body awareness and hud ?

[mothra]

I think immersion is greatly helped by minimizing the HUD and UI, especially in FPS.

What did you and your team come up with to address this issue ?
will the HUD fade out and only come up when functions are used, will there be ironsights for weapons and no crosshair
or a toggable function ? please elaborate :)

I always loved body awareness, meaning being able to see your feet, parts of your body, animations for your hands or
melee combat. How much will be put into this ? will you "see" yourself, will you force animations when knocked over, injecting/activating
a plasmid or during melee ?

Will loss of health, stamina (don't know if that is in the game) or a running for an amount of time be
represented in the HUD (gauges/meters) or will you try to go for visual (distorted visuals, loss of focus, shaky cam) and aural combinations (coughing, hard breath, cries) to get rid of displaying percentages or the typical green/blue/red bars ?

thanks for your time and good luck with this new and exciting IP.
if any of my questions should already be in consideration to be addressed
in the future (podcast, gameplay video) I would be very glad.

[Pinstripe]

System Shock 2 didn't have body awareness, and I didn't miss it either. However, it bothered the heck out of me in Thief 3 due to it's jerky animations. Before screwing that up, I'd rather not include it.

[Bartekk]

I vote for Full Body Awarness, naturally as long as it's implementation won't be sloppy and immersion-breaking.

[jackinthebox]

i also would like to see full body awareness! there's 1 game i know, which does it the right way:
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

[v.dog]

I've never been a big fan of it for one simple reason: your FOV in most games is about 90º, you're looking at a monitor with an arc of about 30º, while your real world FOV is almost 180º. That distortion combined difficulty in judging distances means it just looks and feels bad.

Another reason I've never liked it: Trespasser

[Newbeing]

I liked how it looked in the CGI trailer, but of course that was only for a short segment.

With some parts it works, such as in game cinematics, but it sort of kills the realism when you look down and spin around only to see your feet are sliding around rather than stepping as you turn in real life.

If they could pull it off great, but not a big deal if not.

[dphrygian]

Trespasser

Trespasser was ahead of its time in so many ways, it's just a shame it didn't come together into a better game.

[vrap]

I've repeated this elsewhere numerous times, but might as well mention it here, I think the only thing that I'd like body awareness for is so that the player's own shadow is cast in reaction to the light around him. I think for immersion that would make for a nice touch.

[Newbeing]

^^ that worked very well with Condemned. Sometimes my own shadow scared me in that game.

[v.dog]

If they could pull it off great, but not a big deal if not.Aye, there's the rub. It's one of those things that if they don't do, it's not a big deal. If they do it and it's great, it's not a big deal. If they do it and it's crap, it's a big deal.

[Necros]

I hope the shadow will be in. But I'd also like the full body awareness too. If it's done well, it's a great thing, adds to the immersion, though if done badly it can be dissapointing.

[Flash Johnson]

think about what would happen if they put your shadow in but you couldn't see your feet

[Glottis]

System Shock 2 didn't have body awareness, and I didn't miss it either. However, it bothered the heck out of me in Thief 3 due to it's jerky animations. Before screwing that up, I'd rather not include it.


I agree fully,dont put it in,as most wont like it,and in the past when I have seen it in-game,it looked terrible !! :eek:

[Necros]

I agree fully,dont put it in,as most wont like it,and in the past when I have seen it in-game,it looked terrible !! :eek:
So, only because some devs failed to do it right, noone should ever try it again? :confused: I hope it will be in the game and done properly. :)

[piet11111]

Trespasser was ahead of its time in so many ways, it's just a shame it didn't come together into a better game.

yeah it was really special to have to check the tattoo on the girls breast to see how healthy you are :D
but what a pain it was to get the guns lined up perfectly so that you could use the iron sights on them.
also the physics where really groundbreaking its imo the game that made physics a part of the fun and not halflife 2

im really hoping that bioshock will be just as inovating as trespasser only infinitly better.

[Da Bubs]

im against it, it would take a lot of time to implement well and it isnt all that important. In Halo 2 you can shoot yourself in the knee and it doesnt do anything. also the thing where your feet slide instead of turn is annoying.

[Adabiviak]

I've repeated this elsewhere numerous times, but might as well mention it here, I think the only thing that I'd like body awareness for is so that the player's own shadow is cast in reaction to the light around him. I think for immersion that would make for a nice touch.It worked quite well in Doom3 and F.E.A.R. I don't know about seeing one's legs - I don't look at my feet too often in a game, sometimes my knees maybe, and the games that have done this are okay with me.

[Raveness]

Thief Deadly Shadows did a poor job of body awareness, it was one of the first to try, but they elected for a camera inside the head of Garrett which made the motions come out all jerky.

Now that we've seen FEAR, Butcher Bay, Dark Messiah all effectively use body awareness without problems, I hope it catches on as standard for FPP games.

[^ilovebioshock!]

if anyones ever played elder scrolls 4oblivion they have som body awarness like if you get hit hard your screen will blur for a second or if you activate a trap you will kind of sense it and your screen will blur

[a rabid chicken]

Just a note Ilovebioshock: "body awareness" does not refer to screen-blurring as far as I know. It is talking about your ability to see you body in the game in believe.

[MacarenaRowBot]

I think this awareness or "First Person Actor" can be implemented well. As long as the characters limbs dont move with the consistency of rubber, and special attention is payed to how the feet move. One game that I think will do this well is Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. They seem to have taken special care in developing this technique.

It wouldnt be a chip off my shoulder if Bioshock neglected to incorporate this feature. I doubt the main character necessarily needs to be represented visually, The story of Bioshock seems to be told through the people that used to live in rapture, and the environments speak for themselves.
If you are to become the character, or rather he become you, you dont need to look down and see the body of some generic character for immersions sake.

[^ilovebioshock!]

Just a note Ilovebioshock: "body awareness" does not refer to screen-blurring as far as I know. It is talking about your ability to see you body in the game in believe.
oh sorry:o

[mothra]

no, awareness is not limited to "seeing" your body.
it extends to visual and aural notifications of your surroundings and/or body.
so visual distortion, selfshadowing, seeing your body, loss of sight and/or hear,
animations for picking things up, headbob while moving, enemies which can throw or push you.....
all of this falls into body awareness
usually in games you are just an empty shell not getting affected by the game-
world in any way.