MMO zones/world map
by Zac Cassini · in Torque Game Engine · 04/29/2007 (10:58 pm) · 2 replies
Hey all
I wanted to get some input I had on an idea to make a mmo world-map as well as an idea on how to peak into the next zone. Far as I can tell it would take just as much dev time to make TGE load missions on the fly or preload them as everything else I have to do for the mmo. So the idea here is to make the mission loading as unobtrusive as possible.
the original post is here:
http://www.mmoworkshop.com/trac/mom/phpbb?page=viewtopic.php&t=224&highlight=
The post:
Okay with legacy terrain we are forced to use zones. If I wanted to make each zone flow smoothly into the next I'm thinking the best way to do it is to do terraforming with some external program like Terragen or L3DT and create a huge map. Then take this map and dice it up and take each section and create a height field from it to be used for each individual zone.
Any thoughts on this? Better ideas? I think we are outa luck with peeking past the zone line to see the next map but at least we can have geographical features that line up like this.
Hmm just thinking about this we could probably sacrafice zone size and reserve x amount of meters from each edge of the zone. Copy the west most heightfield data from a zone and and paste it on the east edge in the space we reserved. You could scan mission files for objects that lie in this range and paste em into its neighbors mission file.
So you could see past the mission area into the next zone.
So you'd be giving up valuable real estate but gaining immerision.
not sure about how to splice the corners of the zone though.
So I'd be interested in any thoughts on this.
You can make the terrain larger at the cost of less detailed texture to more than make up for the lost real estate.
I wanted to get some input I had on an idea to make a mmo world-map as well as an idea on how to peak into the next zone. Far as I can tell it would take just as much dev time to make TGE load missions on the fly or preload them as everything else I have to do for the mmo. So the idea here is to make the mission loading as unobtrusive as possible.
the original post is here:
http://www.mmoworkshop.com/trac/mom/phpbb?page=viewtopic.php&t=224&highlight=
The post:
Okay with legacy terrain we are forced to use zones. If I wanted to make each zone flow smoothly into the next I'm thinking the best way to do it is to do terraforming with some external program like Terragen or L3DT and create a huge map. Then take this map and dice it up and take each section and create a height field from it to be used for each individual zone.
Any thoughts on this? Better ideas? I think we are outa luck with peeking past the zone line to see the next map but at least we can have geographical features that line up like this.
Hmm just thinking about this we could probably sacrafice zone size and reserve x amount of meters from each edge of the zone. Copy the west most heightfield data from a zone and and paste it on the east edge in the space we reserved. You could scan mission files for objects that lie in this range and paste em into its neighbors mission file.
So you could see past the mission area into the next zone.
So you'd be giving up valuable real estate but gaining immerision.
not sure about how to splice the corners of the zone though.
So I'd be interested in any thoughts on this.
You can make the terrain larger at the cost of less detailed texture to more than make up for the lost real estate.
#2
04/30/2007 (9:50 am)
There are at least a dozen threads on it Christopher. Search for things like GORPE, terrain manager, seamless, etc, etc. 
Torque Owner Christopher Dapo
Not exactly copied, but sequential, or better yet, coordinated instances of "zones" grid-ed together. What kind of slowdown that would cause would be my question, but what if it was all ghosted in, distance wise on approximation of entry, at the same time ghosted out when out of range (maybe fog distance?), maybe even clipped out-of-view? I guess the biggest issue would be the scene relighting...
In any event, I do have a solution I'm already going to attempt, a bypass of sorts, but the rendering might turn out to be a b****! It'll also solve another dilema, on-the-fly terrain/object modification, manipulation and texturing (if it works, lol)!
I could use some help getting into the deeper workings of TGE (v1.4) and I'd be willing to share the work I get helped with or help in return. Untill then, it's all zen from here on out!
Yeah, I's got's me some big plans!
- Ronixus