8192x8192 Terrain support

[jen 368]

It runs at 60FPS with all that plus shadows and collision if you dial down the view range of the vegetation to 200.

 

It's great.

[Josh 8,053]

Thank you.

[Josh 8,053]

So basically you are never going to support open world games, right?

No one has the resources to make something like that, and you would not be able to just design and program freely in such a system. You'd have to worry about what zones are loaded, caching information, entities being deleted and reloaded, it would introduce a ton of restrictions and not be the nice simple experience you have now.

[Rick 1,459]

These days a lot of those games are procedurally generated where the users build up the world themselves. There isn't much in terms of resources needed for that. However I'd say the term "open world games" is vague in the sense that he said it. The big trend lately in game dev, especially indie, is give the players a big world and some rules and let them play. I think this is why people want to keep pushing the world size. Gamers are realizing the biggest world we can generate at this point aren't big enough because things get crowded fast.

[jen 368]

I made a small demo here if you want to see the actual result of that scene in the screenshot above: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/15769-open-world-demo/

[aiaf 149]

Runs quite well on my computer no slow down when looking at all those trees

This make me think i need to add more geometry to my game

[gamecreator 745]

Anyone want to do the honors...? Or should I?

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/large-video-game-worlds2.jpg

[jen 368]

Anyone want to do the honors...? Or should I?

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/large-video-game-worlds2.jpg

 

Yes, I'm interested to find out. I would say it's about as big as GTA San Andreas. I have a good feeling. Also, I think the map used on the demo is 2048x2048.

 

Refer to one of the images above where you can find a human to compare a GTA NPC with.

[reaper2259 19]

Yes, I'm interested to find out. I would say it's about as big as GTA San Andreas. I have a good feeling. Also, I think the map used on the demo is 2048x2048.

 

Refer to one of the images above where you can find a human to compare a GTA NPC with.

 

I don't really have a problem with the map size but just wanted to point out that based solely on the link to the large video game worlds that the largest LE world size of 16km2 is only double that of gta 3 and half that of the size of San Andreas, to be perfectly honest you would struggle to find an open world game that has released in the last 10 - 15 years with a game size of only 16km2, but it is what it is.

 

Personally i would think it best to leave the map size up to the developer of the game rather than the engine and let people deal with the consequences themselves as this is an engine after all and not a modding tool but i do understand that josh doesn't want to allow new people or kids to potentially get sub par performance due to the world size but i don't think kids/new people would be so stupid as to think they could easily run a 200km2 map easily either.

 

Anyways that's just my thoughts on the matter but like i said i don't have a major problem with world size, I would like to see it bigger but at the end of the day its all up to josh and i respect his decisions.

 

EDIT: all of this is assuming that the world is indeed 16km2 which i though i read somewhere that this was the world size compared to the default character controller and editor units but i can't find that now so i could be completely mistaken but if so my thoughts on the matter still stand.

[Josh 8,053]

Anyone want to do the honors...? Or should I?

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/large-video-game-worlds2.jpg

Leadwerks is not suited to these types of games.

[reaper2259 19]

Honestly i think the world size is fine how it is but i do see reason for people wanting bigger but for me my biggest issues with the terrain system currently is the 16 layer size limit with textures and vegetation, yes you can do a lot with just 16 but if you want to make a truly diverse environment you may be struggling with the limit size.

 

Another thing id like to see is a path tool and i don't mean something that puts down a texture aswell i just mean something that lets you make a smooth path in the terrain because currently i find it hard to make a good path connecting places and this is one of my main reasons why i left the unity engine behind.

[Einlander 280]

I don't think Leadwerks is quite up to the task of large scale open worlds. For one, Leadwerks does not page terrain in and out of memory. Another is you can't move terrain at will. Even if you could have a huge world you would need to move the worlds center. Leadwerks is prone to have floating point drift.

[Josh 8,053]

Another thing id like to see is a path tool and i don't mean something that puts down a texture aswell i just mean something that lets you make a smooth path in the terrain

That is something I actually do plan on adding in the future.

[gamecreator 745]

4096 meters = 2.545136 mi

This is what that looks like in comparison (Edit: see corrected image on the next page)

 

[Josh 8,053]

4096 meters = 2.545136 mi

This is what that looks like in comparison

 

You should not use Leadwerks to try to make Oblivion, FC2, or any of those games in a single map. It is not suited for this purpose. No engine that allows access to all objects in the world is.

[gamecreator 745]

I'm with ya. I was mostly just curious.

[reaper2259 19]

That is something I actually do plan on adding in the future.

 

Well that's excellent news then and i can't wait to see it though I'm sure its some ways off but none the less i look forward to the day.

[Einlander 280]

Don't forget there is 1 Leadwerks game that is open world with a huge procedural map. Dangerous Rays ( http://www.dangerousrays.com/ ) in it's current form uses Leadwerks 2. It generates a world and all it's contents, when you get to the edge of one map, it saves the map you are on and loads the new one. This way you can travel between maps. The downsides. You need to keep track of all entities yourself, map loading can take a rather long time.

[Rick 1,459]

4096 meters = 2.545136 mi

This is what that looks like in comparison

 

 

Wow that's pretty crazy when you show it next to those other games like that. Seems so tiny.

[macklebee 881]

er... maybe im missing something but 4096m x 4096m = 16,777,216 squared meters = 16.777 squared kilometers = ~6.4777 squared miles. So more than twice as big as referenced in that picture.

[jen 368]

4096 meters = 2.545136 mi

This is what that looks like in comparison

 

size.jpg

 

How does the size comparison work btw?

[jen 368]

I don't really have a problem with the map size but just wanted to point out that based solely on the link to the large video game worlds that the largest LE world size of 16km2 is only double that of gta 3 and half that of the size of San Andreas, to be perfectly honest you would struggle to find an open world game that has released in the last 10 - 15 years with a game size of only 16km2, but it is what it is.

...

 

That's the problem, the size of the player character is not taken into account. In other games the size of a player character may take up half of 1km2, in my game the player character may occupy only an 8th of 1km2 making my map bigger.

 

IMO GTA SA is much bigger than GTA 5, the press says otherwise. I've played both games, I know for sure GTA SA feels much larger.

[macklebee 881]

How does the size comparison work btw?

grand theft auto 3 map is 1.73 miles wide (and assumingly 1.73 miles in height), so its 1.73mi x 1.73mi = 2.99 squared miles (3 mi2)

 

 

LE map that is 4096 meters x 4086 meters is 16.78 km2 = ~6.48 mi2

[Rick 1,459]

Using gta 3 for any kind of comparison doesn't seem right to me. It came out almost 16 years ago. That being said josh has made it clear le isn't for those types of games so it's meaningless anyway.

[gamecreator 745]

er... maybe im missing something but 4096m x 4096m = 16,777,216 squared meters = 16.777 squared kilometers = ~6.4777 squared miles. So more than twice as big as referenced in that picture.

Damn, you're right. It should be about 2.5mi wide and 2.5mi high.