Splitting Tiles Diagonal

[VentureCo 94]

Hiya, first off, i don't know if this is one of the "regular" suggestions or what rolfs plans on his engine are;

Currently, wurms game world consists entirely of squares, which makes it hard (read: impossible) to create more advanced areas. By splitting the Tiles diagonal twice we would end up with the world consisting of triangular tiles, opening up a whole new level of possible creations (diagonal roads for example).

It also should be something of an "easy fix" (i.e. only take a reasonable amount of Rolfs sanity) if there are no other plans to switch to a full-blown 3d enviroment.

So, what's your peoples opinion on this?

Just to clarify, this is what i'm talking about:

Cheers

Edited August 1, 2012 by VentureCo

[namyahmas 4]

The problem with this is that it's not symmetrical. Assuming they're supposed to be tile borders, how would you make an octagon house out of it?

Maybe if it was split the other way, as well, so that the current tile size is split into 4 triangles, it could work. Also, we have a separate suggestions and ideas section.

[VentureCo 94]

I know that there is a "suggestions" forum, possible flaws like the one you pointed out and having no idea if ideas like this have allready been rejected 138303 times made me post it here first to gather opinions.

And lol yepps, double splitting into four triangles was what i was going for.

Edit: fixed OP.

Edited August 1, 2012 by VentureCo

[Guest Docterchese]

I think that when we hold down a particular key, such as alt, Wurm should go into "triangular" mode. It would be messy to have diagonal lines everywhere so making it display when pressing alt would be better.

I got that idea from the Sims 3 - it's possible to make stuff diagonally in the Sims by holding down a key and going into "triangle" mode.

[Keldun 335]

it's a nice idea.

Just to clarify, there should not be four diagonal edges per tile, but two that cross in the middle.

[Xalorum 765]

I'd love it! but wouldn't that require a ton of new artwork?

[Keldun 335]

Not require, a simple stretching of the walls and cutting of the textures would suffice for the start, both can be done automatically in code.

In the long term it would be nice though as walls are 40% longer and that amount of stretching is bound to look weird.

The more important question would be if the map data could be adapted for such a change.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Keldun

[Kadore 926]

I know little on how the game is programmed, but doing tiles in this manner would make small circles quite easy to make.

[Acurapassion 54]

There have been some similar suggestions in the past, and I'm all for it still, would love to see diagonal roads and walls, instead of everything being so square and plain. And this actually wouldn't require a huge amount of extra effort to involve.

I also like this idea for hiding all the messy cross-gridlines:

I think that when we hold down a particular key, such as alt, Wurm should go into "triangular" mode. It would be messy to have diagonal lines everywhere so making it display when pressing alt would be better.

I got that idea from the Sims 3 - it's possible to make stuff diagonally in the Sims by holding down a key and going into "triangle" mode.

[Aetherwalker 1,863]

Don't see any point in this whatsoever, if anything it just means MORE jagged, ugly landscapes. -1

[Gaeron 551]

Thats a big change to the terrain layer. It would involve rebuilding the map and the map data would be significantly larger.

Also anything on a per tile basis, trees for example would have to be looked at. How would their placement go?

Would this also apply to mines? Does it affect deed palcement, planning buildings?

There are probably 101 gotchas waiting in the wings if this were attempted.

[Tinkerer 107]

Thats a big change to the terrain layer. It would involve rebuilding the map and the map data would be significantly larger.

Also anything on a per tile basis, trees for example would have to be looked at. How would their placement go?

Would this also apply to mines? Does it affect deed palcement, planning buildings?

There are probably 101 gotchas waiting in the wings if this were attempted.

My thoughts exactly.

Its not as simple as just putting in two diagonals. there would also have to be borders between all the triangles. Apart from that, there are numerous aspects of the game that would be affected by it.

How would this affect digging for example? Now there is a 'central' point that needs to be dug down? What about 'flattening'? What about resources like clay?

If each tile is now treated as 4 tiles, how would that affect something like farming? I guess that would have to be changed to examine all 4 triangles or rely on smaller triangular fields... Roads too? would they all now be small triangular regions for each part of the road? Having the extra height point would also affect slopes and the flow of dirt...

It would also make any AI pathing much more complex and processor intensive thus would potentially lead to reduced animal caps.

I just see this as completely unnecessary and adding an unseen number of problems to wurm and all existing code. Sure, all the problems can be tackled individually and solved, but the number of problems that would need to be addressed makes this seem like too much hassle when there are already so many other things that time would be better spent on.

-1

[Keldun 335]

Some of you guys are thinking way too complicated.

There is no need for a middle point, nor for splitting the tiles into fours. (this would by the way only create smaller squares turned 45°, with alternating diagonals)

The idea that might work, is to optionally split each tile in two either that |/| way or that |\| way. All tiles would act the same as they are now, except that split tiles can have two mats in them or a wall in the middle.

Trees would always require a full tile, farms would give half the harvest. Resources like clay, peat or tar are only natural and can't be changed, so they would never appear in a split tile. Worst issue I see would be pathing along diagonal walls.

[Tich 1,389]

It maybe easier (for diagonal roads) to have 4 more tiles that are just that 1/2 road, 1/2 grass

[Torluk 21]

+1

This is an idea I've always had a soft spot for and would like to see but it does have the potential to be a major time/resource consuming change.

If it could be done it would be great. If not I hope Rolf keeps it in mind for Wurm 2.

Could go further and build a hex based map with each hex being made of several triangles for even more possibilities.

[Tinkerer 107]

It maybe easier (for diagonal roads) to have 4 more tiles that are just that 1/2 road, 1/2 grass

Even then you've got issues with identifying where you are on the tile and applying correct speed bonuses. The whole thing would surely introduce more quirks, bugs and messy workarounds that would complicate things more than it's worth.

Could go further and build a hex based map with each hex being made of several triangles for even more possibilities.

An equilateral triangle/hex-based map would make any regular rectangular buiding impossible. While the odd hexagonal pagoda might be nice to build, limiting alll buildings as such would be terrible.

Personally, I think having odd triangular farms and split terrain would end up making things look a lot worse and even less realistic. The only thing in its favour in that respect is due to fact that you would be effectively increasing the resolution.

[VentureCo 94]

Well if the maker of wurm is trying to improve his game i think a "more 3d" enviroment should be of some (read: high) importance (on that note: are there any plans for a "true" 3d engine?)

I also don't think hexagons would work well, but with a bit of thinking two (optional visible - great idea there) diagonal lines would be possible without having to re-do the whole game (all the existing maps for instance could easily be converted - as for trees/resource tiles, two ideas allready popped up in the minute i'm writing this: either have them take the same amount of space like now - a square tile, or have them randomly on one of the resulting 4 tiles).

It's all just a matter of creative thinking imo, and by the looks of wurm the creator seems to be capable of that. ;p

[Minobu Tetsuhara 50]

I don't know about changing it all this way, but if it could be done so that just roads could be a half tile like that... That would really alter the landscape.

[Kamikazifly 70]

splitting the tiles into 4 more tiles would increase the polygon count & terrain database by 4x each. And if your intentions were for diagonal buildings, you would have to have tile borders for each triangle. That would be another 4 things to keep track of. But 3D isnt squares, its always triangles put together to look like squares, rectangles, and/or circles. That means adding 4 more tile borders (for the 4 inner triangles) would be adding double that to make the inner tile borders (cause tile borders are rectangles (two triangles)). Therefore, this idea is not just adding 4 triangles in place of the 2 triangles the square shaped tile already uses, but actually 10x more triangles for the client to process.

-1

[Tich 1,389]

It maybe easier (for diagonal roads) to have 4 more tiles that are just that 1/2 road, 1/2 grass

Even then you've got issues with identifying where you are on the tile and applying correct speed bonuses. The whole thing would surely introduce more quirks, bugs and messy workarounds that would complicate things more than it's worth.

Not sure why you think that, i did not say anything about working out the speed factor for each part of the tile, could just treat the tile as "road" - the 4 tile types would just be for looks -nothing else

[Torluk 21]

An equilateral triangle/hex-based map would make any regular rectangular buiding impossible. While the odd hexagonal pagoda might be nice to build, limiting alll buildings as such would be terrible.

I agree that would not be a good way to do it but there are solutions to every problem, I just don't have the mathematical brain to explain it to you. Open up an image editor and start splitting hexes into triangles, there are ways to get square and rectangular tiles out of it.

[Tinkerer 107]

I agree that would not be a good way to do it but there are solutions to every problem, I just don't have the mathematical brain to explain it to you. Open up an image editor and start splitting hexes into triangles, there are ways to get square and rectangular tiles out of it.

Um... not from equilateral triangles there isn't which is what you would get splitting a hex into triangles - unless you mean splitting hexes into a whole bunch of different sized triangles.. and without splitting some of them down further. Every corner would be 60degrees, whereas you require a 90degree angle for any rectangular shape.

[Torluk 21]

Um... not from equilateral triangles there isn't which is what you would get splitting a hex into triangles - unless you mean splitting hexes into a whole bunch of different sized triangles.. and without splitting some of them down further. Every corner would be 60degrees, whereas you require a 90degree angle for any rectangular shape.

Aye, that's what I meant when I said I agreed with you that the equilateral triangle idea wouldn't be so great.

The alternative might be tricky to get working, might even prove itself too complex and cumbersome to bother with but if it could be made to work it would open up many possibilities for shaping buildings and settlements.