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[PTTG??]

How about this; a control to decrease or increase the number of Z-levels visible at one time. That way, you can decrease until you see one at a time so that you aren't distracted by something on the layer below, or you can set it to 7 or 8 layers down to see the ground when you are looking at the roof of a two story building.

Perhaps this can wait until the Presentation arc, but there is a chance that it will go easily.

[Sean Mirrsen]

That'd require what seems to be a major change in display procedures, so it's probably only viable in the Presentation arc. And then, if the game goes in that direction, shrinking every consecutive layer down from POV would simulate perspective and would give the game a much sought-after 3D look.

[PTTG??]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>That'd require what seems to be a major change in display procedures, so it's probably only viable in the Presentation arc. And then, if the game goes in that direction, shrinking every consecutive layer down from POV would simulate perspective and would give the game a much sought-after 3D look.</STRONG>

Yeah, I remember that disscussion. The problem with more than two simultaneous visible layers is that there is little way to distinguish a one-story drop from a ten-story drop when you're just using ASCII. Perhaps I should clarify; all layers other than the current one would show up as "distant layers", just like the second layer down does now.

[MuonDecay]

quote:Originally posted by Sean Mirrsen:
<STRONG>That'd require what seems to be a major change in display procedures, so it's probably only viable in the Presentation arc. And then, if the game goes in that direction, shrinking every consecutive layer down from POV would simulate perspective and would give the game a much sought-after 3D look.</STRONG>

That perspective effect, however, is 3d graphics.

It might be presented in a seemingly 2 dimensional window but it would nonetheless be doing a bit of extra (calculus?) every frame to produce the image. That strikes me as being a big difference from the world existing as 3-dimensional, but only being rendered graphically as a single 2-dimensional slice at a time.

I'd like it too if it was done right but it sounds like quite a bit of a task.

[Geofferic]

Why not take a page from the 3D graphics library and add a filter effect that gives a visual cue as to the depth of the Z layer?