301 Days (redux)

Another metric leap year of gamedev experiments and such

Day 21 - Cellular Extraction

Sep 27, 2015 - 4 minute read - OldDaysste-reez-muvi

Dealing with the different spacial representations…differently.

Current status: Ugh.

Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
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private Vector3 nextPosition, nextScale;
private Queue<Transform> objectQueue;
private Dictionary<Vector3, Transform> cell_transforms;
private bool directionRight;

public float nextDBUpdate;
public float dbUpdateDelta = 5f;

private List<string> cellKeyList;
private Dictionary<Vector3, CellLite> cells;
private List<Vector3> cellsKeys;

private Dictionary<Vector3,Transform> portalTransforms;
Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
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Vector3 position = new Vector3((-1f) * cells[v].x, (-1f) * cells[v].y, 0.1f * cells[v].z);
Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
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tempts.position += new Vector3(-0.5f * (bestXSize - 1), -0.5f * (bestYSize - 1), 0f);
tempts.localScale += new Vector3((float) (bestXSize - 1), (float) (bestYSize - 1), 0f);
Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
151

Vector3 position = new Vector3((-1f) * cells[v].x, (-1f) * cells[v].y, (0.1f * cells[v].z) + 0.5f);
Assets/Managers/NpcManager.cs GitLab 
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private Dictionary<int, Vector3> npcLocations;
private Dictionary<Vector3,List<int>> cellsContainingNpcs = new Dictionary<Vector3,List<int>>();
Assets/Managers/NpcManager.cs GitLab 
107

Vector3 position = new Vector3((-1f) * npc.X, (-1f) * npc.Y, (0.1f * npc.Z) + 0.2f);
Assets/Managers/NpcManager.cs GitLab 
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foreach (int npcId in cellsContainingNpcs[cell]) {
    Vector3 scale = new Vector3(1.0f/dimension, 1.0f/dimension, npcScripts[npcId].transform.localScale.z);
    Vector3 position = new Vector3((-1f) * cell.x, (-1f) * cell.y, (0.1f * cell.z) + 0.2f); // start at the center of the cell
    position += new Vector3(0.5f, 0.5f, 0f); // move to corner
    position -= new Vector3(column * (1.0f/dimension), row * (1.0f/dimension), 0f);
    position -= new Vector3((1.0f/dimension)/2f, (1.0f/dimension)/2f, 0f);
    npcScripts[npcId].newPosition = position;
    npcScripts[npcId].newScale = scale;

The natural coordinates of a cell are discrete values, but we’re using a Vector3 (three floating point values) everywhere. Expensive. Plus, we’re making the conversion from the server coordinate system to Unity’s left-hand Cartesian coordinate system in multiple places.

From screen-coordinates-plus-altitude to Cartesian southpaw. From screen-coordinates-plus-altitude to Cartesian southpaw.

Structure

Assets/lib/CellLoc.cs GitLab 
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public struct CellLoc {
    public short x;
    public short y;
    public int z;
    public short idx; // index of this space in the cell
    public short dim; // number of subcells on a row, and also number of rows

    public CellLoc(short x, short y, int z) {
        this.x = x; this.y = y; this.z = z;
        this.idx = this.dim = 1;
    }

    public CellLoc(int x, int y, int z) {
        this.x = (short) x; this.y = (short) y; this.z = z;
        this.idx = this.dim = 1;
    }
}

public class CLUtils {
    public static Vector3 CellLocToVector3(CellLoc c) {
        if (c.dim == 1) { // the simple case
            return new Vector3((1f) * c.x,
                               (-1f) * c.y,
                               (-0.1f) * c.z);
        } else {
            return Vector3.zero;
        }
    }
}

Not handling the multiple-entities-in-a-cell case yet, but this structure is sufficient for the map:

Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
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private Dictionary<CellLoc, Transform> cell_transforms;

public float nextDBUpdate;
public float dbUpdateDelta = 5f;

private List<string> cellKeyList;
private Dictionary<CellLoc, CellLite> cells;
private List<CellLoc> cellsKeys;

private Dictionary<CellLoc,Transform> portalTransforms;
Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
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if (cellNeedsTransform[c]) {
    // Instantiate this one
    Vector3 position = CLUtils.CellLocToVector3(new CellLoc(cells[c].x, cells[c].y, cells[c].z));
        
    Transform tempts = Instantiate(prefab, 
                                   position,
                                   Quaternion.identity) as Transform;

We store and index on CellLocs, and only convert to Vector3 when we need to. We still need to push CellLoc into the CellLite class, as you can see above.

We’ve also switched conversions, from negating x and y to negating y and z. It seems more natural this way, but it does make our textures upside down and backwards, ergo:

Assets/Managers/MapManager.cs GitLab 
152

rend.material.mainTextureScale = new Vector2((-1f) * tempts.localScale.x, (-1f) * tempts.localScale.y);

Let’s take a look: Good-looking map, but kind of empty. Good-looking map, but kind of empty.

Bonus: Life on a Sine Wave

Temporarily did this:

Assets/lib/CellLoc.cs GitLab 
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public static Vector3 CellLocToVector3(CellLoc c) {
    Vector3 v;
    v.x = (-1f) * c.x;
    v.y = (-1f) * c.y;
    v.z = 0.1f * c.z + (float) (Math.Sin(c.x / 10f) * 5f);

And bypassed the map cell chunking logic, to get this:

Very regular geology. Very regular geology.

BTW, tried some stuff with Octopress 3 and decided not to make that move yet. I’ve also seen a lot of lockups in Unity while using Visual Studio for debugging. Oh well.

More to come

Day 21 code - visualizer