Ask Anything About SOMA

**Romulator** · 09-25-2015, 01:20 PM

(09-25-2015, 10:45 AM)Tommyboypsp Wrote: The video distortion is under Game Options in the Options Menu.

I think lothabread actually means more about the graphical tricks behind it.

**DavidS** · 09-25-2015, 03:57 PM

Might say something wrong because I only provided assets for the terminals, no coding, but pretty sure it is an animated distortion layer/texture on top of the screens. Some glitches are also flipbook animations of individual assets that get cycled through (catherines glitches are all classic animation that I made in After Effects and/or photoshop).

**lothabread** · 09-25-2015, 04:06 PM

(09-25-2015, 03:57 PM)DavidS Wrote: Might say something wrong because I only provided assets for the terminals, no coding, but pretty sure it is an animated distortion layer/texture on top of the screens. Some glitches are also flipbook animations of individual assets that get cycled through (catherines glitches are all classic animation that I made in After Effects and/or photoshop).

Oh wow. That's really cool. Is there any way you'd possibly put out a tutorial of the process? I really think it's a cool effect that I could find use for in my own projects for school Big Grin

**DavidS** · 09-25-2015, 09:46 PM

I might sometime but a lot of immensely talented people already made an abundance of tutorials on the topic and probably explain it better than I even could. Here is a very quick rundown to give you an idea what to look for:

1) go to moviecopilot, it is full of tutorials on how to use Adobe After Effects.
2) look up video glitch effect tutorials on youtube (if I remember correctly there should be a few).
3) google After Effects export image sequence.
4) find out about batching your image sequence from .png to .dds if you wanna add it to the game.
5) Learn in this forum community about implementing the assets to the game if you plan to mod it.

I am kinda against a simple step by step tutorial, better to learn about the potential of a tool rather than only a specific use, but still might be doing a tutorial in the future if something interesting and more SOMA specific comes up. Glitching is a fairly widely used effect. Smile

**lothabread** · 09-25-2015, 11:16 PM

Thanks David Big Grin

appreciate the reply!

**Romulator** · 09-26-2015, 01:51 AM

If you can pull it off lothabread, I recommend adding it to the HPL3 wiki!

**lothabread** · 09-26-2015, 07:17 AM

Testing with a bunch of methods right now. it''s looking pretty cool..

Profile picture being something i just threw together real quick. I'll see if i can show something fancier off tomorrow

**Omnitool** · 09-29-2015, 10:25 PM

Seen the vertical slice and scrapped concept art for an early version of the game (a beta from 2013) in the SuperSecret rar archive. Its alternate plot and elements really fascinated me!

Is is possible that You would release this early build as-is (or at least a full gameplay video of it)? I'm sure a lot of us SOMA fans would love to play through it, with all its defects and glitches a beta involves, to see how different this storyline is from the final version of the game. I would pay at least as much as for the official final version to play the beta, with all its flaws and no technical support!

Is there any way this could be possible? It would make a lot of dedicated fans happy Wink

**Rosto** · 10-04-2015, 11:04 PM

1. According to this Facebook post, SOMA on PS4 is running in 30fps due to HPL3 engine being more 'PC architecture friendly'. As far as I know a comfortable VR experience is starting around 75fps. I've read that sense of presence is very powerful even when using low-fidelity graphics. Is this the path You will go: simplify the environments to squeeze more performance from the console? I suppose lowering the screen resolution would be a deal-breaker for VR? Do You think it's possible at all to make a good SOMA VR experience on PS4?

BTW - That part when Simon is heading to the 'Climber' was terrifying even on the flat monitor; I don't know if I could handle it in VR.

2. Have You ever consider using 'of the shelf' engine, like UE4 or Unity5, for SOMA or Your next project? If not, what's the advantages of creating Your own tech?

3. What about Xbox One port?

**PathOS** · 10-04-2015, 11:57 PM

There are several benefits to making your own tech.

1. No Royalties or fees or licenses of any kind. While all the others do have some sort of payment required.

2. Not having to rely on other Engineers to do your work for you. When you use any of the third-party engines you may forfeit some control over how the development of the game goes, since engine updates are common and even an update that supposedly "fixes" things could potentially break your game depending on how you made it.

3. I'm not sure how it would work to create the mod tools and such depending on how use of an editor like that would be worked around.