No it’s not a riddle I was just wondering if there are any “cheats” to making it look like there are loads of people without making loads of people. Are there environment object type npcs that do nothing ?
The area is an interior using the sunken ruins tileset and I wanted people all over the raised sections that are above where the player will be. Exploration mode means you can see up above so could see gaps in the people. I had thought of using the windowed walls and just putting people near them but the tileset doesn’t have them for all the way around the lower section and it looks rubbish.
All ideas welcomed even the most ridiculous because they might work.
I think I’m stuffed ! I tried all sorts of things like blacking out the area above people so I just needed a line at the front, behind windows ( can’t see them unless you can enter that area ), lighting and messing about with the area itself but you soon see why games can never fill areas. 2d would be fine but 3d with a moveable camera makes it impossible.
Guess it’s up to the players imagination, that’s why my crowd just makes a noise and can’t be seen because they’re behind windows now.
As for ridiculous ideas, I would try some low budget movie trick.
An onEnter script firing a convo in order to use static cameras in a cutscene.
A group of a dizain ideally animated NPCs in a narrow section, static camera close to the group, low angle shot (so you can’t really see behind the group).
Then from behind, camera close to the heads, high angle shot (so focusing on the group).
Claudius33… That’s actually what I’m considering in a part of the area you can’t see. But not with an on enter because you walk into this part and are already in the area from before. There is a conversation in the area so I might just switch to static “crowd” cameras in certain parts.
I like doing camera tricks and have recently duplicated a whole tavern in the same area for a cutscene. That way I know where everybody is for the cameras and they haven’t moved out of the way for the PC or spoken to him/ her and shifted position, now they all smile for the camera !
If you remove all the scripts from the npcs, they will just stand there. Since there’s no scripts for them to run, I’d imagine you could place more npcs than you normally would.
Did you try also (for the background at least) using a billboard special effect, with a picture of the crowd as the texture file? It will obviously look static, but with kamal’s trick just above, maybe that’d be enough to give the impression of a lot of people.