Glad you like the idea.
My discussion with the VT guys was not about having real time 3D walking around the ship; only about having renders of the room I showed above, --the bridge
of the Galaxy (I'm about to model the Defiant's bridge for them this weekend). Anyways, what we envisaged was rather modest: A number of renders at various
locations around the bridge. Note: The captain's position is the central chair under the wooden arch. The two seats at the front are called CONN, I think (I'm not
a Startrek fan; I could be wrong) and are for pilots. Way at the back, that wide black area has the Engineering LCARS console. Behind the wooden arch there's
another LCARS for weapons: Tactical. And there's at least one more LCARS somewhere for the computer Library.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/galle ... bridge.jpg
My plan is to use texture overlays for the LCARS: In the model I'm going to unwrap the LCARS to separate textures, so we can make glowy LCAR textures that
we can switch and make multiple renders for the various LCAR modes (emissive, like add mode blending); then we cut pieces from the renders with the LCARS
on, and we can show them overlayed on top (of the render with all LCARS icons off (black)), just like animations are overlayed on bars' backgrounds in PU.
We discussed also the problem of piloting the ship while looking at a screen in perspective, and how to click on the LCARS screens when the mouse is used for
steering. I suggested to them that perhaps there should be a cockpitless mode like in Vegastrike, and they liked the idea. The way it would work is like this:
If you are anywhere in the bridge, pressing F1 takes you to the cockpitful front seat:
In this position, you'd see the outside like a projection on a screen. Now, I've no idea how easy or hard that would be. Render to texture comes to mind, but
it might be expensive; not sure. If the matrix could be tweaked to produce the same effect it might be better; then we make the screen transparent and
that's that. But anyways, in this position you don't steer with the mouse, and you don't have an HUD. You can use the mouse to click on the LCARS screen in
front of you (the black slab below) and possibly have some kind of high-level interaction with the autopilot that way. Perhaps in a "keep heading" autopilot
mode you could sort of steer using arrow keys on the LCARS, very clumsily.
But there would be a special icon on this LCARS that if you click it you go to cockpitless mode, facing forward, and have an HUD. This mode could stand for
wearing goggles or having data piped straight to your brain
. The less said the better.
While in cockpitless mode, you can press F1 to get back to the seated position; so F1 is a very simple, non-staty keybind. Always takes you to the same
place.
Which implies also that, at least in VT, you wouldn't "launch the base"; --because it would be the default. You could think of it as "flying the base"
Now, we could use other F-keys to go to Tactical, Engineering, Library and whatever other LCARS/perspectives; but it would be more natural to just use
the mouse to move around, sort of like in Myst.
Besides, as Gorbalad suggested, perhaps the F-keys could switch the screen to show various outside camera facings, instead; rather than turn your head.
OTOH, perhaps such switchings could be done via the LCARS.
OTOH, maybe function keys are better, as we'd need to add screen view icons to every LCARS around the bridge, otherwise.
Besides, just like it took me 10 hours or so to do this bridge, in 4 hours I could model the engine room; and in 5 hours the Observation deck, and we'd
soon run out of function keys.
BTW, the observation deck should have windows, I suppose; so we're talking about a flying base that has rooms which have views. The observation deck
is possibly where, as captain, you'd meet visitors to your ship, --hopefully to offer you a juicy mission and having the money to pay for it. Or no; that
would be the Reception; Observation is where you go to be alone and then a crewmember comes after you. Not sure.
Having said all that, going 3D would be the ultimate.
OTOH, it might take a lot longer to get going, not only from the software side (collision detection, etc.) but from the data side as well: All I had to do to
get the above renders was to model the room and hit the render button. If it was for an in-game 3D model, I'd have to UV-unwrap it and texture it, which
takes at least 10 times longer than just modeling it. And we'll need to worry about modeling people, keyframe animations, inverse kinematics, and
special vertex shaders for skinning. I think that just getting ship interiors to work in 2D the way bases do would be a huge step forward for now, and
a bridge to the Mecca of 3D ship interiors and bases, in the sense that ship interiors would start getting modeled, for renders' sake. Then later, once we
have tons of ship interior models, it will make tons of sense to go 3D.