ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#16 Posted Oct 31, 2009, 12:13 pm
|
Davion said:ATT_Turan said:
Really? Which RoM, whatever the newest thing in the repository is?
Any ROM. It's stock! But ya, as Runter said, mostly has to do with corpse mangling :P. It's no where near to the detail you want, as the parts are simply just bitvectors (has, or doesn't have).
Ah, thanks. I shan't bother looking it up, then.
|
|
|
|
|
David Haley
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 5,727
Joined: Jun 30, 2007
|
#18 Posted Oct 31, 2009, 4:26 pm
|
ATT_Turan said:I'm doing it to add some bit of realism and to impact gameplay. For example, it doesn't make sense to break a skeleton's nose in combat, and one of my tradeskills involves harvesting organs and parts from corpses, so it doesn't make sense to be able to cut off a wolf's hand. The additional cosmetic functionality is just for visual fun.
OK then. So it's quite important that it be correct, because it sounds like some skills or effects will only work against mobs with the right body parts. There's nothing more annoying than thinking that some skill sounds good, and it only works against orcs (or whatever), just to find out that there are no orcs in the world or worse yet there are orcs but they don't have the right body parts set up...
Similar story for organs etc.
If it were just cosmetics, it would be less important to get the details right, but if it's going to play a non-trivial role in gameplay (which is what it sounds like from your description) you probably do want detail, which means it has to be easy for builders to provide that detail.
In fact, you could probably set limb templates for them automatically as soon as they set the 'race' attribute a mob. Then, let them choose other templates if they feel like it. Sandi's description of basic form vs. extra features sounds pretty nice, too: you would have a list of core forms, and then a list of extras you can add on top of those forms, so you could easily mix and match all kinds of things without having to deal with the complexities of resolving conflicts among whole templates. (That is, if you only had full forms, you'd have to figure out what happens when you mix a four-legged animal and a dragon, whereas you might have only wanted the four legs and the wings, etc.)
|
|
|
Sandi
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 621
Joined: Jun 17, 2006
|
#19 Posted Oct 31, 2009, 6:35 pm
|
Davion said:ATT_Turan said:
Really? Which RoM, whatever the newest thing in the repository is?
Any ROM. It's stock! But ya, as Runter said, mostly has to do with corpse mangling :P. It's no where near to the detail you want, as the parts are simply just bitvectors (has, or doesn't have).
ROM has templates, which is what David was suggesting.
And bits make sense in combat related code. The "level of complexity" is determined by what the bits represent.
From experience, I'd suggest that when a Builder selects a form template (simplicity), you display the parts included (information).
|
......................... The Witch of Tir na nOg
www.tnnmud.com
tnnmud.com 6789
|
|
ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#20 Posted Oct 31, 2009, 7:22 pm
|
I'm halfway through implementing this system - I've written the interface for editing limbs into the OLC, and I'm starting to write the code for damaging them in fights and what the effects of that will be. I decided against having any templates other than two toggled values in the basic meditor that determine whether the mob uses normal human anatomy and can bleed. I figured there was little point in both allowing builders to define custom limbs and have some number of predetermined templates - it's more work for me, and there are few enough values to set for limbs that adding them yourself is not difficult. Of course, this can always be changed later if I get builders who have problems with it or find it highly inefficient as is.
|
|
|
|
|
elanthis
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 760
Joined: Feb 26, 2008
|
#22 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 12:53 am
|
Quote:Having predetermined templates is (really only a little bit) more work for you now, but is saved time on every single mob creation.
Listen to David. He will make you strong.
|
|
.........................
Cutting corners to keep your line count down is just sad.
|
|
ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#23 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 4:52 am
|
Well, until the world starts getting made, I don't really know what kind of templates would be desired. I suppose one could presume that a quadraped would be useful to cover wolves and lions and...I dunno, stuff. Aside from that, I just don't know what folks will want to add to their areas, so I think this is something I'll have to add in as it becomes necessary. On the bright side, I got into a fight with a mindflayer-spider that I made and successfully cut a bleeding gash in one of his tentacles and lopped off two of his legs 
|
|
|
KaVir
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 1,114
Joined: Jun 19, 2006
|
#24 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 5:49 am
|
ATT_Turan said:Well, until the world starts getting made, I don't really know what kind of templates would be desired. I suppose one could presume that a quadraped would be useful to cover wolves and lions and...I dunno, stuff. Aside from that, I just don't know what folks will want to add to their areas, so I think this is something I'll have to add in as it becomes necessary.
That's the way I do it - I created a basic handful of shapes to start with, then just add more as needed. I use a customisable shape for the more exotic one-off monsters, but most creatures fall into one of the existing shapes (note that while lion and wolf can share a template, you'll probably want a different one for horses, another for elephants, etc).
I do need to make changes from time to time, either because I've made a mistake with a body part, overlooked something, or added support for a new body part. Fortunately I only need to update the shape itself, and the changes are then automatically reflected in all the creatures that use that shape. As the number of mobs has grown, I'm really glad I decided to take this approach - I know it seems a lot of work for little return now, but it's definitely an investment that pays off in the long term.
|
......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
|
|
ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#25 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 11:51 am
|
KaVir said:That's the way I do it - I created a basic handful of shapes to start with, then just add more as needed. I use a customisable shape for the more exotic one-off monsters, but most creatures fall into one of the existing shapes (note that while lion and wolf can share a template, you'll probably want a different one for horses, another for elephants, etc).
Well, horses would be the same as lions and wolves for me - I'm not making the limbs have attributes for things like attacks, so horses wouldn't get gypped out of a hoof kick or anything - elephants would have four leg limbs and a miscellaneous for their trunk.
|
Last edited Nov 1, 2009, 11:51 am by ATT_Turan
|
|
KaVir
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 1,114
Joined: Jun 19, 2006
|
#26 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 1:15 pm
|
ATT_Turan said:Well, horses would be the same as lions and wolves for me - I'm not making the limbs have attributes for things like attacks, so horses wouldn't get gypped out of a hoof kick or anything
I was thinking more about severed hands/feet - a severed paw vs a severed hoof. You might also decide to give lions and wolves fangs instead of teeth, but you wouldn't want that for horses.
Obviously it'll depend on your design, it's just an example of why someone might decide to break quadraped up into separate templates.
|
......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
|
|
ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#27 Posted Nov 1, 2009, 3:00 pm
|
KaVir said:I was thinking more about severed hands/feet - a severed paw vs a severed hoof. You might also decide to give lions and wolves fangs instead of teeth, but you wouldn't want that for horses.
Obviously it'll depend on your design, it's just an example of why someone might decide to break quadraped up into separate templates.
Ah, you're perfectly correct there. I currently don't have that level of detail - if a limb is defined to be a humanoid leg or arm, then you can break/cut hands, fingers, feet and toes - otherwise, the only thing that can happen is the limb itself gets broken, cut or severed. I did consider adding some sort of layered properties to the limbs, wherein layer 3 is attached to layer 2 is attached to layer 1 - fingers on a hand on an arm, or suckers on tendrils on a tentacle, or just using two of the layers to have a paw on a leg. Right now I'm content with what I've done, as it prevents nonsensical cosmetics during combat and provides some realism, but I might go back and enhance it with the layers thing later.
|
|
|
KaVir
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 1,114
Joined: Jun 19, 2006
|
#28 Posted Nov 2, 2009, 4:44 am
|
ATT_Turan said:Ah, you're perfectly correct there. I currently don't have that level of detail - if a limb is defined to be a humanoid leg or arm, then you can break/cut hands, fingers, feet and toes - otherwise, the only thing that can happen is the limb itself gets broken, cut or severed.
But you've said you're running a GodWars - do you still have the shapechanging power for vampires? If so, what will happen if a vampire with a missing hand shapechanges into a wolf?
|
......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
|
|
ATT_Turan
Magician
Group: Members
Posts: 82
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
|
#29 Posted Nov 2, 2009, 5:52 am
|
KaVir said:But you've said you're running a GodWars - do you still have the shapechanging power for vampires? If so, what will happen if a vampire with a missing hand shapechanges into a wolf?
Eh...hehe...well, I suppose the long and short of that would be no  I don't have much of the original classing system left, and there are currently no player powers that would allow them to shapeshift into a non-humanoid form. You make a good point, though, and it's something for me to keep a brain cell on as I progress - right now, if there were a wolf shapeshifting power I'd go by how badly their arm is damaged. If it's hurt at the hand or finger level, it doesn't matter to the new limb, but injuries at the arm level would translate. Or I could go through and add the layers concept I mentioned above - I made sure that everything dealing with injuring a builder-defined limb is out in its own function, so I can simply add new functionality in there as necessary.
The trick, of course, is the more I go down that route, the more I go toward having to replace all references to body parts with these structures and rewriting the equipment-handling code and then I cry. Actual tears.
|
|
|
