What happens when a mage casts a mana spell like invisibility and others have cybereyes? Can the folks with cybereyes see the invisible person because they are using technology? Or is that person invisible because the spell actually affects the person's mind?

they can't see the invisible man, because the spell affects the eyes . . further-more, because they paid essence for the eyes, the eyes are considered integral to their body and not technological sensors like cameras . .
now since those eyes come with camera built in since SR4 and one can add an eye-data-jack and can take up a second datajack whcih he connects to the eye-jack . . can he route the images from the cam in the eye through the two datajacks to the image link in his eyes, and thus see the invisible person recorded by the camera, which is included too? O.o

The eye datajack has yet to make any sort of appearance in the rules for SR4. And given that nearly all of the advanced rules expansions have been released (Except for the take-a-freak-of-nature-at-chargen advanced rules book, which is in the pipeline) the eye datajack may turn out to be an obsolete piece of 'ware that no one uses anymore.

Plus, If I remember correctly, the eye datajack prevented using the eye for seeing when you had a cable plugged up to it, so your idea about routing they eyecam images through a different pathway wouldn't work in real time anyway. And if we're talking about tricks that don't work in real-time, there's no need to go out the front of your eye and into another datajack at the temple, just set your eyecam on auto snapshot mode, and periodically use the cybereye's built in image link (another freebie they get in SR4) to look at an image your eyecam took a few seconds ago. The mana-spell Invisibility only affects minds of current viewers using their real or implanted eyes to actually look at a scene, and doesn't prevent future viewers of digital photographs/recordings from seeing you.

Really, it's simple. If the cybereye is inside your body, and you're using it to provide an image from either the 380nm-750nm Visible EM Spectrum, -Near-Infrared- 700nm-1000nm spectrum (low-light), or -Far-Infrared- 900nm-14000nm spectrum(thermographic) that's fed directly into your own visual cortex in real time, just like natural metahuman eye of the appropriate metatype would, then it counts as a natural eye for the purposes of establishing line of sight for your own spellcasting and for being affected by the mana illusions of others. If any of those conditions are not met: eye outside your body because you took the optical drone option, eye sending out pulses of ultrasound to be able to display a contour map, past cybereye recording viewed at a later time, or real-time imaging fed into someone else's brain, then it counts as a technological sensor.

ok, i forgot about there not being an eye-datajack, i will give you that . .
but plugging a cable in only prevented you from using the eye to SEE if i remember correctly, so the cam in the second eye would still be able to display things on the imagelink in the first eye i think O.o
hrm, with internal storage being nearly unlimited one could actually allways record and have the recorded image be displayed with maybe 1/10th of a second delay on the eyes again . . hell, even if the storage was not allmost unlimited, you could still do that and cache some seconds to maybe minutes on your internal ram and just have the recorded date be deleted after a set ammount of time so it never is full . .
but enough of this derailment from me, off to bed i go *g*

Here's how I see it: a mage casting a mana illusion is acting not on the eye, but on the mind. It works a lot like a telepathic command of "DO NOT SEE ME" (or "SEE THIS WALL HERE" for Phantasm, or "Y'ALL SEE TOO MUCH RANDOM STUFF" for Mass Chaos). Sure, you could program your cybereyes to take a snapshot every 6 seconds, wait a second, then show you the picture (as overlay or as a "window" in your field of view) . Really annoying for a while, then you'd get used to it. If the snapshot includes a mage who you don't otherwise see, then do you suddenly say "whoa, this picture includes a person, and I'm seeing her in the picture and not in front of me, so maybe she's a mage running a mana-based illusion".... or, if you fail Willpower (plus Counterspell), do you ignore the mage in the picture, as if you were in deep denial or the mage were in your blind spot?

Correction Low Light is not Near Infrared. Thermographic in SR4 is Near Infrared. Low Light is today's Image/Light Intensification.

WMS

And today's Image/Light Intensification does pick up at least some infrared wavelengths. Have someone point a TV remote at you while wearing night eye goggles sometime.

[Edit]After a little research to back up the above claim: At my gaming table, we treat Low Light vision as acting as a contemporary Passive/Active Infrared Nightvision system operating in the 700nm-1000nm wavelength range and delivering a monochromatic image.

Thermographic vision is treated as equivalent to a contemoporary thermographic imaging camera operating in the 900nm-14000nm range (what I refered to incorrectly above as "far infrared", but really consists of the longest wavelengths of Near IR and a portion of the Mid IR range). Artifical systems use various false-color schemes, but beings with natural thermographic vision see variations in temperature as colors that 2008's lexicon does not yet have words for.[/edit]

Mana illusions don't affect your eyes, they affect your mind. Yeah, as strange as that may sound, it's not your (cybernetic) eyes that don't see the person with a normal invisibility (therefore, mana), but your mind that can't perceive the person. However, where you somehow connected to an external camera via commlink and imagelink, you would see the invisibile guy. Only Improved Invisibility would then fool both the metahuman and the external camera.

Or people looking at some unspecified future time at either still images or video recorded by that camera.

Infrared Radiation


By SR RAW the Thermographic Vision of Orks and Trolls uses Near Infrared.

Elves and the like with Low Light have built in Image Intensification like today's cats. AKA the Cats Eyes in Bioware.

Thermal Imaging has not been included nor defined in SR4.

Yes a mana based invisibility spell will affect one having cybereyes, but one note if the cybereye affected target is transmitting the "visual" sensor data to others, those others will "See" the person under the effects of a mana based invisibility spell.

WMS

Not for improved invisibility, which actually affects light.


@Riley37, the invisibility spell is not a "You don't notice me" spell. It makes the subject more difficult to detect by a single sense, but the subject can still be noticed by any other sense, or by things like a door seemingly opening itself, etc. It would have no effect on a snapshot taken via cybereyes and viewed a few seconds later, although if they are doing this continuously, I would require a perception test to notice that this picture that's been popping up in the corner of their vision actually has something different in it all of a sudden. And if the mage is also using infiltration, he still might escape notice. This technique would also be ineffective against improved invisibility.

Another note many of today's CCTV infrared cameras are paired up or combined with IR Illuminators. Also some of the CCTV cameras of today have sensitivities in the 0.001 Lux range affordable to alot of users/businesses.

In SR4 Thermographic vision does not allow the user to see thru walls like Thermal Imaging does today.

WMS

I disagree. Compare this description of Themographic from p.324 of the core rules: "Thermographic vision is a very practical way to spot living beings in areas of total darkness," to the bits from wikipedia quoted above. Long-wavelength infrared is the only one mentioned specifically as being used for imaging and not requiring external illumination.

The same description mentions heat patterns, and a dificulty determining details of appearance. While some Near-IR based imaging systems do give hot objects vague glows, it's not near the gradiation of temperature determination that's available to a Long-Wavelength IR system. The image quality of Near-IR type systems are also typically high enough resolution that they shouldn't hinder detailed observation of someone's appearance.

And it's a misconception that Thermal Imaging lets you look through walls. Except in special cases, Thermal Imaging lets you see how hot the wall itself is. Just as with the visible spectrum, only certain specific materials are transparant to the wavelenths in question.

====================

That's exactly what I was trying to say, but I guess I wasn't clear. People looking at a photo or video of improved invisiblity are just as screwed as those who view it live.

@RP
But the SR4 Thermographic Vision does not allow to see thru walls like current day Thermal Imaging. Since Thermal Imaging is Long-wavelength infrared and allows a viewer to "see" thru walls and other structures. Thermographic Vision SR4 vision does not use Long-wavelength infrared.

I agree with you on several points but I am referring to RAW not house rules. Again an example of Devs/Freelancers not doing through enough research in today's technology, but going with the "Neat" factor.

WMS

No. It doesn't.


http://www.securitymagazine.com/CDA/Articl...000f932a8c0____


http://www.officer.com/web/online/Technolo...g/20$40763


http://www.labsafety.com/refinfo/ezfacts/ezf345.htm

@RP
Those are what types of Thermographic cameras ie cooled or not cooled? I am betting non cooled.

But they can penetrate objects substances as here
Digital infrared thermal imaging in health care
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_infra..._in_health_care

Most breast cancers are not on the surface of the skin but deep inside the breast tissue, also this a a cooled Thermographic camera. One's thyroid is not again on the skin surface.

Most if not all security related cameras are non cooled.

Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging In Medical Therapy
Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging In Medical Therapy
This monitors changes in the skin temps and then some.

In 2070 the need for cooling may be no longer needed, but the sensitivity and digital aspects will be greatly increased.

WMS

Couldn't tell you. However, I believe that a little hard research would show that over the wavelengths used by both types, the cooled and the non-cooled, you'd find that most all walls have sufficient thickness of the types of materials that are opaque or nearly opaque to those wavelengths to prevent "seeing through walls". I'm not invested in the debate enough to do that much digging though.

Can they? Or are they just reading variations in the surface temperature of the skin caused by those deeper conditions? The caption for the image on that Wikipedia article reads "Colors indicate increases or decreases in infrared radiation emitted from the body surface". Under the links listed as the article's references, the first link takes you to a page whose first sentence reads "Medical DITI is a noninvasive diagnostic technique that allows the examiner to visualise and quantify changes in skin surface temperature." and the second link uses the exact same wording in its second paragraph.

True enough. However, it's quite a leap to go from saying "certain types of body tissues are translucent enough to the right wavelengths to allow the temperature change caused by a cancer a couple inches deep inside to show through on the surface" to saying "thermographic lets you see through walls". Unless all walls in your setting are made out of just a few inches of living tissue. Heck, hold your fingers together, put a lit flashlight behind them and you'll find that certain thicknesses of flesh are even mildly translucent at certain wavelengths to a bright enough source of visible light. Doesn't mean drywall and plyboard are.

No, but since the thyroid is the body's temperature regulator, a thyroid disfunction can cause observable changes to the surface temperature of the skin.

@RP
Yes the cooled camera is sensitive enough to measure very small variations in the skin temperatures of a subject scanned. The digital information is processed to make guesses at what the underlying conditions may be.

Same technique/technology can be used to "See" underneath/beyond walls. Even as I sit here at my computer I am causing very small variations in the walls of my room at specific IR wavelenghts. Sensitive cooled cameras can detect such variations and digital signal processing can make guesses as to what those variations mean. Does that mean it exist today? *shrugs* as of now if it exist only at governmental/military equipment, but in 2070 with the RAW power of computers and DSP yes definitely. Good Cooled Cameras today are not man portable, in 2070 yes with in the possibilities.

WMS

Yes, and by the time that heat energy has difused to the other side of the wall, it's an average temperature increase of hundredths or thousandths of a degree spread over at least a square meter or two, and all the digital processing in 2070's world isn't going to unscramble that egg back into a humanoid looking shape.

LOL you must not have seen the effects of computers in SR4 2070. On this we disagree.

WMS

So, why then, isn't the same thing available for the visible light spectrum in your games?

What thing available in my game?

WMS

You're saying that the state of the art in Thermal Imaging with digital signal processing lets you measure the temperatures available on the surface of one side of a wall and reconstruct an exact image of the thermal sources shining their radiant heat energy on the other side of the wall and causing minute thermal changes to that side of it.

What's limiting this to just radiant heat energy? Visible light is carried by the exact same photons, except at a shorter wavelength, so they're even better at penetrating materials. Why can't you have a sensitive enough camara piping its feed through the same digital signal processing to be able to reconstruct the visual image of what's on the other side of the wall?

non coherent visible light is different than the IR spectrum. If I project a cone of IR radiation on a object it heats up, the same does not hold true for visible non coherent radiation/light. If the light bulb in my room did not emit any IR radiation, the IR effects of said light bulb would not be detectable in my walls. The parts of the visible light the light bulb gives off do not heat any surfaces in my walls.

The Minimum Resolvable Temperature Difference of a IR Camera is vastly different for a cooled vs non cooled camera.

DSP software/hardware in today's DVRs/cameras can detect motion in the image by changes in the pixels in the image, no motion detector is needed but in SR4 such technology does not exist. The same technology can detect if a "object" is moved, or an "object" is left where one should not be left. Same technology can "mask" out areas so not to trigger motion detection, also areas can be "shielded" so that area will never be recorded. Same technology can record at 1 fps with out a motion trigger and once a motion trigger occurs go to 30 fps.

Current day camera visible light technology is much better than the ones in SR4 2070, but again lack of research on the Devs/Freelancers. Today very few camera systems are wireless, wired cameras, Network IP cameras and Mega Pixel cameras are more of the norm.

The Devs had promised a revision/Errata/FAQ that would address the various issues with Sensors, Cameras etc, still waiting on that one.

WMS

I can see the argument that it'd affect Cybereyes, but isnt some text saying "It affects the minds! VOILA!" a bit silly? I mean, the Invisibility text says it affects normal vision. Ss that meaning normal eyes? If so, then why would it affect cybereyes? I've either missed something about paying essence makes the cybereyes "a part of you" or it's not in the books. I would think cybereyes would interrupt the flow of "normal" vision. They just receive data and go about throwing it to the user.

If you must know, Im the GM for ArabicJesus' game, and you can flame if you want for "Oh no, killing your players fun!" or whatever. However, the way I've always read Invisibility (and Imp. Invis.) is just they opposite of everyone's saying (not to mention the rest of the group, up until now). I'm just curious as to where these exact rules are coming from, or if it just seems to be a community consensus on how Invisibility works.

you have missed that. if that were not the case, a mage could not cast his spells through his cybereyes . .

Mhm...I took another look at everything and see it (page 173, and all). Yeah, I guess if you take a look at it all as a whole, I guess regular Invisibility should affect people with cybereyes. I dont much like it at all, but oh well.

nobody does, especially not us cyber-samurai, but them's the breaks chummer *g*
further cementing the fact that cyberware is a part of your body once you paid essence for it is the fact that you cannot target cyberware alone, you have to aim for the whole body *g*

How? It's still photons carrying energy. Oh and the long-wave IR thrown off by a heat source inside of a room is just as non coherent. It shines in every direction, hitting all portions of the inside of the wall.

So those photons of visible light are absorbed without imparting any energy to the material absorbing them?

There's nothing extra special about long wave IR that makes it behave differently than the visible portion of the spectrum. It just happens to be the wavelengths that correspond to the "color" that things that are the temperatures we happen to be interested in "shine" at. You put 6 inches of opaque material between your source and your camera, it's not going to see it. Even if that source is making the side of the wall not facing the camera "shine" itself slightly brighter due to radiant heat transfer.

Who uses non-Improved Invis anyway? Most places where it matters not being seen, not being seen by cameras matters as much, if not more than not being seen by cybereyes. Security goons don't all have cybereyes, and non-imp Invis doesn't work against external vision aids.

I took non-improved. I did so because it made sense for the character. Not everyone makes decisions based on how strong something is. I am purposely playing a character that is gimped in several areas because he is fun to play.

Depends on what you mean by external vision aids. Normal invisibility doesn't work on cameras, or vision mods such as ultrasound that replace the user's vision with a display, but it still works against thermographic or low-light vision mods, whether they are in a pair of cybereyes or a pair of goggles.

I'm not so sure about that. Lo-light goggles are effectively electronic cameras held in front of your eyes with a strap. I think you've misread it, but can't check right now. If you're right, that's a glaring inconsistency.