Villages Concept and stuff
- Thread starter Perdemot
- Start date
City style could be somewhat random between the adjascent biomes.
The problem (if you want to call it like this) is that biome borders aren't specifically declared - biome is a feature of a block. At the moment it's like we have a temperaturemap and humiditymap and depending on this maps the biome type is specified. (e.g. desert is at low humidity and high temperature) How would cities fit into this?
Possible idea: Different species settle in different regiones. So for example when we have a meadows region only humans settle there, dwarfs need high mountain region.
With different biomesizes (and thus citysizes) just the underlying generating noise (or whatever we decide to take) is adjusted.
Although I like this idea
Another issue: if we want growing cities, how should this be handled? After mapgeneration the biomes are fixed. Well we could declare city biomes (after solving above issues) and let them expand to the surroundings?
I will consider all this on my monday midday brainstorming session. (Maybe irc meeting? pm me if you have time and inclination)
Ok, I admit this post is quite disjointed - I was just writing down possible issues that came into my mind and possible first solutions
so long,
Nym
The problem (if you want to call it like this) is that biome borders aren't specifically declared - biome is a feature of a block. At the moment it's like we have a temperaturemap and humiditymap and depending on this maps the biome type is specified. (e.g. desert is at low humidity and high temperature) How would cities fit into this?
Possible idea: Different species settle in different regiones. So for example when we have a meadows region only humans settle there, dwarfs need high mountain region.
With different biomesizes (and thus citysizes) just the underlying generating noise (or whatever we decide to take) is adjusted.
Although I like this idea
Another issue: if we want growing cities, how should this be handled? After mapgeneration the biomes are fixed. Well we could declare city biomes (after solving above issues) and let them expand to the surroundings?
I will consider all this on my monday midday brainstorming session. (Maybe irc meeting? pm me if you have time and inclination)
Ok, I admit this post is quite disjointed - I was just writing down possible issues that came into my mind and possible first solutions
so long,
Nym
I don't know about a city biome - in theory it sounds like a nice convenience, but I think there might be some tricks to it:
That could work from scratch as well as over time. World map places a village egg, then when a player gets within a buffer range between player visibility and the edge of the village (we do need space for all those fields etc) the terrain starts pre-generating (not going visible) so the terrain preparing process can do its thing, reshape terrain if needed, place fields and roads, buildings, etc. If for some reason we want a village to pop up in existing world just spawn the village egg and it'll pick up right at the terrain prep stage
You could also use it as a planning tool for NPCs. Rather than a brand new village (in existing world) just popping into existence more or less all at once make the system queue up tasks for nearby NPCs to begin on to eventually create a new village. Never before seen village eggs could still fast-forward a certain amount of time units to start at a more advanced level.
To start with, however, anything that places something artificial in the world would be a win
Edit: Huh, didn't see Nym's post when I started on this. Some content may overlap
- How would you pick it - IIRC we just have temperature and humidity ranges right now to base biomes on (I could be wrong). Might not work for biome-flavored cities.
- Terrain would still be based on the noise map, so we'd have to artificially flatten an area around a certain point anyway
- Making cities grow could expand them beyond the initially picked area (and what about placing brand new cities into existing world)
- Destroyed cities would then be flat area marked still as city biome?
That could work from scratch as well as over time. World map places a village egg, then when a player gets within a buffer range between player visibility and the edge of the village (we do need space for all those fields etc) the terrain starts pre-generating (not going visible) so the terrain preparing process can do its thing, reshape terrain if needed, place fields and roads, buildings, etc. If for some reason we want a village to pop up in existing world just spawn the village egg and it'll pick up right at the terrain prep stage
You could also use it as a planning tool for NPCs. Rather than a brand new village (in existing world) just popping into existence more or less all at once make the system queue up tasks for nearby NPCs to begin on to eventually create a new village. Never before seen village eggs could still fast-forward a certain amount of time units to start at a more advanced level.
To start with, however, anything that places something artificial in the world would be a win
Edit: Huh, didn't see Nym's post when I started on this. Some content may overlap
I still think the City Biome is a good idea 'cause the whole biome area will be parcels of fields, buildings. And so when the city has to grow it will replace a field by a building and when there are no more fields available, the city can't grow more. Also, if there are no more fields and we still want the city grows, buildings could be replaced by bigger buildings.
Else, the city will infinitely grow and the whole world would be a city.
Else, the city will infinitely grow and the whole world would be a city.
I do think there has to be an area definition, but cities are more like an "overlay" than a biome
You might be able to put all that sort of info into the village "egg" / its meta object or something. That would also allow you to control it more closely (a normal biome could have very irregular edges/sizing)
Village growth could be controlled by making expansion "costs" more expensive, whatever they may be, as it grows larger.
You might be able to put all that sort of info into the village "egg" / its meta object or something. That would also allow you to control it more closely (a normal biome could have very irregular edges/sizing)
Village growth could be controlled by making expansion "costs" more expensive, whatever they may be, as it grows larger.
If it does not bother anyone, I am gonna port that to Java, it will be a good re-start for me into Java (it has been a long time since I last played with the language )Oh, now that I think of it, this might be a good time to link to an older thread about growth simulation featuring some impressive work by woodspeople in particular an organic plant simulator that works! And it does advanced stuff like base off available resources and what not
Another point that is very important to give "dynamism" to the world is not only giving it the ability to grow, but also the ability to re-shape itself, destroy some parts of it if they are obsolete etc ...
I think its a good idea to port it to java. Maybe we can make use of some of the features here and there.
The reshaping aspect is very interesting. Some kind of growing and dying trees next to each other, changing over time would be a great experience (although it could cause problems with user generated stuff like parks or something).
For a city dynamic changing would mean something like Ten'son' said:
Thus a city in TS would be more natural if its divided into a downtown and suburb areas, where the buildings an the inner city may grow bigger and bigger whereas buildings in outer areas would more likely grow wider instead.
I have one idea to kinda "rescue" the city biome thing:
If we go with polygonal mapgeneration (which I like more and more to be honest ) we can declare one polygon as a city region and flatten it. The following "second pass" with the noise to generate the more fine details would be skipped, so we have a relatively flat terrain to go.
(And by the way, this is only a wip thinking, tidied thoughts on mapgeneration will follow on monday, tuesday^^)
As of now the village-egg-idea is kinda my favorite. Also with this the villages can be on a mountain slope or similar, so the egg can adapt to it's surroundings. If we make the surroundings for the village it will always be similar, if we place the village into it's surroundings (maybe flatten, tidy up a bit) it won't get boring
How and if a city grows is imho a bit more down the road. Some exponential costs will surely slow down the infinite growth of the city. Or maybe like in biology with activator and deactivators bigger citys will have the tendency to shrink down again. (Illness, big fire, crime etc could be reasons)
If we go with polygonal mapgeneration (which I like more and more to be honest
) we can declare one polygon as a city region and flatten it. The following "second pass" with the noise to generate the more fine details would be skipped, so we have a relatively flat terrain to go.(And by the way, this is only a wip thinking, tidied thoughts on mapgeneration will follow on monday, tuesday^^)
As of now the village-egg-idea is kinda my favorite. Also with this the villages can be on a mountain slope or similar, so the egg can adapt to it's surroundings. If we make the surroundings for the village it will always be similar, if we place the village into it's surroundings (maybe flatten, tidy up a bit) it won't get boring
How and if a city grows is imho a bit more down the road. Some exponential costs will surely slow down the infinite growth of the city. Or maybe like in biology with activator and deactivators bigger citys will have the tendency to shrink down again. (Illness, big fire, crime etc could be reasons)
Kidnap him!
Seriously, I don't think he will work on 2 projects at once, but why not ask?
Seriously, I don't think he will work on 2 projects at once, but why not ask?
Yes, that would be great. But I don't think he will work on TS. Mythruna is quite far in development and as far as I know he wants to sell it later on (from alpha or so).
Yup, that fellow has been working on Mythruna since before I ran into Blockmania, his work has been one of the highlights on the jMonkeyEngine site. So many solo closed projects out there, reason I'm wondering how amazing we can get something looking with a large team
Feel free to do both As long as you can handle it it should be no problem. Maybe you can start from the point that villagers should attack the player if he/she is going to destroy the village (or just one building, though)...
Just my simple thought on that, though there might be better places to put your hands on...
As long as you can handle it it should be no problem. Maybe you can start from the point that villagers should attack the player if he/she is going to destroy the village (or just one building, though)...Just my simple thought on that, though there might be better places to put your hands on...
Okay, I think its time to gather up what we have so far.
I have a little prototype of the building generator right now which could be used for testing (maybe important for Ten'son'). I will expand it the next days to support further commands and/or use different grammars (I will link an incubator thread as well the next days...).
As the building generation depends on the town generation and vice versa, I'm most curious about your part, Ten'son'.
Thoguh, I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon
I have a little prototype of the building generator right now which could be used for testing (maybe important for Ten'son'). I will expand it the next days to support further commands and/or use different grammars (I will link an incubator thread as well the next days...).
As the building generation depends on the town generation and vice versa, I'm most curious about your part, Ten'son'.
Thoguh, I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon
"Likes" are like approval posts without content
Tagging users do not trigger email notification, sending convos does, sometimes you have to dig up feedback more directly!
I'm working on some more notes in another reply to the biome / map gen thread - will be done soon
Tagging users do not trigger email notification, sending convos does, sometimes you have to dig up feedback more directly!
I'm working on some more notes in another reply to the biome / map gen thread - will be done soon
Nice, samuncle ! These were the links I emailed myself to look at later, thanks for putting them here in the forum. I very much like the idea of hive-like structures, especially since I've always wanted to do a hive-building race
And yes, I suspect hives very much would be a suitable use case for the procedural village setup. Not to mention the novelty of cresting a hill only to find the whole valley beyond taken up by a single enormous insect "village" like that
And yes, I suspect hives very much would be a suitable use case for the procedural village setup. Not to mention the novelty of cresting a hill only to find the whole valley beyond taken up by a single enormous insect "village" like that