Area progression with SoM

[Verdite]

Ive noticed that SoM handles area progression really badly, and even the music takes a hit when moving via warp from one area to another. I believe that the fastest way alot of successful game companies handle area transition is through load screens, or a fade on / fade off. The latter is something ive been experimenting with recently... To my surprise it broke things down much better. You havent the nasty jump in music or that irritating shift you recognise when moving from level to level. Music can be stopped or changed during the shift too, giving a proper pause first before the next bgm.

Fade on fade off works with multi levelling too. Essentially you're defeating the KF tradition of area progress, but in terms of potential i think the fade comes out tops.

I'm writing this because i'm very tempted to move Rathmor to this method. I could do with a few opinions. 

[scott]

Didn't the KF remake in SoM have a loading screen? I think the fade on/off would work great for "teleporting" but in my presonal opinion, I think you should go with a loading screen. It your game however so it's your choice.

[Verdite]

Actually i'm not sure how to edit the load screen. I wouldnt mind a 'now loading' for bigger areas, but for places like houses i think a fade on / off is easier. 

[HwitVlf]

I think the remake just put a "display BMP" command right before the warp to show a loading screen, so it's not really a loading screen as much as a way to hide the 'warp pop'.
 
I like the fade-outs better than the 'pop'. Loading screens are such a normal part of games that we don't give them a second though so they don't take away from immersion as much as the 'pop'. It was great that KF had streaming loading between maps, but SoM doesn't so why design like it does? At least SoM has lightning quick loads.

I was just going to use a fade-out warp to a second story for a couple areas in my game. It seems to work well so I think that's a good idea too. You can put the fade out in a dark hallway and it's even less noticeable.

[dmpdesign]

My personal opinion is to do the straight zoning without a load screen, but what you could do is add an event as you approach where the 'pop' is that fades out the music for that map, then another once you reach the new map that puts the new track back in.  I cant recall though whether SOM has an option to 'fade' music out or just stop it altogether?

KF2 and KF3 did the music fade during zone loading.

[Verdite]

Yeah i should probs balance it out... John you're idea of black on / off during a passageway is excellent. Todd i dont think that SoM ever fades music out, but you could probably use a single sound effect (like a choir or something) when approaching the next zone. That way players would know when they are exiting an area.

Nice new smilies. <- looks like a yellow version of a chain chomper from Mario.

[dmpdesign]

Its interesting, does anyone else notice that once you play an SOM game and 'zone' to a new map, the next time you come back to that map (assuming you dont quit the game) it loads nigh instantly without the 'pop' stutter that you guys mentioned?  Apparently SOM keeps everything written entirely to RAM once visited (hence the issues some folks have with memory leaks I suspect) and it loads up super quick the 2nd/3rd etc time you load a map.

I think what I would do, is like the other guys suggested, add your fade in and fade out but maybe use a universal timer to start music after you enter a map for 5 seconds or so, that way the warp event stutter and the music turn on aren't coinciding with each other.  In other words, on the open map event, control a timer that is set to play the map music after timer = 5.  That way the player warps in, gets a few yards then has the music kick in.

What would REALLY be cool is if someone had the effort to run a timer that played a version of the music with a fade in upon map entry then after the first loop it switched to a looping version of the song, so you could have a work around the fading in map music.

 

[Verdite]

Thats definately do-able ... You'd only need a 10 second timed song or whatever. No major size needed i guess... Its the exit song thats the problem... The cutoff is very noticeable. You'd need a generic sound effect i guess. Like a long stretched layer of synth.

I'm not sure if you know this, but if you change the bgm in an area, SoM will stick to that change when you return.

[HwitVlf]

Its interesting, does anyone else notice that once you play an SOM game and 'zone' to a new map, the next time you come back to that map (assuming you dont quit the game) it loads nigh instantly without the 'pop' stutter that you guys mentioned?  Apparently SOM keeps everything written entirely to RAM once visited (hence the issues some folks have with memory leaks I suspect) and it loads up super quick the 2nd/3rd etc time you load a map.

I measured the memory use in SoM way back in the early days and there was a permanent (until SoM closes) increase in RAM usage when you enter a new map. It wasn't a significant load by modern standards- probably the map textures or something. The memory leak was that every time you open the menu, SoM loads a new copy of the border BMP and never unloads the old. You would have to play a long time before that became a problem though.

I remember Tom started having big slowdown on the fire level in Maunstraut which led to the theory that there were problems when maps were linked, but now I'm pretty sure the problem was the 'lava water' objects he used for his lava river. I made them as 'lamp Objects' so they were light sources and had the flame animation- I think SoM can't handle that many light sources in one place (around ~30 or so).