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shadowfyr · 01-30-2005, 07:48 PM

I agree with the price issue, but I forsee a time when it is less of a problem. Just not anytime soon. There is currectly a high dependence on polygon based systems right now. While this is expected, since designing a graphics card to do that is fairly easy, it limits what you can do. Why? For one thing it means you can't do anything without a modeller. No sane person is going to try to work out how to make something by hand using triangles. Second is size. The 'basic' info for a sphere might be a few hundred triangles, but also a 1-2MB file with the 'texture' to be put on it, especially if is requires fake reflections. Want ripples in the water at the bottom of the well? You can fake it with an big image you have to download (or install before hand), or you can tripple the number of triangle OPenGL or DirectX uses to draw it. Either way, you take up more space in the HD. And forget changing the color, shape, size or any details of the scene on the fly, even broadband users won't be happy with a 20MB update downloading to 'fix' the room.

And all of that overlooks the fact that it takes far more artistic skill and ability to use the modeller and other software to make all those objects in the scene and paint all the needed patterns and details on them. A scene with a simple well in a patch of dirt with some grass might take 10MB by itself. And that is about 9.5MB more than it needs to if you could work with good procedural textures and simple CSG objects based on sphere, cubes, toruses, etc. Worse, CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) isn't even possible in OpenGL and DirectX on the fly. For OpenGL and DirectX you end up having to pre-determine what parts are visible, then delete any triangles that you don't need (and modify others). True CSG doesn't even use triangles and figure out what parts to show as it draws. The result? A sphere with a square hole in it for CSG would take (assuming the sphere was 100 triangle objects and each 'object' took one line of text), maybe 90 lines (the 'box' would only be about 8 lines at 3 triangles per surface), while the CSG version would be three lines:

difference{
sphere {< 0,0,0>, 2}
box {<-3, -1,-1>, <3,1,1>}}

It won't, as I said, be fast enough in the near future to compete with the speed of OpenGL and DirectX. You won't be using it to make rooms you can wander around in or building a first person shooter. Truely complex ones may take 2-3 seconds to generate, especially on slow machines. But.... as a transition step between pure text-based muds and expensive graphical ones, it goes way beyond MXP or other ones that rely on pre-made and static pictures. (or at best, lots of different ones.)

Want people to be amazed by the pirate ship? Why make a 1k image that is 200x100 to show it. Why not a client that uses a simplified POVRay type engine to produce a 2048x1024 image from a 1k gzipped text file?

Point is, text muds are free because you don't need nayting more than basic writing skills to use them. No expensive graphics modellers, no expensive photoshop like programs, etc. No atistic talent either and sadly not even the need to know how to write well, though you are not going to become top of any list with something badly written. But what about a simplified and more limited graphics engine like POVRay uses, which makes designing your images almost as easy as building a castle using Legos and which you can update in real time, just like a text based room on a mud?

There seems to be some hostility towards even trying. And the arguement is usually, yeah, but you can do more with text. The other being, I like to imagine what things look like, not be shown them. To the first - Yes, we it will be a long time before monsters can be created as easy in graphics as text, but that's is not a valid excuse imho for not trying the rest. IT may be a lot more possible than you expect, just not using all the nice OpenGL/DirectX tools everyone babbles about. To the second? Some people don't like color on muds. Last I checked you can turn that off. Why not just turn off the pictures? lol

Maybe the lack of free systems is due to people looking 'too far' forward with respect to what they want for a free graphics based system? Or maybe there just hasn't been anyone with both a good idea and the skill to try to make it work. Of which, I unfortunately currently lack the later.

01-30-2005, 07:48 PM	#47
shadowfyr Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 310	I agree with the price issue, but I forsee a time when it is less of a problem. Just not anytime soon. There is currectly a high dependence on polygon based systems right now. While this is expected, since designing a graphics card to do that is fairly easy, it limits what you can do. Why? For one thing it means you can't do anything without a modeller. No sane person is going to try to work out how to make something by hand using triangles. Second is size. The 'basic' info for a sphere might be a few hundred triangles, but also a 1-2MB file with the 'texture' to be put on it, especially if is requires fake reflections. Want ripples in the water at the bottom of the well? You can fake it with an big image you have to download (or install before hand), or you can tripple the number of triangle OPenGL or DirectX uses to draw it. Either way, you take up more space in the HD. And forget changing the color, shape, size or any details of the scene on the fly, even broadband users won't be happy with a 20MB update downloading to 'fix' the room. And all of that overlooks the fact that it takes far more artistic skill and ability to use the modeller and other software to make all those objects in the scene and paint all the needed patterns and details on them. A scene with a simple well in a patch of dirt with some grass might take 10MB by itself. And that is about 9.5MB more than it needs to if you could work with good procedural textures and simple CSG objects based on sphere, cubes, toruses, etc. Worse, CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) isn't even possible in OpenGL and DirectX on the fly. For OpenGL and DirectX you end up having to pre-determine what parts are visible, then delete any triangles that you don't need (and modify others). True CSG doesn't even use triangles and figure out what parts to show as it draws. The result? A sphere with a square hole in it for CSG would take (assuming the sphere was 100 triangle objects and each 'object' took one line of text), maybe 90 lines (the 'box' would only be about 8 lines at 3 triangles per surface), while the CSG version would be three lines: difference{ sphere {< 0,0,0>, 2} box {<-3, -1,-1>, <3,1,1>}} It won't, as I said, be fast enough in the near future to compete with the speed of OpenGL and DirectX. You won't be using it to make rooms you can wander around in or building a first person shooter. Truely complex ones may take 2-3 seconds to generate, especially on slow machines. But.... as a transition step between pure text-based muds and expensive graphical ones, it goes way beyond MXP or other ones that rely on pre-made and static pictures. (or at best, lots of different ones.) Want people to be amazed by the pirate ship? Why make a 1k image that is 200x100 to show it. Why not a client that uses a simplified POVRay type engine to produce a 2048x1024 image from a 1k gzipped text file? Point is, text muds are free because you don't need nayting more than basic writing skills to use them. No expensive graphics modellers, no expensive photoshop like programs, etc. No atistic talent either and sadly not even the need to know how to write well, though you are not going to become top of any list with something badly written. But what about a simplified and more limited graphics engine like POVRay uses, which makes designing your images almost as easy as building a castle using Legos and which you can update in real time, just like a text based room on a mud? There seems to be some hostility towards even trying. And the arguement is usually, yeah, but you can do more with text. The other being, I like to imagine what things look like, not be shown them. To the first - Yes, we it will be a long time before monsters can be created as easy in graphics as text, but that's is not a valid excuse imho for not trying the rest. IT may be a lot more possible than you expect, just not using all the nice OpenGL/DirectX tools everyone babbles about. To the second? Some people don't like color on muds. Last I checked you can turn that off. Why not just turn off the pictures? lol Maybe the lack of free systems is due to people looking 'too far' forward with respect to what they want for a free graphics based system? Or maybe there just hasn't been anyone with both a good idea and the skill to try to make it work. Of which, I unfortunately currently lack the later.