Object as terrain in world
by The Trusted One · in General Discussion · 05/13/2006 (9:35 pm) · 8 replies
Okay guys,
Forgive me, I am new with torque and my artists threw this one at me. They want to use MASSIVE islands floating in space as the world. For dimensions they are starting with a 60km by 60km surface area.
They want the player to be able to "Fly" under the islands and from one to another. So here are my questions,
1. Can an object in Torque be stood on by a charactor?
2. Can an object be 60 km by 60 km?
3. Is there a better way??
Thank you in advance,
The Trusted One
Forgive me, I am new with torque and my artists threw this one at me. They want to use MASSIVE islands floating in space as the world. For dimensions they are starting with a 60km by 60km surface area.
They want the player to be able to "Fly" under the islands and from one to another. So here are my questions,
1. Can an object in Torque be stood on by a charactor?
2. Can an object be 60 km by 60 km?
3. Is there a better way??
Thank you in advance,
The Trusted One
#2
As for your questions; yes, you can stand on DIF's, and DTS's if they have collision meshes.
Your second question is harder because you did not specify if you are using TGE or TSE. If your using TSE, you definitely can, but I dont think so with TGE.
As far as a better way goes, I can't see any better way with TGE, but with TSE, you could make each floating island a seperate terrain object, and since with TSE you can create as many terrains as you want, and you could make one terrain the top, and rotate another one 180 degrees for the bottom of the island. This way you could make stalactites hang off the bottom of the island with caves an all that goodness.
Hope that helps!
05/13/2006 (9:49 pm)
Cool idea, I've actually thought alot about this kind of world in games before, and the only company I've seen do it was SOE with everquest 2's latest expansion (Kingdom of the Sky, i think).As for your questions; yes, you can stand on DIF's, and DTS's if they have collision meshes.
Your second question is harder because you did not specify if you are using TGE or TSE. If your using TSE, you definitely can, but I dont think so with TGE.
As far as a better way goes, I can't see any better way with TGE, but with TSE, you could make each floating island a seperate terrain object, and since with TSE you can create as many terrains as you want, and you could make one terrain the top, and rotate another one 180 degrees for the bottom of the island. This way you could make stalactites hang off the bottom of the island with caves an all that goodness.
Hope that helps!
#3
05/13/2006 (9:51 pm)
I suppose you could scale down your character and props so the world would appear to be bigger. Not sure of the side effects or consequences, if any.
#4
My team is currently using TGE but willing to upgrade to TSE. We are using 3DS Max 6.0 and 3DS Max 8.0 for our 3D geometry.
I do appreciate your help in this.
The Trusted One
05/13/2006 (10:07 pm)
Okay,My team is currently using TGE but willing to upgrade to TSE. We are using 3DS Max 6.0 and 3DS Max 8.0 for our 3D geometry.
I do appreciate your help in this.
The Trusted One
#5
05/13/2006 (11:39 pm)
Daves got the best idea. really, you dont need to consider torques measurement for meters the same as for your game. you could just shrink the size and speeds down to a smaller scale and, like brian mentioned, possibly have ur team do some engine modifications for things like terrain texture rendering. dont consider 2kmx2km as your limit. you still probably wouldnt be able to use dts for your geometry as they have a limited number of collision meshes. your team really should be using brush-based geometry(or collision) for such large environments.
#6
BUT!!! beware that you should not scale extremely in either direction. E.g. if you start scaling down you will start getting fluctuations in the physics code - small jittering of values suddenly have huge impact.
Been there, done that.
But 60x60 km? If this is a FPS and you got to stand on these things - do you know how large 60x60km is? Populating that with content is impossible.
If its a space shooter game where you just have to fly by them, then its possible to do. Dont use dts though, as you will have some problems with collision accuracy.
05/14/2006 (1:34 am)
Scaling is the way to go!BUT!!! beware that you should not scale extremely in either direction. E.g. if you start scaling down you will start getting fluctuations in the physics code - small jittering of values suddenly have huge impact.
Been there, done that.
But 60x60 km? If this is a FPS and you got to stand on these things - do you know how large 60x60km is? Populating that with content is impossible.
If its a space shooter game where you just have to fly by them, then its possible to do. Dont use dts though, as you will have some problems with collision accuracy.
#7
No this game is a RPG, and a massive one at that.
Looks like Iam scaling down a bit and playing with engine mods.
I do appreciate all of your help.
The Trusted One
05/14/2006 (10:26 am)
Man Of Ice,No this game is a RPG, and a massive one at that.
Looks like Iam scaling down a bit and playing with engine mods.
I do appreciate all of your help.
The Trusted One
#8
RPG doesnt make it much better -even more content to put in!
Just try to populate a standard 2x2 km TGE mission - its damn hard to do that without repeating yourself constantly. Cant even imagine the work needed for a 60 km by 60 km one. And then even multiple of those.
But good luck!!!
05/14/2006 (12:39 pm)
:-)RPG doesnt make it much better -even more content to put in!
Just try to populate a standard 2x2 km TGE mission - its damn hard to do that without repeating yourself constantly. Cant even imagine the work needed for a 60 km by 60 km one. And then even multiple of those.
But good luck!!!
Torque Owner Brian Hill
2) No. Not without a lot of hacking. I think the default max mission area is about 2km by 2km.
3) No clue.