Meytal
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
244
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Posted - 2013.06.24 18:48:00 -
[1] - Quote
Barron Hammerstrike wrote:Second the first person view. Suddenly our ship is gone.
I had been partly struggling to list all of the reasons this differs from the in-system warping animations, yet feeling that I was lacking something. I think this was the final piece of the puzzle.
In-system warping still maintains the tactical overlay, should you be using one. You can also rotate the camera and view any celestials for which you have brackets specified. All of these serve to make the distinction that you are watching a ship move through space, as opposed to being thrust through space itself.
With inter-system jumping, you lose control of the camera and your ship vanishes. First the camera independently rotates to one end or other of the jump gate while zooming in, regardless of your current camera zoom settings. When the jump animation begins, it is not consistent. Sometimes you appear to be flung through the gate, while at other times it appears that you back up from the gate briefly before being thrust through it. Still other times there is a momentary reappearance of the gate after the first one or two animations are run.
The cloudy warp tunnel animation is also not smooth, assuredly due in part -- though not entirely -- to the transition to the next system. System performance most likely also contributes to the lack of a smooth flowing visual. You may not zoom in or out, or rotate the camera. Several times of late, I have also noticed that the camera is showing the jumping animation to one side, instead of head-on.
I think the biggest problem people are having with this, and it is entirely likely the problem that I also have with the animation is the sudden shift into first-person perspective. In third-person you have a point of reference, and even though many things are similar, you can clearly see that you are watching -something else- moving; you are not being told that -you- are moving.
Two changes that I personally would like to see, not that I'm anyone to make such a call: first, change the current animation to a third-person perspective, leave the tactical overlay in place, do not automatically zoom the camera and in fact leave control of the camera in the hands of the player. Camera control will accomplish nothing except to allow the player to maintain the impression of watching something else in motion; an important step in helping to prevent motion sickness.
Second, provide a fade-out, fade-in option for those who do not like the animation. You are playing two pieces of an animation, it should not be difficult to change each piece. You could make it dancing clowns if you wanted, as all you need to do is trigger each animation to play at the appropriate time. While jumping into the system, the display fades to black. At the transition, the display fades back to normal. This actually happens already in some heavily congested systems from time to time, though it's more a sudden change to a solid medium-grey visual until the jump is complete.
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