AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Area Ambiance

I realize there isn't likely to be a perfect consensus of opinion on this, but I'm curious. Which do you find more annoying in an area that has a significant visual "atmospheric effect" : the level of light (or lack thereof), or the level of fog density/view distance cut off?

You have to pick one or the other, even if you just hate everything, pick the one you hate most.

Once you've cast your poll vote, a follow-up question for you to post about: Are there any situations in which you've seen (or can imagine) your choice used in a way that didn't make you dislike it as much? I think the main thing I remember about people hating the Darkhold dungeon's uberdarkness was that it made it really easy to get stuck up on PLCs and tile pieces. So in that example, do you think it would still be as annoying if that level of darkness and haze had been used in an area that was free of ground clutter, or would it still be too annoying?

When I think bad draw distance, I think of the path up the volcano to the Sahuagin lair under the Alamber Sea. It wouldn't be so bad if all the color in that zone wasn't the same darkgreen-poop color with a visibility range of 10 feet. Also, there's also several levels of elevation that is hard-to-notice if you haven't been there a million times.

Dim/dark areas in general don't bother me. But some zones do feel oddly lit during the night, usually with light placements that don't make sense.

I don't mind fog, or weather effects, Caraigh is awesome when the fog is so thick the screen is nearly white, and Ostland is a close second, but the fog is different there.

Darkness is good in areas where is should be dark, or night time of course, but some places like Bendir at night look like day, and it just feels wrong. In areas where it's really dark and there's obstacles to trip over, well, you should have a torch.

As for the follow-up question, Bendir was darkened a little bit at night, but not enough to make you think it's actually night time, but still better than it was.

With darkness I can cast light or equip something, and get to enjoy dark vision and stuff. Dynamic lights carried by enemies or naturally in the area also look very cool.

With crappy nwn fog I don't get any if that. I just can't see shit.

Commie wrote:

With darkness I can cast light or equip something, and get to enjoy dark vision and stuff. Dynamic lights carried by enemies or naturally in the area also look very cool.

With crappy nwn fog I don't get any if that. I just can't see shit.

... damn it, I'm agreeing again with Commie! Some dark is easy enough to brighten yourself if you feel you have to but that fog, there are times you catch sight of something as you wander and pull the camera out but... everything just disappears because of the fog. Areas are nice to look at too, it's nice to see the stuff in the distance!!
Sure if something is too dark it is annoying but areas can be lightened, but that fog...!

walnutboy wrote:

Commie wrote:

With darkness I can cast light or equip something, and get to enjoy dark vision and stuff. Dynamic lights carried by enemies or naturally in the area also look very cool.

With crappy nwn fog I don't get any if that. I just can't see shit.

... damn it, I'm agreeing again with Commie!

Also imo the big trees tile set when totally dark looks amazing when lit by only dynamic lights, enemies with far spawn boxes (so they spawn far away and don't move right away) look cool as fuck with big black tree silhouettes separating them from the 'party'.

Just throwing that out there.

(there's things in the woods)

Thanks for everyone who has responded so far, keep it coming. These extra tidbits you find interesting and appealing or examples are helpful.

I'm curious in general, but what prompted the question is I'm doodling several dark-themed areas, one of which is deep sea, so there needs to be a certain amount of fog to get across the dense, liquid atmosphere and the reduced visual range, and then at a certain depth there really isn't going to be much in the way of ambient light. I'm trying to calibrate where that fine line between theme and functionality/annoyance threshold is.

I think that can be done with just dark as opposed to fog. But then again I like silhouettes contrasting against the sky box, rendered clearly.

Oh if you're doing undersea, consider making monsters glow different colors, sort of a bio-light whatever it's called. Would look real cool. And let you re use monster skins but give them different abilities, but communicating to the player what's what via the light color they give off.

I prefer darkness. I like it because it really rewards you for having darkvision or a light source of somehow. I don't mind actual "fog" per se, but limiting draw distance to an inch around my character is obnoxious and usually unnecessary simply because almost every Amia area suffers extremely from "spawn-da-monsters-on-top-of-your-head-itis" hardcore. I hate it because playing a stealther is impossible. You creep along, they spawn (often) right on top of your head and because of this, can see you through the stealth bug regardless if you have 20 hide/ms or 120 hide/ms and immediately start pummeling your flat-footed self. Ugh.

Word. That was just one more perk of playing a 30 Monk, you could be on the other side of some spawn groups before they popped in, whereas on other characters you'd be walking and have them spawn in all around you. :roll:

How would you feel about a very short draw distance in a situation where monster spawns weren't really a thing (either no mobs at all, or they would spawn way far out and then run in normal-like) and there weren't movement hazards (stuff to get stuck on)? Like a mystery-horror style themed thing where there's meant to be this sort of staggering in the unknowable dark/haze feel? Would something like that contribute to an atmosphere, or would the functionality aspects still be too annoying to put up with for it?

LetumLux wrote:

Word. That was just one more perk of playing a 30 Monk, you could be on the other side of some spawn groups before they popped in, whereas on other characters you'd be walking and have them spawn in all around you. :roll:

How would you feel about a very short draw distance in a situation where monster spawns weren't really a thing (either no mobs at all, or they would spawn way far out and then run in normal-like) and there weren't movement hazards (stuff to get stuck on)? Like a mystery-horror style themed thing where there's meant to be this sort of staggering in the unknowable dark/haze feel? Would something like that contribute to an atmosphere, or would the functionality aspects still be too annoying to put up with for it?

i just don't like the draw distance thing as i feel it has no advantages over darkness aside from not allowing players to use their class/spell/item based things to light up the place.

it feels cheap and looks like a ps2 game cause it's a 15 year old fog effect. at least the light engine is something you can interact with.

There are some servers where I just can't play anything but dwarves because all their areas are so dark lol.

Definitely a fan of the dark and creative uses of fog clip distance. Our characters are so fearless and powerful most of the time it'd be exciting to feel surrounded, lost or blind

I'll agree with Commie that it's even better when enemies spawn from an appropriate far-away distance so you can walk into them, or they can 'see' you coming, instead of dropping on top of your head

Also if you're making an underwater area can you add some sort of slow effect or flavor text about how hard it is to move and speak while under water? Always immersion breaking when ppl be hasting around the ocean floor yellin at each other

Yeah. I actually pushed for underwater effects like that to be added to Amia's existing aquatic Areas, but I was the only one excited about the proposition. Also I wouldn't have been the one scripting it, sooo. :lol:

There are some phenotypes that are meant for flying that function sorta-well for swimming, I'm looking at using those in conjunction with my aquatic Areas.

Also, don't get me wrong here, I like 'dark' areas a lot, I just don't like NWN's way of using fog/draw distance to cull viewable area. I just think making an area 'dark' does the same effect better, and it also lets you do fun stuff with dynamic lights you just can't do if the world effectively doesn't exist 30 feet away from your character.

Also I don't like the 'tint' fog under-water areas use. I think an area can be 'clear' and bubbles placeables/vfx's/skyboxes can properly convey being under-water.

I could probably be convinced for less fog density in underwater Areas, but you'll never convince me to do away with it entirely.

Lux Aeterna! That being said, short drawing distance is a concept I abhor.

LetumLux wrote:

I could probably be convinced for less fog density in underwater Areas, but you'll never convince me to do away with it entirely.

absolutely. i meant don't use fog as the main 'obscuring' mechanism. let the areas darkness do that.

There's only one combination that is so troll-worthy I find I just don't go into the areas which have it; being total darkness, with black-fog which is both hyper dense and short draw distance. I'm not sure if any areas on Amia have it, on some servers it's often been used on the Plane of Shadow, which is why I never go there.

Well, if having mobs spawn on top of you is a serious issue, it would be interesting to experiment how the server would take having all the mobs spawn when someone zones in now that areas self destruct.

We would leave the triggers in place, and a secondary function is to potentially introduce a random (not all the time) 'flanking' event at those triggers. Less mobs, obviously but maybe more realistic feeling. That said, don't complain when the beholders ruin your day. :mrgreen:

RaveN wrote:

Well, if having mobs spawn on top of you is a serious issue, it would be interesting to experiment how the server would take having all the mobs spawn when someone zones in now that areas self destruct.

We would leave the triggers in place, and a secondary function is to potentially introduce a random (not all the time) 'flanking' event at those triggers. Less mobs, obviously but maybe more realistic feeling. That said, don't complain when the beholders ruin your day. :mrgreen:

some areas just have spawn triggers that are too small. it's not a problem with amia just some specific areas (fire/frost giants) have tons of issues while others (beastmen) have none.

I just zoom in to try to cheat the fog draw distance. It slowly uncovers as you zoom in - draw distance narrows the more you zoom out, so you can hit an equlibrium of draw distance and camera zoom. There's places whereit works and places where it doesn't work quite so well.

Darkness is OK as long as it isn't so dark that it's inconveniencing as a player. There's a difference between ambience and oppression: The latter I say balls to and turn up my gamma.

Yeah that's why if you use darkness put some light sources in.

Area Ambiance - The Dank Darkness

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