Streaming zones :

[YouGroove]

Another feature for LE3 when it will be complete and if people would need some features ideas to implement :

A zone streaming system for big worlds games only.

 

Ability to define a zone with delta distances :

- near the zone ! zone loading if it remains stuff to load

- a bit far away : zone loading in background

- little more far do nothing

- far away : unload the zone

[Rick]

I seem to recall Josh talking about doing this with terrain. There are challenges around this and side effects to consider though. Do enemies belong to zones too? Seems like they almost would have too because they couldn't do stuff if their zone isn't loaded. If so what if I have an enemy tail me outside of it's zone and it's zone gets unloaded, does the enemy then get unloaded also? If not, what if they finally lose aggro (imagine MMO) does it go back into it's zone which doesn't exist anymore? There are many questions around how to handle this and so I think it's more complicated and could have limitations that we might not think of right now.

 

Would be cool though I agree.

[tournamentdan]

Something like the video below would be incredible.

[YouGroove]

Do enemies belong to zones too?

You place it on a zone, so yes it is attached to it.

1)During game you see nearest zones, The ennemy should flee away when you go too far form it's initial zone.

2)Or if you want other system : your game would just save last ennemy position in the last zone you seen it after you flee from it.

So ennemys would be saved and attached to the new zone.

 

Seems like they almost would have too because they couldn't do stuff if their zone isn't loaded.

If the zone is not visible,not among nearest visible zones, you won't manage the ennemies and don't display them like.

 

If so what if I have an enemy tail me outside of it's zone and it's zone gets unloaded, does the enemy then get unloaded also?

Depends on you way of managing :

- Keep it attached to it's inital zone, but could pursue you anywhere , any zone during your session gameplay.

- Make it flee away automatically if too far form it's zone

- Let it pursue you and if you flee/hide form it, it will be attached to the new zone where it is actually (a save position)

 

So you'll have to manage NPC zone changing or not dpeending on how you want it.

 

If not, what if they finally lose aggro (imagine MMO) does it go back into it's zone which doesn't exist anymore?

-You do like you want, leave the pursue after some distance from it's zone like mmos.

- Follow you and each time it is in a new Zone , it is attached to that new zone.

 

Some games have some AI travelling LOD :

- you meet NPC he says he goes to a moutain and tells you to follow him or meet him in that mountain.

You can run everywhere on the world map, as times goes on, a process calculates each 5 seconds where should be the NPC, what distance it should have reached to the precalculated path to the mountain.

The NPC can be on zones you don't see caus you ran very far away, but the process continues to calculate it's general moves.

 

Same for your NPC and zones, once the NPC came back to it's original position , no more need to calculate travelling.

 

I would say Rick :

Make it simple lol

FF12, FF10, Tales of Visperia etc ... have world made of zones, and monsters pursue you if needed only on the zone where you are.

 

 

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@tounamentDan :

Even with among best 3D engines on the world : Crysis, UDK ... even like that indies just toy with them, you won't find big incredible games.

So even with super forest system and terrain , i doubt indies will make Skyrim

You can mod Skyrim already, but didn't seen anything made by indies and modders blowing me like original skyrim game

 

But good point, perhaps a future LE3 special terrain features inspired by that video ?

[Rick]

@YouGroove, those questions were to show you that there are many things to think about with streaming like this. I'm not making anything with this stuff but I was just pointing out the things that Josh has to consider when making such a system.

 

Even with some of the ways to solve the problems, that you mention, has additional issues in them. We aren't going to solve or identify all the possible issues/constraints here in this thread. I was just pointing out that it isn't the most simplest thing to have and often comes with restrictions and such that not everyone will enjoy.

[YouGroove]

I'm okay with that; i talked basic streaming :

Just load me all models i put in that zone

 

Entity management and zone changing if it could happen in your game won't be programmed in the engine, and the points i pointed are not work arounds, they are points used in such big world games.

 

If you keep it MMo , NPC return to it's position if it pursues yout too far , you won't have any NPC problems and the engine will have just to do basic streaming.

 

I don't plan a game using streaming, i prefer zones.

It was just some idea if LE3 one day would need new ones.

 

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@ tournamentDan :

Good didn't know i was GPL license.

Anyway how to manage pathfinding collisions with such big worlds ? how to edit big worlds like that ?

Can you place grass, rocks, building, characters without going to 0.005 fps per second ?

[Josh]

If I implemented something like this, the engine would become unusable for most people. There would be invalid pointers all over the place, tons of new ways to make mistakes, each object would require a custom serialization / deserialization callback, just a mess for a general-purpose game engine. It would severely limit your flexibility to program things and introduce a ton of weird conventions people wouldn't understand. At the same time, RAM and VRAM are going up quickly, making this kind of thing less important.

[AggrorJorn]

This is too much game independent. Minecraft handles its world in chunks. Only the chunk the player is in will update objects but it is possible to see multiple chunks at the same time.