Game Maker

[BarryGallgher 0]

how's it going...

i'm a student in a team making a computer game for a student competition that is backed by microsoft, ea among others..
"Why am i here?" you ask.. because the game will be a skydiving/basejumping game and i need information from people who know what they are talking about and i would rather speedy replies and this seems to be the busiest forum...

this game will be arcady with an fair element of realism (sorry to all the purists out there!)

some questions:
-whats the realistic longest duration of a skydive? ..that is freefalling with no real gliding apparatus...

-is there a specific name for those skydiving suits that let you glide.. there is extra material under the arms and between the legs.. is this a genre in itself? ..im particularly interested in this section as it offers a lot of gameplay possibilities..

-whats the longest realistic basejump freefall? ..i have heard 60secs.. does this sound about right.. exaggerating a little is ok

-do jumpers (base and sky) worry about air currents? ..

-if i where to jump out of a plane with a suit (i've never jumped) would i have to worry about being sent into a spin?

-is there a negative factor to opening your parachute at a height? ..i.e when ya just stepped offa the plane..

thats all for now.. but no doubt i'll have more questions as i go along..


Thanks

Barry Gallagher

[grue 1]

I'm still fairly new to the sport, but I'll answer what I can. Take what I say with a grain of salt in case someone says I'm stupid :P

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some questions:
-whats the realistic longest duration of a skydive? ..that is freefalling with no real gliding apparatus...

A little over a minute, from 14,000'

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-is there a specific name for those skydiving suits that let you glide.. there is extra material under the arms and between the legs.. is this a genre in itself? ..im particularly interested in this section as it offers a lot of gameplay possibilities..

These are called wingsuits. I don't know if you'd call it a genre unto itself, but flying them apparently is fairly different. I haven't used one, but we have a wingsuit forum that'd be helpful, I'm sure

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-whats the longest realistic basejump freefall? ..i have heard 60secs.. does this sound about right.. exaggerating a little is ok

I'm not a BASE jumper, but the longest regularly-jumped BASE site I know of is in Norway, I think it's like 30-40 seconds. There's a BASE jump forum here that would probably be of help.

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-do jumpers (base and sky) worry about air currents? ..

Sure. If the high-altitude winds are strong, it affects where we get out of the plane, where we open in relation to the drop zone, and so forth. At lower altitudes, they affect how we fly our approach to land, and winds are also the cause of turbulence, dust devils, and all sorts of other stuff we don't like much

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-if i where to jump out of a plane with a suit (i've never jumped) would i have to worry about being sent into a spin?

A wingsuit on your first jump? I imagine this would be.... interesting. The wingsuit forum is again your best bet

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-is there a negative factor to opening your parachute at a height? ..i.e when ya just stepped offa the plane..

It's cold up there :) If the winds are strong, you are opening a long way from the DZ, and if your calculations are wrong, you might not make it back. You also have to worry about aircraft traffic, stuff like that.

cavete terrae.

[Tonto 1]

Gaming development costs are high.

Hire a skydiving consultant, have programmers do an AFF course etc.

Flight sims consult with pilots, even FPS's like SWAT consult with the LAPD SWAT crews for motion capture, techniques etc.

If you're going to do something, do it properly. There are enough crappy skydiving games out there already.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[mr2mk1g 10]

If you don't know enough about the subject to ask the right questions (and trust me, those questions are not even close to being "right") then you sure don't know enough to make a game that doesn't suck royally.

Do as Tonto says: either bring someone in on the project or at least go get some formal training. You're not going to get the depth of knowledge you’ll need from an internet forum.

[BarryGallgher 0]

@grue: thank you, most helpful.. exactly the kind of response i wanted.. ..much apprieciated..

@tonto: you must have missed the "student competition" part of my post.. i do not have the money to hire a "consultant" ..if i did i probably wouldnt be posting here.. it is a good sugestion but is not possible due to my student status ..
also you are asking me to see it from your (a purist i presume) perspective.. ..i understand the subject is something close to your heart.. ..but you have to try and understand my position, an exact simulation of skydiving does not make the most fun game.. a game that lasts 30secs or less?.. i dont mean to offend ..i know skydiving is your domain, and i respect that.. ..you got to give me some credit for atleast taking the time to research the subject..
i dont want to end with a simulation like a learner drivers application.. ..you have to factor technology as well... game engines will only show so much area at a time.. example"http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/4108/hugelakesea3xc.png"

@mr2mk1g: "right questions"? ...i didnt think there was such a thing as the right questions...
do you give out to someone willing to learn merely because they don't know what to ask.. ..a fairly negative view i believe..
you cant blame me for trying to remove my ignorance..
as for jumping ourselves.. that is something we had seriously considered, and we hope to do it in the future.. but once again us being students funds are limited, we will try to do this in future..
but you must be aware that even if i do a few jumps which would take a lot to pay for locally, i wouldnt be as knowledgable as the veterans here... most people i have asked only remember the start and end of there first jump.. once again this is your domain and i must tread respectfully, but try to give me some leeway..

as for the right questions.. what should i be asking? ..feel free to inform me...

try not to hate me

thank you all for your time so far

BarryGallagher

[mr2mk1g 10]

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try not to hate me

I don't mate, seriously. Just trying to help out. I honestly feel the best and most helpful advice to give was that in my first post.

If you want more, I'll see if what I can do. (hell it's a slow friday avo. I've doubled my quotas for the month and my secretary's nice and busy )

ps: Where abouts are you in the world? From your post times I'm guessing probably not the US?

[AggieDave 6]

Even though you're a student and don't have the money for a consultant, if you went to your local DZ, talked to the DZO and the S&TA (just ask at the DZ) and explained what you were doing I'm sure the folks on the DZ would love to help you out a bit. Also, it would be in your intrest to spend some time on the DZ, watch the jumpers, watch their videos, talk to all the jumpers you can on the DZ.

A good way to be welcomed quickly on a DZ is to bring a case or two of good beer (Shiner Bock is prefered at my DZ, check your local listings though) to be enjoyed by all after the last load goes up at sunset (no drinking before that, NONE).

You might even find that you really enjoy yourself and you want to save some money to do a jump yourself.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[mr2mk1g 10]

Longest duration:

normal freefall - roughly 60
wingsuit - not sure personally. into several minutes I think. A wingsuiter could help you out.

specific name for gliding:

With a special suit it's a wingsuit dive. The suit is a "wingsuit". the jumpers might be referred to as "birdmen". It's possible "birdman" is TM??
Same kind of maneuver is possible without a wingsuit - it's called Tracking. You can do it naked if you like or whatever you normally wear. There are also trousers with vents in them which increase your tracking speed. You won't go for nearly as far/fast (horizontally) /slow (vertically) /long (duration) as someone in a wingsuit though.


BASE times

Don't know - check with a BASE jumper.
Longest times will be for BASE jumpers wearing wingsuits.

Air currents:

What air currents? What do you mean by this?
Do you mean winds at different altitudes? That's kind of covered above - the winds can effect where we land.
Do you mean on a BASE jump, winds at exit? Yes it matters to BASE jumpers - if the winds are too strong or on the wrong direction it can be too dangerous.
Do you mean in freefall? Doesn't matter at all. We are not (noticeably) effected by wind in freefall (save for the fact that it might alter where we are in the sky when we open our parachutes). We're not going to be made unstable by a gust or anything though.

Jumping with a suit:

What suit? A business suit? Maybe. People have jumped in suits although there is a very real potential to have it cause you to spin you if you didn't take precautions.
Do you mean a skydiving suit. Probably not - that's kinda the point of them.
Do you mean a wingsuit? As covered above, yes probably. They're a more dangerous form of skydiving requiring specialist training and experience in more "normal" forms of skydiving before you even think about jumping one.
That said - if you just jumped out of a plain without a couple of hours training you'd probably go unstable and spin anyway no mater what you were wearing. It would be about body position and technique and you wouldn't have any yet.

opening a parachute at height?

They can open harder, although this can be mitigated by opening shortly after jumping out of the plane (thus ensuring your not moving very fast) or with rigging apparatus such as a drogue chute.
other than that it simply means a long ride.

Why do I say you’re asking the wrong questions?
Because very little of the above could actually be translated into a decent computer game. Not only that but none of it sounds like you have the first idea about skydiving (not a bad thing you understand – we expect that – you’ve never jumped) but having absolutely no knowledge about a thing you’re trying to develop a game for sounds sketchy to me.

Your questions are like asking a driver if moving the stick in the middle of the car back and forth makes it go faster because you’re thinking of making a game about moving the stick back and forth. It’s wrong, would suck and shows you don’t know about driving.

If you want some really good input - let us know what you think the good gameplay will be. We'll be able to come up with some pretty good ideas for you on how to make it fun. Remember, we've played pretty much every single skydiving game ever made. They've all sucked arse (from a consumer and gameplay point of view, not just technically). It's a sad truth that the BEST skydiving game ever created is all about stealing cars.

I’m sure if you want we could come up with some ways of making skydiving a cool and enjoyable computer game for you. We know skydiving and which bits of it would translate well. We also know which bits would translate badly.

It sounds like you’re thinking of wingsuit jumps in a arcade style game. That could work out. Wingsuit jumps could believably last 5 minutes – that’s a good length for an arcade level. There’s plenty of ways to develop that into a game.

[AdD 1]

skydiving games suck.. but good luck dude

Life is ez
On the dz
Every jumper's dream
3 rigs and an airstream

[buzi 0]

Try to goto a dropzone close to where you live, hang out for a weekend. Make sure to bring lots of beer. Ask questions , take pictures get pims or Sydiving information manuuel. Buy a couple of videos from paragear. That should let you know a little about the sport.
Blue Skies

[uponone 0]

Play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, that will give you an idea of how to do it. It's really far in the game but you have to do it at some point and the skydiving on that game is far better than any other skydiving game I've played. Good luck.....and skydiving specific games do suck.

[billvon 2,998]

>-whats the realistic longest duration of a skydive? ..that is freefalling
>with no real gliding apparatus...

My longest has been about 2 minutes 30 seconds, from 30,000 feet. That requires oxygen. Average max is 60 seconds from 14,000 feet.

>-is there a specific name for those skydiving suits that let you glide..

Wingsuits. Also known as Birdman suits. (Birdman was one of the pioneer companies in this area.)

>-whats the longest realistic basejump freefall? ..i have heard
> 60secs.. does this sound about right.. exaggerating a little is ok

45 seconds (with a wingsuit) is a more realistic maximum. Most BASE jumps are under 10 seconds.

>-do jumpers (base and sky) worry about air currents? ..

Once under canopy - yes. They are also an issue with jumping with other people; you have to take winds into account so you don't collide with other groups.

>-if i where to jump out of a plane with a suit (i've never jumped)
>would i have to worry about being sent into a spin?

An experienced jumper with decent training will generally not have such a problem. It takes a student a few jumps to learn to not spin when they first start out.

>-is there a negative factor to opening your parachute at a
> height? ..i.e when ya just stepped offa the plane..

It is cold, the winds push you around more, it takes a long time to get to the ground, and if you open it too high (above 16,000 feet or so) there's not enough oxygen up there, and you risk hypoxia.

[NickDG 23]

You know, there is enough talent right within the jumping community to do a decent skydiving simulation we'd all enjoy. I see it as a first person swooper where you have a choice of aircraft, WX, and real drop zones. And that's how we fund it, if a DZ doesn't pony up they aren't in the game. There's your choice of gear from student rigs right up to wing loading in extremis. Rounds, wing suits, and sky boards are also included. You can sim being a tandem master and already USPA is battling against time on the sim being used for the rating . . .

Once you've completed 250 skydives, the game unlocks, and you can also BASE jump.

In order for Vj to work (Vj = virtual jumping) and to achieve full and total emersion the following conditions will need to be met:

- Every time you choose a new DZ everyone there will ignore you.

- You can be grounded, but depending on how tight you are with the DZO will determine for how long.

- If you go in, you need to start a new jumping career, but there is a cheat for this.

- For multiplayer there needs to be a DZ bar, or suitable parking lot, in which to gather.

- The first fifty that buy the sim get an old frap hat to wear . . .

Why not? With wind tunnels, and all the gizmos, skydiving is going that way anyway. Throw in Skyride, DZO's that run off with your money, and a probable cracking down by some three lettered agency, let's go Vj!

The beer's still real though, right?

NickD BASE 194