Read by Schine Slab-based animated doors

    jayman38

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    After a brief discussion in this thread, I wanted to suggest something that would simulate an animated door without requiring a rail-docked entity. It would be part of the host ship and still look like it was moving. I came to the realization that slabs, when sequentially increased and decreased in size, could look like a moving door.

    I want to suggest slab-based animated doors. They will allow ships to have animated doors with less logic and fewer docked entities.

    Basic 1x2 Astronaut door:
    1x2doorcycle1.gif

    Normal 2x3 Astronaut door:
    2x3doorcycle1.gif

    A 2x5 "saloon"-style door, suggesting a certain type of slab wedge door to go along with regular animated door blocks:
    2x5saloondoorcycle1.gif


    My idea is that this would be the door type that doesn't open with direct interaction; I view this door type as being logic-driven-only.

    I would also like to see the door send a high-signal to anything it is connected to when it closes, and a low signal when it is open all the way (or vice versa; doesn't really matter to me.)

    Since it could be logic-driven, it wouldn't be so useful on smaller craft, where regular plex doors, glass doors, and blast doors would still be the normal door type. However, this animated door type would be great on larger builds, where there can be hundreds of doors.

    These doors could be useful for all kinds of interesting practical and decorative effects. Since they work with input logic signals and produce logic signals when open all the way, they could be linked up logically, allowing a door to be much wider than 2 blocks. (E.g. One column opens, triggering a second colum, which then opens. Once the second column is open all the way, it triggers a third column, and so on.)

    These blocks should not rely on an animated texture, and the builder should be able to orient them in any direction.
     
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    Nauvran

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    Sounds like something kupu needs to look into
     

    Nauvran

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    one question though. what about 3x3 doors? as in most USDs for example
     
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    Sweet schema for the love of Starmade, yes!

    But Nauvran is right, if there's no 3x3 then what's the point? USDs were the best thing to happen to this community since factions.
     
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    I agree. This would be nice to have. Especially the 3x3 idea posted in comments.
     

    Bench

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    Hmmm. There's actually a fair bit of work involved in making something like this happen. Although in the examples you've given it looks good, I'm not yet sold on the idea.
     
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    How about making every fully connected door segment slowly opens from the top down(determined by the most commen orientation of the blocks in the grouping, if no most commen then up down based on the ship/station/planetplate orientation) by making the blocks have shorter and shorter slabs. Each door would activate/deactivate a logic signal when it was fully opened, so you could connect the bottommost of your door and connect the whole second door to it to get the simulation.

    Can you turn off block simulations in the configs? Because when I stand near my shield/power/regen cores in my ships(mostly stations) my computer runs really slowly, because it has to render each block changing skins every second.
     

    jayman38

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    one question though. what about 3x3 doors? as in most USDs for example
    That would require some logic cleverness, assuming that this kind of block could be programmed to send a signal at the most-open and most-closed positions. It would be very similar to how people used logic on plex and blast doors to create opening and closing animations before we got rails.

    Example 1: let's say we had designed three logic-controlled columns of these kinds of doors. When activating the door control, it would send a signal to the first column, causing it to "open". Once that first column is fully open, it sends a logic signal. This signal is redirected to the second column, setting it to start opening, right where the first column just finished. Then, when the second column was fully open, it in turn would activate the third column and cause it to open.
    And then everything is hooked up in reverse. When the door control is switched to the closed position, that sends a signal to the third column, which would start closing from the open position. When the third column is fully closed, it sends a signal, which is used to trigger the second column to close. And then when the second column is fully closed, it sends its own signal, which in turn triggers the first column to close up again.

    Edit: Example 1 Illustration:
    3x3udssidecycle1_tiny.gif

    Example 2: Again, let's say we have 3 columns set up. This time, when the door control is set to the open position, it triggers the middle column to open. Once the middle column is fully-opened, it is linked to the first and third columns, which are each designed to open in opposite directions when activated. So once the middle is fully opened, both sides open up at the same time.
    Again, everything would be hooked up logically in reverse. When the door control is switched to "closed" it sends a signal to both the first and third columns to start closing. When they both close fully, one of them is hooked to the middle column, and it is trigged to start closing.

    Edit: Example 2 Illustration:
    3x3udscentercycle1_small.gif

    This kind of logic setup would be needed for doors of any width. And I would hope that if the door block can be arranged in any direction, you could have doors that open vertically, as well as horizontally. I'll try to whip up an animation to illustrate doorways wider than 2 blocks before the weekend.

    How about making every fully connected door segment slowly opens from the top down(determined by the most commen orientation of the blocks in the grouping, if no most commen then up down based on the ship/station/planetplate orientation) by making the blocks have shorter and shorter slabs. Each door would activate/deactivate a logic signal when it was fully opened, so you could connect the bottommost of your door and connect the whole second door to it to get the simulation....
    This would be possible by using the logic connections described in my Example 1 above in this same reply. Instead of opening from one side to the other, it would open from the top down by sending an open signal to the top row. When the top row is fully open, it sends a signal which sets the second row to start opening. When the second row is fully open, it sends a logic signal which triggers the third row, and so on down the line, until the whole door has opened, no matter how big it is made. You could make the door open from the bottom up, simply by turning the whole construction upside-down, including the logic connections, causing the bottom row to open first, which triggers the next row and so on up to the top of the door.

    Edit: Example Illustration Animatics added above.
     
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    That would require some logic cleverness, assuming that this kind of block could be programmed to send a signal at the most-open and most-closed positions. It would be very similar to how people used logic on plex and blast doors to create opening and closing animations before we got rails.

    Example 1: let's say we had designed three logic-controlled columns of these kinds of doors. When activating the door control, it would send a signal to the first column, causing it to "open". Once that first column is fully open, it sends a logic signal. This signal is redirected to the second column, setting it to start opening, right where the first column just finished. Then, when the second column was fully open, it in turn would activate the third column and cause it to open.
    And then everything is hooked up in reverse. When the door control is switched to the closed position, that sends a signal to the third column, which would start closing from the open position. When the third column is fully closed, it sends a signal, which is used to trigger the second column to close. And then when the second column is fully closed, it sends its own signal, which in turn triggers the first column to close up again.

    Example 2: Again, let's say we have 3 columns set up. This time, when the door control is set to the open position, it triggers the middle column to open. Once the middle column is fully-opened, it is linked to the first and third columns, which are each designed to open in opposite directions when activated. So once the middle is fully opened, both sides open up at the same time.
    Again, everything would be hooked up logically in reverse. When the door control is switched to "closed" it sends a signal to both the first and third columns to start closing. When they both close fully, one of them is hooked to the middle column, and it is trigged to start closing.

    This kind of logic setup would be needed for doors of any width. And I would hope that if the door block can be arranged in any direction, you could have doors that open vertically, as well as horizontally. I'll try to whip up an animation to illustrate doorways wider than 2 blocks before the weekend.



    This would be possible by using the logic connections described in my Example 1 above in this same reply. Instead of opening from one side to the other, it would open from the top down by sending an open signal to the top row. When the top row is fully open, it sends a signal which sets the second row to start opening. When the second row is fully open, it sends a logic signal which triggers the third row, and so on down the line, until the whole door has opened, no matter how big it is made. You could make the door open from the bottom up, simply by turning the whole construction upside-down, including the logic connections, causing the bottom row to open first, which triggers the next row and so on up to the top of the door.
    Thats exactly what I had in mind! Thanks for clarifyling. You could do the multi-door thing by connecting the second door to the bottom of the first door.
     
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    I feel like this should be an update to the plex blocks
    To all door blocks in general. Not as important as other things will be like balancing fleets, but something to work on in that glorious heaven for developers called "free time".