P-0

I believe I am close to being able to make another attempt at spherical terrain.

If this idea works, I should be able to not only produce spherical terrain, but I should be able to scale it to an arbitrary size as well, without having to do any additional work. It should also be extremely efficient. This is ideal for the project that I am working on.

The idea would be to create six quad trees, one for each face, as I am doing with my current terrain. I will generate a seed value for each “planet”, and then use that seed value to produce reproducible seed values for each face. IE, each face’s random seed can be reliably obtained from the initial seed value only.

From there, I will need to further subdivide the six quad tree faces. This is the tricky part. One way I could do this is to populate the quad tree down to the required resolution with random seed value based on the initial seed. This would be done during load time. This quad tree can then be traversed at run time and the visible quads can be selected. I can then use the random seeds of those quads to produce the fractal noise.

This seems like a poor solution, since I would be populating the entire tree at load time, and I would need to ensure that the fractal noise for each quad lined up with the other quads at the edges.

Ideally, I would like to be able to use the ID of each quad, or it’s coordinates, as an index into a noise map. However, this would require either generating the noise map at load time, which is essentially what I was doing (and is far too slow) or finding a way to generate part of a larger noise map without generating the rest of it.

I was sent some very useful code recently which does something almost identical to what I am trying to do. I am currently looking through this, and I should be able to use it to solve the final few conceptual problems that I have been having.

I am not quite ready to return to this project, but I think I have an idea as to what I’d like to try next.

I was generating the terrain before the level loaded, and storing the large number of points generated. I was then trying to create an optimal way of parsing and rendering these points.

A much smarter way would be to generate the terrain on-the-fly, using a fractal algorithm. I could then solve the problem of how to generate planet-sized terrains, since generating enough points to create an entire planet at once would be impossible.

Fractal terrain would also be fairly easy to optimise, since only the polygons that are going to be rendered would need to be generated. I may not need to use a quad tree at all.

From what I have read, using a fractal algorithm to generate terrain is not actually that difficult. It would not be entirely dissimilar to the work I have already done on P152. The hard part,or one of the hard parts, would be making the terrain reproducible. Ie, if a user returned to the same position again, the terrain should look the same. With purely dynamic fractal terrain, this would not occur, since the terrain information would not be stored.

However, by using a seed value, it is possible to generate the same set of points again. I would need to come up with some method of generating random terrain on the fly using only the seed values. This is essentially what the game No Man’s Sky does. According to wikipedia, No Man’s Sky’s planet terrain generation code is only 1,400 lines long! My current code is well over 10,000 lines, so obviously there is a simpler way to approach this problem.

No Mans Sky also contains many other interesting procedural technologies, such as superformula equations to general shapes, L-systems,  and a vast, shared, universe to explore. The wikipedia article also mentions complex behaviour emerging from simple AI rules, this is similiar to the type of work I am doing with this project.

Fractal Terrain Generation, even without quad-tree’s, should be able to solve the problem of realistic planet sized terrains, even in a multiplayer environment.

I have spent this week working on the gameplay variables for this project. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I am currently modelling food, water, sleep, nutrition, morale, stamina and endurance, as well as several other variables related to the “Life simulation”.

I only have a few variables left to implement, but I did find it extremely difficult to model real world events in variable form. Many of these variables will depend on each other as well, for example a users endurance will depend on their hunger level, how much water they have had, and their levels of exhaustion. However, these variables will also affect endurance in return, in a complex circular relationship.

I have had to make several compromises in order to get the system even somewhat functioning, and it is a lot simpler than I wanted to make it, but it seems to be at least functioning for now. I will need to add more detail to this system as the project progresses.

The first “virtual worlds” were Text-based MUD’s, or “Multi-User Dungeons”. These were essentially chat rooms, with almost all gameplay being conducted through text messages. Some MUD’s had ascii art, or additional gameplay features, but the worlds were predominately text-based.  Even though MUD’s do still exist today, online roleplaying gaming and virtual world development has almost entirely shifted to rich, graphical worlds. However, I think that, ironically, the increase in technology has in some ways limited the capabilities of modern Role Playing worlds.

This might seem like a strange idea, but with the text-based MUD’s of the 1980’s, the only limit was the imagination and creativity of the players, which was boundless. A world could be described in rich detail in a few paragraphs, engaging, interesting characters and stories could be created and equipped with powerful weapons and equipment, and interactions between users could be as unique as the players themselves. Even with all of the recent developments in “user-generated content” we have not come close to this level of user agency in a virtual world. A modern MMO can allow customisation of characters, weapons, and equipment, but this is generally limited to choosing from a set of options. Newer games allow real-time deformation of the 3D mesh, which is an exciting and very powerful addition to gaming, but there are still hard limits on what a user can create. The old MUD’s were limited only by imagination, our newer MMO’s are limited by technology.

The question becomes: How can we correct this, and do we want to?

Virtual worlds are becoming more and more advanced with regards to imagination and creativity. Second life, for example, allows for the importing of  custom meshes from external modelling tools. With the rise of 3D printing, it is quite possible that average users will become more and more proficient with 3D modelling tools, which will reduce the technological barrier to creativity.

Further advances in in-game tools, such as the aforementioned real-time mesh deformation tools, will also close this gap, but we will likely never eliminate it completely.

With my project, I want to allow the user as much freedom as possible. I am trying to create a sandbox, full of the tools and resources necessary for complex behaviours to emerge. This is the reason why I am starting the game in primitive times, I want to start with a blank slate. Most games of this type would either go the MMO route, and create a world full of fictional races, cities, alliances, enemies, and unique weapons and powers. Others would go the social world route, and create virtual meeting places and activities for players to spend time with. I intend to start with a world devoid of human activity, and see what develops.

With my recent integration of Awesomium in T3D, I have also thought about how this type of technology affects immersion in games.

Including tools like this in a virtual world is a big step, for a number of reasons. Yes, there is great power there, and the potential to do many exciting things (especially since the vast majority of common programs are now web-accessible, as I talked about in my previous post). However, including these tools can also break “suspension of disbelief”.

There are many different kinds of virtual worlds, and they all handle suspension of disbelief differently. Some are essentially 3D Chatrooms. They are places for users to interact and communicate. They don’t pretend to be “real”, they are overtly an online community. Having real-world integration tools like a web browser in a world like this would make perfect sense.

However many worlds, like the MMORPG’s are alternate realities. They require deep levels of suspension of disbelief, and require users to immerse themselves in the world, it’s history, and it’s characters, while essentially not acknowledging the real world. Being able to log in to facebook to update your status while you are fighting to save the kingdom from the rampaging marauders is not something that will benefit the users experience.

The future of my project will be a virtual space, not just a game, although it will have game elements. It will be defined as a place existing alongside the real world, while still having some mythos and internal fiction to it. I am trying to conceptually marry the concepts of game-based virtual worlds and social worlds together with a complex simulation engine, in a kind of grand experiment. I am not sure how it will all fit together yet, I am still in the early concept stages, but I am making progress in this area.