The past two nights I've spent some time on my Field of Vision algorithm. Last night I wrote the initial algorithm, and got it running inside the game. Today I fixed a bug in the algorithm (hard to believe there was only one), cleaned up, and comment the code. I'm using both the Midpoint Circle Algorithm and the Bresenham's Line Algorithm together to calculate the field. It stores the field with each point keyed based on how far away from the original point the field was calculated for. This will turn out to be extremely useful when I want to apply effects to different points based on how far away they are from the origin.
The algorithm is built as a grid worker. This allows it to be used by any other object in the system, and fields that have been calculated that may never change can be reused without recalculating. The grid worker class has grown to be immensely useful, and is now probably the most common base class in the system.
I'm writing this post because I don't know where I'm going to go from here. There is still a lot of ground to be laid, but I'm trying to figure out what gives me the most bang for my buck. The current goal is to get a basic working game going, so with that in mind I'll probably work on dungeon depth and persistence. Hopefully that goes as well as the field of vision code did!
Showing posts with label grid workers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grid workers. Show all posts
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The World Model
I've been thinking a lot about my implementation of the world, and how everything will fit together. I haven't decided on it yet, so I figured I would take the chance to go through my thought process "out loud" so anyone can benefit from it. Hopefully a coherent post will come through, since none of what I'm about to say is premeditated.
Before I begin I'll discuss some terminology. For the sake of this post the world is the entire game, and internally this is a collection of maps. A map is a single screen within the game. A dungeon is any vertical series of maps, this would include a tower since it's just an inverted dungeon.
I'll start by describing my goal for the system. I decided early on that each map in the game will be randomly generated. Once a map is generated it doesn't get recreated. I want to describe my world in such a way that it can be created randomly but retain a general look. So how do I go about doing that?
Since my maps will be both outdoor and indoor this lends itself to some interesting issues, the first of which is interconnectivity. Stated more clearly, I need to be able to determine that each of my maps are connected to any adjacent maps. Any given map can have connections from the north, south, east, west, up, and down. This lends itself well to a three dimensional coordinate system. Maps connected vertically will only need to be connected from a minimum of one point, but they could be connected by more. Maps connected horizontally can be connected by any number of points, and for most outdoor maps these connections are on each point on the outside of the grid.
Each map can be described in a text file by a list of grid workers used to create it, and the parameters for those grid workers. The only other thing the maps need to know is what maps are adjacent to it. They need this information for several reasons. Firstly, they need to know what connections to create. Secondly, they need to know what the adjacent maps look like, because we want to preserve the look across boundaries. For instance, if we have a forest map that borders a desert we don't want a harsh cut from forest to desert once the character travels to the next map. We'll want to organically blend these together so it looks natural.
This can be handled in a few different ways. I can generate the entire world at once, but that would take a long time and be a lot of useless processing up front. Also, I can look at the adjacent maps and use their creation algorithms to bleed the two maps together. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but probably the best solution. The bleed algorithms will have to be pretty intelligent, or a wide view of the world will just end up looking like a bunch of rectangles loosely connected. I'll probably need something in addition to bleeding, like the ability to set percentages on a given map. For instance, 25% of the north and west will be desert, while the remainder will be forest. I feel this is a problem I'll be fighting with for awhile.
This system will allow me to create a relatively complex world that is still randomly generated. Each map on subsequent plays will look slightly different. I'm worried that this will be stale, and if that lends itself to be true I'll have to think of a different system. The only other thing I can think of is instead of defining individual maps I would define regions. A forest could be anywhere from 2 to 5 maps large. There is a dungeon somewhere within a 5 map radius of this point. Stuff like that. Only time will tell.
I think I've said all I can say on this topic for now (or want to). As always, any comments are welcome!
Before I begin I'll discuss some terminology. For the sake of this post the world is the entire game, and internally this is a collection of maps. A map is a single screen within the game. A dungeon is any vertical series of maps, this would include a tower since it's just an inverted dungeon.
I'll start by describing my goal for the system. I decided early on that each map in the game will be randomly generated. Once a map is generated it doesn't get recreated. I want to describe my world in such a way that it can be created randomly but retain a general look. So how do I go about doing that?
Since my maps will be both outdoor and indoor this lends itself to some interesting issues, the first of which is interconnectivity. Stated more clearly, I need to be able to determine that each of my maps are connected to any adjacent maps. Any given map can have connections from the north, south, east, west, up, and down. This lends itself well to a three dimensional coordinate system. Maps connected vertically will only need to be connected from a minimum of one point, but they could be connected by more. Maps connected horizontally can be connected by any number of points, and for most outdoor maps these connections are on each point on the outside of the grid.
Each map can be described in a text file by a list of grid workers used to create it, and the parameters for those grid workers. The only other thing the maps need to know is what maps are adjacent to it. They need this information for several reasons. Firstly, they need to know what connections to create. Secondly, they need to know what the adjacent maps look like, because we want to preserve the look across boundaries. For instance, if we have a forest map that borders a desert we don't want a harsh cut from forest to desert once the character travels to the next map. We'll want to organically blend these together so it looks natural.
This can be handled in a few different ways. I can generate the entire world at once, but that would take a long time and be a lot of useless processing up front. Also, I can look at the adjacent maps and use their creation algorithms to bleed the two maps together. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds, but probably the best solution. The bleed algorithms will have to be pretty intelligent, or a wide view of the world will just end up looking like a bunch of rectangles loosely connected. I'll probably need something in addition to bleeding, like the ability to set percentages on a given map. For instance, 25% of the north and west will be desert, while the remainder will be forest. I feel this is a problem I'll be fighting with for awhile.
This system will allow me to create a relatively complex world that is still randomly generated. Each map on subsequent plays will look slightly different. I'm worried that this will be stale, and if that lends itself to be true I'll have to think of a different system. The only other thing I can think of is instead of defining individual maps I would define regions. A forest could be anywhere from 2 to 5 maps large. There is a dungeon somewhere within a 5 map radius of this point. Stuff like that. Only time will tell.
I think I've said all I can say on this topic for now (or want to). As always, any comments are welcome!
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