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Post by ciaran on May 11, 2011 8:33:46 GMT -5
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Post by Captain Zedo on May 11, 2011 9:37:34 GMT -5
What's this going to be? I love the skylines you've created already.
How have things been?
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Post by ciaran on May 11, 2011 10:58:14 GMT -5
It might be going to be nothing, or it might be going to be something, depending on how much time I find for it.
What you're looking at there (in case you didn't recognise it) is Psycho Bobs 2, and the attached walkway in the sky, the airlock, and the empty inside shell of the building, with nothing but the airlock.
I'm generating a faithful reproduction of the entire Hardwar world like this. It's voxel-based, like Minecraft, so you can actually interact with and modify the world in the game - build new buildings, modify existing ones inside and out, dig underground, etc.
I would like to say that what I'm going to do, once I've finished generating it all properly, is fill in all the detail inside and out, add in moths and ground vehicles and all the other stuff, and have a Titan-based world that fulfills the real potential of Hardwar. I won't say that though, because I will probably never have the time to finish it. We'll see though - I'll keep you updated.
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Post by Captain Zedo on May 11, 2011 13:03:14 GMT -5
Fabulous! Here's to more time.
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Post by riedquat on May 11, 2011 15:09:42 GMT -5
I would like to say that what I'm going to do, once I've finished generating it all properly, is fill in all the detail inside and out, add in moths and ground vehicles and all the other stuff, and have a Titan-based world that fulfills the real potential of Hardwar. I won't say that though, because I will probably never have the time to finish it. We'll see though - I'll keep you updated. Its amazing! So lets hope together you'll have teh time! Would pay to view a minecrafted moth... flying  |
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Post by ciaran on May 11, 2011 17:36:39 GMT -5
I added some more screenshots, and they all have descriptions and notes under them that might help explain things a bit better.
The short term plan is:
1. Get the generation working as well as possible - it's never going to produce something perfect, there are a lot of inaccuracies converting giant polygons into blocks, but it at least produces something usable and recognisable to build from.
2. Generate the entire world. This will take *ages* - just generating the small ring of connected buildings around Trade Central is about 20 hours of non-stop run time on a reasonably fast machine.
3. Start manually working on it in-game, which means a) fixing up problems and inaccuracies like small holes, doubled up blocks on glass walls, b) making stuff look a lot better, c) fitting out the insides of the buildings - hangars, stairs, storerooms, walls, doors, etc. This is a massive job as well - you don't fully appreciate the immense scale of Misplaced Optimism until you start walking round it instead of flying at high speed!
If there's enough interest (which is any interest at all really, because I'll need all the help I can get!), then when I've completed stage 2, I'll put this up on a server, and people will be able to log in and edit. Being able to fly moths and do other Hardwar-like stuff will be *much* further off in the future, but just building out and exploring the world could be a fun project in itself.
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Post by Dark on May 11, 2011 23:17:56 GMT -5
I was wondering about that earlier, if it was also possible in Minecraft.
I played a game called Cube 2.0 (http://sauerbraten.org/) or commonly call Sauerbraten (FPS / Think QUAKE 2's speed) for a while. It also had something similar (in theory) for map editing, which I played around with making a level, just for fun, spent hours of time on a medium sized map with little progress.
Can Minecraft import pieces of other maps? I know it would be a bit of cheat but somethings would be better cloned, like airlocks, similarly shaped buildings interior/exterior, and tunnels till improvement was possible since that would save X time it takes to make an airlock etc.? And is their absolutely no way to round corners?
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Post by ciaran on May 12, 2011 1:38:32 GMT -5
I was wondering about that earlier, if it was also possible in Minecraft. You couldn't do it in well Minecraft because the Minecraft world is too small - height-wise, Minecraft is limited to 128 blocks high, with a block being a metre. Even ignoring the crater walls, the highest building on Titan is over 800 metres high. So you'd either have to scale everything down so it was a fraction (e.g. 1/10) of its original size, or cut the tops off everything. Can Minecraft import pieces of other maps? I know it would be a bit of cheat but somethings would be better cloned, like airlocks, similarly shaped buildings interior/exterior, and tunnels till improvement was possible since that would save X time it takes to make an airlock etc.? With Minecraft, you can use things like MCEdit to do this - copying and pasting chunks from one world to another. With this (which I've just decided I'll call Return To Titan or RTT for now, to save saying 'this' all the time), I was planning to have bots to help with the build process, so you would be able to tell one to build a standard airlock, for example. And is their absolutely no way to round corners? It would definitely be possible to have blocks that are rounded corners, yes. I wasn't planning on doing that though, at least for now. |
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Post by ciaran on May 19, 2011 11:35:12 GMT -5
I'm continuing with the map generation. Three new screenshots (with notes underneath as before): ciarang.com/gallery/general/technical/hwtest/centralmono1.jpg/viewThis is Central Monorail. As before, the most surprising thing is the vast scale of everything. There was another surprise in here too though - the monorail tracks run through the building inside tubes, but outside the tubes there are track supports, just the same as you find holding up the monorail tracks outside. These weren't put there on purpose. The monorails were basically a set of nodes in the map generator, defining the route, and all the 3D geometry was automatically generated from those, including putting the supports at set intervals. I guess it just turned out that some ended up inside the building, and nobody's ever seen one until now.  So my map now covers a square with, roughly, Central Industrial at the bottom left and Hardwarp FM at the top right. It's slow work generating it, and so big it takes a while to explore too, but there must be a lot of interesting sights and surprises still waiting out there.... |
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Post by Captain Zedo on May 19, 2011 19:41:52 GMT -5
I did an interesting experiment after I saw your posts on the scale of Misplaced Optimism. I got a Silver-Y and tried riding around at 15 miles per hour - about the speed of a bicycle. It's like standing still. Even after several minutes I could barely tell I had moved and that was only because I was near a monorail column I could use as reference. Even travelling at auto speeds is dead slow.
I'm trying to use the slow traveling and timing my way across some buildings to see how big they are. They are huge.
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Post by Pilot on May 19, 2011 21:18:44 GMT -5
Evil Idea: Someone could modify a copy of Hardwar where all Engines top out at 30mph and then have a race or free-for-all in a sealed off Alpha.
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Post by Captain Zedo on May 20, 2011 7:50:50 GMT -5
Pilot: I think the low speeds would get boring after a while, but it would be fun to try for a few dogfights.
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Post by Pilot on May 20, 2011 9:06:37 GMT -5
I did say Evil right. ^^
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Post by Hammer on May 25, 2011 8:24:03 GMT -5
Well hi Ciaran! This looks like quite the interesting project. I'll send a little time warp capsule your way to help things run faster. It's really too bad that everything takes so much time and work. You could use some help. I know....you could get some of your friends together to help you "refine" the software. And well...you'ld have to name the group...  of coarse. Heck, you could just call your group The Software Refinery! Heh, heh. Just couldn't resist plugging the old SR name in there. Good luck with the project and remember: There's a war going on out there, and it ain't easy! Thanks for all of your help and input over the years for all of us Hardwar fans. Hammer |
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of coarse. Heck, you could just call your group The Software Refinery! Heh, heh. Just couldn't resist plugging the old SR name in there. Good luck with the project and remember: There's a war going on out there, and it ain't easy!