[MUD-Dev] Distributed PSW design

[John Buehler]

Stephane Bura writes:

> I'm dreaming here : If the compilation of maps is done by the
> clients, we could use some kind of procedural architecture (a cross
> between procedural textures and fractal compression). It may imply
> extra constraints for 3D world design

I've got a little program that uses fractal subdivision on a geodesic
sphere to produce reasonable terrain.  The technique that it uses
could easily work such that the server sends a few magic numbers to
the client so that it can generate the terrain in a given part of the
world, but where the client does the majority of the work.  Right now,
the magic numbers are generated from the pseudorandom number
generator, rand() and then inferred from there.

One opportunity for hackery is many different players collecting magic
numbers and bringing them all together to get an artificially-accurate
map of the world.  Of course, any intent hacker can take whatever you
send to the client and eventually map your world.  In that fractal
subdivision can generate fast quantities of data, most hackers
probably won't want to do it.  The game client becomes the best viewer
of game data.

The factral program can be found at:

  http://communities.msn.com/JMFB/files/Terrain2.exe

with a somewhat less compute-intensive version at

  http://communities.msn.com/JMFB/files/Terrain.zip

Note that it's on an MSN 'communities' page, which can mean that you
may have to create a quick MSN membership.  My apologies, but that's
the only web space that I have.  The first version brings my 866MHz
system to its knees.  I believe the second can be run on most systems.

Personally, I don't see a big problem with game designers simply
looking around in a huge world for places that catch their fancy and
put interesting content in those areas.  I like the idea of having a
realistic terrain into which I can craft a story, versus
artificially-constructing terrain features in order to facilitate
unusual story ideas.  In any case, the 'tweaked fractal' approach
should permit plenty of control over the planet's structure.  To save
myself hassle, I left most everything random.

JB


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