Map-Gameengine

[Cexo]

Hi,
I'm sorry if my english is not perfect. English is not my native language.

At the moment the gameengine load one map at the time like in Halflife 1 . That's Ok for dungens, caves, citys, buildings etc, but in the open land like BDRoad1 and BDRoad2 it would be better to load many (but smaller) maps at a time like in Morrowind. So a Player has more the feeling of one big world map and not of many small maps. Also the player don't have to find a small portals to change the map. And new maps can be load in background while walking. If the player goes over the border of one map he just enter the next map. If the system (shadows, same hights at the border of the map, etc) works perfect the player don't notice that he has changed a map. The maps that are far away from the player can be displayed with less detail and without other players and NPCs. And the maps that are very far away did not load at all.

The Game must have this feature to be an alternativ to WoW. I think it is the best to do this soon, so you don't have to change many maps. I known that this is isn't easy to program and makes mapdesign harder.

[Kaugor]

i think this has been brought up alot.. but in the Planeshift setup in your PS folder on your hardrive, you can switch settings to make it 1 large loading screen, or make it so you load 1 time and not have to again till next time you play.

[Cexo]

Loading all maps in memory was not what i meant. I meant displaying many maps at the same time like you can see from HDRoad1 into HDRoad2 and you can change from HDRoad1 to HDRoad2 not useing a portal, only by going over the border between HDRoad1 and HDRoad2.

[Quitarias]

As far as i can understand you are talking about making the world a single unit with hundreds of exits for each zone.But if thats what you meant then you still should have told people about the fact that one zone is invisible from another.Has anyone climbed on the Hydlaa hill and took a look at East Hydlaa? NO.Why ? Because you dont see it.Its just a hole in the world.
I dont know that much about the game engine but i think that all zones load like the DR.Its just a cluster world with teleportations between clusters of it.

[Feline Prince]

if your at one map, the map infront of you and behind you are loaded and none others is what they are saying, Correct?

[Cexo]

I have made some images to show what I meant.

The first picture shows how the most single player ego-shooter design there maps. You can only see one map at a time. I think PS is using that kind of engine.


Maybe Quitarias understand what i meant. The second Picture shows what I think is the better way for MMORPG. You make one big map and split the huge map in many small cells of the same size.

most of the cells have 4 exits (north east west south) and maybe some more for caves. The 4 exits have the length of the cell. So it doesn't matter where you left one cell to east, it's always loading the cell that is east from your cell. The radius of the green area on the second image can be set by the user. So if the user has a fast enough computer, he can set the radius high enough to look from Hydlaa hill to East Hydlaa. If the user has has slow computer he can set the radius very low so he can play the game too. A good way to hide that you can not see the hole world is to use fog.

[Zan]

I understand what you want to say and have to say I'd prefer such a system over the current one as well but I think that'd require a huge rewrite of large parts of the game. Also we currently don't have enough areas available to do this. What do we do with areas that aren't implemented yet? ... black holes seem kinda out of place

[Cexo]

I understand what you want to say and have to say I'd prefer such a system over the current one as well but I think that'd require a huge rewrite of large parts of the game.

I did not say that it would be easy. But I think it is necessary.

Also we currently don't have enough areas available to do this. What do we do with areas that aren't implemented yet? ... black holes seem kinda out of place

I know 2 possible ways of solving these problems:

1. If PS uses Hightmaps the developers could generate random hightmaps of the hole world.

2. Create some kind of barrier:
- a wall
- big mountains the players can not climb up
- ocean and after a mile the players can not swim any further
- forests the players can not walk through.
- lava
- some kind of magic barrier
- a deep chasm, the player die if they fall down

[Ralleyon]

Got my vote for this!

I love the way newest Elder Scrolls series games handle this stuff, but I'm not sure how CrystalSpace can cope. If it can, this would be a huge improvement, both from the player's point of view, and from the devs'. Plus it adds up to the immersiveness come to think of it. How realistic are invisible walls (like they are now)?!

[Cexo]

I think it is possible with CrystalSpace. A year ago I programmed a simple tankgame-engine with C++ and OpenGL-functions that was using this kind of feature. I don't know CrystalSpace and the PS-code, but if I have some time I can take a look at it. I think it would be better if a programmer that already worked with CrystalSpace and the PS-code add this feature. But if there are no programmers that are interested in programming this, I could try to do that.

[Ralleyon]

You are more than welcome to try 

But it's probably best if you contact someone from the dev team and manage to get approval for this. Try irc.freenode.net on the channnel #planeshift or #planeshift-build. The people with voice or op abilities are either GM's, IRC ops or devs. If you can apply to the team and get this feature as a task, it's very likely that it will be taken into consideration and applied.

[Induane]

What you are looking for is paging terrain.  This means dividing the world into cells and loading and unloading them dynamically in the background.  This is already underway in crystalspace and is already usable.  The issue is that it would take a major overhaul of all of the PS maps to implement.  That said it is possible, and currently works. Also the latest version of b2cs has support for this (aka terrain2), but its the only exporter with support at the moment.  Some of the PT team manages b2cs and recently added terrain2 support.  To get it though you need to get it from svn head.

Like I said before though the main issue is the redesign of all the maps to work like this.  Its definitely a major obstacle. 

[Cexo]

I think it is not necessary to redesign all maps at once. A good point to start with, are the maps OjaRoad1, OjaRoad2, BDRoad1 and BDRoad2. At the border of these maps the developers can set some hills and invisible wall for the moment like it is now. From the redesigned maps to the not redesigned maps there could still be the old portals. But all new outdoor-maps should use this feature.

[John80sk]

I think it is possible with CrystalSpace. A year ago I programmed a simple tankgame-engine with C++ and OpenGL-functions that was using this kind of feature. I don't know CrystalSpace and the PS-code, but if I have some time I can take a look at it. I think it would be better if a programmer that already worked with CrystalSpace and the PS-code add this feature. But if there are no programmers that are interested in programming this, I could try to do that.

hmmmm... http://laanx.fragnetics.com/nexus/newapplicant.php

[Quitarias]

I didnt find anything in the setings about the suroundinjg areas of Hydlaa.Is it hilly or does it have a clear view in all directions ?
Still the idea isgreat and its best to do this move now while there are still few maps.If this is done in a year or so it will take a lot more effort to complete.Also it would be nice to have a change of scenery after a long while.