Regarding 3D
Moderator: OpenTTD Developers
Regarding 3D
Anyone remember The Sims 1 (& it's expansions)? You may think it's full 3D, but it's not, it's 2.5D, which the characters 3D and everything else 2D, rendered again as the map is rotated. This could be done for OTTD, with vehicles full 3D, and buildings and trees 2D images with a 3D feel, thus having better performance, yet nice graphics. What do you think of this? (I know it won't get implemented soon, maybe in 0.7.0 or other stand-alone version)
Please don't compare OpenTTD to the sims. I like to think of OpenTTD as a game that sane grownups can play.
As for 3D the statement have always been "it's not going to happen". However the game would never use C++ either and yet it's converted to C++ now.
If you look at the code, you will notice that the graphics are generated all over the code, not confirned to a few files. Also the game keeps a buffer of the screen and only updates the parts where something changed. Both of those issues are 3D killers, so if anybody decides to write a 3D graphics engine, it will be a major change to the code.
However the game spend a great deal of CPU power in the drawing code. If some of that load can be moved to the GPU, then we can get more CPU power to the fun stuff (or a faster game).
As for 3D in the game. Making it full 3D would spoil it, but making the vehicles 3D and the rest 2D would result in vehicles, that follows the terrain . Driving uphill will no longer look as silly (hopefully). They also have the chance to look sane when turning (instead of 45° steps).
It could also make the ground 3D. This would mean that we could increase the resolution of hills without drawing zillions of grass tile sprites. However we should really consider how (and if) to do that. Buildings should still be placed on foundations and be sprites, but it could be that the foundation ends up being 3D to follow the tile edges.
As you can see, it's a huge task and there is no garantee for success. It's not unlikely that we will never have 3D in the game, but I will not say that it won't happen either, but if it happens, it's not likely to show up overnight or this year. Certainly there are benefits, but are they worth the time and do we want the result? Nobody knows for sure, but we do know for sure that we will not move to 3D because all other games do that.
As for 3D the statement have always been "it's not going to happen". However the game would never use C++ either and yet it's converted to C++ now.
If you look at the code, you will notice that the graphics are generated all over the code, not confirned to a few files. Also the game keeps a buffer of the screen and only updates the parts where something changed. Both of those issues are 3D killers, so if anybody decides to write a 3D graphics engine, it will be a major change to the code.
However the game spend a great deal of CPU power in the drawing code. If some of that load can be moved to the GPU, then we can get more CPU power to the fun stuff (or a faster game).
As for 3D in the game. Making it full 3D would spoil it, but making the vehicles 3D and the rest 2D would result in vehicles, that follows the terrain . Driving uphill will no longer look as silly (hopefully). They also have the chance to look sane when turning (instead of 45° steps).
It could also make the ground 3D. This would mean that we could increase the resolution of hills without drawing zillions of grass tile sprites. However we should really consider how (and if) to do that. Buildings should still be placed on foundations and be sprites, but it could be that the foundation ends up being 3D to follow the tile edges.
As you can see, it's a huge task and there is no garantee for success. It's not unlikely that we will never have 3D in the game, but I will not say that it won't happen either, but if it happens, it's not likely to show up overnight or this year. Certainly there are benefits, but are they worth the time and do we want the result? Nobody knows for sure, but we do know for sure that we will not move to 3D because all other games do that.
2.5D(use 2d for static terrain and use 3d for dynamic objects) sounds feasible to me,at least they will save the artists some time to draw a few 2D pics to animate an object,with the zoom level of openttd,creating 3D model for it should be fairly easy,since you need only few polygons to make it look almost as 'detailed' as its 2D equivalent,though choosing/implementing a proper level of detail algorimth will be a tough task due to the high levels of zoom.Bjarni wrote: However the game spend a great deal of CPU power in the drawing code. If some of that load can be moved to the GPU, then we can get more CPU power to the fun stuff (or a faster game).
As for 3D in the game. Making it full 3D would spoil it, but making the vehicles 3D and the rest 2D would result in vehicles, that follows the terrain . Driving uphill will no longer look as silly (hopefully). They also have the chance to look sane when turning (instead of 45° steps).
Shame that you think that. The sims 2, along with Simcity 4 and openTTD belong to my favourite simulation games. The sims 2 is a interesting case, as I don't recall any other simulator game allowing a such wide range of custom creation.Bjarni wrote:Please don't compare OpenTTD to the sims. I like to think of OpenTTD as a game that sane grownups can play.
Simcity 4 is a interesting game graphical wise. It mixes 2D and 3D in a such way, that it might be impossible to tell what is 2D, and what's 3D sometimes. I can say for sure that the ground tiles under the buildings is 2D, and that the building is probably 2D as well, but have faked 3D effects when destroyed.
Mixing 2D and 3D like what The sims 1 and Simcity 4 does works best when 3D would be too slow and ugly, but you need the flexibility of 3D objects. But 2.5D as it's called by some people have it's heavy limits. 2D objects have a fixed set of angles, and this was a major limitation in The sims, but not as heavy in Simcity 4.
As for myself, I rather see openTTD stay fully 2D, or seeing a full 3D fork. Then still, some vehicles, such as airplanes would benefit greatly from being fully in 3D.
Some rollercoaster game had a insane amount of sprites for a single car on a attraction, because of the 2D engine. I forgot how many exactly it was..
There are no sprites in SimCity 4Ailure wrote:Simcity 4 is a interesting game graphical wise. It mixes 2D and 3D in a such way, that it might be impossible to tell what is 2D, and what's 3D sometimes. I can say for sure that the ground tiles under the buildings is 2D, and that the building is probably 2D as well, but have faked 3D effects when destroyed.
Mixing 2D and 3D like what The sims 1 and Simcity 4 does works best when 3D would be too slow and ugly, but you need the flexibility of 3D objects. But 2.5D as it's called by some people have it's heavy limits. 2D objects have a fixed set of angles, and this was a major limitation in The sims, but not as heavy in Simcity 4.
As for myself, I rather see openTTD stay fully 2D, or seeing a full 3D fork. Then still, some vehicles, such as airplanes would benefit greatly from being fully in 3D.
Some rollercoaster game had a insane amount of sprites for a single car on a attraction, because of the 2D engine. I forgot how many exactly it was..
- More screenshots from SimCity 4
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I long ago argued for this:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=24193
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=24193
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Regardind 3D: i tried how difficult it would be to change OpenTTD rendering infrastructure to OpenGL. After 3 days it works with some completness issues (it is not yet complete) and few bugs. If fixed, the next step would be 3D terrain renderer, then vehicles and finally buildings. Not so much work except that somebody who comes with tons of models/textures (instead of sprites) would be needed.
Did I ever say that there were?Quark wrote:There are no sprites in SimCity 4[/url]
There are some stuff that does look like sprites in the game (such as people walking around) but they're technically polygons. I seen glitches where those polygons bends around, and it's not pretty. XD So it's understandable why the angles is fixed.There's mods for Simcity 4 where you can do that. I forgot the name though. D:Born Acorn wrote:Yes, it is. Although normal Simcity 4 does have Subways, just not the El-Rail or the El-Rail<->Subway conversion.
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