Seeking feedback on a new screen shake feature

[BigBuckBunny]

Hello everyone,

I’ve been experimenting a bit with the source code and came up with a simple screen-shake system that could help improve the sense of immersion in the game.
The effect is a standard screen shake with a linear fade-out. It triggers when an explosion occurs near the player, with the intensity scaling based on the distance between the camera and the explosion.

The shake also applies when the explosion happens behind objects, but with reduced intensity to simulate the dampening effect of walls. Similarly, the intensity is lowered when the explosion occurs behind the player, to keep the effect from becoming too distracting.

The feature can be toggled on or off through the camera menu.

I’d love to hear your feedback: would you play with this enabled, or do you find it distracting?

(I suggest watching the video in fullscreen mode to see the camera shake better)

[Aleksej33]

Interesting idea, but I personally think it makes the gameplay less smooth and it fells like something interrupts the game.

[Alayan]

Using the camera shakes when there is an explosion effect is an interesting concept, but using a bowling ball on another kart and getting a shake effect as a result looks strange to me. In general, like with the PR for speed-based shakes, I'm not fond of this effect.

Does the shake also apply when your kart is actually being exploded?

[BigBuckBunny]

Using the camera shakes when there is an explosion effect is an interesting concept, but using a bowling ball on another kart and getting a shake effect as a result looks strange to me. In general, like with the PR for speed-based shakes, I'm not fond of this effect.

Does the shake also apply when your kart is actually being exploded?

My initial idea was to trigger the screen shake only for actual explosion effects. In the code, I added the shake inside Flyable::explode, but I later realized that not only the Cake item but also the Bowling Ball inherits from Flyable, which is why the shake was applied to both. It didn’t feel too bad to me, but I understand your point.

To answer your question: no, the camera animation that plays when your own kart is hit currently doesn't include any shake effect.

I could try the following:

• Restrict the shake effect to real explosions only (I’ll need to find the appropriate place in the codebase to hook into).
  
• Test adding a shake effect specifically when your own kart is exploded.
  

[Sven]

I find the concept really interesting.

I don't like the shake itself at the moment though. I think it's way to distracting ideally the shake effect should help with emmersion/and awareness for what's happening around the player but without taking the player out of the game. It feels like the camera is going back an forth like 3 times that's simply too much.
I'm not sure which kind of shake you are using but I would use rotation based shakes and not position based.
Also with the fast camera movement the effect looks strange when only being subtle, maybe it would make sense to use a different shake pattern when the explosion is further away.

[Chungusse]

I personnaly like your idea but if it looks like this, I'm being skeptical... ?

[kadajett]

I didn't realize someone had the same idea! I actually built out a similar bit of functionality into a draft _feel_ branch meant to make the game feel a bit more impact-full, in addition to the recent physics changes that have been rolling in. I am a bit less liberal with my shakes, as they happen when you crash, hit a wall, or you are hit by an item. Its in addition to a number of other UI additions that I have been talking about on Discord. Happy to see someone else had the same idea though!