<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: 3D engines for MUDs --> <!--X-From-R13: @vxynf Syzdivfg <q97ryzNqgrx.punyzref.fr> --> <!--X-Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 15:12:14 +0000 --> <!--X-Message-Id: Pine.SOL.3.96.980325151943.6296A-100000#licia,dtek.chalmers.se --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: c=US%a=_%p=EA%l=MOLACH-980324152258Z-150644#molach,origin.ea.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, 3D engines for MUDs</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00895.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00897.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00875.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00898.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00896">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00896">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00896">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>3D engines for MUDs</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: "'<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A>'" <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A>></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: 3D engines for MUDs </LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Niklas Elmqvist <<A HREF="mailto:d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se">d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 16:12:10 +0100 (MET)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: Niklas Elmqvist <<A HREF="mailto:d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se">d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se</A>></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> [Koster, Raph:] > Voxels look great at a distance, and start to "pixelate" really badly > as you get close to them. Also, most data files I have seen for voxel > objects (as opposed to voxel terrain) are really large. Lastly, if > you're doing anything flat, voxels are a waste, as one poly can handle > flat very easily, but you need hundreds of thousands of (individually > tracked) voxels in current voxel engines. As mentioned earlier, using triangle-reduction techniques such as TIN (Triangle Irregular Network, I believe) you can reduce the polygon-count of your polygon landscapes like you suggest by approximating large flat areas with large triangles instead of having fixed-size triangles arranged in a grid (which really is no better than the voxel approach, only that you get more 'meat' out of the polygon approach since a polygon generally is larger than one unit across, like voxels are). Compressing the terrain in this way may be desirable for a networked application such as a MUD where you want to send the terrain data to the client. However, from my own (albeit limited) experience with TINs and the comments in the heightfield rendering paper I will post shortly, the TIN approach and similar methods really do decrease the size of the data structure greatly, but this at the cost of rendering performance (that is, determining which triangles should be part of the current scene). This is contrary to current game programming idioms such as BSPs where the aim is to trade long generation times and (often vastly) increased polygon counts for faster run-time performance. Another problem with the TIN approach is that although the heights of a specific region may very well be approximated with a large triangle, the textures of this region may not. That is, according to your texture map (which tells you what kind of texture you want in different parts of the map), this large polygon should in reality be texture-mapped with quite a lot of different textures. This is hard if not next to impossible with today's 3D accelerators, and not something I would like to write and get any measure of performance out of it ("Gee, let's put together this large texture with these small ones, there, looks good. Here, texture mapper, here's your new texture."). So, IMHO, we're currently stuck with having to use fixed-size triangle grids/meshes. That said, the technique of continous LOD (see the paper) is of course a very useful approach here to increase rendering performance. > Not to say voxels are bad--they are phenomenal looking in any sort of > overhead view application, or fixed distance application. They also do > great at terrain as long as you can't get too close to the terrain. > They're currently getting trendy in computer game development > circles, though the concept has been around since the 70s. I seem to recall reading something about 3D sprites in Game Developer where they apparently were using some kind of voxel approach to model extremely good-looking three-dimensional characters. Not polygon-based models, mind you, but extremely organic-looking and smooth characters where even things such as belt buckles and facial features are 'real', i.e. not 'artificial' using texture-maps. Take a look at <URL:<A HREF="http://www.animatek.com/caviar.htm">http://www.animatek.com/caviar.htm</A>> to see these amazing-looking characters. I believe there is a viewer available for Windows 95/NT. Animatek also has an amazing 3D landscape generator/builder called World Builder. Too bad they're not doing this under the GPL *cough*. -- Niklas Elmqvist (d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se) ---------------------- "You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look." - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="00898" HREF="msg00898.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Ling <K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00875" HREF="msg00875.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> "Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00895.html">Heightfield Terrain Rendering Paper</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00897.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00875.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00898.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00896"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00896"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00880" HREF="msg00880.html">UML/Commercial v Free Muds</A></strong>, Greg Munt <a href="mailto:greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk">greg#uni-corn,demon.co.uk</a>, Wed 25 Mar 1998, 03:07 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00887" HREF="msg00887.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] UML/Commercial v Free Muds</A></strong>, Nathan F Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Wed 25 Mar 1998, 06:10 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00900" HREF="msg00900.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] UML/Commercial v Free Muds</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Thu 26 Mar 1998, 04:05 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00875" HREF="msg00875.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></strong>, Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Tue 24 Mar 1998, 15:23 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00896" HREF="msg00896.html">3D engines for MUDs</A></strong>, Niklas Elmqvist <a href="mailto:d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se">d97elm#dtek,chalmers.se</a>, Wed 25 Mar 1998, 15:12 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00898" HREF="msg00898.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></strong>, Ling <a href="mailto:K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk">K.L.Lo-94#student,lboro.ac.uk</a>, Wed 25 Mar 1998, 16:08 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00877" HREF="msg00877.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] 3D engines for MUDs</A></strong>, Mike Sellers <a href="mailto:mike#online-alchemy,com">mike#online-alchemy,com</a>, Tue 24 Mar 1998, 16:18 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00834" HREF="msg00834.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ??</A></strong>, Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Mon 23 Mar 1998, 07:06 GMT <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00835" HREF="msg00835.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ??</A></strong>, Chris Gray <a href="mailto:cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA">cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA</a>, Mon 23 Mar 1998, 07:06 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>