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TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Tuesday, February, 15, 2005 6:21 PM
wwwmwww Wrote:Interesting... what's it look like with the glow effects turned on?

They look a lot like this:



I tweaked the glow just a tad to make it stand out a little better, but that's a pretty much how they look with the visual FX turned on in the game. You can also tell by these stills that the cycles are not quite proportionate in their dimensions to the light cycles in the film. And the jet walls are a tad too tall, have no weight/depth to them, and no bright area coming directly from the rear wheel

Aside from the inaccuracies and general game glitches, the online multi-player light cycle game is highly addicting.

Ok, still working on getting the video footage of the light cycle quick turns put together properly - interlaced video is a pain in the butt!
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MutoidMan
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Tuesday, February, 15, 2005 7:37 PM
OK, after the first bunch of lengthy posts I gave up and shot to the end to add my two cents:

Obviously the physics of what happens on the game grid do not match the physics of the real world. In fact, it appears that the game grid even has a different set of physics than the rest of the electronic world.

When you look at the movie, it looks like the cycles just slide to one side without the cycles actually changing their orientation, and maybe that's what actually happens iff the directional changes are made quickly enough, but only in the movie.

I do have a favorite explanation that I think works:

Cycles are rendered ever-so-monentarilly intangible when making a turn, thus allowing them to make super-tight turns and jinks without crashing. I tend to go with this one because I've seen some turns on the light cycle grid, especially made by super light cycles, that could not possibly have been made unless the cycle making the turn was intangible for a brief moment.

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TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Tuesday, February, 15, 2005 7:39 PM
Ok, I spent all that time trying to get cleaner frames in that quick turning demo video only to discover later that the initial frames themselves were not clear and retained a hint of the previous frame on them because I was literally taking video of my computer monitor with my camera. If that didn't make any sense to you, just understand that taking video of a CRT doesn't generally work so well. I didn't spend any time trying to optimize the capture quality in the camera itself before shooting, and so the frames ended up with residual images on them. Oh well. That's why the slow motion parts seem multi-frame looking - because the original raw frames were too.

Anyway, the video quality is not great, nor is the resolution very good. Sorry about that. But you should be able to get a feel for how the TRON 2.0 light cycles pivot when they turn. It is indeed at the center of the cycle, and is more noticeable during the slow motion parts. If you have the ability to play the video frame by frame - you will be able to see the awkward look of the cycle when it pivots in a quick turn scenario.

The video contains, in this order:
- quick back and forth turns in real time
- the same quick back and forth turns at half speed
- quick back and forth turns in real time, from different angle
- quick back and forth turns at half speed, from different angle
- the staircase scenario in real time
- the staircase scenario at half speed
- some commonly use strategic moves (non-macro moves)
- - the quick back-track move comprised of a left, left, left, right, placing the cycle close to it's wall for speed boost
- - general moves utilizing the speed boost near wall strategy

Video link: TRON 2.0 light cycle quick turn video - 10.2MB
EDIT: Video file removed 6:40 PM 2/16/2005 - if you missed it, sorry!


The video will only be available for a day or two before it is removed.


The good: I got the quick turn light cycle video posted.
The bad: I wasted so much damn time screwing with the interlaced video, that I've run out of time for this evening.

I'll have to comment on the other posts showing the POVray glitch and stair pivots tomorrow.




 
wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Wednesday, February, 16, 2005 8:00 AM
Thanks... I got the video. I don't have time to comment now either. More later...

Carl


 
TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Wednesday, February, 16, 2005 6:33 PM
wwwmwww Wrote:Actually in my playing I've found a 'glitch' in the current version of POV-Ray too. See if you can tell me what's wrong with this animation.

Yeah - I noticed that glitch before I even started reading your post about it. I'm glad you've got a work around for that kind of thing. As you know, I'm always dabbling in video production (usually in image composting and visual FX) and there are so many glitches in the application I use, it's pathetic! There are times that I don't even want to work on my creative projects because I just don't feel like doing battle with my video-editing app. And that's what it's like too - doing battle, and wasting a lot of time in the battle, that should have been spent on the creative front. Oh well. Then again, I do push this app. well beyond it's intended use, though it ought to be able to do what the say it can do. I hope POV-Ray's glitches are not as problem causing as what I'm often up against (generally frequent crashes and ignored video tracks).


wwwmwww Wrote:Note that if the red cycle is moved far enough forward to avoid the rear wheel separation in ANY frame then it will crash into either the orange or blue cycles. The only fix I see is to make the walls farther apart and I'm not sure I want them any father apart.

Yeah - that's a very tight fit there. I want to propose a fix for that that allows for no wheel separation... but I can't think of anything really strong right now. One potential fix might be to allow the cycles to travel beyond their pivots and then in the next frame have them snapped in to the proper place with their jet walls slightly modified to the pivot point they slightly passed in the previous frame... thought that would cause heavy jumping... never mind. That would look really odd. What if the bikes were only shown in the right or down positions? It might look funny as the cycles would never be seen going back and forth, only facing in the one direction, but with the proper sound effects added, it might look better and allow for a cleaner jet wall without separation. You know, kind of like what they did with the quick double-turns in the film where the side-ways position is not seen.

Oooo – I think I've got it! This is a dirty trick and you could really only get a away with it once before it got old, but then again, how often would the stairs moves be done anyway in an action-packed animation? Ok, are you ready for this? Should this kind of turn be employed in an animation, perhaps show it from the light cycle cockpit POV, OR show it from outside the light cycle looking at it at close range (like when Flynn was going through the maze and seen pivoting back and forth quickly). Either way, no wheel separation would be noticeable. The audience would be treated to some high-speed moves and good action, and the animation continuity can remain clean and unquestioned

Hey - when some things just won't work well or are too problematic to explain, work around them and take a different approach, right? They've been doing this in film since the early days. Show what you can, and hide what you cannot show convincingly. You just have to do it in a way that still thrills the audience - it's all in the wrists! Er... I mean, it's all in the editing!




 
foilism
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Posts: 1,064
Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Friday, February, 18, 2005 6:03 PM
2 things
1) you guys are bonkers
20 this is great, i love it, i can't beleive you're going in to so much detail, i love it. u guys are great tron fans!

i wish i could join in, but wow!!



 
DJ Aussie E.
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Posts: 359
Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Friday, February, 18, 2005 6:25 PM
Hey wwwmwww, can you make animations comparing how the movie cycles and the game cycles do rapid S-turns?


 
TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 2:27 PM
foilism Wrote:2 things
1) you guys are bonkers
2) this is great, i love it, i can't beleive you're going in to so much detail, i love it. u guys are great tron fans!

i wish i could join in, but wow!!

Yeah - the detail level in this thread is very high and there's a lot of thought being put in to the seemingly simple premise of how light cycles behave on the game grid. And it's a LOT of fun!
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wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 6:34 PM
Tori Wrote:Those moving lightcycles are cooool!
How did you do that?

Thanks. As to how... I'm using a free program called POV-Ray. Do you want more details? I could share the code if you like but I'm likely to scare even more people away.

Carl
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wwwmwww
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Posts: 1,230
Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 6:40 PM
Well... thanks I think. Laughter wasn't quite the effect I was after but thanks for joining the thread. As to "What makes an identity disc fly so controllably, yet so randomly." how about "The animators." It's the best answer I could toss out on the tip of my tongue.

By the way, I do have a Ph.D in physics. I think I'd have had more fun had my dissertation been on Light Cycle Mechanics.

Carl

Traahn Wrote:OMG, wwwmwww you have me literally cracking up over here!!



 
wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 6:43 PM
Kamui Wrote:
As for challenging us as to what went wrong in one of your animations, I think I know where it is. Top. Almost dead center I think.

~Kamui.EXE

Yep... the blue cycle jumps away from it's jet wall for one frame. A macro I created to return the light cycles position failed to return the proper value for that one frame.

Carl



 
wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 6:51 PM
TheReelTodd Wrote:

They look a lot like this:

I might try playing with media and see if I can add some glow to my jet walls. I sort of like that effect. It will slow the animations down some I'm sure so I may not get to this for a bit though. I think I know a way to do it though.

TheReelTodd Wrote:
I tweaked the glow just a tad to make it stand out a little better, but that's a pretty much how they look with the visual FX turned on in the game. You can also tell by these stills that the cycles are not quite proportionate in their dimensions to the light cycles in the film. And the jet walls are a tad too tall,

I made my walls the exact same height as the light cycles themselves.

TheReelTodd Wrote:
have no weight/depth to them, and no bright area coming directly from the rear wheel

I also don't like the way the curved part of the jet wall matches up with the rear tire. Check out the pic I posted earlier of just the rear tire and wall that shows how I think that should look.




 
wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 7:02 PM
MutoidMan Wrote:OK, after the first bunch of lengthy posts I gave up and shot to the end to add my two cents:

Thanks for the input.

MutoidMan Wrote:Obviously the physics of what happens on the game grid do not match the physics of the real world. In fact, it appears that the game grid even has a different set of physics than the rest of the electronic world.

Agreed.

MutoidMan Wrote:When you look at the movie, it looks like the cycles just slide to one side without the cycles actually changing their orientation, and maybe that's what actually happens iff the directional changes are made quickly enough, but only in the movie.

Yes, that's one solution eployed in the film that allows the walls to be drawn as close as they are without showing the cycles themselves overlapping the walls or other cycles. It works in special cases but its not a general solution.

MutoidMan Wrote:I do have a favorite explanation that I think works:

Cycles are rendered ever-so-monentarilly intangible when making a turn, thus allowing them to make super-tight turns and jinks without crashing. I tend to go with this one because I've seen some turns on the light cycle grid, especially made by super light cycles, that could not possibly have been made unless the cycle making the turn was intangible for a brief moment.

True... that's a good explanation that explains how they can get as close as they do without crashing. However what I'm after is a general way to animate them without showing overlap. I'm already hiding some overlap between frames. I guess what I'm saying is you offered a good answer as to why? However I'm after the how?

Carl


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wwwmwww
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Posts: 1,230
Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 7:04 PM
Ok... I'm just getting pulled away from the PC again. I'll be back tonight if I can. I have to work tomorrow.

Carl


 
TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 9:00 PM
wwwmwww Wrote:...I also don't like the way the curved part of the jet wall matches up with the rear tire. Check out the pic I posted earlier of just the rear tire and wall that shows how I think that should look.

I don't like the way the 2.0 light cycle jet wall sort of just comes out of the rear wheel like that either. I think the way you've got the jet wall origin is perfect - it appears to be starting exactly where it should be aligned and starting.
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wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 10:01 PM
TheReelTodd Wrote:Video link: TRON 2.0 light cycle quick turn video - 10.2MB
EDIT: Video file removed 6:40 PM 2/16/2005 - if you missed it, sorry!

Ok... I've now gone over this video frame by frame. I see what you mean by the pivot point being in the center of the bike.


Not only does the bike pivot in the middle but it travels a smaller distance per frame then I would have thought. Maybe that's due to the higher frame rate of the game. Here you'll notice that it looks like it takes 3 frames just for the rear tire to catch up with the head of the wall after a pivot.

Carl
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wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 10:16 PM
TheReelTodd Wrote:
I hope POV-Ray's glitches are not as problem causing as what I'm often up against (generally frequent crashes and ignored video tracks).

Actually I really like POV-Ray. I hadn't done any serious programming in years and POV-Ray proved very easy to pick up. At least for me. I'm still rather rusty and when this glitch popped up I was sure that it was my fault. Anyways the makers of POV-Ray release a new version 2 or 3 times a year it seems and they are now aware of this glitch. It didn't pop up till the current version and they have assured it will be fixed in the next. In short the problem is that user created macro (aka function) fails to return the calculated value from the macro to the main body of the code in 1 of about every 1000 calls. The fix I'm currently using is instead of having that macro "return" that value I just have the macro itself call the other macro where that value is needed. That way the main body of the code never need see the value. It works but once they release a fixed version of POV-Ray I'll probably switch back to the way I was doing it before. It's a little hard to follow when you start having macros calling other macros.

I hope that makes sense.

TheReelTodd Wrote:
Hey - when some things just won't work well or are too problematic to explain, work around them and take a different approach, right? They've been doing this in film since the early days. Show what you can, and hide what you cannot show convincingly. You just have to do it in a way that still thrills the audience - it's all in the wrists! Er... I mean, it's all in the editing!

Sounds good to me. In TRON they could always switch to some of the non-CGI shots also to fill in the gaps. Mine will probably be 100% CGI. Atleast I start with 100% CGI. The live action stuff is still beyond me at the moment.

Carl




 
wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 10:33 PM
foilism Wrote:2 things
1) you guys are bonkers
20 this is great, i love it, i can't beleive you're going in to so much detail, i love it. u guys are great tron fans!

i wish i could join in, but wow!!

Thanks... on both counts. It's fun living life on the edge. Here is an amazing little story I can share. Back in September of 2003 I lost my job. The job hunt was painfully sloooowwww. I'm sure DaveTRON doesn't want to hear that but I was told the average time to find a job in that market in my field was 9 months. It took me about 7 so I guess I came out better then average but I never thought it would take as long as it did. Anyways I had far too much free time on my hands (at least then) so I took that time to learn how to ray trace. It was something I had seen others do and ALWAYS had wanted to learn but just never had the time. Well I had the time then so I took the opportunity. My first rendering was a reflective sphere on a checker plane and I was so proud to get that far I showed it to a good friend. His responce was great... now stick a light cycle in the back groud. At the time I didn't have a clue how to do that. I spent a couple weeks looking for a light cycle model on the web that I could use. I fould a few but they weren't in the POV-Ray format so I would have needed to learn how to convert them and after looking at them, none of them looked accurate to me. In the end I figured I could just as easily learn how to make my own as convert one of the others and I'd have something I was happier with in the end. Plus I figured where better to start learning how to ray trace then in remodeling some of the very first subjects the professionals modeled. Going into it I though it would be just a stepping stone to learning how to make pretty pictures. It turned into so much more and has been far more fun then I ever expected with some real surprises along the way. So in a way a passing comment by a friend HAS turns into a several year long project for me.

A math/science geek who before getting into all this NEVER thought he had an artistic side,
Carl
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wwwmwww
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 10:45 PM
DJ Aussie E. Wrote:Hey wwwmwww, can you make animations comparing how the movie cycles and the game cycles do rapid S-turns?

I think so... back in 15...

How's this? No wheel tire/wall seperation and the cycle isn't seen traveling the short segments.


Is that what you were after or something close to it?

Carl

P.S. I just spotted a small error in the above animation. It's hard to see from above but the cutout for the curvature in the wall down to meet the rear tire now has to extend ever so slightly around two turns when I have these half unit segments in the paths. (aka the very short parts you don't see the bike on in the above) I've corrected it as best I could for the moment and re-rendered from another angle. How's this?


A frame from the original animation showing the error as seen from this angle would have looked like this:


See the difference. The problem isn't 100% gone in the second animation but it's much harder to see.

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TheReelTodd
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Re: Light Cycle: Rules of Engagement

on Saturday, February, 19, 2005 10:53 PM
wwwmwww Wrote:Not only does the bike pivot in the middle but it travels a smaller distance per frame then I would have thought. Maybe that's due to the higher frame rate of the game. Here you'll notice that it looks like it takes 3 frames just for the rear tire to catch up with the head of the wall after a pivot.

Yeah - I'd say it's the higher frame rate. In the video I captured, my monitor was set at refresh rate of 60Hz, so the game was displaying 60 fps. My camera was capturing standard NTSC interlaced video, which is 60 fields a second (30 frames, kinda). Basically, I end up with 60 half-frames per second, or 60 half-resolution (on the Y axis) frames a second. In the real time clips, you're only seeing 30 frames a second. In the slow motion clips, you're getting the full 60 frames but at half speed so it's still 30 frames per second, but at half the speed... if that makes any sense. Anyway, if I were to drop frames and simulate 24 fps, I don't think it would take more than 1 frame for the cycle to travel from it's pivot point to where it's jet wall is in alignment with it's rear wheel. In fact, I'm guessing that it would be much harder to see (less frequently noticeable) that the cycle pivots in the center if I reduced the frames to play at the same speed, but only 24 fps.
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