Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Virex]

I sometimes use Wings3D for quick 3D sketches. It doesn't have all the features one would need for full-blown 3D work, but it's dead-simple and fast to work with.

[gunman]

Sry i missed the meeting. So i was wondering when the next meeting is or if virex could put up the irc sometime today. But on another note using google as a repository is a bad idea because none of your code is private and can be copied and stolen by anyone that has the dedication to find it. but if you used tortoiseSVN  in combination with a dedicated repository on a members comp all of the files can be safe on their comp and only accessible to people that know the password and user name required to login to the repository. Finally can anyone tell me if i can join in the project?

[lorb]

[...] is a bad idea because none of your code is private and can be copied and stolen by anyone [...]

You think a project being Open Source is a bad thing?

edit: btw. i can see how someone could copy the code but how would could someone steal it? (that is: take it away from you)

[Virex]

As far as I know, our license doesn't allow anyone to claim copyright of our code without our permission?


Edit: Carts now know if they're running into Terminals. I just need to figure out how to put them to a standstill now, as setting the velocity to 0 doesn't cancel out gravity completely, making the cart slide down a tilted terminal very slowly...


Edit 2: Fixed. The cart's position and rotation now become frozen when it's close enough to the center of the terminal and slowed down enough. Slowing down also goes with a smooth linear interpolation so it looks like the cart is really breaking. Fire up the scene paused, delete the two carts not on the top terminal, set the cart's layer to tracks going left and drag it away from it's starting terminal and run to watch it all in action.

[Kofthefens]

Sry i missed the meeting. So i was wondering when the next meeting is or if virex could put up the irc sometime today.

The irc is always up. I, GalenEvil, Mullet Master, and occasionally a few others tend to be on there a fair bit.

[qwertyuiopas]

tortoiseSVN

Not the only SVN client, and SVN is not the only revision control software that supports private repositories.

only accessible to people that know the password and user name

I've seen Git set up for a private repository that only allowed certain people to connect, using their SSH key to ensure that it's impossible to access without permission, even if you knew the password (for example, overhearing someone mention it in IRC), since there *was* no password. And because of the way the key works, even if someone got your public key as it was being sent to be entered in the server, they can't impersonate you.

[gunman]

I know SVN''s are not the only way to have a private repository but tortoisSVN is a very easy way to use a svn and the svn server software is extremely easy to set-up and is very secure as the situation you suggested is highly unlikely and i thought simplicity would be more preferred over command's.

About the irc, i can't seem to connect to the irc. i have tried a irc software and using google chrome.

P.S. People don't need your permission to take the code change it a bit and call it their own after you have put months of work into it. Im just saying that you guys should be cautious about how you handle your code and resources

[Virex]

I know SVN''s are not the only way to have a private repository but tortoisSVN is a very easy way to use a svn and the svn server software is extremely easy to set-up and is very secure as the situation you suggested is highly unlikely and i thought simplicity would be more preferred over command's.

We're actually using it's little brother, TortoiseGIT

P.S. People don't need your permission to take the code change it a bit and call it their own after you have put months of work into it. Im just saying that you guys should be cautious about how you handle your code and resources

True, but if they want to, let them. Our code isn't exactly cutting edge, we're not doing this for cash and if someone is helped by looking at our code, well, at least someone has use for it.

[qwertyuiopas]

P.S. People don't need your permission to take the code change it a bit and call it their own after you have put months of work into it. Im just saying that you guys should be cautious about how you handle your code and resources

In that case, it's far better to have it clearly visible online, so you can easily point at your copy, and compare timestamps. If someone comes in a month later, with no existing online presence, and claims that half of the assets are actually theirs, that they created for their suspiciously similar game, which just happens to play almost exactly like a version from two weeks ago, then the commit log and timestamps in the public repo will clearly show that theirs is the copy. Unless they have undeniable evidence that they had the full code long before the repository was public, the fact that it *is* public will ensure that they are unable to claim it as their own.

[GalenEvil]

Wasn't exactly sure where to put this other than here in the thread, since it is at least semi-related to what I am working on at the moment. FINALLY got a nice looking base-terrain generator going ^_^



The image above was originally a 513x513 heightmap that I stuffed into SimCity4 so I could take a look at it. Some parts are a little bigger than I wanted, and there should be cliffs on some of the steeper coastal mountainous areas, but I think that it looks pretty good for being a quick picture. I made it using the Diamond-Square algo, with a flatness factor of 1.7 (2 being slightly more flat). Will post one up later on of some higher flatness values, up to 2.5 since above that is just really really boring to look at. I will also experiment on random flatness throughout the generation to give it a little more detail. Hope that works!

[Virex]

Cool. I also got a function to make plateaus to run:


Raw Lisp (used for testing):

Code: [Select]


(defun plateau-fun (el min max influence)
  (setf influence (expt 10 influence))
  (cond
    ((< el min)  (+ min (* (- el min) (exp (- (/ influence (expt (- el min) 2)))))))
    ((<= el max) min
    ((> el max)  (+ min (* (- el max) (exp (- (/ influence (expt (- el max) 2)))))))))


Converted to pseudocode:

Code: [Select]

Function Plateau-fun (H => Height at x,y; min => Lower bound of height that will be flattened; max => upper bound of height that will be flattened; influence => How hard the edges are)
  influence = 10^influence
  case
    (H < min): return(min + (H-min)*exp(- influence/(H-min)^2))
    (min <= H <= max): return(min)
    (H > max): return(min + (H-max)*exp(-influence/H-max)^2))


By applying this function to each point in the heightmap, everything between min and max is flattened to a flat plane at the height of min, while the heights of the elements lower than min or higher than max are adjusted to smoothly curve towards the plateau.

[GalenEvil]

That's some pretty cool code there! I will incorporate that a little into my code and see how it goes. I do have a little bit of worry that it is affecting ALL points at that level when it is mostly unrealistic for plateaus to form in that matter. I may alter the implementation to pick a few small areas of high, but varying, elevations and apply the plateau algo to just those areas.

Oh, I have an idea of how to get weather to be implemented but am not sure of how useful this would be. Could I do a low-resolution heightmap (using the same seed as that used to make the original HM) and then scale it up to the same size as the terrain map? It would give a fast and nice-ish looking set for cloudcover and allow me to begin work on general erosion procedures.

Please let me know if this sounds like a plausible idea for a precipitation graph!

[Virex]

Code: [Select]

WTF forum. Stop inserting code tags here

I do have a little bit of worry that it is affecting ALL points at that level when it is mostly unrealistic for plateaus to form in that matter.

Good point. I'll see if I can come up with a way to interleave plateaus with normal mountains later. One option would be to randomly but continuously vary the value of max, and only use the function there where max > min.

Oh, I have an idea of how to get weather to be implemented but am not sure of how useful this would be. Could I do a low-resolution heightmap (using the same seed as that used to make the original HM) and then scale it up to the same size as the terrain map? It would give a fast and nice-ish looking set for cloudcover and allow me to begin work on general erosion procedures.

If that works depends on your algorithm. Assuming you fully complete 1 level before subdividing, the sequence of random numbers generated up to a certain resolution should be the same for any two maps.

However, using a low-rez map won't give you pretty cloud-cover in the sense that it looks too much like the terrain. You could use it to compute rain-shadows and things like that.

[GalenEvil]

I think what I meant was rain-shadows. Will have to do some research on that though. I didn't mean using the same seed with a new random generator. I meant after completing the full height-map for the terrain I continue using the already used generator to start making the rain-shadow map. I should have worded the last post differently. Once I get the rain-shadows up and running, and do some models of precipitation I will have a better idea about how to start working on water-erosion. If wind ever comes into play I will have to work out a model for air-erosion as well. That is something we should discuss on Saturday as well while we come up with a better milestone path for the project.

I am trying to get everything done with a single seeded generator so that I can save the seed and some generation information and come up with the same terrain for various tests, and automate some tests from a testing script so I can do a lot of tests without messing with too many variables (sitting in front of the computer for a few hours doing tests is rather boring. Would rather start tests and go watch a movie so I come back to reams of data and pictures to sift through).

[Virex]

The problem with that is that if you keep going with the same random generator without reseeding, the new random numbers won't follow the same pattern as the old one, so you don't get a low-rez map that looks like the high-rez one, you get an entirely new map. But rain shadows (and normal shadows) follow the existing terrain.


However, if you reseed the RNG with the same seed, you get the same result every time. If, in addition to that, the calls to the RNG are always in the same order (as is the case for a non-multithreaded program), you should get the same result every time because the numbers after reseed 1 are the same every time and so are the results after reseed 2.