NEW GM matrix Question, what is it Options

[schmitzzy]

What is the matrix what does it look like in VR and in AR. This i really want to know because i A. visualize everything and B. i might want to make a Shadowrun animation with my friends. This is the one thing i have wanted to know since i read about the wireless world section in SR4. Just try to give a lot of details in your answer i LOVE lots of details.

and for all who will answer thanks! :D

[stevebugge]

If you can get hold of the original Seattle Sourcebook, there is an actual color illustration of a Seattle Matrix tour. Lots of older (first and second edition) books have series of color illustration pages in them. Virtual Realities and Target Matrix have good descriptions too. Generally the matrix looks like whatever the host's programmers want it to, though it will be a digital rendering (though a highend host could be very lifelike). In lower budget hosts they may still use the old Uniform Matrix Construct symbology: Processing Cores are Hexagonal Prisms, Data Stores are Cubes, Devices are Pyramids, etc. A persona can look like just about anything the programmer wants, and IC likewise.

[Brahm]

For $5 or less you should be able to find a paperback of Neuromancer, a book by William Gibson written in 1986 I think. It has been reprinted a number of times so if your big chain store doesn't have a copy they should be able to order in really quick.

That is what a lot of the Shadowrun is originally rippe--, er based on. Including the bizzaro Flechette ammo rules. Keep in mind though that that VR vision was concieved 20 years ago, and by a man of dubious technological pedigree. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a bit more detail show up in the look of Matrix objects beyond just basic geometric solids of homogeneous color. Also go down to your FLGS and look at the cover of System Failure. That picture there is something you see inside the Matrix. Specifically the trading floor of the Boston stock exchange as all digital hell is breaking loose and people, and the Matrix itself, are dying right before your eyes.

You can also skin your VR view with your own selected metaphor. That is what the Reality Filter does. This changes how matrix objects appear to you based on, roughly speaking, what it matches up to in the Reality Filter template.

AR is a simple overlay HUD. Check out the cover in front of the pygmy B-Baller for one artists rendition of what you'd see if you could see what the user sees.

[captainwhizz]

I kind of imagine AR appearing in a Runner's eyes/ glasses/ goggles as a HUD-version of Windows. Little boxes and icons popping up; as has been said, interface icons, styles, etc. can be defined by the individual, but other things will be pop up ads for stuff the runner's walking past, like a shop.

[James McMurray]

That's my vision of AR as well, but without a reality filter your icons could be pretty freaky. For instance, in On The Run there is a hacker bar decorated in ancient tech and the AR aspect of it has lots of eyeballs on stalks.

[schmitzzy]

OK i got an idea of what AR is and kinda was VR is what to know is are the "streets" in the Matrix is it "3D" and if you can give me an example of 1 or two things that you have done in a gae you have been part of if goy may

[James McMurray]

There probably aren't a lot of streets in the amtrix, at least not between nodes, since you rarely ever actually walk anywhere (although that might be a decent theme for a search engine website's "find a random site" link).

The matrix is most definitely 3D. Given the capabilties of graphics engines today, it's probably safe to assume it's incredibly realistic as well, at least in those nodes where realism is desired. for true to life realism you have to go to a majorly cutting edge node though (ultraviolet level maybe?).

[schmitzzy]

a node is like its own small world on itself and it can be designed anyway the person wants basically and you just "jump" from node to node so to say so if i had a node that was a store front type of place i could make it look like a store front as the visuals if i wanted and what does a "link" look like is it a door something i can just imagen my store front node right now

[FanGirl]

Man, schmidtzzy, your posts are really hard to read! You might want to consider using Spell Check, or at least using more punctutation.

There's something about the Matrix that I've been wondering about for a little while: specifically, the Crash 2.0. What was it like for the people trapped in the Matrix during the Crash? The most I can find about the Crash is what SR4 has to say about it:

[nick012000]

If memory serves, the answer to that question is "Yes". ;)

[FanGirl]

So, basically all you'd remember is that one minute you were surfing along contentedly, and then realized all of a sudden your deck wasn't working, you had a splitting headache, and your loved ones were standing around you saying "You're alive!" Am I correct? I'm playing a TM, so this is extremely important for backstory purposes.

[Ophis]

Thats the basic I would suggest. If you want to have had a weird virtual out of body experience I'd go for it, maybe you met the Llama who guided you back to your body...

[FanGirl]

No, I think I'll go for plain old lost time. I think that's actually even scarier than any of the bizarre or horrid things I could think up: you can't make sense of what happened to you if you don't remember it happening.

[schmitzzy]

well that was a fun conversation and i liked it a lot but could anyone give me a little more info about the looks and movement throughout the matrix would be nice i am so intrigued by it.

-- again sorry for the lack of puncuation(i have no idea how to spell this spell check didn't work like . ? ! ect.) i never type with puncuation that makes it hard for me to write school papers but anyway sorry if it is hard for you to read and i don't use capital letters much in my typing

[FanGirl]

You could try typing your posts out in a Word document and set Spellcheck to check grammar; that should help with your punctuation problems. Anyway, this is a picture from the 4th edition sourcebook that shows an example of the AR interface (EDIT: imagine it without the green border). Also, this is what the sourcebook has to say about VR perception:

[James McMurray]

You'll likely find that using punctuation and capitalization is more likely to get you responses. People tend to stop reading things they can't comprehend.

[nick012000]

That, and poorly written posts make you look stupid.

[FanGirl]

I bet he's a visual thinker: it's probably easier for him to express himself through pictures than through text. That's why I posted the AR picture. However, VR can literally look like anything, so there's no truly representative picture that I could post.

[James McMurray]

I tried to avoid that particular line of thought, but it's true. :)

Also, if someone tells you that your post is hard to read and your response is "too bad, I don't do that," you're likely to turn a bunch of otherwise really helpful people away.

[Dranem]

[FanGirl]

[Azralon]

[Aaron]

Y'know, I'm unconvinced that the Matrix, outside of a node, looks like it did before the Crash 2.0. Back then, everything was hardwired, and so the Renraku Pyramid was always next to, say, Bernie's Foot-Long Dragon Sauce Hot Dog Stand. In 2070, this isn't always true any more, since all of the data paths are dynamic. Any device can act as a router, and most of those devices are mobile. You kinda lose any sense of geography without a static topology. Likely as not, the landscape in VR looks like a huge sea of nodes and icons, moving and swirling about, with a few "islands" in the motion.

[James McMurray]

Just because the pyramid was next to the hot dog stand online doesn't mean you ever saw the hot dog stand when you went to the pyramid (unless the guy paid Renraku to advertise).

[Azralon]

For whatever technical reason, each Matrix node (directly or indirectly) keeps track of its GPS coordinates. This is evidenced by the use of the Track action in the Matrix. It probably has to do with efficient mesh traffic routing.

So I assume that the "geography" of the Matrix is spatially coterminous (it overlaps) with the real world. That is to say, I can physically walk over to the soda machine to see its Signal 0 node in AR because my comm and the soda machine recognize that we're right next to each other. Each node is aware of its real-world XYZ coordinates so can use that data to create a Matrix geography.

However, I can likewise call up a remote window to the enmeshed soda machine from a block away. At that point, I suppose a copy of my persona appears "next" to the soda machine without me having to physically be there. If I'm fully VR, I'm guessing the same thing happens. Copies of my persona exist everywhere that I'm currently accessing, and my point of view can "instantly" shift between those telelocations.

Anyway, the upshot of that is AR ends up being more like astral perception and VR like astral projection. Only, you can effectively be in multiple places at once.