaves room for making it overly cheesy.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Upboating the examine idea. It should be very useful for showing terratorial boundries.

We need to find a way to comunicate information in a good way though. Obviously text, but that still leaves room for making it overly cheesy.

But we already have a way... The sensory overlay. It could just go through your different senses one by one (hearing being constant, one of the few (or only?) that uses audio) as your creature rolls the object in its hands or views the object from different positions, giving you all the details you can accumulate about the object. In other words, you get all the information your creature can find about the object.

That should cover: Shape (species if living), size (age if living), scratches/wounds, presence of life (if appears to be alive), colour, any movement it displays on examination, all with sight; Sound, contents through shaking, weight through dropping, presence of life (if it responds) all with sound; species, edibility, composition, threat level, general odour, all with smell; texture, temperature, weight, shape, rough composition, moisture, all with touch; rough shape, presence of life, electric field, size, all with electro-sense; temperature, rough shape, size, presence of life (often), all with thermal vision.
That's quite a list of properties. And plenty of overlap, so not all senses are required. And no text needed, it's all through the senses.

The other information, presumably memory, and written record with writing, could then be displayed in a transparent dialog to the side throughout the examination. Hopefully quite a small one considering the amount of information already given above. Just the figures. Maybe some diagrams.

If you hurl all of this on the player in a pure graphical way, he will be overwhelmed. Text is much simpler to interpret, not to mention the players will not have to learn it. The examine tool would be very useful especially at the beginning, and as such it should be as simple as possible.

And how would you want to show all of these without morphing the screen to a double rainbow?

Commander Keen wrote:

If you hurl all of this on the player in a pure graphical way, he will be overwhelmed. Text is much simpler to interpret, not to mention the players will not have to learn it. The examine tool would be very useful especially at the beginning, and as such it should be as simple as possible.

And how would you want to show all of these without morphing the screen to a double rainbow?

I completely agree- sensory overlay is important, but keep in mind that it could get overwhelming.

I agree with Uteen that sound should be audio, and visual should be... well, visual, but anything we can quantify (represent as numbers, stats, text, that sort of thing) should probably be quantified. For touch, for example, we might have a weight estimate (a good thing if your sentient/nearly sentient creature is looking to carry something around) as well as sharpness, texture, etc, and making just that one sense graphic would be a) hard to understand b) certain death for my poor laptop.

Commander Keen wrote:

And how would you want to show all of these without morphing the screen to a double rainbow?

I'm just stating how the senses already work. The player could get all of this information already by just viewing an object with each of their different senses, but this goes through them one by one automatically while the creatures observes the object from different angles, with the added bonus of the 'other-info' textbox.

But I suppose the weight could be numerical, I don't think that could actually be done visually. But texture could be an on-screen pattern and temperature could be the colour of that pattern... Shape, rough composition, and moisture are also given by touch, I'm not sure how we incorporate them into the touch overlay... The alternative is figures, but a touch-based organism (with feelers or equivalent) would then be an annoying way to play... Annoying would be best avoided... But how...

But as I was saying, the idea should be quite easy, it's just using the sensory overlays, which are already there and the player should be quite familiar with, but cycling automatically, while the creature does a few experimental tests on the object (holding it, dropping it, shaking it, rolling it, and just showing curiosity).

Toggling into heat/infra-red vision could work. Moisture would be something that we'd most likely need numbers for, and as for texture... well there's texture, but you can't tell from looking at something if it's fine-grained and soft or fine-grained and rough. Try looking at flour and salt from an arm's length.

Rough composition might be an advanced feature. Does your dog know the difference between a hard plastic toy and a hard ceramic toy? No, you'd have to guess based on toughness and weight. For that matter, how many people do you know who can really tell the difference between a chunk of concrete and a chunk of rock if they look more or less the same?

I like the idea of tests.

Okay then, Let's say I'm sniffing something. My creature should be able to tell that whoever marked this with it's scent is in good health. Now, I would suggest we simply say that with text, rather than say... show a picture of the animal in question, especially if it's not immedietly visually recognizable that the thing's in good health.

How do you know the difference between wet and shiny? Hot and cold? There are things we can't really do. And we'll need text for other things anyway, so why the Belgium not?

Tenebrarum wrote:

Okay then, Let's say I'm sniffing something. My creature should be able to tell that whoever marked this with it's scent is in good health. Now, I would suggest we simply say that with text, rather than say... show a picture of the animal in question, especially if it's not immedietly visually recognizable that the thing's in good health.

How do you know the difference between wet and shiny? Hot and cold? There are things we can't really do. And we'll need text for other things anyway, so why the Belgium not?

Text makes a lot of sense for most of this. I agree.