I guess the sound thing would be good, but for a fighter type. I never imagined space fights in a dogfighting fashion, where you need to know the location of a hostile in a heartbeat or you will die. I always thought of space combat as more of a submarine simulator type of thing. After all, the difficulty of decelarating and building velocity perpendicular to your base course (turning) would be really a pain in the arse. It would be a dogfight in slow motion.

quote: Original post by krez
Kwizatz, i think you are right, i forgot about the rest of that schene... good thing too, i hate it when i find evidence that StarWars is fiction...

LOL, you remind me of this guy I met who thought (really) that we might all be living in the matrix. And he was a Star Wars obsessee (sp?), too. Not that that''s bad. I just finished watching The Empire Strikes Back.



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"It''s groin-grabbingly transcendent!" - Mr. Gamble, my teacher, speaking of his C++ AP class

Just had a thought.....

What if sound was used in space, but to represent other phenomena? For instance, what about "hearing" gravity? Or even better: hearing light. Try to imagine it. The screen fades in from black to an exspansive starfield--a gentle, yet constant, tinkling sound (not that kind of tinkling!) accompanies it. The camera pans downward to reveal a solar system, and as the bright star at its center becomes visible the soft background noise of the universe is drowned out by something (I don''t know what, exactly) that sounds stronger, more massive, and more vibrant. Still, the background is not entirely overmastered; instead it melds with the sound of the system. The two are in harmony.

....Just think about it.......with any luck, the sound of space would become the music, at least in space.

quote: Original post by DrMol
I always thought of space combat as more of a submarine simulator type of thing. After all, the difficulty of decelarating and building velocity perpendicular to your base course (turning) would be really a pain in the arse. It would be a dogfight in slow motion.

Isn''t that because we often picture a space-shuttle or x-wing type of ship? Maybe a more realistic space fighter would lose the wings and have more powerful steering engines in several directions. You don''t need air to turn sharply, just enough force in the right direction. Besides fast forward and sharp turns, it could move sideways, straight up/down or even backwards and turn 180 degrees on the spot.

quote: Original post by zin
And ever wonder where all those errant/missed laser blasts and particle beams go?

They lose energy density as 1/(r2), so they basically dissipate into space.

ld

i wouldn''t call jackie chan an actor

_______________________
http://mill.3dfxsweden.net

quote:
They lose energy density as 1/(r2), so they basically dissipate into space.

Is this true, keeping in mind light coming from lasers is parralell, isnt 1/r2 just for radial lights sources? I thought a laser would travel till it hit something, dust, a planet, a space dog, whatever ....

Weapons dissipate in space? Perhaps some types of weapons. But I imagine there will be future weapons where a tight packet of energy/particles can be formed and thrown, though Geneva conventions might dictate a required dispersal. Even a simple bullet must keep going until forced otherwise.

Re simulated sounds: i.e. creating 3d audio to inform the pilot of their surroundings, cool concept, could overdo the doppler shift to give clear audible indication of relative movement of enemies.
In the Navy, I worked on airborne antisub equipment that displayed on a flowing chart the frequency spectrum from a mic on a dropped sonobuoy sensor, easy to see a sub/source frequency, and how it shifts as a function of relative velocity. To hear it instead of having to see it is a great aid re realtime combat vs. the minutes that a sub encounter could entail.

I use the 3d audio info to great effect in Half-Life multiplayer games. (49)

zin

zintel.com - 3d graphics & more or less

quote:
Just had a thought.....

What if sound was used in space, but to represent other phenomena? For instance, what about "hearing" gravity? Or even better: hearing light. Try to imagine it. The screen fades in from black to an exspansive starfield--a gentle, yet constant, tinkling sound (not that kind of tinkling!) accompanies it. The camera pans downward to reveal a solar system, and as the bright star at its center becomes visible the soft background noise of the universe is drowned out by something (I don''t know what, exactly) that sounds stronger, more massive, and more vibrant. Still, the background is not entirely overmastered; instead it melds with the sound of the system. The two are in harmony.

....Just think about it.......with any luck, the sound of space would become the music, at least in space.

Sega tried to do this with a game called Rez, the effect has a certain name - (ive forgotten what it is; synthesia (I might look it up) or something) - and it means getting the senses mixed up, you start hearing colors, seeing sounds, feeling um tastes....etc
sorry for the nested brackets

quote: Original post by stevenmarky
Sega tried to do this with a game called Rez, the effect has a certain name - (ive forgotten what it is; synthesia (I might look it up) or something) - and it means getting the senses mixed up, you start hearing colors, seeing sounds, feeling um tastes....etc
sorry for the nested brackets

Yeah, I read about that condition--sounds like an interesting way to go through life. One guy I read about didn''t even know he was unusual until he remarked "The chicken doesn''t have enough points." (he was a visual taster) in front of a doctor who happened to have studied the condition.

Now that I think about it, though, my idea would probably have to be more like music orchestrated to each scene in space. People simply wouldn''t "get" something computer generated or a literal interpretation of each scene (music composition-wise), because either one would very likely be atonal at many points. Still, it wouldn''t do to have a "traditional" composer--you''d need someone skilled with electronic comp, like Vangelis.