Real-time slow motion?

I know I just recently over came my problem with the real-time factor in my online game. But I remembered how I had intended on adding slow motion to the game when I first started developing it. My question really is, is it possible to make an online real-time mutliplayer game have slow motion.

What I keep imagining is that it would work for the most part. But my new problem is how would I simulate that the guy moving in slow motion and the guy moving in normal motion will both see each other in accurate positions.

I keep picturing something like this...

Key:
. = area too walk on
X = slow motion player
| = normal motion player

To the normal motion player
...................X..........|.............

To slow motion player

...................X..................|......

Basically I keep on picturing a problem with positions of the normal motion player being mixed up on the slow motion persons screen.

To the slow motion player, everything including himself is going at a rate 50% slower than normal. Except he is going like 25% faster than everything else.

So basically he has 75% his normal speed and everything else has 50% its normal speed on the slow motion players screen

And to the normal motion player, everything is going normal speed. Only the person/people who are using slow motion are 25% faster than they normally are. Basically they have 125% the normal speed.

But I can't help but think something will go wrong with the real-time positioning when I start something like this...

I haven't tried it yet but I will tomorrow.

Can anyone who reads this reply back with some form of information that could provide useful?

Players need to have the same speed on every client. So if someone is moving at 50% on his screen, he should be moving on 50% on ALL screens. If you have different players on different speeds, there will be gaps in time.

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Originally Posted by TOdorus

Players need to have the same speed on every client. So if someone is moving at 50% on his screen, he should be moving on 50% on ALL screens. If you have different players on different speeds, there will be gaps in time.

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So your saying its impossible to do slow motion in a way where the slow motion is acting as a power up to one player or more, but the rest are seeing it normal motion.

Hmmm... Say the normal movement speed is 30, and when I have a slow motion player... rather than +30 it goes +15 2 times, that's the way I was planning on doing it. Basically it takes 2 frames to get where it wants to go rather than one.

The way I would do slow motion (if you want it to be a gameplay advantage to one player) is to keep the activating character moving at normal speed, and slow down all other characters and projectiles from other characters.

So the person activating the powerup sees everyone else slow down while he is moving at regular speed. You can add to the effect by slowing down the game music track.

All other players are slowed, and they see the activating player moving at full speed. For other players, you could speed up the music track so they know why they are moving slower.

Visual effects like motion blur might help drive home the concept of time dilation as well.

You just have to make sure each player is moving the same speed on all clients.

Guys am I the only one thinking that this is impossible without actually having players slow down real time?!

Maybe you could fake it. Say you can slow time for 5 seconds. You active the power and everything slows down for everyone but you. Everyone sees you moving extremely slow in the direction you were when you activated the power, even though you're still moving at normal speed shooting people or running around or whatever. At the end of the five seconds everyone sees everything you did happen extremely fast and everyone is at normal speed again. If the duration of the time-slowing isn't really long it would work I think.

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Originally Posted by Draxus

Maybe you could fake it. Say you can slow time for 5 seconds. You active the power and everything slows down for everyone but you. Everyone sees you moving extremely slow in the direction you were when you activated the power, even though you're still moving at normal speed shooting people or running around or whatever. At the end of the five seconds everyone sees everything you did happen extremely fast and everyone is at normal speed again. If the duration of the time-slowing isn't really long it would work I think.

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Judging by what your saying I'd say your hinting at not the ability to slow down time but stop it utterly. I'm not trying to do that I'm going more for a matrix effect where everything is still going in motion but just slower. If there is no other choice, I will use your option. I admit the visual effect will be extremely cool to watch. But it seems a bit off from what I'm trying to get.

And judging by what I want. I am imagining it like a way where you have the advantage of being able to see everyone move slower and gives you opportunities to use the openings they show to make an attack. Plus the fact that you are going slower yes, but you are going faster at the same time. Visually everything is slow, but you are slightly faster. And to those who can't see it the way your seeing it would view it at normal motion but this one guy is going 25% faster than everyone else.

Deciding on something. I will first try my idea. If it doesn't work then I will try to make everyone go slow motion and make you slightly faster on all their screens. I will keep the 50% of the speed for the the normal motion players and 75% speed on the people who have slow motion on. But it will do that to all the players. At the same time... Maybe stopping players utterly will give it a better visual effect if I were to do that.

hmm, I might not be understanding things but i don't think an exact slomo is possible in multiplayer games!
By basic logic
slomo = original client's player slows down + instance of slowed player at other clients actually speeds up by the amount it is slowed down

But the problem here is, you are dealing with real world time across multiple clients! In slomo, say matrix/max payne style bullet-time , slow motion slows time for the player to give him more time to react, but it affects all other instances in the game world too...... what i am trying to say is, slowmo is normally possible in games because it is dealing with the game world's time only, but you will be dealing with real world time which is quite varying from the game time!

Making this post made me realize why freezing time is impossible to the real world. Basically actions made is something like

actions/time passed

if actions= 100 and time passed = 0

well if actions made = actions/time passed

then actions made = actions(100)/time passed(0) which = 0

in thus, actions made = 0

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Originally Posted by Alluvian

The way I would do slow motion (if you want it to be a gameplay advantage to one player) is to keep the activating character moving at normal speed, and slow down all other characters and projectiles from other characters.

So the person activating the powerup sees everyone else slow down while he is moving at regular speed. You can add to the effect by slowing down the game music track.

All other players are slowed, and they see the activating player moving at full speed. For other players, you could speed up the music track so they know why they are moving slower.

Visual effects like motion blur might help drive home the concept of time dilation as well.

You just have to make sure each player is moving the same speed on all clients.

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this is the most sane suggestion up there that would actually work, BUT, for the sake of theory, if your slomo only acts in finite and small time, like few seconds, it could be possible to "fake" it without slowing everyone down, I think... imagine someone shooting you and you use slomo powerup: his bullet goes slow for you, and at normal speed for him; you strafe to let the bullet miss you; then powerup time is used up, and in your frame the bullet goes faster than normal speed to catch up with bullet position in everyone else's frame; the server uses your frame to determine that the bullet did not hit you, and so for everyone else this looks like if the bullet magically went "through" you; you can, of course, signal powerup useage so that everyone else could indeed apply some motion blur or some shaking to your image and so create an impression of you moving around faster than bullet.

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Originally Posted by realMakc

this is the most sane suggestion up there that would actually work, BUT, for the sake of theory, if your slomo only acts in finite and small time, like few seconds, it could be possible to "fake" it without slowing everyone down, I think... imagine someone shooting you and you use slomo powerup: his bullet goes slow for you, and at normal speed for him; you strafe to let the bullet miss you; then powerup time is used up, and in your frame the bullet goes faster than normal speed to catch up with bullet position in everyone else's frame; the server uses your frame to determine that the bullet did not hit you, and so for everyone else this looks like if the bullet magically went "through" you; you can, of course, signal powerup useage so that everyone else could indeed apply some motion blur or some shaking to your image and so create an impression of you moving around faster than bullet.

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For the most sane suggestion, I sure don't like it... Not being mean or anything but that would probably be easily noticeable and might not work out anyways. I personally like the freezing time idea now because it would prove some good eye candy. I don't like the idea of slowing everyone down. I would prefer to just stop them completely for 5-10 seconds(maximum upgrade for freezing time eh?). And then when the slow motion stops I will do a information playback at twice the speed it actually happened at.

I call it information playback because it sounds kind of catchy and fits what I plan to do. What I will do is catch every action the person who activated the time freeze does within the five seconds. And I will make it make a marker as to what millisecond the action was made and what the action was.

From there it will take all the actions preformed and play them back like this

action1Milisecond = (lets say...) 2937
action1 = (lets say[repeat]...) moveLeft

action1's playback will be

action1Milisecond/2;

so rather than 0-5000 playback time it will be 0-2500 playback time. Although all the actions were still preformed at a 0-5000 time frame.

I thought about this problem a long while back, when max payne came out.

Multiplayer fps with bullet time would be awesome. but you'd have to approach it cinematically, not use individual power-ups.

you ideally want a particular room or area to switch to bullet time when a set of certain conditions was met, say one person picks up a mega weapon, the room slows down so everyone has a chance to dive out of the way shooting as they go..

If anyone wanders into the room whilst this is happening, their time slows as they enter the room.

As long as you keep it event and locale specific, not give different time-perception to individual players (which is impossible without doing it for real) then it would work really well.

In fact it would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by cody112

Judging by what your saying I'd say your hinting at not the ability to slow down time but stop it utterly. I'm not trying to do that I'm going more for a matrix effect where everything is still going in motion but just slower. If there is no other choice, I will use your option. I admit the visual effect will be extremely cool to watch. But it seems a bit off from what I'm trying to get.

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Yeah, it's not exactly what you're going for, but I don't think what you want is possible :( Though my idea would effectively be like stopping time, it should look like slowing it. I pictured everyone still in control of their characters just in EXTREME slow motion, so during the ~5 seconds they wouldn't be able to do much at all, but still feel like time is passing.

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Originally Posted by lesli_felix

you ideally want a particular room or area to switch to bullet time when a set of certain conditions was met, say one person picks up a mega weapon, the room slows down so everyone has a chance to dive out of the way shooting as they go..

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This is similar to what they decided to do for multiplayer in TimeShift. You can pick up time-warping grenades which create a bubble of slowed time on impact. Everyone in the bubble experiences slow motion, and anything that enters the bubble (like bullets) are slowed down.

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Originally Posted by lesli_felix

I thought about this problem a long while back, when max payne came out.

Multiplayer fps with bullet time would be awesome. but you'd have to approach it cinematically, not use individual power-ups.

you ideally want a particular room or area to switch to bullet time when a set of certain conditions was met, say one person picks up a mega weapon, the room slows down so everyone has a chance to dive out of the way shooting as they go..

If anyone wanders into the room whilst this is happening, their time slows as they enter the room.

As long as you keep it event and locale specific, not give different time-perception to individual players (which is impossible without doing it for real) then it would work really well.

In fact it would be awesome.

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So... From your personal opinion, 5 second time freeze or slow motion? Believe it or not, I think the slow motion would be easier to code. Because with the freeze I have to collect information and then hold it back until the freeze ends.

Also, is it possible to make the blur filter change shape and stuff. Because I would like to have the blur if there is one kinda like the circular blurring that makes things blur more the closer to the edges of the screen it is.

Edit: Also, with what you said it is still possible to use individual slow motion power ups. Just instead of a certain room to have slow motion, it is determined by distance.

It's not like the effect hasn't been done before, so you can look at other sources for ideas how they handle the problem gametime <> realtime.

Timegrenades have been done: a grenade that "temporary" speeds or slows down time in a sphere. Slowing down can be used to block shots and trap players (shoot at them and the bullets will be hovering in front of them until the grenade effect ends). Speed up can be used to get away or making some zones very dangerous to navigate. I can't realy remember the game which used this mechanic in multiplayer.

Smash Brothers on the Wii also has a slowmotion powerup. Everybody except the one with the powerup moves in slowmotion. This makes it very easy for that player to dodge attacks, simply step around a block (because it hasn't ended by the time the player gets there), and have multiple blows in. For the players that are slowed down, the game becomes chesslike. You really need to anticipate what the speedy player is going to do, so you need to plan your moves and make his space to manoevre small.

Having it as a power-up is lame though. it's a cinematic effect, not a weapon.

How does it bieng a cinematic effect exclude it from bieng a weapon? Because you find it lame? Sorry for suggesting a gameplay mechanic using slowmotion.

No you misunderstand me. It should be used as a gameplay mechanic, but having it as a power-up that you collect and use is just unimaginative. It would be better to treat it like a change in soundtrack at certain key points in the game. Just thinking what would be more fun...

It depends. I think that it can be used as a power up in some cases, though what would be more interesting would be a game where when a player picks up the "mega-weapon" or something, like a chaingun, then everyone else playing is against him, and everyone goes into slow-mo. Or just some way that it is activated. If not a power-up, then it could come in grenade form or something.

Whatever the way, as long as the effect is done correctly, it should look nice.

Well, just to let yall know, my whole game is going to be about speed. In fact, the start up speed will already beyond what normal humans can do. And then the final power a person can get will be something called target dash.

You go to your map or w/e, select a target to go after (target being another player of course) and you literally go faster than a bullet after him. Not only does the hit count as a finishing blow when u actually get to the guy. But you will be sending out shock waves that have about half the power of a grenade as you go after him. And if you touch anyone directly as you chase after the target, well they are chopped in half. It sounds too powerful don't it?

I know this question is off-topic a little.

But does the fact that I only ask questions that are actually near impossible to answer with exactly what I want prove that I'm pretty pro at flash development?

After all, I am only getting stuck at things that no one else has gotten past. I have no proof that no one did. But you know what I'm saying right?

:D Wow Cody, you're just asking to get flamed

By your logic:
What is death? There, no-one can answer that as you'd have to define life (which biologists even can't). I must be at the top of biology and necromancy.

You're actually asking a design question which is prone to subjectivity. There is no right answer. Also, I've given you two examples of games that DID face the same problem just a few posts ago and how they've solved it.

Again... wow...

Your questions point to the contrary. "Pro"'s can think a lot of things out for themselves, and can figure out what's possible and what's not in Flash.

And the pro's don't need to go around asking everyone if they're pro or not...they're secure.

You seem inexperienced, full of wonderous dreams, and full of yourself. You're getting stuck at these things, because others have either already figured out the problem, or others know to avoid the problem in all, and the ones that do ask, are sincere about getting the problem fixed, and not about their ego's.

As a developer on these forums, it pisses me off when people are talking on and on about how they're pro's, when they can't even think for themselves! And that doesn't make me want to help them at all.

What do you even expect to get with a question like that?! "Am I pro guys?". Hell, we don't know. As far as I know, you haven't shown a bloody thing, except your ignorance and inability to think!

P.

"But does the fact that I only ask questions that are actually near impossible to answer with exactly what I want prove that I'm pretty pro at flash development?"

lol, yeah.

Either you're pretty pro and you're just out thinking us, showing up the limits in our abilities, or maybe you have concepts that just aren't workable and no matter how many times you're told that you keep going forward ignoring everything else to the point that no one can really help.

Yep, you're pretty pro dude.

Squize.

Hey guys, I am almost completely totally finished with my game, but just have one problem left. My game is based around swiss cheese coming out of people's keyboards when they win. The rest of the game is almost totally 110% complete, it is just this swiss cheese out of the keyboard trouble.

I have tried making a cow class, but it can only make milk come out your nose...

Can anyone get swiss cheese to come out of the keyboard? It is the only thing stopping me from making this perfect game.

If nobody else can get swiss cheese to come out of the keyboard, it shows I am the best flash programmer ever because the rest of the game is 220% complete, and just this one problem is stopping me.


Dude, all kidding aside, the only things that mean ANYTHING here are:
1) How often are you able to HELP OTHER PEOPLE with their problems, and
2) What are your FINISHED PRODUCTS like.

I never finish much of anything, and I am still a noob at as3 so have not been able to help anybody in a long time, but I am also not spouting off about being some god of programming. This is sooooo not the place to do that.

Lol, thanks to you guys I have a new concept of what makes a person pro

A pro is someone who can ignore how people can brag sometimes, go with the flow and keep doing what they do. A pro is someone who doesn't flame others but helps them deal with what they don't understand.

What I was really saying before, was that I don't understand something because I don't know, so yes I am not pro. But I was merely asking if having difficultly on an extremely difficult task or impossible method at doing the task makes me sort of pro. Because after all, if I can overcome everything else except for impossibilities. Then I am pretty good at this right? That's all I was asking. I wasn't putting anyone down. I wasn't putting myself up either. I was simply asking if something about me is making me pretty up.

I have no right to say I have better understanding of it than everyone else.

My best concept in life so far has been "If I haven't learned something, how could I possibly know it?"

And the number one thing I learned

Only direct answers work. I already mastered the general education as2 and as3. Not once has indirect information worked for me.

Every answer I find online have to be topic specific or else they are a waste of good english and actionscript. I have figured out that over the past three years learning as much about flash as I possibly could. So basically when ever someone says to look at the "search" option or google.

Well... then fµck off. I had already tried the option obviously and I don't want to spend 6+ months searching for an already developed solution that might not even exist.

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Originally Posted by cody112

But I was merely asking if having difficultly on an extremely difficult task or impossible method at doing the task makes me sort of pro.

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No. Someone who knew nothing of flash would have difficulty as well.

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Originally Posted by cody112

Because after all, if I can overcome everything else except for impossibilities. Then I am pretty good at this right?

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Yeah, probably. Where have you demonstrated yourself overcoming everything except the impossible? Do you have a giant portfolio somewhere, full of games and apps?


Humility is a virtue.

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Originally Posted by cody112

Every answer I find online have to be topic specific or else they are a waste of good english and actionscript.

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So advances in biology and psychology (especially clincical psychology) are totally irrelevant to the field artificial intelligence? I'd say genetic algorithms and neural networks have contributed a lot of new concepts into the field of artificial intelligence and makes you review your old techniques in a new light. What I get from that comment is that you want tutorials that are very very specific to your question and you do not want the cognitive challenge of learning a new concept, you want to learn a new technique (or better put a new trick). You do realize that there was a time when there wasn't an internet with such a wealth of information that it was probable that you could even find such specific information. Still progress would be made.

I like to think that people have enough respect for the people that do pioneer new concepts and explain them to world for FREE, that they at least take time to really get the idea and not just the given application (which really is just an example, nothing more). Sorry, but that comment really lacks respect for the people giving you advice and the tutorials you learn from. Just because it isn't what you'd like to hear, you can at least take the effort to learn from it. Filtering negative feedback or articles on new concepts out isn't the way your going to be at the top of the game. It's how you'll always lag behind by the ones that are.

Your claim that you don't want to put yourself up is also pretty weak, as this is the second time in short time that you're looking for confirmation of your achievements. If you know that you're good, then why do you need to ask? It actually makes you sound insecure about your own achievements instead that you're proud of them. We're not all against you here. Just keep thinking you're right and the rest is too blind to see, but showing you don't understand the concept gametime <> realtime in this thread as well as syncing in the other, really shows others got some knowledge you don't have. That is something really valuable. Free knowledge is an advantage to exploit.

You really should take up some courses in philosophy. Knowledge isn't absolute but it's actually subjective and certainly subject to context. So if somebody tells you something you don't agree too, it's the time to understand where he's coming from and actually learn something new. If it is a valid argument you can still disagree with it and think your way is better, but you can at least acknowledge it as a valid argument.

This all isn't meant as an insult. I'm just asking you to give us the same respect you're getting from us. You might think that we're not actually paying you any, but (I hope I can speak for others here) that is because you haven't shown to acknowledge us as peers. For example: have you said about any of us that he's a pro? Have you said: "thanks, good advice!"? Then expect the same from us.

If you are such a pro, why don't I ever see you answering other people's questions on this board? You get what you give.

What I meant is I overcome all the flash basics, all the challenges that have arisen (cept for the new ones), discovered a lot of techniques and know all there is to making a single player flash game. I have yet to make one, but I know enough to remake Thing Thing 4. Hell I could remake that Spewer game if I wanted to. I am making pointers to what I could remake to demonstrate my current level in flash development.

All I have to do is come up with something that seems worth making.

And I have surmised this, what is worth making, and I can do it with just a little bit more knowledge of things to do with this whole online struggle I've been going through. The thing I plan on making is a side scroller like Thing Thing 4. But it will have its own background and story, an online pvp mode, and a battle system about 5 times as good as the thing thing battle system.

I'm not bragging, I know I can make that with just a bit more knowledge of the online stuff and the patients to make the game.

And the reason I don't help anyone else is because I am so confused when I run into a problem, well I have to spend between 2 hours to 2 months figuring it out. Some start to seem impossible to pass.

...Oh, my, lord.

First off, if you think you know all there is to single player flash games, then you most likely aren't even close to knowing all there is to single player flash games.
It's easy to say "I can make that, I can make this.". We all can say that, how the hell do you know you can?

It's one thing to learn the alphabet, another to start writing novels.

And let's make it clear...you are bragging. You can't say that your battle system will be approximately 5.100983 times better than Thing Thing's. We can all dream, but dude, you gotta step out of that dream world, and start seeing something I like to call reality.

The fact that you get confused as soon as you run into a problem already shows how "pro" you are. And yes, judging by what you've been saying, some of your far fetched ideas will start to seem just a tad bit impossible.

If dreaming and thinking up ideas, and ways to do things in programming was all there is to it, then we'd all be the most professional people ever. But, you haven't even made a game yet!!! You probably don't even know ANYTHING about complete game development from a coding perspective!

Now seriously, it looks like you still haven't gotten what people are trying to say...STOP THINKING YOUR PRO. What we mean by that is you need to start seeing what making a game is, and not patching together ultra-specific tutorials together. You need to show some modesty, and actually start coding for yourself, by yourself, and figure out your own problems. When you show us your Pong remake, and show some commitment to keep learning, you might get a better reception here.(from me at least).

PLEASE consider the above. PLEASE for the sake of my patience.
Sometimes the urge to smash my monitor becomes very strong, and more than once during this thread.

P.

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Originally Posted by Pazil

...Oh, my, lord.

First off, if you think you know all there is to single player flash games, then you most likely aren't even close to knowing all there is to single player flash games.
It's easy to say "I can make that, I can make this.". We all can say that, how the hell do you know you can?

It's one thing to learn the alphabet, another to start writing novels.

And let's make it clear...you are bragging. You can't say that your battle system will be approximately 5.100983 times better than Thing Thing's. We can all dream, but dude, you gotta step out of that dream world, and start seeing something I like to call reality.

The fact that you get confused as soon as you run into a problem already shows how "pro" you are. And yes, judging by what you've been saying, some of your far fetched ideas will start to seem just a tad bit impossible.

If dreaming and thinking up ideas, and ways to do things in programming was all there is to it, then we'd all be the most professional people ever. But, you haven't even made a game yet!!! You probably don't even know ANYTHING about complete game development from a coding perspective!

Now seriously, it looks like you still haven't gotten what people are trying to say...STOP THINKING YOUR PRO. What we mean by that is you need to start seeing what making a game is, and not patching together ultra-specific tutorials together. You need to show some modesty, and actually start coding for yourself, by yourself, and figure out your own problems. When you show us your Pong remake, and show some commitment to keep learning, you might get a better reception here.(from me at least).

PLEASE consider the above. PLEASE for the sake of my patience.
Sometimes the urge to smash my monitor becomes very strong, and more than once during this thread.

P.

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I'll sum up everything you said in this post.

I know I can do this because I have done it all ALREADY! I have coded things out from a simple hp bar all the way to a 10 save and load options for a game, with an overwrite check and deletion button.

I never really really done much combo-attck coding but I have done some.
I already learned how to make a 1-9 list for weapon switching, I have added shooting at mouse position. I have coded AI and can do a lot more with it using simple logic with in my mind. I can of course do movements with ease along with walk/run animations. I can use any animation I want for an attack or combo attack. I can do gravity and physics fine. I know exactly what I'm doing with this.

And I KNOW I CAN make a kick ass battle system because I actually am so determined to make it, I am willing to spend 2 years making it. I already added all the base things behind an online game, all I really need to add is make a battle system that uses transfer methods that I use for the online stuff I'm already doing. And I need to fix up a few minor things with it.

BUT TRUST ME! I know what I am doing... I would stake the whole world on it. DO NOT QUESTION MY DETERMINATION! AND GUESS WHAT, TO KILL THE MOOD!

I WILL BLOW YOU UP WITH 10,000 NUCLEAR MISSILES ALL LANDING SIMULTANEOUSLY ON YOUR FOREHEAD!!!!!!!!!

dooooooooood, hush and go create your slow motion thing.

shesus.