Heightfield vs. mesh was RE: AC2 was RE: [MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Vincent Archer]

According to Brian Hook:

> Of course, they also have the completely separate dungeons that
> are done without a heightfield, but the transition is obviously
> fairly monumental (i.e. requiring a "zoning" duration).

In fact, it doesnt. Not for all the dungeons. There's a few dungeons
that are accessed using "portals" (the swirly teleporter field of
AC, not the 3D technique of the same name), and some that are
embedded directly in the heightmap world.

To avoid the transitional problem, they put a kind of "cavern mouth"
object (a large stone, with an opening inside). On one side of the
mouth, you're using the heightmap. On the other side, you're inside
the mesh dungeon. As the opening covers the transition, it's
"relatively" invisible.

I say relatively, because there were a couple dungeon where the
transition wasn't seamless. There were a couple of triangles without
a texture on them, allowing you to see thru.

The engine inside dungeons works differently too. At one point
during beta, when you went into some dungeons, your avatar went
black. You were a black shaped man (or lugian, or tumerok) shape,
without any detail.  Move one step toward the outdoor, and your
textures came back. Move one step in, and fade to black.

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

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