[DISC][PLAYER] Potential new object - Portals

[Armani]

I prefer

- instant movement to the new position without warp graphic.

- Portals being two-way sounds good.

Two-way portalling is problematic because we obviously don't want a portalled lemming to warp back on the next frame.

This is a good point. My suggestion : If a lemmings is portalled from A to B, he should get out of the trigger area of the portal B in order to use portal B(so he can portal to A again.) This is similar to how splitter works. A lemmings should get out of the trigger area of the splitter to flip the splitter again.(This is why we can't see madly dancing arrow that switch its direction every frame when we place a blocker right at the splitter)


I have no idea on what kind of visual should be used for portal..

[GigaLem]

Considerations:
- Where should the warping lemming graphic come from? The lemming sprites? A universal default? Or should there be no warp graphic, with simply a sound and an instant movement to the new position?
- For that matter, what should the warping lemming graphic look like? (For reference, Lemmings 3D's teleporter uses sparkles with no visual trace of the actual lemming. A similar animation could easily be universal and work with all spritesets.)
- The portal could be further distinguished from the teleporter by being two-way. What do people think of this idea?
- What kind of visual guideline should be used for portal design, in particular to distinguish them from regular teleporters?

if anyone said this before me, I apologize. But here's my thoughts on the matter

Because Teleporters are traps that send a lemming somewhere instead of killing them, Portals can be considered fire but instead of lemmings getting burned to a crisp, lemmings play a quick universal teleporting animation to sent to the other side. Their teleports would be instantaneous and can take multiple lemmings at once like fire rather than one lemming at a time.

In terms of visuals, They should constantly animating like fire, the portals wouldn't stop since they'd likely be considered an always active object.

[Dullstar]

I agree with those who think that the lemming's current skill should be maintained through a portal. First, it's consistent with how teleporters already work. Second, if the two objects were to be different, I'd expect it to be the other way around, i.e. portals continue, but teleporters cancel, but since teleporters are too ingrained to change, just make both objects work the same in that regard.

[∫tan x dx]

Could portals have limited uses, similar to how an exit functions? It could display its remaining uses above, in the same way as an exit. Perhaps after it is depleted, its graphic could change (as in, the portal shuts off/powers down/etc)?

And, at the risk of opening some dangerous floodgates, could the same functionality also be added to regular teleporters?

[namida]

I'm going to put up a poll for the "instant" vs "short animation" behavior, and whether it's one-way or bidirectional. Please read this before voting - and in particular note that "short animation" is NOT the same thing as the triggered behavior of the teleporters.

Firstly - this is two different matters. That's why I've put options for every combination, including a "don't care" option. And just to avoid doubt - I will be looking at the votes on each matter individually, not just looking at which combination has the most votes. Or in other words - when I decide on one-way vs bidirectional, I'll ignore the "instant vs animated" part of the votes when tallying up results; and vice versa.

Instant - This would mean that on the frame where a lemming ("L") enters an in-portal, the lemming is transported on that same frame to the out-portal and immediately continues what he was doing.

Animated - This would mean that on the frame where a lemming ("L") enters an in-portal, the lemming would become "frozen" for a few frames and play a short warping animation - presumably half this animation would occur before being transported, and the other half after. Once this animation finishes, the lemming would go back to what it was doing before as if it was never interrupted. (This would be - in terms of visuals only - the same way Lemmings 3D handles teleporters.) This would NOT mean that other lemmings cannot use the portal at the same time - the animation is an attribute of the LEMMING, not the object.

Bidirectional - This would mean that if there are a pair of linked portals, A and B, a lemming could enter Portal A to come out of Portal B, and could also enter Portal B to come out of Portal A.

One-way - This would mean that if there are a pair of linked portals, A and B, a lemming could only enter Portal A to come out of Portal B; and could not go back through Portal B to come out at Portal A again.


Also, to be clear about a point raised earlier in the topic:

* Two-way portalling is problematic because we obviously don't want a portalled lemming to warp back on the next frame. If it's possible to get around this problem, then I think it's a good idea -- if the portal is essentially a "wormhole" connecting parts of the level that are not next to each other in normal space, then it would make sense for it to be two-way.

This can absolutely be dealt with - NeoLemmix already has to deal with this situation for splitters.

[Apjjm]

Does "Instant" preclude having a visual indicator at all on the source teleporter that a lemming has teleported or is it possible to have an effect play at the moment the teleport happens (e.g. some sparks or something) whilst still preserving the behaviour where the lemming immediately exits the other side?

[namida]

Does "Instant" preclude having a visual indicator at all on the source teleporter that a lemming has teleported or is it possible to have an effect play at the moment the teleport happens (e.g. some sparks or something) whilst still preserving the behaviour where the lemming immediately exits the other side?

It doesn't rule it out, though some thought would need to be given about how well it'd work especially if a whole heap of lemmings hit the portal at once.

This could even go as far, potentially, as a "portal animates when a lemming enters it, like a triggered object, but still behaves like a constant one". I'm not saying this will happen - in particular, it breaks the convention that "if an object does something when a lemming reaches it, the object is either single-use or one-lemming-at-a-time" (and one could argue single-use is in fact just a special case of one-lemming-at-a-time), which is especially of concern given that teleporters are a similar object that is one-lemming-at-a-time - but on a technical level at least, it could be considered. In much the same way, this could also be extended to the receiving portal as well (provided that, if they're bi-directional, the sending and receiving animation are the same - too complex otherwise).

[WillLem]

Voted for Animation & Bi-directional. Reasoning:

If animated, presumably there is the option to make the animation as long or short as the designer wishes, meaning that the option for a more instant effect is still present within the design. Conversely, even if the animation is always the same for all portals, object/lemming animations are so much a part of the game at this point that I wouldn't like to see a new object get implemented which didn't have an animated element at the point of contact. Lastly, the reassurance that multiple lems can use the portal at once (i.e without the animation precluding this) makes this an even more desirable option.

I chose Bi-directional mainly because it differs it further from a teleporter and offers more possiblities. The "wormhole" suggestion also lends itself well to a distinctive visual design, which I can imagine will make it easier to spot a Portal vs. a Teleporter (although, of course, this depends a lot on the style designer's preferences).

[namida]

If animated, presumably there is the option to make the animation as long or short as the designer wishes, meaning that the option for a more instant effect is still present within the design.

No. The "warping" state would be a property of the lemming, and - much like how many frames a builder or climber takes to place a brick / move - be constant and not open to change by any means. This is not up for debate. The actual graphic of the animation would be either global (ie: not customizable, except by modding NL's data files), or part of the lemming spriteset.

[WillLem]

No. The "warping" state would ... be constant and not open to change by any means

I see, thanks for clarifying. The rest of my reasoning still stands; I wouldn't change my vote. I've edited my post to reflect the new info.

[Dullstar]

I have a weak preference towards bi-directional, and I figure in a lot of cases you could design terrain to force a one-way teleport using a bi-directional portal (or just use a teleporter instead), though the more I think about it, the stronger this preference becomes.

I don't have a preference regarding animation, though I do request that if there is audio, it be something gentle and not something harsh on the ears like some of the existing sounds are.

[WillLem]

it be something gentle and not something harsh on the ears like some of the existing sounds are

Agreed.

@Dullstar - Which sounds do you think are harsh, btw? Please reply in this topic.

[Proxima]

I figure in a lot of cases you could design terrain to force a one-way teleport using a bi-directional portal

The simplest way to do this would be to put the exit portal in mid-air. You could go back through the portal by building back up to it, but this would be highly wasteful, so in many cases there wouldn't be enough builders or it would obvious that you couldn't afford to use that many in one spot.

[namida]

I figure in a lot of cases you could design terrain to force a one-way teleport using a bi-directional portal

The simplest way to do this would be to put the exit portal in mid-air. You could go back through the portal by building back up to it, but this would be highly wasteful, so in many cases there wouldn't be enough builders or it would obvious that you couldn't afford to use that many in one spot.

You could make this even harder to do by chaining two portal pairs together (ie: they enter A, which is in midair; come out at B, which is directly above C which they then fall into, and exit at D from where they fall (through an updraft / onto an antisplat pad?) onto land).

[Apjjm]

My preference is for bi-directional as I think behaviourally that makes it more distinct from the existing teleporter. I don't really have a strong opinion either way for animated or instant. I think instant would feel more seamless, but I worry that it might be hard to see what has happened to lemming in those cases so can see the appeal for the animation in that respect.

For the portalling behaviour, will the teleported lemming always exit at the same point regardless of when they entered the trigger area, or will they enter relative to where they hit the trigger area? If it is the 2nd case, we may want some control as to how the local space of one portal maps to another (e.g. are they flipped or not), for example: