[MUD-Dev] Re: How to represent a 3d object...

[Ben Greear]

On Sat, 25 Apr 1998, Oliver Jowett wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Ben Greear wrote:
> 
> > I am thinking about how to represent a 3d object in a 3d world.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > I envision the object as a collections of intersections (nodes) and faces. 
> 
> > The two big questions are:  what kind of data structure should I use for
> > in-memory storage, and how to encode this for storage in a persistant
> > storage mechanism.
> 
> > There must be some standard way of representing this on disk, does anyone
> > have any pointers??
> 
> A few comments on in-memory formats (be warned, I last looked at this
> about 3 years ago):
> 
[ideas snipped, need to look at them closer before I comment!]
> 
> Question: what environment is this aimed at? Some way to visualise a
> particular object (and/or manipulate it) - ie. you're only displaying the
> object itself? Hm, this could be a relatively cheap addon to an otherwise
> non-3d system - a nice way to visualise and interact with objects carried,
> etc.

It will be a space based game.  I will draw the farthest items first
(starting with the utterly distant star map (ie constant).  One will
always be inside this sphere.)  I figure a good shortcut will be to save
a composite at every step (or every n objects).  If I draw far away first
(ie not moving much to the observer), then I can re-use much of the
previous frame's computation...  Each object will be able to draw
itself and produce some sort of bitmap.  I'll then paint it into the
composite image.  Overlapping will occur naturally...

Lots of things will need to be worked out..but I'm hopeful.

> Or are you aiming at displaying an object within a larger 3d world also
> containing other objects / walls / avatars / etc?

Most definately, although I'll probably stick to geometric shapes
like ships and planets and asteroids and such, no faces or anything too
detailed.  That will live in the mind of the player...


Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
Author of ScryMUD:  mud.primenet.com 4444
http://www.primenet.com/~greear/ScryMUD/scry.html



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MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.