Serious Planning

[PullTripSquid]

[Samapico]

[JoWie]

Mapping:

This should be simple and fast as possible. I am suggesting to "sort of" maintain the tile system subspace uses.

I am talking from the perspective of a mapper, how the real system works "behind the scene" could be entirely different.

 

The map is divided in a 3D grid.

The mapper then makes 3D map objects which can be imported / exported.

Each object has a customizable size with a default texture.

The mapper can then place these objects on his map within the grid.

For each placed object he can then change the texture.

For each placed object he can define a Z-index (every ship would be on Z=0, a player would fly over / under any other Z-index).

 

 

 

His map editor can then be configured to enable / disable the following constraints:

+ Objects can not overlap

+ Only one object per XY location

+ The ability to offset an object. (Ex: X=30, Y=56, OffsetX = .125)

[rootbear75]

-all of the important player/staff commands are do!@#$%^&*ented at www.shanky.com

afaik, i dont think he even updates that site anymore... unless someone could get in touch with him......

 

 

 

also, i might have missed this.. but what EXACTLY is the The Continuum Project trying to do?

(make a FAQ: What is the Continuum Project?..... and sticky it)

Edited December 19, 2007 by rootbear75

[Samapico]

-all of the important player/staff commands are do!@#$%^&*ented at www.shanky.com

afaik, i dont think he even updates that site anymore... unless someone could get in touch with him......

 

also, i might have missed this.. but what EXACTLY is the The Continuum Project trying to do?

(make a FAQ: What is the Continuum Project?..... and sticky it)

Actually, we're making a new game called Subspace II. From scratch... Check the thread in General Development.

 

Shanky's site is still up to date since the game itself wasn't updated either... but this is pretty much irrelevant to the project.

[»doc flabby]

also, i might have missed this.. but what EXACTLY is the The Continuum Project trying to do?

(make a FAQ: What is the Continuum Project?..... and sticky it)

Ya this thread will pretty gives you an idea of what it is.

One questin might be why have I started this independantly of other Continuum Client Projects. The simple answer is this, we are NOT developing a Continuum Client. We ARE developing a new game. The resulting game will not be compatable with Continuum in many ways (some backwards compatablity with contiunuum/subspace will exist, but that is not the primary purpose of this project)

Edited December 20, 2007 by doc flabby

[PullTripSquid]

So this engine will be able to support bump/specular maps or is it still too early to decide? I'm working on some concept images for some of the "20" ships, I may have to redo them, but for now every 3D model will be 500 or less polygons and will be in .obj format - just brainstorming some ideas for designs while you guys program, ill show u progress in another thread. Edited December 21, 2007 by PullTripSquid

[Samapico]

20 was just a number out of my butt , don't know what doc had in mind for the ships. But I think the more available we have, the better... Perhaps including some larger ships (transports, cruisers...)

[»doc flabby]

I plan on having as many ship types as a zone wants. Custom ship models can be downloaded from the zone the client connects to (but it will come with some preloaded)

[JoWie]

255 ships is probably enough

[rootbear75]

I plan on having as many ship types as a zone wants. Custom ship models can be downloaded from the zone the client connects to (but it will come with some preloaded)

i was going to say, let the zone decide in the .cfg or w/e you set your server settings to put in a number

but yes, like jowie said, make a limit of 2⁶ or 2⁷ (64 or 128)

 

(could probably do fine with 2⁵ (32))

Edited December 22, 2007 by rootbear75

[»D1st0rt]

Having a maximum of 32 ships doesn't make sense unless you're trying to save an insignificant amount of space. 255 is a much more practical hard limit

[rootbear75]

i dont know... wasnt sure how much it would take up...

just throwing out ideas

 

i mean, are you still going for dial-up connectivity? or are you catering towards high-speed...

im thinking that the more ships you have, the more data is going to have to be sent... (of course, i may be overlooking exactly how much data is sent)

Edited December 22, 2007 by rootbear75

[JoWie]

Don't forget the spectator:

5 bits would be (2⁵ - 1 = 31) not (2⁵ = 32) ships

 

Oh and please make spectator ship 0 internally, not ship 9, 255, 31, etc.

 

 

Saving 3 bits is nothing rootbear, a single letter on this forum/webpage costs 8 bits.

Edited December 22, 2007 by JoWie

[Drake7707]

1 tcp/ip packet with nothing in it is already 32 bytes in size, so a few bits won't matter.

[Samapico]

Don't forget the spectator:

5 bits would be (2⁵ - 1 = 31) not (2⁵ = 32) ships

 

Oh and please make spectator ship 0 internally, not ship 9, 255, 31, etc.

 

 

Saving 3 bits is nothing rootbear, a single letter on this forum/webpage costs 8 bits.

Yeah, especially that ship-change events don't happen 100 times a second either... So the limit will most likely be 255 ships, 0 being spec, 1 to 255 being the available ships

[»doc flabby]

I think we will use 2 bytes for the ships. Giving a maximum total of 65536 ships. Ship 0 will be spectator. Basically assume no limit (or very high limit) to the number of ships.

[rootbear75]

like i said, i was overestimating exactly how much data the ship actually has

[L.C.]

By the way -- for the 3D Mapping part of this thread.

 

Someone mentioned something about a "tile" styled mapping. Please do check out Valve Hammer Editor for Half-Life and toy around with it. I think the tool could be used as an example of how a Subspace II editor could function and look like (similarly).

[Trained]

Ive mapped in Hammer editor alot, actually I still have some old CS maps I made, although I could never find any good .wads. The hammer editor is a very good editor for 3D maps, LC is right, toying around with that might bring some ideas.

[rootbear75]

question: are you going to retain 2D backwards compatibility with the .lvl format as it is now?

that way if you hand out the "subgame" etc... new owners can make maps easily, yet still have it work with the server software.

 

imo, this will bring many new zones up.

also use the 3d thing like LC said,

 

covert .lvl into w/e the 3d standard is?

 

 

i dont know if ur gonna understand waht i said... trouble putting my thoughts into words atm

[Samapico]

You mean like :

 

http://www.subspace2.net/tw3d.JPG

 

 

(from the Graphics demo topic)

[rootbear75]

i thought doc was showing that.. i didnt know the code actually CONVERTED the 2d into a 3d lvl

[Samapico]

well I think it does... that's what I understood