Ancient Of Days on :
"Otherwise, just make sure the pretty pictures work."
Great stuff.
Great stuff.
Friday, July 29. 2005Howell Clarke
Hi everybody. I'm kind of a newbie here, so let me just get a few things out into the open. You probably shouldn't depend on me posting regularly. Sometimes, I write a lot. Sometimes, I will go months without writing a thing. So, right now, I'm in one of my write-a-lot modes. Who knows how long it will last. Maybe it will be around for a while, maybe it will be gone tomorrow. Anyway, you get the idea.
This is a character sketch of a man named Howell Clarke. He goes by the name Night_Watcher in the online community. You will probably all see more than a passing resemblance to a few real people, but let's be honest, all writing is based on real life somehow. Blink. Ok, now, do it again. Ooh, that one was rough. I hate these contacts. Where did that drink go? I hope that caffeine kicks in soon. OK now, where was I? My roommate probably wants me to go to bed. Oh well. He'll live. He sleeps too much anyway. Why should I waste my life that way just because he does? What was I doing? Oh, yeah. Is he still on line? Night_Watcher[2:37]: Sorry, I drifted off. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:37]: You sleep?! Night_Watcher[2:38]: Not on purpose. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:38]: Well, you didn't miss much. I'm still waiting for it to finish rendering this environment. We're going to have to figure out some way to generate these things. The prefab environments are just getting too complex.
Night_Watcher[2:39]: We don't have the processing power to generate them on-the-fly. We're maxing out the system just on rendering the prefabs, and that's when nobody's online. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:40]: Yeah, but if we can generate them on-the-fly as you say, then we don't have to render the entire environment. We just have to render the pieces that the user is requesting. And we don't even have to generate the whole thing in full detail. We can mimic nature, and only give him the stuff directly in front of his face in full color. The stuff in his peripheral vision can be a half-rendered mishmash. The brain will know how to handle that. Night_Watcher[2:41]: Are you sure that will work? Fair_Weather_Friend[2:41]: No. But it's worth a try. Worth a try!! Yeah, it's a great idea, but he's talking about re-writing the entire engine. And even then, we're not sure that it would work. He has no clue. Besides, we'd still have to have the entire environment rendered somewhere. Night_Watcher[2:41]: That would be a lot of work!! Besides, we'd still have to have the entire environment rendered somewhere. Just because we don't display it all doesn't mean we don't have to render it. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:42]: See, that's the cool thing. We could just render it as a wireframe model, and then associate rules with the different surface types, and then render the portions that the user's request in realtime. That would give us a lot more flexibility in our environments. We could use rules to create weather patterns, to shift shading as time passes, and stuff like that. AARGH! I hate working with people who aren't coders. They think that making a program do what they want it to should be as easy as it was to think of the idea. Night_Watcher[2:43]: Do you know what you're asking? You're talking about massive changes to the design of the program. We're not talking about some revisions to the engine--we're talking about a complete ground-up redesign and re-write. You know how long that would take? Fair_Weather_Friend[2:43]: No idea :) Night_Watcher[2:43]: A long time. Besides, we don't even know if it would work. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:44]: Brain_Stem thinks it will. He even thinks it will lessen some of the rejection issues we've been having. Night_Watcher[2:44]: How could this affect rejection? Fair_Weather_Friend[2:44]: I didn't get his explanation. Something about "the more real it is, the less likely it is to be rejected." Night_Watcher[2:45]: Weird, that's suggesting that the brain can somehow exert control over the immune system. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:47]: Whatever. I'm always lost when you guys start talking about stuff like that. If you want to discuss surfaces meshes and shaders, let me know. Otherwise, just make sure the pretty pictures work. Fair_Weather_Friend[2:48]: I'm going to bed. I just posted the new file. Let me know about problems in the morning. Wow, something really got him in a snit. He just can't handle it when I don't give in to his every whim. LOADING, LOADING, LOADING. This must be a big environment. Holy . . . Trackbacks
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Ancient Of Days on :
"Otherwise, just make sure the pretty pictures work."
Great stuff. Wren on :
.....guh?
Okay, so I feel like a hacker moron. But...you know, I could make the pretty pictures. If someone could make 'em work. Right? radar on :
hhmmm? I wonder who you pulled your characters from?
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