What should I do when the player gets to the end of a world? On larger Earth-like worlds I planned on just having an endless ocean. On very small worlds (asteroid size) I was going to have it wrap around on all edges so that the world actually feels tiny. I''m stuck on what to do for something like Mars. Obviously I can''t really do an ocean. Any ideas?

It really depends what type of game your making. One common solution is to simply block off the edges with some sort of impassable terrain, such as ocean, or mountains or something. You COULD always wrap around same as on the asteroids, but that most likely isnt what you want. I''d go with some kind of impassable obstacle.

I was thinking about mountain ranges actually, but I''m just worried someone with a jet pack might find a way to get over it or at least see over it.

well because you can''t have endless memory or bits
but you can have fairly complex near never-ending
using trick like l-system or fractal and the kind, if you get how to design with...

for example i have worked of a engine which has level of complexity from the single leaf of a tree to different galaxy, but i don''t have a game for this
you could go near a tree and see fruits, branch, parasite all different, but there is limitation to the lod according to the ram and the cpu speed
but the content is generated, you have only to design the primitives, better the relation build to make the content can be use as a knowledge base by the npc

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
be good
be evil
but do it WELL
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Rap-around would be awesome... personally.

Uberness...

I know wrap around would be cool, but I don''t really feel like making a 120000x120000 map to make it feel realistic .

The problem with a fully wrap-around world is that it doesn''t describe a sphere. Unless you really fancy up the math, you''re going to have either a cylinder or a torus. I don''t think I''ve ever seen a truly spherical world portrayed in a video game. Can anyone come up with an example?

As to world-edges, one solution I encountered in an old flight sim called "A-10 Attack!" was pretty novel. At the edges of the world, the terrain flattened out and all you had was ground clutter (little trees and what-not), and no matter how long you flew you''d always be about five miles away from the edge of the "map". The ground scrolled by underneath as though you were really going somewhere, but you weren''t. You could start up, flay straight to the edge of the map, and then go until you ran out of fuel. No barrier, no imappable obstacle, just a time-space anomaly. If you add in some fractal terrain, it might be more convincing.

I guess it depends on the game type. For an RPG, you could always bound the world with phenomena. At the north edge of the map is the Desert of Mystery, which is just a fractal terrain filled with monsters so tough that nobody can really get more than a few miles in anyhow, and by then they''d be dead. On the South end you get the Typhoon Sea, which you can sail on, but it''s filled with horrible weather such that no man can get far ("The Truman Show" had this). East and west could be fractal mountains that have several layers of "impassable" cliffs, so even if you jetpacked over one or more of them, you''d be out of fuel and/or eaten by dragons before you saw the other side.

For a space-related game, you could have the "maps" be little hand-crafted regions of the astral body, on which you can land and explore, and have everything else be fractal desolation. That saves you the trouble of the 120000 square map, and gives you the power to wrap around in the style you most like. With this solution, you could have small maps scattered about the wasteland, so the important relics and crash sites would be exactly where they are supposed to be, and the world could be big enough that you''d have to know where to look if you hoped to find one.

What manner of game are you thinking of?

You could place the game in a crater... have jet packs to only work at certain altitudes or have recharge times. One game I know whiched used hover tech for tanks and such also allowed tanks to jump... but they could only go so high before falling down again. If you place the map on a crater, it would forect them to stay within a small area

How is wraparound on all edges/corners of the map not a sphere?

Sorry about not being very specific about what type of game it is, I'm not even sure myself . I know I want it to be a third person shooter though. I think I will just settle for an impassible barrier at the edge and then extend the map farther with more handmade data. You would never be able to see beyond it and it won't be hard at all to implement.

[edit] With the story I was planning it also wouldn't be too hard to do something like the MechWarrior series. As you approach the edge you see a yellow line and get a warning that you are leaving the mission area. As soon as you cross the red line you blow up.

[edited by - Raloth on November 10, 2003 10:00:32 PM]

I''ve always liked the idea of using some sort of gameplay mechanic to limit the play area. For example, on Mars you would need an air supply, and the amount of air that you can carry limits the distance you can travel. That sort of thing.

quote:
The problem with a fully wrap-around world is that it doesn''t describe a sphere. Unless you really fancy up the math, you''re going to have either a cylinder or a torus. I don''t think I''ve ever seen a truly spherical world portrayed in a video game. Can anyone come up with an example?

Populous: The Beginning had a spherical world.