Levels Could Be Much Bigger In LBPVita...

... and here's how:

1/ Some of you may well have read my one and only useful tutorial come tip in the LBP2 tutorial section. It suggests making complex objects, décor or backdrops and taking pictures of them to be used instead. Well that will be much better in LBPVita because the quality of the pictures are better and the screen is smaller. This will cut thermo. But this is just a trivial thing leading up to the real 'kicker'

2/ This one is so obvious even newborns utter it as their mothers tuck them in at night. Emit/Destroy; although that has quite a sinister connotation if you think too deeply about it, so don't. It's going to be as easy as peeling tangerines. No more worrying about unwelcome strays, the flotsam and jetsam of compromise. This will cut lots of thermo... but we're still not at the 'kicker' yet!

3/ The Kicker! This would not let me sleep, which is why I'm posting this at such an ungodly hour. I recently asked a beta tester to try something for me: fill the level with every material available and then dephysicalize it. This cut his thermo down from half to a quarter... but that's still not what kept me awake. No, it was the implementation of this technique that held sleep at arms length. We know that materials and the such need to be physical for sackboy to interact with them (obvious), but we also know that even things that are dephysicalized can have logic, pistons, winches etc. attached to them. Soooo, what if you put a dephysicalizer on everything in the game, with a player sensor and a not gate! This means that only those things in the 'entire' level that sackboy needs to interact with are ever physicalized. This will save thermo too, and lots of it.

I'll be using 'The Kicker' in everything I create in LBPVita

I'm happy now and can sleep

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

Soooo, what if you put a dephysicalizer on everything in the game, with a player sensor and a not gate! This means that only those things in the 'entire' level that sackboy needs to interact with are ever physicalized. This will save thermo too, and lots of it.

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There's no dephysicalizer gadget, it's a tool.

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Originally Posted by chazprime

There's no dephysicalizer gadget, it's a tool.

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you're JOKING! why oh why have they not thought of that? somebody contact Tarsier and ask them to add it!!!

edit: they'll have to add it. I can think of all sorts of games that could use it. this would be the biggest oversight if they didn't

It has been said before a good handful of times that the dephysicalizer is not a logic, but is only a tool like advance glue. are you sure you been reading all the LBPvita news? :P and my guess is it may be hard to add it in as logic. there may be some problem with doing that. as your not even close to the first person who was hoping it would also be a logic. so I am pretty sure Tarsier knows about it. *mew

I'm only guessing, but I'd imagine that doing what you're talking about doing could potentially crash the game or at least cause some unwanted side effects. A group of overlapping objects suddenly becoming physical could cause problems for the dynamics engine.

I wouldn't worry too much, between using static objects and dephysicalized ones for scenery, you have a fair amount of leeway for building.

this NEEDS to be added at all cost. I know what you are saying about being careful but I'm sure most people are sensible enough. people have been using the emit/destroy technique for a very long time and that wasn't even intended to be in the game. this would just be a chip you place on a material that turned it on and off. I don't see anything complicated in that at all. all they would have to do is reroute the logic that enables you to manually dephysicalise it and apply it though a chip too. it's already in place, it just needs another application of it

you could make quicksand
you could have a hidden passage behind a wall that was solid before
you could make traps for sackboy to keep the player on edge
you could have stairs that are not climbable until you solve a puzzle
you could have ghostly apparitions that suddenly physically attack you
you could have spikes that were once blocking your path now passable

the advantages are endless

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

this NEEDS to be added at all cost. I know what you are saying about being careful but I'm sure most people are sensible enough. people have been using the emit/destroy technique for a very long time and that wasn't even intended to be in the game. this would just be a chip you place on a material that turned it on and off. I don't see anything complicated in that at all. all they would have to do is reroute the logic that enables you to manually dephysicalise it and apply it though a chip too.

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I think you might be misunderstanding what dephysicalize is meant for. You already have the option to make objects static and still interact with players, that's really all you need.

Imagine if some sneaky creators started booby trapping levels to cause a crash when you entered (and potentially destroying your profile)...no thank you.

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Originally Posted by chazprime

I think you might be misunderstanding what dephysicalize is meant for. You already have the option to make objects static and still interact with players, that's really all you need.

Imagine if some sneaky creators started booby trapping levels to cause a crash when you entered (and potentially destroying your profile)...no thank you.

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what? it's already there for goodness sake. all it needs it to be able to turn it on and off via a switch or logic. 'potentially destroying your profile'? come now

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

what? it's already there for goodness sake. all it needs it to be able to turn it on and off via a switch or logic. 'potentially destroying your profile'? come now

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Well, I know several people who've lost their profiles as the result of LBP2 crashing, even more who've lost it due to messing about with glitches like one of the pod glitches. See for yourself, there are threads about it on this very site. Given that you can stack several (possibly hundreds) of objects into the same space unphysicalized, what do you suppose happens if they suddenly becoming physical?

Anyway, I think you might want to wait to play the game for yourself before getting all worked up over features that don't exist. You might find that you don't even need this feature.

Like I said. if they could easily add it like that. don't you think they would have? clearly there most be some problem with doing so. i am sure they have good reasons. but if you really want. since i am friends with some of the people, i could ask for you why they did not make it also a logic. *mew

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Originally Posted by fumetsusozo

Like I said. if they could easily add it like that. don't you think they would have? clearly there most be some problem with doing so. i am sure they have good reasons. but if you really want. since i am friends with some of the people, i could ask for you why they did not make it also a logic. *mew

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smashing. thanks a lot. :)

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Given that you can stack several (possibly hundreds) of objects into the same space unphysicalized, what do you suppose happens if they suddenly becoming physical?

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nothing would happen. this is why the dephyscalizer is in the game; so that we can place objects inside of each other and design our own stuff. this isn't like the glitch we used in LBP2. perhaps you are getting confused with what happens when you un-pause before you glue the pieces together. not only can you put dozens of things inside of each other now but you also have 40 sublayers to play with. it wouldn't suddenly explode. They would just stick together. you can also stick physical material inside of dephysicalised material and they will keep their attributes.

Dephysicalise is an awesome tool just the way it has been implemented right now, but making it a tweaker as well definitely holds a lot of potential ;)

Originally Dephysicalise was designed to help the Creators optimise their levels, by instantly removing the collission detection (a relatively costly calculation) from any objects the creator did not expect Sackboy to collide with.
When designing the game, we realised that the tool had a lot of nice "unwanted" potential, and we therefore made sure it became as easy to work with as possible (allows for gluing, pistoning, corner editing etc.) to encourage heavy and creative use by the community.

It is still however designed as tool for optimisation, and by having it being a tool allows for much quicker "dephysicalisation passes" than placing a tweaker on each individual sub-component of an object.

Being a great idea though, the Dephysicalise Tweak is bound to arrive at some point, but it most likely won't make it for release...

We hope you understand :)

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Originally Posted by Slaeden-Bob

Dephysicalise is an awesome tool just the way it has been implemented right now, but making it a tweaker as well definitely holds a lot of potential ;)

Originally Dephysicalise was designed to help the Creators optimise their levels, by instantly removing the collission detection (a relatively costly calculation) from any objects the creator did not expect Sackboy to collide with.
When designing the game, we realised that the tool had a lot of nice "unwanted" potential, and we therefore made sure it became as easy to work with as possible (allows for gluing, pistoning, corner editing etc.) to encourage heavy and creative use by the community.

It is still however designed as tool for optimisation, and by having it being a tool allows for much quicker "dephysicalisation passes" than placing a tweaker on each individual sub-component of an object.

Being a great idea though, the Dephysicalise Tweak is bound to arrive at some point, but it most likely won't make it for release...

We hope you understand :)

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I couldn't be more pleased with your response. thank you. I am confident that it WILL appear at some point given the possibilities i have suggested and no doubt others will come up with in the future. I would also like you and your team to consider my suggestion on linking the internal clock of the Vita with another chip which would be called: Time/Date chip. A description of why I think it would be a fantastic addition is in my first post.

thanks for taking the time and responding to my post. it's heartening to know that the people who matter are listening to the people who care :)

Ah guess Slaeden-Bob found the topic i was telling him about even tho I did not say which topic it actually was or where online it was too. :P *mew

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

you could make quicksand
you could have a hidden passage behind a wall that was solid before
you could make traps for sackboy to keep the player on edge
you could have stairs that are not climbable until you solve a puzzle
you could have ghostly apparitions that suddenly physically attack you
you could have spikes that were once blocking your path now passable

the advantages are endless

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These are some really fantastic gameplay ideas.. I had thought of one or two but this is great stuff.

As a technicality, however, I think it's worth pointing out that all of these things are still possible even without the dephysicalizer as a logic item. You can layer objects and/or emit different versions of them. For your quicksand idea, you could have a piece of invisible material that prevents you from falling through that is removed/destroyed as part of a specific event. For the ghosts attacking idea, just emit different versions of them that are now physical. ;)

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Originally Posted by Taffey

These are some really fantastic gameplay ideas.. I had thought of one or two but this is great stuff.

As a technicality, however, I think it's worth pointing out that all of these things are still possible even without the dephysicalizer as a logic item. You can layer objects and/or emit different versions of them. For your quicksand idea, you could have a piece of invisible material that prevents you from falling through that is removed/destroyed as part of a specific event. For the ghosts attacking idea, just emit different versions of them that are now physical. ;)

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But the dephysicaliser chip would make things so much easier and open huge possibilities. How about quick setting cement or use a sackbot stickered white and you suddenly have a ghostly version of yourself that can access areas you couldn't before. I do agree though that there are certain things that should be left to the creators imagination, but I don't think this is one of them. I assumed it was already there, it was that 'obvious' to me

and of course the main reason I think it should be there:

3/ The Kicker! This would not let me sleep, which is why I'm posting this at such an ungodly hour. I recently asked a beta tester to try something for me: fill the level with every material available and then dephysicalize it. This cut his thermo down from half to a quarter... but that's still not what kept me awake. No, it was the implementation of this technique that held sleep at arms length. We know that materials and the such need to be physical for sackboy to interact with them (obvious), but we also know that even things that are dephysicalized can have logic, pistons, winches etc. attached to them. Soooo, what if you put a dephysicalizer on everything in the game, with a player sensor and a not gate! This means that only those things in the 'entire' level that sackboy needs to interact with are ever physicalized. This will save thermo too, and lots of it.

on a side note, now that I've mentioned ghosts, do you know how the creator of the level 'Ghosting' (think that is the name) managed to make a transparent sackbot?

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

But the dephysicaliser chip would make things so much easier and open huge possibilities. How about quick setting cement or melting ice (that running water special effect could be put to good use with this). use a sackbot stickered white and you suddenly have a ghostly version of yourself that can access areas you couldn't before.

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Oh, without a doubt a tweaker would make life easier, but the things you suggested would still be possible without it. I point that out mostly because I'm excited to see that kind of stuff in levels! Maybe.... one of yours? :D Pleeeeeeeeze?? ;)

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

Soooo, what if you put a dephysicalizer on everything in the game, with a player sensor and a not gate! This means that only those things in the 'entire' level that sackboy needs to interact with are ever physicalized. This will save thermo too, and lots of it.

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This may save some thermo, but certainly not as much as using the tool. The logic itself would have to be considered by the game, as well as the materials when they are in their non-dephysicalized (uh... physical I guess) states.

HOWEVER, what you are talking about would also be hugely beneficial in a slightly different way - localized lag. You could have a lot more on the screen at once all across the level, and having sections you've already been to and/or haven't visited yet would help reduce the amount of calculations the game will have to do in a given area.

This is the exact technique we use in LBP PSP to optimize gameplay. Attach player sensors to pretty much anything and everything so that only the stuff right there on the screen in front of you is moving. That allowed for much more complex levels coupled with silky smooth gameplay. This did not help the thermo in any way, but definitely aided the player experience.

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Originally Posted by Taffey

Oh, without a doubt a tweaker would make life easier, but the things you suggested would still be possible without it. I point that out mostly because I'm excited to see that kind of stuff in levels! Maybe.... one of yours? :D Pleeeeeeeeze?? ;)

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I struggle to find the time to make levels and I'm plodding towards the finish of my second level at the moment. It's nothing spectacular but I see it as sharpening my creativity for the big push on more complexity and better logic. Hopefully I can take what I've learned onto the Vita!!!

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This may save some thermo, but certainly not as much as using the tool. The logic itself would have to be considered by the game, as well as the materials when they are in their non-dephysicalized (uh... physical I guess) states.

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I asked a beta tester to fill his level with every material available and then dephysicalize it all. His thermo was half and it reduced to a quarter. Whilst I doubt you'll get that level of reduction (for the reasons you laid out) it would definitely be very beneficial, especially when coupled with the emit/destroy technique.

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HOWEVER, what you are talking about would also be hugely beneficial in a slightly different way - localized lag. You could have a lot more on the screen at once all across the level, and having sections you've already been to and/or haven't visited yet would help reduce the amount of calculations the game will have to do in a given area.

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That's one benefit I'd not thought of. If you ever play my one and only level (DON'T), you'll see I ran into this problem towards the end and no matter how much I adjusted things there is always material missing because of the complexity.

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This is the exact technique we use in LBP PSP to optimize gameplay. Attach player sensors to pretty much anything and everything so that only the stuff right there on the screen in front of you is moving. That allowed for much more complex levels coupled with silky smooth gameplay. This did not help the thermo in any way, but definitely aided the player experience.

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Well I didn't know that!! It makes perfect sense and I can't understand why I've not thought of it already... well I do but that would be admitting stupidity

How about this for an idea, Taffey!!!!: tilt the rain animation diagonally. put thin layers of physicalized material in the rain. as sackboy moves towards them dephysicalize them with the tool I'm suggesting. sackboy will touch the first for a fraction of a second and then the next, giving the impressing he's pushing against the wind (you could do this without the rain of course, just have a high wind sound and a few leaves emitted across the screen towards him.

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Originally Posted by GribbleGrunger

How about this for an idea, Taffey!!!!: tilt the rain animation diagonally. put thin layers of physicalized material in the rain. as sackboy moves towards them dephysicalize them with the tool I'm suggesting. sackboy will touch the first for a fraction of a second and then the next, giving the impressing he's pushing against the wind (you could do this without the rain of course, just have a high wind sound and a few leaves emitted across the screen towards him.

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Yes, that would be interesting... Like the wintry bits of Journey. I like it.

Of course you could do the same thing by using invisible material that you destroy silently. ;)