[MUD-Dev] Condsiders

[John Buehler]

rayzam writes:

> As an alternate suggestion, why not limit the field of view, but
> keep it all clear and colored. However, fade things in depth
> [generally done anyway with lower poly counts]. And give
> hidden/harder to notice things a percentage chance of not being
> rendered at all. But once it is spotted for that character, always
> render it until he leaves the area and some amount of time
> passes. This is more like the natural visual system.

I knew I should have said this in my original post.

My original intention was to have static objects simply stay where
they are after your eyes have swept over them, and to have moving
objects fade.  All would be rendered in grey.  Baldur's Gate uses this
technique.  The difficulty with this idea is the incredible multiplier
that it produces on data storage.  An entire map of the world would
end up being stored for every character, based on their last viewing
of any given area.  If a cask was sitting at a crossroads when your
character was there, it would remember the cask being there visually.
But when next you returned to that area, the cask could have been
moved.  Lots of data.

This would mimic character visual memory quite well, however.

Your technique of just letting things fade out is far more pragmatic.
I'd retain a 'mental map' of at least terrain and character markers
for various noteworthy locations - similar to pushpins.

The perception model is intended to take into account things like
characters or objects that are not very visible such that they will
not be rendered.  This includes the full complement of equipment that
another character is wearing.  The rendition of a character might
suggest 'lots of equipment', without showing all of it.  If the
character concentrates the foveal area on that character, details come
out.  Also, I mentioned the idea that a character can be told to keep
an eye out for a certain type of item.  This requires a portion of the
character's concentration (something else that would be modeled) and
would result in just that one item being displayed with the player's
attention drawn to it.

The whole idea of having the player cause the field of view to
constantly be sweeping about is something that I'd like to avoid.  I'm
tempted to say that a full-color 170 degree field of view or so would
be used, with peripheral vision going to a field of view of
approximately 220.  Too much gray on the screen isn't good for the
player experience.  It might just be a matter of placement of the
full-color area on the screen.

> If you're sitting at a conference table, it's a nice long black
> table. If you get bored and start checking it out closely, you may
> notice some imperfections in its surface. You didn't notice these
> imperfections before, even though you saccaded around the room and
> table. Once you notice them, they'll persist in the periphery of
> your vision when you shift your eyes. If you then pay attention to
> whomever is speaking or presenting at the meeting, when you move
> your eyes back around the table, it may take you a little bit of
> searching to find the imperfection again.

This goes beyond the depth of experience I was thinking about, but it
does tie into the level of detail notion that I hoped to pursue.  In a
fractal world, only the details of the world in the character's field
of view would be fleshed out.  The smaller the area and the more time
spent focusing on that area, the more detail that would be presented
to the player.  Conceivably, this could include details right down to
the grain patterns in wood.  Fractally generated, all that would be
required would be the right seed number for each of the table's
boards, and the client renders them.  The number and type of boards
are similarly generated numbers, and so on.

JB


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