#THE FLOW OF THE IMAGE DOESNT WORK IF IT'S FLIPPED | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lilfellasblog · 5 years ago

Text

Can I Still Be Part of the FamILY? - Virgil’s 2019 Name Reveal Fic!

Summary: YouTube viewers are getting a little too good at theorizing. Virgil’s certain that once his famILY learns of his past, they’ll force him to go back.

A/N: If you liked this, please reblog. It is the only way to help this fic reach a wider audience. Tumblr ate most of my fics that I know I posted here, which makes me very sad for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest being that the love and comments and tags that folks showed this fic is gone into the ether. I’ll be making a masterlist to help prevent this from happening again.

TW: Deceit mention, description of panic attacks up to passing out, some negative self-talk. Let me know if I missed any!

Word Count: 1767

AO3 here!

Fic Masterlist here!

Virgil observed as Thomas scrolled through the YouTube comments.

“I can’t wait to see the newest Dark Side! Theorists, assemble!”

“Okay okay, so y’all remember Virgil’s time on the stand? I think the secret he’s hiding is that he was a Dark Side! Think about it. He got new clothes when he was accepted in the Hogwarts video, Deceit and Virgil obviously have a history that the other Light Sides don’t know, and if the Light Sides don’t know it then how could he have kept it a secret? The Light Sides know Deceit, but didn’t know the relationship between him and Virgil? SUSPICIOUS.”

“i totally agree…… virgil didnt start out in the sanders sides series……. hes hiding something…… that he doesnt want thomas or the light sides to know……..”

“I’m going to add on to this. I think Virgil is STILL a Dark Side and never truly became a Light Side. He only got accepted once the other sides saw how important he was to Thomas. He’s just a flight risk. Virgil’s working with Deceit and/ or the other Dark Sides and doesn’t like Deceit, but he needs Deceit so he can keep the secret from the real Light Sides and Thomas.”

“Wait, Thomas is GAY?”

The rest of the comments were similar. Virgil felt his chest constrict as he pulled back from the front of Thomas’ mind. He huddled in his room, attempting to keep the anxiety he was sending the YouTuber to a minimum.

They can’t know, he can’t know, he can’t know!!! Oh god, they’re gonna reject me, they’re gonna send me back, I can’t go back!!! I can’t, I won’t survive it!! I love them so much!!!

Virgil barely registered his breathing picking up, his diaphragm crushed by the tense position he was tightly curled into. He started to sob, but soon ran out of air. His lungs were burning as they were starved of oxygen, and he could smell and taste copper.

I’m going to miss them. It’s going to hurt so much when they kick me out. I love them. I love them all. Thomas, I’m so sorry…

Virgil’s final thoughts were images of the Light Side’s faces that he’d never get to see again.

////////////////////////////////

Patton jolted out of his nostalgic reverie when he sensed Thomas in distress. Looking out, he saw Thomas in front of his computer trying not to have a panic attack. Patton quickly rose up a few feet away from Thomas and gently called his name. Thomas jumped so hard he hit his knees on the bottom of the desk.

“Ow. S-sorry Patton.”

“It’s okay kiddo. Think you can breathe with me?” Thomas nodded. “Great! In for one, two, three, four. There you go Thomas you’re doing so well. Hold for one, two, three…” Patton stayed with Thomas and helped him with his breathing exercises until he was feeling better, worrying the entire time about Virgil. I need to go check on my little shadowling!

“Do you know what triggered it?”

Thomas shook his head. “No, I was just reading comments about theories and stuff, and I felt a little panicked for a half hour, and it just got a lot worse. Are you okay Patton?”

“I’m fine kiddo.”

“Oh my god, Virgil!!”

“I’m just about to go check on him. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine. I’m gonna take a break.”

“Good idea! Summon me if you need anything son!”

“You’re not my-” The rest was cut off as Patton sunk out. He rose up in the hallway that had each of their bedrooms. Logan and Roman were just coming out of theirs to see what the commotion was about.

“Thomas had a panic attack. I’m going to go check on my dark strange son!! Will you come with me?” Patton asked, flashing his puppy dog eyes.

“Of course!! If my dark knight is in peril, I will save him!” Roman declared, moving into his dramatic pose and holding the position.

Logan just stared at Roman in awe of the extra for a moment before shaking himself and turning to Patton. “I, too, would like to assist Virgil if he is in distress.”

“Awwww yay!!! All of my kiddos working together.”

“Actually, we are all close in age and you have not-”

“OFF TO VIRGIL’S ROOM!!!”

Patton giggled. “That’s the spirit Roman!”

Once they got to Virgil’s room, Patton knocked on the door. “Kiddo? Are you okay in there?”

Not hearing a response, Logan had to put a hand on Roman’s shoulder to keep him from kicking the door in.

Patton knocked again, a little louder this time. “Virgil? Can you hear us honey?”

Still not receiving a response, Logan had to tighten his hand against Roman’s pulls.

“Virgil might be in danger!”

“His door may also be unlocked. Patton, if you will?”

Patton opened the door with ease. Logan let go of Roman’s shoulder, who gripped the handle of his sword. Patton looked around the dark room, not seeing Virgil right away. Roman scoured the room, looking for threats. Logan spotted Virgil first, a small shiver and quiet whimper drawing his attention to a mass of fabric on the ground.

“Oh Virgil,” Logan breathed as he strode over to kneel in front of Virgil. Virgil didn’t respond, so Logan hesitantly reached out and pulled the hood down. He heard Patton and Roman gasp behind him; Virgil’s face was streaked with tears and makeup, and his face was red. Patton knelt down next to Logan and started brushing his fingers through Virgil’s hair.

“Kiddo? Can you hear me? Come on, it’s time to wake up sweetie. It’s okay honey,” Patton cooed gently, trying to wake his shadowy songbird. After a few minutes and much to the relief of the Light Sides, Virgil began to stir. He blearily opened his eyes and flinched when he saw the other Sides so close to him.

“Shhhh, it’s okay kiddo. You’re safe.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Thomas!!”

“He’s okay kiddo.”

Virgil’s breathing began picking up and his tears started flowing again as he remembered how this was likely the last time he’d ever get to see the Light Sides and they’d hate him and-

“Virgil, may I touch you?” Logan asked.

Virgil jumped but nodded. Logan took Virgil’s hand and pressed it to his own chest.

“We’re going to do some breathing exercises now Virgil. First, please exhale so you have room for new air.”

Virgil thought it was a little strange, but cooperated.

“Excellent. Now breathe in for one, two, three, four…” Logan led Virgil through ten minutes of breathing exercises until the only thing cluing them into his distress were his tears.

“My dark prince, what troubles you?”

Virgil bit his lip. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

“Kiddo, you know that lying is wrong,” Patton gently reminded. They noticed the full-body flinch, which immediately made Patton feel terrible. He decided to switch tactics.

“It’s okay sweetie, you know you can tell us anything. You’re famILY!!!”

This only brought more tears from Virgil. Patton frowned, confused and a little hurt. Does he not consider us famILY? Did I do something wrong?

“Virgil, Patton is correct. You are a part of our family, and I sincerely doubt that anything you say can change that.”

“Indeed! We shall never forsake you!”

“Never say never,” Virgil muttered under his breath. Logan tilted his head.

“You believe that whatever is troubling you will cause us to no longer consider you a part of this family?” Logan asked.

Virgil responded by curling in. Patton gasped in horror.

“Nothing you say can make us stop loving you!” he cried.

“I USED TO BE A DARK SIDE!!!” Virgil shouted in his tempest tongue.

A silence fell over the room for several moments. Virgil curled in and started crying in earnest.

This is it, they don’t love me anymore, they hate me, they-

“We know Virgil. What about that did you want to tell us?” Logan asked.

Virgil froze. They knew? They knew? How did they know? How long? Virgil let out a particularly anguished sob at his next thought. Has this all been fake?

“Oh sweetie… can I hold you?” Patton asked. Virgil couldn’t help but nod. Patton tenderly pulled Virgil into his lap, kissed the top of his head, and rubbed his back.

“Shhhhhh, it’s okay baby, you can tell us in your own time.”

Virgil sniffled. “Th-that was w-what I wanted t-to tell you.”

Patton made a confused noise in his throat while Roman joined the other three Sides on the ground and gently placed a hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

“Virgil, we know you used to be a Dark Side.”

Virgil froze, then barked out a humorless laugh. “So why haven’t you chased me back to the Dark Side?”

Roman gaped. “Why would you think I would do that?!”

“You hate the Dark Sides!!”

Roman sucked in a breath. “Virgil, I… I’m so sorry.” Virgil braced himself. Here it comes. Can a Side die if it gets stabbed by a sword? “I should not have treated you so cruelly when I was first getting to know you. You are so valuable to me now, as a co-worker, and as a friend. I… I am so terribly sorry that my biases caused you so much harm, but I do consider you one of us.”

“Roman’s right!! You’re my kiddo now!!”

Logan flipped through a few flashcards. “As the hip say, “We been knew”.”

Despite his fears, Virgil snorted at Logan’s attempt to be cool. “You… you guys really don’t mind?”

“Not at all!!” Roman assured.

Virgil hid his face. “So I got worked up over nothing, huh? Is it Monday already?”

“It is in fact Monday.”

Virgil had to bite his lip at Logan’s factual response.

“Honey, you got scared you were going to lose your famILY. Of course you’re going to be upset! And you should always feel comfortable coming to one of us if you start feeling scared or unloved!! We’ll convince you in whatever way we have to! I’ll probably cuddle you!”

Virgil chuckled. “Thanks Pat.”

Roman squeezed Virgil’s shoulder in a silent sign of support. They stayed there for a few minutes until Patton spoke up.

“I think we need a movie night!! Who’s with me?”

“Sounds great Pat.”

“Indeed!”

“That would be adequate.”

Patton giggled in excitement as everyone stood. Virgil still felt a little shaky, but it was nothing new with his panic attacks. The Light Sides ushered Virgil out of his room as he smiled.

Virgil looked forward to watching movies with his famILY.

#sanders sides #fanfic #virgil sanders #deceit sanders #tw deceit #roman sanders #thomas sanders #Patton Sanders #logan sanders #ts sides #fic #fanfiction #lamp #calm #panic attacks

86 notes · View notes

viralhottopics · 8 years ago

Text

Why developers struggle to make video game cameras that don’t annoy you

Image: vicky leta/mashable

Final Fantasy XV was in development for 10 years. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people across six different game development studios helped created it. Yet its camera a fundamental part of the way players interact with the games world is severely flawed.

The weight on the games metaphorical shoulders was enormous not just for the future of Final Fantasy as a game series, but possibly for the entire future of game consoles in Japan, according to game director Hajime Tabata. And it delivered on its enormous promise in many ways. How is it possible that a game into which so much was invested can have such a seemingly simplistic flaw?

SEE ALSO: The painstaking process behind making strategy guides, from the guy whos spent his life doing it

The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games; the term describes not just our perspective and view of a digital space, but the freedom of or restrictions on how we as players control that viewpoint.

The camera is the interactive window through which we experience video games.

You can see and feel camera problems in games whenever the view is obstructed by a tree during a crucial moment, or when the perspective flips around the wrong way to show you the opposite of what youre trying to look at, or when the camera just wont do what you want no matter how you poke and prod at your controller.

These are the problems that have plagued third-person action games games in which the camera hovers outside the characters body rather than peering through the characters own perspective since Super Mario 64 popularized 3D games 20 years ago. How is it these issues havent been ironed out over the last two decades? Whats really going on in games that have camera problems? Why is it apparently so difficult to make video game cameras just work?

We reached out to the developers behind third-person games with their own unique camera challenges including Final Fantasy XV, Gravity Rush 2, Abzu, Hitman, and A Hat in Time to find out.

The common answer: its harder than youd think to make a great video game camera.

The underwater problem

Many developers run into problems making their cameras work in games that involve simply running around on the ground a 2D plane within a 3D space. Developer Giant Squids underwater exploration game Abzu adds another axis to that equation and a totally different set of control challenges problems that few developers of games with underwater controls have ever been able to solve.

Its an interesting problem doing a camera in an underwater game because you have this unique environment where the character can swim in all three dimensions of the space, said Matt Nava, Giant Squids founder and Abzus director.

The developers looked at every other underwater game they could get their hands on, and Nava said the most common solution in the past has been for developers to restrict player movement by not letting the characters vertical pitch extend too far up or down preventing them from doing a vertical flip, basically.

One of the first things we did in Abzu was decide, you know what, were going to try and solve this problem. Were going to let the player do full loops, because thats super fun and graceful, Nava said. We had to solve: what happens when youre upside-down?

We had to solve: what happens when youre upside-down? – Matt Nava, Giant Squid

What indeed? If the camera followed the character like it normally would, the camera would turn upside-down with the character, which would be nauseatingly disorienting. Instead, the game tracks multiple factors to detect when the player is attempting to do a loop or turn-around and automatically zooms the camera out to show the full arc. It tracks the characters movement speed and the speed at which the characters pitch is changing to determine how big the loop will be, and how far out the camera should move

Meanwhile, if the player steers the character in a half loop, leaving the character facing the opposite direction and upside-down, the camera automatically sets itself back behind the character while the character flips over on its own. During this animation the game also briefly wrests camera control away from the player often a cardinal sin in action games, but a necessary one here.

We got it just right, so people didnt really notice that there are moments in the game where steering doesnt do anything, Nava said.

Balancing for two types of players

Taking camera control away momentarily isnt a perfect solution, though. More experienced players tend to move the camera manually more often than inexperienced ones who are less accustomed to steering characters through three-dimensional space. The veteran player wants full camera control, while the noob needs the camera to move automatically without them constantly adjusting it. Balancing between the two can be a massive headache.

Many games solution is to let players adjust the camera but impose a timer that automatically resets it behind the character again if the game doesnt detect any input from the player for a set amount of time.

Issues can arise when that timer is too short or too long, especially in games where you move at high speeds, like driving games. If the camera takes too long to reset, inexperienced players might struggle with the controls. But if it resets too quickly, experienced players get annoyed feeling like they dont have control over it. Thats one problem that plagued the late 2016 release The Last Guardian, a long-in-development game with lots of strengths but undeniably outdated controls and camera mechanics.

I think that probably the most common thing that [developers] do wrong with the camera is they try to auto-correct it at the wrong time they do it when you really want it to let you control it yourself, Nava said.

Its sometimes really, really hard to guess what the player actually wants to look at. – Jesper Hylling, IO Interactive

Square Enixs 2016 Hitman game does the exact opposite, to its great credit. We are fairly atypical in the way that we actually allow the player to walk toward the camera, said IO Interactives Jesper Hylling, Hitmans lead game designer. Its much easier to control the character if you just look at his back all the time, and typically the direction you want to move is the direction you want to look. Except in Hitman, thats not always the case.

Often in Hitman you need to observe a target while assassin Agent 47 faces the other direction to seem nonchalant, or flee from pursuers while keeping an eye on them. So having a camera that tries to reset itself behind the shoulders of the main character wouldnt really work for our game, Hylling said. Also you get to do these cool moments where you walk away from explosions.

That also makes it the level designers responsibility to direct players attention towards timed, scripted events in subtle ways without having to yank the camera controls away from them. For example, in the games Paris mission the main target is first spotted descending a staircase in the mansions lavish entrance hall just as players walk in. Hes hard to miss, and thats deliberate, Hylling said.

The drawback, he conceded, is that some players especially less experienced gamers struggle with the controls because theyre used to cameras that correct themselves. But its sometimes really, really hard to guess what the player actually wants to look at, he said. So we try to do that as little as possible.

Camera controls as gameplay

The developers of Gravity Rush 2 faced a similar obstacle, compounded by the games unique premise. The early 2017 PS4 games gravity-shifting gameplay lets you totally alter the main characters perspective at any time and hurtle through the air at great speeds in any direction. No rule of physics or game design is sacred even the horizon can flip this way and that, proving disorienting for many players.

With the games totally unfettered range of movement, it would have been impossible for the developers to design a system that could predict where players wanted to look to move the camera there automatically. So they didnt try. Instead, they left the camera controls entirely to the player.

There were a lot of other challenges during game development, but designing the camera controls for this game is perhaps the challenge I remember most of all, the games lead designer, Sony Computer Entertainments Junya Okura, said through a translator.

For this game, we made the decision to enable free-flowing travel and complete autonomy over camera control these two principles superseded all else, the games lead player action programmer, Toshitake Tsuchikura, explained. If we programed the camera to move automatically, the unique gameplay experience we crafted for players would suffer significantly. Although newer players might find it hard to get used to, he said, they thought this totally free system would satisfy our biggest fans and that players would feel a sense of progression from mastering the camera controls over time.

No rule of physics or game design is sacred.

Even so, Okura said their main objective in designing the camera was to prevent a feeling among action game players who usually dont have to think about controlling the camera from a feeling of being forced to do something that theyre not used to. Tsuchikura added that they wanted the camera to follow players intentions faithfully.

In other words, they wanted control over the camera to feel natural, even for people who arent used to doing so in a game that leaves it entirely up to the player. To help accomplish that they made Kat, the games lovable protagonist, the cameras focal point at all times she never leaves the center of the screen.

Motion controls are another factor. By default, players can make fine camera adjustments by rotating the PS4s DualShock controller, which Tsuchikura said provides players with a feeling of true motion and a floating sensation.

Free swirling with an unfixed horizontal line sometimes gives you strong motion sickness, he said. On the other hand, a sense of naturally swinging movements as if youre floating in the air in this game is achieved through the motion sensor detecting the hands movement. Its essential for the floating experience that Gravity Rush 2 is pursuing.

Designing the cameras behavior during Gravity Rush 2s chaotic combat was its own challenge. Because enemies can appear all around Kat at any point, which the developers call omnidirectional battles, it remained important to let players retain full camera control during combat. But that also makes it difficult to track enemy locations, and more than one player has wondered why the game doesnt provide a way to lock onto enemies.

Okura said they considered adding a lock-on mechanic during the early phases of development on the original Gravity Rush, which launched on the portable PS Vita system in 2012. There were two sides to that internal debate, he said: on one hand, adding lock-on could make battles easier to manage, which would appeal to more players; but on the other hand, it would destroy the camera controls, the freedom of which is a core part of the series design. The idea of trusting our players with autonomy matched with our design philosophy, he explained.

This idea may be old fashioned, but I believe that its one of the important elements of action games to experience the joy of overcoming some difficulty or stress and to be proud of the improvement of your skill, Tsuchikura added. Please dont be prejudiced against the right stick. Its one of the powerful weapons for action gamers!

Breaking the line of sight

Even a comparatively simpler game like the in-development A Hat in Time faces these problems. As a 3D platformer in the tradition of games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, AHiT wrestles with the same questions those pioneering games dealt with in the 90s.

Even though the game has an idea of the things the player thinks are interesting, it can be wrong, said Jonas Kaerlev, CEO of small Danish studio Gears for Breakfast. Thats why, if at any time in A Hat in Time the player moves the thumbstick, the game just says, OK, well chill out for a moment to let you do your thing, and then once weve figured out if youre done with your thing, well take over again.

Even though the game has an idea of the things the player thinks are interesting, it can be wrong. – Jonas Kaerlev, Gears for Breakfast

The game reacts differently to varying amounts of input on the camera controls, including trying to detect accidental inputs in order to ignore them. But thats an extremely resource-intensive process and can be taxing on the games overall systems, which Kaerlev said is why many modern platformers, like Super Mario 3D World, choose a fixed perspective rather than more traditional 3D camera controls.

Sometimes you just want to focus on the basics and always keep the camera on whats interesting, he said. Plus, that lets you avoid breaking what he said is one of the golden rules of game cameras: never break line of sight. In other words, the player always needs to be able to see the character theyre controlling, which can be difficult to accomplish when players have full movement and camera control.

Traditional solutions for this vary. In Super Mario 64 the camera moves automatically to attempt to keep Mario in view, one of the many factors that made the 1997 classics pioneering 3D controls infamously wonky. The new The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, on the other hand, handles obstacles like tree foliage by making them transparent if they would otherwise obscure your view of the hero, Link.

But Kaerlev said that can suck a games processing resources dry, especially as game graphics have become exponentially more complex over the years which is is why newer games (Breath of the Wild being an exception) tend to find other solutions.

“I quickly found out that players dont want full control.” – Kaerlev

A Hat in Time uses a novel two-pronged approach. Whenever we know the player is definitely, unquestionably going to have the camera be blocked by this thing, we put in the extra power [to turn the object transparent], Kaerlev said. Other times, though, they simply draw the player character, Hat Kid, on top of the object as a silhouette, which accomplishes the same goal letting the player see the character at all times while using far less computing power.

Gears for Breakfast is a small studio, and Kaerlev is relatively inexperienced. But throughout development hes been struck by the fact that developers of all sizes and backgrounds have wrestled with these issues throughout the history of video games but theyve also all managed to come up with elegant solutions.

When I started development on A Hat in Time I had no idea how to make the camera, Kaerlev said. I just gave the player full control and said OK, whatever, do your thing. But I quickly found out that players dont want full control. So Ive sort of had to learn, as Ive developed the game, that these kind of rules make a lot of sense. Its kind of beautiful, in a way, that a lot of developers with very different backgrounds come to the same conclusions.

Putting the camera back in players hands

The problems with Final Fantasy XVs camera werent due to inattention. Hidemi Mizoguchi, the very engineer responsible for the games camera system, made obvious the staggering consideration that went into its development at every step.

Yet FFXVs camera is plagued by all the issues that many game developers strive to avoid from objects in the game obscuring your view of the camera to control being yanked away by the game.

Mizoguchi said (through a translator) that some of their challenges stemmed from the games wildly varying scenarios. Youre not just running around as main character Noctis. The game has to keep track of four characters plus multiple enemies of different sizes during combat. Or you could be driving the Regalia down the highway, or riding chocobos through the forest. One of the developers goals was to create a camera system that would guarantee quality in any situation, which even in a far simpler game is a tall order.

Part of that involved tweaking the environment design to better accommodate the camera. To get rid of any element that might have caused difficulty in exploration and battles, we adjusted background modeling and camera collision countless times while staff worked on the environment, he said. Even if props and background elements looked good as a part of a landscape, we adjusted and changed placements of any object without hesitation if it created stress during battle. That type of deliberate, manual attention is important, he noted.

The camera is designed upon the premise that, at its basis, it belongs to the player. – Hidemi Mizoguchi, Square Enix

FFXV straddles a weird line between an action and a role-playing game. You have full control during some battles. Other times the game moves the camera for you, often to showcase some gargantuan enemy. Mizoguchi said they knew the camera would have to be flexible, so they created basic, core camera code on top of which they could layer whatever additional functionality they needed for a given situation.

By having this common functionality, the camera could receive control input by the player and control collision determination, while also making it possible to create cinematic framing for both still and dynamic moments and even blend the two together, he said. The camera is designed upon the premise that, at its basis, it belongs to the player.

For all the games strengths, and for all this attention to detail, its camera is frequently cited as one of the games most problematic elements, by fans on places like Reddit and GameFAQs, as well as by critics on sites like IGN, Polygon, Kotaku, Glixel, and countless others. The developers even attempted to address the camera issues in a day one patch, with debatable results.

The problems in this case seem to come down to sheer scope. Its not just the size of the game, though, its any of the issues that developers face in fine-tuning the dozens of invisible factors that can affect the camera at any given point.

Getting the battle system in FFXV into its current shape required a long process of trial and error, Mizoguchi said. Even after we established a stylish battle in which the player can freely move around in the air, it still took time to adjust the camera so that it would not hinder the action as the places and situations changed. We continued to adjust right up to the time we submitted the master build.

This is all so much more complex than any casual player might guess. And thats by design. As Mizoguchi put it, With a well-adjusted camera, players are able to comfortably play a game without noticing that a camera exists. All the developers interviewed agreed that this is the number one identifier of a great video game camera.

It doesnt take much to throw the camera out of whack a fact that, if nothing else, should make us all appreciate the great video game cameras in our lives all the more.

Mike Rougeau is a freelance journalist who lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and two dogs.

WATCH: This charity is helping kids through video games