Feedback:User/Vahkris/Loading screen dissolve transitions
Loading screen dissolve transitions | |
|---|---|
| User | Vahkris |
| Categories | Mechanics |
As seen in the last demos, the loading screens in GW2 are very much the same as GW1. They are admittedly more stylized but are still a a static screen with artwork and a loading bar to mask the loading going on in the background, and the transition between them is a hard cut from the game to the static screen, and then another hard cut back to the game. The effect is rather jarring. On the other hand, the Tier 2 conversations (the cinematic ones where you have two characters against an art background) begin and end with a nice dissolve taking you out of and eventually back into the game in a much nicer transition that fits the style of the game.
What if instead of that hard cut to artwork when we run through a portal or something like that, we got that same dissolve as if we were going into a Tier 2 conversation? We can then dissolve out after the loading is done, and avoid the harsh hard cut that is currently there as well.
Now, this suggestion is based on some assumptions and theories of how these systems work under the hood. Currently during a map change, we're shown the loading screen while the previous map data (with all the content, assets, scripts, etc) is unloaded and the new map is loaded all in the background. It seems to me that the conversation system/function, on the other hand, likely stays in memory the entire time during this change, since according to the blog there are around 1500 conversations in the game/planned and to me it's highly likely there would be at least one conversation in every map. I would think at the very least, the dissolve function at the beginning of the conversations would stay in memory at all times to avoid a delay even while it loaded the conversation itself.
It seems to me that this dissolve is an overlay as well, which means it might not be directly linked to the map itself, but a separate function, allowing it to run during the loading. They're already showing art behind these conversations anyway, and I think the dissolve itself would be a neat way to give you a smooth transition in to and out of something to look at other than a flat static screen and would continue the smooth artistic presentation of Guild Wars 2.
