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[Andir]

And being impossible to do right in 3d? False. there's a multitude of 3D games that have similar data layout to DF. Dungeon Keeper is the first thing that pops to mind - it's basically the same game datawise.

What about actual graphical layout?

Dungeon Keeper has a 2D map. DF has a 3D map. Representing one is a loooot difficult to do in 3D than the other. It would be like trying to represent an ant colony.

Have you seen how the current visualizers work?  they allow you to slice the world with a slide of a bar or a spin of a mouse wheel.  A 3D interface is a minor part of the problem.

[RantingRodent]

It's not the interface or graphical layout I am concerned with.  It's a few factors:

1.  The amount of activity that occurs on screen in a large fortress
2.  The variety of life forms encountered
3.  The increasing prevalence of mods

So this is already properly integrated with DF?  Very nice.  Don't get me wrong, a little 3D visualization being available is definitely a good feature.  I just don't think any 3D client can deliver a good enough experience that people will actually play DF in 3D rather than 2D.  The game itself is far too demanding.  Most 3D X-Com clones (maybe all 3D X-Com clones) fail to implement deformable terrain, as an example.

[GenericOverusedName]

Biggest problem I can see with this is processor time. Just think about one tile. It has a 'wall' and a 'floor' section. They can be made of different things (rock, construction) or not have a wall. And then you might have nothing 'on' the tile, or a creature, or an object, or a vermin, or stairs, or ramps, or or or or...

Oh, and there's a couple hundred of these highly-variable tiles on a single layer.

And there's many, many layers.

AND, these tiles have the potential to change state within a few frames. Object moved, tile dug out, building made, etc.

Finally, let's throw some 3-D graphics on it.

Gentlemen, I welcome you to the hell of buffer overflows and memory lockups!

[Andir]

Biggest problem I can see with this is processor time. Just think about one tile. It has a 'wall' and a 'floor' section. They can be made of different things (rock, construction) or not have a wall. And then you might have nothing 'on' the tile, or a creature, or an object, or a vermin, or stairs, or ramps, or or or or...

Oh, and there's a couple hundred of these highly-variable tiles on a single layer.

And there's many, many layers.

AND, these tiles have the potential to change state within a few frames. Object moved, tile dug out, building made, etc.

Finally, let's throw some 3-D graphics on it.

Gentlemen, I welcome you to the hell of buffer overflows and memory lockups!

I don't understand how a programming oversight (buffer overflow [ie: not allocating enough space or clamping writes]) has anything to do with this.

The only concern I'd have is the amount of objects on the screen, but most objects are primitive cubes and plain squares.  If the dwarf/item models are kept sane (no Crysis/Unreal models) there should be no problem.  Walls would actually be simpler since you can use the same wall model for at least four of the existing walls simply by rotating it.

As far as floor/wall differences, you can only ever see the wall unless you inspect the floor as it is.  In a 3D version, you could see the floor with a column and be able to tell by sight if it's sand or stone by it's color.

[Andir]

So this is already properly integrated with DF?

No, people have memory readers that take the data in memory and render it in a new window in realtime.  See Lifevis for example.

[Ciehoo]

Biggest problem I can see with this is processor time. Just think about one tile. It has a 'wall' and a 'floor' section. They can be made of different things (rock, construction) or not have a wall. And then you might have nothing 'on' the tile, or a creature, or an object, or a vermin, or stairs, or ramps, or or or or...

Oh, and there's a couple hundred of these highly-variable tiles on a single layer.

And there's many, many layers.

AND, these tiles have the potential to change state within a few frames. Object moved, tile dug out, building made, etc.

Finally, let's throw some 3-D graphics on it.

Gentlemen, I welcome you to the hell of buffer overflows and memory lockups!

Umm, you haven't downloaded and tried the mod, have you? It displays almost the whole map, rendering it each frame, and at least 50% of the things rendered can be optimized out as they are occluded by other geometry.

The biggest problem of course, are non-standard extensions to DF. If a modder adds something that can have a visual representation in game, then it will not be displayable.

But other than that, it's not that hard a thing to do, given enough optimizations and smart design. Once the mod would be sufficiently playable, as to replace all the functionality of the DF window, a big chunk of Toady's code can be skipped altogether, resulting in a significant improvement.

The last sentence is utter nonsense BTW.

[Ciehoo]

So this is already properly integrated with DF?

No, people have memory readers that take the data in memory and render it in a new window in realtime.  See Lifevis for example.

Actually, no - it's fully integrated with DF. It's done by DLL injection, so it's the same as with normal DLL's providing additional functionality.

[Andir]

So this is already properly integrated with DF?

No, people have memory readers that take the data in memory and render it in a new window in realtime.  See Lifevis for example.

Actually, no - it's fully integrated with DF. It's done by DLL injection, so it's the same as with normal DLL's providing additional functionality.

I assumed Rodent was talking about these being integrated into DF right now, and I was talking in relation to Lifevis which does use memory location sniffing.  Not this application specifically.  Sorry for the confusion.

[Sergius]

And being impossible to do right in 3d? False. there's a multitude of 3D games that have similar data layout to DF. Dungeon Keeper is the first thing that pops to mind - it's basically the same game datawise.

What about actual graphical layout?

Dungeon Keeper has a 2D map. DF has a 3D map. Representing one is a loooot difficult to do in 3D than the other. It would be like trying to represent an ant colony.

It would be no different than playing in 2D, you just use < and > to select the current level and all the levels above it get hidden. The plus is that you can see all the levels that are beneath the current one. That's how I'd make it, at least (with an option to "unhide", which may only work to see surface stuff tho

Then either make the cursor only work on the selected level.

BTW you can also have some sort of "half-wall" view so it doesn't occlude so much the objects in the level you're working on.

[Sergius]

Biggest problem I can see with this is processor time. Just think about one tile. It has a 'wall' and a 'floor' section. They can be made of different things (rock, construction) or not have a wall. And then you might have nothing 'on' the tile, or a creature, or an object, or a vermin, or stairs, or ramps, or or or or...

Oh, and there's a couple hundred of these highly-variable tiles on a single layer.

And there's many, many layers.

AND, these tiles have the potential to change state within a few frames. Object moved, tile dug out, building made, etc.

Finally, let's throw some 3-D graphics on it.

Gentlemen, I welcome you to the hell of buffer overflows and memory lockups!

Because, as we all know, it has never been done before by any game developers in any commercial project.

[Caz]

I'd want to help, but I have absolutely no coding skills whatsoever...

Maybe get a project going? Put it up on the wiki or something. Open-source 3D DF is awesome.

[HonkyPunch]

My thought for a graphic revamp (though text is fine, really) is that it'd kinda be like..
Well, it'd render the sprites in a 2-dimensional side-view layer, which could be rotated paper-mario style around the dwarves, and then you could have a top down view as well..
I dunno

[Sean Mirrsen]

Come on, what's wrong with all creatures using existing tiles? Trees might need (or want) custom-mapped tiles, but everything else comes out good enough. 3D in DF isn't for admiring your dwarves' beards up close, it's mostly for fort design and epic panoramic screenshots. Take this program, empower it with what already exists in form of 3Dwarf, shove sprites onto that, and let it run in realtime and see your fortress unfold. That's the use I can see for it.

[Fugue]

I too struggle to see a solid implementation of this. I mean, doing the walls and buildings and trees and such is all well and good...
But for 3D real time I'm assuming you're going to want to animate things. Even now Dwarves would have a ridiculous amount of animations, some of them implausible, like stacking dwarves on a single tile, or combat. Because DF doesn't animate attacks, it doesn't need to consider what's "possible" and doesn't have to consider the needs of any graphical representation. It's all abstracted. You can't keyframe that sort of thing.

Of course, you don't have to do that. You could probably do a few basic animations, but I think what people are picturing, and what's most likely possible, are two very different things.

[Andir]

I too struggle to see a solid implementation of this. I mean, doing the walls and buildings and trees and such is all well and good...
But for 3D real time I'm assuming you're going to want to animate things. Even now Dwarves would have a ridiculous amount of animations, some of them implausible, like stacking dwarves on a single tile, or combat. Because DF doesn't animate attacks, it doesn't need to consider what's "possible" and doesn't have to consider the needs of any graphical representation. It's all abstracted. You can't keyframe that sort of thing.

Of course, you don't have to do that. You could probably do a few basic animations, but I think what people are picturing, and what's most likely possible, are two very different things.

I figured static characters.  I fully don't expect fully animated characters with real model based hit-testing and all that crap.  I think most people that think 3D DF is not feasible think that it should look like a modern RTS with fully animated creatures.  I think a "chess like" interface would be fine at first using strictly static avatars.  (old-school chess, not Battle Chess)