Room design

Room design

Postby andrewbuck » 30 Mar 2010, 04:24

I just posted a description of the new code added tonight to the "State of the code" thread here. In it I made a request for room meshes, in this thread I would like to begin discussion of how these meshes should be designed.

Currently the only room we have a mesh for is the "Quarters" room, and this room is just a simple placeholder. For now, rooms could just be made like this one (except visually distinct of course) so we can load them into the game and test the actual game logic (workers carrying gold to the treasury, etc). However in the future (and we may want to start this right away) we will want to make multiple "fragments" of each room type to allow for "mesh optimization" like is currently done with the level tile meshes. This means that (for each room) we will need the following:

* A mesh for the "middle" portion of the room, i.e. a room tile surrounded on all sides by other tiles of the same room type (to be named something like Quarters4)
* A mesh surrounded on three sides (only one possibility here named Quarters3)
* A mesh surrounded on two sides (two possibilities here Quarters2a and Quarters2b, the difference is in whether the two sides are "next" to eachother or "opposite" eachother, if next to eachother then this is a corner tile, if opposite then this is a tile in the middle of a long line of room tiles)
* A mesh surrounded on one side (again only one possibility, Quarters1)

Note that, like the tile meshes, the above list is a minimal list and relies on the game engine rotating the given meshes to fit accordingly. For example there is only 1 possibility for the tile with 1 side surrounded, however the side could be north, south, east, or west (so there are really four possibilities for this one). We can get by with just one if we make the game engine rotate them but this leads to weird effects if the tiles are not rotationally symmetric.

I think the steps for the room tile design should be the following:

1) We make simple placeholder tiles for each room type and ignore the possibilities outlined above (i.e. do it like the quarters tiles are now). We may want to just skip this step entirely and move straight to step 2 for all rooms.

2) We make the minimal list outlined above and implement code in the game engine to do the necessary rotations. This avoids having to make all possible tile combos (approximately 20 by my count) and instead we only have to make the 5 outlined above. The downside here is that the tiles will be rotated so they need to be designed with this in mind.

3) We make all 20 or so possible orientation possibilites for each room type and remove the code from the game engine to rotate the room tiles. We may not ever actually want to implement this step as step 2 may be good enough, however this would really let us make unique, non rotationally symmetric rooms.

All of what I have said here regarding room tiles also pertains to level tiles as well (dirt, rock, gold, etc). So we may want to make the same kind of meshes for them as well. Currently the level tiles are at step 2 (although a couple of the more obscure possible options are still missing).

-Buck
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Re: Room design

Postby Bodsda » 30 Mar 2010, 13:44

I don't know how easy this sort of thing is, nor have I ever done it before, but if it isnt that hard and someone could send some tuto/guide links, then I would be happy to help with this.

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Re: Room design

Postby Skorpio » 30 Mar 2010, 15:04

I just thought: Wouldn't it be fun to allow the users to design their own rooms like in Dwarf Fortress or Sims? We could make floor tiles, adequate furniture and items for each room type, and let the players put it all together.

Regarding the wall tiles, we need to do something about the rotation, because it breaks seamless textures. Maybe the "roof" tiles could be assigned separately. Actually all the tiles could be assembled out of one face for the roof and one for the wall, so that only the walls get rotated.
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Re: Room design

Postby TheAncientGoat » 30 Mar 2010, 17:56

Here is a nice bed for a "lair" room: http://opengameart.org/content/bed-low-poly maybe have these as a placeholder until we have individual beds or whatever set up

These can be used in a kitchen: http://opengameart.org/content/fireplace , http://opengameart.org/content/dinnerware , http://opengameart.org/content/wood-apple-crate http://opengameart.org/content/ceramic-bear-mug

This can hang from walls in an armoury/ guard room: http://opengameart.org/content/medieval-horn http://opengameart.org/content/low-poly-weapon-set

These can be placed on unclaimed tiles: http://opengameart.org/content/low-poly-mushrooms , http://opengameart.org/content/lowpoly-cave-piece-set

These are a bit high poly to import into game directly but can be of use: http://opengameart.org/content/dungeon- ... ts-hi-poly
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Re: Room design

Postby TheAncientGoat » 31 Mar 2010, 09:29

Could be used as a portal/lair of some sort: http://www.sharecg.com/v/39401/3D-Model/The-Alter

Chest for treasury: http://www.sharecg.com/v/29919/3D-Model ... --Max-2008

And other than textures, thats pretty much all I've spotted from the model repos from the Freegamedev wiki..

Ofc, we can then also look at freeartsearch and use other game's content
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Re: Room design

Postby Skorpio » 31 Mar 2010, 12:34

Maybe we should add a workshop where the dwarves ... err creatures have to produce all the furniture, etc.

Anyone wanna make a Dwarf Fortress mod once OD is finished? :D
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Re: Room design

Postby Skorpio » 12 Apr 2010, 15:36

Just tested the bed again after rescaling it to 2*1 squares. I think it has a good size for a dwarf or goblin and is a little bit too small for the knight. Bigger creatures probably need a 2*3 bed, but that's pretty big.

It doesn't look good if the beds are placed directly next to each other. Maybe there should be some space between them. BTW why should every creature have its own bed? They could simply use one that is free like in Dwarf Fortress. (I hope no one reveals my evil plan to turn OD into a DF clone :twisted: )
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Re: Room design

Postby TheAncientGoat » 12 Apr 2010, 16:26

think it could make sense to have a 2*3 bed, but then the model shouldn't take up all that space, instead, just be placed in the centre of those tiles and scaled appropriately
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Re: Room design

Postby andrewbuck » 12 Apr 2010, 23:18

The models for the beds will just be scaled up and placed like you suggested, however the engine still needs to know that the thing occupies 2x3 or 3x5 etc so it knows whether a quarters has enough space in it. As for 2x3 being too big I don't think that is a problem at all. A 9x10 quarters could have 15 creatures in it if they were each 2x3 which is a great plenty, 9x10 isn't that big of a room. It kind of bothered me in DK how little space you actually needed for you creatures and hatcheries, etc. On many of the maps you had a small base of your own and then a huge open map with nothing in it. One of the things I wanted to do was make space more difficult to aquire (by limiting the room size with the potential for cave-ins) and also make things take up more space. This will mean that you have to plan out your dungeon a bit more (like sim city) instead of just quickly throwing it together.

-Buck
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Re: Room design

Postby svenskmand » 13 Apr 2010, 00:02

andrewbuck {l Wrote}:The models for the beds will just be scaled up and placed like you suggested, however the engine still needs to know that the thing occupies 2x3 or 3x5 etc so it knows whether a quarters has enough space in it. As for 2x3 being too big I don't think that is a problem at all. A 9x10 quarters could have 15 creatures in it if they were each 2x3 which is a great plenty, 9x10 isn't that big of a room. It kind of bothered me in DK how little space you actually needed for you creatures and hatcheries, etc. On many of the maps you had a small base of your own and then a huge open map with nothing in it. One of the things I wanted to do was make space more difficult to aquire (by limiting the room size with the potential for cave-ins) and also make things take up more space. This will mean that you have to plan out your dungeon a bit more (like sim city) instead of just quickly throwing it together.

-Buck

Hopefully not too much. You should be able to build a good dungeon without having seen the entire map and made a plan for it. Else it will severely limit the fun of the game :S
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