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Terrain Voxel Maps


cgw

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19 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

They already said they won’t. Terrain is a depth map + texture like in KSP1. No caves or overhangs.

Sadly, I thought right right really KSP2 would be a great game.
But no. Wrong.

How to convey to developers that Terrain Voxel Maps 
Much more important than KSP2 itself?

 

I think it's very important!!!

Edited by cgw
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Things that are expected from KSP2:

  • better performance
  • better graphics
  • less bugs

Without anything else I’m pretty sure 90% of the forum longtimers would already consider that a worthy version 2.

Sure, voxels sound and look great, but where in the above would it fit in? What would be so compelling aboutit that it’s worth sacrificing the above attributes?

How to convey the devs? Give them good reasons that are hard to argue with. Hint: “it would be great” is not a good argument. It lacks depth and insights.

 

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10 hours ago, cgw said:

How to convey to developers that Terrain Voxel Maps 
Much more important than KSP2 itself?

I don't know, make a big sign and stand outside their office?

Doubt it would help though as it's clear they've already made a lot of the assets. They're not going to change something as fundamental as that this late in the process.

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(Forgive but English not my native language)

5 The IMPORTANT reasons why it is necessary to add Voxel Map to a game:

1. These are additional players.
There is a large audience which does not know about KSP and they will choose a game with VoxelMap.
Considerable part of players only because of Voxel Map will buy this game. 
You receive more good comments about a game of already available players.
Because Voxel Map very strongly changes the atmosphere of a game to the best.
It is cheerful, amusing, interesting, fascinating.
Also construction of base underground it is very important in a multiplayer to hide from dangers as the armed players and asteroids and radiation.
Examples of popular games the using Voxel Map:
Empyrion - Galactic Survival,  No'Man Sky, Astroneer, Space Engineers these games excellent and interesting, but in them are not present real physics of a trajectory of the planet of flights with an actual weight as in KSP1.
Having added Voxel Map you receive new audience and category of players which about you and does not know or knows but they did not like KSP1, and responses will promote it.

2. Basic and importance of Voxel Map it:
Geologist investigation (geology, science), 
Extraction of ore (drill, pick, shovel, etc.),
Ore processing, (ore is the earth and a stone with the high content of certain chemical elements) 
Chemical industry on ores.
It are very much combined with rocket production and construction of base and the launch pad for a rocket.
In order that to process this soil into ore and to build of this ore bases and rockets on the other planets.

3. Underground construction. 
Well you judge where in reality there will be a base on the moon? Yes of course underground, and where there will be a base on Mars? Yes of course underground, where there will be a base on asteroids? Yes of course in the asteroid whether silly to build base on a surface the truth? Because asteroids will beat her (to destroy) very quickly (Look at real maps of the moon and Mars

(google moon

https://www.google.com/moon/index.html

google mars

https://www.google.com/mars/

) to remember and you will see terrible quantity of craters from asteroids) and also soil is a protection against radiation and solar flashes.
We need Voxel Map which to us will allow to build underground!

4. Tremendous difficult geological landscapes.
With Voxel Map it will be simpler to you to create random generation craters, caves, volcanoes, geysers, breaks, cracks, hollows, mountains, сanyons, the rivers, lakes. To make geology of more real and was what to look at when you arrived on the new planet, the moon, an asteroid. Also there will be an opportunity to create random generation planets and the moon.
I do not represent KSP2 Without Voxel Map.

5. Voxel Map is necessary everywhere.
When We fly to other planet, ask yourself a question and why we fly to see to a same most boring landscapes as well as everywhere there with different textures where there is nothing to be engaged in a game (Happens to fly there is no desire because an identical landscape there).
Personally I fly there to carry out geological investigation, to dig out other ore from different sources, in the chemical way this ore to earn extra in pure ore and to make of detail ore for base or a rocket. To construct safe base, to base there the kitchen garden and a garden, to adjust supply of oxygen from ore and will receive water, to organize the refrigerator, to power it the electric generator, to extract ore and to build a rocket, it is better than last that when that bothers to depart on other planet behind what new. Everywhere I need to dig the earth on Voxel Map.

That is why it is important to add to the game Voxel Map!
Despite the fact that will have to remake a little mechanics of a game from the 1st person and to add inventory.


2 opinions.
1. A game without Voxel Map is cripple.
I will give an example that such Voxel Map in a game, 
1.1. It as your computer of 32 GB of the core i9 RAM, 2080gtx is also black white the CRT the monitor, here Voxel Map is abrupt color big LCD. 
1.2. KSP without Voxel Map as the person without hands, and Voxel Map is his hands). 
1.3. KSP without Voxel Map it as a rocket without engine.

Do you wish the crippled game?

2. You know that graphics is not the most important indicator in a game for purchase of a game. It is possible to make super graphics but a game will receive negative reviews.
Therefore Voxel Map is much more important than the beautiful picture.

What sense to do in general KSP2 if in this game there is no VoxelMap?

 

Edited by cgw
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1 hour ago, cgw said:

(Forgive but English not my native language)

5 The IMPORTANT reasons why it is necessary to add Voxel Map to a game:

1. These are additional players.

2. Basic and importance of Voxel Map it:

3. Underground construction. 

4. Tremendous difficult geological landscapes.

5. Voxel Map is necessary everywhere.

2 opinions.
1. A game without Voxel Map is cripple.
I will give an example that such Voxel Map in a game, 
1.1. It as your computer of 32 GB of the core i9 RAM, 2080gtx is also black white the CRT the monitor, here Voxel Map is abrupt color big LCD. 
1.2. KSP without Voxel Map as the person without hands, and Voxel Map is his hands). 
1.3. KSP without Voxel Map it as a rocket without engine.

Do you wish the crippled game?

2. You know that graphics is not the most important indicator in a game for purchase of a game. It is possible to make super graphics but a game will receive negative reviews.
Therefore Voxel Map is much more important than the beautiful picture.

What sense to do in general KSP2 if in this game there is no VoxelMap?

 

1) Only a hand full of players want Voxel terrain in my opinion. This is because voxel terrains are hard to run. Look at Astroneers, it had fps issues, at least for me, whenever the terrain is heavily modified. It just can't run without major resources bogging down your computer. 

2) You can get ores without voxel terrain. We do it now in KSP 1, and mods add other ores. 

3) Underground construction would be nice, but I see little point to it if the game doesn't have radiation from the star/sun.

4) You can get difficult landscapes without voxel terrain.

5) Voxel maps are not necessary, you only want them so you can terraform, which KSP is not about. KSP is about space exploration and space colonization, not planet changing.

And to answer your opinions:

1) A game without voxel map is not crippled. You just hate that it's not in the game. The game could be well done and you would call it bad because it doesn't have Voxel terrain? 
1.1) I don't even know what you're trying to point out here, but KSP 2 won't need a super computer to run. They want KSP 2 to be able to run on simple machines like laptops.
1.2) KSP without voxel map is not like a person without hands. KSP without voxel map is just a game without a feature you want. 
1.3) Again, no its not. KSP without voxel map is a game without a feature you don't want. Voxel maps will not make KSP a bad game, it will just make it a game without a feature you want. 
2) True, graphics don't make a game, and Star Theory isn't trying to make KSP beautiful, they are trying to make the game RUN WELL. Voxel maps will make the game run like crap. Every voxel game ever has had performance issues, why? Because computers can't handle it that well. Why do you think all voxel games go for simple textures? Because it can't handle the terrain terraforming. 

What sense does it make for KSP 2 not to have voxel map? Easy, PERFORMANCE. They want GOOD PEFORMANCE.

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11 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Only a hand full of players want Voxel terrain in my opinion.

I don't think most KSP players have even heard of voxel terrain. I think it would be very cool but it's still pretty far down my list of must-have features.

11 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

What sense does it make for KSP 2 not to have voxel map? Easy, PERFORMANCE. They want GOOD PEFORMANCE.

Voxel maps actually can have very good performance. However they are heavy on memory, and they're more difficult to work with because there's one more dimension involved. I'm pretty sure the reason they went with depth + texture maps is that they're dead easy, small footprint, and known quantities. They are on a budget and a schedule and that means that they will necessarily gravitate towards tried-and-true solutions rather than new ones with potentially nasty (read: expensive) gotchas.

Moreover, the gain from using voxel maps isn't really all that dramatic. The only things they can do that depth maps + textures can't are caves and overhangs. Terrain deformation? Can be done with depth maps. Underground structures? Totally doable, just needs programming -- first dig a pit by deforming the depth map (and changing the texture), then place your underground structure, then fill in the pit by again deforming the depth map. Your ingress will be aboveground from which you can access the underground structure. Mining with different resources at different depths? Again totally doable, you just need an algorithm to determine what's where at any given point and have your drill produce them as you drill down. Yes, you could do all this better with a voxel map, but it's by no means a requirement.

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Yeah it's a game about spaceflight so advanced ground features are not that high on the list of things to do.

14 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Things that are expected from KSP2:

  • better performance
  • better graphics
  • less bugs

Without anything else I’m pretty sure 90% of the forum longtimers would already consider that a worthy version 2.

Sure, voxels sound and look great, but where in the above would it fit in? What would be so compelling aboutit that it’s worth sacrificing the above attributes?

How to convey the devs? Give them good reasons that are hard to argue with. Hint: “it would be great” is not a good argument. It lacks depth and insights.

 

Also strongly disagree with this. Just making it prettier and faster is definitely NOT worth 60$ price tag for me. Luckily they have already stated that there will be at least interstellar travel, orbital construction, resource extraction etc. 

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15 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I don't think most KSP players have even heard of voxel terrain. I think it would be very cool but it's still pretty far down my list of must-have features.

Voxel maps actually can have very good performance. However they are heavy on memory, and they're more difficult to work with because there's one more dimension involved. I'm pretty sure the reason they went with depth + texture maps is that they're dead easy, small footprint, and known quantities. They are on a budget and a schedule and that means that they will necessarily gravitate towards tried-and-true solutions rather than new ones with potentially nasty (read: expensive) gotchas.

Moreover, the gain from using voxel maps isn't really all that dramatic. The only things they can do that depth maps + textures can't are caves and overhangs. Terrain deformation? Can be done with depth maps. Underground structures? Totally doable, just needs programming -- first dig a pit by deforming the depth map (and changing the texture), then place your underground structure, then fill in the pit by again deforming the depth map. Your ingress will be aboveground from which you can access the underground structure. Mining with different resources at different depths? Again totally doable, you just need an algorithm to determine what's where at any given point and have your drill produce them as you drill down. Yes, you could do all this better with a voxel map, but it's by no means a requirement.

Voxel games have good performance in the beginning but once there's a lot of entities or npcs around, it starts to bug down, especially if those npcs themselves can damage the terrain. All the calculations take a lot out of the cpu and the ram. 

But I agree, everything can be done without voxel maps. It would just mean pre determined caves instead of rng caves. 

Resource collection at different levels can be done through gui trickery.

"I want my drill to mine at 1km down."

"You found coal."

"Go to 2km."

"You found iron."

Etcetera etcetera.

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2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Voxel games have good performance in the beginning but once there's a lot of entities or npcs around, it starts to bug down, especially if those npcs themselves can damage the terrain. All the calculations take a lot out of the cpu and the ram. 

But I agree, everything can be done without voxel maps. It would just mean pre determined caves instead of rng caves. 

Caves and tunnels are a possibility once the game engine update is released for KSP 1 ... KSP v1.8 will be using Unity 2019.2 iirc (same as KSP 2) which will give modders many more ways to manipulate the game

Come to think about it theoretically caves and tunnels could be made with the current Unity version although that would involve quite a bit of trickery and collider shenanigans

As an aside, the statements made about bringing even more access to modders is more a result of using Unity 2019.2 than the developers (of both KSP 1 and KSP 2) 'coding' it into the game

2 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

Voxels maps only add useless increased load on a space game.

 

Agreed ... especially in the case of KSP seeing as it has a CPU heavy physics simulation

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Pro Voxel:

  • Difficult terrain with caves or overhangs and other spezial structure.
  • Deformable 

Contra Voxel:

  • Uses more recourses (RAM, CPU)
  • More complicated to develope
  • From space "low poly" version of the Planets. No details.

Pro Heightmap:

  • Easier to develop
  • Better LOD
  • Better performance

Contra Heightmap:

  • Spezial structures, caves or overhangs difficult to create, only with manual work and not possible to large scale of multiple planets.
  • Limited deformable
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2 hours ago, cgw said:

1.3. KSP without Voxel Map it as a rocket without engine.

Do you wish the crippled game?

a more accurate comparison would be a rocket without paint. or a rocket without a fourth stage

ksp without voxel is not a crippled game, it's just a slightly less visually appealing and functional one.

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6 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Come to think about it theoretically caves and tunnels could be made with the current Unity version although that would involve quite a bit of trickery and collider shenanigans bugs

FTFY. If it involves shenanigans like that, especially in a game that already relies on them far too much, it'll be bad for stability. 

I don't think we need voxels in KSP. Making planets that work with the scales involved is hard enough, and even the toy solar system has much larger planets than, say, Space Engineers. To have realistically sized planets, you'd have to make KSP devour memory even more than it already does.

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5 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

FTFY. If it involves shenanigans like that, especially in a game that already relies on them far too much, it'll be bad for stability. 

Shenanigans like what? 

I never defined the shenanigans so I am unsure as to how you can come to this conclusion

Unless I am wrong about my assumption (that being you do not know much about Unity and its colliders), perhaps doing a bit of research into the Unity collider system is in order as conflating trickery and shenanigans (in this case turning colliders on and off) does not mean bugs

 

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It's a complex system that interacts with an incredibly complex game. Of course it means bugs. KSP1 is already built out of kludges and code that tricks Unity's to go far beyond its normal operating parameters. KSP2, being built on Unity, is going to be one big trick as well, though perhaps less ad-hoc and more deliberate. Either way adding yet another kludge, with an infinite number of possible interactions, is asking for trouble. Especially if it involves colliders, considering most Krakens also involve them.

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Well, you can make 2 MAP:
VoxelMap  and  Height Map.
When Kerbal is in the cockpit (Rocket / Airplane / Rover), then we have a Height Map (At this moment we do not need VoxelMap ).
When Karbal is outside the car / device. then we have VoxelMap (We can see the caves and dig.).
The height map draws only the top of the VoxelMap map and does not draw depth to the bottom, the hole paints a dark color.And everyone will be happy, and productivity will be normal.
You will release the KSP 2 (according to plan on time) with HightMap, but will make it possible then to add a VoxelMap map to this map as an add-on. So that Hight Map can then draw vertices from the Voxel Map.
How is such a solution?

Edited by cgw
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17 minutes ago, cgw said:

Well, you can make 2 VoxelMap cards and a Height Map.
When Kerbal is in the cockpit (Rocket / Airplane / Rover), then we have a Height Map (At this moment we do not need VoxelMap ).
When Karbal is outside the car / device. then we have VoxelMap (We can see the caves and dig.).
The height map draws only the top of the VoxelMap map and does not draw depth to the bottom, the hole paints a dark color.
And everyone will be happy, and productivity will be normal.

You will release the KSP 2 (according to plan on time) with HightMap, but will make it possible then to add a VoxelMap map to this map as an add-on. So that Hight Map can then draw vertices from the Voxel Map.

How is such a solution?

You can't have both, at least not to my knowledge. The game has to be designed from the ground up with VoxelMap in mind. 

Switching between them will also be too complex and too taxing on the system. 

No, the best solution is to not have KSP 2 have any Voxelmap at all. It gets rid of terraforming, but not a lot of people want it, myself included. 

Besides, Star Theory, the people making KSP 2, are not interested in making KSP 2 into a terraforming game. 

Edited by GoldForest
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3 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

No, the best solution is to not have KSP 2 have any Voxelmap at all. It gets rid of terraforming, but not a lot of people want it, myself included. 

It’s easier not to do KSP2 at all, and do not play it.

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5 minutes ago, cgw said:

It’s easier not to do KSP2 at all, and do not play it.

If you're not going to play it because it doesn't have voxel terraforming, that's fine. You do you. There's plenty of space voxel games out there like Space Engineers.

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16 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

If you're not going to play it because it doesn't have voxel terraforming, that's fine. You do you. There's plenty of space voxel games out there like Space Engineers.

Not in one game there is not what you have, it is a flight trajectory, orbits, real physics.
Space engineers are not that.
Empyrion – Galactic Survival is much better than Space Engineers.
Space Engineers, Empyrion – Galactic Survival, No'Man Sky, Astroneer, they do not have what is in KSP (this is the flight trajectory, orbits, real physics.).

Edited by cgw
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