[MUD-Dev] The impact of the web on muds

[Michael Hohensee]

Chris Gray wrote:
> 
> [Michael Hohensee:]
> 
> :Alternatively, graphics could be sent in the form of ascii code which
> :describes how a ray-tracer or other rendering engine on the client side
> :is to draw the scene.  See my webpage (perpetually unfinished) for an
> :example of what could be done.
> 
> How big would such a description be? Is it within the range of the 1K
> that Caliban gave for the text description?
 
That depends upon the detail of the scene, and whether or not you want
to send the whole world over to the client at once, or just selected
chunks.

In the example on my webpage, a 5K file is used to generate an image of
a clump of trees.  Each image is 14K (but could be even larger, if you
want to render a bigger picture).  The best thing about this is the fact
that you don't have to re-download it whenever you want to get the scene
from a different point of view.  All you do is change the camera
position.

see
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9025/graphic_example.html


> :It only takes a few seconds for the ray-tracer to draw a good little
> :scene from any viewpoint within the world.  It wouldn't be a purely
> :graphical mud, but it'd give you the consistency you're looking for.
> :Incidentally, such a system would quite neatly solve the problem of
> :which objects should be shown to a player in a co-ordinate based world
> :(just don't reflect light rays which travel more than X units away from
> :you).
> :
> :Heh, maybe we should work on optimizing a ray-tracer. :)
> 
> Hasn't that already happened in some games? I'm pretty out of touch in
> the rendering field, but I thought most polygon engines essentially did
> ray-tracing of one ray for each polygon they draw, so as to get the
> proper colour/texture for that polygon.
> 

Heh, don't ask me. :)  I'm just a user of graphics-producing programs. 
I don't really know how they work :).

--
Michael Hohensee       michael at mainstream.net
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/9025/
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