Size vs. Processing Power

As in the title, I recently realized we have a big problem. How big are our planets gonna be? Because if we have a truely realistic scale, our systems will have to save HUGE amounts of info. Once we hit sapience, and have huge bustling cities covering the surface of the world, that becomes unbeleivably large amounts of stuff to record, even just the city layouts would be difficult to hold.

So now what?

I don't believe that the city layouts will actually be huge. In another section I think I calculated that it would take around 10GB of data to store an entire, fully-formed galaxy with everything in it.

Yes. And that 10GB would only be if the galaxy was fully explored, wich is nearly impossible to do.

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

At the speed Thrive is being made, computer development should easily keep up with the development of this game. Imean, how can one keep up with all the new technology these days? You can't! The moment you get something new, it becomes obsolete. It is reather sad. We get a new TV, so they make 3D TV. Thanks, world. Keep me behind in the tech.
Anyways, we should be fine.
-Waap.

We're loading planets using a lot of LOD discretion. Basically we're only loading the sections of planet nearest to you, the organisms near to you, and their models will be simplified according to their distance.

~sciocont wrote:

We're loading planets using a lot of LOD discretion. Basically we're only loading the sections of planet nearest to you, the organisms near to you, and their models will be simplified according to their distance.

Cool deal!

Theslimy wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

We're loading planets using a lot of LOD discretion. Basically we're only loading the sections of planet nearest to you, the organisms near to you, and their models will be simplified according to their distance.

Cool deal!

It's not as if it's our idea. Everything uses LOD simplification.

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Thank you.

roadkillguy wrote:

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Thank you.

Remember that the planet size estimate I came up with a few months ago was 474.36 km² with a 4096x4096x6 grid and 3m terrain tiles. That's a lot smaller than our moon, but about 3.5 times the size of a spore planet. However, we could keep upping the size by doubling the terrain tiles again.

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Thank you.

Remember that the planet size estimate I came up with a few months ago was 474.36 km² with a 4096x4096x6 grid and 3m terrain tiles. That's a lot smaller than our moon, but about 3.5 times the size of a spore planet. However, we could keep upping the size by doubling the terrain tiles again.

Uh, you might want to look at the planetary scales topic again. I was the one who figured out the ratio between Spore and Thrive planets based off the 474.36 km² scale, and it's not 3.5. Here's the actual math (which you approved when I wrote it):

Quote :

ido66667 wrote:
This can Help: http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/46894.page

I used the method described in that forum, and I've come to an estimate on the circumference of a Spore planet: roughly 2.2 km with a surface area of about 1.5 square km. This means, using scio's Brooklyn sized planet, Thrive planets would have a surface area 316.24 times larger than Spore planets, if I did the math right.

Regardless of the specifics, I would like to note that given the apparent sizes we'll be dealing with, we might need to use some sort of barriers to prevent extreme expansion early on in the game. When we have a prototype sophisticated enough that we can just walk on the surface of a prototype planet, I should be able to test my theory and get back to you.

tklarenb wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Thank you.

Remember that the planet size estimate I came up with a few months ago was 474.36 km² with a 4096x4096x6 grid and 3m terrain tiles. That's a lot smaller than our moon, but about 3.5 times the size of a spore planet. However, we could keep upping the size by doubling the terrain tiles again.

Uh, you might want to look at the planetary scales topic again. I was the one who figured out the ratio between Spore and Thrive planets based off the 474.36 km² scale, and it's not 3.5. Here's the actual math (which you approved when I wrote it):

Quote :

ido66667 wrote:
This can Help: http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/46894.page

I used the method described in that forum, and I've come to an estimate on the circumference of a Spore planet: roughly 2.2 km with a surface area of about 1.5 square km. This means, using scio's Brooklyn sized planet, Thrive planets would have a surface area 316.24 times larger than Spore planets, if I did the math right.

My bad, I read a different post on the same topic that gave a much larger measurement for spore planets and reworked that. You would be correct. Even if our terrain tiles are 1m wide, in a 4096x4096x6 setup we still have a planet 35 times bigger than spore's.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Regardless of the specifics, I would like to note that given the apparent sizes we'll be dealing with, we might need to use some sort of barriers to prevent extreme expansion early on in the game. When we have a prototype sophisticated enough that we can just walk on the surface of a prototype planet, I should be able to test my theory and get back to you.

Yes, we need some way to keep players in their biome. There has to be some incentive for them not to explore, as horribly backwards as that sounds.

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, we need some way to keep players in their biome. There has to be some incentive for them not to explore, as horribly backwards as that sounds.

Easy. Creatures have a preferred tolerance range right? Specifics such as heat, altitude, food presence, mate presence, predator presence, etc
Creature leaves tolerable zone - Creature dies/can not reproduce.

However this does raise another issue; how will evolution be able to occur if the creature is stuck in the same biome? We could have automatic migration taking place, or perhaps the biome itself changes over millions of years to which the species will have to adapt.

Pezzalis wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, we need some way to keep players in their biome. There has to be some incentive for them not to explore, as horribly backwards as that sounds.

Easy. Creatures have a preferred tolerance range right? Specifics such as heat, altitude, food presence, mate presence, predator presence, etc
Creature leaves tolerable zone - Creature dies/can not reproduce.

However this does raise another issue; how will evolution be able to occur if the creature is stuck in the same biome? We could have automatic migration taking place, or perhaps the biome itself changes over millions of years to which the species will have to adapt.

We should discuss this when we have a prototype to observe and analyze.

When we can observe whether or not natural barriers are sufficient, then we can make a descision.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Pezzalis wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Yes, we need some way to keep players in their biome. There has to be some incentive for them not to explore, as horribly backwards as that sounds.

Easy. Creatures have a preferred tolerance range right? Specifics such as heat, altitude, food presence, mate presence, predator presence, etc
Creature leaves tolerable zone - Creature dies/can not reproduce.

However this does raise another issue; how will evolution be able to occur if the creature is stuck in the same biome? We could have automatic migration taking place, or perhaps the biome itself changes over millions of years to which the species will have to adapt.

We should discuss this when we have a prototype to observe and analyze.

When we can observe whether or not natural barriers are sufficient, then we can make a descision.

We still haven't ironed out how ETO (environmentally transient organisms) will work. We have to do that.

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Yes, we do.

~sciocont wrote:

tklarenb wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

fredpie wrote:

We don't need to be uber-realistic. I think planets around half the size of the moon would be plenty.

Thank you.

Remember that the planet size estimate I came up with a few months ago was 474.36 km² with a 4096x4096x6 grid and 3m terrain tiles. That's a lot smaller than our moon, but about 3.5 times the size of a spore planet. However, we could keep upping the size by doubling the terrain tiles again.

Uh, you might want to look at the planetary scales topic again. I was the one who figured out the ratio between Spore and Thrive planets based off the 474.36 km² scale, and it's not 3.5. Here's the actual math (which you approved when I wrote it):

Quote :

ido66667 wrote:
This can Help: http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/46894.page

I used the method described in that forum, and I've come to an estimate on the circumference of a Spore planet: roughly 2.2 km with a surface area of about 1.5 square km. This means, using scio's Brooklyn sized planet, Thrive planets would have a surface area 316.24 times larger than Spore planets, if I did the math right.

My bad, I read a different post on the same topic that gave a much larger measurement for spore planets and reworked that. You would be correct. Even if our terrain tiles are 1m wide, in a 4096x4096x6 setup we still have a planet 35 times bigger than spore's.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Regardless of the specifics, I would like to note that given the apparent sizes we'll be dealing with, we might need to use some sort of barriers to prevent extreme expansion early on in the game. When we have a prototype sophisticated enough that we can just walk on the surface of a prototype planet, I should be able to test my theory and get back to you.

Yes, we need some way to keep players in their biome. There has to be some incentive for them not to explore, as horribly backwards as that sounds.

ETO's could be more expensive.

An extremely cheap storage method for planets generated from seeds would be to have only changes to a planet recorded, and so when the player loads an area of a planet for the nth time, all that is being loaded from the hard drive is the seed and other parameters for that area; and changes that have been made to the newly-generated state. However, I expect that it would be far more taxing on CPUs.

I have tried that before, the changes will not be easy to load. (even in a 2d planet (which is what I did a while back in my spare time before I learned of this project))

based on the thing I made a while back:

You can load planets based on seed the first time however you have to somehow make sure changes are kept persistent (I used an array that held data about what has changed (asteroid strike etc) and once the player enters the planet I change it for it, save it in a data file and remove the change from the array, and the next time the person enters it loads the data file (which has all the data saved (and all the changes from the previous loads are already done)), and changes up the planet a little (based on the array (which is constantly changed)) and I rinse and repeat

It works well until you start calculating anything more complex then a volcano (with lava that spreads) however it works for everything except things that spread (It is not taxing on the cpu unless it has been forever since you have last entered the planet and many many things have changed (or if you want to keep track of lava spread which is what I did (big mistake))


By the way this topic is somewhat old (don't necro-post), but it's fine since this is technically still something for us to worry about (sci please correct me if I'm wrong)

untrustedlife wrote:

I have tried that before, the changes will not be easy to load. (even in a 2d planet (which is what I did a while back in my spare time before I learned of this project))

based on the thing I made a while back:

You can load planets based on seed the first time however you have to somehow make sure changes are kept persistent (I used an array that held data about what has changed (asteroid strike etc) and once the player enters the planet I change it for it, save it in a data file and remove the change from the array, and the next time the person enters it loads the data file (which has all the data saved (and all the changes from the previous loads are already done)), and changes up the planet a little (based on the array (which is constantly changed)) and I rinse and repeat

It works well until you start calculating anything more complex then a volcano (with lava that spreads) however it works for everything except things that spread (It is not taxing on the cpu unless it has been forever since you have last entered the planet and many many things have changed (or if you want to keep track of lava spread which is what I did (big mistake))


By the way this topic is somewhat old (don't necro-post), but it's fine since this is technically still something for us to worry about (sci please correct me if I'm wrong)

I think there may be a few things to correct, yes.
You state that CPU usage with this system depends on how long it has been since the player entered the planet. CPU usage for loading areas of a planet should hardly vary, as with each loading the CPU regenerates the terrain anew and then the hard drive loads the changes, and I'm sure merging the terrain with the saved data is light work.

Actually with MY system, it does in fact affect it. (Like I said I have programmed this)