spherical maps

[Mac_MatrixForum]

Hi, I've done something like this a few years ago. You can see it at my site. That was just a test but I intend to use the idea for something some day. Path finding is very easy. Fluid zoom and appropriate eye candy are must haves.

You definitely don't want to use hexes as locations. Since a planet is a subdivided icosahedron, I first thought of using triangles, but I discovered it was better, if the locations were the vertices of the model and edges would be the connections. That is actually very close to having hexes. Also one could go further and just distribute a random number of vertices at equal distances to control the number of locations accurately.

And I think the best game would be modern or into the future. It would be nice to have satellites or orbiting spaceships etc. [:)]

[coregames]

What an appealing application Mac! What is the scale per space? If that was the macro-scale for a game, each of your hex spaces could easily be subdivided into a regional map. I assume there are pentagonal adjacencies at the corners of the faces (are they all over water?). You are right, because of using the intersections (go-style rather than chess-style) the units themselves indicate location very effectively. That is very much in keeping with what Rhonda suggested earlier in this thread.

What you have looks to be a great real-time interface, with the coming of day and night very smooth and realistic. For PBEM suitability, a turn-based approach could use the same tricks...

You are obviously talented... very cool.

[David Clark]

Would you consider releasing the source to planettest? I'd like to take a look at your subdivision code.

[Mac_MatrixForum]

Hi and thanks for the comments.

The scale is roughly around 400-600 km per triangle edge. I think in the current model there are 1280 triangles. What I do is I take an icosahedron and subdivide each triangle into four smaller triangles and repeat that three-four times. That decides the scale. It would be possible to do a more flexible subdivision scheme. The advantage of this is that it's extremely simple and the triangles are very close to each other in shape, not identical, however. And you are right, there are vertices with five edges to neighbours. You can easily spot them in the wireframe mode. It's not what I'd call a major distraction.

I was thinking of more along the lines of having 100 planets like this so I wouldn't even consider subdividing more or using this as a macro scale map and have regional maps. But yes, for a game with a single planet there could be more detail. I'm not sure if I like the idea of having two separate scales and I think I'd rather subdivide more and work it to the same map.

The interface was built for a turn-based game so yeah I don't see PBEM a problem [:)].

David, mail me and I'll see what I can do. The subdivision itself is very simple to do. I'm not sure if the source is helpful, the whole application is basically a big hack at this point [:D].

[coregames]

ORIGINAL: Mac
I was thinking of more along the lines of having 100 planets like this so I wouldn't even consider subdividing more or using this as a macro scale map and have regional maps. But yes, for a game with a single planet there could be more detail. I'm not sure if I like the idea of having two separate scales and I think I'd rather subdivide more and work it to the same map.

The idea seems so powerful... you could use the macro-scale for interstellar games but I think I would still want a substantially smaller scale so it could be usable for a game on one world (perhaps another two subdivisions?). There could be advantages with using two scales... you wouldn't need to provide the detail in a multi-world use of the engine, but the option for more detail would be available if needed, for a one-world use. I like the idea of a universal approach, so that a game engine can be used in a wide variety of ways. That certainly would increase the possibilities for a profit model.

[coregames]

I've thought about Mac's idea of using the intersections of triangles on the surface of an icosahedron, and it has me speculating that, in fact, a version of go might be possible on such a surface... any thoughts on this?

[Raverdave]

Why the hell do you guys from the north insist on always showing Australia on the bottom of the map?[:-]

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: Mac

Hi, I've done something like this a few years ago. You can see it at my site. That was just a test but I intend to use the idea for something some day. Path finding is very easy. Fluid zoom and appropriate eye candy are must haves.

You definitely don't want to use hexes as locations. Since a planet is a subdivided icosahedron, I first thought of using triangles, but I discovered it was better, if the locations were the vertices of the model and edges would be the connections. That is actually very close to having hexes. Also one could go further and just distribute a random number of vertices at equal distances to control the number of locations accurately.

And I think the best game would be modern or into the future. It would be nice to have satellites or orbiting spaceships etc. [:)]

Wow! Very impressive!

I think this certainly illustrates the validity of the concept.

I think a ground breaking simulation could be developed! One that would take strategic wargames into a new epoch of realism!

Thanks for sharing this with us! [&o]

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: coregames

I have read over the posts and I feel the basis is here for a good game idea; with feedback we could brainstorm the large issues here and if Matrix likes the idea maybe they will run with it! What say you, rhondabrwn, David Clark, ravinhood, and any others who like this kind of thing? More detailed discussion could happen in parallel through individual messages.

I'm not a programmer, but a pretty good system and game designer. I would certainly love to contribute to such a project in any way that I can.

I've been very encouraged by the discussion in this thread and especially by the prototype shared with us by Mac.

I see very few limitations here in choice of game subject. Obviously a modern era global war (20th Century) would be ideal, but I see lots of potential for colonization and empire building games set in the 15th through 19th centuries as well. I would even like to see classics like "Civilization II" translated into this global medium (I always hated the fact that there were no "shortcuts" across the polar caps!). Obviously, futuristic games with battling spaceships and orbital battlestations would show great promise.

Perhaps a good project would be to design a "Universal Global Conflict Simulator" whereby specific wars and scenarios could be setup with a sophisticated "game editor" program? Generate world maps and terrain using options like RTS sims like Cossacks? Choose from a library of unit icons? Select from your choice of conflict resolution tables and a buffet of combat and movement rules to select from.... the potential is mind boggling![X(]

[coregames]

ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn

Perhaps a good project would be to design a "Universal Global Conflict Simulator" whereby specific wars and scenarios could be setup with a sophisticated "game editor" program? Generate world maps and terrain using options like RTS sims like Cossacks? Choose from a library of unit icons? Select from your choice of conflict resolution tables and a buffet of combat and movement rules to select from.... the potential is mind boggling!

This is my thinking as well... if the application was multiple-scale in its approach (which I know Mac doesn't agree with), it could be useful for interstellar games that only use the macro-scale, as well as single world uses that incorporated a smaller scale. With the editor, the engine could be used in a wide variety of ways, including to resolve global events for a roleplaying campaign. The map I posted at the beginning of this thread is at 100 miles per hex, but if multiple scales were used, the larger scale could have fewer hexes (more akin to Mac's application), allowing the smaller scale to be even more detailed.

My dream use for such an application would be WWII, but of course it could be applicable to any historical time reference from Columbus to the present. If I understood your comments accurately, I am like you Rhonda... my experience in game design is not computer games, but rather board and roleplaying games. Even so, I would very much enjoy and be challenged by being involved in such a project.

[Mr.Frag]

The mapping aspect of this is quite interesting, but due to the very nature of the fact you have the whole world, you also need variable time to handle it. The problem that comes up with large scale is day/night/season handling. A dawn surprise attack at Midway during the summer is certainly not the same in Russia's winter.

Global weather patterns and time zones are pretty much required on this scale.

If you are thinking big, think big! [;)]

[Cap Mandrake]

In the case of modern naval games where aircraft are crucial, I cant understand why a true 3-d environment would not be the method of choice (ie USS Ticonderoga is at X,Y,Z..or 3d vector representation). Its not like the geometry hasn't been worked out.

Problems do arise, of course, with the land/sea interface and the sea bottom (and mountains over land in regard to aircraft..this perhaps could be ignored). Land masses could be mapped with a deformed rectangular grid pressed onto the sphere with... lets say..a 1 km resolution. The oceans would be mapped in a similar fashion with the depth recorded every 1 km.

The coastline between 1 km land datapoints could be intercolated using a fractal function perhaps (which does give convincing naturalistic curves) (this does involve some number crunching...but could be done once at the start of the game boot..generating a grid with a resolution of .1 km perhaps

Path finding might be a massive number-crunching task. This might be simplified with some rules...(ie..USS GW wants to go from the Azores to Murmansk..first goto Iceland/Greenland gap then South of Spitsbergen then Kola Inlet...etc etc)

[Cap Mandrake]

Also...check out the fantastic J-track 3D satellite mapping Java applet from NASA. A zoomable view of satellites in earth orbit from geostationary on down.


I cant find the url...seems to be down right now.

Try googling J-track 3D

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

The mapping aspect of this is quite interesting, but due to the very nature of the fact you have the whole world, you also need variable time to handle it. The problem that comes up with large scale is day/night/season handling. A dawn surprise attack at Midway during the summer is certainly not the same in Russia's winter.

Global weather patterns and time zones are pretty much required on this scale.

If you are thinking big, think big! [;)]

I don't see that would present a problem. Mac's prototype had day / night shading incorporated so why not have the game map illuminated appropriately for time of day? That would make it quite easy to visualize time elements. Imagine selecting units to assign orders and the map is at either bright high noon or twilight dusk, depending upon global time zone.

I love these concepts! [:)][:)][:)]

[rhondabrwn]

ORIGINAL: coregames

ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn

Perhaps a good project would be to design a "Universal Global Conflict Simulator" whereby specific wars and scenarios could be setup with a sophisticated "game editor" program? Generate world maps and terrain using options like RTS sims like Cossacks? Choose from a library of unit icons? Select from your choice of conflict resolution tables and a buffet of combat and movement rules to select from.... the potential is mind boggling!

This is my thinking as well... if the application was multiple-scale in its approach (which I know Mac doesn't agree with), it could be useful for interstellar games that only use the macro-scale, as well as single world uses that incorporated a smaller scale. With the editor, the engine could be used in a wide variety of ways, including to resolve global events for a roleplaying campaign. The map I posted at the beginning of this thread is at 100 miles per hex, but if multiple scales were used, the larger scale could have fewer hexes (more akin to Mac's application), allowing the smaller scale to be even more detailed.

My dream use for such an application would be WWII, but of course it could be applicable to any historical time reference from Columbus to the present. If I understood your comments accurately, I am like you Rhonda... my experience in game design is not computer games, but rather board and roleplaying games. Even so, I would very much enjoy and be challenged by being involved in such a project.

My experience has been that if you have some good programmers at your disposal, it is the design that drives the creation. The programming genius handles the individual problems, but the designer provides the plans.

Like you, I come from the old Board Game background, but I have produced a successful commercial software design so I do have experience in automated system design.

[rhondabrwn]

Hee hee... just noticed that I got promoted to "Matrix Hero"... yahoo!

[Mac_MatrixForum]

Hi again and thanks for the feedback. That's the reason I made that test downloadable in the first place.

First some technical details for Cap Mandrake. The shoreline is a fractal [:)]. The height can easily be tracked but visually it's not that important. You can't really see Everest at this scale let alone lesser mountains. Bump or normal mapping can of course be used to generate the desired visuals. .1 km to 1 km data is not going to happen for a long time. See Celestia for some nice mappings though.

Ok let me restate what I have in mind. I want to be able to zoom from this, through something like this right into this. I see the engine being capable of generating any reasonable resolution terrain but I don't see why it should be multiple-scale within one setting. Multiple scales impose discontinuity which I find distracting when I really want a smooth zoom from macro down into micro. It's just too complicated.

I'm just not sure what kind of game I really would like to do or play. I've been hanging around these forums from the very beginning because people here have experience in various scales and mechanics that have or haven't worked before. I've also played my share of strategy games and e.g. the UFO games. The zoom has already been achieved in Celestia except that it's not a game. My goal has recently been to modernize the Emperor of the Fading Suns. But there are other games that have so much to give.

Lots of open questions remain, like how do you marry a 3D world with a windowing system and make the controls intuitive? The correct scaling of the turn lengths is quite a task too. Oh, Mr. Frag I've thought big already and didn't get anywhere so I guess now I want to think small for a while [;)]. That got me Planettest and more.

Oh, I should mention that I'm not that keen on really accurate modelling of the Earth going into WGS 84 for coordinates or equivalent GIS stuff. I do enough of that for work.

I don't really see a project of this magnitude ever getting finished. Or at least with current tools. So rather than committing to any specific game mechanics I'm just developing tools that will get the job done ... if they get done. And not just this one program but pretty much every program I ever want to create ...

[Cap Mandrake]

Mac...have you seen the Homeworld 3D navigation interface?

Clearly you are talking about a much more ambitious scale.

In the case of a global Naval Sim for eg., surely you are not saying that there is insufficient data to say that point X,Y on the surface of the globe is Ocean vs Land at a 1 km resolution? I take it you mean handling the graphical burden of manipulating it in 3d on a PC. Superprecision is not key, only that the coast of Scotland look like Scotland and both sides have exactly the same map.

[coregames]

ORIGINAL: Mac
I see the engine being capable of generating any reasonable resolution terrain but I don't see why it should be multiple-scale within one setting. Multiple scales impose discontinuity which I find distracting when I really want a smooth zoom from macro down into micro. It's just too complicated.

I do agree that, when used for a one-world setting, such an engine could easily get by using one unified scale. My thought was more about making the idea as widely applicable as possible. If a macro scale was available, with a larger time scale for the turns, multiple worlds would be much easier to handle. By providing a smaller scale, smaller regions could be fleshed out as needed, at the user's discretion, and based on the use for which it is intended. The visual continuous zoom you are shooting for is not necessarily impaired by this, it could just make it possible to zoom in even closer for certain important regions of the map. The discontinuity need not occur if the zoom is continuous between scales, especially using the intersections as you do to help mask the grid.

The issue of scale becomes important when you consider the idea of location. City locations should not be 300 miles on a side. By providing multiple map scale options -- not only a second smaller scale, but a third, and perhaps even a fourth -- a world can be mapped to the desired level of detail in each location. What I see is a continous zoom that can go all the way to the level of a street map of a city, or even floor plans of a building. This does not require mapping every square foot on the planet if you use multiple scales.

Just ideas... I certainly appreciate your views on the subject Mac, especially given your proven dedication to the idea.

[coregames]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
surely you are not saying that there is insufficient data to say that point X,Y on the surface of the globe is Ocean vs Land at a 1 km resolution?

I understand the idea of great circles, but discrete location still requires a grid of some kind, no matter how high the resolution. What X,Y coordinate system maps onto a sphere with minimal distortion between any two given locations? Granted, latitude and longitude give discrete locations, but the distortion as you move N or S is dramatic as the longitude lines converge.

On a side note, Cap Mandrake, I agree that if a mutliple-scale approach was used, at smaller scales a numeric altitude/depth component would make the game even better. If only one scale is used, and it is large (like in Mac's app), alt/depth could still be used, but be very simplified (like altitude expressed as sea-level, very low, low, med, high, very high or suborbital). Land masses as obstacles could follow this. Most land could be very low, high elevation could be low, high mountain ranges could be medium.