Of course there is the possibility of a coding miracle by Josh again where we can have both
But in the risk that it isn't possible, what is your own personal preference?
Would you rather see a massive number of npc's flying around in the system you are in, mining, pirating, trading etc.
Absolute swarms in populated systems (remember, outskirt systems will always see less population, we're talking the core systems here).
But with very basic collision detection, perhaps limited to a radious around the player, resulting in weird situations where an npc perhaps wins a fight it shouldn't have won, by clipping through an asteroid (even if far enough away that the player can't see or notice it).
Or would you rather see very accurate collision detection so that no such "unfair" accidents can occur, even far beyond the sight range of the player.
Even if this means that the npc number in core systems must be dropped substantially lower to keep the framerate up?
Vote, let's see where the majority stands on this issue.
Personally, i'm always a sucker for numbers. The Star Swarm tech demo. The Zerg in Starcraft. The streaks of uncountable space traffic in X Rebirth (perhaps we can get some sort of "visual-only" traffic in the same spirit as in X Rebirth around stations or along popular tradelanes, that dont require ai nor collision detection?).
Post
Thu May 01, 2014 10:23 am
#2
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Is your handle "GamerFollower" on Youtube?
Post
Thu May 01, 2014 10:45 am
#3
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Collisions are an interesting one. We could be talking about ship-on-ship collision or shot-to-ship collision as well. When it comes to game logic and programming, these are exactly the same thing.
Unless Josh wants to SPECIFICALLY code for collisions in your sight range vs. non sight range (instead of just out-of-system), we probably won't be able to get this without affecting shooting accuracy.
Not to say it can't be done. Dynamic collision simulation LOD? Yummy. I'd love to see that as a solution.
Unless Josh wants to SPECIFICALLY code for collisions in your sight range vs. non sight range (instead of just out-of-system), we probably won't be able to get this without affecting shooting accuracy.
Not to say it can't be done. Dynamic collision simulation LOD? Yummy. I'd love to see that as a solution.
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Post
Thu May 01, 2014 11:02 am
#4
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Algorithms for a coding miracle :
With a bit of googling, I found that there are some pretty good published algorithms. For instance "Sort and Sweep", described in http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGem ... _ch32.html. Even with GPU support . That should help a lot with coarse collision detection .
And BTW, I voted for accurate detection.
With a bit of googling, I found that there are some pretty good published algorithms. For instance "Sort and Sweep", described in http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGem ... _ch32.html. Even with GPU support . That should help a lot with coarse collision detection .
And BTW, I voted for accurate detection.
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 5:16 am
#5
Interesting results from the poll though, closer than expected.
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Nope!ThymineC wrote:Is your handle "GamerFollower" on Youtube?
Interesting results from the poll though, closer than expected.
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 6:42 am
#6
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
I was totally on the fence myself. After voting I found I couldn't change my vote and that made me uneasy in case I flip flop.Baleur wrote:Nope!ThymineC wrote:Is your handle "GamerFollower" on Youtube?
Interesting results from the poll though, closer than expected.
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 9:20 am
#7
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
I think Josh could probably pull off an optimization miracle and get it to work with hundreds of NPCs and great collision, but thousands is a stretch.
With good LOD it should be possible. Josh already uses "history" LOD to roughly determine some things before they need to be fully rendered. Maybe a similar sort of thing could be used here.
With good LOD it should be possible. Josh already uses "history" LOD to roughly determine some things before they need to be fully rendered. Maybe a similar sort of thing could be used here.
They shall call me, Draglide! The thread killer!
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 10:55 am
#8
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Collisions are hard.
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Post
Fri May 02, 2014 2:11 pm
#9
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Highly accurate collisions aren't really even needed away from the player
"That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”
– Sam
– Sam
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 2:15 pm
#10
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
I was thinking the same thing. Really, if out of the player's visible range, they don't need anything more than... I guess planet and star avoidance.darkhorizon wrote:Highly accurate collisions aren't really even needed away from the player
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Post
Fri May 02, 2014 2:34 pm
#11
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
it was more significant with your code snipped and detailed descriptionTalvieno wrote:Collisions are hard.
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 2:42 pm
#12
I'm not sure everybody understands the difficulty in detecting collisions... I see some of you clearly do, so for those who don't:
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
Fine, no idea how you saw that in time, but I'll repost it. lolCornflakes_91 wrote:it was more significant with your code snipped and detailed descriptionTalvieno wrote:Collisions are hard.
I'm not sure everybody understands the difficulty in detecting collisions... I see some of you clearly do, so for those who don't:
Spoiler: SHOW
Last edited by Talvieno on Sun May 04, 2014 7:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post
Fri May 02, 2014 2:47 pm
#13
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
there is an update bot in the IRC, it makes "pling" when someone writes something in the forum ^^Talvieno wrote: Fine, no idea how you saw that in time, but I'll repost it. lol
Post
Fri May 02, 2014 5:27 pm
#14
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
I'd prefer more NPCs. 'Accurate' collision is one of the reasons you see, for instance, buckets clipping through walls and getting stuck in your Elder Scrolls and Fallouts. Irregular shapes get messy, and we're not likely to see many 'regularly shaped' spaceships and asteroids.
I'm pretty confident Josh can craft something better than Bethesda, of course, but if something has to be sacrificed I think this is one of the better things to lose.
I'm pretty confident Josh can craft something better than Bethesda, of course, but if something has to be sacrificed I think this is one of the better things to lose.
Post
Sat May 03, 2014 9:16 am
#15
A fast way to do it might be to divide the star system into "sectors", and give each sector a list of the objects contained within, updated whenever a ship or object switches sectors. Distant sectors don't need to be checked - only the sectors directly around the player - and that cuts out a huge quantity of looping and distance checking. After that, only adjacent sectors need to be checked for collisions - but only for spheres around the objects (i.e., pretending all the ships are spheres, to see if they're close enough to collide). For any possible collisions that are detected, it runs an algorithm where it checks to see if the "collision meshes" are colliding - this would be faster than checking shape-by-shape - you simply create a "collision mesh" for each ship when it is created. Many games do this, as it's faster. If you want absolutely correct collisions, you can just check each geometric shape, and you could even write it in so there's a bit of realistic rebound physics (spinning, for instance) if you do it that way - but again, that'll slow it down. It's all a balancing act, and the more detailed you want your collisions, the more complex it's going to be. Convex shapes are pretty fast and easy, but it means no flying through gaps in a giant space station. Detail = complexity = slow.
Re: What is important to you? Many npc's or accurate collisi
That's a hazard with thin objects. There's not really that much of a way to get around it... at least not without slowing the game down. Fortunately for us, spaceships aren't paper-thin, and Josh's are made up of standard geometric shapes, which are really easy to get collisions with. Now, here's the fun part: there are tens of thousands of these geometric shapes. That'll kill your computer if you check them.SyrusRayne wrote:I'd prefer more NPCs. 'Accurate' collision is one of the reasons you see, for instance, buckets clipping through walls and getting stuck in your Elder Scrolls and Fallouts.
A fast way to do it might be to divide the star system into "sectors", and give each sector a list of the objects contained within, updated whenever a ship or object switches sectors. Distant sectors don't need to be checked - only the sectors directly around the player - and that cuts out a huge quantity of looping and distance checking. After that, only adjacent sectors need to be checked for collisions - but only for spheres around the objects (i.e., pretending all the ships are spheres, to see if they're close enough to collide). For any possible collisions that are detected, it runs an algorithm where it checks to see if the "collision meshes" are colliding - this would be faster than checking shape-by-shape - you simply create a "collision mesh" for each ship when it is created. Many games do this, as it's faster. If you want absolutely correct collisions, you can just check each geometric shape, and you could even write it in so there's a bit of realistic rebound physics (spinning, for instance) if you do it that way - but again, that'll slow it down. It's all a balancing act, and the more detailed you want your collisions, the more complex it's going to be. Convex shapes are pretty fast and easy, but it means no flying through gaps in a giant space station. Detail = complexity = slow.
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