Image Designer Archive
Thread: Idea I had
SunsetSam wrote:
Darkagent101 wrote:
Take a look at how this game works... things aren't all loaded at once, they're loaded 'on demand'.
So, an art peice wouldn't need to be loaded into every system on every server, just to people who actually need to see that image. I mean, you don't think the character visual stats of EVERYONE on your server are stored on your machine, do you? They're stored in the server and sent to your system once you need to see said person.
Actually, you are only partially correct. Yes the visual stats of every item in the game is loaded on demand as you come into range, but the images themselves are not sent to you at that time. To keep the server side packets tiny, at best only the table/file name and index value are passed. Every single image, however, is stored locally.So any custom images would by necessity have to be loaded by way of either standard patch or hotfix onto every client to be referenced as an index valued item in an art file.
Someone further down from your post mentioned the DAOC "crest" method of overlays. That could be workable. Custom art based upon layered templates. It would still cause a level of client side lag though that many might find unacceptable as each layered element is loaded into memory in correct order for *everybody* in visual range that chooses to indulge in this form of customization (which would probably be a lot if not most players). You think it's bad walking past the Coronet starport now? ==laughs==
/bump
Kwee my Ideas have been altered since initial change see above thread replies. Anyway this new combining symbols Idea can be implemented. Maybe sneak it in a small dev questionarre for me next time you chat with them? Or link to this thread in the ID FAQ. I really think this new polished ID is possible and would be an awesome feature *drools over the possibilitites*
Well, this doesn't have to be a huge endeavor and could easily work just as well as the current system does. You guys seem to be thinking of each player's custom art as an image file - well don't - imagine this as a simple simple bitmap.
Not sure if this forum will form correctly, but here goes an example:
xxxxxxx
x0xxx0x
xxx0xxx
xx\__/xx
xxxxxxx
That could easily be programmed in most languages as an array or a string - and you could easily add compression if you know what you're doing - this is exactly what bitmaps are (I used the \, _, /'s for the mouth instead of 0's to keep things simple and easily readable), just numbers. Look at the Nintendo GameCube game Animal Crossing's system for drawing, it'd be much like that in my mind. You wouldn't have to have it blocky if you don't want it to be, but don't imagine this as a huge piece of art, just something that could easily be dynamically drawn.
Anyway I think an even better idea was the sculpture thing, which also go for paintings. You could have a picture with like a selection of 80 background images, then the game would just record the visual data from the target character(s) and put it into the painting, then the game would render a 2d (or 3d if we had a hologram type deal!) picture of that character over the background - not super hard to do and could quite easily make some really nice stuff - the sculpture idea would work the same way. Take a huge block of material, target a player, then it would store his visual data in their - then it would just basically make a character who is a dupe of the target, but with some colored skin, maybe with shaders for cool reflections.
Anyway just trying to give some insight on possibilities, no matter how far remote =)