Limitless landscape or creating of large world

#1 Im not even sure what you mean by this.. what do you mean by a 'cell'?

#2 Yes to both, but for the "limitless terrain", you'll need to either do some heavy terrain modifications to the source code of TGE, or wait for the improvements of the TSE, which should hopefully address these issues. It's not a trivial thing.

Teleporting to other areas(or "zoning"), is actually trivial, and it's just a matter of setting up the mission files, then switching missions once the player hits the trigger in the doorway. Plus, this can be done completely in script.

#3 Terrain Celling is not in TGE. TSE has Terrain Celling though. Also loading objects via cells is also not in TGE, and I expect nor in TSE. Some people have moded TGE from what I understand its not an easy thing to do.

#4 Thanks!

#5 Cell is a portion of a map that your avatar is placed, when you visit town that's one cell, when you leave town other cell loaded (outskirts, wilderness etc.). In TES III Construction Set (for Morrowind mod makeing) word cell is used as a map portion.

#6 Torque does not have any of that infrastructure, though it would be entirely possible to implement it. The needs of RPGs and MMOs are somewhat unique, so we haven't put a lot of effort into supporting them out of box. (We could put a team of 20 guys on it for a few years and get something good... or we could put one guy on making Torque 2D and branch out into a whole new set of game possibilities for our customers. :)

#7 In nutshell, it isn't possible to create "never-ending" world.

#8

Quote:In nutshell, it isn't possible to create "never-ending" world.

Actually, you're wrong about that. It will just take a lot of programming, just like adding a reliable terrain management system to the Quake engine would take a lot of programming. If you don't have any programming experience, then it will simply take you much longer than someone with programming experience and intimate knowledge of the terrain hooks in Torque.

#9 Just an idea.
When character raeches the end of map (cell) next map is automaticaly loading (small progress loading bar appears). Next map could be "visible" from current as wallpaper to get feeling of infinite landmass.
I'm not sure, but I think that Dungeon siege works that way (map loading is without progress bar). That game has rather large, but not infinite world (it is possible to wander of the path, but not to far because cliff or no sign appears).
I beleive that is compromise for most of us wannabe RPG devs who wouldn't like to do any hard-core programming. I am learning game programming (I think I'll finish my tetris clone this evening) and even if I'm good with C++, with all of my obligations I won't be able to learn "serious" for some time.
If I am mistaken with my concept/idea, please inform me.

Btw what is Torque's limit on map size?

#10 There has been some discussion on terrain paging and eliminating repeating terrain on the private forums, but providing a link would be worthless to you as you're not a licensed Torque owner.

I'm researching a node-based interior implementation that will allow streaming interiors (I have no need currently for terrain paging), and it's already requiring me to dig deep into the C++ source. I believe that Dungeon Siege works off of a similar system only for terrain since the pathing is already set rather than allowing the player to wander willy-nilly. I don't remember, though. It's been a long time since I played it and it didn't make much of an impression on me.

One of the key issues with "wannabe RPG devs that don't want to do any hard-core programming" is that RPG's are such a specialized genre that any engine that you use will either force you to work within the scope of the engine (such as the Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, or RPG Tsukuru engines) or be so open-ended that programming is necessary (Sphere). It's difficult for any engine to find a balance between limiting developer modification within the limits of the original design concept (pre-made RPG engines) and allowing the developer to do whatever they can imagine (source engines).

#11 Another problem with streaming stuff of that nature is that it usually has lots of gotchas... So that whatever system you use, you have to be very familiar with how it will behave before you can really build a game on it...

#12 TES morrowind displayed about 150k polys per screen (in towns like Balmora)
and thats counting the shadows with maximum view distance.
(How true that is, I have no ideal...saw it on a website somewhere)

( torque wouldnt have much of a problem, and would probbably get a higher fps than NDL)

It Uses the NDL (game byro its called now i think) graphics engine.
costs about 50k per title, if ya want to check it out ;)

while its presistant world was nice, its also what made it slow.
not horribly slow, but not a smooth 60fps either..heh
even on the Xbox in 400x300 it tends to get pretty choppy sometimes.

I myself would like to make a Rpg, but its a slow process...And Im fair in C/C++
but the inner workings of torque still seem somewhat alien.(engine code, not script)

hopefully one of the Guru's will relealse a tutorial/or pack to help eventualy (hint hint...money to be made) lol

This is a really good community, they wont tell you it can be done If it cant.

Sam (Zmatrix)

#13 @Zmatrix: As for NDL it's 50k + education.
I'm new to this indie dev stuff and my expectations are too high, but I am also perfectionist and wish to achieve as more as possible with accesible software and hardware.

I hope that we won't have to wait forever for this Guru and his Rpg project to emerge.

#14

Quote:Another problem with streaming stuff of that nature is that it usually has lots of gotchas... So that whatever system you use, you have to be very familiar with how it will behave before you can really build a game on it...

Exactly. I'm doing this for a specific project's needs, and it will take rewriting a good amount of the core loading and lighting schemes. It's not something that I would submit to GG for inclusion in the HEAD (and I don't even know how practical it would be for a resource since the component Torque splinter down the road may alleviate much of the messiness that I have to deal with now and break the resource horribly or completely negate a need for it). Since I just started working on it, I'm still working through the issues anyway so it's not anywhere near resource-ready. I also would be loathe to support it with anything except the project I'm working on as I may know the constraints that I build into it, but I wouldn't understand the expectations (or have time to gain the understanding for each person who wanted seemless interior spanning) of other teams that would want to use the resource. While a number of games such as Soul Reaver have used streaming levels to create a seemless feel, the constraints put on the games are much heavier than a general purpose hobbyist would normally expect. I don't mind putting myself under those constraints, but I don't want to put others under them and answer questions about why they can't stream 80 of Tim's full castles at once or why it takes forever to relight a huge scene when it is supposed to be "seemless and unnoticable".

@Romano

Quote:I hope that we won't have to wait forever for this Guru and his Rpg project to emerge.

Well, considering their project will most likely have completely different specifications and needs, you may be a long-time waiting. You would be much better off looking at the current resources that you can add to give your game the playability that you need. Then, when you have that, figure out how to compartmentalize and work in areas like 90% of all RPG's. Develop the storyline, characters, and environments in those areas. If, after all that, you feel the need to fill in the gaps with large spaces, look at how you can take your existing areas, chunk them up, and implement a seemless world. That way you'll know what content you have and how large/small your areas need to be to effectively stream. It's a bass-ackwards approach, but since you don't want to deal with engine programming, it's probably the one that will work best for you. Plus, it will get a RPG up and running. Waiting around in hopes that someone else will do the engine work for you will doom your project before it ever gets started.

You could also look at Minions of Mirth, which uses a modified Quake 2 engine and is released under the GPL. This means that you would have to release your complete source code to be in compliance with the licensing.

#15 As an FYI, David D. and myself are working on a semi-stable patch of Terrain Paging against TGE 1.3. Of course, this would require purchasing TGE to use (it involves -extensive- changes to the underlying code), but once you are a license owner, and of course once we get it up and running well against 1.3, it would be available to you.

It's not a "pack", and most certainly will not be feature filled or perfectly stable, so would require extensive coding knowledge yourself to work with it, but yes, it's possible, and yes it is/will be available to TGE owners.

#16 @Romano,
Well theres certainly nothing wrong with having high expectations for your game,
I doubt many people set out thinking" Im gonna make a crappy game" heh
unfortunalty this "Guru", may or may not exist. I wouldnt just wait around.



I Agree with David
I probably wouldnt bother with the streaming world code at first, get the game playable in zones
and whatever core Rpg features youll need for your game.
you may find that it doesnt distract from the game play expericance (wizardry 8 for example, a good rpg, but the world wasnt seamless)

Sam(Zmatrix)

#17 Or Knights of the Old Republic - awesome game, but it wasn't due to huge paging terrains or awesome technical prowess. It had good off the shelf technology, and GREAT gameplay.

#18 @Stephen Zapp,
I am eager to buy TGE, but I have some silly issues with buying licence. I will find the way to contact you when I buy it.

@to all
So this can be copromise: I could create some way of transportation (magic, ship, flying carpet...) that would teleport character to another map and back?

@Ben Garney,

Quote: Another problem with streaming stuff of that nature is that it usually has lots of gotchas... So that whatever system you use, you have to be very familiar with how it will behave before you can really build a game on it...

I know I'm starting to be boring, but please explain it. I am not native English speaker and all techicall phrases and slang are sometimes a bit of mystery. By system you mean OS-es, Windows, Linux... I have some experience with Windows programming. What am I missing?

#19 Hmm... I mean that having complex streaming levels means that you have to have a lot of complex code to make it work. And very few games bother to implement a generic solution that can work for any sort of level. Most of the time they cheat one way or another, or require the creator to add a lot of extra information to the level.

It's really a very hard problem to get it so you can stream any sort of world. Most games that have streaming cheat a lot, or sacrifice quality. Look at GTA. :) Or how many RPGs have loading screens. etc. etc.

#20 Correct me if I am wrong. I've read 3d Game prog. all in one, I could create three or four realy large terrains with many features (forrests, lakes, towns, farms, animals...) and use smaller skybox with fog (book says that only visible stuff is rendered) to reduce memory usage. Is this answer to my question on limitless or should I say large and detailed world?