Traveling

[freec]

Wait, gateways are one way? I thought they were two way? Frequently characters go through, do something, then return.

 

They are not oneway but you can only walk in from one side. You make a gateway facing towards you, if you walk around it you can still see through it but you cant enter from that side.

[Roxinos]

I'm entertaining myself:

 

[dEVabox]

Ahhahaha love the last one.

 

Yes, I think we can forgo the elevator doors one. I like your first animation, maybe I'll do it in After Effects for a more, ahem, pleasing gif, ;)

[Roxinos]

Hey, I never said I was an artist. :-p

[Byzantine279]

The best way I can put it is to imagine a clear tv sitting in a field, then turning that tv on and being able to step through it. That is a gateway, basically window that goes somewhere else, and has perfectly thin edges.

[Kudzu]

Here's a basic mock up of how it is in my head. The rotating reference for me is an illusion, imagine the initial line a door side on, this rotates on it's axis to reveal the scene behind.

 

[LeeM.Erickson]

The funny thing about Traveling is that, for such an important part of the Age of Legends and the Third Age, by the time our Age comes around the legend has only been preserved in the form of a basketball penalty.

[LemonPastie]

Think of it like a picture that someone holds so that you are looking directly at one side (can only see one edge and nothing else) the person then turns the picture around so you are looking directly at the front of it. This is what it looks like rotating although the partially open gate is never on an angle from you.

 

Better yet. Imagine you have recorded your friend turning the picture around. You now project just the picture part onto a wall and watch it turn. This will be 2 dimensional and you will still see the 'gateway' appear as if rotating into view.

[Roxinos]

Think of it like a picture that someone holds so that you are looking directly at one side (can only see one edge and nothing else) the person then turns the picture around so you are looking directly at the front of it. This is what it looks like rotating although the partially open gate is never on an angle from you.

 

Better yet. Imagine you have recorded your friend turning the picture around. You now project just the picture part onto a wall and watch it turn. This will be 2 dimensional and you will still see the 'gateway' appear as if rotating into view.

 

If it were as you described, there would be no illusion of rotation. You would effectively see as Kudzu's GIF displays.

[freec]

What bothers me about traveling is that it was lost. If there was just one thing you would pass on in a world of chaos where society and infrastructure were falling apart it would be a way to transport yourself. We know it can be taught to people of insufficient strength to make a walkthrough portal on their own yet none of the Aes Sedai who formed the white tower knew it, some of them had to be AOL Aes Sedai. I guess it's just a piece of early bookism that Jordan had to stick to once established.

[rand4747]

They just had no time to teach students when fighting for their lives through the breaking. Likely no original aes sedai or very few survived till the end of the breaking. Either old age or a violent death.

[Plato]

I've always imagined the hyperspace jumps used in the Homeworld series combined with the portals from World of Warcraft...

 

But I play too many videogames.

[Pinzarn]

@SealedToTheFalme: I know what the gateway DOES, its just the opening process that intrigues me.

 

I think someone will need to draw out some animations and everyone decide on the final animation/drawing. I kinda still feel at a loss as to what the process of the opening looks like. The elevator doors one was kinda good, but it's the ROTATING bit that always throws me off.

 

I've always invisisioned something like a very thin glass rotating door that just gets wider as it spins, going from thin line to fully open in a single 360 degree turn.

 

A.

 

I have pictured as starting like there is a mirror and you are viewing the mirror from the edge. Slowly, the whole miror is rotated just 90 degrees towards you so you are facing the front.

 

From the front, you see a vertical line (edge of mirror) to an expanding view to where you settle on the full width of the mirror.

From the back, you see a vertical line (edge of mirrior) to an expanded "cloudy" or "hazy" view or the back of the mirror that is the same width as the front.

 

Where the mirror analogy falls down is from the side. I always pictured the side being a veritcal line and remaining a vertical line the whole time.

[mandersen]

@SealedToTheFalme: I know what the gateway DOES, its just the opening process that intrigues me.

 

I think someone will need to draw out some animations and everyone decide on the final animation/drawing. I kinda still feel at a loss as to what the process of the opening looks like. The elevator doors one was kinda good, but it's the ROTATING bit that always throws me off.

 

I've always invisisioned something like a very thin glass rotating door that just gets wider as it spins, going from thin line to fully open in a single 360 degree turn.

 

A.

 

I have pictured as starting like there is a mirror and you are viewing the mirror from the edge. Slowly, the whole miror is rotated just 90 degrees towards you so you are facing the front.

 

From the front, you see a vertical line (edge of mirror) to an expanding view to where you settle on the full width of the mirror.

From the back, you see a vertical line (edge of mirrior) to an expanded "cloudy" or "hazy" view or the back of the mirror that is the same width as the front.

 

Where the mirror analogy falls down is from the side. I always pictured the side being a veritcal line and remaining a vertical line the whole time.

 

 

This is pretty clearly what's happening. a flat plane rotated 90 degrees will look like a line, hence the illusion of rotating. Kudzu has it right too, although if the image in the gateway stretched with the line, forming the correct width/height ratio when fully opened, it would add to the rotating effect somewhat.

 

It's explained pretty well in the books. i had no idea there was this much confusion about it.

[mandersen]

This is a 5 min. rendition of what i think it looks like.

 

Edit: I didn't know how to embed it, so you have to click on it to see the animation

[Roxinos]

There's no rotation in your rendition, mandersen. Just as there's no rotation in Kudzu's rendition. And there's no reason a flat plane rotating 90 degrees would provide the "illusion" of rotation.

 

What's funny is that it's altogether possible that there is no rotation in the slightest and that the sensation of rotation that the gateway gives a watcher is essentially the same as the sensation that the red stone doorway ter'angreal gives people.

[mandersen]

There's no rotation in your rendition, mandersen. Just as there's no rotation in Kudzu's rendition. And there's no reason a flat plane rotating 90 degrees would provide the "illusion" of rotation.

 

What's funny is that it's altogether possible that there is no rotation in the slightest and that the sensation of rotation that the gateway gives a watcher is essentially the same as the sensation that the red stone doorway ter'angreal gives people.

 

Hold a picture of a landscape in front of you so you're looking at it edge on. then turn it 90 degrees to face you. That's the "rotation", and it looks similar to what i showed. But with the gateway it's an "illusion" because if you were standing 90 degrees to the gateway as it opened it wouldn't go from a view of the open gateway to a line. it would just stay a line. what you showed wasn't an illusion of rotation, it was actual rotation. Trust me, this is how it is.

[mandersen]

ok, so i added some perspective to give more "rotation"

[Roxinos]

There's no rotation in your rendition, mandersen. Just as there's no rotation in Kudzu's rendition. And there's no reason a flat plane rotating 90 degrees would provide the "illusion" of rotation.

 

What's funny is that it's altogether possible that there is no rotation in the slightest and that the sensation of rotation that the gateway gives a watcher is essentially the same as the sensation that the red stone doorway ter'angreal gives people.

 

Hold a picture of a landscape in front of you so you're looking at it edge on. then turn it 90 degrees to face you. That's the "rotation", and it looks similar to what i showed. But with the gateway it's an "illusion" because if you were standing 90 degrees to the gateway as it opened it wouldn't go from a view of the open gateway to a line. it would just stay a line. what you showed wasn't an illusion of rotation, it was actual rotation. Trust me, this is how it is.

 

I don't believe the idea that the "rotation" described in the books is only an illusion comes from anything but this thread. Heh. So the fact that my GIF provides an actual rotation as opposed to the illusion of rotation doesn't really mean my GIF is wrong.

 

Yes, I understood what you meant. Except what you're saying doesn't actually display any illusion of rotation. The only reason you know that there's rotation going on is because you know that there's rotation going on.

 

And no, I won't trust you. There's no reason to believe your description over my own. And I like my description a lot better (obviously). I'm merely stating that your description doesn't actually describe rotation except as an understanding of transformation of geometric objects.

[mandersen]

There's no rotation in your rendition, mandersen. Just as there's no rotation in Kudzu's rendition. And there's no reason a flat plane rotating 90 degrees would provide the "illusion" of rotation.

 

What's funny is that it's altogether possible that there is no rotation in the slightest and that the sensation of rotation that the gateway gives a watcher is essentially the same as the sensation that the red stone doorway ter'angreal gives people.

 

Hold a picture of a landscape in front of you so you're looking at it edge on. then turn it 90 degrees to face you. That's the "rotation", and it looks similar to what i showed. But with the gateway it's an "illusion" because if you were standing 90 degrees to the gateway as it opened it wouldn't go from a view of the open gateway to a line. it would just stay a line. what you showed wasn't an illusion of rotation, it was actual rotation. Trust me, this is how it is.

 

I don't believe the idea that the "rotation" described in the books is only an illusion comes from anything but this thread. Heh. So the fact that my GIF provides an actual rotation as opposed to the illusion of rotation doesn't really mean my GIF is wrong.

 

Yes, I understood what you meant. Except what you're saying doesn't actually display any illusion of rotation. The only reason you know that there's rotation going on is because you know that there's rotation going on.

 

And no, I won't trust you. There's no reason to believe your description over my own. And I like my description a lot better (obviously). I'm merely stating that your description doesn't actually describe rotation except as an understanding of transformation of geometric objects.

 

Well we're both certainly entitled to our opinions, and I don't really care enough to find and cite passages that describe it. But the word illusion i've been using comes from characters in the book not really being able to tell whether the vertical line opens or rotates. your version very clearly rotates and so wouldn't be describes so ambiguously. But mostly I'm convinced it looks like how i showed it because that's how i've been picturing it for the last 17 years, and in all my time reading and re-reading i haven't come across a description of a gateway that didn't jive with that image. So i suppose i could be wrong, but i haven't seen anything that fits the description better.

[rand4747]

yea i dont believe it actually rotates, they do say in the books that it does not but that it appears to.

[Ananta]

Here's a basic mock up of how it is in my head. The rotating reference for me is an illusion, imagine the initial line a door side on, this rotates on it's axis to reveal the scene behind.

 

 

That's how I've always imagined it.

[Roxinos]

yea i dont believe it actually rotates, they do say in the books that it does not but that it appears to.

 

Seriously, show me a quote where they say that.

[bobarose]

always thought it closed on you after your last step it would look like a flat screen tv not rotating.

[LazyMonk]

Right! that's exactly how I imagine a Gateway :)

 

a Gateway doesn't really rotate around itself during opening. I'd say the rotation is how the eye interpret something that is not really visual -- a warp in space. Also, in every mention of the cuts a Gateway leaves, they are remarked for their perfect straightness. If the Gateway actually rotated it would cut in curved lines.