Feasibility of a Concrete Implication of Cellular Anotema in Design Philosophy

ID:153848
 
Nov 30 2002, 7:18 am
(I think I spelled anotema wrong)
Would it be feasible to use the concepts of cells and cell distribution in a BYOND game?
I read about this in Game Programming Gems 3.
I have a few points,counterpoints and questions.
Each signified by a +,-, or ? respectivly.
+ The world is already subdivided into cells (tiles).
+ It will add a new depth to realism. (Read the article)
+ A working library would help BYOND considerably.
+ Any space game would get a large boost. :) see n1.
- It might be processor intensive. see n2
? Would enclosed areas that move and can become exposed to external forces still work. Like a spaceship made of objects moving around.

n1: Oxygen would distribute itself evenly so a leak would have the oxygen attempt to distribute itself with space. (can be done by having outer squares always setting their oxygen to 0). The movement of oxygen could make strong currents that push players creating a space vacuum.

n2: You could slow this by having the grid only update every half second or have the host be able to change the rate. A second would be a little to long for a space game.
in patricular.

n3: I like space games and had them in mind while writing this. Now that I wrote this I may buy the book and attempt this myself instead of just trying it without the book.
#1 Nov 30 2002, 8:28 am
Check out Xooxer's thing called "Life" or something like that.
#2 Nov 30 2002, 8:32 am
In response to Nadrew (#1)
I already know about life. It is a very good exam,ple of cellular anotema. However I am talking about using the concepts of cellular anotoma to demonstrate changes in temperature, pressure, and air, air currents, and other environmental variables to add a new depth of realism to a game. It not only adds realism but makes it easier to code as well.
#3 Nov 30 2002, 10:17 am
In response to Exadv1 (#2)
Well, the thought of that crossed my mind once or twice in a game about water... but i think you should go for it!
the more librarys the better BYOND gets!
#4 Nov 30 2002, 10:30 am
In response to Maz (#3)
If I make it I will write and article and library and submit it. What I want to discuss here is the propeties of air and water transfer along with strategies for implication. (How do you singularily process everything?)
Don't expect anything soon because I still have a lot of research to do.
#5 Nov 30 2002, 11:17 am
In response to Exadv1 (#4)
In one of my current projects, temperature plays an important role in the game. It takes place in the Antarctic and your character can freeze to death if exposed to the elements long enough. Here are a couple notes on how the temperature system works (I'm pretty happy with it so far):

* Instead of trying to update all turfs regularly, at intervals I pick a random sampling of turfs and update them and their neighbors. Over time, the effect is pretty much the same as if I'd been processing all turfs.

* Some turfs are marked as "thermogens", which means they generate hot or cold temperatures. (For example, ventilation system registers, or outdoor turfs adjacent to buildings.) Since this is a relatively small list, these are all processed at regular intervals.

* I created a "heat gauge" overlay for debugging -- each overlay is a big square outline with color ranging from blue to red. Whenever a turf's temperature is updated, its overlay is updated too. When I don't want to debug, I just change one of my #defines to 0, and the heat display goes away.

Hope this helps!
#6 Nov 30 2002, 12:01 pm
In response to Gughunter (#5)
Hmmmm I like the idea on only updating some. I may make an area which activly updates and another which well doesn't :) Also any moving spacecraft updates itself and surrounding 3 squares. The rest doesn't need update because it will represent that the everything decimated to a point that it is close to the constant I would make for space.
How would you handle a moving enclosed area? Like suppose you make 5x5 vehicles. You would want the walls to seperate from the freezing outside to the warm inside. Wait I answered my own question before! But how would you handle moving vehicles of entirly different extremes. Remember the vehicle could move or get its inside xposed.
When will this game be ready? :)
It sounds like fun.
#7 Nov 30 2002, 7:12 pm
Don't you mean "Feasibility of a Concrete Implementation of Cellular Automata"? =P
#8 Nov 30 2002, 7:16 pm (Edited on Nov 30 2002, 11:45 pm)
In response to Gughunter (#5)
That's how my Life-inspired plants work in Haven -- none of them actually update according to the actual rules of Life. Namely, they don't conform to the "simultaneous" rule. To compensate for the lessened survival rate, the rules of growth and overcrowding are variable based on how healthy the plant is.
#9 Nov 30 2002, 10:37 pm
In response to Exadv1 (#6)
You could have characters effected by temperature based upon their location. If they are inside a vehicle, their location would be the vehicle. The vehicles temperature could then be effected by the turf it is currently on based upon some coefficient. When the windows are rolled up, the coefficient would be high (and less heat transfer would take place). If the windows were open, the coefficient would be low and a lot of heat transfer would occur.
#10 Dec 1 2002, 2:38 am
In response to Spuzzum (#7)
Spuzzum wrote:
Don't you mean "Feasibility of a Concrete Implementation of Cellular Automata"? =P

or...anatomy would work too.
#11 Dec 1 2002, 6:06 am
In response to English (#9)
In a way I will probably do this for some of the vehicles. However the larger vehicles will work like the ones before like space shuttles.