niston Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 Regular holotape: Meshes\Props\Holotape_Prop.nif Game holotape: Meshes\Props\Hologram\Hologram_AtomicCommand.nif Pipboy animobj: Meshes\AnimObjects\HoloTape01.nif Game holotapes have a different size and orientation, compared to the regular holotape. All games use the same type mesh, but with a different label and stored as a dedicated nif for each game. I'm not too sure about the pipboy anim object. I thought it is the same as a game holotape - I might be mistaken. If pipboy is different, it probably doesn't matter as it's baked into the pipboy loading animation only, and we can just support regular and game sizes for the holotape deck. If you provide an node for each type (regular/game), my scripting can spawn a static copy of the loaded tape and attach it to the proper node. You can then animate the tape nodes (or their parent node) to visually load the spawned tape into the deck. Same for unloading of course. Loading mechanism sequence: 1) player press Load/Unload button 2) unload animation is played from script. if there is a tape in the tape deck inventory, static copy will be placed for unload animation. 3) inventory menu opens 4) player can remove and/or add tapes. 1 tape max - if more are added, excess tapes are returned to the player. 5) player closes inventory menu 6) load animation is played from script. if there is a tape in the deck inventory, static copy will be placed for load animation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South8028 Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 (edited) 1 hour ago, niston said: Regular holotape: Meshes\Props\Holotape_Prop.nif Game holotape: Meshes\Props\Hologram\Hologram_AtomicCommand.nif Pipboy animobj: Meshes\AnimObjects\HoloTape01.nif Game holotapes have a different size and orientation, compared to the regular holotape. All games use the same type mesh, but with a different label and stored as a dedicated nif for each game. I'm not too sure about the pipboy anim object. I thought it is the same as a game holotape - I might be mistaken. If pipboy is different, it probably doesn't matter as it's baked into the pipboy loading animation only, and we can just support regular and game sizes for the holotape deck. If you provide an node for each type (regular/game), my scripting can spawn a static copy of the loaded tape and attach it to the proper node. You can then animate the tape nodes (or their parent node) to visually load the spawned tape into the deck. Same for unloading of course. Loading mechanism sequence: 1) player press Load/Unload button 2) unload animation is played from script. if there is a tape in the tape deck inventory, static copy will be placed for unload animation. 3) inventory menu opens 4) player can remove and/or add tapes. 1 tape max - if more are added, excess tapes are returned to the player. 5) player closes inventory menu 6) load animation is played from script. if there is a tape in the deck inventory, static copy will be placed for load animation. Maybe I'm missing something... There is only one type of holotape in the game. These are the ones that are scattered everywhere... With games, messages, etc. AnimObject - model for animation of havok. When you play ANY holotape on a Pipboy, the havok annotation "animObjectLoad/Draw" calls the animObject HoloTape01, and uses that animObject in the animation scene. I just thought you wanted some more holotapes from fo3, or something else that I couldn’t understand. Also, there is no problem replacing the gaming holo recording model with a higher quality model. I'll make a world holotape model with vanilla sizes and shapes, but more hi poly and with moving parts. There are only 6 games in the game. Replacing them won't be difficult. If in vanilla game recordings have a different form factor from other holo-recordings, then they need to be replaced with a unified standard. Because it's obvious that this is a defect from Bethesda. Edited July 20 by South8028 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niston Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 Yeah, forget about the pipboy thing. It's not relevant to our application. But there's two types in the game. The regular one you already found and the game holotape type I linked. The difference between them is their orientation and size and the game holotapes have a label. Remember how the rotary controls for the preamp were offset by 90° at first, when spawned in game and attached to the nodes on the preamp? It's a similar thing with the game holotapes. They're smaller and oriented differently than the regular ones. I know this because I wrote the script for neeher's holotape shelf, which has to deal with both types of holotape mesh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South8028 Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 Just now, niston said: Yeah, forget about the pipboy thing. It's not relevant to our application. But there's two types in the game. The regular one you already found and the game holotape type I linked. The difference between them is their orientation and size and the game holotapes have a label. I know this because I wrote the script for neeher's holotape shelf. I understand. Let's replace them. I mean their models. The form factors of the holo-recordings cannot differ in any way. This is physically impossible. I understand that there may be some kind of bug in the game. Some guys who made model games, for reasons known only to God, decided to make them a different size. But I don’t really understand why we should support this idiocy in our animations if we can remake these models? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niston Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 I dont know how to explain this any better. The basic idea is that the load/unload animation can use an exact copy (but with disabled physics) of the very tape that's actually being loaded. So if player loads atomic command, the anim will use atomic command tape. If player loads sim settlements tape, the anim will use sim settlements tape. If player loads transfer settlements tape, the anim will use transfer settlements tape, etc and so on. Not only tapes in base game or DLC, but all mod added custom tapes as well. We can't possibly remake each and every mod added tape there exists. Not to mention the nightmare of figuring out which remade tape mesh to spawn for which original tape being loaded. Ugh. So this feature of displaying the actually loaded tape is only possible to implement if the loading animation / mechanism supports both tape sizes, through clever construction. Because, unfortunately, there are these two different types of tape meshes in the game. The alternative is to always simply use the regular prop holotape in animation. It won't look as cool tho and you won't be able to tell what tape is in the deck by looking at it. For example, Transfer Settlements holotape: Spoiler Sim Settlements holotape: Spoiler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South8028 Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 2 minutes ago, niston said: I dont know how to explain this any better. The basic idea is that the load/unload animation can use an exact copy (but with disabled physics) of the tape that's actually being loaded. So if player loads atomic command, the anim will use atomic command. If player loads sim settlements tape, the anim will use sim settlements tape. If player loads transfer settlements tape, the anim will use transfer settlements tape, etc and so on. This is only possible if the loading animation / mechanism supports both tape sizes, through clever construction. The alternative is to always simply use the regular prop holotape in animation. It won't look as cool tho and you won't be able to tell what tape is in the deck by looking at it. Ummm... There are only 6 games in fo4. As far as I understand, absolutely all holotapes, except for these 6 games, are unified and represented by one form factor. What prevents us from completely replacing these 6 games with unified models? In principle, we can easily replace all game holotape models with higher quality and unified models. Even pipboy's animObject is not difficult to replace. Then we will have one form factor... For games, messages, any recordings. As it is presented in the lore. There is only one form factor in the fo4 lore. All other form factors are an error of Bethesda renderers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niston Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 Many mods use customized holotapes (with custom labels) based on the game holotape mesh. See pictures I linked above for two popular examples. There will be more tapes of this format, but with cover art on the label and music on them, once we release our mod. However, every vanilla voice holotape uses the regular holotape format. The whole thing is not unheard of in real life either: Compare VHS and VHS-C cassettes. Same type of tape and recording method, but different cartridge sizes. There's even adapters where you can insert a VHS-C cassette into the adapter and the adapter (with the cassette in it) into the VHS recorder. And there's front loaders that accept both cartridge formats. Probably easiest method of supporting multiple sizes is either front-loading or tray-loading mechanism. Mechanism has to be suitable in size to accomodate the larger cartridge type. Smaller cartridge type will be placed centered in tray or slot. Node for smaller cartridge can be rotated differently, so the label side of the tape points up the same way as the regular tape does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
South8028 Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 3 minutes ago, niston said: Many mods use customized holotapes (with custom labels) based on the game holotape mesh. See pictures I linked above for two popular examples. Let's start small... What exactly will our player reproduce? Why does he even need game holodisks? What exactly will it run games on? On the TV screen? Is it possible to make a separate computer for this? I will still make a new terminal for my data center. Let the games be played separately. An attempt to actually insert “cassettes” of different sizes into the same cassette receiver... I have no idea how exactly this should be done. I don't yet know how to implement this engineeringly. I will think about it. I just would like a solution in the same style. I would find some ready-made, real-life device and simply copy it, with minor changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niston Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 Our player will reproduce sound. 1) There will be a custom tape format with a small script attached that can store sound descriptors as tracks. 2) I will try to obtain the ability to play back vanilla voice tape format (those can also be listened to on the pipboy). 3) Perhaps it will be possible to make a 3rd tape format that uses simple lists of files (or even a directory full of files) as tracks. If a game holotape is inserted, it will load but won't play of course as there is no sound on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niston Posted July 21 Share Posted July 21 13 minutes ago, South8028 said: how to implement this engineeringly. Here's a front-loading Betacam recorder that accepts large and small cartridges: https://www.next-archive.com/product/sony-dvw-m2000p/ And another one, dude loading a small cartridge into it: The slot has 3 segments. A large cartridge covers all of them. A small cartridge only covers the middle segment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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