Faking Star Destroyer scale with tiny NPCs in a cutscene

[DarthStevenus]

Okay, I have what I think is an interesting solution to a problem I'm going to soon be faced with. I have an idea for a SP campaign mod, where a small militia led by a self-taught Jedi wants to commandeer an old Imperial Star Destroyer that is being kept in a New Republic facility which houses a bunch of old Imperial assets like weapons, stormtrooper armor, ships, etc for the Republic's future use. During a cutscene I want to show a quick shot of the Star Destroyer being kept inside a massive underground docking bay (the facility is hidden of course, they wouldn't want the Remnant knowing about it's location). I want to show a bunch of Republic personnel inside an observation area looking out a window at the Star Destroyer. I might even want to show a quick shot of some engineers tinkering around on the outside of the ship. Since I don't want to have to create this enormous map, I figured I could just shrink the NPCs down to the appropriate size and set everything up that way. I guess I'm just worried that camera placement is going to be tough since I'll need to move with lots of precision. Anyone ever tried anything like this?

[NumberWan]

You can use sky_portal to make this trick. Create a room with a window outside, make a sky wall there. 

 

Then create a second room completely covered in the same sky texture. this room should be placed at some distance away from the first soom with NPCs.

 

Place a Star Destroyer or any other object in the Sky room. Place an entity, which is called sky_portal. This small box will work as a camera, which will show the Star Destroyer on the sky nearby. You can also add all other things in the sky room (like the large hangar, where SD is stationed).

 

You'll have to try yourself to understand, how it works. The best angle, the size and other things.

[DarthStevenus]

Oh yeah, sky portals. I've used them before, but kind of forgot about them. That's one way to try it.

[NumberWan]

@@DarthStevenus

To tell the truth, I see no other (optimal) option. I guess, that by "shrink the NPCs" you mean scaling down the models. We've discussed this one with lost of people here, but unfortunately JA allows to scale NPCs only through npc files. Scripting command SET_SCALE doesn't work in Single Player.

[DarthStevenus]

Yeah I know, I don't see why that would be a problem, I would just create some custom NPC using pre-existing models, like the rebel guys. Unless there's a limit to how small you can make them or something.

[eezstreet]

If you make everything too small, the game physics will break dramatically due to lack of precision. Shouldn't be an issue though. Just be aware of stuff that doesn't scale correctly (blob shadows don't scale, and camera may get funky)

[Kessno]

I think your best bet would be to position the camera in such a way as to make the ship look larger than it actually is. As to the engineers working on the ship, I'd make a separate room with only a larger section of the star destroyer that they're working on, but not show the entire side of the ship.