An Optic Illusion:
Creating a Scope Effect
Prelude
Hi,
So this is just something I recently discovered when playing around with Objects in Studio, and thought I would share with the Community about, It seems to be very cool way to making Visual Illusions, and what this tutorial is about, I’ll try to explain everything to the best of my abilities, but feel free to help out if I makr any mistake or completely mess up something.
I am most certainly not the first to discover this, nor the last person, but as far as I’ve searched on the Internet, I appear to be the first to really talk about it, or cover it.
This could be because I am an idiot, and did not Search very well to find the Information, or that its really what happened, but either way, a tutorial was made to cover this, to hopefully ease things.
Intentions
For the longest time, I have always wanted to figure how how to create a Scope,that gives a authentic looking effect for a game I wanted to make.
Looking up Tutorials, there were none that I was looking for, no matter what I searched for, and on the Developer Forum, they were in more detail, than on YouTube, but they still didnt contain what I wanted.
From what I have noticed, most scopes in games appear to be just a Gui plastered across your screen to have it look like a scope, typically as an alternative, or the style of the game. Others just had a simple tube with a SurfaceGui pasted at the end of it. Either of these were what I wanted to create, and overtime I just gave up on trying to find an answer.
From what I hope to acheieve with this tutorial is help others to not go through the painful search of this effect to be created on ROBLOX, and just make it into a tutorial that anyone can access, or use in their games.
Questions
Scope Design?
Scope Design?
While going through the Tutorial, you may notice that I’m not telling you how to create the Scope, but only the Scope Effect, This is because I want to Encourage People to Create this Scope in their own ways, and to Design it how they feel is great for their game, which allows for more creativity in work.
Some might say I should still Include this bit, but I still want to encourage others to design how they want it to be, which is why the Tutorial doesnt tell you how to create the scope.
Alternatives?
Alternatives?
There are a couple of Alternatives to create a Scope Effect
-
Dual Render Scope System
Its Probably the closest you can get to creating a realistic Scope Effect, However has its limitations, which are explained in the Topic. -
Glass Sphere Relection
This is the most common Method.
It involves making a Transparent Glass Sphere, which gives you a zoomed in prospective to an object, however this can look ugly, very blurry when it shouldn’t, and very difficult to get working correctly, however it can work very well if done right
Important Notes
NOTE: This is a Bug with the ROBLOX Glass Material
Please note that this is likely a bug with the ROBLOX Engine, and at some point, may be fixed in the future, so if this doesnt work, please dont get upset at me, I dont control what ROBLOX does, or doesnt do with their engine, this is just something I thought would be very cool to share with the community.
Essential Items ( Items needed for Tutorial )
| Object (Class) | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BasePart | Lense | This Object will be used to give us this Illusion, It is the most Important piece of this tutorial. |
| BasePart | Block | This Object will be used to demonstrate the Illusion, It also refers to the Geometry of the Optic, excluding the Lense. |
| Materials |
|---|
| Glass (Both Objects) |
Whats so important about having the part as Glass?
Well, ROBLOX tends to have a lot of bugs, and issues with the Glass Material, typically with how it Reflects, and Distorts things, a good example of this woudl be this topic, which shows you how to make a authentic looking reflection. Because of this issue with the Glass Material, we are able to make pretty cool, and interesting effects out of it, which is what will be shown here in this tutorial to make an Optic.
Now heres the thing about Glass, Lets say you have two glass blocks in the game, you decide you want one of thing to be slightly Transparent, and the other one almost fully transparent, you then apply these changes to the objects.
However when you look through one to the other, you will get something like this: (Highlighted to mark Lense Geometry)
As you can see, you are able to fully see through one of the glass blocks, but the other one will stay visible until you change the transparency to 0 or 1, where the illusion will go away.
This is exactly what we want for our Optic, If we manipulate this properly, we can have a perfectly working scope, here is how you can do this:
Tutorial
Tutorial
For this Tutorial, there will Only be Two Steps to it, which are just to show you how to get this Illusion done Properly, Its Design will be completely up to you, but it will have limitations (I’ll get to this).
Step 1: Lense
Step 1: Lense
The First, and most important part of this tutorial is to have the Lense, the Lense can be any shape, any size, but always has to keep the Glass Material on it in order to have this effect work.
The Lense also has to be a certain Transparency, typically between 0.011 - 0.999 to have this effect work properly with other glass objects.
Visuals
Visuals
There are a couple of visual things you are able to do with the Lense, with one of them being the Addition of DepthOfField, You are able to make stuff in the Distance blurry, and otherwise hard to see, but with the Lense, It will not Render the DepthOfField effect through it, and will give you a clear visual of where you are aiming.You are also able to lower the Transparency of the lense, which can have it zoom in slightly on the object, this is optional, and you are able to change zoom using the Camera FOV. (Field Of View)
Step 2: Block
Step 2: Block
The Block is mainly the Part you want to Lense to see through, Which for the Scopes would be the whole Geometry of it, The Properties will need to be similar to the lense, with the Exception of the Transparency, But in order to mainain the Effect, you must keep it within the 0.011 - 0.999 range.
Visual Reference
Visual Reference
So we have two Glass Parts, our Block, and our Lense, Depending on their Transparency, it will give us a good result, here is a visual of what this would look like when using two parts, there is an extra part included to show what happens if the transparency is too low.Numbers Above the Spheres Represent the Objects Transparency, It will tell you what will, and wont work, or how it works.
- [0.99] = a
- [0,01] = b
- [0.011] = c
When looking at this, you will notice that the b does not become invisible when looking through a, but c does, any transparency beyond c’s will have the glass part become invisible to another glass part when looking through it, but when below b’s, it will not work, any number above a’s will also have the same effect as mentioned with b.
Limitations
Limitations
Like with anything, there are limits to them, just like this tutorial, but do not fear as there isnt a big amount that would otherwise ruin the Illusion. But here are the Limitations| Limitation | Description |
|---|---|
| Tranparency Limit | There is a small limit to the Transparency that the Optic Could be, which for the lowest, a stable range will be around 0.01 - 0.015, which around here is where the Illusion will pop into place, For the Highest, it will be all the way up to 0.999, until you reach 1. |
| Visual Issues | Because this Glitch applies to glass, if you run into other pieces of glass, it will end up making the entire Optic Invisible, It also ends up removing a lot of visual effects like particles, and beams, so be careful with this. |
Conclusion
And as stated before, if you look at the glass in a certain way, it will give you this illusion, Tweak it to however you like it, and this would basically be the end of the tutorial.
To show a Good Visual of this Effect, I decided to put it on a Random mesh I found, and show you what it gives, which if you look at the images below:
Optic Normal
Optic Normal
Notice how you are able to see of the Side of the Scope? That is something we do not want happening when you play the game, as it looks off, and just gives away the effect, so for the UI (which will be on the Lense), it will have to be animated to follow around the camera correctly, but thats a completely separate topic, and a more complex one at best.
Here are some Topics that goes in depth on how to make this effect
Optic Aim
Optic Aim
This is the effect you want to give, it gives the idea that you are looking through an actual scope, and that you are zoomed in through it, and in many games like Phantom Forces, they have a similar effect.
Video Visual
This is a video I made showing off an Effect that It can give when made correctly, its just a showcase to show you what it can do, and how it looks.
But based on all the Information given, it works, and gives you a very convincing Scope Effect that you can use for your games!
Your Opinions!
I would love to hear your opinions on this tutorial, and this Optic Illusion, If you have anything to say, feel free to say it!