[MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's

[D. B. Brown]

-----Original Message-----
From: J C Lawrence <claw at under.engr.sgi.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Wednesday, August 05, 1998 4:30 PM
Subject: [MUD-Dev] Re: Alternate UOL's 


>One of the larger hurdles for graphical MUD is artwork.  Its difficult 
>to make it attractive, and the people who can do that reliably tend to 
>be expensive -- which largely pushes it beyond hobbiest wallets.
>
>UOL comes with a nice collection of reasonably attractive tile-based
>artwork ready and ripe for the picking (as long as you ignore
>copyright concerns).  Additionally tile-based graphics are easy to
>program and do supporting client protocols for (esp compared to full
>3D), and are at the level that college students or amateur programmers
>can be expected to have mastered with reasonable competancy.
>
>Ergo, I think we'll be seeing a whole raft of UOL clones a couple yers
>from now.  I know I entertained the idea of, umm, abusing their
>graphic sets.


Actually, I've been putting some thought into this, (as I'm interested
in making a graphical world, but belong to that "not much in the wallet"
category) and I don't think tile-based is the way to go.  From my
perspective, tile-based is a bit easier to make engine-wise, but once
I'm done with the engine, I have a lot of art left to do.  The problem
is, I'm adept in ways of design and implementation, but I can't draw
a straight line, let alone a good-looking tile.

>From my analysis, 3D is really the only way for a small group to go.
Yes, the engine will take more time to complete, but with wonders such
as OpenGL and related APIs, the base tools are availible.

The real savings is the artwork -- once you have a good 3D model of
a human, with little modification, you have everything you need to
display.  Instead of a tile for every frame of animation for every
character displayed, you need the model, textures, and animations,
and typically the model and animations can be shared across multiple
characters.

D. B. Brown
"There's just a trace of pride upon our fixed grins
 For there is no business like the show we're in"
    -Jethro Tull, "Sealion"